Once Upon A Poet

by H S Peer

  Farrell rolled down the window of the yellow Lotus she was sitting in and said, “Want a ride?”

  What did she expect me to do? Walk home from here? Of course, I wanted a ride. I walked to the passenger side and got in. Expertly, she drove the car out of the showroom and lot, and onto the city streets. I wondered if she had been smart enough to have all the drivers take different routes to the docks. I don’t care how stupid a cop might be if he sees five Lotuses drive by in the middle of the night, he’ll pull them over. We didn’t stop or run out of gas and arrived at the docks in 15 minutes. The other cars were lined up like the colors of a rainbow near some containers. The docks were strangely quiet. No men were loading or unloading ships, which was good, we didn’t need any witnesses. Only the security lights illuminated the scene.

  Tied to the dock next to us was a transport ship called the Mandarin. Farrell got out of the car, leaving the keys in the ignition. She walked to the gangplank of the ship and called out something I couldn’t make out. A short man in a tan suit appeared on deck and walked down the plank. He looked at the five waiting cars and handed her an envelope. Farrell opened it, rifled through the contents and walked back to the drivers who waited together under a light post.

  Time to pay them, I figured. None of them looked smart enough to pull a double-cross. They would take their thousand bucks and be on their way. After being paid the group of drivers quickly left the scene. I got out of the car.

  Farrell walked towards me, the thick envelope in her left hand.

  “That went smoothly,” I said.

  “Very,” she replied. “Take his gun.”

  Somehow the gunny had crept up behind me. I heard the double click as he cocked his big .45.

  “You can’t be serious,” I said to Farrell.

  “Did you actually think I would pay you 25 grand?” she asked. I felt the gunny’s hand find my pistol and pull it loose.

  “There’s nowhere you can hide from me,” I said. My voice had gone very cold and quiet.

  “You can’t find me if you’re dead,” she said. The gunny chuckled.

  “This is your last chance,” I told Farrell.

  “Or what, Poet? A sonnet?”

  “Or I forget you’re a woman.”

  “You talk tough for a man about to die.”

  I shrugged my shoulders. Farrell smiled at the gesture.

  Then I reacted without further thought. Instinct took over. I knew the gunny would be standing too close to me, a big mistake. He should have been eight feet away, out of the danger zone. But like I said, I was dealing with amateurs. Blindly, I spun my whole body to the right, elbow extended. It smashed the gunny right where I had intended, in the throat. If I’d hit him hard enough and shattered his larynx, he’d be dead in under a minute. He dropped his gun and both his hands clutched his throat. I could hear him gasp for breath. I dropped to my right knee and yanked the .45 from my ankle holster.

  As I brought it to bear, I could see Farrell already had hers pointed at me. She still clutched the envelope in her left hand. The pistol shook slightly in her right. I put my sights on the middle of her forehead.

  “You’re very good, Poet,” she said.

  “Yes, I am.”

  “I could use a partner like you.”

  “No doubt. What are you going to do? Keep all the money for yourself?”

  “Yes,” she said as she cocked her pistol.

  I cocked mine. “It doesn’t have to end like this,” I said.

  “What? With you dead and me rich?” said Farrell.

  Rich? She had maybe $47,000 in the envelope. That wouldn’t last long. I stood up. “This is your last chance,” I told her, “Pay me, and we walk away friends.”

  I held my pistol just like I’d been taught, with two hands. I was rock-steady and still had my sights locked on her pale forehead.

  “Goodbye, Poet,” she said and cocked her head to one side.

  At that moment the die was cast. I knew she wasn’t bluffing, that there was no other way out of this. She was a vulture, and I was her prey. Time slowed until it was thick, like molasses in January. I knew what I had to do. I could hear the tendons in my finger tighten on the trigger.

  We both fired at the same time. One great crash filled the narrow area between the ship and the warehouses. Like I said, she was an amateur. She should have held her gun with both hands instead of concentrating on the money. I felt hot wind and a high stinging as her bullet grazed my neck. I was a professional, and as such, my shot was accurate. The bullet hit her in the middle of the forehead. Her head snapped back, opened up and splattered. I was glad it was dark. Farrell’s twitching finger fired twice more into the concrete and then her body fell to the ground.

  With my gun still trained on her, I walk towards the body. I kicked the gun away from her dead hand and picked up the envelope. I had a quick peek inside. It was stuffed with $100 bills. I checked the gunny. His breath came in short, halting strokes. I shot him in the head, and he fell silent.

  The short man in the tan suit was still beside the gangplank watching. I walked over to him.

  “You might want to clean this up,” I said.

  “I’ll have someone attend to it,” he said, “I guess there’s no loyalty between thieves?”

  I nodded and walked off. I had no car and couldn’t find a cab. I walked a mile before I found a liquor store. I purchased a pint of cheap bourbon and drank it out of the paper bag as I walked. My neck was starting to burn where the bullet had grazed me. The adrenaline had worn off leaving tired and strangely feeling like I wanted to cry. I didn’t want to shoot her; I never want to kill anybody. But, that’s the business I’m in. You can’t always predict the outcomes. If she hadn’t of been so greedy, I would have walked away and forgotten about the double-cross. I’d never killed a woman before. It wasn’t something I want to get in the habit of doing either.

  By the time I had drained half a pint I wasn’t so shaky. There was an open pit where stomach used to be. Things would look better tomorrow, I told myself. I found a cab and gave the driver my address. The driver, a Knicks fan, talked about basketball the whole trip. I said “yeah,” a lot and sipped at my pint. I paid him off and went inside. I finished the pint and collapsed onto the couch. The room was spinning, but that was okay. Anything was okay as long as it didn’t feel like reality.

  I finally passed out and welcomed the blackness.

  Chapter 30

  I awoke at 6 am and was violently sick, whether from the cheap booze or my actions I wasn’t sure. I didn’t envy the cleaning lady. I lay on the cold tiles, sweating and pale, still smelling gun smoke, and watched as the dawn’s first light changed the frosted bathroom window from black to milky white. With shaking hands, I managed to draw a hot bath. I climbed into the tub, clothes and all, and lay there until the chills that racked my body stopped.

  Still drunk, I managed to strip and drop the wet clothes on the floor. I slapped on too much cologne to kill the smell of gun smoke and blood that seemed to permeate my being. I dry swallowed three Tylenol for the headache I knew was in the wind. Wet but warm I crawled into bed. The sheets needed to be cleaned but I didn’t care. Under the duvet, all my problems disappeared. I slept for 16 hours. My body does that. After moments of extreme stress, it seems to shut down for a while. Once, in Taipei, I slept the clock nearly around.

  I smoked my first cigarette of that Thursday at 10 p.m. with a cup of Irish coffee close to my hand. The car heist had rated page 16 of the city section in the paper. There was no mention of a shootout and two killings on the docks. I guessed that the man in the tan suit gathered up the bodies and dumped them somewhere out to sea after the ship sailed. It’s what I would have done.

  I had nothing to do but soldier on. I showered, shaved and cleaned up the bathroom. I took the wet clothes I’d worn the night before and loaded them into a plastic garbage bag. I’d dump them in the dumpster behind the bar. The ankle holster, complete with .45 was there. That would have t
o go to, into the Hudson River; it had been used in the commission of a homicide, even if they never found a body.

  I thought about going back to bed, but that wouldn’t help. I had to get out, if only to my bar. I dressed in Armani with a killer hand-painted tie, strapped on my rod and set off. The whiskey in the coffee had taken the edge off my anxiety. I was almost relaxed as I walked to the Liar’s Breath.

  I went directly to the office. I remembered it was Wednesday and Marty had wanted me to hit the jewelry store tonight. He’d probably been trying to call all day. He hadn’t given me the keys or the alarm codes yet, so it wasn’t like I could do it tonight. I caught him on his cell.

  “Marty, I won’t be able to visit your uncle tonight,” I said.

  “Where have you been? I’ve been trying you all day.”

  “Out. How about I see him on Friday?”

  He was silent for a moment before saying, “Okay. I hope it’s not too late. He doesn’t have much time left. Call me tomorrow.”

  I hung up. Marty would be pissed. Poet screwing up a million dollar score because he didn’t have to stones to be a man after killing a woman.

  Screw him, I thought. I looked at the travel brochure on the desk next to the phone. A couple in swimsuits walked down a white sand beach. The sun was high and friendly in the sky. I must have looked at that photograph for 10 minutes before snatching up the phone and dialing my travel agent at home. I let it ring once before hanging up. I left the office and took up station on my stool.

  I must have looked rough because even Biscuit didn’t know what to bring me. He’s usually reasonably psychic about judging my moods and the alcohol required. He quietly stood at the bar across from me without a word. I wanted something cheap, something to burn off the taste of Farrell that still remained, from my mouth. But I was such a good host there was nothing in my cellar that would come close. Everything here was top shelf.

  Biscuit must have stood there, stock still, for five minutes before I finally ordered.

  “Tullamore Dew. Double. Straight up,” I said. It was a strange choice considering I was trying to forget her. Maybe one drink of her poison and I could say good-bye. Probably not, but I can rationalize damn near anything. Biscuit returned with the glass, and I took it from him. Without preamble, I brought it to my lips and tipped it back. A double is quite a mouthful, but I managed. I swallowed and felt like I was going to retch. It was liquid fire from my gullet to my belly. I coughed twice. My eyes were watering. I shook a cigarette out of a pack and lit up. I waved Biscuit away, and he returned to his duties.

  I must have had an aura about me that night. No one approached. I was a pariah; I had fed at the trough of my own kind. But, I had to remind myself, it could have been me. I could now be the body floating 50 miles off the coast. That thought didn’t cheer me any, but it was at least realistic. She would have killed me. She tried to, my neck had the mark to prove it.

  There was a round of hisses and boos as Gael entered the bar. Something must have been up, she hated coming in here. She stopped by my side and looked me up and down.

  “You’re the only man I know who can wear a $2000 suit and still look like shit,” she said.

  I smiled and said, “Pull up a stool and let me buy you a drink.”

  “You don’t look like you need any more,” she said.

  “I have not yet begun to fight,” I replied. And to Biscuit, “Another round.”

  “Why don’t we talk in your office? Or will that get you in trouble with your clientele?” she asked.

  “Gael, I don’t much care anymore.”

  “About your customers?”

  “About much of anything.”

  Biscuit brought the drink, and I tipped it back. I felt my stomach protest, but I got it under control.

  “In your office, now,” Gael commanded. She grabbed my arm and dragged me off the stool. “Biscuit! Coffee, strong and black. On the double.”

  She pushed open the door to my office and led me to my chair. After I was seated, she too sat.

  “You’re self-destructing Poet. This can’t go on. I can’t watch you do this to yourself.”

  “Then close your eyes. I’ve had a rough 24 hours.”

  She was quiet for a moment. Biscuit knocked quietly on the door and then entered bearing a tray holding a pot of coffee and a mug.

  “I know you stole those cars last night,” Gael said. “Your little circuit board was a dead give away. I never thought the great Poet would take a chance like that for five cars.”

  “Five Lotuses,” I corrected her.

  “Whatever,” she snapped, “And I know something went wrong. The crime scene unit was down at the docks today picking up fragments of skull, brain matter and hair. It was a woman, wasn’t it? You got suckered by a broad, didn’t you?”

  “Shut up Gael,” I said without any force or conviction.

  “And you killed her, didn’t you. I can see that mark on your neck, and I know what it is. Did she shoot first? Are you that damned romantic you let her almost kill you?”

  I stayed silent.

  “And now here you are, slopping up booze, drinking doubles like they’re water trying to forget. Am I close to the truth?”

  “Why are you here, Gael?”

  “Because I was worried about you, okay? I’ve been calling you all day. I even went by your building. You wouldn’t answer the door.”

  I sipped the coffee. It wasn’t as good as my own, but it would do. “Ever kill anyone, Gael?” I asked.

  “You know I have.”

  “Remember what that feels like?”

  She was quiet. She’d taken three lives. Her medals for valor never helped Gael cope with what she had done. Like me, she felt too much, even if she wouldn’t admit it. When she was still a rookie Gael had responded to a domestic dispute. She found the husband dead and the mother holding an infant with a knife to its throat, screaming about the phone company spies. When the woman moved the blade away from the infant Gael shot her four times in the face from a range of two yards. She knew the dark roads I traveled. Maybe she was my conscience? The light to my dark? She was something more than the word friend could pin down.

  “I don’t think killing a man is the same to you as killing a woman is to me,” I said.

  “Probably not. You spend too much time reading love sonnets to be anything other than a hopeless romantic.”

  “I won’t lie to you, Gael. We both know I’m not crystal clean. I’ve put people down. Mostly they deserved it. It was them or me, I had no choice. But that never makes it any easier to deal with,” I said and sipped some more coffee. It was a strange sensation, the buzz from the caffeine and the depressant effects from the whiskey.

  “I’ve broken the sixth commandment, the most basic of rules; Thou shall not kill. There’s no redemption from that, there can’t be,” I said. I found a cigarette and got it going. I don’t like to smoke in front of Gael and sully her virgin lungs, but at that point, I didn’t care. If she minded she didn’t let it show.

  “I didn’t know you were a religious man, Poet.”

  I laughed. “My religion is the almighty dollar, you should know that by now. Nothing stands between me and the green.”

  “And here you are talking about redemption. Are you having a mid-life crisis?” she smiled.

  I rubbed my face with my hands. “I’m just a little blue, I don’t know what I’m saying.”

  “You ever wonder where you would be now I you had stayed in school?” she asked.

  “That’s easy. I’d be a poet of some acclaim, a professor with a bevy of coeds at my disposal. I wouldn’t be rich, but I’d be comfortable. I’d have a nice brownstone, good furniture, and a great CD collection. I’d drive a Jaguar and smoke a pipe. I’d have bookish blazers with leather patches on the elbows. And I’d be bored stiff.”

  “Is that what it is to you? An adrenaline rush every time you steal something?”

  I nodded. “There’s nothing like it. No drug can c
ompare.”

  She shook her head. “I like you. I don’t know why. Maybe you are the mystery I will never solve.”

  “Or arrest,” I added.

  “Never say never. Drink your coffee.”

  I did and finished the cup. Gael poured me another.

  “I think you need to get away for a while,” she said.

  “My thoughts exactly.”

  “I’m serious. You’re falling apart here. Get away for a few months, you can afford to.”

  “One more score Gael, and a little mystery to solve”

  “No, ‘one more score,’ Poet. Get out of here. Get on a plane tonight. Go to Bora Bora for six months. Clear your head. Everything will be here when you get back.”

  “I still haven’t found who killed Cindy McMillen yet.”

  Gael blew air through her lips. “Give it up, her husband did it.”

  “No,” I said, “He didn’t. The more I look into this thing, the more convinced I am. He was a fall guy, an easy mark for someone. And he was with me when it happened, but I can’t really testify on his behalf since we were involved in something “untoward” at the time.”

  “Do you know anything?”

  “Not enough. This Rainbow Productions is involved in something, I don’t know what. Drugs, money laundering, something. They ordered the hit on Amber. I figure they did the same on Cindy.”

  “What’s enough for you? You already have a shot-up arm. You don’t want to end up dead in the gutter.”

  “Concern? From a cop? I can’t believe it.”

  “With you gone who could, I trust to do little B&Es for me?”

  “True,” I said.

  We were both quiet for a moment.

  “Are you sure you’re all right?” Gael asked finally.

  “I will be in the morning. Or afternoon, more likely. I just need some rest without dreams.”