Cherie stared at the forearm I'd exposed when I lifted my hand. "That's an interesting tattoo. Unusual. A red tiger?"
"Youthful indiscretion. My brother and I got matching tattoos when we were fifteen."
"When both of you were fifteen? You're a twin? Is he as obnoxious as you are?" She grinned at me.
"He's dead."
"Oh God, I'm sorry. Foot-in-her-mouth Cherie. That's what my father calls me."
"S'okay. He's been dead awhile." Don't think about it, don't think about it ... too late. Flashes of the sickening crunch, the twisted metal, the fire, all flickered across his mental screen.
Cherie cleared her throat and nodded at the tattoo. "You could have that lasered off."
"I'll think about it."
A voice around the corner called her name. She winced and started to head off, but paused. "I'm thinking about trying that new coffee shop two blocks down. Java Junkie. You could join me when the show's over."
She flushed crimson when I replied, "I've got an appointment later. Maybe some other time."
"Sure thing. Some other time." She scurried away, and for a moment I almost felt bad. At one time I thought I might be able to settle down with a nice girl, start a family, take vacations in Atlantic City by the shore. Cherie was the type of girl I'd pictured in that setup, back then.
Not anymore.
I pushed those thoughts aside and literally counted the minutes until the show would be over and I could wrap things up and leave. Not to go home. I avoided home as much as I could these days. I headed instead for my favorite watering hole where Bernie was on duty and poured me a whiskey on the rocks as I walked in the door.
Bernie looked up at the clock and raised an eyebrow. "You're five minutes late, Fred."
I took the drink and sat in my usual spot at the bar. Usual spot. That made me think of hoodie-guy. "He was there again today, Bernie."
"That weird loser who wears the hoodie and glasses? He just wants to be a star. You know, look at me, I'm on TV, whoopee."
"You're probably right."
I sat there in silence, swirling my glass without taking a sip, and that made Bernie's other eyebrow go up. "Something else going on?"
I chuckled, but to my ears it sounded more like a bleat from that damned goat. "You'll think I'm a nutcase. Genuine loony-bin material."
"Try me."
"I think someone's been following me around."
"You cheat on your taxes again, Fred?"
"I'm serious, Bernie. But that's not all."
"Oh?"
"I think someone's been opening my mail. Not that I get much these days. They seal it all back, but I can tell. The other day when I got home, I could swear my TV remotes weren't in the same place I'd left them that morning. And a photograph I'd left on the table was missing."
Bernie leaned on the bar counter. "Maybe you're just tired. I mean, it's easy to forget where you put things. Just the other day, my Brenda practically had a stroke when she thought she'd lost her cellphone, only to find it in buried in that black hole she calls her purse."
"I can't find the photograph anywhere."
"So who or what is in this photo?"
"Just family. Nothing valuable."
"Okay, so did anything that is valuable go missing?"
I hesitated, thinking of the locked drawer at home. First thing I'd checked, and nothing was taken. "No, nothing else."
"Ah there you see? Why would someone break into your apartment to steal a photo? You just need more sleep, pal." Bernie nodded at my still-full glass. "I'd say you need to cut down on those, but looks like that's not a problem."
I snorted. "Aren't bartenders supposed to be full of good advice?"
Bernie didn't laugh. "Look, maybe you should call the police."
Me call the cops? Oh hell no. I looked at Bernie to see if I'd said that aloud, but he was still looking at me with that one raised eyebrow and a hint of something that smacked of worry. I shook my head. "Nah, you're probably right. Nothing a good eight hours of actual sleep can't cure."
I stayed as long as I dared then headed home to take Bernie's advice. I opened my door cautiously, expecting—what? A ghost thief? A photo fairy? I forced a laugh, whether it was for me or whoever might be inside, I didn't know.
A search through my apartment didn't take long. For once, I was glad my micro-home was the best I could do on an assistant production manager's salary in the Bronx. The drawer was the last thing I checked. I took off the chain with the key that was hanging around my neck and unlocked the drawer. After eyeballing the bills and coins, I was satisfied everything was intact. I didn't trust banks, especially not with this.
I locked it up again and headed to the only other three pieces of furniture I needed: my TV, a small coffee table, and the sofa that served as chair and bed. The remotes were still where I'd left them. They should be—this morning I'd marked around their outlines with yellow chalk on the table.
Just as I was beginning to relax, the Grateful Dead ringtone on my phone made me jump. That would be Alonso. I counted to five and answered. "Yeah, Alonso. What you got?"
"Work, that's what. You know, a job. I sense your heart isn't in your work lately, Freddy boy. And that gives me heartburn."
"Take some Tums with a vodka chaser." I kept my voice light, but every time I heard Alonso's voice, it was the same mix of disgust and loathing that my father's voice had inspired. The best thing about Dad going to Greenview Prison was not having to hear that voice ever again.
"You owe me, you know," Alonso's voice purred. I did know, but it was Alonso who didn't know just how much I owed him and I intended to keep it that way.
Since Ted died, I'd gotten pretty good at survival. And survival meant keeping things from people. Keeping secrets. Doing your job just well enough, not drawing attention to yourself. Just one other bee in the hive, waiting until the other bees grabbed their nectar and left so I could nip over to the hidden flower and guzzle the raw sweetness without sharing. If I bumped into a thorn or two along the way, it was well worth it.
Ted. We'd been so alike, we could almost feel what the other was thinking. That night, that wonderful, horrible night, we'd congratulated ourselves on our cleverness and laughed as we raced down that lonely stretch of Route 219, busting the speed limit at around a hundred, drunk on adrenaline. Ted was driving, but the steering on that old Corvette never did work right, especially in the rain. Neither one of us saw the tree.
It took a few moments for me to realize Alonso was still yakking away on the phone. "It's SOP, Freddy, same as always. You know the drill. I'm counting on you. We can count on you, right Freddy?"
I was glad this wasn't a video phone. Alonso wouldn't have liked the one-finger salute I was giving him. Looked like I was going to be burning the midnight oil again. So much for Bernie's sleep idea. Truth be told, I was getting a little tired of this line of work. I was getting tired of a lot of things. Hell, I was beginning to sound like my favorite Uncle Larry right before he took that .357 Magnum and put it to his head.
I pulled on some jeans and my average-guy shirt and leather jacket and headed out the door, taking time to compliment Mrs. Garson on her window box pansies as I swallowed the inevitable snicker and patted old man Franklin's cockapoo—swallowing another snicker—on the head.
Let the night games begin.
I took my time, playing the average guy taking his average walk down the streets of the Bronx, until it was nice and dark. All that walking made me tired, naturally, so I sat down on a nice bench near Youngman's Deli. I nodded at another man sitting there. He nodded back. After a good ten minutes of nice-weather-Yankees-versus-Mets chitchat, he left. I picked up the bag he'd left under the bench.
I didn't really want to know what was in that bag. All I knew is that New York was filled with doctors and lawyers and Wall Street types who had more money than life. And more pain than money. They'd pay a king's ransom for what was in that little bag, a fact hammered home by the wad of bills
being stuffed into my hand as I passed over the goodies to Alonso's favorite "distribution manager." Like it was Avon perfume or something we were dealing.
Alonso had recruited me because he could see the fire smoldering under my skin, the smoke sifting through my pores. "Once an adrenaline junkie, always an adrenaline junkie," he'd said. He wasn't referring to dancing goats. Maybe that's why I'd started taking a bill or two off the wad each time, hoping word wouldn't get back to Alonso. Not that I really needed it, but I needed it. Needed to feel alive, because I was almost out of surprises.
* * *
The next day came too early, but I was at the Good Morning studios at God-thirty-a.m., like always, wishing for a brief second I was a chick who could use under-eye concealer to hide behind. No shitting goat this time, but Mr. Predictable hoodie-guy was there.
Staring at me. Goddamn him.
I went to Cherie, told her I needed to take off twenty minutes early and asked her to cover for me, which I knew she would.
I got my eye on hoodie-guy again just as he was leaving. Time to play like I'm Sam Fucking Spade. If I was going to confront him, I'd have to catch him before he disappeared into the crowd.
Tailing him was easy. He was the only gray hoodie around. He stopped briefly to duck into a bagel shop and I thought I'd been made.
My phone rang. The Grateful Dead. Alonso never called this early. "I talked to Fernandez last night, Freddy-boy. The amount he says he gave you and the amount you put in that envelope for me don't match up. Now why do you think that is?"
My eyes were still glued to the bagel shop. "He musta got it wrong."
"Oh, it's wrong, for sure. And I'll demonstrate to you precisely how wrong it is in person a little later. You should have a nice surprise waiting for you when you get home. Remember Figueroa?"
Yeah, I remembered Figueroa. Didn't like to think about it though. Beat to a bloody pulp that looked more like something in Ling's Butcher Shop than a human. I think they found one of his arms in a dumpster.
Alonso hung up just as Hoodie Guy exited the bagel shop, sans bagel. Since I knew I couldn't go home, not yet, maybe not ever, I followed my target. Doggedly followed my target. Take that, old man Franklin's cockapoo. Hoodie Guy sauntered down 36th Street and turned onto Gemini Avenue, then down an alley.
That's when I lost him. Or so I thought. A sudden movement behind me made me turn and something hard came crashing down on my head. I knew I was on my back because I could see sky overhead, but the clouds were blurs. Everything was a blur.
I felt myself being dragged across a threshold, and the blur-clouds faded into a darkness overhead save for light coming through cracks in the wall. Hoodie Guy stood over me and slowly removed his glasses, his sweatshirt, and then started peeling off bits of his face.
And there standing over me was ... me. Oh God.
"Hello, dear brother. I would say it's nice to see you again, but I'd be lying. You were always the one who was good at lying, weren't you?"
I managed to make my mouth work and whispered, "I saw you die."
"You left me to die. In that burning car, while you grabbed the loot we'd stolen and ran. I crawled away and lay there for hours in pain, wondering when you'd send help. But no one came because you didn't go to get help, did you?"
Ted's laugh sounded as bitter as the bile in my throat tasted. "You remember where the car ended up, Freddy? Down in the stone culvert along Turtle Creek, hidden from the road. A rain put out the fire, so no one saw the car or me. I don't know how I limped out of there, but I did."
"I wouldn't have left you there. Not if I'd known ..."
"You didn't even try to get me out."
"I was scared."
"And I was fucking terrified." He stayed silent for a moment, and then growled, "With Mom dead, Dad in jail, and you on the lam with the loot, I had nowhere to turn. It took a while to track you down."
Even in the dim lighting, I could see Ted's eyes as they looked down at me. They were dark, soulless, loathing. They were my eyes, the eyes I saw every day when I looked in a mirror. "You've been in my apartment."
"I've been studying every bit of your life for the past year. I know where you hang out, I know how you do your job, I know where you buy your clothes. And I know where you keep the money we stole from the convenience store that you never spent." Ted bent down and removed the chain with the key from around my neck.
"I'm going to become you, dear brother. I'm taking over your life."
"They'll find my body. They'll know," I whispered. Whispered? Yell, Freddy, yell. But it wouldn't come out.
Ted walked over to a corner of the room and returned with a can of gasoline. "No, they won't find you. At least, not a body they can identify."
He'd planned this well, I had to hand it to him. I tried to rise up as he started spreading the gasoline around the room, but I couldn't move without the room spinning. I'd never make it to the door. He continued pouring the gas trail all the way up to me and then doused me with it thoroughly.
As he held up the box of matches and started lighting cotton rags, he smiled. "I know all your secrets, dear brother. I know about your side job, too, and your friend Alonso. Now he'll be my best friend, cutting me in on all those sweet deals."
I listened to the sound of the matches being struck, and as the first flames began to flare all around me, I held on to the one last secret that warmed me more than the fire. Ted was in for a helluva surprise back at my apartment.
BV Lawson's short fiction has appeared in close to three dozen publications, including Powder Burn Flash, Plots With Guns, Needle: A Magazine of Noir, and the anthologies Pulp Ink 2 and Grimm Tales. She's still gobsmacked over a 2012 Derringer Award for her story "Touch of Death." Her tales featuring Scott Drayco are available on Amazon and other eBook websites, and with any luck, a Drayco novel series will find a publishing home soon. Follow her online at bvlawson.com.
GHOST STORY
Jay Stringer
Moses Lita took another pull on the beer, just to help the pills kick in. He looked out the front window and down into the street where an upturned car was burning. It looked like a three-wheeler, one of those plastic cars that would tip over if they took a corner too fast. The warm September evening was running even hotter than usual.
"Listen, listen." Moses said. "World's ending out there, you over?"
"Nah, bruv." Eric Boswell was younger than Moses. Fifteen, sixteen, somewhere around there. "Sounds like it's just starting. New times, Moses. It's their turn to be scared now."
Moses turned to face Eric, taking in his dark features, his smile, and those young excited eyes. He shook his head. The numbness was already starting to fog his brain. "You're a younger. You think different, think the worlds going to change, like all this will kick something off."
Eric nodded. He was pumped up and ready. "You don't?"
"Nah, bruv." Moses leaned back, easing into his chair, second hand from the Oxfam shop down the road. "It's just another fight."
Eric stood up, "Well I'm off. I want in. Wanna see those cops run, like pigs in a farm, man. Their turn. You over?"
"I get you," Moses said. He nodded and waved lazily, things a bit distant now, the noise outside fading to the background. He let out a long breath. "You go. I'm staying here. My world not changing much."
Eric stood up and shrugged, taking one last look at his stoned friend. The man used to be fierce but now he wanted to miss out on all the fun. He ruffled Moses' hair and left.
Moses leaned his head against the window sill. He could still hear some of it. The fighting, the shouting. Somewhere he heard another boom, like a firework. Then it all dropped away. The drugs wrapped around him, mixed with the beer, and took him to another place. He had a thought as it happened.
I done something wrong.
* * *
"You seen Moses?"
"Guy with a beard? About yay tall? Carries around a shopping list written in stone?"
Aaron Miller stood in the b
eer garden of his pub. He and his wife had arranged a barbecue for friends and family, though they didn't have much of either left. Children ran around their feet, playing at being Transformers and Thundercats. The adults talked about money. F.H Lloyds had closed down a couple years before, putting most of the town out of work, and it was still what most people talked about. It was that, or the miners, or just the economy in general. Nobody wanted to be the one to mention Thatcher. Most pubs in the town were benefitting from a new generation of unemployed drinkers, but Miller's pub wasn't one of them. People didn't like to drink in it because he was Romani. They called the pub The Tinkers or The Gypo's behind his back. The smell of cooking meat filled the beer garden and the radio was playing that song by Bowie and Jagger, Miller was already sick of hearing it.
Miller was sucking on a cigarette and his wife, Erica, gave him dirty looks as she handed out food from the barbecue. She would normally have been mad at him about smoking, but right then she was too busy being mad about him talking to Ransford Gaines.
"Good to see you still think you're funny," said Gaines. "When the pub goes under, maybe you could try a comedy career. They say it's the new rock 'n' roll."
Miller gave Ransford one of his moody looks, the one that his wife called his Rumblefish after that movie she'd made him sit through. "Pub's not going under." He dropped the cigarette onto the paved floor and stubbed it out beneath his foot. Straight away he regretted it. He would have to pick it up before Erica saw he'd done it. "We're doing fine."
"Bullshit. I know you're struggling. Let me help."
Ransford was a little taller than Miller. He had blonde hair than ran to brown, and the well-defined features that reminded Miller of Paul Newman, a proper actor. He had the permanent tan of someone who could afford regular holidays, not like Miller who would get mistaken for everything from Greek to Indian depending on the person he was talking to. Miller usually looked like he couldn't care less what anybody said to him, Gaines looked like not only did he care, but also that he could kill you for it.
BEAT to a PULP: Hardboiled 2 Page 11
