21 Tales

by Dave Zeltserman

  The white-hot rage that had been driving me was gone and replaced by something very cold. It was like ice cubes being pushed into my eye sockets and hard into the back of my skull. Like I had the mother of all ice cream headaches. With a clarity of thought I turned to the woman in Phil Leotardo’s car. She hadn’t quite connected yet what had happened, but she knew something was seriously wrong. Her mouth had formed a small ‘o’, like she wanted to scream but couldn’t quite remember how. I didn’t give her a chance. I moved quickly to Leotardo’s Jeep, broke the passenger window with my elbow and grabbed her by her hair and pulled her head out the broken window. In the brief instance where the street light caught her face like that, I knew she had been Leotardo’s date—there was no physical resemblance. Just lousy luck on her part and all because of a stupid fender bender. But what the fuck else was I going to do? I don’t have to go into the gory details, but she was dead pretty quickly.

  I took a couple of steps away from the car and looked around. It was dusk out. The whole incident took maybe a minute, no more than that. Miraculously no one drove by, and no one left the bar we were out in front of. It was possible no one saw what happened. I scanned the surrounding buildings and didn’t see anyone, didn’t see any security cameras either. I started towards my car and that’s when I noticed the police cruiser parked two cars up. As if on cue, the cop left the bar at that moment with a takeout coffee in hand. He gave me an odd, almost embarrassed kind of smile, then noticed my car and the jeep, saw that there had been an accident, and his smile faded as he realized he was going to get stuck doing paperwork. Then he saw Leotardo’s dead body. He was a little slow on the uptake, and to be fair to him this was a quiet white bread suburb fifteen miles from Boston, the type of place where a double-murder like this never happens, and he probably never dreamed of dealing with something like this. Still, he should’ve moved faster. By the time he had dropped his coffee and was fumbling with his service revolver I had swept his feet out from under him. He didn’t have a chance to put up much more of a fight than Leotardo or his date. As quickly as with those other two, he was dead and I was driving as fast as I could away from there.

  At first my mind was buzzing, wondering if anyone saw me and if I was going to come home later and find cops waiting for me, or worse, have police sketches of me plastered all over the news, and how Carol would react to that. I wasn’t quite panicking, but I was close to it. Then I thought of my car. The broken molding, the dented bumper, Leotardo’s red paint on my car. If no one saw me then that was going to be how they caught me. Garages would be on the lookout for that type of damage, and the police would be called as soon as they saw a car like that. I turned around, took some back roads so I wouldn’t have to drive by the murder site, then headed back to Boston.

  It hadn’t fully hit me yet that I had murdered three people until I started driving back towards my office. Maybe I could say Leotardo was an accident, that I was too caught up in my rage, but as hard as I hit him I was minimally going to be putting him in the hospital. No, he was no accident, not if I was honest with myself. The other two, they were cold-blooded murders. I was in full control and clear-headed when I killed Leotardo’s date and then that cop. Whispering in the back of my mind was the last thing Leotardo’s date said to me before I struck the fatal blow which nearly decapitated her. Please Mister. Jesus, what a sad final two words. Thinking about it made me feel funny inside, but I forced myself to put it out of my mind. I had other things to worry about.

  Once I got back to my office, I started driving the back streets of Boston looking for a red Jeep in traffic. When I found one, I got behind it, then angled my car towards the left as if I were trying to pass it, and clipped his rear bumper, making sure the damage to my car was in the same place where Leotardo had hit me earlier. Both of us pulled over. The driver of the jeep was a big guy and he was livid.

  “What the fuck…” he started.

  “All my fault,” I cut in, smiling, pleading in a way, because I couldn’t afford to let my rage loose again, not after what had already happened.

  He stood staring hard at me, but his moment of fury had passed. His eyes glazed over, showing his disgust, which was okay, I could deal with that.

  “Let’s just exchange papers,” I said. “I’ll even buy you a beer if you want.”

  “Why don’t we just exchange papers,” he said stiffly.

  We did that. After he left I called Carol on my cell and told her I had an accident, but that no one was hurt, just some dented fenders.

  “Where are you?”

  “Still in Boston.”

  “I thought you left work two hours ago?”

  “Something came up.”

  There was a pause on her part. I could picture her brow furrowed in confusion. “But you told me two hours ago that you were leaving work?”

  I took a deep breath. I was starting to feel a little hot under the collar, a little of my rage resurfacing. Not that I thought Carol was calling me a liar, but that’s the thing with rage, once you let it out it’s hard to keep contained.

  “Yeah, I was leaving the office, but an idea popped into my head, and I had to work on it, you know, see it through,” I explained as patiently as I could.

  “Oh. Okay,” then her voice taking on a tinge of excitement, maybe some fear, “Have you been listening to the news?”

  “No.”

  “Dave, three people were killed right in front of Maguire’s.”

  “Really?” I felt a sickness in my gut. “What happened? Some sort of shooting?”

  “No. They were beaten to death. Right in front of Maguire’s! That’s only three miles from our house. Can you believe that?”

  “Wow.”

  “I know.”

  “Well, I’ll see you soon.”

  I cut off the call. I had to.

  That night I was distracted. My thoughts kept drifting on me. Carol thought it was because I was worried about the accident, and she kept trying to console me, telling me that accidents happen, that I’ll get the car fixed, and yeah, my insurance rates would probably go up, but we’d be able to deal with it. She was good about it. Coming over to me rubbing my neck and shoulder, trying to ease my worrying. I’d smile up at her, but then just as quickly lose my train of thought again.

  The three murders were the lead story on the eleven o’clock news. It turned out Phil Leotardo’s real name was George Conly, and the woman with him was Elaine Halprin, and described as a female companion. The cop was Joe Sullivan, a six year veteran on the force and was leaving behind a wife and three kids. I felt bad about that. Carol noticed the way I reacted to that part of the story and rubbed my back and gave me an understanding smile. Kind of like: isn’t that sweet that you feel so much for other people. I didn’t bother correcting her.

  It didn’t sound like the police had anything, but that didn’t really help me much. Maybe they were holding back information. Maybe any minute now cops were going to be breaking down my front door. That was what I kept thinking. But at least they didn’t plaster any police sketches of me over the airways.

  That was a hard night. I didn’t sleep for a second, just kept tossing and turning while I waited for the cops to show up. Again, Carol thought it was because of my worrying about my fender bender. She knew I hated car accidents. The next morning the newspapers had more about the killings—at least about the victims. It turned out George Conly had mob ties, and the police suspected that that might have had something do with the killings. In any case, no sketches of suspects showed up and nothing about any witnesses.

  It was a hard day at work also the way everyone gossiped about the murders, and it made me feel like crap hearing all of it. I survived the day, though, and over the next week things got better.

  It was a week after the incident that I took my car to a body shop to get the bumper fixed. The town cops where the murder happened called me at work to ask if I could come down to the station to answer some questions. I was prepared for it so i
t didn’t phase me. I brought my insurance paperwork with me, and after they spoke with the guy in Boston who I hit, and probably also had someone check his car, they were satisfied. The lead detective apologized for any inconvenience they caused me, and I told him I understood given the circumstances. I was just glad they didn’t call me at home. I couldn’t help feeling that Carol would’ve suspected something, maybe even guessed that I purposely got into the second accident to cover the first one.

  It was over three weeks after the murders when I had my big scare. Saturday morning the doorbell rang and two cops were standing on my doorstep, both looking like they could spit nails. One was a square-looking guy with a big bushy mustache that hid his upper lip, the other was a young guy, his face pinched and angry. I was sure they were there to arrest me, and was silently sizing them up and trying to figure out if I could take them if I had to. It turned out they were there to collect money for a fund set up for Joe Sullivan’s family. I dug deeply, not too deeply so they’d suspect anything, but deep enough to make a difference. The cop with the bushy mustache thanked me.

  “It’s hard having to do this,” he told me. “Joe was a good kid. Jesus, what a world we live in.”

  I nodded and watched them leave.

  Over the next six months things started to get back to normal. I’d still find myself jolted awake at times, thinking the cops were on to me, but for the most part I was able to put those murders behind. I also knew I had to do something about my rage. I thought about seeing a therapist, but the problem was I was afraid I might let something slip—and not just about these last murders, but about some of the others that had happened over the years. Yeah, these weren’t the first. You see, I just have this rage issue. It was still hard to believe I had gotten away with as many as I have, but somehow there were never any witnesses, at least none that ever slipped past me. I don’t think about them much; just sometimes late at night, and that would usually be nothing more than a flash of worry that somehow the cops were going to discover me. Anyway, I had all that buzzing through my mind and was trying to figure out how safe it would be to see a therapist, and I just wasn’t paying enough attention to the road and ended up hitting a BMW as it was backing out of a parking space. Maybe it was my fault, maybe it was the other driver’s, I wasn’t sure. The other driver was a woman, in her seventies, shit, old enough to be my mother. I didn’t say a word to her, but maybe I had an angry look on my face. I don’t know. Whatever, something set her off and her little prune face became rigid with anger.

  “Didn’t you see me backing up?” she complained, her voice sour, her body seeming to bristle. “What is wrong with you? Well? Well?”

  Whoa…

  Adrenaline

  A man is tied up with razor wire and is tortured by four desperate criminals. Either he’s getting out alive, or those four criminals are, and its even money which one it is.

  The elderly couple who owned the house lay dead upstairs in their bedroom. At least I was assuming they were dead. I heard them crying out earlier, then silence. Victor made an offhand comment to Al about how he held them down while Benny cut their throats. Maybe he was lying. Maybe Benny screwed up and they were still alive, but if they were they weren’t making any noise.

  We were all now in the basement. The whole gang. Me, Benny, Victor, Tony and Al. They had me tied to a wooden chair, my ankles secured tightly with razor wire to the chair legs, my wrists tied with rope to the chair arms. Benny had already used pliers to pull off three of my fingernails. He’d spent the last two hours sticking pins into the exposed flesh, now he was lighting matches and burning the tips of my fingers. He was trying to make me tell them where I had hidden the eight hundred grand—I guess he was doing what he thought he had to, but it looked to me like he was enjoying it too much. The last time I passed out I caught glimpses of the rest of them when I came to. Victor’s face a blank slate—he couldn’t care less what was happening to me, just like he didn’t give a shit what happened to the old folks upstairs; Tony smirking, maybe looking a little queasy, and Al staring at me with big soulful eyes as if what was happening to me pained him greatly. As far as I was concerned, not a peep. Let them do whatever the fuck they wanted, they weren’t going to get word one out of me. Fifteen years ago when I was a member of the US Army’s special forces, I spent a year and a half in Iraq and I’d find myself wondering then if I’d be able to stand up to torture if I was caught. Now I knew. They could’ve done anything to me and they wouldn’t have cracked me. The pain might’ve brought tears to my eyes, and at times made me pass out, but I wasn’t talking.

  After I left the army I bounced around a lot and worked everything from construction to private security to fisherman. It was hard staying in one job for too long. I had done too much killing and too many missions, and missed the adrenaline rushes from my time in special forces. It got to the point where I was antsy all the time. I couldn’t sleep or do much of anything. Five years ago I started putting my training to use, doing a string of bank jobs up and down the East Coast. I didn’t kill anyone; I don’t think I even hurt anyone badly—I also didn’t make nearly as much money as I’d expected, but it gave me what I needed, especially the rush. At least then I started sleeping better.

  Sixteen months ago I met up with Al. He was putting together a gang to knock over high-stake poker games and they needed someone like me—someone who could plan out the operations and was as fearless as the rest of them, maybe even more so. They had enough muscle already with Victor and Tony, and plenty of psycho with Benny, but while Al was a smart guy, he didn’t have the operational skills that I had. Without someone like me, every job would end up a massacre.

  We pulled five jobs without incident, at least nothing more serious than Benny slashing people’s faces with the barrel of his 9 mm. The sixth job all hell broke loose. It was bad news from the start. First Al’s info was all wrong—instead of it being a group of medical professionals, it was mafia—high end guys, big shots. Then Victor wasn’t watching carefully enough and let one of them pull out a gun, and before you knew it bullets were flying everywhere. While everyone was being shot up, I grabbed the money and ran. It was a lot more money than we were expecting—at least ten times as much. Maybe Al didn’t screw up with his info, maybe he just didn’t want to tell us who we were really hitting. Either way, it didn’t matter to me. I kept running all the way to Los Angeles.

  Earlier today a car pulled up to me on the street for directions. The window rolled down, and when I leaned over to help there was Benny in the driver’s seat leering at me. Before I could react I was jolted from behind with a stun gun. Christ, I’d thought they were all dead, but it was still damn careless of me. Right before I dropped to the pavement in convulsions I couldn’t help wondering how many of them had survived. It turned out they all did. They might each have taken some bullets, but they were all still living and breathing. I didn’t bother wondering about how they’d found me. It wasn’t as if I was being all that careful the last four months. It made me think that maybe there was a reason for that. That maybe I had gotten bored and was looking for a big-time adrenaline rush. That I was hoping one or more of them had survived and would find me and put me in this situation…

  Or maybe I was just overanalyzing the situation, trying to do anything to keep my mind off what was happening to me.

  Fuck if I knew.

  Except… I had to keep my mind spinning on other thoughts than what was being done to my fingers.

  How long ago did they snatch me? Ten hours ago? More? Less? I don’t know. I was losing track of time.

  More matches were lit. Benny showed a hard grin as he pressed the burnt ends against the exposed flesh where my fingernails had been, his expression turning somewhat demented—partly from the way his face had caved in when one of the Mafioso’s bullets took out a chunk of his cheekbone, and partly from how bright his eyes had become. Yeah, he was enjoying this way too much. I decided then I was going to see him dead. No matter what was in st
ore for me, he was going to die first.

  Spiteful sonofabitch, ain’t I?

  At least it gave me something to focus my mind on.

  Benny tried to give me a sympathetic smile, but the craziness shining in his eyes made it a joke.

  “Joe, why the fuck don’t you just talk?” he said.

  “I think it’s ’cause he’s enjoying it,” Victor offered from somewhere behind him.

  Benny took hold of my jaw, his fingers digging hard into the bone. He forced my head upwards so our eyes would meet, but I kept my focus somewhere around the middle of his skull as if I were staring straight into his brain.

  “Is that it?” Benny asked. “You one of them sick masochistic fucks who gets off on what I’m doing to you?” He increased the pressure with his fingers, squeezing harder into my jawbone. He studied me like that for a good thirty seconds, then to Victor, “I don’t think that’s it. I think he’s just a stubborn fuck.”

  “You ask me he’s getting off on it,” Victor said, half-teasing.

  “Nah, I don’t think so. He’s just too fucking stubborn for his own good.” Benny shook his head sadly. Then he turned sideways and asked, “What do you think, big guy?”

  Al, disgusted, said, “Just get on with it, okay?”

  Benny focused his attention back to me.

  “You going to make me hurt you real bad first, is that it?”

  I kept staring through him, refusing to say a word.

  He made a tsk-tsk noise.

  “Joe, so far I’ve just been fooling around. You really going to make me get serious? Shit, I hate having to do this to you. Before you fucked us on that last job, I liked you, thought you were a good guy.”