Literature Discussion - Lit-Talk.com

Rational Conduct

By Kevin Tatro (US)

Chapter Sixteen

The Daily Grind

Chapter 16 – The Daily Grind

The slow walk to the car was necessary to regain some composure.  He took a left out the front door, and walked two blocks in the wrong direction before returning to the light blue Jetta.  As he turned the corner, only three houses from the Jetta, his heart stopped.
 
Flashing lights surrounded the Jetta.  Orange, yellow and blue lights flashing everywhere.  The second handgun was on the floor under the passenger seat.  David bought the plates for a hundred and he was sure they were probably stolen.  David had more than thirty grand on him, but the rest was in the case under the seat next to the gun.  He might need that case.  This was a definite problem.

Had they just found the stolen car, or had they been searching for him the getaway car of a raging killer?  He had pissed off some pretty powerful people and they may have led the cops to him.  Artie told him to stop, and Artie was much smarter than him.  David peeked around the corner again.   A small crowd had gathered, but there didn’t appear to be any heavies in the crowd.  No black suits and no black cars in the street.  The sun was just about down for the evening, and the strobe lights bounced off the sides of the houses, playing tricks with the shadows of the aging neighborhood. With his back to the side of the corner home, and his pulse racing, David planned his next move.

The fugitive serial killer was deep into planning the next move, so deep he hadn’t noticed the movement in the strobe lights.  Before he was even aware of it, the blue strobe light passed directly in front of him, and he was in plain sight of the Jersey City policeman and his female partner.  More rapidly than he could react, the cruiser passed, and then the yellow lights of the tow truck passed.

Freaked beyond belief, the fugitive pushed himself tighter to the building wall, somehow in sloth logic thinking this would hide him. 

In tow was the rusted wreckage of the Yugo.  In stunned silence, David watched the procession of the police car and town truck down the road as the last moments of sunlight faded from the neighborhood, and the strobe lights disappeared down the road.

Strolling slowly toward the Jetta, David worried that the car was bugged, or that the feds waited in the bushes.  He had circled the neighborhood several times looking for black sedans, men in black suits, people wearing sunglasses in the evening or other signs of the enemy or peacekeepers.  He didn’t return until his heart had slowed a bit, and it now resembled something like the beat he recognized after a hard run. Not confident that he was clear, but needing the items under the front seat, he headed to the Jetta unlocked the drivers door, and jumped in.  He inserted the keys, started it up and drove off immediately, scared, and running from an unknown enemy.
 
This last blast of electricity had been harsh, but it didn’t kill him.   He was shaking pretty well when the Jetta entered the ferry parking lot.  This was a fine place to drop the tainted auto.  The car might be clean, but he couldn’t take the chance.  David was very uncomfortable with two handguns tucked into the belt behind his back.   Somehow, entering Manhattan on a ferry with two handguns off some psycho killers, and about a hundred grand in cash seemed like a bad idea.  He adjusted his windbreaker tightly over the weapons.

The Ferry ride was both a moment of peace and a torment.  Getting onto the boat, the fugitive worried about metal detectors, plain cloths policemen, and guys in black suits that would throw him overboard with heavy weights tied to his neck.  This was OK. This was part of the game of the Gods.  As the ferry crossed the Hudson River from New Jersey to Manhattan, the waves lapping at the boat soothed the killer.  He drifted off, remembering better days.  Climbing the statue of liberty, and taking a ferry ride much like this one with all of his kids.  These thoughts were peaceful.  Thoughts of spending the last few weeks of his life on the run, killing creeps, and shootouts with the police and all other sorts of bad guys did not appeal to him.  David was now the monster.  He had become the thing of kids’ fears.  He had rid the world of some pretty bad guys so far, but sooner or later he would screw up.  What would he do when he killed someone innocent?

            As the fugitive, burglar, sadistic torch-a-man-alive, psycho killer stepped onto New York soil, he was not confronted by the police force.  No dark glasses lurking in the shadows.  Nobody was looking for him, though he was a bit worried his getup was a too well known at this point.   He was ready for a change.

The downtown apartment would make good cover for a while.  It wasn’t likely the room was compromised, and in Manhattan, it would be as good a base of operations as any.  Cars weren’t a good idea here.  Parking was ridiculously expensive, and cars were rare.  In a car, people would notice the fugitive coming and going. 

A stop at a Duane Reid Drug store provided some hair dye and an electric razor. He also picked up some new socks and underwear.  A cab ride to Henry Street dropped him in solidly in New York’s China Town.  Here he would be noticed for being non Asian, but his money would let him fit in.

David ate well for the first time in almost two days, and this time he didn’t throw it up.  He was waiting for his new suit.  Two of them to be exact.  Two suits and four shirts custom made at midnight.  Ya gotta love this city.  Typically one had to wait days or weeks for a quality suit, but these folks knew that the Wall Street Bankers sometimes needed things immediately and were willing to pay for it.  David needed a change of identity, and didn’t want to wait for the morning for an off the rack suit that wouldn’t be ready for hours at best.  David never bought custom made suits as they were expensive, but hell, what did he have to loose.  He might as well go down looking good, and asking for immediate service was not unusual here, he just had to act impatient, self righteous, and be clear that money was no object.  His luggage from London was missing, and he needed the suit for an important meeting in the morning.  Might as well buy two while he was at it.

The General Tao's chicken tasted great.  A couple of egg rolls and some soup and he was ready. “With knowledge comes responsibility- an interesting fortune cookie.

 He sat back looking at the kitchen staff busily cooking at 3:00AM.  Some people just can’t sleep.   In another four hours, David would have been awake for forty-eight straight hours, but he was still a long way off from his record.
His mind played games as usual.  He fantasized about Ashley being at home and happy.  He knew it wasn’t true.  He had left the guns and much of the cash back at the room, but he had Artie’s cell phone.  The cell phone was OK, but Mr. Sing would have been a bit suspicious if he measured David for a suit and had to measure around two bloodied handguns.  Artie would have called if he had heard anything.  If  Ashley were home, if something happened to the rest of his family, if the bad guys were winning.  He would have heard.

David had died his hair jet black, picked up a pair of black jeans, black loafers and a black t-shirt.  He looked weird by his standards, but fit in well with the rest of this city.  He thought the shaving of part of his head to look like a receding hairline was a nice touch.  He was beginning to loose his hair anyway, and this was just a sign of things to come.  The three days of beard growth was normal, as he never shaved on weekends.  Shaving off all but the mustache, and dying that dark black worked.  A little cheesy but it went with the outfit.  The more outrageous the cloths and the more expensive the look, the fewer the questions that would likely be asked in this area.

The suits would not be ready for another couple of hours, and he still had time to kill before visiting Marcel.  While finishing the fortune cookie he read his list of potential victims.  Ashley was the only other one in the family who actually ate the fortune cookie; everyone else simply smashed them, read their fortune and threw out the debris.  Now  Ashley wasn’t here.  He wondered who Ashley would pick from the list.

He examined the list.  The first list was dangerous.  The network of slime balls was on to him.  They almost had him in the Jersey warehouse, yet they weren’t even close at VICS.  Maybe Vic the sloth was so gross they wanted him capped.  Kind of a sick thing using the word capped.  David had heard this on several TV shows and movies.  This appeared to be the new language for killing someone.  David felt like he was becoming a thug, and the language seemed to come with it. 

He held the two lists together.  None of the names matched.  Sandy’s handwriting was terrible, but there was a lot more to it than names.  The list was four pages long and most of it looked like code.  Artie would need to see this.

David looked back to the old list.  There was an address on Vestry Street in Manhattan.  He could get there and back before the sun came up.   If recollection was correct, this was kind of an old warehouse area on the edge of a residential neighborhood.  This might be an interesting stop before he picked up the suit.

The killer, psycho, fugitive, ex-slacker looking dude was on the hunt again.  It wasn’t like he needed to.  Artie wasn’t likely to get anything off the machines any more.  Artie was running for his life.  The creeps had shut down that part of the network.  But turning on the machines still had a purpose.  He could let the creeps know who he was.  He could make them squirm.  And then, cause more collateral damage.

David had the cab drop him at City Hall Park.  He had stopped by the SOHO apartment and picked up the larger of the two black, hand cannons.   Very considerate of the inventors to build a tool so perfectly suited to its intended use.  David was an amateur right up until a couple of hours ago when he pulled the trigger, intending to end a life.  David’s brain didn’t retain a very good picture of Vic.  Unlike Tiernan, whom he stared at, and Sandy who he hadn’t killed at all, but still saw die, David didn’t have a clear picture of Vic.  Maybe that is what it is like to be a serious killer, or maybe he couldn’t bear to look.  Either way, Vic was the one that solidified him as a certified lunatic serial killer.

The walk to Vestry Street was nice.  The air had cooled a bit, and he enjoyed the walk down Vestry.  At 3:30 Am you’d think the streets would be vacant, but David ducked his head low to avoid the glances of strangers.  Most were couples on their way home from drinking, and nobody cared who he was anyway.  But just in case he hid his disguised face.

18 Vestry was a three story brick walk up. The front door was wood and had an old lock on it that had obviously been forced open many times before.  The prior break-ins had probably been the result of a drunken tenant who had forgotten a key rather than a criminal like the one that was now at the door.  The wood edge was broken and scraped, and the attempted repairs with metal plates and screws, were already loose and falling off.  David didn’t even need to take the screwdriver out of his rear pocket to open the door, he simply twisted the doorknob pushed, and it opened.

The hall was brick colored linoleum, and the plaster walls were whitewashed with a shinny white paint that was meant to be washable, but obviously hadn’t been for years, and now resembled the same yellow colors of Vic’s apartment.  The frosted gray ceiling fixtures seemed somehow to be intended to give that old, gloomy, yellow look to things, and the light bulbs inside them appeared to be yellow, though it seemed unlikely anyone would intentionally buy dim, yellow, dingy light bulbs.  The stairs were supported with a heavy steel railing that had been painted many times, but still revealed a rust colored, smooth metal surface where hands rubbed it.  Crusted-on layers of paint looked like a century of annual painting all over the spindles and underside of the railing.

Not a bad setup, but certainly far from the type of place a parent wanted their kid to live. 

Diega Silverstein in apartment 2F.  David had no expectations of its occupant.  The name was a bit of a surprise, and he thought this apartment could be the first mistake in a list that had otherwise yielded sleezeballs worthy of a bullet. 

The fugitive, killer, hunter, father of the kidnapped child was primed.  He had been awake for nearly two days, he had been responsible for five deaths in the past twenty-four hours, and he was just dying for a reason to trash another asshole.

2F. Again a cheesy door.  Old wood and a broken lock in a metal frame that had obviously been tampered with many times before.  My god.  Get a job and buy yourself a descent apartment.  He had no patience left.  The screwdriver was jammed against the door bolt, and the black loafer was smashed against the lock.  The door flew open with ease. He even broke the cheap chain that held the secondary defense.  How silly these things were.  Any crazed madman could get into any apartment he wanted to.  Soon this sick fugitive would be busting down the door of a high end apartment on Broadway.  He would be walking right past a doorman, and into the apartment of one Marcel Richards.

The apartment was clean and clear. A scuffling noise off to the left in what looked to be a bedroom was the only sound.  The killer swung the door behind him, closing it better than it had been before being jammed open with a screwdriver.  David raced into the bedroom in time to put a hole into one Diega Silverstein.  The shot hit him just as he was reaching for a computer sitting on the table next to the bed.

The bullet passed through the right shoulder blade, just below the shoulder socket.  A painful splintering of the bone echoed trough David’s mind when it should have been the blast from the barrel that resounded.  He watched his victim spin onto his back in severe pain. And  David began to feel his pain, until Diega lifted a pistol from behind his desk stand.

Another round was released from the black cannon, this time striking Diega Silverstein square in the chest.  Cause of death, multiple gunshot wounds.

Diega didn’t move again.  Another one of those damn computer laptops sat on the desk.  A simple silver handgun lay on the floor.  David would get no information from this guy.  An E-mail was about to be sent, but was probably interrupted by a screwdriver being jammed into the door.  Diega must have jumped when the door burst in.  Was he diving for the computer or the gun?

The computer was on and running.  A message sat on the screen, just waiting to be sent:

GOT YOUR MESSAGE.  SHUTTING DOWN.  MOVING OUT TONIGHT.  I HEAR THREE ARE GONE.  I’LL KILL HIM.  SEE YOU SOON. 

David’s pulse was racing, but he was still pretty cool.  He needed to get what he could from the machine but wanted to get out quick.  He felt ok…. Diega probably didn’t.  Diega was obviously some kind of incompetent hitman or something. Obviously not an innocent.  David felt ok.  No civilian damage.

The gun shot had to have been loud, and someone must have heard.  Two bullets may have pierced the floor and entered a neighboring apartment.  Someone was bound to call the police.  The gun shot out a massive projectile and obviously took Diego out for good.  But David didn’t recall a big noise.  The bullet that pierced Diego through the shoulder hadn’t gone any further than the desk, and was still wedged there after passing through his bone and muscle.   It was a massive piece of lead, but was flattened against the hardwood.   The second bullet was underneath the now lifeless body.  As David flipped him over, a reservoir of blood drained out the massive hole in the back.
The bullet had entered the hardwood floor, and had not traveled any further. David didn’t have to worry about a neighbor finding a bullet through a wall, but the noise had to be loud. Still, nobody appeared to be moving in the adjacent apartments.  David didn’t recall the gun being loud.  Looking at the black cannon David had taken from the hit man driver earlier that day, he now realized what he was holding.  This was in fact a rather small gun, with an extension on the end to make it quiet.  The guys in the Gray sedan were pros, and the driver carried a silencer.  How convenient for David.  A quiet handgun.  Nobody had to listen to him killing people.

The computer was one of two things still alive in this house.  This apartment was lived in.  The occupant had a life.    Had one.

There was a flatscreen TV, DVD’s of mainstream flicks, books on the shelves, kitchen utensils, food in the refrigerator, and cloths in the closet.  There were bills and a checkbook on the desk, another handgun in the desk drawer, a handgun on the shelf in the closet, and yet another handgun under the bedroom pillow.  As Diego lay there, yet another weapon was evident on his ankle.

Why had this nut gone to the bedroom instead of taking the gun from his ankle and killing the intruder?  With all the guns in the house this guy was obviously prepared, yet he let David shoot him in the back.  A door to the rear fire escape may have been his destination.  Diega lay dead right next to it.  Between the door and the computer.

The victorious assassin contemplated calling Artie.  Artie would know the value of whatever David found.  But was it worth using what safety remained on the phone?  He looked at the computer and decided to try something a bit more dramatic.  He used equipment on Diego’s desk, and scanned in the original list from Artie, attached it to the message Diego had typed, hit send and watched the machine.  Nothing happened. The screen went blank.  David typed one more command.  Timer off.  The machine began running and the fugitive left.

He exited out the back door, down yet another rusty fire escape.  Maybe he took this route to keep safely out of the sight of witnesses, and maybe for dramatic effect.  It didn’t matter, either way, the night air felt good and he was away from the lights of the hallway and eyes of anyone who may have heard.  He had screwed the bad guys again. Diega was a weird story.  Lots of weapons, and yet David took him out without much of a fight. The weapons were all cheap ones anyway.  Nothing like the pieces the fugitive carried.  Diega was obviously an amateur.