The Haze (2 page)

“I tried that. They're always watching.”

“I could help you.”

“You'd do that?”

“What else I have to do? I'm tired of killing. I'm ready to hang it up. I just been doing it to fill up the hours.”

“Giving up killing isn't as easy as you think. Killing becomes a way of life.”

They kissed. They went to bed. All of it described the way he liked it in books. None of this timid bullshit like they close the bedroom door and the reader is stuck out in the hallway, can't even hear them moaning. No, this woman writer showed everything. Not flinching at any of it, or being coy like how he hated some writers did it. That was one of his peeves. Not showing the real world. Like nobody ever took a dump in books. Dumps were important. You couldn't live without taking a dump. After the two old farts made love, both of them took dumps.

It was a good book.

He fell asleep.

Woke in the haze. Deep gray smog.

Javier was there with his sunnysides.

“You have a good night, Mr. Connors?”

“You ever screw an old lady, Javi?”

“Not that I recall.”

“You having trouble with your memory, boy?”

Javier set the breakfast tray on his table. Little round thing by a window.

“Eat your eggs, Mr. Connors. Drink that coffee while it's hot.”

“Who do I have to kill to get out of here?”

“You're being funny again, Mr. Connors.”

“A regular Jack Benny,” he said. “Know who that was?”

Javier was gone, leaving behind the eggs and coffee and unbuttered toast.

He spent the day with his book. The old lady serial killer and the retired hitman.

They caught a cab together, went downtown, way down to the bookstore where his daughter worked. They walked past the store, looked in the window, kept walking.

“She's pretty.”

“Dark-haired like her mother.”

“Only girl I saw was a blonde.”

“Yeah, that's her.”

“What's her name?”

“Like what, this is a test? I got to remember everybody's name?”

“Don't get huffy.”

“That was huffy? You haven't seen huffy.”

Their first big fight.

They walk for a while without talking. She's mad. He's mad too and hurt.

At a corner, it's down near Soho, she hails a cab, gets in, drives away. Doesn't look back.

“Shit,” he said. “Left me standing in the cold, not sure where I am. Shit.”

He threw the book at the door.

Javier is there to check on him. Wondering why there's noise. Why the book's sprawled on the floor.

“I'm fine. It's the book that's screwed up. I'm fine.”

“You look pale.”

“She left the guy, just walked away. Left him on the sidewalk, it's a part of town I don't know where I am. Way down there, it's cold, it's freezing and she's gone. I don't have my wallet. I can't get a cab. Nobody's stopping for me.”

“It's summer, Mr. Connors. There's flowers blooming out your window.”

“I'm talking about the book, you idiot. It's freezing on the streets. She dumped me, walked away. We had a little disagreement is all. A spat.”

“You're in this book?”

Javier is holding the book he threw.

“I'm telling you, I'm lost, don't know which way is up, and she just walked away. Broke my heart. Broke it in half and pissed on the pieces.”

Javier left. His daughter came.

“You keep throwing things, Pops. They don't allow that.”

“What're they going to do, toss me out?”

“If you keep acting like a child, yeah, they might.”

“It's these goddam books you bring. You're trying to drive me nuts. Breaking my heart. Making me climb up the mountain and I get up there and it's some asshole making fun of me. Pay on your way down he says. Like it's all some kind of joke and I'm not in on it.”

“Pops, they won't let you stay, you keep throwing things.”

“Don't bring any more of those goddam books. You hear me? I got better things to do with my time. I don't need books breaking my heart all day and night. Okay? We clear?”

It was another day or maybe it was the same one only later. Hazy day.

He picked up the book and found his place. It was easy enough. Let the book fall open, it's the place.

He's out on the freezing ass street and the cab is disappearing and his heart is aching like there's a slug in it. Three in the head, one in the heart. His motto. His calling card. He's out there looking around for a street sign, not sure which way is uptown where he wants to go, his hotel, or his apartment.

A cab pulls up, door comes open.

It's her. The serial killer who cracked his heart in half and drove off and left him.

“You still angry at me?”

“I was never angry. You haven't seen angry.”

“You're a gruff old man.”

“You going my way or you here to taunt me?”

They drive off. The cabbie is a black guy. He's checking them out in the mirror like they're the first two old fart killers he's ever seen.

“Your place or mine?”

“Do you even have a place?” She smiled like it was a joke.

“Your place,” he said. “I bet your sheets are rose petals.”

“Poetry all of a sudden. That's supposed to sweep me up?”

“Poetry? You haven't seen from poetry.”

Javier was back with the pills.

“I've got a mission,” he told Javier. “You want in?”

“Depends.”

“In or out? Make up your mind and make it quick.”

Was that from somewhere? Maybe that guy Higgins. There was a name he remembered. Guys talking, that's the whole story. Guys talking and talking, the back and forth, street shit. Getting it right, hitting the notes pure and simple.

“You want to break out of here, am I right?”

Sometimes it's better not to talk. Sometimes that's wiser.

Javier spoke into the silence. “You want, I could help you.”

He let some more silence mount up and Javier said, “Okay, I got a price. Nothing's free in this world, you know that. I could help you. I like you, Mr. Connors, and I can see you're suffocating in this joint. I'll arrange an exit. It won't be easy. They's cameras, security stuff. People on duty around the clock. It's not easy, but I got a way to do it if you're interested.”

He was interested, but the silence was working for him so it was hard to stop. Spent his life talking. Spent his life giving shit and taking it, messing with people, making them do what he wanted them to, setting them up with just the right words. Now he was seeing the beauty of stillness, the raw power of it.

“I can see you're not up to talking about it just now. But I'll be back at bedtime, if you want to discuss it, what I got in mind, we can do it then, or whenever you're ready, fine by me.”

Javier left.

He climbed into bed and read the book. The story was waiting for him like stories do. Right where he left it. Christ it was hard to keep it all straight. You had a life, a long, complicated life full of a thousand things every day, you heard things, read things, lived things, how could you know which compartment anything was stored in, where it happened originally? Some people could do it, sure. People could say, yeah, that was from here and that was from there. And that meant they could stay in their own houses and not get shipped to the home. But what was that? Knowing where something was from, where it originated. Hey, who gives a shit? It was all knocking around inside him, equal parts this, and equal parts that.

The old lady serial killer was an experienced lover, a woman of the world who knew her business. She was beautiful in bed, perfect and beautiful. She reminded him of someonehe'd made love to a long time ago when he was a young man. A Mexican girl of nineteen or twenty named Linda Vargas, black shining hair, black shining eyes. Or was she a character in a book? It didn't matter. He loved that woman, Linda Vargas, just the same as he loved the lady serial killer, loved her up and down and inside and out, her skin like rose petals and silk, her skin as sleek and soft as summer moonlight filtering through a sweet midnight haze.

And he stopped reading.

You had to stop sometimes. Show a little discipline, leave some in the bottle for tomorrow. He pulled up the sheets. His hand sliding into his underpants. His old friend. Been through the wars together, sleeping now, taking a furlough, on the sidelines. But he gave it a few pulls for old times' sake, felt it come to life. Half life anyway. Half was all he could manage. This time of life half was plenty.

He slept.

The important thing about missions is to keep them going. They can change, you had to adjust to circumstances, but you keep going forward, keep the goal in mind, otherwise, what've you got? You got that Greek guy pushing the boulder up the mountain and it sliding down the other side. You got one hazy day after another, the days stacking up without any progress, any hope.

Javier came with his sunnysides.

“You have a nice night sleeping?”

“I might've slept, I don't know. The state I'm in, how'm I supposed to tell?”

“You consider my proposal?”

“I need to hear a price.”

“I been thinking about that, about money, you know what it's worth to you, what the risk I'm taking is worth to me, and I'm having a hard time putting a number on it. But okay, since you want a number, okay, five thousand, I get you out of here, take you wherever you want to go, drop you off free and clear.”

“Five thousand bucks.”

“American dollars. You get the first class ride out of here.”

“I don't trust you, Javi.”

“You think I take your money, don't deliver? What am I, crazy? You think I risk that, knowing who you are, what you did in your life, before you came to the home, the way you made your money. You think I'd cross a man like you?”

“I'm old. Some days I'm confused. Wouldn't be hard to pull one on me.”

“I know you'd come for me. I know you'd track me down wherever I hid. Isn't no running from men like you. Professionals. I know that. So you can trust me, Mr. Connors. I'm not stupid like that, take your money and walk away.”

“I'll have the five for you tomorrow.”

Back to the book by the woman writer. Things heating up. The old lady serial killer, her name is Varla, nice exotic ring to it, Polish or gypsy or something, she'd decided she wanted to kill a young lady who worked in a bookstore, a young lady who'd done harm to her new manfriend, the retired professional killer, Little Mo Connors.

“That's my daughter, my own flesh and blood. You can't kill her.”

“It's the only way you're going to get out of the home. She's the impediment. Once she's gone, you're free.”

“Am I?”

“I'm doing you a favor.”

They staked out the bookstore. It was summer, tables out on the sidewalk at the Italian place across the street. They took a table, the two old killers, and watched the bookstore. It was close to lunch time, the restaurant getting busy, so they had to order. Fettuccini alfredo for her, tortellini for him.

“Bad for my blood sugar,” he said. “But what the hell. Screw my blood sugar.”

“There she is, coming out the front door.”

“Christ, she's coming this way. She'll see us. She'll know what we're up to. We should move.”

Varla put a hand on his leg below the table. An electric thrill he hadn't felt in years.

“Dad, what're you doing here?”

“Reading a book, what does it look like?”

“The woman novelist, I told you you'd like her. She's right up your alley.”

“I want out of here,” he told her. “That's my goal, to escape this hellhole.”

“Dad, this is a beautiful place. The food is good, people love you here. I was just talking to Javier and he was going on and on about what a funny guy you were, all the stories you been telling him.”

“He keeps me doped up.”

“Those are blood pressure pills, Dad. If you don't take them, you could have a stroke.”

“Who do I have to kill to get out of this hellhole?”

“I brought you some more books. Another one by the woman writer. I'm glad you like her so much. I thought you would.”

“I met somebody. Her name is Varla.”

His daughter smiled at him.

“Javier told me. She sounds wonderful. When can I meet her?”

“Who?”

“Varla, your gal pal.”

He'd said too much, given away a secret. The haze did that, it confused him, kept him loopy. He wasn't sure who he was talking to or why. He wasn't sure if he was remembering shit he did or shit he read or some other kind of shit entirely. Shit he made up while he sat at the window and looked out at the snow and the palm trees. He stopped talking. Refused to say another word.

His daughter left. Good riddance.

He searched his room for his pistol. Took out each pair of underwear, every T-shirt, scooted the bureau away from the wall, felt the floorboards for a secret shelf, a hidey hole like he'd used back in his day for all his weapons. Killers threw the guns away off bridges into rivers. But that was in books. That was bullshit. Buying new guns was a hassle. So he avoided it, held on to the ones he'd used. So what if some cop came around and took his gun and ran a ballistics test on the slugs. So what? He'd get sent to prison. Big deal. He was in prison already. Everyone told him how great it was, the food was good, like that mattered. Like it wasn't a box with a single, tiny window.

He didn't find the gun. But he knew it was there. He was tired of looking.

He put on his pajamas and got into bed to read. It was the middle of the afternoon. Big snowflakes coming down, white as the birds standing in the lawn. He opened the book he'd been reading, found his place.