Shred of Evidence

Babjak pulled to the curb and cut the engine. He quickly glanced around the street—empty. In the passenger seat, Rucchio hung limply against his seat belt, mouth open and eyes shut. The stain around the knife in his chest wasn’t getting any larger. Babjak slipped off a glove and felt for a pulse. After half a minute he gave up. Not much chance that Rucchio was faking.

When he’d offered Babjak the money, Rucchio had tapped his right breast pocket. Babjak slid two fingers inside the dead man’s coat, careful not to touch the knife, and pulled out a bundle of hundred dollar bills in a plastic baggie. He counted quickly. There were twenty five of them.

Bonus.

Babjak stuffed the money in his pocket, pulled his glove on, and looked around once more. Satisfied, he got out and kicked away the patchy, scabby snow that still clung to the sidewalk. The Sheraton on Fourth was only fifteen blocks away. He’d catch the airport shuttle, celebrate happy hour with a few drinks, and take a cab back home with no one the wiser.

As he walked, he thought about Paul Rucchio. Not everyone was cut out to be a hood. Rucchio had always been a bad apple, a braggart and a bully in a family that prized discretion, but no one ever thought he’d roll over. He’d run his mouth to the wrong people, and when the feds played him the tape and he heard those damning words in his own voice, he came to heel faster than Fido. But the feds weren’t the only ones with sources—the organization had a spy in the other team’s clubhouse, and the word on Rucchio came quickly. So Babjak got a call.

Rucchio tried begging. He tried pleading. He tried money. He cried. He ended up slumped over in his own car, a knife hilt-deep in his heart.

The job was done. Like turning a page in a newspaper, Babjak turned his mind to other things.

He saw few cars and no pedestrians. The brick and cinder block buildings hunched shoulder to shoulder, crowding the sidewalk like harried commuters waiting on a train.

He hadn’t counted on the cold.

After only ten minutes his feet felt like blocks of ice. Up ahead, a lighted sign flickered as it swayed in the wind: FOOD BEER CIGARETTES. Babjak’s stomach growled on cue. Without pausing he pushed through the iron-barred door.

The store was just a narrow concrete box, dimly illuminated by overhead fluorescent lights. Shelves lined the left wall from floor to ceiling. Along the right stood a row of coolers and a magazine rack. Two waist-high steel racks filled with candy and chips flanked the center aisle. Nearly every surface was a uniform gray. The racks and the metal hardware on the shelves had the drippy look that comes from too much paint applied too quickly. At least the place was clean.

Babjak stamped the snow from his feet and wandered over to the chocolate bars.

Across the rack, a blond-haired woman picked canned goods from the shelves and dropped them into a basket slung over her arm. She was short, five feet or so, and thin, dressed in elastic workout pants and an oversized sweatshirt. When she stretched for a can just out of reach her shirt rode up above her waist. The muscles in her buttocks and thighs stood out sharply.

Babjak watched for a minute, then went over and fetched the can for her. She turned to him and smiled, and with a shock he saw the streaks of gray in her hair and the lines around her mouth and eyes. Her body had lied—she was on the far side of forty, maybe six or eight years older than Babjak himself.

“Oh, thanks,” she said. “I was afraid I was going to have to literally climb the walls.”

“No problem,” said Babjak, grinning.

She tucked another can away in her basket and glanced up at him. He towered over her at least a foot and a half taller. “Hi, I’m Molly. Are you new in the neighborhood?”

Babjak removed the smile from his face with the same care he would use to erase his signature from a letter he’d decided was better left unsent. “No, sorry,” he said. “Just passing through.”

“Oh,” she said. “Well, that’s too bad.”

He returned to the candy aisle, disappointed in himself, and grabbed a Crunch bar. As he turned to pay he nearly stumbled over a kid leafing through a comic book. “Say, mister,” he said. “Buy me a magazine?”

Babjak looked the kid over. New winter coat. New Nikes on his feet. Light brown hair peeking out from beneath a new Cubs cap. Not a charity case. “Sorry, kid, no handouts today.”

“No, it’s not that, I’ve got the money.” The kid looked around. “They keep them behind the counter…”

Babjak realized what he meant and barked out a laugh. “A nudie mag? Steal one from your old man, like the rest of us did.”

The kid pouted and sulked away and Babjak headed to the cash register, shaking his head.

The man behind the register was old and Asian, and skinny as a reed. The bald dome of his head poked out above an unruly fringe of gray hair like a mountain peak rising above the tree line. Babjak laid the candy bar on the counter and tossed a dollar down next to it.

“I see you help the lady,” said the old man in a just-off-the-boat accent. “You nice fella.” He counted out the change and added a couple of peppermints.

“Thanks.” Babjak pocketed the money. “You from China?”

The man’s smile had a few gaps in it. “San Francisco.”

Babjak took the chocolate and the mints and turned to go. As he passed the boy he tossed him the peppermints and said, “Stick to the comic books.”

The woman may have looked at him as he walked by. Babjak turned his face away.

As he reached the door it suddenly swung open in his face. A young man, maybe nineteen, maybe twenty, sent Babjak backwards with a shove. He could have been a light-skinned black, or Hispanic, Southern European, even an Indian or Pakistani. The great melting pot blurred most of the lines between the categories on the census forms.

He wore a leather jacket, a retro ‘fro, and a scraggly little beard along his jaw, and for the first time Babjak noticed the gun he held in his hand.

The candy bar fell to the floor, and the punk planted a foot on it.

“Everybody, up against the wall!” he shouted, waving his pistol like a magic wand. It worked; Babjak and the other customers crowded back towards the counter. The punk pointed his gun at the ancient clerk. “Get around here, Jackie Chan.” Not much of an insult. Maybe it was the only Chinese name he knew.

Now the robber, for that’s what this had to be, a robbery, had the clerk by the shirtfront. “I know you got somebody in that back room. If I have to go looking, I’ll leave a pile of bodies out here first.”

The old man said something in a language Babjak didn’t understand, and the door to the storeroom opened. A stocky Asian woman with big hair bustled out, eyes wide, unfamiliar words spilling out of her mouth. Babjak looked at the two of them. Jack Spratt could eat no fat, his wife could eat no lean…

The gunman had all five of them lined up in front of the cash register now. His eyes were wide, his feet bounced to a beat only he could hear. Adrenaline practically oozed from his pores. “Nobody move, look straight ahead,” he said. They stood there as he rifled through the cash register. When he was done he came around and faced them.

“All right,” he said. “I want your wallets, your jewelry, everything, and I want it now.” As the others hastily dug out their valuables, Babjak took a look at the gun. It was a snubnosed .38 revolver, probably a Taurus or a Colt, old enough that the blueing was worn through in several places. The front sight had been removed to make it easier to draw from a pocket or waistband. Not accurate beyond ten yards, but in this concrete cell it was good enough.

The gunman stopped in front of Molly. She lifter her shirttail and unclipped a buttpack, held it out meekly. The man just stood there leering. “What else you hiding under there?” he said.

Only a retard would try something like that. A beat cop could come through the door at any moment. Still, the guy probably had a hard-on the size of the Sears Tower, and he would want a grope at the least.

Babjak stepped forward and said, “Why don’t you leave the lady alone?”

The punk’s grin faded and the he stalked over to Babjak. “Is that what you think I should do?” He pressed his gun to Babjak’s face. “Well, why don’t I spray your brains all over the wall so everyone can see what you think?”

Babjak raised his hands to shoulder height. “Easy. I don’t want any trouble.”

“Yeah, well, give me your wallet and maybe you won’t get any.”

Babjak shrugged. He’d tried. He slowly lowered his right hand, reached up under his coat to his hip pocket.

It was there in the gunman’s eyes, in his stupid smile. I punked you out, man. Now you’re my bitch. He had his left hand out, reaching, and when he looked down and saw it wasn’t a wallet that Babjak held, his face didn’t have time to register surprise before Babjak shot him twice.

The gunman’s legs folded up and he hit the ground ass-first, then flopped over on his back. The rest of them stood there, staring.

Molly was the first to move. She knelt beside the prone figure, felt for a pulse at his neck. “I’m a nurse,” she said. “Someone call an ambulance.”

She tore open the man’s shirt. Two ugly holes in his chest leaked blood. To Babjak she said, “Do you think he would have killed us?”

“Yes,” he said. “I do.”

“Then thank you for saving my life.” She looked over at Babjak’s shoes, battered and scarred, but still polished until they shone. “You got cop shoes,” she said. “Are you a cop?”

“I’m afraid not,” said Babjak, and shot her through the head.

A fine red mist sprayed over the bags of potato chips behind her, coating them with droplets of blood. She jerked around, a stricken look crossing her face. Then her face went blank and she fell across the body of the robber.

The boy ran for the door. Babjak fired quickly, the bullet striking the boy between the shoulder blades, sending him to the floor.

The clerk stood stock-still and mute, the woman beside him screamed and jabbered. Babjak shot the man and he toppled over like a tall tree. The woman clutched at his arm going down with him, and Babjak leaned forward and took care of her, as well.

He quickly picked up the empty shell casings and tucked them into a coat pocket. He found five of them, then mentally ran through the scene again. One was missing.

Only one place it could be. Babjak gently lifted the woman from the robber’s body. Her breasts were warm and very soft. He found the shell where she’d fallen on it, and as he lowered her to the floor, he whispered, “I’m sorry.”

I’m sorry, I couldn’t let this punk stick me up. I couldn’t hang around for the police, not with Rucchio dead just down the street. Even cops can figure that out. And I couldn’t leave you and the rest of these people here as witnesses. I had to do it. I’m sorry.

He took one final look around and started for the door.

As he passed the candy bars, his stomach grumbled again. He grabbed a couple and stuffed them in his pocket.