Dying Breath

by J. A. Konrath

  I thanked the receptionist, let her keep the glue, and headed back to my Bronco. I couldn’t do more until I got the license trace on the Land Rover from Jack, so I decided to head back to the city and prepare for my night out with Pasha.

  I met Dr. Bipasha Kapoor several months ago on a case. I was still in my cocaine and hooker phase, and had just finished a week long binge at some fancy hotel. Pasha had gotten hold of me to help find out who was threatening her life. I solved her problem. I also fell for her. Hard.

  Leaving Pasha was going to hurt.

  I would stick around as long as I could still function well enough. But when Earl became unmanageable, that was my cue to leave. I wasn’t going to let Pasha watch me die.

  Not because I wanted to die alone. Dying would be easier with her there.

  But I wouldn’t make someone I love go through that.

  Besides. I wouldn’t actually be alone. Earl would be with me, and I’d be smug knowing that our duel ended in a tie.

  Plus, I’d have my memories.

  There might be no one else in the room, but Pasha would be on my mind. And the thought of her would comfort me. And my final dignity—in the pain-wracked, bed-ridden, indignity of death—my final dignity would be knowing I spared her seeing me check out. I would clamp down my teeth on that dignity, and stare death in the face, and tell him that yes you bastard, I was here on this earth, and I made an impact, and I loved and was loved back, and now I’m ready for you, you son of a bitch.

  Here I am, Mr. Death. Snuff me out.

  End my pain.

  I got off the expressway at Cermak and headed into Chicago’s Chinatown. I’d helped the manager of the Michigan Motel, Kenny Jen Bang Ko, rid himself and his business of an extortion gang. Those three kids that hassled me yesterday were from that gang, the Clan. After I busted up their protection racket, Kenny gave me a free permanent room. The Chinese had this thing about eternal gratitude.

  Then again, my room rented for about forty bucks a night, two of the four electrical outlets didn’t work, and the bathroom sink had a permanent drip, so even eternal gratitude had limits.

  Still, it was cleaned every day, and it didn’t cost me anything. Pasha had been asking me to move in, but I’d been telling her that I liked my own space.

  Truth was I didn’t want to live with her because then it would be harder to leave.

  I pulled into the parking lot of the Michigan Motel, listening to the glass crunch under my tires. Kenny once hired a street cleaner to rid his lot of all the broken glass, and within a week it was all back again. People just liked to break glass.

  I parked in front of my room and took my guns out of the glove compartment. Then I walked over to the check-in booth to pick up my mail and any messages. The booth was an extension of the motel room Kenny lived in. It jutted out into the parking lot like a ticket booth, except the glass was bullet proof. There were several divots in the glass that proved the point.

  The sign said to ring the buzzer, in both Chinese and English. I knew the buzzer didn’t work, so instead I banged on the glass.

  After a minute, which was how long it usually took, Kenny Jen Bang Ko opened the door from his room and walked directly into the check-in booth. Kenny was elderly, but still had a full head of jet black hair. Probably because he never washed it. You could grease a skillet by rubbing it on Kenny Jen Bang Ko’s head.

  He appeared worried, and was stroking the long hairs growing out of the mole on his left cheek.

  “They were here,” he whispered, eyes darting back and forth.

  “Who was here, Kenny?”

  “Clan.”

  I smiled, trying to put him at ease.

  “I took care of them once. Twice is no problem.”

  “They were asking for you. Three of them. One had a gun.”

  I showed him my 9mm and the new AMT. “I’ve got two. Any messages for me?”

  “No messages. Here’s mail.”

  It was from the lab. My test results.

  “Be careful, Phineas. They come back.”

  I nodded, and walked back to my apartment, glass crunching underfoot like freshly fallen snow as I opened the letter.

  Positive.

  As I’d guessed, the cancer had spread.

  You knew I was back, Earl whispered in my head. What do you want to do? Go another ten rounds?

  More chemo and radiation. The cure was worse than the god-dancing disease.

  I crumpled up the letter and threw it aside.

  An image shot into my mind, of staring into the barrel of that gun.

  I didn’t find the image frightening. Not one bit.

  I wondered what I would do if it happened again.

  I pushed the thought from my noggin and entered my humble abode. Time to finally take that shower and brush those teeth.

  I winced as the hot steady stream beat against Earl. I definitely needed more codeine. Pasha and I would have to stop by the pharmacy before dinner.

  Where should we go for dinner? She was on a vegetarian kick lately. Not because she was concerned with animal rights, but because she wanted to lower her cholesterol intake.

  Me? I wasn’t too worried about eating right these days.

  I stepped out of the shower and used a thin motel towel to dry my dying body. Then I lathered up some shaving cream and went through the task of scraping the stubble off my head. I nicked my scalp and applied a small square of toilet paper on the spot. Then I found my way into a pair of boxer shorts, and went through my sparse closet in search of something suitable.

  You’re trying to ignore me. But you can’t. I’m here, and I’m not going away.

  I settled on dark grey slacks, a grey button down shirt, and a black blazer. After a fruitless search for a tie, so I unbuttoned my top two buttons and opted for the casual look. Then I took out my elephant skin boots and opened up the heel in the right one, exposing the secret compartment. The AMT I bought at the pawn shop was a tight fit and involved me working a little carving magic with my switchblade, but I was able to finally get it in and close the heel. I’d oil the hinge later. The last thing I needed in a life or death situation was a problem getting my emergency gun out.

  A life or death situation? You’re in one right now, Phin. And instead of facing it, you’re ignoring it.

  The cut on my head had stopped bleeding, so I took off the toilet paper, slapped a little aftershave on my bald dome, and left the Michigan Motel with a bounce in my step. After all, I was going to see the only thing left in my life that made me happy.

  I was halfway to her place in the burbs when I remembered I still hadn’t brushed my damn teeth.

  I stopped at a drugstore, bought a toothbrush, toothpaste, and a gallon of water, and brushed my teeth in the parking lot like a Neanderthal.

  I didn’t want Pasha’s last memory of me to be of my bad breath.

  # # #

  I stared at the last piece of pizza with something close to nausea. Maybe it was a side effect of the codeine Pasha and I had picked up before coming here. But it was probably because I ate like a pig.

  “If I take another bite I’m going to pop the seams on this dress,” Pasha said.

  The dress in question was a black one that clung in all the right places.

  “I wouldn’t mind seeing you pop out of that dress.”

  “You’re a pig. And thank you very much.”

  I reached out across the table top and held her hand.

  She looked classy and young in the soft light, the candle on our table caressing her face with warm shadows, her eyes wet and bright. We were at Maria’s, a semi-expensive Italian restaurant in Flutesburg that specialized in stuffed pizza. Stuffed pizza is a uniquely Chicago phenomenon, made famous by such chains as Uno’s and Gino’s East. The cheese and ingredients were sandwiched between two layers of crust, and the sauce was on top. Kind of like a pizza quiche. It was good, but usually by the time you were finished eating you were as stuffed as the pizza was.

 
“Can I wrap that for you?” asked our waitress as she bounced by. She had bleach blond hair that seemed to like hairspray a lot and enough eyeshadow to audition for the Rockettes. She looked like Big Bird, with too much make-up.

  “Please.”

  The blonde grabbed the pan and bounced off, in search of Styrofoam. I took my hand back and used it to extract the jewelry box from my jacket pocket. I nudged it across the table at Pasha and savored the tiny sparkle in her deep brown eyes.

  One more memory to hold on to.

  “Happy birthday,” I told her.

  “Let me guess. Is it a car?”

  “You’re uncanny. It’s amazing that your mind is still so sharp for a woman of your advancing years.”

  She grinned and opened up the box, then looked from the box to me and back again.

  “It’s beautiful,” she said.

  “For your beautiful ankle.”

  Then she started to laugh, and the laughter immediately turned into sobbing and before I could comfort her she was out of her chair and heading for the bathroom.

  I sat at the table alone and stared at the space where she was sitting. Big Bird came back and presented me with the check and a small paper bag.

  “Is everything okay?” she asked.

  A million answers rushed through my head, about relationships and living and dying and cancer and love and saying goodbye and birthdays and funerals. But all I said was, “Yeah. Thanks.”

  She smiled and bounced off, and I fished out some of Scadder’s money and tipped big.

  Pasha came out of the bathroom a few minutes later. She gave me a kiss on the cheek and sat back down, her smile firmly in place. I knew she was being strong for me. I loved her for that.

  I also couldn’t let it go on.

  “This is beautiful, Phin,” she took the anklet out of the box and rolled it in her fingertips.

  “I’m happy you like it.”

  “Does it go on the right or the left ankle?”

  “I think that only younger women are allowed to wear it on their right ankle.”

  “Really?”

  “I’m pretty sure it’s the law.”

  She crossed her legs like a man, with her foot resting on her knee. The dress rode up and I made an appreciative comment.

  “Pig,” she smiled.

  After clasping the anklet to her right ankle she twisted her around her foot so her black pump heel pointed at me like a gun.

  “What do you think?”

  “Honestly?”

  “Honestly.”

  “Honestly, I think it’s going to be a pain in the ass to take on and off. Wearing it as a bracelet would be easier.”

  “It’s staying on. I’m never going to remove this anklet. Ever.”

  She put her feet back down under the table and reached for my hand and kissed my big ugly knuckles.

  “Thank you. I know you would have told me already, and I don’t want to remind you of it, but… did you get the test results?”

  “Not yet.”

  “You’ll tell me when you get them.”

  I stood up, leaned over, and kissed her.

  It was easier than lying to her face.

  We left, and held hands like kids all the way to her place. Once at her apartment, we pursued more adult matters.

  It was more passionate than usual. For her, maybe because she had legitimate concerns that she was going to lose me. For me, because I knew I had to lose her.

  I held her for a while as she slept.

  For a last time, not too bad.

  I let myself get depressed for a little while, and took a few more codeine pills to kill some pain that wasn’t entirely Earl-related. Then I got out of bed, dressed, gave her cat, Groucho, a final pat on the head, and slunk out into the night.

  The air was cool, reminding the world that winter wasn’t too far gone. I felt my bare arms turn into goose flesh and ignored it. Crickets chirped at each other. The stars twinkled a million miles away. They would still be there when I was gone.

  The crickets probably would, too.

  I climbed into my Bronco and sat, without starting it.

  I would talk to Kenny. He could give me a different room, and if Pasha ever came looking for me, he could say that I moved.

  I’d call her tomorrow, tell her I didn’t want to see her anymore. It would be best that way, because I wasn’t sure I’d be able to say it in person.

  I knew that if I didn’t leave her now, I’d never be able to do it.

  I loved her too much.

  But I was done.

  I’d had enough. Enough chemo. Enough radiation. Enough false hope.

  Enough fighting.

  Earl won. And I didn’t want Pasha around to see him kill me.

  Now we’re talking. Me an you. Alone again. Until the very end.

  Dinner played through my mind, holding her hand, giving her the anklet. One of the few truly happy nights of my life.

  I’d play the memory again when I was almost gone.

  Soon.

  I knew it wasn’t raining in the Bronco, so the wet on my face was something else. I blinked and set my jaw to keep it from trembling.

  “Thank you,” I said to Pasha’s window.

  And then I started the truck and headed back to the Michigan Motel to see how much booze and codeine I could take before I passed out.

  JACK’S EPIGRAPH

  Dying Breath Cocktail

  ½ ounce Jack Daniel’s Whiskey

  ½ ounce Jägermeister Digestif

  ½ ounce Bacardi Black Rum

  ½ ounce Don Julio Reposado Tequila

  ½ ounce Cointreau Orange Spirit

  2 ounces orange flavor 5 Hour Energy Drink

  Shake all spirits with ice and pour into rocks glass. Top with energy drink. Garnish with cherry. Do not consume more than one in a five hour period.

  THE COP

  My name is Jack Daniels. I’m a Homicide Lieutenant in Chicago out of the 26th Precinct. Last year there were forty-three homicides in my jurisdiction. Twenty are still unsolved. If I had more manpower, more hours in the day, and psychic powers, maybe I could solve a few of those twenty.

  But there will always be cases where the perp is never caught...

  JACK

  I was reading a mystery novel, because I’d been on a book kick since blowing fifteen hundred dollars on clothes and shoes during a late night insomniac Home Shopping Network binge which had consumed my entire entertainment budget for Spring. So while I looked great wearing Donna Karan skirts and Sergio Rossi heels, my leisure time was now limited to the paperback swap at the public library.

  The mystery was an Ed McBain police procedural, and I was wondering why I didn’t have a beautiful, adoring, deaf-mute wife like Steve Carella did, when my office phone rang. I put the book down and picked the phone up. It was my partner, Detective First Class Herb Benedict.

  “Why don’t I have a beautiful, adoring, deaf-mute wife like Steve Carella?” I asked him.

  “Is he that one-legged bartender at the Friday’s on Wabash?”

  “That’s Jamal Hasnawi.”

  “Easy to confuse.”

  “It’s not even close.”

  “Who’s Steve Carella?”

  “A fictional cop in the 87th Precinct series.”

  “That’s why. He’s fiction. In real life, marriage is rough. You fight about money. Never have enough sex. Clean up each other’s puke when you have the flu. Then one gets to watch the other die.”

  “You’re a hopeless romantic at heart, Herb.”

  He paused, then said, “We found another body, Jack. Another girl.”

  I immediately knew what he was talking about. “Which motel?”

  “The Motorway, on Ogden.”

  “I’m halfway there.”

  I hung up. It was almost 8pm on a Thursday, and I’d already put in my hours, but I had no desire to go home, for various reasons. My 1983 Chevy Nova started on the third try, and as I left the District parkin
g lot and headed east, I considered the Motel Mauler case.

  Two months ago at the Sleep-Rite Motel on Ontario, a girl’s body was found. The manager had entered, disregarding the Do Not Disturb, after a maid noticed the smell while cleaning an adjacent room. Inside were the putrefying remains of an unidentified female between the ages of sixteen and twenty-three.

  She was bound and gagged with duct tape. Though in an advanced state of decay, an autopsy revealed she had been raped, sodomized, and tortured over a period of several days. The most disturbing thing about the case was the cause of death.

  Dehydration.

  She’d been left there to die.

  The case went nowhere fast. The room was rented out to a Doug Jackson. Paid for a week, in cash, including the deposit, and asked not to be disturbed. The address he provided didn’t exist, and his name was probably fake as well. Interrogations of seventeen Doug Jacksons in the Chicagoland area came up negative. Three Doug Jacksons with records were found, but two were guests of the state and had been for years, and one had died before the room was rented.

  The owner could remember nothing about Doug Jackson, and the lone, shitty, black and white and blurry surveillance camera recorded a nondescript guy in a baseball cap, brim turned down. You couldn’t tell the man’s race, age, or even his height from the bad video. I don’t know why they even bothered with security.

  The crime scene team found plenty of prints, but no one came up in the database. The duct tape was available everywhere and untraceable.

  Trace evidence on the girl was inconclusive. No semen. No skin under her fingernails. There were cigarettes found, many of which had been crushed out on her naked flesh. Two brands, Kools and Marlboros. Some saliva, but not enough to type it, let alone pull DNA.

  The girl was never identified. Chicago was part of a nationwide database that matched dental records on lost and runaway children, but that did us little good. Before being left there to die, her killer or killers had chipped out all of her teeth. The coroner theorized a chisel or heavy file was used.

  So, the investigation died, even though the media-dubbed Motel Mauler Murder took up three network news days and endless inches of newspaper speculation. Two months passed, Herb and I waiting for the next victim, because we knew there would be one.