One Step Ahead

Payback's A Bitch

      When he reached the house, he had to force himself to repress his excitement, since his grandmother had gotten home from work. He stepped inside and greeted her, claiming that he'd been out looking for work when she asked where he'd been. He set the table as she prepared dinner, making small talk, and watching the news with her afterward, biding his time until she announced that she was going to take a bath before bed.

      As soon as he heard the bathroom door close, he went to his room and retrieved the book. He then crept quietly down the hallway, and into her bedroom. He walked to the large wooden wardrobe standing in the corner, and eased the door open. Moving a stack of shoeboxes, he quickly found what he had been seeking. 

      Slipping his pinky into the small knothole in one of the boards in the floor of the wardrobe, he lifted it to reveal a shallow space underneath. He slid the book, and the other items, into the cubbyhole, then replaced the board, and did his best to put the boxes back the way they had been earlier. He then left the room and sneaked back down the hall, and was sitting on the living room couch with the remote when she emerged from the bath.

      They watched TV for a bit, then the old woman yawned, and informed him that she was going to bed. He kissed her cheek, said goodnight, and relaxed into the couch, already imagining how he would spend his anticipated windfall.

                      *********************************************************************

July 16th, 2014 :

      The man chuckled silently to himself as he stood in the shadows of the deserted building, waiting for his quarry to arrive. He found it quite amusing to realize that this useless petty criminal, this absolute idiot, actually believed that he was just going to roll over and show his belly, to submit to being blackmailed. Well, he would find out just how wrong he was, very soon.

      After waiting for a few minutes, he saw an battered Ford Escort drive slowly past the empty restaurant. It continued on, making a left turn at the corner, only to reappear a couple of minutes later, after circling the block. The car chugged into the parking lot, pulling in near the back of the building, mere feet from where the man waited. 

      The engine stopped, and from his hiding place he watched a man with shoulder length hair and a ridiculous-looking Fu Manchu mustache step out and move around to lean against the side of the vehicle. Silently assessing him, the man noted that while they were approximately the same height, Gerry Kirke was soft, slightly overweight, and ridiculously overconfident. Three things the other man was not. He made sure to keep himself in top form, and he was fully aware of his own capabilities.

      Reaching into his jacket, he withdrew a long, thin-bladed knife, admiring the way the freshly sharpened edge sparkled, even in the minimal light available in the deserted parking lot. He then bent down and picked up a piece of broken terra-cotta roofing tile that lay next to his feet, and quickly tossed it away, making sure that it landed in the darkness at the other end of the building, then began quietly moving forward, reducing the distance between them.

      As he had intended, the noise that the tile made caught Kirke's attention, causing him to look in the other direction. "About time you showed up. You're late," he said. When he didn't get a response, he stepped forward, away from the car. This was what the other man had been waiting for.

      He sprinted forward, out of the shadows, catching Gerry Kirke completely off guard. Before he could make a sound, the other man's arm was around his head, with Gerry's face in the crook of his elbow. 

      Gerry grabbed at the arm, attempting to break free, but before he could do so, he felt something cold pressing against his neck, just below his right ear.

      "Did you really think you were going to get away with this?" the other man rasped into his ear. "Nobody gets away with threatening me, you ignorant son of a bitch."

      Gerry struggled harder, clawing at the arm covering his face, only to feel the object against his skin move, causing a sudden sharp, hot pain. As it became increasingly difficult to breathe, he realized that his throat had been cut. He raised a hand to his neck, and felt his own blood sheeting down the front of his shirt, just as his attacker let him go. He staggered toward his car, only to fall to his knees just short of the door. Hearing a clinking noise above him, he looked up, and saw a gloved hand holding his keys, frustratingly out of his reach.

      "Don't think you'll be needing these," the other man said, cocking his arm back and throwing them into the darkness of the parking lot. He then crouched down, pulling the leather-bound book from the waistband of Gerry's jeans, and taking the cell phone from his pocket. After that was done, he stood, watching dispassionately, as Gerry Kirke's struggles became weaker, and finally stopped altogether.

      The man removed the windbreaker and jogging pants he was wearing, which were stained with Gerry's blood, and stuffed them into the gym bag he had placed near the back door of the building, along with the phone. Now wearing only the T-shirt and running shorts that were underneath, he began making his way back to where he had parked his car, several blocks away. This way, if he was spotted, he would be just another dude going home from the gym.

      After he reached his car, he placed the bag in the passenger seat, and drove several miles away, in the opposite direction from his home, to an apartment building that he knew still had a working incinerator. Getting out of the car, he carried the bag to the chute and deposited it inside, wiping out the evidence of what had occurred earlier.

      Finally, he drove back to his house, and went inside, going immediately to the bathroom and stepping into the shower. As he cleaned himself, he acknowledged a twinge of regret that he hadn't been able to get the other items back, but congratulated himself on retrieving the one that really mattered.

      He emerged from the shower, dried himself, and put on his robe. As he returned to the living room, he spotted the journal, lying on the end table where he had placed it when he came in.

      "Might as well put him in there with everybody else," he murmured . "Another piece of trash out of everyone's way."

      He crossed the room,  picked up the book, and instantly realized that something wasn't right. The binding was too stiff, not loose from frequent use, as his was. He opened the front cover, and began rifling through the pages. As he realized that they were blank, his rage overtook him, and he twisted the book in both hands until it separated into two pieces, then tossed them across the room , emitting a low snarl, which rose in pitch until it became a shriek.

      "DAMN! DAMN! DAMN!"

      The bastard had double-crossed him, and he hadn't noticed until it was too fucking late. His secrets were still out there, waiting for someone to find them. And he had no way of knowing where they were.