Authors: Tim Maleeny
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“Piece of cake?”
Jill stood in her doorway, her russet hair backlit by the light from the foyer. From where Sam was standing, it looked like she had a halo.
“It’s angel cake,” she added.
“Naturally.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
Sam shook his head, recovered. “You bake?”
Jill gave him a warning look. “I cook,” she said with just a hint of pride. “But I rarely bake. When you live alone…” She let that sit before adding, “Gail made it for me.”
“Birthday?”
Jill shook her head. “No, she was just being neighborly.” She said the last word slowly, as if she realized it might sound foreign to him. When he didn’t bite, she asked, “Want to come in for a cup of coffee?”
Yes. Absolutely. That would be great.
Sam stood rooted to the spot, his shoes leaking glue into the floorboards, his soul nailed down like a tarp.
“No, thanks,” he said half-heartedly. “Maybe another night.”
“I don’t bite, you know,” said Jill gently. “At least not on the first date.”
Sam’s right eye twitched at the word
date
. “Dinner was great.”
Jill looked him up and down. “It won’t get any easier, you know.”
“What?”
“Joining the human race,” she said with a sad smile. “The longer you wait, the harder it is.”
“You talking about you now,” said Sam, “or me?”
“Maybe both of us.”
Sam nodded but stayed on his side of the door. “I like the way you sing.”
Jill answered with a smile that dimmed the lights in the hallway.
“So do I,” she said, leaning forward and kissing him gently on the cheek.
“Why—,” Sam began but stopped before the question could sound anything but lame.
“Sometimes you just get a feeling for someone,” replied Jill.
“I figured you were just being neighborly.”
Jill smiled ruefully. “I haven’t met many good men in my time—probably my fault as much as theirs.” She raised her right hand, jabbed her index finger against his chest. “I think there’s a good man buried somewhere underneath all that scar tissue. Maybe next time we get together, you’ll introduce me.”
Before Sam could respond, she took a step back and closed the door. He stood looking at her door for a minute, remembering the sensation of her finger tapping, putting pressure on his heart. Somewhere deep inside his chest, ice was breaking apart in silent agony, drifting toward an empty horizon.
But Sam could feel a part of him grasping—reaching out to savor the cold—as if the ice were the only life raft he had. Taking a deep breath, he turned and walked toward his apartment, thinking that the hallway had never seemed so long.
“So long…
so long!
”
Jerome waved like a drunken idiot, a sneer on his face as he added, “
Adios,
motherfuckers.” The taillights of the Chevy had disappeared around the corner before Jerome gave the middle finger, but Larry grabbed his arm with a fevered hiss.
“You want to get us killed?”
“That a trick question, Larry?”
“We’re fucked.”
“What are you talking about?” demanded Jerome. “The Z-man just told us our problems were as good as solved.”
Larry looked around for a sharp object to stab his brother, but they were standing at the corner of Davis and Jackson streets, the only things nearby a grocery store, their apartment building, and a row of newspaper kiosks. He unclenched his fists and breathed through his nose.
“Zorro is going to charge us more than Walter would have,” said Larry. “We would have been better off paying our fat-assed neighbor.”
“I told you, Larry. Math’s not my thing.”
Larry lunged, ready to choke the life out of his younger brother, their mother be damned. His clawed hands had just made contact when he caught sight of Barney, the building’s security guard. Larry crumpled into his brother, transforming his abortive assault into an awkward hug. Before Jerome could react, Larry started sobbing uncontrollably. Larry was unstable on the best of days, and today was definitely one of the worst in recent memory.
Jerome smiled sheepishly at the aptly named Barney, who was shaped like a purple dinosaur and acted like Barney Fife from the Andy Griffith show. He was a threat deterrent on par with Inspector Clouseau.
“Hey Barney,” said Jerome.
“You guys OK?”
“Our hamster died,” replied Jerome, patting Larry on the back. “Larry’s kind of torn up about it.”
Barney nodded sympathetically but kept walking, smelling trouble just around the corner.
Larry wiped his nose on Jerome’s shoulder and tried to pull himself together before saying, “Sorry…I’m…I’m just a little stressed about all this.”
“You’re wound too tight,” said Jerome with surprising tenderness.
“Maybe you’re right.” Larry took a deep breath, blew out his cheeks. “It’s not our problem, right?”
“Not anymore,” replied Jerome. “Besides, it could be worse.”
Larry blinked. “How?”
“We could be Walter.”
Larry felt faint. “Don’t you feel guilty?”
Jerome tapped his forehead. “No room for guilt up here, big brother.”
Larry wanted to ask what there was room for, but he said nothing.
“Did we force Walter to blackmail our asses?” asked Jerome.
“No…no, we didn’t.” The observation caught Larry by surprise—the brutal simplicity of it all. Larry marveled at the wisdom of his younger brother when he wasn’t stoned. An innate, naïve logic that kept the real world at a manageable distance. He wondered if Buddhist monks were all stoners.
Jerome slapped Larry on the back. “Let’s go have a drink at the Mexican place—we’ll make a toast.”
“To what?”
“A life without guilt.”
Sam felt guilty for being alive.
He’d been a cop in the line of fire every day. Earned a few scars and a wound to the leg trying to do more good than harm, but only succeeding on rare occasions. Marie had been a civilian, a prosecuting attorney, doing more good in a day than most people did in a lifetime. But she got sick, suffered, and died, while Sam’s only lasting injury was her loss.
The guilt grew in the space she left behind. A warm, dark place deep inside his heart where the light of logic and reason couldn’t penetrate. A chamber full of longing for things that might have been.
Sam shook his head to clear it, leaned against his kitchen counter as he opened the refrigerator. You didn’t have to be a police detective to guess he was a bachelor. The beer was gone, which meant the fridge was half-empty. The random assortment of foodstuffs looked suspiciously pale and faded, a sure sign of expiration dates long gone.
Running his hands through his hair, he walked disconsolately down the hall to his bedroom, kicking off his shoes as he crossed the threshold. The cloying guilt was fueling an undercurrent of depression, dragging him down. The bed was telling him to sleep, his brain saying
not a chance
.
The bed was winning the argument until he saw the message light on his answering machine.
“Hey partner, call me.” Danny Rodriguez’ voice bounced off the walls of his bedroom, shaking Sam out of his funk.
The pressure on his balls had returned.
Sam bent down and pulled on his shoes, walked down the hall, and grabbed his keys. He’d call Danny back later.
Right now, he needed a drink.
“I’ll have a mojito.”
The bartender nodded, pulled a frosted glass and dropped in some mint.
Larry shook his head. “How can you drink those things?”
“I just like saying it,” replied Jerome. “Go ahead, try.”
“No, I just want a beer.”
“It’ll make you happy.”
“No, it won’t.”
“
Mo—heeeet—ooh!
”
Larry clamped his hand around Jerome’s mouth. “Cut it out.”
“Mmm…hhmmm…uuh.”
“What?” Larry lifted the lower half of his right hand, giving Jerome just enough clearance to work his mouth.
“I said…
mojito
!” Jerome got it out before the hand could slam into position. “There, doesn’t it make you want to smile?”
The bartender, a good-looking guy in his twenties, chuckled as he mixed the drink. The guy looked carefree, relaxed, content—everything Larry wasn’t. He turned to his brother and took a deep breath.
“I think you’re bipolar.”
Jerome slurped his drink. “Have you been reading again, Larry?”
“Never mind,” said Larry, realizing he was wasting his breath. “We need a plan.”
Jerome caught an ice cube and started sucking on it. “I thought we had a plan. I thought Z was—”
“Shhhhhhhhhh!” snapped Larry, almost coming off the bar stool. The bartender had moved about ten feet away, serving two girls who looked barely out of college.
“Did you just shush me again?” Jerome sounded deeply wounded.
“Don’t say his name, for Chrissakes.”
“That’s why I used the letter, Larry. It’s like a secret code.”
“Don’t even use the letter,” Larry insisted, looking right and left. He realized they were sitting in a Mexican restaurant. Who knew how many spies Zorro employed in the quick service restaurant industry? “Someone might guess.”
“OK,” Jerome shrugged. “How about Q? It could be like James Bond.”
“No.”
“X?”
“Drop it.”
“Fine,” said Jerome, taking another long pull on his drink. “So the drug lord we’re not talking about? I thought he had our back…”
Larry leaned close to his brother. “What if something goes wrong?” he asked. “Who do you think is going to take the fall for…” He paused, looked around before adding, “Walter?”
“You mean W?” Jerome said in a stage whisper.
“You know who I mean, you retard.”
“That’s
whom
, Larry. Gotta watch your grammar, bro.”
After a deep breath through his nose, Larry tried again. “We need a plan.”
Jerome crunched his ice and reached for the basket of chips on the bar. Music blared from cheap speakers overhead, all the lyrics in Spanish. This entire place was designed to give you a headache unless you drank heavily. Jerome swiveled on his stool to look Larry in the eye.
“You think we need a plan,” he said. “In case Z fucks us over.”
Larry let the use of the alphabet slide, relieved Jerome had tuned into reality. “Exactly.”
“You think he will?”
Larry shrugged. “If you asked me a week ago, I would have said he needed us.”
“We move a lot of pot for that guy.”
“Now I’m not so sure,” replied Larry. “It’s a lot of pot for
us
—but what about all the runners he has, working the streets in the Mission, the Tenderloin district, Polk street? All those guys feed back into—” Larry stopped before he said the name.
Jerome finished the thought. “Back into Z.”
“Yeah,” said Larry. “You add all those runners up, moving all those bags around the city, now
that’s
a lot of pot.”
“So maybe we’re expendable.”
Larry nodded and reached for his beer. “If anything goes wrong, we take the fall.”
“How tough can it be to kill Walter?” Jerome palmed a stack of chips. “I mean, the fat fuck is halfway to a coronary.”
“Accidents happen,” said Larry simply. “Mistakes get made.”
“That dude Carlos doesn’t look like he makes too many mistakes.”
Larry shivered at the memory of those eyes but didn’t say anything.
“I guess the cops could take an interest,” said Jerome. “You know, after the deed is done.”
Larry caught his reflection in the mirror behind the bar. Drawn face, tired eyes.
Shake it off.
He shook his head and took a swig of his beer.
Optimists win, pessimists go to jail.
“We’re not on their radar,” he said with forced bravado. “The cops don’t know we exist.” He turned to face Jerome, noticed a man moving toward them. An older guy, a little rumpled. Walked right up and stood between them, an easy smile on his face. He looked familiar, but Larry was having a hard time placing him.
“You must be Larry,” the man said, nodding. He shifted his gaze. “And you’re Jerome.”
“And you are?” Larry spoke up before Jerome picked another fight with the wrong guy.
“Sam,” came the reply. “I’m the cop who lives down the hall.”
Larry looked at himself in the mirror, saw his eyes bugging out of his head.
Be cool.
“Mind if I ask you a few questions?” asked Sam.
“Sure, have a seat.” Larry shifted over one stool, making a space between him and Jerome. Kept his eyes off the mirror. “Want a drink?”
“I’ll buy,” said Sam. “What’re you having?”
“You’re a cop?” asked Jerome.
“Yeah.” Sam had an instinct to leave out the part about his retirement.
Jerome held up his glass, crushed ice and mint languishing at the bottom. He seemed unfazed, had his mojo working.
Chilled
. Not for the first time that day, Larry considered switching to Jerome’s drug and alcohol regimen.
“Another mojito would be great right about now,” said Jerome. “You should try one.”
“No thanks.” Sam shook his head, caught a whiff of something that wasn’t cologne.
Eau de cannabis
saturated Jerome’s clothes.
“I just like saying it,” said Jerome.
“What’s that?”
“
Mojito,
” said Jerome. “Sort of makes you happy, doesn’t it?”
Sam looked into Jerome’s eyes and smiled.
“Sure does,” he said.
Carlos decided to shoot Walter in the head.
He’d considered using the plastic explosive C-4, which was easy enough to obtain, but Zorro said no collateral damage. Innocent bystanders getting hurt would bring too much heat. A murder investigation he could handle, but the FBI analyzing bomb fragments was not a good idea. This homeland security thing had made his job challenging, but Carlos still loved his work.
He offered to get his hands dirty, kill Walter with a knife or an axe. Make it bloody, send a signal to anyone thinking about stealing from Zorro, but again the boss said no. The apartment complex was too small, the people too gentile. The brutality would overwhelm the message. That sort of killing was fine among the gangs or their families—for those who knew of Zorro—when cutting a man’s heart out or taking his eyes sent a warning in a common language of violence. But in downtown San Francisco the murder should be sudden, dramatic. Like something out of movie.
An assassination.
Carlos knew all about assassinations. He wasn’t Mexican like the others but hailed from the Basque region of Spain, an area known for its beautiful landscapes, unique culture and a rich history of terrorism. Carlos’ father had been a member of the ETA, a separatist group committed to forming an autonomous Basque state. Over long nights at the kitchen table, he taught Carlos how to mold plastic explosive into a shaped charge that could adhere to the underside of a man’s car. After they had finished, his father would look at him with unvarnished pride, tousle his hair. Then he would throw his hands in the air and shout
Boom!
—they would both laugh till they cried.
Carlos blinked and ran a finger under his eyes. He was getting sentimental.
Carefully, he opened the long box before him, scooting forward in his seat to set the styrofoam packing materials on the back half of the kitchen table. He smiled as the gun was revealed.
It was a Browning hunting rifle with a magazine capable of holding five 7mm bullets, though Carlos only needed one. He was going to use 175-grain cartridges, standard for hunting elk or deer. One of Zorro’s young recruits without a criminal record named Alberto had purchased the gun and bullets at an outdoor supply store in San Leandro, so the gun was clean. For now.
After the killing, the gun would be destroyed. If something went wrong and the gun was captured by the police, Alberto would say that it had been stolen. If that didn’t work, then young Alberto would be on his way to having a criminal record like everyone else, his first step toward becoming a man.
The rifle could be fitted with one of the Leupold scopes that Carlos owned and was accurate to well over 300 yards. But Carlos had decided to go with the fixed sights, use the gun right out of the box. Based on the layout of the kill zone, he would be close to the target. So close he couldn’t miss.
One shot to the head in broad daylight.
Simple. Bold. Daring.
A message no one could ignore.
There would be no eyeballs taken this time. Carlos regretted the missed opportunity, but he admired Zorro’s restraint. Maybe they would steal the eyeballs from the morgue.
Carlos checked the action on the gun, savoring the sound as the bolt slid into place. He felt himself stir, aroused by the sensuality of the metal, the deadly precision of the rifle. Taking a deep breath, he carefully set the gun back in the box and checked his watch.
It was almost time.
