The Last Whisper in the Dark: A Novel

by Piccirilli, Tom

  I muttered, “Fuck.”

  I managed to tuck the two small paper bags of meds into my pocket">“No,” I saidplas. It felt very important not to drop the prescriptions even if I wound up with two from a .32 in my temple. I placed the bag of Dale’s things gently on the walkway beside me just as the driver reached to get a grip on my arm. I’d made a big deal out of my mother reading off the entire list and I wanted to prove that I had managed to find the four items. I had confirmed my usefulness, resilience, and self-worth. You think weird shit when a slick four-man crew with guns gets the drop on you.

  “Hey, gents,” I said.

  I snapped my arm back, spun left, and drove my elbow hard into the driver’s collarbone. The move knocked his little hat off. He had short blond hair with a deep scar crease over his ear from an old bullet wound. Someone someplace would recognize him from that. He groaned heavily, took a step back, and reacted the way I thought he would.

  He jumped me. It was enough to throw the others off. The driver threw a wild swing. A surge of satisfaction filled me. That excessively calm pro exterior was pretty infuriating. I was glad I could get beneath it. Whatever happened now we’d all be nice and clear on the parking lot cameras.

  Two of them grabbed me by the upper arms while a third frisked me quickly and carefully. Number three said, “That wasn’t smart.”

  “Only play for me to make.”

  The driver put his wool cap back on. The guy who’d wandered around Chub’s parking lot looking for trouble walked along behind us and kept a lookout. Then number three put a hand between my shoulder blades and shoved. I resisted out of pure mulishness. This might be my last stand.

  A few people stepped in and out of the store. A rushed lady dragged a small boy along so quickly his feet hardly touched the ground. The kid went “Ahh,” every time he made contact with concrete. Nobody noticed us much.

  I’d never shaken them at all. They’d been on me since I’d trailed them from the garage out to Wantagh Parkway where they’d lost me with ease. Despite my efforts to shake a tail they’d followed me to the Elbow Room and kept watch while I sat around drinking with Darla. They’d been right there on top of me ever since.

  The crew got more insistent, dragging and pressing me along. I thought they might try to yank me into the Malibu, but instead they led me around the blind side of Schlagel’s to the back alley.

  My uncle Mal always said if you couldn’t win a fight you might as well get the first lick in. They shoved me into the alley and I took two quick steps like I might be trying to sprint away, then turned and fought dirty as hell. I kicked, bit, and scratched, threw tight hooks at their chins and cruel body shots. I did pretty well for about twenty seconds. Then they just crowded me and I was all done.

  In silence they worked me over for a while. They were pros at that as well. Nobody got too vicious and nobody tried hard to break anything on me, except the driver, who was still miffed about the cheap shot.

  I pulled my chin in, tightened my arms across my chest, and tried to stay on my feet. I managed it well enough until someone got a lucky punch to my kidneys.

  I fell down, curled up, rode it out, kicked and lashed out some, and then it was over. They let me catch my breath for a couple minutes. I’d done some damage their way too. Good. You never want to be the only guy hurt in a fight.

  The bright red at the edges of my vision began to fade. Two this many times before to be Q of them grabbed me by the arms and got me up again and number three, who seemed to be running the crew, said, “Considering you’re in our line of work, you should know better than to get so close.”

  I spit blood. “You’re right.”

  “So, you planning to deal yourself in?”

  “No.”

  “You followed us the other night. You weren’t cutting in? You didn’t try to tag us?”

  “Not really.”

  He didn’t like the answer. I didn’t blame him. He let loose with a flurry of rapid-fire hooks to my belly that went on for maybe ten seconds and felt like forty days in the desert. I fell down again and then they picked me up again and he asked me the question once more. “You weren’t cutting yourself in?”

  “No,” I said.

  I didn’t understand why they were bothering with this. When you’re a thief you expect other thieves to steal from you. There’s not much point in asking them why. You already know why because you’re a thief too.

  “So why were you chasing us?” the driver asked.

  “It wasn’t exactly a chase.”

  “No, it wasn’t. You’re not a very competent tail.”

  I wiped my mouth and said, “My first time.”

  “Could be your last too, little doggy.”

  I let that slide. I didn’t have much choice but to let it slide. “I’m not here to juke your play.”

  “Juke our play?” He frowned and slid his hat a little farther back on his head. A few blond hairs of a widow’s peak appeared. “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “Ruin your score.”

  He lit a cigarette and sucked on it slowly, studying me. He was thinking about kicking the shit out of me again but decided it wouldn’t work any better than before. The next step was to blow out one of my knees. He leaned back against the brick building, finished his cigarette, and flicked the dying butt over my head.

  “Your face is known,” he said. “You’ve been on television. You look just like your brother.”

  It pissed me off, hearing that. “Not so much.”

  “You a maniac like him?”

  “Not quite.”

  “So what’s it all about?”

  A twinge of pain went through me and I almost dropped. I groaned and caught myself in time. “If you know who I am then you know Chub and I used to be friends.”

  “I hear that was a long time ago.”

  “It was.”

  “So then what?”

  “So I want Chub out of the life. I don’t care about your heist. Or who you are or what you do. I care about Chub. He’s got a wife and daughter and if he keeps playing around with strings like you he’s going to get sent up. I can’t allow that.”

  Now the driver laughed. It was a brisk short chuckle without any humor to it at all. “You want">“Is it?”tp. You care. You can’t allow. Take it up with him. Stay away from us. There’s no cool way to say this, but we know where you live. We watched the house. We know everything about your mother, father, sister, your dog, your granddad, everybody. Back off.”

  “Why the firepower?” I asked. “You’re a wheelman. Drivers don’t carry. You sit at the curb and wait for the others, and then you get everyone the hell out. Drivers put two hands on the wheel. They don’t carry. So why the hardware?”

  I saw his teeth this time, but he wasn’t smiling. “You might not be a maniac but you are a moron. I’m trying to give some professional courtesy here and you’re spoiling it. Are you a suicide case? Do you want us to ace you?”

  I felt the barrel of a gun against the back of my head. I didn’t know much about guns, but it was big and ice-cold and I had no doubt that the bullet would turn everything above my neck into custard. I thought about my mother standing at my closed casket.

  “No,” I said.

  “You caused us a setback. We can’t trust our escape route anymore. Maybe we can’t trust your friend Chub anymore either. That might not be so good for him. I ought to kill you for the trouble.”

  “He doesn’t know anything about this.”

  “It doesn’t matter. Don’t bother us again.”

  The barrel of the gun withdrew. I expected at least a chop behind the ear, but it didn’t happen. They walked down the alley single file. I stood there wavering and watching them ease away. They moved in perfect sync. They turned the corner and were gone.

  I took a step and fell over. I crawled back to my feet. At least one rib had been cracked. A couple of teeth were loose. The blood ran down the back of my throat and made my belly tumble. I went in
to a long coughing fit that shook everything that hurt.

  It took ten minutes to make it to the mouth of the alley. I walked back to where I’d dropped the bag full of my sister’s stuff and was surprised to see it was still there. I bent over to pick it up and vomited. I almost tipped over again. I managed to grab the bag and make it back to my car. By the time I got behind the wheel I was seeing double. I wasn’t going to be able to make it home.

  I drew my wallet, found the card, and pulled out my phone. I misdialed twice. I wiped sweat from my eyes.

  A lovely voice answered. I tried to respond but the blood kept running and filled my mouth. I rolled down the window and spit streams onto the asphalt.

  “Hello?” she said. “Hello?”

  “This is Terrier,” I said. “The guy who’s not like the rest. That’s true, you know. I’m worse. I’m much worse. But I really need your help.”

  “Where are you?” shC;You know I d

  She helped me out of my car and into hers, straining under my weight while my blood smeared her hands. She laid me in the backseat and put a folded sweater under my head. I stretched out gagging in pain, holding the plastic Schlagel’s bag full of beauty products tight to my belly. I wondered where the baby seat was.

  I passed out and came to on my feet, taking stairs slowly. She had an arm around me, tight on the broken rib. I went, “Nghh.” She let me go and I clung to a freshly stained handrail.

  She said, “Are you okay to keep going?”

  I said, “Nghh.” I might have been trying to say I love you. I might have been trying to say I hate you. I might have been trying to say I give up on you. I want to give up on you, but I can’t. Call that what you like. Call me what you like.

  Her fingers grazed the side of my face. We stumbled up the cramped staircase to the second floor. She unlocked a door and shoved it open. The smell of moldy, acidifying paper sneaked in under the stink of my own blood.

  “Here, take these. Drink this.”

  She stuck a couple pills on my tongue and pressed a tall glass of water against my teeth. The pain flared again and I sputtered and gagged. I heard both pills go bouncing over the tile across the room. She placed two more in my mouth.

  “Try again.”

  I managed to get some water down this time. I knew the Donepezil wouldn’t save me or my old man. Nothing had helped Gramp retain his personality, nothing had kept Grey from going crazy. No sane thought had entered my brother’s head to stay his hand from killing old ladies and children during his spree. Meds, what the hell was the point. They wouldn’t help you hold on to your memories. You had to run them over in your head again and again, dig them in deep, hide them in the layers and folds of every aspect of your life. I had to live in the moment and live in the past.

  I had to remember.

  I couldn’t allow myself to ever forget.

  I thought, Intimate Clinical Strength Antiperspirant and Deodorant Advanced Lady Solid Speed Stick, Light and Fresh pH-Balanced.

  I turned and hip-checked a three-foot tower of poorly stacked hardbacks. I muttered “Sorry,” and stooped to pick everything up. My skull rang four times like some bastard leaning on a doorbell, and then a spray of colors leaped across my eyes.

  It wasn’t until she had me in the shower lathered up that I realized it wasn’t in a bikini and high heels. at the Q Kimmy at all. Darla was under the nozzle, kissing me softly, saying my name, and I was saying Kimmy’s.

  Between my feet heavily pink water circled the drain. I wasn’t sure if I was awake or even alive anymore. Most of the pain was gone and I was high on something. Felt like Percocet. That’s what she’d fed me.

  On the rim of the bathtub was the open bottle of my sister’s Cool Sea Breeze. Darla pushed forward and pressed me against the shower wall. She said, “You’re back, aren’t you?”

  “I think so. Mostly.”

  I stared at her gorgeous body and became aroused. She let out a throaty giggle and used her hands on me. I felt an intense shame for some reason I couldn’t explain and looked away.

  “It’s all right,” she said, nuzzling me. “It’s okay.” She pecked at my bottom lip. With her makeup washed away she looked much younger than before, innocent, even chaste.

  “What happened?” I asked. “What have I been doing? What have I been saying?”

  “You called me, remember?”

  I shook my head and it hurt like hell.

  “You got beaten up pretty bad. You passed out in your car. You’ve got a couple of bruised ribs, I think. They might be fractured but you said no hospital. You were in agony and starting to go out of your head so I gave you a couple of Percocet for the pain.”

  “Why’d you use that shampoo?”

  The question made her tilt her chin. The dripping shag fell across her face in a way that made me want her more and also made me want to run. “You seemed obsessed with it. You were holding on to that bag with a death grip. I thought it might relax you.”

  She angled the shower head and rinsed us off. I said, “You might want to get out. I need it cold. If my eyes close up I’ll be useless.”

  “It’s okay, I won’t throw myself at you again. If you don’t want it, that’s fine, just say so.”

  She stepped out and I shut off the hot water, then stood there beneath the freezing needles trying to center myself again.

  Number five. The expression on the face of the beautiful lady who saved you as you spurned her adoring advances.

  I climbed out. She was still drying off. She held the towel open for me the way a mother waits to dry her kid off at the beach. She patted me down carefully, avoiding the worst bruises. She opened the medicine cabinet and got out a roll of tape. The pain meds kept me from bellowing while she tightly bound the ribs on the right side.

  I checked the damage in the mirror. “Holy Christ.”

  “It’s not that bad. Here.” She taped up my nose, my ear, and my right eyebrow. My eyes were already going black. The cold water had helped a little but not enough. I looked monstrous and couldn’t believe she’d touched me in any kind of an erotic manner. She appraised her work. “I don’t think you need stitches but you should keep the tape on for a couple of days at least.”

  “You’ve been to nursing school too?”

  “Close enough. The husband I told you about, who liked to drink? He had small, fast hands.”

  Perhaps as much as a quarter millionre couple of I knew I should apologize for calling her. I’d taken advantage of her. I’d possibly gotten her involved in some real trouble. The crew might still be on my ass and parked right outside. There was no point in checking, I still wouldn’t be able to spot them.

  I tied a towel around my waist. She wrapped one around her hair and slid into a robe. I tried to read her eyes but my vision was hazy from the beating and the pills made me loose without relaxing me.

  She led me to the bedroom, which was stacked with books in every free inch except where there were overstuffed bags and bins of yarn. My clothes were in a pile on the floor.

  “Which sells better?” I asked. “The yarn or the books?”

  She let out a short sigh that smelled faintly of mint. “Why are you asking me that question now?”

  “I have no idea.”

  “You’re stoned on the Percs, aren’t you.”

  “I think I’m a little stoned on the Percs, yes.”

  Getting stoned only seemed to drive up my curiosity. I still didn’t understand the store, or why she was interested in playing the role of a semiprostitute, and whether she was looking to become a real working girl or if it was all a sex game, and whether I was going to have to pay before the day was out or not. I stared at her and her beauty worked its magic on me, and I was full of need and want again, and the loneliness burned through me like diesel. I had a head full of bad wiring. She sat on the bed and looked up at me expectantly. I had sixty bucks in my wallet. The crew hadn’t mugged me. I hoped she wouldn’t cost more than that, but then again, if I was going to spe
nd time with a call girl, I’d want her to be a high-priced call girl. It was only reasonable. You had to have standards. I could always rob her next-door neighbors. The Percs and the pain were making me goofy.

  She said, “Are you sure you didn’t mean to ask if I wanted to go to bed with you?”

  “Maybe that was it. I think that was it, Darla.”

  She stretched out across the mattress and her robe slid open at the knee exposing her leg and thigh. I’d just been in the shower with her naked but somehow the curve of her knee did something to me now and my pulse started going haywire. My side throbbed like hell but only distantly, like a drum beating on some faraway ridge.

  With one quick motion she drew the towel off her head and tossed it away. She shook out her hair and stared provocatively at me through the disheveled clumps.

  It reminded me of that night at the Elbow Room. She sat there just out of arm’s reach, the same way as she had at the bar, drawing all attention. The smoky amused eyes were full of expectation. She’d saved me. I knew I’d have to pay her back. She wasn’t a woman who did things for free or for righteous reasons. She was as bad as me in her own way, and I wondered how much she was going to hurt me in the end.

  Darla held her hand out to me. I took it and she drew me forward. I dropped on the mattress beside her and caught a glimpse of the clock on the nightstand. It was noon. I was still very aware that Gramp needed his meds by dinnertime. My father too, probably. My heart sank thinking of my old man losing himself in our house, unable to remember my voice or my mother’s face. I imagined JFK lurching out from beneath the kitchen table, and my old man talking gibberish to him. Hi doggie.Perhaps as much as a quarter millionre couple of

  Darla said, “Stay with me. Concentrate.”

  “I’m trying.”

  “Try harder.”

  We kissed and my torn lips hurt but not much, and the kiss turned into something more, and she moaned beneath me. I nuzzled the area beneath her ear because it’s the spot that Kimmy liked me to nestle in. Darla shirked out of her robe and said, “Terrier.” Her heavy breasts swayed as she turned over, urging me, and I moved to her and Kimmy’s name was loud in my head, thinking of her.