First Class Killing

I got down on my knees and felt along the ground. Nails? Too light. Gravel. Too small. Something hard. Heavy. A brick. A stack of bricks. Too heavy for what I needed.

A crash not far away. “Son of abitch.”

“Shut up. I can’t hear.”

“Like we’re going to find her in here.”

I crawled along the ground, using their noise for cover, feeling with my hands. There was something cold…aluminum or metal…cylindrical with a label. It was a can. Maybe a paint can. Two cans, each with a handle. Perfect.

I grabbed one, but when I reached for the other, I tipped it over and made it clatter. When I tried to catch it, I only managed to make it roll farther. They shouted to each other, and one of them began to drift in my direction. His footfall sounded like leather soles on pavement and I thought it might be the one in the suit. I stabbed at the darkness around me, trying to touch something, to find something to flatten against. I was out in the open, exposed. For all I knew, he would walk right into me.

He stopped. I had to stop. My muscles cramped. The paint can smelled of chemicals-solvent, maybe-and I wished I were a smoker with a lighter. I listened, but there was nothing, which meant that he was listening, too. I began to shake.

Then I heard him wheezing. Even though he was very close by, I felt a small relief that he was the one closer to me. He was struggling to breathe the heavy air and I knew, of the two, he was the one I could outrun, if only I could see where to run.

He stood for a long time. When he finally moved past, my whole body unclenched, and I nearly fell over. I waited for a good long time, until I couldn’t hear him anymore. When I straightened up, I hoped that my bones wouldn’t audibly creak. I took a deep breath and counted to myself.One… I wrapped my hand around the handle of the paint can…two…whirled around, which was not easy in total darkness, and…three…let it fly.

It seemed to take forever to come down. When it did, it hit dead solid on something hard and heavy. The noise boomed like an explosion from deep within a cave.

They yelled to each other. I started to feel my way along, going in the direction I had picked. I put one foot lightly in front of the other, slowly at first, but then it was hard to hold back, hard not to shut down my brain, let my instincts take over, and go crashing out of there as fast as I could. I held back until I saw the light spilling down the ramp. I began to jog toward the entrance, and then a fire kicked in, and I was ru

I was flying.

The opening was ahead, the light washing into the dark tu

I didn’t even see him.

The collision was monumental, at least from my end. There was no time to stop, to turn, to do anything but plow right into him, which was like ru

He was big, especially across the shoulders. His head was square. His sport coat looked, in the dim light, to be a dusty rose over a black turtleneck. With a dizzying, disorienting rush of recognition, I realized I knew this man, and if I hadn’t been nearly unconscious I would have been scared, because the last time I had seen him was in Chicago, where his jacket had been lemon yellow. I expected any second for one of his big hands to release my arm and grab me by the throat.

It didn’t.

He turned his thick shoulders and looked down into the tu

“Go,” he said. He let go of my arms and turned me around. “Run.”

I wanted to drop to my knees. I wanted to let my head hang down until I could breathe again, but I could hear the other two coming. I put one hand on my aching side and started moving again, limping back toward the fence. When I turned to look back, he was gone.

I couldn’t get the dust out of my nasal passages. I kept blowing, sniffing, snorting, and mashing my nose against my face. Whether it was in my snout or in my mind, I couldn’t say, but I had an itch there that I couldn’t scratch, and it kept me on the razor’s edge of a sneeze. I smelled as if I’d just come in from a long run, only terror sweat is more pungent and rancid than exercise sweat. Both of my shoulders throbbed, the right one more than the left. I hoped I hadn’t torn something important.

I had found my way to the Fleet Center complex, which led directly to North Station, where there were plenty of people hanging out waiting for commuter trains to the suburbs. I sat on a bench along one wall and watched them. It had been more than an hour since I had crawled out of the tu

I was pretty sure the two men at Monica’s had been waiting for her, not me, probably for the same reason as the big guy had been after me…her in Chicago. Blackmail schemes gone awry. This was a dangerous game Monica was playing. Why did I keep paying the price? The big guy must have figured out his mistake, which was why he’d had no use for me tonight.

I did not want to deal with Harvey, so I went outside and hailed a cab that took me to the North End. I gave the cabbie five dollars extra to wait until I got safely into my car.

When I reached up to grab my seat belt, I noticed the business card in the visor. Printed on the front was the name Djuro Bulatovic. Below it was an 800 number. On the back was a handwritten note.

My sincerest apologies. Please call.

They say first impressions are the ones that last. I wasn’t sure I would ever be able to think of Djuro Bulatovic as anyone but the man in the lemon chiffon jacket who choked me until I passed out.