The Hitman: Dirty Rotters (6 page)

I had a job through the church
restoring houses, mostly in the neighborhood, but we worked all
over the city. The problem was that it didn’t pay well. I took up a
part time job at a restaurant doing dishes. I hated the work, but I
knew what I wanted. I was determined. I knew a less-than-lustrous
job did not define me as a person.

I saved up for months, all summer long
in fact. It was in September when I began to shop around for
engagement rings. I knew I had enough money saved up for something
special. Pamela was going to get the best.

“
None of that will matter
to her,” Little B argued. “It’s the meaning that we
want.”

“
She’s getting a diamond,
grandma.” I had been looking at sales ads in the Sunday’s paper.
Little B was frowning at me the whole time.

“
Let me tell you a little
secret about women.” Little B started, sitting down across from me
at the table, drinking hot coffee at three in the afternoon. “We
would rather have chicken wire wrapped around our finger with a man
that is faithfully in love with us, than a giant ring that shines
when the love fails.”

I looked at her. “I want her to have
the best. The best of me, the best of everything.”

“
I see the way she looks at
you, Michael. She’d be happy with a ring made from a piece of
aluminum foil as long as it came from you.” She sipped her coffee
slowly. “Rings aren’t forever, you know. All that fades away. Just
like life itself. Then one day you wake up and it’s all over.
You’re alone and your best friend has moved on without you and
you’re left with memories more precious than any diamond
ring.”

I looked into her eyes. They were
teary.

I reached over and took her hand into
mine. “I’m sorry, grandma.”

“
For what?”

“
That you’re alone. That
I—we— didn’t come to visit you enough. I wished we had.”

“
Don’t bother with that.”
She sighed heavily. “You’re here now. That’s all that
matters.”

She looked down, through the table,
back to someplace special, someplace in time that was going to hurt
when she came back to reality.

I knew she was right about the
ring.

But I was stubborn.

Six hundred dollars in my
pocket.

I was heading to the jewelry store.
The one on Front Street, made from black marble with diamond flakes
in it, at the other end of town where it was safe to walk the
streets with a wad of cash in your pocket.

Or so I thought anyway.

The two men came out of an alley as I
passed, just two blocks short of where I needed to be. I had a bad
feeling right away.

“
Hey, slow down kid.” The
bald one said, rushing up to my left side. He wore a plaid shirt
with no sleeves and dirty jeans. “I just need the time.”

My stomach churned in knots. I knew
what was about to happen.

“
Come on, kid.” His partner
said. He wore a sweatshirt with a hood and grey sweats that were
dirty as well.

Sweatshirt put his hand firm on
shoulder to spin me towards him. I panicked. My adrenaline was
pumping so hard, so fast, and all I thought about was the ring I
was going to get for Pamela. I threw the first punch. Missed
terribly. I didn’t get another shot. Plaid had me wrapped up while
Sweatshirt delivered a series of gut shots that left me gasping,
choking for air. They ransacked my pockets and howled when they
found what they were hoping for. I doubled over to the sidewalk in
front of a shoe store as they raced away.

I cried hard. Bystanders tried to help
me up, but I shrugged them off. I buried my face into my hands and
wept until the police arrived. I was embarrassed. I was humiliated.
Violated. I felt small and vulnerable. I felt guilty.

When I got back to Little B’s that
night I didn’t want to tell her anything. I didn’t want her to tell
me it was a mistake in the first place. But I did, regardless.
Little B said nothing to spurn me. She patted me on the head as I
slumped onto the couch.

She stared out the window and I barely
heard her curse, “Dirty Rotters.”

Pamela came by the next
day.

I told her everything.

“
Six hundred dollars?” she
tried to keep it quiet as we were standing on the porch around
noon. “Michael, that’s way too much money.”

“
I just wanted to get you
something nice,” I said.

“
Something nice would have
been dinner and a movie. Don’t you know how guilty I feel
now?”

“
Why? It’s not your
fault.”

“
Michael, I know you don’t
have much money. I don’t ever want you to think that buying me
something expensive is going to make me love you more.”

Little B was inside, rocking in her
chair. I heard her reply, “That’s what I said.”

I moved closer to Pamela, who folded
her arms against her chest and turned away, facing the street. I
embraced her anyway. I felt foolish.

“
I just wanted you to know
how much you mean to me. That’s all. I know you don’t expect it
from me, and that’s why it was so important.” I turned her around
so she was facing me. I looked her in the eyes. “I wanted to get
you a ring. I want to propose.”

I watched her face change slowly. The
anger in her eyes was swept away by a look of disbelief then one of
excitement. Her face lit up then. I felt her arms wrap around me
tight. She jumped up and down and yelled in excitement. Tears
rolled down her eyes, then mine. Then Little B was in the doorway,
overwhelmed as well.

“
Michael Lynch!” she hit me
on the shoulder. “I don’t need a diamond! I just need
you!”

“
Don’t you know I love you,
Pamela?” I hugged her tight.

She cried. “I love you so much. You
mean the world to me.” She kissed me. “The answer is yes, Michael!
It’s always been yes!”

We kissed.

“
I’ll get some wine!”
Little B said and went inside.

Pamela and I broke apart a minute
later. We both were giddy. We went inside and found Little B in the
kitchen with three glasses of red wine. I got down one a knee and
proposed. She said yes. We clanked glasses together.

“
Wait! I have a camera in
my car. I’ll be right back!”

She ran through the house to the front
porch. She had parked on the street right out front. Little B and I
hugged. We talked, unable to stop smiling. I had never felt more
alive.

“
What’s taking her so
long?” I said.

“
You might want to get used
to that, Michael.” Little B laughed.

I set my glass down on the table. “I’m
going to see if she needs help.”

I walked away, through the house, out
to the porch, smiling. I saw her car at the curb, not even fifteen
yards away. The driver door was wide open. Pamela was nowhere to be
seen.

I hated September forever
then.

Chapter 5

I felt nothing.

I was empty. Void of emotions. Drained
of feelings. Dried of tears. Deserted by hope. Failed by desire. I
pleaded with Death. I urged it to come.

Come claim me!

But Death was just as absent as the
closure I needed to move on.

The cops said they had searched
everywhere. Fliers were put out. Rewards were offered. Pamela’s
story was on the evening news. But there were no reports of her
whereabouts. No leads. No sightings. Not even false ones. The city
had nothing to offer. It kept its secrets. It was a dark and
sinister mistress, with only loyalties to those Rotters serving her
vices.

In the weeks following Pamela’s
disappearance I had changed. Something in me had died and something
else had been born. Risen from the depths of bitterness and anger,
to grow like a seed, each day taking a little more of who I was and
gently replacing it with a darker side, I changed. Each hour that
came and went with no word of Pamela’s discovery I slipped further
into something unpleasant.

I felt like a ship at sea taking on
water, drifting aimlessly through thick fog.

I walked the streets, searching on my
own, door to door, day and night, sun and rain, wind and snow. I
hadn’t abandoned her. I wouldn’t. I pressed on alone, feeling as if
everyone I saw was laughing at me, as if they were all in on the
joke. As if they all knew, but no one dared speak. I began to
harass people then. I began to knock on doors, trying to do a house
to house search. Nothing worked though. Panic owned me. Nightmares
of what Pamela might be going through haunted me. I began to get
physical. I put innocent people in the hospital because they didn’t
have the answers I needed. But in my head they did. In my head they
knew.

I was failing. I was helpless. I was
desperate.

And every day I could hear Pamela’s
voice crying out to me for help.

Weeks slipped into months. One year
into two.

“
It will kill you,” Little
B said, twenty-five months into the search.

She was old. Everything had taken a
toll on her as well. And she had less of a fight to give. As I had
fought to find someone I loved, who surely was written off to be
dead, Little B’s life was coming to an end right before my eyes and
I failed to see it.

“
What would you have me
do?” I said. “Give up, like everyone else? You preach to me about
faith, but mine says she’s out there, waiting for me to find
her.”

I was sitting on the porch in the
middle of the day and she was heading out to confession. She had
her long blue coat on. It was early October. In my youth, this
would have been my favorite time of the year. The air would have
smelled better. Trees would have had such a color to them. The full
moon rising would have seemed larger and dreams would have had the
chance to come true.

Not any longer. Not here.

“
I’ve seen you do nothing
but feel sorry for yourself for over a year now. You cannot change
what happened. But you can change what is happening now. You’re
missing out on life! You’re losing yourself. If you don’t change
soon and pull yourself together, then you’ll end up like the rest
of them! You were raised better than that!” She was hurt and angry.
A tear fell. Then another. “I am not going to sit here every day
and watch you throw your life away! I love you!”

“
I don’t care!”

I had regretted the words as soon as I
let them slip out. I hurt her. I didn’t mean to. I just couldn’t
help myself. She stormed away before I could say anything
else.

I was still locked in the same
position when Little B came back. She had been gone a full thirty
minutes. To me it had been a few seconds. She shuffled up the steps
past me and went inside. I heard her purse hit the floor next to
her chair. I heard her chair squeak from the new added weight, then
begin to rock gently. I heard her humming too.

But I sat for a bit longer. I was
drained of the will to move. I heard a train in the distance,
approaching blocks away. I considered walking the street to the
tracks and lying down on them, taking a nap. It seemed
inevitable.

Life had little meaning.

Then I heard Little B yelp.

The suicidal flirtations disappeared
and before I knew it I was off the step, through the door, and
cradling Little B’s body as she was slumped over the arm of her
chair. Her left hand clutched the cushion, while her right hand
covered her chest. Her heart.

Our eyes met and locked. A pleading
gasp was all she could muster. Her face was red. Her eyes were
bulging. Time was slipping fast.

“
Hang on!”

I raced to the phone and called 911. I
went back to Little B and held her hand. She squeezed it tighter
than I thought could be possible. There was nothing I could do. She
would die right there in front of me.

But the paramedics arrived and began
to work on her in the house, then transferred her into the back of
the ambulance. I rode along. Before we reached the hospital, Little
B was breathing normally and talking. I was beside her, holding her
hand. The clean-cut paramedic guy was younger than I was. He said
she had suffered a mild heart attack. The hospital would keep her
overnight. I slept in the chair beside her bed. Everything had
happened so fast.

It was early in the morning when
Little B called to me. I had been sleeping uncomfortably in the
chair. “Michael, can you hear me?”

I was awake instantly. My eyes stung.
I rubbed them fast. I was so tired. “I’m here. It’s
okay.”

“
Listen to me,” she began,
her voice frail and serious, “I was given a choice. I have decided
to stay.”

Choice? What
choice?

“
What are you talking
about?” I yawned. Stretched my arms over my head. “Who gave you a
choice, grandma?”

“
God did.”

“
Did what?”

“
Asked me.”