Authors: Thomas Laird
Thi
s
i
s
jus
t
a
shoulde
r
woun
d,I
kee
p
tellin
g
mysel
f.
It’
s
nothin
g
fata
l.
The
n
wh
y
i
s
i
t
tha
t
I
fee
l
lik
e
I’
m
neve
r
goin
g
t
o
wak
e
u
p
whe
n
m
y
fac
e
meet
s
th
e
floo
r
o
f
thi
s
stal
l
?
M
y
fac
e
doe
s
mee
t
th
e
floo
r.
M
y
eye
s
ar
e
a
fe
w
inche
s
fro
m
th
e
drai
n.
T
m
hunche
d
u
p
lik
e
a
Musli
m
a
t
prayer
s.I
wan
t
t
o
ge
t
u
p.I
nee
d
t
o
ris
e.I
kno
w
i
f
I
sta
y
her
e
tha
t
re
d
trickl
e
goin
g
dow
n
th
e
drai
n
wil
l
becom
e
a
rive
r
o
f
m
y
ow
n
bloo
d.
Wh
o
kne
w
tha
t
thos
e
guine
a
bastard
s
woul
d
b
e
awak
e
s
o
lat
e?
Wh
o
kne
w
tha
t
Sa
l
Donofri
o
woul
d
b
e
waitin
g
fo
r
m
e
wit
h
hea
t
i
n
hi
s
han
d
?
I
reac
h
ou
t
an
d
pu
t
m
y
fingertip
s
ove
r
th
e
drai
n.I
figur
e
I’l
l
b
e
abl
e
t
o
sav
e
m
y
bloo
d,
someho
w
kee
p
i
t
fro
m
dribblin
g
dow
n
an
d
ou
t
int
o
th
e
city’
s
sewe
r
syste
m.
It’
s
a
ridiculou
s
notio
n
.
Bu
t
I’
m
gettin
g
ver
y
sleep
y
an
d
I
canno
t
mov
e.I
can’
t
ge
t
t
o
m
y
fee
t.
Everythin
g
I’v
e
eve
r
desire
d
i
n
m
y
lif
e
i
s
joinin
g
tha
t
scarle
t
rivule
t.
Th
e
brigh
t
re
d
strea
m
flow
s
pas
t
m
y
eye
s,
downwar
d,
downwar
d,
downwar
d
...
Natalie sat in the kitchen while I was asleep. She said it gave her a better visual of the floor plan in our house. She could concentrate on keeping watch if she was not in the same room with me.
The kids and my mother had been gone two weeks. We both missed the three of them terribly. I felt as if Karrios was already here, an intruder in my home. I liked it when everyone was here, when I could see all of us together. When the kids were out of the house, I suffered anxiety attacks wondering if they were all right and if they’d arrive home safely. The Elmhurst police force had cooperated with us and had put a man with my family at Uncle Nick’s - I still couldn’t call him Papa or Dad. I called them frequently. They were lonesome for their friends and their home surroundings, but I couldn’t put them where Karrios might show up.
I didn’t sleep well. Maybe it would’ve been better if we’d kept the security system running and the dog at home. But then a smart little dick like Karrios would sniff out the trap. The way he’d got to Sal had impressed me with his patience and his alertness. No, he wouldn’t try to come in unless his way was cleared. I was hoping he’d figured that I was confident that he wouldn’t dare attack a policeman. It just wasn’t done. Certainly not by his former associates, Fortuna and Donofrio. They wanted to fuck with a cop, they threw some money around. Killing lawmen was just too messy. And it generated unbelievable heat. You could buy a cop and get away with it, but you killed one of the brotherhood, there was no hole you could hide in. It was the one taboo that most of the Outfit would not mess with. It was just not worth the problems you’d suffer after the fact.
But Karrios was not Sicilian, he was not in a crew, and he was not the usual workmanlike thug. He was beyond that ballpark. He’d loved his own mother, she’d died on him, and since he couldn’t have her again, he was punishing women who fit into her age and physical categories. They were surrogates for his abuse. I was no shrink, but that was the only way I could figure him.
He had to show up soon. There’d been no progress in canvassing all the pharmacies. No one’d come in with a bogus prescription for a bug zapper. We’d given all those places a general, and vague, description of the ‘new’ Marco Karrios as well. We had a hundred Academy kids who had volunteered to keep going round to the drugstores for as long as we needed them to.
I rolled over and I saw that Natalie was out in the house somewhere. It was three in the morning. We were still working days. We figured our being at home at night would edge Marco even further in our direction. But, like I said, it had been two long weeks.
I heard something like a thud that seemed to come from the kitchen. I snapped myself up to a seated position. I wanted to call out for her, but I didn’t want to announce that I was awake.
I got up out of bed and threw on a pair of shorts and a T-shirt, and I picked up the Bulldog from the nightstand. The gun was kept in easy reach now that my kids were out of the house.
I walked slowly toward the kitchen with the piece palmed in my hand. When I got to the room where my wife liked to keep watch, I didn’t see her. There was only a fluorescent bulb lit. It was over the kitchen sink. I walked back toward the front of the house, toward the living room. It was dark. No one there.
I was beginning to feel my pulse take off from the launchpad. I wouldn’t be taking my hypertension medication until seven in the morning, and I could feel the invisible fingers applying pressure to the back of my neck. I thought I was going to explode if I didn’t see Natalie in about ten seconds.
I ran up the stairs to the second floor, where the kids’ bedrooms were. Nobody was there. I came back down the stairs and checked if she had missed me in transit somehow and was back in our bedroom. Still no one. I went back toward the kitchen. It was still unoccupied.
Then I heard another thud coming from below, in the basement.
I cocked the .44 Bulldog. I opened the door that led downstairs. It was a few paces beyond the kitchen, toward the back door. I flipped on the light switch and began to move down the stairs very lightly. But there were a few inadvertent creaks in spite of my careful steps.
The only light came from a forty-watt globe hanging from the ceiling. We rarely went into the basement unless it was to clean or to look for something in storage. I heard another quiet thud, and I aimed the miniature cannon into the darkness.
‘Natalie?’
There was no reply.
There was a flashlight at the bottom of the stairs on a workbench. I found it and flipped it on, but the batteries were dead and I got no light from it.
I walked into the basement, away from the stairs, and immediately stubbed my toe on a piece of copper pipe that was lying in the middle of the concrete floor. Which caused me to snap my head up in agony. Which, in turn, caused me to whack the overhead bulb that hung from the ceiling of the basement. Which caused the light to bob eerily throughout the cellar, creating shadows and flashes of light that bounced off the various items of junk we had on the walls down here.
In one of those flashes I saw a face. I yanked the pistol upward as I grabbed hold of that bobbing goddamned forty-watt bulb. I aimed the fixture toward the face, and I saw it was our front-lawn Santa Claus statue. I had almost whacked the fat, jolly guy with a .44 slug.
I was convinced there was no one down here but a resident mouse. Now I’d need to buy a goddamned cat to even the odds against the fucking rodent.
I headed back carefully toward the stairs. Suddenly I heard footsteps above me. It sounded as if they were moving rapidly across the kitchen tiles. Moving faster now, I reached the top of the basement stairs. I shoved open the door with the Bulldog stuck out in front of me.
There was still no one in here. The light remained on, but the kitchen was deserted.
I tried the bedroom on the main floor once more. Nobody. I trotted upstairs. Nothing. I came down into the living room and it was as it had been. Dark. Unoccupied.
Someone was playing hide-and-seek with me and it’d gotten beyond irritating.
‘Natalie
,
goddammi
t!
’
The only place left was the backyard. I walked through the kitchen yet once more and opened the back door. I walked down the steps onto the cool concrete, and I felt a shiver work its way up my back. There were cops down the alley and cops down the street aways, but I hadn’t used my handheld, back in the bedroom, to call in the troops.
I walked out toward the back fence, toward the alley, and the grass was wet and freezingly cold. I stopped at the fence and looked both ways. Nothing that I could see. The surveillance guys were supposed to give us about a block’s space so Karrios wouldn’t be scared away before he tried to get inside.
I turned and walked back toward the house. I was heading for our bedroom. Something was wrong. Natalie didn’t play games like this. She wouldn’t run out of the house without telling me something was up.
I reached the porch at the back of the house and walked back in through the door. I had the gun clamped tightly in my hand, and I could feel those intangible fingers grabbing at the muscle on my neck. It was damn’ near throttling me.
I walked into the house, turned on another light inside the kitchen, headed right toward our bedroom to retrieve the handheld radio — and then there was another muffled sound coming from the front of the house. This time I bolted toward the front door, threw it open, aimed the piece in front of me —
Right at the noggin of my red-headed bride, who had her own nine-millimeter pointed squarely at my neck.
‘Jesus Christ, Natalie! What’re yo
u
doin
g
out here?’
‘Whew ... Jimmy, God. I thought I heard something out on the front porch. When I came out here the first time, I heard something coming from the back of the house. So I ran back into the yard and then I thought someone was back out here, messing with me ... I finally found two cats who were rolling around in the throes of romance. They were having a mobile go of it, from our front porch to our backyard. You didn’t hear all the yowling?’
‘I thought that prick was in the house. I thought he had you, because I couldn’t find you.’
‘From now on I’ll wake you up if I think I hear something out of the ordinary.’
She led me back into the house. The invisible grips on the base of my skull were finally released.
‘You have great legs, Jimmy. Anybody ever told you that?’ she said as she shut the door and tripped the dead bolt.