almost okay

SEVERAL DEATHS IN
THE FAMILY
Chapter Four: The Wrong Tool For The Right Job

After arriving around nine in the morning at the Pittsburgh airport, I navigated through rush hour traffic and road work in my rental car to the Extended Stay Inn on William Penn in Monroeville. The boss always booked me into dumps, but from the outside this one seemed okay. I'd gotten lost trying to find the place because there was a detour on Northern Pike and it took me past the drive so quick that I hadn't seen the tiny turquoise sign perched on a post about three feet off the ground, which I passed twice before finally spotting it and turning into the lot.

I was mildly hungover from drinking the night before, jittery from my near death experience at the dive bar, and more than a little nervous about what kind of trouble I'd find here in Pittsburgh once I'd made it to the second job site. I needed a shower and some sleep and was looking forward to a quiet, bug-free room where I could do both. After a night in that second motel in Marietta, I'd found several tiny red bites at my ankles and a few more along my waist, right at the line where the elastic from my underwear dug in. They were itching like crazy and adding to my overall feeling of discomfort and anxiety.

The girl at the desk was cute. Beautiful big eyes and long brown hair, dark skin. She was talking on the phone in Spanish when I came in, continued to talk as I stood there with my bags, then put the phone down without hanging it up.

“Do you have a reservation?” she asked. Her name tag read 'Maria'.

“Indeed I do, Maria. I should be down for an early check-in.”

She put me in room 313. I slogged my bags over to the elevator, thumbed '3' on the control panel and the button lit up. It seemed to take forever for the doors to close and I could see Maria pick up the phone and continue to talk while she looked at me suspiciously out of the corner of her eye. She burst out laughing and boldly looked right at me just as the stainless steel doors came together.

Once inside the room I turned on the air conditioning and drew a hot bath. I was sore from being banged around the day before, and my right knee was aching for some reason, probably twisted in the altercation with the tall Mexican. It felt good to lay in the bath and I soaked one of the white wash cloths and put it over my eyes to help shut out the world and my troubles. I dozed for a while, my arm over the side of the tub and woke up in tepid water suddenly feeling chilled. I stood up and showered off and the hot water felt good, chased the shivers from me.

Just as I was toweling off I heard a knock at the door. I wrapped the towel around my waist, tied it to one side and went over to the door. “Who is it?” I asked.

“House cleaning, sir,” said a female voice with the same accent as the girl at the desk. “I'm sorry but we forgot to change your sheets.”

I looked out the peephole into the hallway and saw that it was Maria, her head, her luscious lips, her boobs all made comically large by the bubble lens through which I peered. I could see right down her low-cut blouse and her cleavage seemed a foot long. She was holding a neatly folded pile of beige linen in her hands. I pulled back the dead bolt and opened the door, reached out and took the sheets from her. “I can put them on for you,” she said with a song in her voice. She had glanced down, looked towards my crotch and I suddenly realized that I was aroused, the towel tenting away from my body. She looked back up at me and smiled.

“Um, no thanks,” I said. I was horny, but right then I needed rest more than sex. Maybe I'd catch up to Maria after work. “Thank you, Maria.”

The door swung slowly shut, latching with a click and I went back to the bathroom to get dressed before realizing that I hadn't set the dead bolt. Just as I made it back to the door I heard another click as someone slid a key card into the lock from the outside. As I reached for the dead bolt, the door swung open hard, knocking me back. The towel went flying as a bulky Mexican with a long braided pony tail rushed in, knife in hand. Before I'd had a chance to find him, Target Number Two had found me.

He growled at me in Spanish and I could make out “Cerdo!” and “Mi hermano!” and “Matanza!” He also tossed in a “Motherfocker!” or two as he swung the knife wildly, tears streaming down his cheeks. I retreated into the room, jumping back with each of his lunges and eventually fell on the far side of the bed right on top of my tool bag. He thrust the blade at me as I lay on the floor. With my knees bent, I put both feet in the middle of his chest and pushed hard. His knife nicked my tool bag just inches from my left ear and the Mexican flew backwards and crashed into the dresser, shattered the mirror that hung on the wall, the wrist of his knife hand striking the edge of the armoire, causing him to loosen his grip on the knife, which flew across the room.

Instead of going for the knife, he howled something unintelligible and rushed me hard, his bare hands reaching for my throat. I had a hand inside my tool bag by then and fumbled for something to kill the prick with as his fingers tightened like a vice around my windpipe. This Mexican had a crazed look in his eye, and I remember thinking that he smelled pretty bad, too, like a combination of B.O., garlic and cigarette smoke. I could feel myself getting weaker, the room getting warmer. Just as I was about to black out, Target Number Two spit in my face. “Cerdo!” I could feel my hand gripping the portable drill, a quarter inch bit still chucked in solid from two jobs ago. Thank god I wasn't very good at putting things away.

I pulled my hand free of the tool bag, pushed the drill at the Mexican and squeezed the trigger. He seemed surprised by the hum of the motor, screamed out as the bit tore into the flesh of his side. I pulled back and sank it again, deep between his ribs. That got his attention and he let go of my throat, reached across for the drill but I kept my finger on the trigger and swung it in an arc at his face. The drill bit ripped across his eyebrow digging an ugly divot and he covered his face with both hands as the blood began to pour. I kept drilling and plunged it hard into his throat, pulled it back and then another hard plunge into the center of his chest. The bit bounced off his sternum, crawled sideways as I kept pushing and eventually found a soft spot. I pushed it all the way in and the Mexican collapsed across me, heaving his last breaths, blood bubbling out of his nose and mouth.

After pushing him aside, I got up, turned and put my knee in the middle of his back, placed the bit at the base of his skull and drilled one last hole to make sure the job was done, squeezing the trigger hard as the battery slowly drained and the motor bogged down. He shivered and shook for a few seconds then went completely still.

I made sure the door was bolted then went into the bathroom to survey the damage. The wound on my chest had opened up and was bleeding, but other than that and some red marks on my throat I looked okay. The throat would show bruises later, but I wasn't too concerned about that. At least I was still breathing.

After a quick shower to rinse off the blood, I slapped more gauze over my knife wound, then dressed quickly. I then wiped the blood off my drill as best I could, rinsed the bit off in the sink and put the tools away. After throwing the clean sheet over the body, I grabbed my bags and left. On the way out I shoved the 'DO NOT DISTURB' card into the key slot and snapped it off flush, then made my way quickly down the hall to the back stairs and exited at the rear of the building, walking around to the front where my rental car sat waiting. No doubt Maria had been in on the plan and I wanted to avoid her seeing me leave.

As I drove away I found myself hoping that Maria had been coerced against her will, that she would be a nice, sweet piece and might even feel sympathy for my plight, root for me if she had seen the fight, reward me later with a blow job as I sat back naked, my fingers in her long brown hair.

I stopped at Rudy's and devoured an Italian sub, sat at a table outside while I drank a couple tall Yuengling Lagers and did some serious thinking. By the time I had things figured out, it was late afternoon. The air was warm, the late summer sun casting long hard shadows on the pavement. I drove back towards the city up William Penn, stopped at the first bar and grille I saw, parked the car and went in.

It was Happy Hour after all.

* * * * * * * * * * *

“'Sup, Boss?” I said. I was standing in Amy the bartender's bathroom, the spotless white tiles on the walls and floor awash with morning sun, one of her dogs whining at her bedside on the other side of the door, urging her to take him for a walk. It was a little after seven. The boss rarely calls and never calls this early.

“Sherman?”

“You were expecting somebody else?”

“No. No, nothing like that,” he stammered. I could tell he was lying. “How's it going?”

“You tell me. When I checked into my room yesterday, there was a little surprise waiting for me,” I said. I paused to see what he was going to say. He didn't say anything. “Hello? You still there, Boss?”

“Um, yeah, I'm still here. You were breaking up a little. What do you mean by a 'surprise'?”

By then I was pretty sure I didn't have to tell him that the 'surprise' had been Target Number Two. Not only had the Mexican been waiting for me once I'd arrived in Pittsburgh, he knew the hotel where I was staying, too.

And since Boss had set up my itinerary, that meant he had to be in on the scheme. Now all I had to do was figure out why everybody wanted me dead.