As she washed the dirty dishes, cleaned the counters and mopped the floor, the commentary from the football game played in the background. After about twenty minutes, she walked quietly to the entry hall where she could see the table next to Reznikov’s chair. The glass was almost empty.
As she turned to go back to the kitchen, the sound of the TV went dead. The word ‘‘muted’’ flashed on the screen. She froze, fearing that Reznikov had heard her, but he didn’t get out of the chair.
He shifted position enough so that she could see he was holding a cell phone. Damn. She’d taken the house phone off the hook in the kitchen to make sure he couldn’t call out, but she’d forgotten that he might have a cell phone.
‘‘Max, this is Sam,’’ he said. Bianca tensed. The fake name was a sure sign of trouble. He was calling a hit man!
‘‘I got a job for you, needs to be done soon, like tomorrow.’’ There was a pause as he listened to the response. Bianca’s mind was racing. She had to interrupt the call, and fast. ‘‘What’dya mean, half now, half after? What kind of bullshit is that?’’
There was no time for planning. She had to stop him before he gave the hit man Sophia’s name. She rushed forward, banged into the table and fell toward Reznikov, crashing into his right arm with all her weight. The table tipped forward and the almost empty glass landed on the rug. The cell phone popped out of Reznikov’s hand and flew across the room, bounced off the wall, and dropped to the floor.
The angle of Bianca’s body when she hit Reznikov’s shoulder sent her sprawling into his lap. He stared down at her, stunned; then his face twisted into a furious scowl.
Bianca was up and out of the Russian’s reach much more quickly than an old lady should have been able to manage. ‘‘Oh, Mr. Reznikov,’’ she squeaked. ‘‘I’m so sorry. That was so clumsy. I’ll clean this up right away.’’
‘‘You stupid cunt,’’ he snarled. ‘‘Get me that cell phone.’’ He started to rise from the chair.
Bianca hurried to get the cell phone, praying it would be broken. Her cell had died when she dropped it on a granite counter. Surely… But the cell didn’t look broken. The call had been cut off, but the screen displayed the time. She picked up the phone, stammering apologies. ‘‘Oh, Mr. Reznikov, I’m so sorry. I broke your phone. I’ll pay for a new one. Please don’t tell the service. They’ll fire me sure.’’
Reznikov was on his feet, his hands balled into fists, his face contorted with fury. ‘‘You’re not… Who the fuck are you?’’ he bellowed.
Bianca assessed her escape routes. The chair sat in the middle of the room, blocking the path to the front entry. That left the way through the dining room to the kitchen and the back door, but Reznikov would only have to move a few steps to intercept her. If the poison had slowed him down, there was a chance she might make it, but not a good one.
‘‘I said I was sorry. I’ll pay for it, honest,’’ she repeated. ‘‘Oh, I made such a mess. But I can take care of that. I gotta get the dustpan, then I’ll clean that right up.’’ She began to edge her way toward the dining room, moving slowly, giving him no reason to grab for her.
He took a step toward her. ‘‘What the hell…’’ But his voice was less forceful, and he had a strange expression on his face. Bianca hoped desperately that the drugs were taking effect.
It was all a matter of time now. She took a step backward. He took another step toward her. If she could get him to move far enough from the chair, she could make a dash for the entry, putting the recliner between her and the Russian.
Reznikov weaved slightly. His face was no longer knotted in a scowl. The features seemed to have loosened. His jaw had slackened and his mouth hung slightly open. He looked more confused than angry.
‘‘You don’t look so good, Mr. Reznikov,’’ Bianca said. ‘‘I think maybe you should sit down.’’ She took a step toward him.
He raised his arm to take a swing at her, but he couldn’t follow through and it fell useless to his side. Bianca let out her breath and felt a rush of relief. She waited, watching him closely.
‘‘You… you…’’ He was mumbling now. It seemed to take all his effort to stand. He stumbled backward and collapsed into the chair, but his eyes were still fixed on her. The color had drained from his face, leaving it a sickly white.
Bianca realized that this was the first time she’d watched a man die. For all the deaths that she had arranged, she’d managed to be absent for the actual passing. She felt a kind of animal sympathy for the man in the chair. Not for Reznikov, the thug, but for a fellow being who was dying and knew it. A strange feeling. There was no temptation to intervene, no guilt really. She had no doubt that the world would be a better place without this man. It surprised her that she had any feeling for him at all.
As she watched the Russian, she remembered Sophia’s description of attending the execution of a particularly brutal killer she’d convicted. She’d had the same confused reaction, emotions she didn’t understand and couldn’t explain.
Bianca backed out of the room and stood behind the chair for long enough to satisfy herself that Reznikov was not getting up, then returned to cleaning the house. The mess in the living room could wait.
It was full dark by the time she was sure Yuri Reznikov was no longer breathing. She set the stage for his final scene by the light of the giant television. It was not the first time she’d done this. The first time she’d feared having to confront the sight of a man whose life she’d ended, but then, as now, she’d felt little remorse. When she’d decided to go into the business, she’d drawn up a set of rules covering who was fair game and who wasn’t. Tony had laughed at her; Marty had been incredulous and infuriated, but she only took jobs that let her sleep at night.
The glass lay on the rug where it had landed when she knocked over the table. What liquid there’d been in it had soaked into the carpet. Bianca righted the table and picked up the glass, holding it by the rim and bottom so as not to smudge Reznikov’s fingerprints. She took it to the kitchen, added a bit of fresh vodka to rinse it out, then replaced it on the rug. She wrapped Reznikov’s hands around each of the two brown bottles, to provide the crime lab with decent fingerprints, and dropped them near the glass so that it looked like the Russian had knocked them off. She stepped back and surveyed the scene.
It was then that she noticed the cell phone. She picked it up and checked the call history to see what the Russian had dialed. The number was Marty’s.
She stared at it, shocked and shaken. Surely, Marty wouldn’t have… She shook her head, refusing to consider it. The half-now-half-later demand was no doubt because Marty knew Reznikov wouldn’t live long enough to pay off, but under other circumstances, she wouldn’t have trusted his loyalty.
One thing was sure: she didn’t want the police having Marty’s phone number. Put him in a cell, and he wouldn’t hesitate to give her up for a lighter sentence. She aimed the phone at the brick fireplace and threw it as hard as she could. It broke apart and fell to the floor. Bianca wished she knew enough about cell phone technology to be sure that the memory was erased but decided that any further damage to the phone risked raising questions with the cops.
It occurred to her as she was packing up to leave that the police might be keeping tabs on Mr. Reznikov. The house behind the Russian’s was dark, so instead of leaving the way she’d come, she walked through the backyard and down the neighbor’s driveway.
Sophia came by the next morning. Bianca had never been able to break the girls of the habit of dropping in. She’d hinted that such unannounced visits could prove embarrassing for all concerned, but to no avail. ‘‘We’re all grown-ups,’’ Cara had said with a knowing smile. It would be nice, Bianca thought, if getting caught with a lover was the worst that could happen.