A Confidential Source (3 page)

On this night, he didn’t even see me wave to him. So I skirted around the people in line and headed across the store to the
farthermost aisle and the dairy case.

It was a good-size market, a deep rectangle with the register in front along the long wall, the deli in back, and six short
aisles that ran between them. The store had a nicely polished wood floor and well-tended philodendron plants hanging from
ceiling hooks in front of the wall-length plate-glass window that looked out on Angell Street. But all this tastefulness was
undercut by the political posters taped on the wall and the pornographic magazines on full display behind the register.

Two guys, their backs to me, were blocking the milk cooler. The shorter one wore an old navy wool jacket and gray wool cap.
Dark hair, thick like fur, ran from the base of the cap down the back of his neck. The other one, at least six feet tall,
was wearing a khaki parka. On my approach, the one with the parka turned abruptly and the jacket fell open: He was enormous,
with a shiny, square forehead, puffed-up chest, and refrigerator shoulders. He looked like a heavyweight fighter, or maybe
a bouncer at a strip club.

“Fuck,” he said, looking at me as if I’d just cut him off at an intersection.

The smaller man in the gray cap never turned around; he grabbed a pint of chocolate milk and headed down the aisle, toward
the deli counter. The guy in the khaki parka did not seem to register his departure. His left eyelid drooped, burdened by
the weight of some kind of sty, but the right eye glared at me.

“Sorry,” I said, “I didn’t mean to scare you.”

I should have said
startle.
Apparently, he took my comment as an assault on his manhood. “You didn’t
scare
me.” His tone was mean and mocking.

The Mazursky Market had always been a friendly place. I stood there, stunned. Without another look at me, he pulled up the
hood of his parka, turned, and headed down the aisle.

I was still standing there when someone touched my sleeve.

“You all right?”

It was a man about my age, and like me, his hair and business suit were drenched from the rain. Immediately, I was struck
by the concern in his expression, the openness of a clear, kind face. I’d seen him before. We were often in the market about
the same time at night buying takeout from the deli, but had never spoken. I smiled and made an effort to look as if I’d already
shaken off the incident. “I’m fine.”

He watched as I reached into the dairy case for a quart of milk. “Whole milk?” he asked with a glance at my quart. He reached
past me to grab a quart of 1 percent.

“For coffee,” I said. Actually, I drank it by the glass and had it with cereal, but most people seemed to be paying attention
to fat grams these days.

“Ah,” he said, as if illuminating an important point. He smiled and I could see he had a nice mouth and a dimpled chin. I
have a thing about men’s chins, and have been misled more than once by a strong jawline. But this guy’s nose saved him from
the kind of perfection I’ve learned not to trust in a man. It looked like it might have been broken, giving him a distinct
round-the-block look. By this time, I realized that I was analyzing his face for a little too long and quickly turned away.

Once I got in the register line, I stopped thinking about the rude guy, who had left the store, and was thinking about the
quart-of-milk guy who was now just ahead of me in line. He
had
been flirting with me, I decided. It wasn’t my imagination.

I left the required distance between us, but I felt his presence as if I were standing much too close. At five foot four,
I’m not very tall, and his height loomed over me. I found myself thinking about those high heels Carolyn said made such a
difference. Get a grip, Hallie, I told myself, taking a small step backward. Don’t let him see how desperate you are for a
date.

I put my quart of milk on the floor by my feet and began scavenging through my knapsack for my winning lottery ticket. The
line moved forward, and I was still in the midst of my search when I noticed that the quart-of-milk guy had turned around
and was looking back at me.

“Can’t find your wallet?” he asked.

“Scratch ticket,” I confided. “Fifty-dollar winner.”

I thought his eyes narrowed for a second, as if he thought scratch tickets were beneath me. But then he smiled. “Congratulations.
I hope you find it.”

And then I had one of those rare and wonderful moments when timing works in your favor. My right hand touched the smooth surface
of the shiny lottery paper and I pulled it out, as if on cue, and validated myself with a little wave of the ticket.

He gave me that smile again, but the line moved forward and he turned to put his quart of milk, half a rotisserie chicken,
and a plastic container of pasta salad on the counter. I tried to think up some sort of clever way to note that he appeared
to be dining alone.
Chicken for one?
Would that be
completely
transparent?

“Hey, Hallie, is that a winner you got there?” Barry asked as he finished ringing up the order.

“Two queens,” I said.

“Told you,” Barry said, counting out change. He was just an average-size man, but he had been a marine, and had the kind of
Popeye forearms that made him look formidable behind the register.

The quart-of-milk guy picked up his bag and hesitated, as if he, too, was trying to think of something else to say. “Don’t
forget your milk,” he said, gesturing to my quart on the floor.

“I won’t.”

Another hesitation, and then: “You live in this neighborhood, right?”

I nodded.

“Me, too.”

I smiled and gave him my best “small world” shrug.

“Since we’re neighbors, you think sometime that you might want to go somewhere
else
for dinner?” He frowned down at his grocery bag for a second and then looked up with a hopeful expression.

Is it crazy to give your phone number to someone you just met in a convenience store? Maybe, but I liked this guy. It wasn’t
just that I have a weakness for strong chins; he had kind eyes—something about them seemed unclouded and true. So I nodded.

He told me his name was Matt Cavanaugh and asked me for my phone number. I tried to seem cool as I grabbed a pen from the
counter and wrote it on his grocery bag, but my heart was fluttering. He put the grocery bag with my phone number under his
coat to protect it from the rain. And then with a wave to Barry, he was out the door.

Barry waited until the door closed. “You think you should give your phone number out like that?”

“I’ve seen him here before,” I said. “And he seemed pretty nice, don’t you think?”

Barry shrugged and turned back to the register. “You want that all in cash?” He scrutinized my ticket for a minute before
opening the register drawer.

I glanced at the blue lottery terminal beside the register. “Don’t you want to scan it?” I asked.

He shrugged. “Terminal’s down again. Piece of crap. Anybody else I’d make come back. You, Hallie, I trust.”

My gaze traveled to the bright colors of the scratch tickets in the plastic dispensers over his head. “How many unclaimed
winners left on the Green Poker game?”

“Like I said, terminal’s down, but the game is getting old. I think the last report said there were only two or three prizes
left.”

“What the hell, give me three tickets,” I heard myself say. It’s not that I didn’t know those were long odds for gambling,
it’s just that my life had been a case study of long odds, mostly in the negative sense. I was only thirty-five years old
and I’d already lost my brother, my father, and almost an entire career. It seemed to me that if I was the kind of person
unlikely
bad
things happened to, I must also be the kind of person unlikely
good
things happened to.

At the present, the world seemed full of possibilities. The last four months had been painfully lonely and now I had a potential
date with a cute guy who wasn’t wearing a wedding ring.

Barry shook his head. “Now that I think about it, there mighta been only one or two prizes left. The Caesar’s Palace game
just came out a couple of days ago. It’s still fresh off the presses. Eight or nine prizes left. I’m telling you, I have a
feeling about you and Caesar.”

I shrugged, which he took as an affirmative. He began to reach up to peel off the Caesar tickets, and I realized it was only
a $1 game. I glanced at the back. The top prize was only $250,000, which in my current high-stakes mood didn’t seem like much.
Plus, I thought about how quickly I’d scratch off three measly cards. “Two of the Green Poker game, too,” I added, impulsively.

Barry hesitated again.

“I’ve got a feeling about that leprechaun,” I said. “It’s my night.”

Barry’s eyes met mine. “You’re in the mood for long odds all around?” This was another reference to my giving my phone number
to Matt.

“Just feeling lucky, that’s all,” I said.

He handed me the five scratch tickets. “None of my business,” he said, but he still didn’t seem happy about it.

This surprised me. Barry and I had gotten into a number of long discussions about how hard it was to start over in a new city
at this age. He was always after me to volunteer for one of his veterans’ charities, saying it was a great way to meet people.

But now, he seemed unduly protective. I looked into my knapsack and zippered the inside pocket where I’d put the tickets.
Barry rang up the milk and began to count out my change. He stopped midway. “Nothing for dinner tonight?”

The smell of rotisserie chicken hung in the air. The store had emptied. No one was behind me in line and the aisles were quiet.
“Anything left in the deli section?”

“Some salads, I think.”

“You mind if I run back?” I asked.

Barry gestured for me to go ahead.

I turned down the aisle. The deli section was closed, but I grabbed a prepackaged salad from the cooler on the wall near the
last aisle. As I tried to decide between two different-size containers of Mediterranean salad, I heard the front door scrape
open. I listened for the sound of conversation, but heard none.

And then I heard the gunshot.

The blast reverberated through the small store. For a moment, I froze in the vibration and time stalled. A loud thud. Instinctively,
I got low, kneeling behind the aisle-end Italian biscuit display. I clutched the plastic container of salad still in my hand,
and held my breath, waiting for what would come next.

An eerie silence. No wail of pain, no threats. Fear pumped in all directions from my brain to my heart. I pulled my shoulder
in, dropped my head lower, trying to disappear into the floor. I heard rummaging. The register drawer opened. A loud clatter
as something fell over. But there were no voices. No swearing. No threats.

Say something, Barry, I silently begged.

My entire weight rested on one shaking knee. I struggled to remain still, staring at the plastic container of Mediterranean
salad in my hand, wanting to put it down, afraid to make a single move.

More rummaging and a second round of clatter, as if things were being pulled from shelves. I clutched the plastic container,
staring into its jumble of colors. Oil leaked from the bottom and onto my hand. A wave of it, slick across my palm.

I put the container on the floor, plastic crushed—my fear condensed into a crumpled corner. I could hear shuffling, a couple
of footsteps, then silence.

Somehow I found the courage to peek around the display and saw the back of a khaki parka and crumpled hair beneath a panty-hose
mask. I pulled back behind the display and hit something with my elbow. The Italian biscuits. A swirl of orange and green
fell to the floor.

I held my breath.

The door slammed. There was complete silence.

Keeping low, I ran along the back deli counter, to the plate-glass storefront. Through the rain, I saw a white midsize car
jerk out of its parking space and almost get hit by an oncoming car. There was a shriek of brakes, and the white car peeled
down the street.

I ran up the aisle to the front counter. The register drawer was hanging open and the rack of porno magazines was toppled.
Tiny drops of blood were splattered on the counter, on my quart of milk, and on the open grocery bag.

I looked down and saw Barry lying on the floor, head turned up, his eyes frozen in alarm, a gun not far from his hand. In
the center of his forehead, a bullet hole oozed blood.

I
HEARD MYSELF
scream for help, a deep, guttural cry. For a moment, I was stunned, shaken by the force of my own wail. I slapped my face,
trying to click my brain into gear. I had to think clearly. Act.

I searched for a phone to call an ambulance, but there wasn’t one on the counter. I didn’t know shit about vital signs, but
Barry didn’t look too good. I dropped to my knees beside him, felt one knee skid on his blood and knock the gun at his side.
I tried to remember how to do CPR from what I’d seen on television. Was it beside the point? I straddled his body, refusing
to look at his face, his eyes.

Could he not be dead? I wanted to believe there was a chance, so I clasped my hands together and began furiously pumping his
chest. Over and over, pumping. Praying. Please, God, let me know what I’m doing. Make it a miracle. Make it work. “Come on,
Barry, please. Live, for Christ’s sake. Help me out!” I shouted.

Gently, as if he could still feel it, I tilted his head back, working hard to avoid the open, alarmed eyes. My hand was covered
in blood. I wiped it on the floor. Putting my finger to his lips and nose, I tried to feel air—even a slight movement. “Please,
Barry!” I whispered. “Please!” How long could you go without breathing?

I sucked in the biggest breath I could with every intention of forcing it into his lungs. But as I lowered my mouth toward
his, I stopped, unable to move closer.

Nothing flickered in Barry’s eyes, nothing beat from his chest. I exhaled, releasing the last, strained hope. No emergency
procedure could change the bullet hole in his forehead. No medic, no matter how well trained, no matter how high tech the
equipment, could bring this man back to life. I searched again for the cordless phone Barry kept on the counter. I found it
lying underneath the toppled magazines and dialed 911.