I Am the Messenger (10 page)

A third day passes, and still nothing.

I’ve been down to Edgar Street, and the house is dark. The woman and the girl are asleep, and there’s still no sign of the husband. I’ve contemplated going back out to the Cathedral to see if he jumped or if something else happened to him.

Yet.

How ridiculous am I?

I was supposed to kill the man, and here I am worrying about his well-being. I feel guilty about everything I did to him, but on the other hand, I feel guilty about
not
killing him. After all, that was what I was sent there to do. I think the gun in my letter box made that perfectly clear.

Maybe he made it to the highway and kept walking.

Maybe he threw himself off the cliff.

I stop myself before I think of every possible scenario. Soon I won’t have time to worry. A few more days.

I return one night from playing cards, and the house smells different. There’s Doorman’s smell, but something else as well. It smells like some kind of pastry. It hits me.

Pies.

I move with hesitance toward the kitchen and notice that the light’s on. There’s someone sitting in my kitchen eating pies, which they’ve taken out of my freezer and cooked up. I can smell the processed meat and the sauce. You can always smell the sauce.

With pointless optimism, I look for something to pick up to use as a weapon, but there’s nothing in my path except the couch.

When I make it to the kitchen, I see a lone figure.

I’m shocked.

There’s a man in a balaclava sitting at the table, eating a meat pie with sauce. Many questions rush through my mind, but none of them stick. It’s not every day you come home to something like this.

As I contemplate what to do, I realize with considerable panic that there’s another one behind me.

No
.

A big slurp wakes me up.

The Doorman.

Thank God you’re all right,
I tell him. I say it by shutting my eyes with relief.

He slurps again, and his tongue is red from the blood that’s cracked down my face. He smiles at me.

“I love you, too,” I say, and my voice is like a rumor. I’m not quite sure if it came out or not or if it’s true. It makes me realize that I hear nothing outside me. It’s all inner and like static.

Move,
I tell myself, but I can’t. I feel cemented to the kitchen floor. I even make the mistake of trying to remember what happened. This only makes a noise blur across me and the Doorman’s face disfigure above. It feels like a kind of precursor to death. A prologue, maybe.

My mind folds itself down.

To sleep.

I fall deep inside me and feel trapped. I fall through several layers of darkness, almost reaching the bottom, when a hand seems to pull me up by the throat and into the pain of reality. Someone is literally dragging me through the kitchen. The fluorescent light knifes me in the eyes, and the smell of pies and sauce makes me want to vomit.

I’m propped up to sit there now, on the floor, barely conscious, holding my head in my hands.

Soon the two figures merge with the haziness, and I can see them under the kitchen-light whiteness.

They’re smiling.

They’re throwing smiles at me from the insides of two very thick balaclavas. They’re slightly bigger than average, and both muscular and strong, especially in comparison to me.

They say:

“Hi, Ed.”

“How are you feeling, Ed?”

I’m treading water in my thoughts.

“My dog,” I begin to moan. My head soaks through my hands now, and my words are quickly drowned. I’ve already forgotten that it was the Doorman who’d previously brought me back into consciousness.

“He needs a wash,” one of them says.

“Is he okay?” Quiet words. Scared words that break and shiver and fight to keep themselves in the air.

“And a flea collar.”

“Fleas?” I respond. My voice is scattered on the floor. “He hasn’t got fleas….”

“Well what are these?”

One of the men grabs me gently by the hair and lifts my head to see. He shows me a forearm full of insect bites.

“They’re not from the Doorman,” I say, wondering why in God’s name I would choose to be obstinate in this situation.

“The Doorman?” Like Sophie, the intruders are curious about his name.

I confirm it with a nod of my head, which, surprisingly, wakes me up a little. “Look—fleas or no fleas—is he okay or not?”

The two of them look at each other now, and one takes another bite from his pie.

“Daryl,” he says casually, “I’m not sure if I like Ed’s tone just this minute. It’s…” He struggles for the appropriate word. “It’s…”

“Sour?”

“No.”

“Unappreciative?”

“No.” But he’s got it now. “Worse—it’s disrespectful.” The last word is spoken with quiet, complete disdain. He looks directly at me as he speaks. His eyes warn me more than his mouth. It makes me suggest internally that I should break down and cry, begging them not to hurt my coffee-drinking dog.

“Please,” I finally say, “you didn’t hurt him, did you?”

The hard eyes flatten.

He shakes his head.

“No.”

The best word I’ve ever heard.

“He’s a useless guard dog, though,” says the one still finishing his pie, dunking it in the sauce on his plate. “Do you know he slept through us breaking in?”

“I don’t doubt it.”

“Even when he woke up he only came in here wanting food.”

“And?”

“We gave him a pie.”

“Cooked or frozen?”

“Cooked, Ed!” He seems offended. “We’re not savages, you know. In fact, we’re quite civilized.”

“Are there any left for me?”

“Sorry—the dog got the last one.”

The big bloody greedy guts!
I think, but I can’t hold it against him. Dogs will eat anything. I can’t argue with nature.

In any case, I try to catch them out.

I fire.

One quick question.

“Who sent you?”

Once in the air, my question loses its pace. The words float, and gingerly I stand and sit at one of the vacant kitchen chairs. I’m feeling a little more comfortable, knowing this is all part of what happens next.

“Who sent us?” The other one takes over now. “Nice try, Ed, but you know we can’t tell you that. Nothing would give us greater pleasure, but we don’t even know that ourselves. We just do the job and get paid.”

I explode.

“What?”
It’s an accusation. Not a question. “No one pays
me
! No one gives me—”

I’m slapped.

Hard.

He then sits down again and resumes eating, dipping the last crust of pie in the big pool of sauce on his plate.

You overpoured,
I think.
Thanks a lot
.

He calmly eats the crust, half swallows, and says, “Oh, do stop whining, Ed! We all have our duties here. We all suffer. We all endure our setbacks for the greater good of mankind.”

He’s impressed his mate and himself.

They’re agreeing with each other, nodding.

“Nice,” the other one tells him. “Try to remember all that.”

“Yeah, what was it? The greater good of…?” He thinks hard but can’t come up with what he wants.

“Mankind,” I answer, too quiet.

“What, Ed?”

“Man
kind
.”

“Of course—you got a pen I can borrow, Ed?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“This isn’t a newsagent’s, you know.”

“And there’s that tone again!” He stands up and slaps me even harder, then sits back down, casual.

“That hurt,” I tell him.

“Thanks.” He looks at his hand—at the blood and the dirt and the smear. “You’re in a pretty awful state there, Ed, aren’t you?”

“I know.”

“What’s wrong with you?”

“I want a pie.” I swear—and I’m sure you can back me up on this from previous actions—I’m definitely like a kid at times. A giant pain-in-the-neck kid. Marv’s not the only one.

The one who slapped my face imitates me in a childlike voice. “‘I want a pie….’” He even sighs. “Would you listen to yourself? Grow up, for God’s sake.”

“I know.”

“Well, that’s the first step.”

“Thanks.”

“Now where were we, anyway?”

We all think.

Silently.

The Doorman walks in, looking guilty as all hell.

I s’pose a coffee’s out of the question?
he brings himself to ask me. The neck of him!

All I do is glare at him and he walks back out. He can tell he’s in the bad books.

All three of us in the kitchen watch him make his exit.

“You can smell him coming, can’t you?” one says.

“Damn right.”

The slower eater of the two even stands up now and begins rinsing the plates in the sink.

“Forget it,” I tell him.

“No, no—civilized, remember?”

“Oh yeah, that’s right.”

He claps his hands now and turns around. “Any sauce on my balaclava?”

“Not that I can see,” replies the other. “What about me?”

He leans in and examines. “Nah, you’re clean.”

“Good.” The slower eater wrestles with his own face a moment, saying, “Ah, this bloody shit thing. It’s itchy as all get-out.”

“Is that right, Keith?”

“Doesn’t yours itch?”

“Of course it does!” Daryl can’t believe he’s having this discussion. “But you don’t hear me complaining about it every five minutes, do you?”

“We’ve been here an hour.”

“Even so, remember—these are the things we have to suffer for the greater good of…” He clicks his fingers over at me.

“Oh—mankind.”

“That’s right. Thanks, Ed. Lovely. Good work.”

“No worries.”

We’re kind of friends now. I can feel it.

“Look, can we just get this over with so I can get this woolen mask off, Daryl?”

“Could you just show us a little discipline, Keith? All good hit men have impeccable discipline, all right!”

“Hit men?” I ask.

Daryl shrugs. “Well, you know, that’s what we call ourselves.”

“Sounds plausible,” I concede.

“I suppose.” And he thinks hard now.

He ponders. He speaks.

“Okay, Keith, you’re right. We better head off soon. You got the pistol, didn’t you?”

“I did, yes. It was in his drawer.”

“Good.” Daryl stands up and pulls an envelope from his jacket pocket. On it are the words
Ed Kennedy
. “Got a delivery for you, Ed. Please stand up, son.”

I do it.

“I’m sorry,” he now reasons, “but I’m under instructions. I have to tell you one thing—that so far you’re doing well.” He speaks more quietly. “And just between you and me—and I can get maimed for telling you this—we know you didn’t kill that other man….”

Again, he apologizes and delivers his fist beneath my ribs.

I’m bent over.

The kitchen floor is filthy.

There’s Doorman hair everywhere.

The hammer of a fist lands on the back of my neck.

I taste the floor.

It joins my mouth.

Slowly, I feel the envelope land on my back.

Far, far away, I hear Daryl’s voice one last time. He says, “Sorry, Ed. Good luck.”

As their footsteps echo through the house, I hear Keith now as well.

“Can I take the mask off now?” he asks.

“Soon,”
Daryl answers.

The kitchen light fades, and again I’m sinking.