Larry Boots, Exterminator

by John Inman

  Almost as if he was embarrassed to be doing it, he surreptitiously ran his fingertips over a high-tech contraption strapped to his wrist. After a moment, I realized it was a Dot Watch, designed for blind people to tell time using braille. I had heard of them but never actually seen one before.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I have to go.”

  “Oh!” I jumped. “I didn’t mean to keep you.”

  The laugh lines formed at his eyes again. This time both dimples popped into view. “You didn’t keep me. I’ve enjoyed our chat.”

  “Me too,” I said. And before I knew it was coming, I added, “Thank you.”

  He rose to his feet, lifted his book from the bench beside him, and tucked it in his backpack. He slipped his free hand through the strap on his white cane and faced me one last time. With the cane dangling from his wrist, he held his hand out once more. And once more, I took it in my own.

  “It was nice meeting you, Larry,” he said.

  “Same here, Ken.” Desperately, I stirred the thoughts around in my head, trying to figure out how to postpone our parting for another few moments. “Where do you live?” I jabbered. “I can give you a ride if you like. My car is just over—”

  His hand still gripped my own. “I live across the street, I’m afraid. In those apartments to your left.”

  “Then can I walk you home?” Once again I asked the question before I even knew it was coming. Blood rushed to my cheeks, and I found myself inordinately glad he was blind so he couldn’t see me blush.

  “Sure,” he said. “Come on.”

  Keeping his cane on the side farthest from me, he rested his other hand on my arm. We walked slowly over the sloping lawn toward the sidewalk lining the street where his apartment building stood.

  “It isn’t necessary that you walk me home, you know.”

  “I know,” I said. “But I wasn’t ready to say goodbye.”

  “Oh.”

  We walked quietly for a few steps before he said, “Actually, neither was I.”

  His apartment building was a sprawling two-story compound perched on the edge of a canyon. Nothing fancy, but well maintained. Across the street behind us, the blind center sat alongside the same canyon. Across Park Boulevard, less than a quarter mile away, lay the sprawling San Diego Zoo, as I mentioned before. With evening coming on, I could hear the monkeys hooting for their dinners.

  Obviously, Ken heard them too. “I love listening to the animals,” he remarked around a grin. “Makes me feel like I’m traveling in Africa.”

  “How long have you lived here? In this building?”

  “I’ve been here ever since….” He faltered and quickly regrouped. “I’ve been here four years. Four years next month, in fact.”

  He had been about to say he had been there since whatever event took place that robbed him of his sight. I was sure of it. But I didn’t want to pry. I merely nodded and said, “It’s a nice building.”

  He stopped at the outer gate leading into the compound and faced me. The red tip at the bottom of his white cane still rested against the edge of the gate, telling him exactly where it was.

  His teeth flashed one last time. “Thanks for walking me home, kind sir.”

  I tried to make light, but somehow I didn’t feel like joking. “It was really nice to meet you” was all I said.

  He did a little foot shuffling, like he was embarrassed; then he asked point-blank, “You know, you never did tell me why you came over to talk to me. You said you would, but you didn’t.”

  I hesitated. Then I decided to be honest. “You intrigued me. I thought my day would be much nicer if I spent a small part of it with you.”

  He licked his upper lip, like maybe it was a nervous habit of his. “Really?”

  “Really.”

  “Well, then, thank you,” he said. “Just so you know, you made my day nicer too.”

  It was my turn to shuffle my feet. “I’m glad,” I said, then bit down on my tongue before I started jabbering again and saying too much. God knows I have a tendency to do that.

  Ken nodded and dipped a hand in his pocket to pull out his keys.

  “Well, goodbye, then,” I said, taking an unsure step backward.

  “Goodbye,” he answered softly, his green eyes not quite aimed directly at my face, so I edged sideways a tad to put me in their line of sight, if there had been any sight in them.

  With my heart thudding forlornly—God, was I pathetic or what?—I began to walk away.

  “Hey!” he called, and happily I turned back.

  He stood with the gate propped open. Somehow in his blindness, he knew exactly where I stood. “I hope I’ll see you around,” he said with a self-deprecating smirk, making light of his own frailty.

  “Yes,” I answered back. “I hope I’ll see you around too.”

  Offering one last beautiful smile, he turned away and proceeded along the ivied walk. The gate slowly swung closed behind him, pulled shut on a spring under its own weight. By the time the latch had clicked into place, locking me out, Ken had rounded a bend in the path and disappeared from view.

  I returned to the gate. Trying not to appear to be actually moping, in case anyone normal should stroll by, I stood there with my chin on the gate, peering in, hoping Ken would reappear. When he didn’t, I finally walked away, feeling more like a lonely putz than I had felt in a long, long time.

  Oddly, I was grinning too, and some gland or other was pumping massive amounts of happy juice through my system.

  “Ken,” I whispered under my breath. And still grinning, I headed for the car.

  Chapter Two

  “HE’S STILL at it, then. There’s no doubt about it?”

  “No doubt whatsoever,” I said. I pulled three snapshots from my shirt pocket and fanned them out on the kitchen table in front of the man. The photos showed a crappy Econoline van parked alongside three different grade schools, each on different days. The scraggly asshole sitting inside was the same in each picture—the cherubs on his forearm were clearly visible, as was his creepy face.

  The man studied the photos without touching them. It was almost as if he were loath to have them in his house.

  Not that it was really anything as simple as a house. In truth, it was more of a mansion. Situated on a stretch of coastline in La Jolla, where even the homeless wore Prada and the vendor hawking snacks from a pushcart down by the water charged ten bucks for a kraut dog—and then expected a tip. This man before me probably paid more in property taxes than most poor working Joes earned in a year.

  “It’s only a matter of time before he kills again,” he said. “You know that, don’t you? Tell me I’m not wrong.”

  “No,” I said. “You’re not wrong.”

  The man sighed. “I don’t suppose there’s any point in showing these new snapshots to the police. They didn’t seem too impressed by the last ones we sent them.”

  “No,” I agreed, “they didn’t. Without actual evidence, I don’t think they ever will be.”

  “No,” he said, swiping a trembling hand across his weary face. “Neither do I.”

  I checked my watch. “When will your guests arrive?”

  “In about an hour. It’s guys from work. I invited them over to play poker.”

  “Then no one can blame you for anything,” I said. “Just make sure you keep them here long enough to establish an alibi.”

  “I know. We’ve been over this a dozen times.”

  “And you have no second thoughts?” I prodded.

  The frown he aimed in my direction was perhaps the saddest I had ever seen. “Not even for a moment.”

  “Then this will be the last time we see each other,” I said.

  “Yes.”

  “Do you have it?” I asked.

  He nodded and pulled something from the seat of the kitchen chair beside him.

  The stack of cash was taped tight inside a Glad sandwich bag. He showed it to me, then placed the money inside a white paper bag that said CVS Ph
armacy on the outside. The paper bag was all wrinkled, like it had been reused a dozen times for different purposes. I suspected this would be its last trip out into the world, since I would destroy it as soon as I reached home. Or maybe even before.

  “Like I told you the first time we met,” I said. “I ordinarily ask for the money after the work is completed.”

  “I’d rather do it this way,” he said. “I have the money. I might as well pay now. It will protect you later in case the police are watching, in that you won’t have to return to collect. I’m thinking of you,” he said. “I want you to understand that. I appreciate what you’re doing, and I want you to be safe.”

  “I understand,” I said. “And I thank you.”

  “It’s all there,” the man said. “In used hundred dollar bills, just like you asked.”

  I nodded, not bothering to check. I merely tucked the paper bag in my jacket pocket and stood quietly, watching the man in front of me.

  His kitchen was dark. We were illuminated only by the stray beams of a security light at the corner of his backyard, seeping through the kitchen window. Periodically, I could see the man’s dog, a feisty little terrier, running around in circles out there on the lawn, chasing a cat who didn’t seem to mind the dog yipping and snapping at its ass one little bit. Soon the dog and the cat both crashed through a pet door at the back of the house, then tore through the kitchen at our feet before racing off into another room.

  “Energetic,” I said behind the ski mask I wore, and in the light of the security lamp, I saw the man nod.

  “They were my daughter’s pets,” he explained. None of the sadness left his eyes when he said it.

  Carefully, through the ski mask, I took a sip from my cup of coffee, which had finally cooled enough to drink. As always, I wore gloves to prevent leaving fingerprints. Another way for me to protect us both.

  He motioned to a chair for the third time. “Are you sure you won’t sit?”

  I shuffled my feet but ignored the question. “Are you positive you want to go through with this?” I asked. “It’s not too late to back out. I’ll return your money, and we’ll act like we’ve never met. I give everyone this option, you understand. It’s part of my usual routine.”

  He shook his head. “No. I can’t back out. I won’t back out. The courts had a chance to make things right, but they failed. They let him walk. After what he did, they let him walk. I won’t make the same mistake.”

  To my surprise, he reached out and took my gloved hand, but only for a moment. When he released it, he had left a sheen behind on the leather. His palms were sweaty. Considering what we were about to do, I wasn’t surprised in the least.

  “Did I ever tell you what she did on that last morning before she ran out the door on her way to school?”

  “No,” I lied with an inward sigh. “Tell me.” I formed a comforting smile to oil his mechanism of grief, to make it easier for him to say what he needed to say. Then I remembered my smile was hidden behind the ski mask so he couldn’t see it anyway.

  The clatter of claws and toenails on the marble floor heralded the return of his daughter’s pets. Panting happily, they came to rest in front of a pair of dishes. For a few seconds, the kitchen was filled with the sound of the terrier slurping at the bowl of water. Beside the dog, the cat did the same, only more quietly, with a little more finesse, as cats will.

  On the kitchen table between us stood a framed photograph of a small girl. She had long blonde hair gathered at the top of her head in a bright red scrunchie. After that, the hair cascaded down around her shoulders, framing a pretty face. The girl’s smile, clearly demanded on cue by the photographer, was a little self-conscious, but still she carried it off. For a third-grade school snapshot, it was pretty good. The guileless young eyes in the photo made my heart ache. The stricken eyes of the man staring at the photo in front of me made it ache all the more.

  The girl’s name, I knew, was Shelley Ann Ridgeway. The man sitting at the table was her father. The animals at our feet were her beloved Bruno and Spitsy.

  Mr. Ridgeway brushed his thumb over the picture glass, behind which his dead daughter’s photo was sealed for posterity. The man’s marriage, I knew, had not survived his daughter’s death. But since our initial meeting, when we began making plans, the dead girl’s father no longer mentioned the missing wife. At some point in the last few months, his grief had honed in solely on the child, and now it could not be budged by any other considerations but one.

  Revenge.

  He offered me another sad smile, as if he could see my own smile behind the mask and was returning it in kind. Or perhaps he saw the pity in my eyes.

  He stroked the photo yet again, leaving a smear of sweat on the glass. When he spoke, his voice was fragile, barely audible. “She raced over to me at my desk and draped her arms around my neck, pulling me close. She kissed my ear, whispered, ‘I love you, Daddy,’ then took off running for the school bus.”

  He tore his gaze from the picture and turned his attention back to me. Looking up, he stared at my face, or what little of my face he could see through the holes in the mask. On a tremor of breath, he let his final words slip through the darkness between us. Bonding us. Tying us together one last time before we went our separate ways. “We found out later she never reached the bus at all. It left the street corner without her. The man who took her had been waiting for her outside our front gate.” His gaze slid down to the photos of the van while his hands clenched in white-knuckled fists. “That man. He took her.”

  His eyes, misty now, narrowed in sudden fury, shimmering in the light slipping through the window. The dog was chasing the cat around the backyard again. It looked like they were having a hell of a good time. I hadn’t heard them when they banged their way through the pet door to get back outside.

  We had shared this conversation before, the man and I. He had told me time and again about the last time he saw his daughter alive. It was almost as if, as long as he could keep resurrecting that memory, she would never really be gone. But of course we both knew better.

  “I know he took your daughter, sir,” I quietly said. “But he won’t do it again. He will never hurt another child. I promise you.”

  At that moment, a tear swelled over his bottom lash, sparkled there for a moment, then skidded down his cheek. He reached out once again and tightened his hand around mine, then just as quickly released it.

  “No,” he said. “Thanks to you, he won’t.”

  “Thanks to us,” I corrected. “Thanks to us.”

  I took a step backward from the table, the newly acquired weight of the bundle of cash dragging down my coat pocket. I felt no exhilaration about the thousands of dollars I carried. I harbored no sense of triumph at walking away with such a large chunk of the man’s cash. To be honest, I think I felt empty more than anything else. It was a feeling I always felt at this point in my business dealings. The passing of the loot from this client’s hand to mine was the catalyst that finally set events in motion. It was the point where I knew for the very first time that there would be no turning back. Not for either of us.

  The man remained sitting, watching me.

  “I hope you find happiness,” I muttered.

  “I’ll try,” he said. And a few seconds later, he asked, “Will he suffer?”

  I thought about that. “Maybe a little,” I said.

  Shelley Ann Ridgeway’s father replied with an empty smile. Nothing else.

  Twenty seconds later I was slipping through the darkened house toward the french doors I had entered an hour before. The doors led out onto a side porch and the pool. There was a tennis court farther in the back. I had seen it on my earlier visit. I sensed the man standing in the doorway, watching me as I skirted the pool and disappeared through the trees that bordered his property. My car was parked there, a few houses up the street.

  Only then did my pulse actually quicken. It was now, at this moment in the game, when my work became tricky. It was now tha
t I truly began to risk everything. But I was used to that. And it made it easier knowing that what I was about to do was necessary. No one else would do it, so it had to be me. And I didn’t really mind. That was the best part. I didn’t really mind.

  Because in truth, you see, I was actually very good at what I did.

  After a quick ten minutes on a fairly secluded freeway, I turned onto Pacific Coast Highway, where I found even less scattered traffic. The hour was late. From my right, I could smell the bay, the reek of brine and dead fish and the promise of adventure that always seemed to billow up from the water at the places where the ocean touched the shore. The airport on the skirts of the city looked deserted, half-asleep, dozing under the streetlights, its parking lots bare, the terminal dark, waiting for the rush of travelers that would arrive like a flood with the rising sun.

  I clicked my blinker and veered left, steering away from the water. Climbing a long hill that lifted me high above the bay at my back, I entered a residential area of expensive hillside homes, each and every one with a million-dollar view of the city skyline, the sprawling bay, and the grand Pacific Ocean stretching out to the horizon, ending, even on the brightest days, in the hazy mist of distance.

  Past cross street after cross street, I wound my way through the city. Eventually I left the expensive real estate behind and entered a part of San Diego that gentrification had yet to reach. The houses were squalid, every window and door barred with metal. It was after two in the morning so even the liquor stores were closed. The only business lights I saw announced fast-food joints. McDonald’s. Jack in the Box. Popeye’s Chicken.

  I made a left on Turner and drove slowly, sort of ambling along. A huge dog that looked like a stunt double for the rabid Cujo loped across the street in front of me, and I had to tap the brake to miss it. With a furtive backward glance, the dog disappeared into the shadows to my right.