Angela said, “Can I get you something to drink?” and Kenneth said, “No, that’s all right.”
Then Kenneth noticed the shut door at the end of the apartment and the crack of light underneath. He was about to ask Angela if she lived alone when the door sprung open and a thin, pasty guy with long gray hair came out firing a handgun. Kenneth recognized the man as fitting the description of the suspect who’d hocked Deirdre Fisher’s jewelry in Chinatown. Falling backward, he tried to reach into his holster for his own piece, but it was too late. He was already down.
Twelve
Of course it all went to shit. I should have known better.
Dillon was watching The Flintstones on the Cartoon Network. It was one of his favorite episodes, with the Great Gazoo, and he was laughing like he’d been on the weed for a week. He’d had a wee dram of Jameson too, nothing lethal, when he heard voices in the hallway. It sounded like Angela talking to some guy, but he didn’t think she was stupid enough to bring someone back to the apartment with her.
Dillon turned off the TV, hearing Angela say, “I still don’t understand what you think I have to do with those people getting killed, this is really crazy.”
Shite, Dillon thought, she brought home a Guard.
Cursing to himself, he took his gun out of his dresser drawer and went into the bathroom. The apartment door opened and Angela said, “Can I get you something to drink?” The guy said, “That’s all right,” and Dillon swung open the door and shot the feckin’ cop two times in the chest, watching the fat bollix fall back, hit his head on the refrigerator, and land on the kitchen floor. If he wasn’t so angry at Angela for bringing the cop home – what was the feckin’ cunt thinking? – Dillon might’ve thought it was funny.
Angela was covering her mouth, trying not to scream. Dillon told her not to make a fecking sound. He didn’t want the neighbors coming over, banging on the door. But then a minute went by, and another, and no neighbors showed up. Maybe they thought the shots came from TV or something. Angela was sitting on the bed, crying. The cop was in the puddle of blood on the kitchen floor. Dillon noticed a shiny gold pin on the wanker’s lapel. He reached down, removed it, and pinned it on his own self.
Dillon knew he had to do something – get rid of this bollix fast. He couldn’t carry the body down himself without breaking his back. Besides, where would he take it? Then he had a great idea. He heard this shite on TV once, or read it or some fuck. A guy was fighting with his wife or something and he hit her so hard she died. He didn’t want the police to find out so he put her in the bathtub and poured battery acid all over her – covered her with it. When she dissolved, he just washed her down the drain.
Dillon had never tried that shite himself, but he thought that putting battery acid on the cop would be a great way to get rid of him – keep the gig nice and clean anyway. The only feckin’ problem was he didn’t know where he was going to get battery acid. He thought about it for a little while longer, then wondered, If battery acid could dissolve people, could Drano do the trick too? He didn’t see why not. But he’d probably need a lot of Drano to get the job done and he couldn’t go to the store now. Somebody might’ve heard those shots and by the time he came back cops could be raiding the feckin’ place.
Angela was still crying like a Brit. Dillon went in the bathroom to take a leak and think, admired the way the pin caught the light when he tousled his hair in the mirror. He asked his own self, “Do I look like I just killed a cop?” The tinker’s curse crossed his mind, but he shook himself free of it and said, “You look a poet me man.”
When he came out, Angela was staring down at the cop, her eyes getting wider. Dillon looked over and said, “Jaysus, fuck me.”
The cop’s eyes were open and blood was dripping out of his mouth. He was trying to talk.
Dillon went into the drawer in the kitchen cabinet and took out a big butcher knife. He came back and jabbed the knife into the cop’s chest. The cop’s shirt turned redder, and the blood puddle grew, but his eyes closed for good. Dillon nearly admired the way the fooker had clung on to life, had tried to hang in there. But a butcher’s knife, it doesn’t do argument.
Angela was still crying, making noise now. Dillon slapped her in the face and said, “Shut up, yah hoor’s ghost,” and then went into the bathroom and washed his hands.
Dillon didn’t know how things had gotten so fucked. After he sold the jewelry he’d taken to that Chinaman, he was planning to leave Angela and New York City. He’d always heard Miami was nice. He saw himself chilling out down there, smoking dope, lying on the beach and writing poems all feckin’ day. To hell with moving into that rich fellah’s house uptown. It was a stupid plan anyway – never would have worked. He was just going to hang out with Angela a little longer, till things cooled down, then it was slan, alanna. But, now, the stupid woman had fucked everything up – bringing home a cop right into her kitchen. Now, all of a sudden, Miami was in jeopardy.
He came out of the bathroom, went to the closet and took out two bed sheets. He tucked one of the sheets under the cop’s fat body and then rolled the body onto the rest of it. Then he put the second sheet around the same way and went to the phone and called Sean, one of the other Prov-eens that hung around the boyos. Luckily, Sean was home. Sean was second generation Irish – thus more Irish than the real thing, used to be in the FDNY – and now he drove a livery cab. He said he’d definitely come to the city from Queens to help Dillon out, saying with his stutter, “N-n-nothing to pray about.”
“Is the trunk of yah cab empty, Sean?” Dillon asked.
“W-w-why?”
“You’ll find out me man.”
After Dillon hung up he got two blankets out of the closet and he took the blanket and the sheet off the bed. Blood was soaking through the sheets that were currently wrapping the cop. Grabbing the cop by the feet, he dragged the body into the bedroom area, out of the blood puddle. He wrapped the body up the best he could. It didn’t look very neat, but at least the blood wasn’t leaking through anymore. Next, he got the mop and started mopping, wringing out the red water into the kitchen sink. He could mop like the best of them, prison taught you that. He got rid of most of it, but there was still a big red stain on the floor.
Dillon had nothing to do except wait for Sean, so he watched more Flintstones and some Bugs Bunny – American cartoons were feckin’ mighty – then had another wee dram of Jameson. Well, you would, wouldn’t you, after killing a Guard? After Bugs Bunny he watched some of the Knicks. He was gradually teaching himself about American sport, mainly to fill in the hours. He had learned that when you lose a game you choke. Jaysus, he loved that, you choke. And even better, if you lost a game, they said, Y ou got your arse handed to you.
He glanced at the trussed body and said, “You got yer arse handed to yah, fellah.”
Finally Angela stopped crying. She went into the bathroom and came out, wiping her face with a towel. She sat down next to Dillon, held his hand, and said, “I’m sorry – I really, really am. I didn’t mean to do any of this. He followed me home – I had no choice. It’ll be all right, won’t it? I mean nobody’s come to the door so maybe nobody heard the bloody shots. If they did, maybe they didn’t know what it was. Maybe they just thought it was a car backfiring or firecrackers or some shite. I mean the plan’s still gonna work, right? We’ll still get married, won’t we? And we’ll still get all of my boss’s money too. You’ll see. It’s just gonna take a few months, right?”