Smiley
Doubling the pleasure, the fourth chapter. The events here bring the Achilles threat home, literally. McVane's humor is constant. After Angelina's murder, it helps keep him sane.
Smiley
The son of a bitch was in the library when I got back from the bar. I could hear him rummaging, tossing books around. That made it two intruders in two days. My house was turning into a zoo. Yesterday’s was invited, and left through the front door. Today’s was going out the front door over my dead body.
I tip-toed down the hall and peeked around corner. His back was to me. My orderly stacks of books were scattered on the floor. SOB was looking for something, rifling the pages of each one. The guy was big, as tall as me, but wider, with arms as thick as my legs. Dude had a bald head and no hair on his arms, like his muscles had pushed out the follicles. Black Adidas track suit and Converse sneakers, size fifty. He picked up a Robert Frost, turned it upside down, looking for something to drop out, like a piece of paper. All he got was the book mark. He turned it over and started to read one of the poems, casually, not in a hurry, not worried about anybody coming home. Meant he had big balls too. He was pissing me off, and I let him know it.
“You’re pissing me off,” I said. Not original, but accurate.
He tensed and turned around slowly, eyes first, then the rest of the mountain. The face was Slavic, high cheek bones, recessed eye sockets, pronounced forehead. No eyebrows and no facial hair. The guy took baths in Nair. He smiled without showing his teeth, arms at his side, the book of poems still in his right hand. It was a huge hand. The other one was too. He dropped the book. Stood there like Marshall Dillon waiting to draw.
“What are you looking for?” I asked.
Hairless kept smiling. When he spoke I caught the accent – Russian, from the south. Not bad considering he only said one word.
“You.”
Meaning, he planned to go out the front door over my dead body.
The guy moved fast. Faster than someone his size should, defying what I knew about physics. I expected him to come at me, and I was ready for it. I just didn’t think he’d beam from one side of the room to the other. Kind of thought he’d run and dive, something a little more conventional. He crashed into my midsection, wrapped his arms around me and kept on running until we smashed into the wall in the hallway. Knocked the wind out of my lungs, probably bruised a kidney or two, and definitely hurt a lot. He let go of me and backed off a few steps, looked me over like an artist getting a better perspective on a painting. Same smile.
I lunged at him with a left jab, right at the smile. He ducked his head and my fist connected with his skull, which was considerably harder than the lips - a lot harder. I broke my knuckle. Smiley backed off again, watching me wince in pain. It made him happy. I came at him again, this time with my black belt, deadly weapon of a foot. I went for his crotch with an upper kick, going for the big hairless balls, and missed. He grabbed my foot with one hand and threw me across the library, like a javelin - a two hundred and twenty pound, human one. The landing broke something else, in the middle, probably a rib. Had trouble breathing and my hip socket was screaming uncle. The bastard had almost ripped my leg from the socket. The image of the blues singer getting beaten to death with his own arm flashed through my mind. It was a troubling one. The prick hadn’t crossed the room yet. He stood in the doorway smiling. I tried to get back up, used the wall behind me for support, and I did it with a lot of grunting and wincing. Without taking his eyes off me, he bent down and picked up a thick hardback, ‘Texas’ by Michener. He grabbed it with both hands, extending his arms in my direction, like he wanted to give it to me. And then he ripped it in two. I was impressed.
So I shot him, right between the eyes.
——-
The detective looked down at his notebook while he talked to me.
“Got any enemies?” he asked, in French.
“Not any more,” I replied.
He wrote that down in the notebook.
“What was he looking for?” he continued.
“Texas, by James Michener,” I replied.
The cop looked up, not happy. He was a young guy for a police detective. Meant he was good at what he did. He reminded me of Tom Hanks. Not the Green Mile one, more like the Bosom Buddies one.
“Does this amuse you, Mr. McVane?” he asked.
Maybe the Splash one.
“No,” I replied. “Look, I don’t know why he showed up or why he wanted to rip my leg off. He broke in, looked for something and then tried to kill me. That’s about it.”
“So you shot him,” he said.
“So I shot him,” I replied.
Detective Tom closed his notebook and looked around the room one more time. The body had been taken away and yellow CSI tape marked the spot where Goliath had fallen. A dark stain of blood with some more solid pieces of meat and bones was circled with white chalk. A nice looking blond with a CSI jacket and cap was on her knees taking photos, picking up pieces of the meat and putting them into little glass jars. The red spray was still on the wall, and the drip lines of blood had reached the pool of it on the wood floor.
“Messy,” said the cop. “A 45?”
“Yeah, and I want it back,” I replied.
“When we’re done with it,” he said.
I sat down on the only chair in the dead room. The cops had gone, but the sweet smell of blood hadn’t. I took a swig of the pilsner. Smiley hadn’t had any I.D. on him, and the cops had not recognized him from what was left of his face. They’d be checking fingerprints and DNA, but I didn’t think they’d find a match. The coroner would see the tattoo, same as I did. I found it on the lower calf of his right leg, in red ink. About two inches long, it was the Greek letter alpha, a simple ‘α‘.
The ringtone of my cell started up, Kashmir by Zeppelin. I put the AirPods in my ears.
“What’s up?” I said.
“Sounds like you had some fun this afternoon,” replied John Brooks.
“News travels fast,” I said.
“I’m always the first to know,” he replied. “Got some news for you. Want to meet, or chance that someone’s listening in?”
“Let’s meet,” I replied. “It’s a little messy here. I’m hungry, and salami doesn’t seem right. Dinner at Sainte Phillipe? Say eightish?”
“Sounds good.”