Authors: Tim Maleeny
Larry spasmed with every blast of the shotgun, almost knocking himself and Jerome off their bar stools.
“Did you hear that?”
Jerome was sweating but managed to raise one eyebrow in what he hoped was a wry expression.
If you act cool, you just might be cool.
“Bro, the whole fucking neighborhood heard
that
.”
It sounded good when he said it, but Jerome didn’t feel cool at all.
***
Jill’s hands shook as she latched the door. Sam had just stepped into the hallway and told her to stay inside no matter what happened. She moved to the kitchen and rummaged through drawers until she found an ice pick. She tested the point and decided it would do the trick. Now she had to figure out where to hide.
***
Shalya and Tamara jumped when they heard the gunshots but stayed on the big bed. They tried to concentrate on painting each other’s nails but took turns nervously glancing toward the cameras in their room. If they were going to be murdered, at least there would be witnesses. Thousands of them, from all over the world.
***
Gail sat on her couch and held Gus’ hands in hers, their knees touching.
“We should call the cops,” said Gus.
Gail shook her head. “How long do you think it would take the police to arrive?”
Gus shrugged. “Five, ten minutes, tops.”
“Too late.”
“Too late?”
Gail nodded. “We’ll all be dead by then.”
“He must be getting heavy,” said Sam. “Even for a big guy like you.”
Julio shrugged to show it was no big deal, but the motion made his shoulders ache. Fucking Zorro needed to lose some weight. Maybe there was saturated fat in sheep eyeballs.
Sam held the gun steady, his expression bland. Julio’s eyes flicked past Sam toward the elevator, but the hallway remained empty. Then his gaze darted toward his belt, where the mammoth 50-caliber handgun had slipped across his belt to rub against his crotch. It was an itch he couldn’t scratch without getting his head blown off.
Zorro grunted and tried to twist free. Julio held him fast but the struggle made Julio sway back and forth as if he were doing the hula in a private luau for Sam.
The cop was right, Julio had to make a move. This was humiliating.
The thought occurred to Julio just as Zorro managed to open his mouth and spit. A thin line of drool escaped the sieve of his ruined teeth, oozing onto Julio’s forehead and into his eyes.
Chingalo!
Julio clenched his mouth shut and blinked. He wanted to be able to look the cop in the eyes. He took a deep breath and tightened his grip. Above, he heard Zorro squeak like a dog’s toy.
The cop held Julio’s gaze, the gun steady.
Julio stood motionless for a long moment, then nodded at the cop.
Sam watched as Julio pivoted slowly on one foot, Zorro held high, the big finale of the hula. When Julio’s weight had settled on the other foot his back was turned to Sam. Without looking over his shoulder, Julio took a tentative step toward the fire escape.
Sam kept the gun raised, waiting.
Two steps, three. Julio reached the glass door set high on the wall, then quickly released Zorro’s legs, which dangled and bounced in mid-air like the limbs of a marionette. Julio pulled the door open and caught Zorro’s legs before he could find the strength to start kicking.
Julio spared a glance over his shoulder and saw that Sam hadn’t moved. Their eyes met and this time Sam nodded, slowly.
Julio turned and stepped onto the fire escape. He lowered Zorro until he was at shoulder level, then Julio took a second step to the railing and thrust his arms up and away from his body in one fluid motion, launching Zorro into space.
Zorro plummeted a hundred feet before he made any noise. Then his scream tore through the building like an altar boy’s parents in search of a lawyer.
The scream bounced off the walls, rattled the windows, and woke up everyone in the neighborhood. For Sam and his neighbors, it was a sound that was all too familiar.
Julio leaned over the railing of the fire escape. The courtyard was illuminated by streetlights, and he could just make out the scene two hundred feet below. He grunted in satisfaction, then turned to face Sam.
“I hit the penguins,” Julio said with obvious pride.
Sam kept his gun raised. “Congratulations.”
“You’re welcome.”
“I think you did us both a favor.”
Julio shrugged. He was careful to keep his hands away from his belt.
Sam asked, “You want to come inside?”
Julio studied Sam for a moment, then shook his head. “I’m not going back to jail.”
“Not my problem.”
Julio nodded, then took a tentative step off the uppermost landing of the fire escape, lowering his weight onto the first rung of the ladder. It creaked in protest but held. Sam remained in the hallway but tracked Julio as he took another step down. Both of the giant’s hands were on the railing now, his gun out of reach, but Sam stayed where he was. When Julio’s head was the only thing visible through the window, he paused. The two men looked at each other, frozen in time. Sam spoke first.
“
Adios
,” he said. “And, well,
gracias
.”
“
De nada
.”
Sam lowered his gun when the top of Julio’s head slipped out of sight. He counted to ten, then pulled a cell phone out of his pocket and pressed the call button.
It took Julio only three minutes to follow the zig-zag of the fire escape down to the ladder that lowered automatically when it took his weight. The ladder was positioned to blend with a sign that featured the name of the apartment complex, the vertical lines of the ladder forming the letter “L” in Golden Towers. Below the sign, an open archway on the ground floor led to the main entrance.
A jolting ride on the ladder, a short drop and Julio was standing in the courtyard looking up. He had kept his eyes on the top floor, just in case the cop changed his mind about following. But Julio didn’t think he would.
The dead cop who wasn’t dead. The cop who wasn’t a cop anymore.
Julio didn’t know what to call him, so he decided to think of him as
the smart guy who outfoxed Zorro and could have shot me but didn’t.
It had a nice ring to it.
Julio lowered his gaze and turned, facing the courtyard. The main entrance to the building was behind him. The night air was cool but clear, the light at street level more than sufficient to reveal his surroundings.
Unlike the dead landlord, Zorro did not explode on impact. Somehow his sinews, bones, and muscle held his torso together despite the crushing impact of the fall. Maybe there was high fiber in eyeballs. Or calcium.
Zorro was looking up at the stars, arms outstretched in supplication, head thrown back in rapture. Through his chest the beak of the mother penguin protruded majestically, reaching upwards to heaven in thanks for this unexpected bounty. Zorro was the catch of the day.
Julio took a deep breath and turned away. It was time to get the hell out of there.
That’s when he realized he hadn’t heard any sirens. After deafening gunfire and a scream that could wake the dead, no one had called
911
? Alarms went off somewhere inside his head, and instinctively Julio reached for the gun in his belt, but he froze before his hand made it halfway to his waist.
A large-caliber handgun was pressing against his temple directly behind his right eye socket. Julio could feel the blade of the forward sight digging into his flesh.
Danny Rodriguez slowly withdrew the gun as he stepped from the shadows of the archway into the courtyard. He wore his badge on the outside of his jacket, its metal surface glinting in the diffuse light from the streetlamps. From a distance of four feet, he kept the forty-five pointed at Julio’s broad face. Just out of reach but too close to miss.
Julio shook his head, disgusted. He tried to think of something to say—something smart or tough—but the only thing that came to mind was the mantra that had been running through his head all week.
“I hate this fucking job.”
“Don’t worry,
ese
.” Danny used his free hand to gesture toward the penguins. “I think you just resigned.”
“Maybe I should resign.”
Sam looked at his ex-partner and shook his head. “C’mon, Danny.”
“You did.”
“I didn’t resign,” said Sam. “I retired. There’s a difference.”
“This is a mess.”
“I said it would be.”
“Easy for you to say—you’re not the one who has to do all the paperwork.”
Sam drank some tequila but didn’t respond. The Globe restaurant stayed open until two A.M., which made it unique in a neighborhood where most kitchens closed by ten. At this hour there was always room at the bar, and tonight Sam and Danny had it all to themselves.
Julio had been taken into custody. His desire to stay out of prison was trumped by his more fervent desire to avoid getting shot in the face.
The coroner’s wagon had left an hour ago, along with the uniformed cops and the lone crime scene technician. A meager crew by CSI standards, but this wasn’t television. Danny and Sam had moved to the restaurant down the street so they could talk in private.
“They came early,” Danny said. “Good thing you were ready.”
“Yeah.” Sam blew out his cheeks. “I knew it wouldn’t be last night, but tonight—I thought they’d come later.”
“Like one A.M.”
“Exactly. In the middle of the night for sure, not at ten. Almost caught me with my pants down.”
“I don’t think patience is—
was
—one of Zorro’s talents.”
“Neither was flying,” said Sam.
Both men took a sip of their tequila and stared at nothing for a minute, anticipating the conversation that neither one wanted to have but knew they couldn’t avoid. The bartender had told them it was sipping tequila. The price of each shot convinced both men that sipping was probably a good idea.
“I’m going to start with the painfully obvious,” said Danny. “Then you fill in the blanks.”
“If I can.”
Danny gave him a look. “Use your imagination—you’re good at that.”
Sam kept his mouth shut.
“Zorro is dead. Killed by Julio, who should have considered trying out for the Olympic shotput team.”
“Or horseshoes.”
“That’s not an Olympic sport.”
“It should be.” Sam took a drink.
“And then we have Walter, who was—”
Sam cut in. “—
shot
by Zorro.”
The two friends sat there, shoulder to shoulder, contemplating the importance of semantics when writing police reports.
“There’s a difference between
shot
and
killed
,” mused Danny.
“There is a difference, but does it
make
a difference?” Sam turned on his bar stool to face his old partner.
Danny met his gaze. “
Should
it make a difference?”
Sam shook his head. “Not in this case.”
“You saying Zorro killed Walter?”
“I’m saying you stopped the bad guys,” said Sam. “At the end of the day, isn’t that the job?”
Danny studied his glass of tequila as if it were a crystal ball. Not finding any answers from looking at it, he tried drinking it in one gulp. Six dollars down the hatch. He hissed as the liquid burned his throat, then set the glass back on the bar.
“These days I’m not sure what the job is.”
Sam threw his own drink back, then gestured for two more. “You stopped the bad guys.” He felt pedantic for saying it again but needed to convince himself. “They’re all dead or in jail.”
“Walter was into
something
,” said Danny, but it sounded half-hearted.
“And he’s dead.”
“Zorro must have had some connection to that apartment building—
inside
that building.”
“You working Narcotics now, Danny?”
“Fuck you.”
Sam laughed. “Fair enough. But if you were Zorro’s connection and if—
if
—you were still alive, what would you do, now that Zorro’s dead?”
“Find another line of work and keep my head down.”
“Exactly.”
“What about Ed?” asked Danny. “Your lovable landlord?”
“He’s dead.”
“You saying he got sideways with Zorro, too?”
“Julio’s got quite an arm,” said Sam.
“You saying Julio threw him off the building?”
“You could ask him.”
“Throwing Zorro off the roof might get him a plea bargain,” said Danny. “Or a fucking medal from the Mayor. But throwing a civilian off the roof, well…the judge might frown upon such behavior.”
“You’re saying he’ll deny it.”
“Wouldn’t you?”
Sam took a deep breath, then exhaled loudly. “Know what I think?”
Danny said nothing.
“I think Ed was a bad guy.” Sam tried to keep the edge from his voice. “You talk to anyone who lives on that floor, and they’ll tell you the same thing.”
“Guess you got to know your neighbors.”
Sam nodded.
“Do you trust them?” asked Danny.
Sam seemed to consider the question before saying, “About as much as I trust myself.”
Danny studied his friend and former partner for a long time. Finally, he said, “That’s good enough for me.”
Neither spoke for a minute. Sam finished his drink and turned toward Danny.
“When I was on the job,” he said, “I used to say that I worked for the dead.”
“I remember.”
“I had it all wrong,” said Sam. “I think we’re supposed to work for the living.”
“Is that what you’re doing?”
“Yeah,” said Sam. “That’s my new job.”
When Sam got home, Jill was already there, standing in front of the mantle. She adjusted a picture frame on the far right, then took a step back.
“What do you think?”
Sam looked around the room. Blood stained the hardwood floor around the ruined chair. Gore splattered the curtains. The nearest sliding glass door was shattered. But the pictures were back on the mantle in precisely the same arrangement as before. It felt like home.
Sam sighed. “I think you’re amazing.”
Jill smiled, but her eyes darted left toward the kitchen.
“Anything else?”
Sam gestured toward the broken window. “I was going to ask if I could sleep at your place tonight.” Then he studied her expression and added, “But you seem to have something on your mind.”
Jill glanced to her left. “I read your letter.”
“I figured you would.”
Jill took a tentative step forward. “What are you going to do?”
“Let me ask you a question.”
“OK.”
“You think all our neighbors are still awake?”
Jill nodded. “Gail invited everyone over, after we’d all stuck our heads out. After the shooting was over.
“Imagine that.” Sam held out his hand. “Come with me.”
Sam led her out of the apartment and across the hall. He knocked lightly and tried the doorknob at the same time. It was unlocked.
Everyone was there.
Larry stood by the sliding glass doors talking to Gus, who was spreading his arms as if telling a story about the one that got away. Jerome sat on the loveseat next to Tamara, hanging on her every word. Shayla stood behind them rolling her eyes, then waved when she saw Jill.
Gail sat by herself in a big chair across from a matching chair that was empty. In between was her coffee table and an array of cookies that would make Martha Stewart envious. Sam whispered to Jill and she crossed the room toward Shayla.
Sam took the chair opposite Gail.
“Hello, young man.” Gail gestured toward the table. “Want a cookie?”
Sam eyed the spread. “Any recommendations?”
Gail leaned forward and plucked a single cookie from a tray. It was a soft yellow and had wavy lines along the top.
“Can’t go wrong with a Madeleine.”
Sam took the cookie with his right thumb and index finger, held it at arms length for a minute, then popped it in his mouth. As he chewed he said, “I’d hate to get it wrong, Gail.”
Gail lifted a cup and saucer off the table and took a sip of coffee, eying Sam over the rim.
“So you figured it out.”
“I had a little help.”
“Your wife always said you were a smart cookie.”
“I’m still fuzzy about a few parts…” Sam let his voice trail off.
“Such as?” Gail set the cup down carefully.
“Ed didn’t jump.”
“No?”
Sam shook his head. “He was poisoned. Seems he ingested cyanide.”
Gail reclaimed her coffee and held the cup high, her eyes steady on Sam as she drank.
Sam continued. “Apparently wild almonds contain—” He paused to take a sheet of paper from his inside jacket pocket. “
Glycoside amygdalin
. Did I say that right?”
Gail nodded. “It turns into hydrogen cyanide, also known as—”
Sam cut her off as he glanced at his cheat sheet. “Prussic acid.”
“I used to be a botanist,” Gail said. “Did you know that?”
“Learn something new every day.” Sam pointed to a row of round cookies with tiny almond flakes on them. “
Prunus dulcis
.”
“Yes,” said Gail. “Almonds.
“You did say those cookies were
to die for
.”
Gail smiled but said nothing.
“That’s a helluva way to confess,” said Sam.
“You can regulate the quantity,” said Gail. “Depending on the result you want.”
“You saying you weren’t trying to kill me?”
Gail’s nostrils flared. “What an insolent thing to say. Of course not. I was testing you.”
“Testing.”
“Seeing how smart you were—I take it you didn’t try one?”
Sam shook his head.
“It would have only given you a stomach ache, I assure you.” Gail pursed her lips. “Something to think about.”
Sam gestured at the square cookies with the bright red centers. “Cherry.”
Gail nodded.
“I read something about cherry laurel?”
“The Internet is certainly amazing,” said Gail. “
Prunus caroliniana.
Another excellent source of, well…”
“Poison,” said Sam.
“Indeed.”
Sam leaned forward and poured himself a cup of coffee. Around the room his neighbors were talking, laughing. Everyone out of hearing range.
“So I have a few theories,” said Sam.
“A few?”
Sam pointed at the cookies. “One involves progressive poisoning. Slow increases in the amount Ed ingested, say over a period of weeks, until it reached a saturation point, and when the cyanide really kicks in—”
Gail spread her fingers as if counting off the days of the week. “It can trigger asphyxiation, seizures, cardiac arrest…”
“But that’s too risky,” Sam said. “You might get a dose wrong, or symptoms might come on too fast, then he ends up in the hospital and not dead.”
Gail set her cup down. “You have quite an imagination.”
“The other option is to try for the maximum dosage all at once.”
“Less risk.”
“Perhaps,” said Sam. “But it poses a problem—several, actually.”
Gail said nothing.
“You couldn’t pull it off by yourself,” said Sam. He paused to look around the room, then settled his eyes back on Gail.
“You could call everyone together right now,” said Gail. “Like Hercule Poirot in one of those Agatha Christie stories.”
“I prefer Miss Marple,” replied Sam. “And I’d rather keep this between us for now.”
“As you wish. You were saying something about an accomplice.”
“Well, for starters, Ed needed a boost over the fire escape. Unless he started seizing from the poison, couldn’t take the pain and hurled himself twenty stories to put an end to his agony.”
“Is that one or two theories?”
“It’s an observation,” said Sam. “And if I had to cast for the part, I think your boyfriend Gus is just the man for the job.”
“He’s very protective.”
“I noticed.”
“Go on.”
“You mentioned the Internet,” said Sam. “Have you visited Shayla and Tamara’s site lately?”
Gail blushed slightly. “Scandalous.”
“It’s impressive, and not only because of their natural… um…abilities. The daily updates, the archives. There’s a lot to explore.”
“And what did you find?”
“There’s a video in the archives,” said Sam. “From a week ago, before Ed died. Nothing out of the ordinary. Two beautiful girls half-naked, painting their nails.”
“So?”
“So Shalya’s hair was blue.”
Gail looked over her shoulder. Shalya’s twin orbs of hair bobbed to and for as she talked to Jill. “But her hair is blue.”
“
Is
,” said Sam. “But it wasn’t when I met her. And she told me she’d never been blue before. That means they swapped that day’s video with one they made later. Now why would they do that?”
“I’m sure you have an answer.”
“I think your relationship with Ed wasn’t even cordial anymore,” said Sam. “After all the shit he pulled to evict you, I doubt you could lure him upstairs, even for all the cookies in the world. But Shayla and Tamara, they’re sirens—even Ulysses couldn’t have resisted those two.”
“They had their own run-ins with Ed,” said Gail.
“Yeah, you made it a point to tell me about that. Guess that was part of the confession.”
Gail didn’t respond.
“I’ve spent some time with those two.” said Sam. “They could talk a snake out of its skin, then sell it back to him at twice the price. Getting a dumb bastard like Ed upstairs wouldn’t even be a challenge. So they coaxed Ed upstairs and fed him the cookies you baked, then Gus gave him a helping hand into space.”
Gail raised her eyebrows. “There’s only one problem with your theory.”
“I know.” Sam leaned back in his chair and ran his hands through his hair. “
I know.
”
Gail let her eyes drift around the room. “She’s such a nice woman.”
Sam followed her gaze until it landed on Jill. She was laughing at something Shayla had said, her head back, worry lines radiating out from her eyes making her look even more beautiful.
“Shayla and Tamara don’t build their own website,” Sam said. “They need Jill to make any changes.”
“She’s very talented,” said Gail. “It is an impressive site.”
Sam took a deep breath.
“Does she know that you know?” asked Gail.
“I wrote a letter. In case anything…”
“Got messy?”
Sam frowned. “Messy.”
He scanned the room again, pausing on every face, each person he had met less than a week before.
“You know what’s funny?” he asked.
Gail shook her head.
Sam gestured across the room with his chin. “Larry and Jerome.”
“What about them?”
“They’re the only innocent ones in the bunch.”
“It’s dangerous to jump to conclusions. As a policeman, you must know that.”
“Let’s get one thing straight, Gail.”
“What?”
“I’m not a policeman,” said Sam. “Not anymore.”
“Glad to hear it.”
“Or a judge,” he added. “Or a jury.”
“So who are you, young man?”
“Just a neighbor. A guy who lives down the hall.”
Gail looked at him, her pale blue eyes so clear you could see right through them.
Sam held her gaze. Neither spoke for a long time. Around them, neighbors were talking and laughing, enjoying the little community created by the random chance of where they had found an apartment.
Gail spoke first.
“Ed was a bad man,” she said simply. There was anger and something else in her eyes, something that made them shimmer with barely suppressed pain.
Sam didn’t blink. “I know.”
A litany of Ed’s crimes ran through his mind.
Blackmail. Assault. Attempted rape. Harassment. Extortion. Conspiracy.
Then Sam thought of Marie and those horrible weeks at the end, the stupid fight over the doors. He decided to add
being an unrepentant asshole
to the list of transgressions.
Sam stood and stepped around the table to put a hand on Gail’s shoulder.
“Thanks for the cookies, Gail.”
Sam turned toward Jill. Gus noticed that Sam had vacated the chair and headed toward Gail. Everyone else kept talking. By the time Sam had made it halfway across the room, Jill spotted him and smiled. When he reached her, he pulled her aside and moved to the sliding glass doors. Pulling one open, he led her onto the balcony, then closed the door behind them.
Jill looked up at him, her eyes filled with anticipation and maybe a little apprehension.
“Do you want to have that talk?”
Sam pulled her close. “No.”
“Later?”
Sam shook his head. “Never.”
Jill pulled back, still in his embrace but at arm’s length. She looked him up and down.
“Are you OK?”
“Don’t I look OK?”
“I mean, are you going to be OK with this?” Jill swept her arm toward the people inside.
“This isn’t about them.”
Jill’s eyes flooded, but her lashes stopped the tears from escaping.
“But can you live with this—with me?”
“That’s not really the question, either,” said Sam. “Is it?”
“Can you live with yourself?”
Sam pulled her close and kissed her.
“We’ll see.”