Since the Layoffs by Iain Levison Read Free Book Online Page A

and is still. I lean back against the side of the house, and I hear myself softly repeating “shit shit shit” over and over, like a mantra. Then the door opens.
    Corinne Gardocki sticks her head out and I shoot her.
    BANG.
    She pitches forward and falls down the steps onto her dog, her head sliding under the dog’s belly. In her negligee, the scene looks bizarre, her head buried in the dog’s genitalia.
    The echo of the gunshot dies and it is completely quiet. The snow is falling on both bodies, and I sit and stare at them for a full minute, lit up by the slim light from the kitchen, letting the ringing in my ears subside. Far off I can hear a car driving by, driven by someone who has no idea what has transpired here at the Gardocki household, unaware that less than half a mile from him or her, two beings, alive two minutes ago, are now dead in a pile.
    The shots must have been audible for ten miles, I imagine. I think of Jughead, back at the convenience store, looking up from his books, wondering what those gunshots were. Then I realize that if a neighbor heard them, he would probably be dialing an emergency number right now. I push myself away from the wall of the house, take a last look at the scene, and dash off through the snow, through the trees, back onto the roadway. I tuck the gun back into my jeans, and take the two rags off my feet and throw them over the bridge into Kruc Creek.
    The gun I keep. I can’t bear the thought of tossing it. The gun and I are connected now. I’ll take my chances.
    My ears are still ringing. One thing I’ve learned … I need a silencer. That loud banging noise every time I pull the trigger just won’t do.
    I get back to the store with fifteen minutes to spare, soaking and frozen through. Jughead looks up when I come in.
    “Wanneystay tutoo?” Do I want him to stay until two?
    “Nah, thanks. I appreciate it.” I take two twenties and a ten out of my pocket, where they have soaked through, and I hand him the dripping money.
    He nods wordlessly, grabs his books and is gone. He couldn’t care less where I have been. He could never be a witness against me anyway. He’d give a court stenographer fits. “Where was Mr. Skowran the night of the killing?” “Hebelyt he fawar reeg.”
    I sit down and make a cup of coffee, and stare into space. By the time Tommy comes in, at seven in the morning, my hair has dried, my jacket is merely damp, and I’m ready to go home to a satisfying sleep.
    The killing was so easy, so fast, that I can’t believe I’m getting my gambling debt wiped out and eight hundred dollars just for that. It was nothing. I shot the dog out of instinct, and Corinne too. The situation just developed, and I reacted with an efficiency I had forgotten existed in myself. When you’re out of work, it becomes difficult to evaluate yourself because you’re never in stressful situations. Well, that was stressful, and I did good.
    Why would someone who heard a gunshot in her backyard come outside on a snowy, dark night wearing nothing but a negligee? What were her final thoughts? I wonder this as I watch my breath evaporate in the frigid air of my apartment. She didn’t even know I was hiding against the house, the first inkling she had was the bullet entering her head. I did everything wrong, yet everything turned out right.
    I know what to do now. Nothing. All the things I’ve heard about murderers, that they love to sign their work with some kind of personal touch, that they compulsively return to the scene of the crime, that they brag about their killings to friends, cut out newspaper articles about their crime and save them all over their apartments, I won’t do any of that. I won’t call Ken Gardocki, either. I’ll let him contact me.
    I hide the gun in my closet. This might be the dumbest thing I’ve ever done, keeping the gun. It is the only thing that connects me to the murder, and the minute it is gone, I’m safe. But I want it. I consider it an