Three Fates

sound of traffic from the turnpike, it was a distant whoosh. Bumfuck, he thought again, shaking his head.
    “Broken lock on this side door,” he called out.
    “Is there?” She knew it. She’d had a complete and extensive report from the appraisal. “That’s a problem. I wonder if it’s locked from the inside.”
    He gave it a hard shove, shrugged. “Might be. Or it’s jammed or something.”
    “Well, we won’t . . . No,” she said after a moment’s thought. “Best to see if we can get in through it so we know what has to be done. Can you push or kick it in?”
    He was built like a bull and proud of it. Proud enough that he didn’t think to ask why she didn’t just unlock the damn door.
    Slamming his bulk against the thick wood soothed the ego she’d scraped raw in her office. He hated the bitch, but she paid well. That didn’t mean he was going to tolerate getting sniped at by a woman.
    He imagined she was the door, gave it one good kick and snapped the thin bolt lock on the inside.
    “Like paper,” he claimed. “Gonna want to put a steel door on here, a police lock if you want to keep out vandals and shit.”
    “You’re quite right. It’s dark inside. I have a flashlight in my bag.”
    “Light switch right here.”
    “No! We don’t want to advertise we’re here, do we?” She aimed the thin beam inside, scanned the room. It was another concrete box, dark, dusty and smelling of rodents.
    It was, she thought, perfect.
    “What’s that?”
    “What?”
    “Over there in the corner,” she said, gesturing with her light.
    He walked over, kicked listlessly. “Just an old tarp. You want us to keep her out here for any time, you gotta think about how we’re going to get food out here.”
    “You won’t have to worry about it.”
    “Ain’t no Chinese carry-out on the corner,” he began as he turned. He saw the gun in her hand, held as steady as the pencil light. “What the fuck?”
    “Language, Mr. Dubrowsky,” she said with a tsk. And shot him.
    The gun kicked, the sound echoed, and both sent a thrill through her. He took a lurching step toward her, so she shot him again, then a third time. When he was down, she stepped very carefully around the blood spilling into a slow river on the concrete floor. Tilting her head like a woman considering a new bauble in a shop window, she sent one more bullet into the back of his head.
    It was a first for her, a killing. Now that it was done, very well done, her hand shook lightly and her breath came fast and shallow. She shined the light in his pupils, just to be sure, to be absolutely sure. The beam bobbed a bit, but she bore down and saw that his eyes were open and staring. And empty.
    Paul had been like that after she’d waited out his final heart attack with his medication tight in her fist. She didn’t consider that killing. That, she thought now as she steadied herself, had been patience.
    She stepped back, took the old broom from the corner and meticulously brushed at the dust, smearing any footprints on her backward trip to the door. Taking out a lace-trimmed handkerchief, she wiped the broom handle before tossing it aside, then covered her hand with the silk and lace to pull the door closed.
    It was a bad fit now, she mused, as Dubrowsky had conveniently jarred the jamb. An obvious break-in, an obvious murder.
    Finally, she wiped off her dead husband’s unregistered Beretta and heaved it as far as she could into the scrubby brush bordering the lot. The police would find it, of course. She wanted them to find it.
    There was nothing to tie her here but the fact that her husband had once owned the building. There was nothing to tie her to some nasty little man who’d made his living breaking arms. There were no records of employment, no tax forms, no witnesses to their dealings. Except for Jasper. She didn’t think he’d run to the police when he heard his associate had been shot.
    No, she had a feeling Marvin Jasper would become a sterling employee. Nothing like a little incentive to inspire loyalty and hard work.
    She walked back to her car, and inside smoothed her hair, freshened her lipstick.
    She drove away thinking that it was absolutely true if you wanted something done right, you did it yourself.
     
     
    JACK AWOKE TO church bells. The pretty peal of them brought him out of a sound sleep on top of the bedspread and made him aware of the steady flow of the breeze through the window he’d left wide open.
    He liked the smell of