Children of Paranoia (23 page)

 

 

At some point during the day, I walked to the hardware store and bought a length of rope with cash. On the way home I picked up a sandwich. I spent the rest of the day sitting on Dan's porch, staring at the pond in his backyard. It wasn't crystal. It was more of a murky green color. When the sun began to drop below the rooftops of the surrounding houses, I walked into my room and got ready. I put on a pair of long pants and a light, long-sleeve T-shirt. I was trying to leave as little skin open to scratching as possible. I couldn't dress too warmly for fear that I'd arouse suspicion. I packed my backpack with the rope, a pair of gloves, and some Wet-Naps in case I needed to clean anything up once the job was done. I left everything else—the rest of my clothes, the ski mask, the gun. I wouldn't need those. This job would be hard for all the wrong reasons. Once the sun had completely disappeared from the sky and the incessant chirping and croaking that haunted the Florida night began, I stepped outside of Dan's house and began my walk across Crystal Ponds to Jim Matsuda's.

By the time I got near Mr. Matsuda's house, the sky was dark and colorless. I didn't have much of a plan. Frankly, I didn't think I'd need one. I stopped on the street in front of his house at roughly the same spot where he and I had made eye contact the morning before. I stood there and peered inside his windows. The lights inside his small house were on, and I could see a shadow moving inside. If he wasn't alone I'd have to come back later. If he was alone, I figured the whole job would be finished within the next half hour. Finish this awful job, I thought, and I could head back to you. One step at a time, Joe, one step at a time.

Unfortunately, from where I was standing on the street, I couldn't really make out whether or not Jim had company. After about ten minutes I got sick of waiting and decided to go ahead with the plan anyway. I could always abort and regroup if need be. So I stepped forward, walking up the gravel path that Jim had leading to his front door. The plan, if you could call it that, was to knock on the door, tell a few lies, get inside, and then wring the life out of him. After that, I'd clean up and go home. War hero or not, for my purposes he was just an old man.

I walked lightly along the path to the door, not because I was afraid that Jim would see me but because I didn't want to attract the attention of his neighbors. The whole neighborhood was quiet; the only sound came from the crickets and frogs. I stepped up to Jim's door and rang the bell. I could hear some noises coming from inside. I could hear people talking. Then, Jim clicked off the television and the only sound that was left was that of a small, elderly man shuffling toward the door.

Jim answered the door wearing a pair of light blue pants and a striped polo shirt. He wore the same slippers that I had seen on him the day before. He pulled the door wide open without first checking to see who it was. He sized me up quickly upon opening the door and then asked, “Can I help you?”

“I'm not intruding or interrupting anything, am I?” I said, trying to peer inside the house to be sure that Jim was alone.

“No. No. Not at all. I was just catching up on some television. What can I do for you, young man?”

“You're Jim Matsuda, right?” He nodded. “My name is Joe. I'm staying over at Dan's place for a few days.”

“Yes. Yes. Dan told me that he was going to have a visitor. Pleased to meet you, Joe.” Jim held out his hand for me to shake. I had never killed a man after shaking his hand. I looked down at Jim's extended hand for a moment and paused. Then, not wanting to draw suspicion, I shook it.

“Pleasure's all mine, Mr. Matsuda. Mind if I come in?”

“Of course, of course. Where are my manners? Please.” Mr. Matsuda extended his arm into the apartment, welcoming me. After I stepped inside, he closed the door behind me and shut out the rest of the world. Mr. Matsuda had all of the windows closed and was blasting the central air conditioning. Unless someone was standing right outside the front door, no one would hear a sound. Mr. Matsuda's impeccable manners doomed him from the start. “So, how do you know Dan?” Mr. Matsuda asked as he led me toward the sitting room in his house.

“Old family friend,” I replied. I didn't even consider it to be a lie.

“Well, it's nice to see Dan have visitors. It seems that fortune hasn't dealt him the easiest hand.” Don't remind me, I thought. “It's nice to know that there are still people out there in the world thinking about him. Sometimes, it feels like we're in our own little world down here, floating off into space. It's only when we have family or friends, young people like you coming for a visit, that we're reminded that we're still attached to reality. Can I get you something to drink?”

“A glass of water would be great.” Jim stepped into the kitchen and I could hear him opening up a shelf to get a glass for me. While he was gone, I did a quick study of the sitting room to see if there was anything inside that Jim could use as a weapon. The most lethal thing in the room appeared to be a lamp. I wasn't worried. The room had two exits, one into the kitchen and the other into a hallway that must have led toward the bathroom and bedrooms. Jim wouldn't have anyplace to run. There was a window facing the backyard, but the blinds were drawn.

In only a couple of minutes, Jim came back holding two glasses of water, each with two floating ice cubes inside. He handed me a glass. “Would you like to sit down?” Jim asked, motioning toward one of the sofa seats along the wall in the room.

“No, thanks,” I replied. “I'm fine standing for now.”

“Do you mind if I sit?” Jim asked. “Old legs.”

“Be my guest,” I replied. Jim walked over and eased himself down in a chair. As long as he didn't have a gun hidden between the cushions, he couldn't be in a worse position. “You said before that you thought Dan's had it kind of rough. How about yourself?” I asked. I don't know why I was bothering with the small talk.

Jim sat and thought for a moment before speaking. When he answered, he stared into my eyes with the same prescient look that he had given me the morning before. “The fortunes, I believe, have been a bit kinder to me. I never married or had any children, but I've lived an eventful life. Even now, I keep busy.” I bet you do, I thought. “I do some military consulting here and there. But still, getting old is never easy for anyone. I've been in three wars, young man, and I daresay that getting old is the hardest thing I've ever done.”

Jim leveled his gaze at me and it sent a chill through my body. “So, Joe, to what do I owe this little visit of yours?”

“Three wars?” I asked. “Dan told me that you were a veteran of two wars.”

“Well, until recently, I suppose, Dan only knew about two of the wars.” Jim swirled the ice in his glass and then took another drink. “But there are three: Korea, Vietnam, and this godforsaken War that you and I are fighting in now. Three wars, over fifty years, and I still don't have one damn clue why we fought any of them.” He knew. I could feel sweat beginning to seep out of my pores. I held my glass of water down in front of my face and swirled the water, trying to see if I could see anything inside. Jim laughed at me. “Don't worry. There's nothing in your water. Although, I do have to say, you've been doing a pretty careless job.”

My emotions quickly ran from fear of being poisoned to embarrassment. “How long have you known?” I asked.

“I've known that Dan was one of you for years. But I also knew that he wasn't causing us any harm. He hadn't done anything to us since we had his daughter killed. That's when they retired him, whether or not he wanted to retire. And I like him. He's a good friend.” There was something in his words that disgusted me. It was a reflex.

“Did you have something to do with his daughter's death?”

“No. That happened long before I met Dan. Since meeting him, I've heard the stories, though. She, apparently, was a pistol. I really don't think we had much of an option.”

“You don't think you had an option about killing your friend's daughter?”

For the first time, Jim's tone was less than pleasant. “I told you, Joe. I had nothing to do with it. But this is war and ugly things happen during wars. There's little that you or I can do about it.”

“Well, you could always end the War.”

“My God, son. You still think that you're the good guys and we're the bad guys? The same way I was taught to think about you when I was young, over half a century ago. The same way that I was told to think about the Chinese and the North Vietnamese. Good guys and bad guys. Cops and robbers. Cowboys and Indians. They're all children's games, Joe.”

I was in no mood for a lecture. Jared's words echoed through my head. It's either them or us. Either Jim's evil, or I am. “You do realize that I'm going to kill you?” I was hoping that this sentence would end the lecture.

“I've had my suspicions ever since I heard that Dan was going to have a guest. A visitor that I have never heard of. A man whose background Dan couldn't explain. That's why I went outside yesterday to watch you run by, after your first pass by my house. I thought you might be the young man sent to do me in.”

“So are you going to fight me?”

“Is there any sense in fighting?” Jim finished off his water and placed his glass on the coffee table. The liquid was thicker than I had thought at first. He'd given me water. He was drinking vodka.

“No. There's no sense in fighting. You're not trained for this.”

“Don't be silly, Joe. I've been training for this day my entire life.”

“So you plan on putting up a fight?”

Jim laughed. “I haven't been training to fight, Joe. I've been training to die. Three wars, countless deaths. Some at my hands, some in my arms. I've seen enough.”

So had I. I took my backpack off. I reached in and pulled out the gloves and placed them on my hands. Then I pulled out the rope, which I had tied into a cinch with a loop. The cinch could be tightened but it couldn't be loosened without untying the knot. The loop was large enough to fit a man's head through, along with some extra space, in case he struggled. I walked over and stood behind the chair in which Jim was sitting. I slipped the noose around his neck. “I do worry what this will do to Dan,” Jim said. Those were his last words.

“That's not what I'd be worried about if I were you,” I whispered in his ear and tightened the noose around his neck. As the life wrenched out of Jim's body, he struggled, but there was no clawing or hitting. There was no attempt to reach out and pry the rope away from his neck. Instead, Jim struggled against his own will to survive. His reflexes kept kicking in and he would start to lift his hands up toward the rope wrapped around his neck but then he would fight his own reflexes, stopping his hand in midair before it had a chance to reach the rope. His face started to glisten with sweat as he struggled. During the final few moments, his eyes began to bulge and his entire body jolted in such a strong spasm that he almost flew out of the chair. Eventually his body weakened, his arms dropped listlessly to his sides, and his will slipped out of his body. The moment before his life left him, his mouth opened as if he were trying to say something, but with no air going in or out of his throat, no sound came out either. Then his eyes glazed over and he was gone. Once I was sure he was dead, I untied the knot and slipped the rope back off his neck. I had to move in close to untie the rope. When I did I could see the blood on his neck from where the rope had burned through his skin. Even without his wanting it to, his body had put up a hell of a fight. It always does.

I left Jim's lifeless body sitting in the chair. I couldn't help but wonder how long it would be before anyone missed him, before anyone realized he was dead. I poured the rest of my water into the sink. I cleaned my cup off with the Wet-Naps that I had brought. I placed the slightly bloody rope back in the backpack and headed for the door. After closing the door behind me, I took off my gloves and placed them into my backpack as well. The rest of it should have been simply making it back to Dan's house without being noticed. Killing someone shouldn't be that easy.

I really didn't expect to see Dan when I got back to his house. I wouldn't have been surprised if he somehow managed to avoid me until I left. I wouldn't have blamed him. It came as a bit of a shock, then, when I walked through the door and Dan was sitting at his kitchen counter, nursing another beer. He looked up at me when I walked in. He had gotten some of his strength back. The eyes weren't nearly as heavy as they had been the day before. I didn't say anything. He had to break the silence. He took a swig of his beer. “So, is it done?”

“Yeah,” I replied. I walked passed him and into my room, where I dropped off my backpack. I didn't want there to be a chance that Dan might see some of the evidence. Then I came back out into the kitchen.

“You want a beer?” Dan asked me when I got back out.

“Sure,” I responded. I took a seat in the stool next to Dan's. Dan got up and went to the refrigerator and pulled me out a bottle of beer. I noticed when he opened the refrigerator door that there was only one beer left. This meant that he had saved the last beer for me. It also meant that he'd had a lot to drink in the last twenty-four hours.

He handed me the bottle and I immediately began to drink from it. I didn't even want the beer. Drinking after a job seemed disrespectful to me. But as long as I had the beer bottle to my lips, I had an excuse not to talk.

So we sat next to each other in silence. It was the loudest silence I'd ever experienced. Eventually we both finished off our beers. When the bottles were empty, Dan turned to me. “I'm going to go to bed,” he said. “It's been a long day.” I nodded and watched him as he walked toward his bedroom door.