Dangerous Women

“You made a name for yourself off that murder,” Joey said. “It put you in demand. The calls came in steady after that, the work more than you could handle.”

“Let’s just say it got easier after that,” Frank said.

“And you only got better,” Joey said. “Here it is more than twenty years later and no one has even come close to putting handcuffs on you.”

“Is that what you’re waiting to see?” Frank asked.

“Maybe that would have been enough twenty years ago,” Joey said. “But not now. I need more than that.”

“If you were going to kill me you would have done it when you had the chance,” Frank said. “And that chance was when you first walked in and right before you ordered that first drink.”

“I wish I could kill you,” Joey said. “I wish I could pull out a gun and shoot you until you were dead. I wish I could do to you what you did to my sister. But we both know that I can’t and talking about it is just a waste of time.”

“You came a long way and waited through a lot of years just to hear me say I did it,” Frank said. “Is that going to be enough for you?”

“You can’t get a conviction without a guilty plea,” Joey said. “ I didn’t have that until tonight.”

“Well then, you got what you came for,” Frank said. “I’m guilty as charged, Counselor. Which leaves you where? Calling the cops won’t do you much good. It’s going to take a terrorist attack to get them out in this weather, not a twenty-year-old murder case none of them even remember. And airport security couldn’t catch their ass with both hands, let alone someone who’s been ru

“There’s just one more thing left for me to do,” Joey said. “And I don’t need the cops, or security to get that done.”

“Do I need to guess?” Frank asked. “Or you going to spoil the suspense and tell me?”

“It’s what I’ve been waiting more than twenty years to do,” Joey said. “I get to sentence you.”

“That’s a judge’s job,” Frank said. “You get promoted and not tell me about it?”

“In this case, I’m one-stop shopping,” Joey said. “Prosecutor, jury and judge.”

“I hope it’s not community service,” Frank said. “I would really hate that.”

“And it’s not life in prison, either,” Joey said. “I don’t have the power to do that. Or for that matter, the desire.”

“Which leaves what?”

Joey pushed her chair back and stood, her eyes glaring down at Frank. “The death penalty,” she said. “I sentence you to die for the murder of my sister. There will be no appeals filed and the twenty years that have passed since the crime was committed take care of any stays of execution you might have earned.”

“I’ve only had a couple of beers,” Frank said, smiling and brushing off the harshness of her words. “That’s not much of a last meal.”

“You picked the place,” Joey said, picking up her black leather coat. “Not me. But I’ll get the tab. A condemned man shouldn’t have to pay for anything other than for his crime.”

“You’re really not following proper procedure,” Frank said. “I always had you pi

“I have to use what’s available to me,” Joey said, tossing the coat on and reaching for her bag. “Besides, you don’t look like you need either a shower or new clothes. But I did make arrangements for your remains.”

“Buried or burned?” he asked.

“That’s at the discretion of the executioner,” Joey said. She picked up her bag, took one final look at Frank and turned to leave the bar.

“If he’s a pro, he’ll probably do both,” Frank said, his eyes not moving from the table.

“You would know that better than I would,” Joey said, her head down, walking toward the open entrance to the bar.

“Hope to run into you again, Counselor,” Frank said, raising his voice one notch, looking at her back.

Joey stopped and dropped her bag; its low-impact thud echoed inside the silent and empty bar. She lowered her head and closed her eyes, her two hands balled into tight fists. “I’m afraid not, Frank,” she said, calling him by his name for the only time that night. “This was our first and last meeting. It’s all over between us. This case is now closed.”

Frank nodded. He didn’t need to turn around to know that he’d been locked into the perfect setup from the time he walked into the bar. He didn’t need to hear the muted footsteps coming his way or the click of the nine-millimeter that was sure to be aimed at the back of his head. He knew his run was over.

He glanced up at Joey, her back to him, her body still, her head hanging low. He knew she’d been on his tail all these years and wondered why they had both waited until this night to bring the chase to an abrupt end. He was relaxed and relieved in those few silent moments before the first bullet hit. He had chosen the life and now had chosen his own way out of it. He was glad that Joey had been the one, knew she would eventually find the courage to take it to the next step. In that sense, there were two people in that bar on that snowy night that felt a burden lifted.

Joey heard the three muted shots and then heard Frank utter a low, guttural moan and then heard a thud as his upper body fell face forward on the small table, an empty beer bottle smashing to the floor. She stayed frozen in place, waiting with her head bowed as the footsteps now came walking in her direction.

“It’s done,” she heard the bartender say as he stood next to her. “He’s dead.”

“Thank you,” she said.

“I’ll clean the place up and get rid of the body,” he told her. “By the time the storm clears, he’ll be gone for good.”

“And so will you,” she said.

“No profit in sticking around,” the bartender said. “I hate bars and I hate airports. This is definitely not the place for me.”

Joey reached down and picked up her bag. “How good was he?” she asked. “Do you know?”

“Frank Corso was the best,” the bartender said. “None better. There are enough stories about him to fill a dozen books.”

“But you got to him,” she said. “Does that make you better than him now?”

“I got to him because he wanted me to,” the bartender said. “Believe me, if he didn’t want to go down, it would have been my body being left under a mound of snow.”

“Why would he do that?” she asked. “Give up the way he did?”

“Maybe he just got tired of the game,” the bartender said. “It’s been known to happen sometimes. Or maybe, he felt he owed you. That happens, too. Or maybe it was something else. Something a guy like him could never allow to happen.”

“What?”

“Maybe Frank fell in love with you,” the bartender said. “You chasing him all these years, he ended up knowing as much about you as you did about him. You get close to a person that way, closer even than to somebody you see every day of your life. You end up feeling for that person. Usually it’s hate. But, on a one-in-a-million shot, it does roll out as love.”

“We’ll never know then,” Joey said.

“You can catch a cab if you need one on the lower level,” the bartender said. “There are buses, too, but you might have to wait the rest of the night for one to take you back to the city.”

“I’m not in any hurry,” Joey said, walking slowly out of the darkness of the bar and into the soft glare of the terminal, lined on both sides by shuttered stores. “I have nowhere else to go.”