by Billy Wells
Suddenly, Hilda felt a sharp pain in her left arm. It felt like someone had stabbed her with an ice pick just above the elbow. The intensity of the pressure was so strong she could hardly catch her breath. Was she having a heart attack? What a disastrous stroke of bad luck to have a heart attack on the very day she had planned to make history. She could see her name on the marquee of life with names like Dahmer, Manson, and Ted Bundy. Hell, Jack the Ripper only killed five women for sure, and probably no more than eleven at most.
“Oh, well,” she thought, “there would be other parties.” She rose from her chair and attempted to reach the phone in the kitchen, only a few feet away. She hoped she would still be able to function and not be totally debilitated if she was having a stroke.
As she reached for the wall to keep from falling, she thought about the bottle of aspirin in the kitchen cabinet above the phone. She would bite into a few pills after she called 9-1-1; sometimes, aspirin could prevent an oncoming heart attack.
Releasing her grip from the doorway to stretch for the phone, an even sharper pain in the center of her chest paralyzed her and sent her sprawling to the ceramic tile. Her head hit the front of the dishwasher on the way down. Her nose flattened with a thud on the floor, and one arm bent at an odd angle behind her back.
As she laid there, a catatonic lump, locked in one continuous excruciating pang of sheer agony, she could feel her mind shutting down. Tiny stars pulsated in the consuming blackness behind her eyes. “No!” she screamed silently inside herself, “don’t let me die like this! Please, God, cripple me, let me suffer in eternal damnation, but don’t let me die with the package on the dining room table.”
* * *
When Bradley saw several days of the Daily Chronicle in the driveway when he drove up to the house with his family on Wednesday, he feared the worst. His voice quaked with emotion as he opened the car door, “I’ve got a bad feeling something is wrong. You and Penny wait here while I take a look.”
Bradley went to the front door and rang the doorbell. There was no response. After getting the same message several times on the answering machine, he found the spare key under the flowerpot, unlocked the door, and went in.
Immediately, Bradley detected the sweet, overpowering stench of death in the closed space. Someone had once described the smell as rotten meat laced with cheap perfume. Only a few steps inside, he caught a glimpse of his mother on the kitchen floor. Her face had turned a purple color, and there was a small pool of dried blood circling her head. He surmised she had hit her head on the ceramic tile floor.
Madeline pushed open the front door called out, “Bradley, is she all right?”
“No, dear,” he said, starting to sob, “Mother has gone to heaven.”
* * *
Five days later, Bradley, Madeleine, and Penny returned to the house after the funeral and a small luncheon for the people who attended from the adult community in New Jersey. They planned to return to Paramus the next morning.
Bradley had contacted a realtor to sell his mother’s home as quickly as possible. They would return later to go through his mother’s personal items and decide what they wanted to keep. They would discard the rest or donate it to Goodwill. Madeline wanted a few pieces of the jewelry, and they had always adored the large picture hanging over the sofa in the living room.
Penny had loved the beautiful dolly and the pink dress they found in the shopping bag on the dining room table, but her parents had made her wait until now to open the wrapped package lying next to it. They thought it must be a very special gift since grandma had wrapped it so beautifully in pink and purple ribbons with a big red bow
Madeline hefted the present and shook it. “Gee, Bradley, what could this be? It’s so heavy for its size.”
“I'm clueless,” Bradley replied, “but whatever it is, I'm sure it will have a special meaning to Penny since it will be the last gift her grandma gave her.
Penny looked at her mother in frustration as Madeleine removed the red bow and cut the ribbons with a pair of scissors. “Mommy! Let me open it,” Penny whined, jumping up and down with anticipation.
THE ICE MAN
The telephone rang, and seeing it was Audrey from the bridge club on the caller ID, Emily answered with a cheerful hello.
“Emily, I hope it's not too late to call, but there’s something I think you should know.”
Audrey's voice trailed off, and Emily thought she might have lost the connection, “Audrey, are you still there?”
“Yes, I'm still here. I know it's hard to believe knowing me, but I'm at a loss for words. I think I jumped the gun when I called. I picked up the phone and punched in the number, and now I don't know how to put the words together I want to tell you.”
“Gee, Audrey, I've heard of calls like this, but never received one. This sounds like you know a secret I should know, but you can't tell me.”
“I suddenly realized that after playing cards with you for five years, I really don’t know very much about you other than the way you bid and the way you play your hand. Maybe you're the kind of person who wouldn't want to know what I was going to tell you.”
“Audrey, stop with this bullshit. Tell me why you called, or I'll come over to your house and ring the doorbell until I drive you insane. It sounds like this secret is heart attack serious. You’re scaring me. It can't be that bad, can it?”
The line was silent for an embarrassing period of time, and then a timid voice an octave higher than before said, “If I tell you, you've got to promise me you'll never tell anyone I told you.”
“Christ, Audrey. Cross my heart and hope to die with sugar on it. Dexter is coming on in two minutes, what is it?”
“Is Chuck there with you?”
“No, he's in Chicago for the week. I'm supposed to pick him up at the airport tomorrow night.”
“That's what I thought you said at bridge last night. Well, damn the torpedoes, here goes….“ After a beat, she muttered, “On second thought, I can’t tell you on the phone. Why don't you catch Dexter on demand and meet me at the American Grill. I think you're going to need a drink when you hear what I have to say.”
“You sure have raised the bar on my curiosity. Okay, I'll meet you there in twenty minutes, and you’d better not chicken out.”
When Emily entered the restaurant, she saw Audrey and Angelo, her boyfriend, in a booth at the rear of the restaurant and joined them. She took a seat across from Audrey and said, “I’m surprised to see you, Angelo. What are you doing here?”
“I think we should keep our voices low,” he whispered.
Emily looked around and found no one seated near them, and turning back to face them said, “The suspense is killing me.”
Audrey took Emily's hand, and with a concerned expression, she began, “Angelo went to a bachelor party last night at GoGo's Titty Bar in Livingston. He saw your husband there with a group of very tough men in black suits. He recognized one of them as a mafia hit man he went to high school with.”
Emily looked at her and smiled broadly, “You brought me down here for this? What’s the joke?“
Audrey didn’t reciprocate with a smile, but simply said, “I’m sorry, Emily, but I’ve never been more serious in my life.”
“This is crazy. I can’t believe you could really tell me this with a straight face. Like I said, Chuck is in Chicago at some business meeting.” Looking more intently at Angelo, Emily asked, “How do you know my husband anyway?”
“Remember the victory party we were both invited to after Obama won? We sat together, and I spoke with your husband, Chuck, for over an hour that night.”
The server came to the table and took their order for three gin martinis straight up with olives.
Angelo continued, “While we were talking, Chuck told me he worked for a company named Black World International. Since I never heard of them, I asked what they did. After he gave me the age-old line that if he told me what they did, he would have to kill me; he just said they wer
e a top-secret intelligence contractor, and he couldn’t say anymore than that. We laughed and had some more drinks. I couldn’t believe it when I saw him with Rubber Fingers Basilico last night.”
“Rubber Fingers?” Emily remarked.
“That's the nickname we gave him in elementary school. He's double-jointed and could bend his fingers backwards further than anyone in the school.”
“I know you have no reason to lie, so you must have my husband confused with someone else. Chuck and I have been married for almost twenty years. He's the kindest man I've ever known and such a good father. He never missed one soccer game or piano recital our daughter ever had. He goes to mass every Sunday when he’s in town; and as far as I know, he's never even had a parking ticket.”
“That's all fine and good,” Angelo said, sitting back in his chair as the server placed three biscuits and three martinis on the table and scurried off. “But what do you know about Black World International?”
“Chuck said everything he does involves national security, and a stipulation of his employment is never to disclose any confidential information to anyone. Even me. He told me that on the night he proposed, and he made me promise to never pry into his business affairs. He indicated there was an element of danger in his work, and it was critical that his family live their lives below the radar. I made that promise then, and I've never broken it.”
“Don’t you see, this fits right in with his secret life with the mob,” Angelo shot back. “Have you ever heard anyone call him the Iceman?”
“Oh that.” Emily replied, chewing on a fingernail. “A number of his friends from high school call him that. I asked him about it once, and he said he got the nickname from his special ability to hit a home run for the team when they needed it most. He wasn’t normally a great hitter, but he was like that Yankee player years ago they called Mr. October.”
“Reggie Jackson?” Angelo’s face lit up.
“Yes, that’s the guy. Like him, he had ice water running through his veins when the chips were down. He hit an inordinate amount of homers in the clutch during the post season.”
“I'm sorry Mrs.….”
“Call me Emily.”
“Emily, I suspect he made that up. The Iceman is the name the police gave the most heartless mafia hit man in history. The grapevine says what he did to his victims before he killed them defies the imagination in terms of brutality and sadism.”
Emily's eyes widened in bewilderment, trying to get her mind around what Angelo was telling her about her husband and the father of their precious daughter.
“My husband would never do anything like what you are describing. I don’t know who or what you saw or think you saw, but we should drop this. It’s getting us nowhere. I can still catch Dexter on the tube before I turn in.”
“I know what Angelo is telling you is unbelievable, and I must be insane to take a chance on coming here,” Audrey said nervously. “Angelo begged me not to get involved in your problems, but when I heard the prostitute your husband left with last night was found dead in an alley this morning, I couldn't hold my tongue any longer. I just couldn't bear to think my favorite bridge partner was living with a homicidal maniac whose trademark is snipping off his victims fingers and toes and eating them like buffalo wings dipped in A1 sauce.”
Emily’s hand shot to her mouth at the thought, and fumbling for her napkin, she knocked over her untouched martini.
Audrey withdrew a folded section of the morning paper from her coat pocket and opened it on the table. “The headline read “GO-GO DANCER FOUND DECAPITATED IN IRONBOUND SECTION OF NEWARK.”
Emily looked into Angelo's dark eyes and shaking her head in hopes he would change his story the second time around, she pleaded, “You’re sure you saw my husband leave with this woman last night? You weren’t drunk at the time, and there’s not a shred of doubt in your mind?”
“I'm sorry, Emily,” Angelo said apologetically, “there’s no mistake. I was no more than ten feet away. The girl was on something. She must have had way too much booze or drugs. She was so wasted, your husband and Rubber Fingers had to carry her out the front door.”
Emily sat with her mouth agape as she looked at the two of them in disbelief. “This nightmare couldn't be happening,” she thought. Chuck was the only man she’d ever loved, and the only man she’d ever had sex with. He’d been so kind and so considerate of her feelings all through the years. How could he be cheating on her with some hooker from Newark?”
Audrey pushed the news clipping across the table in front of Emily, “Didn’t you see this write-up about the headless go-go dancer someone found in the alley in Newark? You still read the paper every morning, don’t you…when you’re having your coffee?”
Emily focused on the headline and after skimming the fine print said, “Yes, I saw it, but I didn't read the details. It didn’t strike me as special that a prostitute had been found dead in Newark.”
“That was the girl your husband left the strip joint with. The newspaper article couldn’t go into the gory details but it says the M.O. of the brutal murder suggests it was the work of a sadistic killer the authorities have named the Ice Man.”
Emily's face turned ashen, and her hands started to shake, “I can't believe this. My husband is like a saint.”
Angelo took her hand and looked into her teary eyes, “I'm sorry, Emily, Chuck is definitely not a saint, far from it. Enter ‘Iceman’ in Google and you'll read about one of the most notorious killers in American history and the awful things he did to the people he murdered. He's a monster without a shred of feeling or remorse for his victims. That's how he got his nickname; it was nothing about baseball.”
“If my husband is such a monster, why are you risking your lives telling me about it?”
Audrey and Angelo looked at each other oddly, and Audrey replied, ”As I said before, Angelo begged me not to tell you, but I really care about you after all these years. I know your daughter and she’s adorable, and I know how kind and considerate you are. I'm really afraid for you. I agree, we took a chance coming here tonight, and based on who your husband is, our lives are in your hands. Maybe I’m crazy, but I think I know you well enough to believe you wouldn’t, pardon the expression ‘fuck us’ after we tried to help you.”
Emily took Audrey’s hand and said, “You’ve been a dear friend for sure, and I know you’re sincerely trying to help me, but at the same time, what your telling me is so beyond belief.”
“Look, Emily, what we’ve told you is between us. We’re not planning on telling anyone else. It’s up to you what you do with the information. All I can say is if you stay with him, I can't believe there will be a happy ending.”
“You’re not going to the police?” Emily asked, looking from Audrey to Angelo.
Audrey looked around at the empty tables in their section and said, “We’re not stupid enough to go to the police. We don't have any hard evidence. We might cause your husband a lot of trouble if we tell the cops he left with the murdered woman, but I don’t want to think about what he would do to us if he got off.”
“Everything you’ve told me seems to fit together, but I need to think this over before I do anything rash.”
“We understand. Who do you believe a bridge partner or your husband? Do you have any money you can get your hands on if you need to move out quickly?”
“I guess I could write a check for a few thousand from our checking account, but I've never done it before. As far as our stocks and bonds, I don't have a clue. Chuck takes care of all of that.”
“Well, Emily, go home and check it out. You have a lot of thinking to do. Don't blame Angelo; I'm the one who had to tell you. I'm sorry. I really am. I'll pick up the check; it's the least I can do after ruining your life.”
Emily smiled weakly and rose from the table. She hadn't had even a sip of her martini, but she seemed unsteady on her feet.
“Are you okay to drive?” Audrey asked, with a worried look. “Do you want me to
take you home? Angelo can drive your car.”
“No, I won't be all right, but I can drive. Thanks.”
Emily left the restaurant, leaving Audrey and Angelo at the table.
“Well, it worked like a charm. I think we're $25,000 richer,” Angelo beamed. “I can't believe you were able to take a few things you found out playing bridge and create a scenario that Chuck is a serial killer.”
“You know it was much easier than I thought. Chuck has that crazy Secret Service job, and he can't tell Emily anything about it. Therefore, he could work for the Mafia. His job puts him on the road often, allowing him to have a secret life. He is a model husband and father, which would dispel any idea he could be into something bad, so Emily has never had a reason to doubt him or ever check up on him. This was the perfect scenario.”
Angelo’s smile covered his whole face as Audrey continued reminiscing, “When I saw that the Ledger said the authorities thought the notorious Ice Man had murdered the prostitute in Newark, I remembered Chuck‘s nickname from baseball, and tied in the hit man angle. I knew Emily read the newspaper every morning before going to work, and I didn’t think she would miss such a horrific headline.”
“Unbelievable!” Angelo shouted with approval as dollars signs filled his mind’s eye.
“The last piece was connecting the prostitute to Chuck leaving the club. Saying Angelo recognized him at the Titty Bar made the whole story tie together with a neat bow.”
“Pure genius!” Angelo said, beaming with pride at Audrey’s uncanny ability to fabricate something plausible from a series of unrelated facts,
“I must say,” Audrey agreed, “there was one point the story seemed so real, I almost started to believe it myself.”
“It was pretty dark in here. I hope the cameras picked up everything,” Angelo said, removing the hidden microphone tucked inside his shirt.
