For Nothing (3 page)

Who needed more furniture than that
, Alex thought. Both chairs could be pul ed into the living room and used as a couch or love seat.

The living room end of the kitchen was just a milk carton crate flipped over with an eleven-inch, black and white television holding on to a precarious perch atop it, in the corner of the room. Alex hated the damn thing but every now and then it would come in handy for a Sunday footbal game.

“God bless the Buffalo Bil s” was Alex’s Sunday motto. It used to be his motto anyway. Time, as of late, became a factor.

Alex tossed his keys on the card table with a deep sigh. It’d been a long day. He tossed his jacket onto one of the chairs next to him and put his hands onto the smal of his back, arching upward and tensing his back. With a satisfied smile, Alex heard the crack as his vertebrae released the air in between their joints.

His underarm holster seemed to throw his back out a bit to the left, he was sure of it. Thinking of the Beretta, he slipped the holster off and walked to the wal left of his television. There in the wal was a nail wedged into a beam behind the wal . Alex hung his holster on the nail; he then bent down and lifted his left pant leg. Strapped to his ankle was a one shot Derringer. He unstrapped the ankle holster and hung that too on the nail. He unhooked the butterfly knife from his right ankle and slipped it into his back pocket. He turned right to head down the three-foot hal way that led to his bathroom.

Alex looked to the right of the bathroom entrance. There was a picture there of Alex, a woman, and a smal child. He pushed past the picture and went into the bathroom. Alex flicked on the light and turned on the bath water, turned the nozzle to warm.

Damn pipes take forever to warm up in the
winter
, Alex thought with irritation.

Alex undressed and put his hands on each side of the sink. Looking into the mirror in front of him, he glanced at his reflection.

He needed to shave but then again, what was the point?

Alex’s brown hair was long, just a few inches above his shoulders. His cheekbones, though prominent, were hidden by mud and blood that caked onto him, yet were visible in patches where tears had streaked the mottled artistry.

Steam rose in white puffs from behind the shower curtain. Inch by inch, as Alex peered into the mirror and let his mind wander, the fog clung onto the glass and Alex’s face disappeared.

Alex pul ed back the curtain and stepped into the scalding hot water. Water, which was Alex’s purification. Day after day, it was this burning hot water that cleansed more than Alex’s body. It seemed to somehow, for the moment, cleanse his soul.

The water pounded on his skin, refusing to relent, yet Alex seemed to not notice, to disregard the heat. Face turned upward toward the showerhead, as if to ask why, Alex began to relax in his own private meditation. For a long time, Alex stood there and felt the grime wash away. He began to drift into a trancelike sleep.

Al at once, he stood at the scene of Jack’s death. Sure enough, there was Jack, lying on the snow, lifeless. Alex, in a dreamlike drift, got closer to the body. Jack was cold, as was apparent by his bluish-white complexion. Jack’s face rested on a slight drift of snow and faced Alex. As Alex drifted closer he studied Jack’s face. It looked as if Jack were asleep.

were asleep.

As he got even closer to his friend’s face he noticed a shift in the temperature, a sharp decrease in the frigid air’s already less than warm embrace.

As the freezing air encircled him, a shiver found its way and crept along the length of Alex’s back. As the shiver leapt off of his tailbone, Alex noticed he drifted too close to Jack’s face. He began to retract from the body, and with one more glance at Jack everything stopped.

The air seemed to stop swirling, its biting cold gone for a split second. The blood that dripped from Jack’s mouth stopped mid-drip and hung suspended in the air. Alex strained to get a better look at this phenomenon. And that’s when he noticed it.

Jack’s face, more important, his eyes, snapped open. They pierced into Alex with a stern ferocity. Alex wil ed himself to retreat, to run from this misadventure. But Alex could not move, could not close his own eyes. Everything, including him, was frozen as much as the air was before time stopped.

Alex pul ed away with al his mental strength.

He pul ed away to keep his sanity, to hide from his friend’s piercing gaze. The unblinking eyes poured into Alex like nothing he knew. With al of his mental energy he strained.

“Wake up Alex,” he heard. “Wake up!”

With a start Alex awoke half-leaning, half-kneeling in his shower.

How long have I been in here?

The water was now running cold. Alex shivered.

*

Rafael woke up at dawn. He always woke up at dawn. His bed was right in line with the sun as it too woke from its slumbers. He had an alarm clock.

Ages passed since the alarm woke him up. His daily wake

routine

always

began

with

Rontego

deactivating the alarm of the clock shortly after the rising sun announced the new day’s arrival.

Rontego rol ed out of bed and grabbed a glass of water. He felt the cool liquid go down his throat and couldn’t help but enjoy it as the water refreshed his throat, parched from the hours of sleep.

Rafael suspected that he slept with his mouth open. He never asked anyone if it were true.

Perhaps it was too personal of a thing to know. He’d once been told that his legs kicked with a spastic twitch while he slept. He kicked the whore out of his place. He didn’t believe in mixing the personal with business.

Never liked her anyway
, he thought.

Slamming his cup down, Rafael wiped the sleep from his eyes and wandered toward the window. He checked the street below his flat.

“Good,” he muttered to himself.

Nothing was below except the newspaper stand where he often picked up the most recent headlines. Every now and then he liked to read the advice columns. One time an associate of his asked why he read ‘those damned things’.

Even though he hated being interrupted, much less by some jerk reading over his shoulder, Rafael answered “I like to see how fucked up everyone else’s lives are. It amuses me and lets me know I’m the most normal guy I’ve met.” Normal. What an interesting word. Rafael led a life that most would consider the antithesis to normal. He often contemplated what it meant to be

‘normal.’ To him his life was normal, structured, and routine. Sure, he did things on the fringe of society, things that other’s dubbed ‘il egal’ or even ‘cruel’. He didn’t dwel on the issue long.

He seldom dwel ed on anything long. He came to the conclusion that ‘normal’ was accepting what the weak constructed to stave off the strong, to impede the takeover of the elite.

It was a numbers game. The weak had more of ‘em so took the necessary precautions to ensure their safety, at the detriment to the few strong ones out there with any bal s. Every so often the weak could trick a strong one on to their side, often through money and brainwashing them on the value of a moral society; moral in the eyes of the weak.

This meant protecting those little bastards at the expense of your own time, sweat and blood.

No
, Rafael thought,
I am the normal one,
taking what’s mine
.

After al , wasn’t it Herbert Spencer, a man of considerable mental strength, who coined the phrase ‘survival of the fittest’? Darwin’s “natural selection” at its finest. The weak tried to berate him selection” at its finest. The weak tried to berate him into silence too; his ideas tore apart their notion that there was a creation. A creation that a God would have made with equal love for al .

Rafael was not sure of God’s existence, neither did he deny one. Hel , he witnessed too many people cal out His name either moments before or during their own actual trip to the other side.

Perhaps one day, he too would find this God waiting for him on the other side of some cosmic journey on the coattail of whatever soul he had.

More than likely
, Rontego mused with a morbid sense of serenity,
he would just become
worm food in some anonymous hole in the ground.

Rafael shook the thoughts from his mind.

Today was not a day for such morbid thoughts. He leaned over and stretched to his toes. He always enjoyed a good stretch. With a grunt Rafael jerked up and began getting ready for the day.

Today he was going to talk to his boss. The boss. Rontego never dealt with anyone but the boss, though he ran into a lot of the old man’s associates when he was getting an assignment or col ecting his cash. He always dressed nice when going into ‘the office’. After al , he was a professional.

Minutes later, Rafael Rontego was walking down the streets of Buffalo. The office was a mile or two down the road and the cold invigorated the assassin.

From top to bottom, he was dressed in the finest quality clothing. Atop his jet-black hair rested his trademark hat. A gangster-style, black felt hat that brimmed outward from his head several inches in circumference was traced by a black ribbon that was almost flush against the felt. The hat was perfect and round except in the front where it indented as if to al ow a forefinger to sweep from the wearer’s head.

He wore a black Giorgio Armani suit measured to perfection and lined by smooth gray pinstripes. Tucked into his jacket was an elegant Gianni Versace silver tie. His white cuffs trimmed the outside of his suit and his silver French cufflinks appeared and reappeared in time with his brisk gait.

If you were lucky enough to get a close view of his cuff links, your death was probable. However, if one could speak from the grave, they would tel you that the letters engraved on the links were S and M.

Rumor had it that Rafael might be a sadomasochist.

Rafael ignored the absurdity of the claim. He’d be damned if he ever told what those initials stood for.

Rontego stopped. He tucked his most recent purchase, a copy of the Buffalo News, under his arm and stooped over to tie his Gucci wing tips. Rafael continued his walk to the office.

A block later he reached inside his long overcoat and pul ed out a wad of twenty-dol ar bil s.

Without breaking step, he snatched one out of his money clip, reinserted the wad, and folded the twenty into a smooth crease. As he rounded the corner of the block there was an old beggar.

Predictable
. The man sent his cup up to Rafael.

Rontego dropped the twenty into his cup and started to walk away.

I don’t shit where I sleep
, he thought.

As an afterthought, Rafael turned around and grabbed the man by the col ar of his welfare duds.

With a quick yank, Rafael stood nose to nose with the homeless man.

“Take that money and eat something for fuck’s sake! I swear to whoever you cal God that you wil meet him if I catch you buying a drink with that twenty.”

Before the startled man could nod, Rontego let go of the beggar’s lapel and moved on. Wiping his hands on the folds of his jacket, Rontego entered the club in front of him. The parking lot was al but deserted at this hour, yet he knew that inside there were at least half a dozen guys.

Rumors was a nice enough place, for people who went out.

Alex awoke to the alarm’s incessant beep ringing in his ears. He rol ed over to turn the damn thing off and let out a groan. His head was pounding and the infernal spring in his back was always a pleasant way to greet the day. Alex rol ed back the other way toward his nightstand.

“God, what the hel was I thinking,” he groaned aloud to no one in particular.

The bottle of Jim Beam smirked down upon him, Alex Vaughn, its latest trophy. Alex rol ed into a sitting position and shook his fist at the bottle. It won this round.

Alex cleared his throat and looked back at the clock. It was 9:00 a.m. He grunted again; his captain would be pissed. Lucky. He was between undercover gigs or this would ruin everything. Alex picked up the phone and dialed in to the precinct.

They wouldn’t mind him taking a few days off; after al this was a personal tragedy. It was about to get a lot more personal too.

After a brief conversation with the desk sergeant, Alex hung up the phone and went into his travesty of a kitchen. Stil in his boxers and plain white tee, Alex mixed together some instant coffee, extra caffeinated. He saw his answering machine blinking. Twelve messages and one guess what they were al about. He ignored the blinking red light.

He threw on a pair of jeans, his snow boots, took his weapons off his nail in reverse order and put on his brown leather jacket.

Stil , the blinking light assaulted his eyes. He picked up the phone and looked at the cal er I.D.;
she
cal ed. Twice. He flipped open his cel phone.

She was one of very few people who had that number. She cal ed there too
.

Charlotte
.

One message. Her voice sounded musical, as it always did.

“Alex, I heard. Jesus Alex I heard. If you don’t want to go tonight, that’s fine. I don’t even know if it’s a good idea. I mean, what are we doing anyway?