by Sean May
With the kid still crying in the room, Tim ran out of the front door of the apartment and made his way to the car. He opened his car door and grabbed his cell phone, trying to keep himself from hyperventilating the whole time. He pushed “dial” when he got to Jimmy’s contact info. The phone rang five unbearably long times before going to voicemail the first attempt, but after Tim called the second time, Jimmy picked up.
“What?” Jimmy said.
“I’m...I’m at the place...1210 Marine...”
“Yeah, and? You don’t need to fuckin’ call me to check in, Timmy”
Tim fucking hated it when people called him Timmy, but he was so bewildered about the situation that he didn’t even notice. “There’s a kid...in the apartment...you fucking told me there’d be nobody here, Jimmy!”
Jimmy paused for what seemed like thirty seconds. “A kid?” his tone was now grave instead of annoyed.
“Yeah, a kid...he’s like eight or nine.”
“That...that isn’t possible, we checked the apartment before we left”
“It is possible, Jimmy! I saw him curled up in a ball in the corner of a closet, it’s fucking possible!” Tim looked around to see if anyone was watching his outburst in the parking lot, but loud arguments like this were common at this apartment complex, in Gardena right on the edge of Compton.
Jimmy waited an eternity again before speaking up again in slow, deliberate syllables “Something’s gotta be done with him.”
“What do you mean, something? I haven’t done this kind of stuff before, Jimmy...what the hell do you mean by something?” Tim said, still screaming and frantic as ever.
"You’re going to kill him.”
“I—no, no, I’m not gonna...”
“He’s a witness to what we did that night. We’ve had too many big guys go down in our organization just because they thought kids could keep their mouths shut and forget everything they saw, but when it comes to trial, they’ve got a fuckin’ photographic memory. It’s tough to make a kid lie, Tim. So, sorry, but he has to die.”
“He can’t be more than nine years old, Jimmy...there’s gotta be something we can work out”
“We’ll have a memorial tenth birthday party for him once you get the job done, eh, Timmy? You’ve got your gun with you, so just do it and get it over with. Listen, you signed up to run with Boroni, you didn’t think it’d be all fun and games now did you? Sometimes you gotta break some eggs...”
Jimmy said the last part as if killing an eight year old kid was as simple as making breakfast, and maybe to someone like Jimmy it was that simple. Maybe guys like Jimmy were only fueled by a need to leave no trail, to leave no possibility of somebody speaking up out of turn and ruining the fun little game guys like he and Boroni were running. He didn’t know if Jimmy had killed a kid before, but judging by how up front and curt he was about it, he didn’t put it that far out of the realm of possibilities.
“You got me?” Jimmy said, the annoyed tone returning
“Yeah, I’ll...uh...I’ll call you later” Tim said and clapped the phone shut. He then collapsed onto the seat of his car, throwing the cell phone and headgear into the back seat, and looked back to the apartment. This wasn’t the kind of cleanup he signed up for. Scrubbing grey matter off of a microwave was one thing, but killing the sole witness to a homicide was way beyond what he thought he was ready for. At this point, the cleaning seemed quaint, safe.
Tim walked back to the apartment, trying to maintain his composure. He’d taken off the scrubs and all his other cleaning gear and was now decked out in a pair of jeans and a t-shirt, though he didn’t bring another set of shoes along so the rubber boots had to stay. He entered the shiny, sparking apartment and made his way back to the room where the kid was still sobbing, a sob from the bottom of his stomach.
“Hey...” Tim said, his voice weak as he tried to coax the kid out of his hiding place. “...what’s your name?”
The kid, still not brave enough to turn his head back toward the rest of the apartment, back toward the chaos, said faintly “Jonah”
“Well, Jonah...my name’s Tim” Tim crouched down to get on Jonah’s level “Do you want to go get something to eat? I bet you’re hungry, aren’t you?”
“Yeah...” Jonah turned his head toward Tim. Jonah was scarred, haunted. His life had changed before his eyes, and Tim could tell just by looking at him that the kid would never recover from it. No matter how much of the murders he saw, they left an impression on him, one that can’t be washed away even with years of trying to forget.
Tim reached his hand out for Jonah’s, and Jonah reached back, letting Tim haul him up. After spending two days curled up into a ball, Jonah was shaky on his feet, stumbling as his muscles got used to motion once again. Tim noticed a small sweatshirt and a pair of jeans on the bed...probably what Jonah’s father laid out for him the night before the slaughter happened. Tim tried not to think about that fact as he gathered the clothes up in his hand and took them over to Jonah. “Here, put these on, Jonah. I’ll be waiting at the front door, OK?”
Jonah nodded, and Tim thought he felt some trust building between him and the boy whose parents just got murdered by his boss’ goons. Tim gave Jonah some privacy and went to the front door of the apartment, looking back into the kitchen to once again see how changed the room was from when he arrived. Truth be told, at this point, things had changed a hell of a lot more for Tim now that he had the added responsibility of Jonah on his head.
A couple of minutes later, Jonah emerged in the sweatshirt and jeans, ready to go. “Where do you wanna eat, buddy?” Tim said.
“My daddy always takes me to Lonnie’s when he has me over”
Tim meditated on that remark for a second. The full weight of the deaths hadn’t weighed on Jonah yet, and Tim wasn’t even sure if a kid Jonah’s age could even completely wrap his head around the concept of death, not to mention the concept of why people murder each other. There was so much he needed to learn about the world, but if Jimmy’s plans went through, Jonah wouldn’t be learning much more except that he shouldn’t have been in the wrong place at the wrong time.
“Lonnie’s it is, then” Tim said, opening the door to the apartment and leading Jonah out. Jonah followed Tim closely as they walked across the parking lot. It was getting cold as the evening set in more and more, the breeze off of the Pacific chilling things out a little bit. They got into Tim’s car and began to drive toward Lonnie’s.
“You’re not one of them.” Jonah said after five minutes of silence on the road.
“One of who?”
“The bad men”
“Bad men?”
“The bad men that took daddy and Uncle Scott.”
“No, I’m not...” Tim thought that even though he wasn’t directly involved in the murders, there was no question he was one of the ‘bad men’, but only by association. He thought Jonah wouldn’t understand what Tim’s job was, to clean up the scene to make sure nobody ever found out who killed his dad and this Scott, so he just let it go, trying not to traumatize the kid in the last few hours he may have left.
“Where did they take them?” Jonah said.
“I—uh...I don’t know, Jonah”
“I hope they took them to a doctor...they were hurt.”
Tim gripped the steering wheel, nearly twisting the steel in his bare hands. The naïveté, the complete blindness to what happened around him, was keeping Jonah in a little bubble. But what was the kid supposed to think? Even if he knew his dad did bad stuff, it was still his dad, and nobody would ever do anything to hurt his dad. Until a couple of nights ago, that may have been true.
“I’m sure that’s where they are, Jonah. Maybe we can go see them once we eat.”
“I’d like that...T--Tim”
“I’d like it too, Jonah.”
Tim saw Lonnie’s glowing neon sign appear at the side of the road as he whipped around the corner. He was thankful that the food would do wonders to quiet the kid down, becaus
e Tim didn’t know how much more of this lying he could take.
They went into Lonnie’s and Tim ordered a triple bacon cheeseburger with cheese fries and a large deluxe milkshake for Jonah. Most men with a death sentence order those kinds of things, extravagant meals that nobody with any sort of respect for their future health would ever eat, but those guys didn’t care because they knew a megadose of lethal drugs would do wonders for their figure. Jonah didn’t know this was his execution meal, but he seemed to enjoy it like a death row inmate would, gobbling it down and relishing in its unhealthiness.
Tim stared at a chicken sandwich, not having anything resembling an appetite, but he took a couple of bites just for show. As Jonah was busy shoveling cheese fries into his mouth, Tim told him he was going to go out to the car for a minute. Jonah didn’t reply, he just nodded and crammed in another fry.
Tim walked to the car and opened up the trunk. He pulled up the floormat that covered the spare tire to find the gun Jimmy insisted he stashed there just in case. This was one of those cases. He picked up the gun, a 9mm Beretta probably stolen from a police equipment locker or lifted off of the last unfortunate gangster that decided to mess with Boroni. He popped the clip out to make sure it was loaded, and it was. The dull grey lead of the bullets glinted in the moonlight, showing their teeth, peaking out of the slit in the clip just to give a hint to their deadliness. He clicked the clip back into the housing of the gun and then put it into his jacket pocket before going back into Lonnie’s.
Jonah was still enjoying his food, but he was almost done, a few errant bits of burger on his plate and some milkshake still sitting in the glass.
“How’s the milkshake?” Tim asked
“Mmm...gddd” Jonah said, his mouth occupied with burger.
Jonah finished the rest of his meal and most of Tim’s remaining chicken sandwich, and the two left the diner. Tim left a fifty dollar bill on the table, way more than his bill of twenty bucks, but he thought of it as some sort of fucked-up penance for the grave crime he was tasked to commit.
He led Jonah back to the car, the Beretta causing his jacket to sag under its weight. He hoped Jonah didn’t notice it. They both got back into the car and Tim drove down the highway, toward the shore. He thought giving Jonah a beach view of his death would be the least he could do.
“Are we going to the hospital?” Jonah asked as they pulled out.
“Yeah, something like that...”
They drove in silence, Tim unable to talk and Jonah bewildered as to why he wouldn’t. Tim had one hand on the wheel and the other on the Beretta, feeling it in his hand, knowing its potential and the job it was going to be called into in just a few minutes.
He thought about what this was going to bring him and tried to block out the fact that he had to kill a kid. Doing a job like this, something this dirty, something this extreme, would be like pulling Sal Boroni’s dog out of a burning building. He’d be on the right track, ready to shoot up to being one of Boroni’s main guys just by showing he had the initiative to do the things that the killers were either not observant enough to follow through with, or just too chicken shit to man up and put one in the kid’s head. It was just a bullet, and Jonah was just a kid. There were millions of them out there, and with his dad out of the picture it wasn’t like anybody was going to miss him. Tim thought about this as he gripped his gun. The gun gave him power, the power to change destiny and write his own ticket. Yeah, it was a dirty job but he had to get over it and just do it, because it was going to be worth it. Boroni would love him after this.
They stopped at a convenience store because Jonah had to go to the bathroom. Tim stood outside the store and leaned against his car, his right hand never leaving the grip of the gun. His cell phone buzzed in his other coat pocket. It was Jimmy.
“Yeah?” Tim said
“You done it yet?”
“Working on it. Kid’s with me.”
“Ah, no rush, asshole, he's just a witness that could collapse everything we try to do around here.”
“I know...”
“Listen, you do this, Boroni’s gonna want you for some more wet work down the road, I can guarantee that to you. If you show you’re an animal, and I mean a fucking beast, by putting this kid down, Boroni’s gonna notice.”
“Always looking to climb that ladder...”
“And I gotta say also, thank you, man. I couldn’t have done that kinda thing, to that kid. I mean, when I saw him when we were taking out those dealers--“
“--You saw him?” Tim said, grinding his teeth
“Oh yeah, definitely...but, I mean, I’m no kid killer, man, and I figured I’d give you the opportunity to make an impression on the big man. Hell, it was a crapshoot anyway because who woulda known the kid would have stuck around?”
“You lied to me, you fuck--“
“--I didn’t lie to you, Timmy...I just acted surprised when you called. I was surprised that the kid was still there, and I was so fuckin’ happy that I’d provided this chance to you with what I couldn’t go through with. I’ve got kids of my own, Tim, and I just couldn’t bear it.”
“You motherfucker...what kind of person do you take me as? You’re not low enough to kill a kid, but for some reason I am?”
Jimmy waited for Tim to calm down for a few seconds. “Listen, I had to do some stuff, when I was your age...way worse than what you’re about to do. I had to kill my brother and my father...my own blood...over a shipping deal that brought some FBI heat down on us... I had to kill them to show Boroni I had it in me...so don’t give me some bullshit like you’re high and mighty, because you’re not. You’re a fucking crumb, Timmy, you’re nothing. Get this kid over with, build your cred, and you won’t be a crumb anymore, got it?”
Tim hung up the phone.
Tim waited another minute for Jonah to get out of the bathroom and then they headed out onto the 10 toward the PCH in silence again.
Before they got onto the 10, Tim stopped the car at a stoplight and put it in park. He held the gun in his hand and unlocked the safety. He closed his eyes as Jonah just sat there, oblivious.
“Jonah...”
The kid didn’t respond.
“Jonah I want you to get out of the car and run as fast as you can until you find a police car or a police station...just something.”
“But daddy says I shouldn’t talk to the police. He says they’re out to get him.”
“Your daddy’s dead, Jonah...”
“No, you said he was in the hospital!” Tears began to well up at the corners of Jonah’s eyes.
“Well, I lied to you. Trust me, it was the least terrible thing I’ve done all night. Just get out of the car and find a police officer. Tell them you know about a double murder that happened at the Astro Hills apartments in Gardena. Tell them Jimmy Marino killed your father and your Uncle Scott. Tell him Sal Boroni sent Jimmy to kill them.”
“I don’t think I can remember that...” Jonah sobbed.
Tim snatched a scrap of paper and a pen from the center console of his car and furiously wrote down the details to the murder. The whos, the wheres, the whats...but for the life of him he couldn’t even begin explaining the whys. He stuffed the paper into Jonah’s jacket pocket and popped the door locks. “Now go, Jonah.”
“You’re mean, Mr. Tim...” Jonah had turned into a full-on waterworks by now, his face glimmering with tears in the now green of the traffic light.
“Meaner than you’ll ever know, Jonah...now go find a policeman and give him what I just gave you.”
Jonah jerked around in his seat and kicked his feet against the door a couple of times before he got the latch open. He sprung out of the car and bolted down the abandoned sidewalk. Letting a kid run free on a Los Angeles sidewalk at three in the morning wasn’t the safest thing to do in most cases, but for Jonah it was like giving the kid a trust fund, something he could use for the future, a future Tim had just given back to him. Jonah disappeared into the muggy night, reappearing in the stree
t lamps as he continued his sprint. Tim drove away from the light, confident that an LAPD patrolman would find him eventually.
Tim continued down the 10 and got to the PCH. He took the gun out of his jacket and put it down on the passenger seat. The safety was off and it was ready to unleash hell. Despite having a loaded gun with him, he knew he was a dead man. Once he left Jonah alive the trust was broken and he was a traitor to Boroni. He knew this. Maybe Jonah wasn’t going to blow Boroni’s entire organization wide open, but his testimony could chip away at them, whittle them down maybe just a bit. Just enough to make them scared, keep them on their toes.
He drove down the PCH, the wild curves and dizzying cliffs of the road giving him solace. He stopped at rest stops, got out and smelled the fresh ocean air, and enjoyed himself as he made his way up California, into Oregon. He was on borrowed time now, and Boroni’s thugs were right behind him. Maybe minutes behind, maybe hours behind, maybe days behind, but he knew they were coming. He was going to enjoy his time on Boroni’s death row. He treated every meal in every greasy diner along the PCH as his last, because it could very well have been.
In a little diner outside of Eugene, Oregon, he ordered the biggest milkshake he could get. He read the free copy of the L.A. Times that was on the bar and saw the headline “Double Murder Arrest Targets Crime Boss.” He smiled. Front page news.
Then he saw the two men come in the door of the diner, dressed in all black. They had Berettas tucked into their belts.
