Floaters

by Konrath, J. A.

  Jack got off a shot, but he was already under it, pushing her arm up, batting her across the floor. It took her a microsecond to readjust her aim, and though her training dictated she shoot to kill, she settled for taking out the big man’s knee. It burst like a ripe tomato, and he went over, howling.

  The other big man was on his feet, seemingly unsure of whether to run or attack. Chapa made the decision for him, cracking him across the face with the office chair. The big man fell.

  Jack got to her feet, rushed out of the office. The short man was nowhere to be found, but then she heard, “Get down on your knees! Wait, are you already on your knees? I said get down!”

  “Got him, Herb?” Jack called.

  “I will in a second. You okay?”

  Jack glanced at the two fallen men, and then Chapa, who was cautiously rubbing his forehead.

  “We’re good,” she yelled.

  “The wee dude’s name is Marty Cleven.”

  “Thanks, Chapa, but we know all about him, and that’s just one of the aliases he goes by. His name is actually Connie Runkle.”

  “The guy’s real name is Connie?” Chapa said, half laughing.

  “Connie can be a man’s name, too, motherfucker!” they heard him yell, his voice trailing off as Herb hustled him out.

  “That would explain a few things,” Chapa said.

  “What’s up with the guy wrapped in tape?” Jack asked.

  “He’s Emil Candrolini, a good guy, a victim.”

  “We’ll take care of him.”

  Jack spent a minute securing the fallen weightlifters. Chapa helped her drag the one he nailed with the chair over to his companion, and she locked their wrists together through a large piece of machinery.

  “For a big man, Angel,” Chapa was talking to the guy he’d taken out, “you swing like a girl. No offense, Lieutenant.”

  “None taken. You going to make it?” she asked him, noticing how the left side of his forehead was beginning to take on a bluish hue.

  He nodded slowly.

  “Good, because I have an offer to make you.”

  Chapa grinned. “An exclusive interview, Lieutenant?”

  “Sort of, but this offer is more like a right, actually. To remain silent.”

  “Ah, believe it or not, Lieutenant,” Chapa appeared fully alert again. “I can explain all of this, the whole thing.”

  Jack smiled. “Believe me, I’m anxious to hear it.”

  5 | CHAPA

  As his cab pulled to a stop beside my car, the driver warned us about how dangerous this neighborhood could be at night.

  Emil and I looked at each other.

  “It’s not too safe in the middle of the day, either,” I responded.

  I was just happy to find it hadn’t been towed or jacked in the four hours since I parked near the warehouse. Once we’d left that industrial area in the rearview, I asked Emil to reach inside my glove compartment.

  “You sure got a lot of pens in here.”

  “Yeah, it’s kind of a thing with me.”

  I told him to dig through and find my tape recorder, which he did. I checked to make sure the batteries had enough juice, and clicked record.

  Emil probably should’ve taken the Chicago PD’s offer of an overnight stay at Northwestern Memorial Hospital for observation. But he would have none of it. It’s amazing what a meal could do for a guy who hadn’t eaten in two days. Mostly, Emil just wanted to get home to Nina.

  I had just merged into late night traffic on the Kennedy when Emil began to talk—about everything. He told me about his immigrant parents and how he grew up in the southwest suburbs, his military service, the ups and downs of the antiques business, and how he and Nina had met. That’s when he seemed to get lost in his thoughts.

  I turned off the tape recorder, and asked him to excuse me while I phoned the Record. Matt Sullivan, my editor, sounded pleased to be hearing from me.

  “Christ, Alex, you phoned me from the back of a squad car and told me to hold page one, then three hours came and went!”

  “Sorry about that, but believe me, it couldn’t be helped.”

  I dictated my lead, and asked him to extend the deadline. I heard him cover the mouthpiece and talk to someone in the newsroom who didn’t sound too happy.

  “I can push it back until one-thirty, that gives you almost two and a half hours.”

  Perhaps not as long as I wanted since I had volunteered to drive Emil home first. His car was gone, and had probably been chopped already. Still, I had no business complaining about my new deadline, considering that a few short hours ago I was scrambling to talk my way out of an arrest.

  Lieutenant Daniels wanted to fit the cuffs on me in the worst way, and I couldn’t blame her. But after a lot of negotiation on my part, she seemed to understand I had gone into the warehouse out of concern for Emil. I gave up all the info I’d gathered, leaving out the part about the break-in at Sam Preston’s store. She knew I’d gone into the coffee shop, must’ve had someone watching the place. But I told her I just checked to see if the connecting door was unlocked, then left with my coffee when I couldn’t get it open.

  Between what Emil knew and what Cleven had told me, we were able to help Daniels fill in the remaining gaps. Putting a brutal series of crimes to bed seemed to take a bit of the fire out of her, and I got sent home with a stern warning and a guarantee I’d hear from her again concerning this case. I wasn’t spending the night in lockup, and that’s all that mattered.

  Emil started talking again as we closed in on the Oak Brook toll, the city’s skyline a distant memory. I turned my tape recorder back on, and this time he talked about the last two days. At first it played like the newest in a series of adventures that had punctuated his life. Then Emil stopped mid-sentence, as his bravado abandoned him.

  “I was so scared, Alex.”

  I clicked the recorder off and said nothing.

  “So scared.” His eyes were fixed on the darkness beyond my headlights. “But not for me. I didn’t know who would be there for Nina.”

  He let it out, and I couldn’t blame him. As far as I was concerned, Emil Candrolini was all right. I reached in my pocket and handed him a piece of paper towel I’d taken from Preston’s backroom.

  “Here you go, it’s kind of matted, but all that’s on it are my prints.”

  He took it, quietly thanked me, and wiped his face.

  “I’m sorry about that.”

  “Don’t apologize.”

  We rode in near silence the rest of the way to his house. Nina was waiting at the door. They invited me in, then quickly forgot I was there and they each disappeared into an embrace. I could hear her softly weeping and him telling her it was all okay as I quietly let myself out. Backing out of their driveway I wondered what it would be like to have someone waiting at home to ask how your day went, and really care about the answer.

  My house was half as far away as the office, and it would’ve been easy to write the story at home and email it in. But an empty house held no appeal at that moment, so I turned in the direction of the Record building. The streets were mine, and that was good as I was able to piece the story together in my head during my drive. There were a few off the record details I couldn’t use, but that always goes with the territory.

  It would take me about an hour to knock out my story. A rush job, but our readers would never know it. And maybe, after the story had been put to bed, tucked in nice and tight on page one above the fold, someone from the night crew might ask me how my day went.

  Henry Perez

  Joe Konrath and I did extensive pre-planning and spent countless hours discussing and debating before we took on the task of writing Floaters. As a way of providing a glimpse into that process, here’s a transcript of our initial conversation on the subject. Or at least as I remember it.

  JAK: “We should write a story together, I think that would be fun.”

  HP: “Yeah, I’d like that, sounds cool.”

  JAK: “An
d we should order more beer.”

  HP: “And some nachos.”

  JAK: “The nachos here are good, especially when you get beef and chili on them.”

  HP: “True, so let’s get some.”

  30 to 40 minutes later…

  HP: “I like how the chips stay crisp even though they’re buried under a mound of chili.”

  JAK: “Oh yeah, that’s important. You don’t want the chips to get soggy.”

  HP: “No, no you don’t.”

  JAK: “So we should write a story together, I think it would be fun.”

  HP: “Yes, we should.”

  JAK: “You got any ideas?”

  HP: “No, but I’ll come up with something.”

  JAK: “You write the first part, then I’ll write the next one, and we’ll go back and forth until it’s finished.”

  HP: “Did you just eat the last nacho?”

  JAK: “I’m already published, and I’m a big shot, and I get the last nacho, and I want another beer, which I’m contractually entitled to, as a big shot.”

  Two weeks later, I sent Joe the first 3000 or so words of Floaters. I came up with the set-up of the missing collectibles dealer, but Joe knew nothing about it until that first segment arrived in his inbox. He thought up the idea of using a pog as a murder weapon, which I loved, wrote the next 2500 words, and we were off and running.

  It took us about a week to knock out the first draft, then spent a couple more revising it. The whole thing proved to be a great deal of fun, and a terrific experience for me. Joe is a very generous writer, and as it turned out, our protagonists, and our storytelling styles blended quite well.

  Henry Perez

  I was involved in the planning of a major civic event, and I was frustrated with the way it wall all going. I was anxious for the whole thing to be over so I could be free of all of it. I sat down one morning after an especially frustrating planning meeting and began writing Familiar Places. By five that afternoon I had finished the first draft of this story of a burned out hit man who just wants to meet his responsibilities, and then vanish.

  That was a few years ago, but Familiar Places continues to be a favorite of mine among my own short stories.

  I didn’t recognize the guy behind the counter, and that was fine by me. This one’s face was an unshaven collection of fleshy speed bumps, his body a bit more lived in than most.

  Our eyes met, but neither one of us was too interested in the details, just the process. I gave him a name that wasn’t my own, one that he was supposed to be waiting to hear, but the guy just stared at me. After an uneasy pause that seemed to draw some of the stale air out of the cramped space, he reached into the cabinet behind him and pulled out the key to room 111 then tossed it on the counter. The sound of metal on worn Formica bounced off the walls of the empty lobby.

  As I made my way down the deserted corridor, I wondered if the room had been changed around since I was last there a couple of months earlier, and how many others had stayed in it between then and now. I slid the key in and looked around to make sure I was alone before pushing the heavy door open and slipping inside.

  To almost anyone else it would’ve looked like a standard room in a budget hotel. Dark burgundy carpeting that masked any number of past sins, drab wallpaper, and a double bed where a paisley comforter hid an uneven mattress. I wasn’t interested in the cable television or the packets of cheap instant coffee.

  After closing the thick curtains and leaning a chair against the spot where the two halves met, I dropped my cracked brown leather bag on the bed. I unzipped it, pulled out a set of screwdrivers, then climbed up on the bloated pillows.

  There was a picture above the bed of a forest scene with a cabin in the distance. For a moment I wondered if the folks who lived in it ever saw what went on in this room. They’d bolt their doors if they had any idea. Probably move out of the neighborhood and go somewhere safer like Gary, Indiana or the west side of Chicago.

  The frame around the picture was held in place by four large Phillips head screws. I pulled out the right sized tool and went to work. Three of the screws came out easily, they always do, the fourth had been anchored into the wall and took a bit more work. Someone less careful had used the room since my last visit. I palmed the screws and pulled the frame away from the wall, revealing a metal plate about the size of an LP cover.

  I gently laid the picture down on the bed and started on the eight screws that held the plate in place. These were smaller and far more stubborn. A few minutes later the last of the screws gave up the fight, and the thin piece of dull metal slipped easily from the wall, exposing a narrow rectangular hole.

  A gun had been left for me in the hole, it was pointing at my face. There was a clip resting next to it, four bullets shy of a full load, and a large brown envelope tucked into the back of the opening. The piece would be unmarked, a real John Doe, I would only need a couple of slugs to do the job, and I had a pretty good idea of what I’d find in the envelope.

  I tore it open and pulled out a color photo. The package would usually include a letter-sized envelope thick with hundred dollar bills. But not this time. The guy in the photo was very blond and way too white, just a couple of shades shy of being translucent. At first glance he looked like a middle-aged model, but on closer inspection it was evident that his face had been seen in a few dives and probably by some people who never wanted to see it again.

  Though I would never know what had brought him to this point in his life, wouldn’t want to know, it didn’t take a whole lot of imagination to believe he’d earned what was coming to him. But that’s as much thought as I wanted to give him. I stared at the photo just enough to memorize his face, then turned it over.

  On the back there was an address for a pub on Chicago’s north side. Maybe I’d been there before, maybe not. Either way, it probably wouldn’t have been my first choice for doing business. There was also a day and time: Thursday, 4:00 pm.

  I set the photo and gun aside and put the wall back together. I took one more look at that cabin in the forest and decided that, sooner or later, the smoke escaping through its chimney would engulf the place. It would serve them right for not getting the hell out while they had the chance.

  I lay down on the bed, holding the semi-auto. I closed my eyes and tried to visualize the job. Ordinary. It had to be. I was in no condition to deal with a lot of variables. There was too much at stake.

  Only two things can happen when you tank a job. Nine times out of ten you become the next target. If it doesn’t play out like that, you wind up doing a make-up job to prove yourself again. It’s the only way to earn back the right to another breath.

  I wasn’t thinking about the fallout when I gave Sheila a heads up and told her to get out of town. She had made some mistakes, and made really bad use of other people’s money and trust. But I wasn’t thinking about any of that.

  All I cared about then were her eyes and her touch. The way that her tongue would guide my name through her lips, or how those lips felt against my skin. She would run her delicate fingers down the length of my scars and ask questions I could never answer.

  “Did you get these from not being careful enough? Are they what made you the way you are?”

  I should’ve killed her when I had the chance. When I was supposed to.

  Luckily, the boss had always been fond of telling me I was like one of his own. A kid he’d raised since he caught me trying to hold up one of his stores. So his reaction when I failed to do my job by letting Sheila slip away was framed with words of disappointment and heartbreak, instead of anger and betrayal. He gave me another chance to prove myself, and this was it. I owed him.

  I held the gun tightly until it began to dig into the palm of my hand. I thought how much easier it would be to take out the owner of the cabin in the painting and make myself at home until the day when some asshole came for me.

  The building sat damn near in the middle of a block of shops and restaurants along a popular stretc
h of Lincoln Avenue. Not exactly ideal for a job. The problem wasn’t just the traffic, but also the distance between the front door and any place where I could disappear after the job was done. But sometimes you have to go where the mark feels comfortable, a place so familiar that even the most suspicious are willing to let their guard down.

  I sat at a diner across the street and nursed a cup of coffee while I watched the people going in and out of the pub. It was about four in the afternoon on the day before the job and there wasn’t much of a crowd other than the traffic that was slowly filling the street.