Shelia drove up a long, gravel driveway toward a weathered, old farmhouse.  Rufus made it a point to keep a low profile.  You don’t want to attract any attention to yourself.  You’ve got to try to blend in.  She saw the old man sitting in a rocking chair on the porch that stretched across the front of the place.  His battered bib overalls matched the peeling paint.  Rufus, what happen to your suit?  He had some gray in his hair that she didn’t remember and his super fly goatee had been replaced by a full beard.  He was looking old.

She stepped out of the piece of crap Neon that she had gotten as a loaner for the van just as Rufus stopped rocking and stood up.  He still had a solid build.  The African tank, that was one of the nicknames that her dad had given his best friend and the closest thing to a brother that he had ever had.  His chest still looked like the front of a Mack truck.  Thunder rolls baby, Thunder rolls, for the briefest of moments everything else was gone and she was just a little girl going to visit her only uncle.

“Baby girl!” Rufus shouted from the porch.  “Is that my little girl?  Damn baby, you ain’t changed a bit.”

“Hey Thunder, how have you been?”  She looked him up and down.  “You’ve changed quite a bit.  You look like a black Grizzly Adams.  What happen to your slick suits and sweet leather?”  Seeing Rufus was the only thing in her life she had to be happy about.

“Aw, you know baby.  I gotta’ try and fit in with all the rednecks and white trash around here.  They all look like Grizzly Adams.  They seem to like me better if I keep myself lookin’ like a poor, old slave.  Then they leave me alone.”  He laughed and crouched over, holding his back like he’d been working the field all day.

The puffiness around her nose and cheeks, along with the redness in her eyes betrayed her attempt at appearing strong.  He hugged her as she slumped against him.  “You’ve been cryin’ baby girl.  What happen?  There have only been two times that I’ve seen you cry.  When that piece a shit, wop motherfucker broke your heart and when sweet Miss Alyssa was born.  What’s goin’ on baby?” 

She inhaled deeply as her eyes welled up.  “Mark’s dead and that fucker…” she could barely choke the words out.  Her body shook some as she gave up her fight against the tears.  Rufus held her tight and stroked her hair as she continued, “Vinny Heart, or Vincent Valentino or whatever that snake, bastard, wannabe thug calls himself, has my kids.”

Rufus shook his head.  “Well you really are the mom now aren’t ya’?  Now you know I love ya’ baby girl, but that cryin’ shit ain’t gonna’ help ya’ get them kids back.  And I know that Mark cat was a good guy.”  Shelia looked up through her tears, slightly confused.  Rufus had never met Mark.  He chuckled, “Bet yo’ ass I checked up on him.  Only way I coulda’ known him any better is if I shoved my arm up his ass.  Anyway, ya’ can’t bring him back either.”

Rufus sat Shelia down in the rocker and rubbed her shoulders.  Then he continued, “Now let’s figure out what we know.  This Vincent punk ass Valentino ain’t no pro.  We know that.  If he was, he wouldn’t want any other corpses hittin’ the ground but yours.  No.”  He shook the idea off as if to add validity.  “Somebody else be callin’ the shots, and that somebody’s gonna’ be pissed when the cops start sniffin’ around.  I ain’t figured out who that somebody is yet, but I’m on it.  As for our friend, we caught ourselves a break despite his stupidity.  The cops will be lookin’ for him at an apartment on the east side of Milwaukee.  They ain’t gonna’ find him there though.  He and his ex-girlfriend broke up when she moved to Europe with her family.  Her dad caught a transfer.  Anyway, that’s not important.  What’s important is that Valentino’s parents spend their winters in Miami so he’s left his east side apartment to house sit in New Berlin.  I got the address.”

Shelia laughed despite the tears rolling down her cheeks, “Where the hell do you get all this info Thunder?  You know absolutely everything about everybody.”  She paused a few seconds and then in slightly more than a whisper continued, “What would I do without you?”

“I gotta’ stay connected baby.  You know I got my ways.  Besides, I gotta’ stay one step ahead.  There’s plenty a sucka’s wanna’ see us both dead.  Your head’s been all messed up.  Shit a crack head lookin’ to score a rock coulda’ took you out the way you been warmin’ up to that domestic life.  You got soft.  Somebody had to be lookin’ out for ya’.”  He opened the screen to go in the house but paused halfway through the door.  “As for what you’d do without me, you wouldn’t laugh as much and you wouldn’t have any idea where your kids are right now.”

The screen door slammed shut, tight spring.  “Rufus?”  Shelia began, her tone somewhat distant.  “If you’re so connected, why didn’t you know these amateurs were going to try and take me out?”

“That’s what’s got me scared baby.  Whoever’s callin’ the shots on this thing is like a fuckin’ ghost.  They gotta’ be big time.  I got nothin’ on ‘em.” He said through the screen. He paused for a moment and then added, “But I’m lookin’.  I’m lookin’.”

Shelia stared out across the field of tall grass that posed as a front lawn.  It was so long it looked like wheat.  She remembered it clean and green.  It was still green, but now it looked like a mange of wild hair rustling about in the wind.  She lost herself in its movement.  It danced a sway for her.  After awhile she connected with its rhythm.  It was a lazy waltz, no place to go but right where it was.  She let the tears take her one last time as she thought about her children.  They were probably stuck in the trunk of that Caddy.  Then she thought about Mark.  What did he do?  They were after her.  He just got in the way.  The tears came stronger, almost an all out sob.  She didn’t care for the crying any more than Rufus did, but she had to get it all out.  She’d leave it all with the field. It could dance with her regrets.  She had work to do.

By the time Rufus made it back out to the porch, Shelia was gone.  She was as dead as Stiletto had been thirteen years ago.  She got up from the rocking chair and her eyes met Rufus’s.  A knowing smirk crawled onto the left side of his face.  The girl was back.

“Her majesty, Stiletto Rose has returned.”  He said in the slickest fly guy voice he could muster.  “Don’t let her beauty fool you, this flower’s pure poison.  All best bow in her presence.”

“Quit fuckin’ around Thunder,” her tone was matter of fact and her face almost stoic.  “We’ve got work to do.

“That we do baby girl.  That we do.”

Rufus’s arms were full of pictures and printouts, all the info anybody could want on their good friend Vincent Valentino and his thugs.  There wasn’t anything terribly exciting.  Vinny had a couple run ins with the law.  Drunk and disorderly was probably the most exciting.  There were a couple of minor assault and battery charges, busted collecting for somebody a little higher on the food chain probably.  It all looked like somebody trying to break into the biz.  Like many thugs in the small town dressed like a big city, he just couldn’t play on the same level as the real heavy hitters.

The rest of Vinny’s crew was nothing to speak of.  Jimmy and Danny Pappalardo were twins.  When they were younger they had a reputation of being a couple of brawlers.  Neither one had ever done anything major though.  Rufus’s best guess was that following Vinny Heart around was the closest they’d ever get to being players, and that was miles away from it.

Lenny Weston had one shining spot on his record, attempted murder.  When he was eight years old he tried to kill his parents in their sleep.  He stabbed them both repeatedly with a scissors.  That was damn creepy as far as Rufus was concerned.  Lenny spent some time in the county kook house and was eventually deemed cured.  That idea seemed ridiculous.  How does a crazy stop being crazy?  That just doesn’t make any sense.  Either way, he was a wild card.

“Well that’s all I know baby,” Rufus sighed as he finished his report.

“Oh that’s all,” the slightest chuckle.  “I feel like I grew up with these morons.  Vinny said that they’d be calling me again, but I’m not waiting for them.  I gotta’ get moving.”

“Yeah,” Rufus nodded.  “Let’s get you hooked up.”

He led her back to the barn, home base, the place where all the goodies were.  Underneath the barn was a command center that would have the military green with envy.  Well, greener than they already were.  That was how Rufus stayed connected.  It also held the armory, Stiletto’s playroom.  Rufus had weapons to suit any taste. He had everything from ancient gems – worth more for their historical significance than a nuclear warhead – to state of the art bombs that any military would be thrilled to get their hands on.  Stiletto had her pick.  These were the tools of her trade.  It was time to go to work.

Alyssa’s left cheek stung as she blinked several times slowly bringing her world into focus.  The room spinning before her eyes was unfamiliar.  It was pretty nice, leather furniture, big screen television, hardwood floor, and an elegant throw.  It felt like a cottage though. The walls were covered in wood paneling and the place had that musty, closed up smell about it, like nobody had been there in a few months.  She tried to move her arms, nothing.  Vinny’s face appeared directly in front of her immediately before the right side of her face exploded under the mass of his big right hand.  Her head bounced off the high back of the chair she was strapped to. Vinny’s face spun around with the room.  The ugly bastard just stared at her as she tried to get her focus back. Dad had certainly done a number on his face.  She almost smiled at the carnage that was Vincent Valentino’s nose when it occurred to her that if this guy was standing in front of her, he and his little gang must have got the better of her dad.  ‘I want my daddy,’ she thought.  As the reality of her situation began to sink in, a consuming terror began twisting itself around her spine.  If her dad couldn’t save her, who could?  An attempt to defiantly match Vinny’s stare came off more like the pout of a spoiled child.  She held that defiant look for as long as she could. It only lasted a few moments before she had to look away.

Instead, her eyes wandered the room and found the zit faced jerk that had punched her.  “Asshole,” she muttered under her breath.

“Well I guess your jaw ain’t broken,” Vinny’s tone was antagonistic.  He turned to look at Lenny, “You shoulda’ hit the little bitch harder.”

Before Alyssa could stop herself, her gums were flapping, “Screw you!  You think I’m afraid of you?  You guys think your pretty tough picking on a couple of kids.  It took all four of you.  Pathetic.”  Then she looked at Lenny and forced a smile onto her face, “How do your nuts feel big man?”

Vinny slapped the side of her face so hard that he almost knocked her chair over.  It leaned to the right but he grabbed it with both hands and slammed it back to the floor.  Then he shot his face in closer to hers, so close that their noses were almost touching.  A foul mix of juicy fruit and cigarettes poured out of his mouth.  The tense shaking of his body contradicted his calm tone.  “Listen you little bitch, I don’t want to hear another fuckin’ word come outta’ your mouth.  You understand me?  Huh princess?  You got a fuckin’ brain in that pretty little head?  Well if you do, you’d better start using it.  I will knock the fuckin’ taste right outta’ your mouth.  You got me bitch?”

Everything in her wanted to make her nod her head, but she didn’t.  A slight taste of blood filled her mouth from where her cheek had split against one of her teeth.  He had just said that he would knock the taste out of her mouth and yet he had actually just put a taste in her mouth.  That fact struck her as funny enough to make her forget, for just a moment, how afraid she was.  She almost laughed in his face.  Instead, unable to stop herself, she spit on him.  Blood and foamy saliva covered him from the top of his left cheek down to his chin.  Dumb move.

“My dad is gonna’ kick your ass,” she said quietly, as if spitting on him weren’t enough.

Vinny took a step back and wiped the spit off his cheek and eye, “God dammit!”  He grabbed her throat with his right hand and squeezed it hard.  Then he pulled her face close to his and growled, “Your daddy’s dead bitch.  I shot him in the fuckin’ head.  He died like a little, fuckin’ bitch in the street.”  Then he planted a rough kiss on her quivering lips.  “How do ya’ like me now bitch?”

The words coming out of Vinny’s mouth didn’t seem real.  The fact that his lips had tasted like a dirty ashtray barely registered as she began to process his statement.  Could her dad really be dead?  She had never thought of life without him in it.  He wasn’t ever going to die.  She had never consciously thought about it, but just then she realized that she had always believed that he would always be there.  Her head shook slightly as her gaze move passed Vinny, passed the wood paneling, and into a void beyond reality.  Could he really be dead?

Vinny’s laugh brought Alyssa back to that musty, though well decorated, cottage.  All he said was, “Yeah, it’s true.”  Then he pulled out the cell phone that he had grabbed off of Mark’s twitching corpse.  “You’re gonna’ call your mother.  You’re gonna’ tell her your daddy’s dead and she better watch her ass because I’m comin’ to get her.  What’s the number?”

Alyssa didn’t have any fight left in her.  Her bewildered mind raced among random thoughts and distant memories like she was floating through a dream.  Any minute her dad would be shaking her, gently at first.  “Come on baby.  It’s time to get up sweetheart.  Let’s go honey.  We don’t want to be late.”  That’s what he said every morning.  He would never say an of that again.  A tingling started in her sinuses and quickly moved into her eyes.  That tingling quickly spread across her entire face as her eyes filled up with tears that quickly began raining down her cheeks.  “My daddy’s really gone,” she mumbled as she shook her head.  Then she absently mumbled a phone number.  Vinny dialed as she did.  Then he put the phone up to her ear.

After a few rings, she heard her mom’s voice, “Hey baby, what’s up?”

‘It’s not dad,’ she thought.  However, all she could muster was, “Mom?”

“Al?  Why aren’t you at school yet?”  Shelia could tell Alyssa was crying.

There was no response, just a muffled sob.

“Al, what’s going on?  Why are you crying sweetie?”  Shelia’s mind was racing almost as fast as her heart.

Alyssa managed to get a few words out between her sobs, “Dad…these guys…black car…”

Son of a bitch, Alyssa obviously wasn’t with Mark.   “Alyssa sweetie, talk to me.  Where’s daddy?”

“Daddy’s dead mom!”  Loud and clear.

Shelia deflated like a large man had just punched her in the chest.  Her breath raced from her so quickly that she could barely keep up with it.  Her initial reaction was to say, “What?”  Luckily her mouth wouldn’t work right.  That was good.  She didn’t want to hear it again.  She ran a shaky hand through her hair as her eyes darted back and forth, not really looking at anything.  She felt lost.  She felt to blame, even without Alyssa giving her the details that Vinny Heart had killed her husband.  Then phone was being fumbled around and Alyssa’s sobbing grew fainter.

“Al,” she didn’t mean to shout into the phone but she couldn’t control her voice.  Her eyes began filling up.

“Stiletto, you know I got your kids and you know your husband’s dead.  Real hero that guy.  Huh, poor chump really put up a fight.  You’d have been proud of him.  A .45 against your head will slow you down though.  Don’t worry.  He didn’t cry or anything like that.  He went out real noble like.  I wish you could have seen it.  He was on his knees tellin’ me to fuck off when I pulled the trigger.  I put the barrel right up to his head.  Hmm, will you look at that?  I still got his blood on my hands.  Man, let me tell ya’, he bled like a stuck pig.  Wait a minute.  What is that?  That looks like a chunk of brain.”

Shelia finally cut him off.  “Look you son of a bitch, you obviously know who I am and it won’t be long before I know where you are Vinny.”  She paused for effect.  His silence was all the proof she needed that the fact that she knew who he was had registered with his tiny brain.  He knew exactly who she was.  “You know what I’m capable of.  If you’ve been a good boy and done your homework, you already know how I’m going to kill you.  We both know that you’re already dead, but I’ll cut you a break.  You keep your hands off of my kids and I will kill you quick.  You touch my kids and the deal is off.  I’ll do you slow and make you suffer.  I’ll cut you to pieces while you’re still breathing, and then I’ll pack those pieces in a garbage bag and hand deliver them to your mother right before I kill her too.  Do you understand me?”

Vinny’s voice quivered the slightest bit. It was just enough to let Shelia know that she had gotten to him.  “Yeah, well ah…you just um…don’t leave town or nothin’ and ah…yeah well ah…I’ll call you back at this number and ah…give you more instructions.”

Shelia started to respond, but the phone went dead.  She had to go see Rufus.  He had to find out where Vinny Heart was hiding quickly.  The kids were just bait.  Of course, she hadn’t expected that amateur to kill Mark and he did.  All of the rules go out the window when you’re dealing with amateurs.  Sometimes that made them more dangerous than the pros. The only thing she knew for sure was that she had to get to her kids as quickly as possible.  Vinny was a total amateur and he wasn’t playing by any rules.  He was completely unpredictable.

Mark dropped the kids off in front of school.  He made them kiss him good-bye before they got out of the car like he always did.  They hated that.  Too bad, you’re never too old to kiss Daddy good-bye.  Besides, when you’re late for school none of your friends are outside to see you kissing Dad good-bye anyway.  Mark pulled away as the kids were storming up to the door.  It was locked.  They’d have to go into the front entrance.  Five minutes after eight and they had to buzz you in so they could make you check into the office.  As Mark turned the corner, he noticed Matt’s lunchbox sitting on the seat next to him.  That kid would forget his head if it wasn’t attached.

Mark drove around the block, but the kids were already gone.  He’d have to go into school.  The secretary would look over the top of her glasses at him with her eyebrows raised because he’d be coming in right behind his kids who were late.  Sorry Miss Mathews.  Don’t you realize how important it is for a fourteen-year-old girl to have her hair and make up perfect before going to school?  Well geez Ms. Mathews, I thought everyone knew that. Mark pulled around to the corner toward the front of the school.

Once he made it around the corner, he saw that the kids weren’t in the building yet.  In fact, a couple of jokers in black suits were trying to drag them into a black Caddy.  Mark was no fighter.  He had spent his childhood watching his mother get her ass kicked by his dad and then getting his own ass kicked once he thought he was big enough to stick up for her.  He abhorred violence.  Watching those punks grab all over his kids snapped something inside of him though.  He felt like he was five years old, hiding behind his dad’s easy chair and watching the bum beat up on his mom.  The muscles in his jaw tightened behind his scowl.

Mark’s little Saturn squealed up right behind the big Caddy.  He yanked on the parking brake and flew out of the car before it even stopped moving.  It killed instantly as he forgot to take it out of first gear.  The two suits turned to look at him.  This was all the time Alyssa needed.  The grease ball that had her by the throat got a nice hard pounding on his foot from her heel.  The guy took two steps toward her before he walked into an overhand right that smashed his nose against his face.  Mark was just as surprised as Danny to see the blood pouring out of his face.  Danny Pappalardo, that’s the guy who had just got his nose popped like a cherry tomato.  He’d never been hit like that before.  His hands immediately shot up to his nose and they were instantly covered in blood.

It didn’t take long for Mark to shake the surprise off of himself and throw another punch.  This time it was a right hook that pounded into Danny’s temple.  The big man’s knees buckled as he stumbled backward.  Mark couldn’t believe it.  The last person he had thrown a punch at was his father.  The old man had just laughed and then beat him from one side of the house to the other.  Mark didn’t have too much time to think about it though.  He chalked it up to years of pent up aggression.  He would need every bit of it.  Another suit had his boy in a headlock.

Vincent Valentino turned to face Mark, careful to keep Matt in between them.  “Look man, I ain’t got no trouble wit’ you.  I just gotta’ get these kids, that’s it.  Why don’t you move along?”  It was a weak attempt at a Brooklyn accent.

“Are you kidding me?”  Mark’s eyes flashed his anger.  Any fear that he had fled to make room for shock and anger.  “You really think I’m going to let you take my kids?”

Mark stopped thinking completely.  Rage took over.  His left arm shot up to Vinny’s throat and squeezed as his right hand balled itself up and flew at the big man’s eye.  Vinny’s hands immediately grabbed onto Mark’s wrist.  Matt bolted as soon as he was free.  He charged for Mark’s Saturn as his dad was dropping rights all over Vinny’s face like a trip hammer.  The assault lasted only seconds.  Mark hadn’t noticed the guy that had been sitting behind the wheel of the Caddy. 

Jimmy Pappalardo was Vinny’s wheelman and Danny’s older brother by eight minutes.  He also happened to be built like a Mack truck.  On top of that, he hit like mule kick.  Mark never saw it coming.  It felt like a sledge hammer hit him in the side of the face.  Little white dots were instantly dancing before his face.  Boom…Boom…Boom, he took three more shots to the side of the head from Jimmy before Vinny collected himself and cracked him in the nose.  Mark fell to the ground in a heap.  He threw a couple more wild punches on his way to the ground, hitting nothing but air.  He kept trying to fight his way back to his feet, but those bastards just kept knocking him down.  ‘Where the hell are my kids?’

* * *

Alyssa only made it about ten feet before two huge arms wrapped around her and the ground flew up to smack her in the face.  The guy that tackled her weighed a ton.  All the air in her lungs flew out way too fast, burning her throat as it went.  The guy had hit her so hard that he rolled right over her when they hit the ground.  She struggled back to her feet trying to take off again, but the guy grabbed her arm.  Instincts took over as she screamed and slapped the side of his face.  That turned out to be a horrible idea that only served to anger the big fellow further.  As he stood up, he planted a palm in the middle of her chest and pushed her back to the ground.  Damn he was strong.  He loomed over her with his fist cocked like he was going to punch her.  Her foot shot up to his groin before he could swing that giant fist.  He doubled over, groaning.

Alyssa tried to get to her feet again.  This time he punched her, a right hook against the side of her face.  His hand was huge.  Nobody had ever hit her like that before.  Everything went black.  Lenny Weston was a young kid, barely twenty.  His blonde hair and fair skin didn’t fit with the rest of his group.  They called him the albino sometimes.  He hated that.  It wasn’t as bad as tomato face though.  They called him that too on account of the acne that he hadn’t been able to shake since puberty.  Just then, he was dragging Alyssa’s unconscious body over to the Caddy.

By this time, Danny had collected himself enough to chase Matt down.  He almost felt bad for the kid, trying to get back into his dad’s car.  You ain’t going anywhere kid.  He was all set to walk him over to the Caddy and gently set him in the trunk with his sister when he got a shot to the groin.  ‘The little bastard kicked me!’ he thought.  His lower abdomen burned. Instinctively he slammed Matt’s head into the hood of Mark’s car.  Then he dragged him over to the Caddy.

* * *

Mark was slipping out of consciousness.  His whole body was so numb that he could barely feel Vinny and Jimmy kicking him anymore.  Everything started going black when he felt his hair being yanked.  He was dragged to his knees.  When his eyes came back into focus, he was staring down the barrel of a gun.  It looked like a .45.  The way his head was spinning, it looked more like two barrels in his face.  His gaze continued passed those two blurry barrels to Vinny's sneer.

Mark managed a grin through the pain, “That nose looks broken,” his chest burned.  He could barely get the words out.  “Good.  Fuck you punk.”  The last thing he heard was the hammer click.

“Vinny, what the fuck are you doing?”  Jimmy screamed.

“Shut the fuck up and get in the car,” Vinny was cold as ice as he wiped blood from his chin.  “A couple of fuckin’ kids and a wannabe hero and you Nancy boys are running all up and down the street.  I told all a yous not to lay a finger on those kids.  The boss is gonna’ be pissed.  Not only did you knock the kids around, but you let the hero get to me while I had my hands full and made me shoot him.  The boss is gonna’ be pissed.”

Danny wasn’t moving.  He just sat trembling, looking down at the bloody mess that used to be Mark Ramsey’s head.  “Vinny, you shot him.  You killed him.”

Vinny didn’t flinch, “Get in the car.”

As the Caddy pulled away, Vinny silently assessed the situation.  Only two good things came out of the grab.  First, they got the kids.  The boss would be happy about that.  The other was that his car was registered to his old address downtown.  He hadn’t been there in a month.  His girlfriend moved to England with her parents and the place got a little too lonely for him.  He had let the lease run out and moved back to his parent’s house in New Berlin.  They’d be in Florida for another month, which would mean that when the cops went to see them they wouldn’t be around.  By the time the cops figured out that Neil and Anna Valentino had a small cottage just outside of Coleman, Wisconsin that would make a perfect place to hide a couple of hostages, Vinny would have been paid for snagging the kids.  Then he’d have enough money to get the hell out of town.  Somebody had obviously seen his plates so he would have to see about getting his identity scrubbed. It would be a good couple of weeks before he would have to worry about the cops knowing where to look for him though.  By then he would have a new name and a new life.  He’d be long gone.  He grinned with just the left side of his mouth as he looked over at Jimmy and said, "Step on it."

Shelia decided to take some time off work to deal with her dilemma.  The accident was serious enough that Mark didn’t want her to go to work anyway.  He’d been doting over her like she’d been paralyzed by it.  If he only knew who she really was, why she really hit the tree, he might not be so helpful.  She really didn’t want the kids to go to school.  She didn’t want Mark to go to work either.  There was no way to accomplish that without blowing her cover.  That would cause more problems than following the normal routine.  Hopefully “VNY HRT” thought she was dead and would leave Mark and the kids alone.  Either way it wouldn’t matter.  Whoever hired “VNY HRT” knew she wasn’t dead.  That’s why he hired a two-bit amateur from Wisconsin.

“Oh my god dad, it’s ten to eight!” Alyssa stomped through the house while getting her things together for school.  “We are so late!  I bet you we’re the last ones there.”  She was always freaking out about being late for school.  Unfortunately, she was usually the one they were waiting for.

“Relax, we’ve got plenty of time,” Mark was big on relaxing.  Bombs could be going off all around him and he’d be calmly assessing the situation.  ‘Panic sunk the titanic’ or ‘Just say the serenity prayer a few times.  Everything will be all right.’  Those were his favorite sayings, sometimes.  “Did you brush your teeth yet?”

“No!  God dad!”  Way more drama than being a few minutes late to school warranted.

“Hey Matt,” the youngest Ramsey was still in his room playing with his action figures.  He still didn’t have the concept of time nailed down.  “Get your shoes and jacket.  Let’s go.”

Shelia watched everybody play their normal morning roles and get ready to go about their normal daily routine.  She desperately wanted to stop them from leaving, but she couldn’t.  If “VNY HRT” were watching them, she’d want him to think that everything was business as usual.  Besides, she had work to do.  The house had to be empty.  On top of that, whoever hired the hit would want to know what was up with Shelia before he did anything to her family.  She could be in a coma or something and miss all of the suffering he’d want her to go through.  They’d be safer with the regular routine, for now.

Mark and the kids finally left.  Shelia went down to the basement.  Buried underneath all of the boxes in the storage closet was a box full of keepsakes, mostly.  Among those keepsakes was a two-way radio, something like a walkie-talkie, but a bit more involved.  Shelia wasn’t sure exactly what made it special.  That was Rufus’s department.  It scrambled the signal some how so it couldn’t be traced or intercepted.  Rufus was big into electronics, Shelia wasn’t.  She plugged the unit in.  ‘Hope it stills holds a charge.’  She didn’t think she’d ever have cause to use it.

She depressed the talk lever, “Thunder, come in Thunder.  Do you copy?”

Static.

She tried again.  “Thunder, this is Stiletto Rose.  Do you copy?  Over.”  She felt like a trucker.  Ten four good buddy.  We’re east bound and down, loaded up and truckin’.  What movie was that from?  She couldn’t remember.

The reply was nothing but more static.  Then just as she was set to depress the lever again, she heard a voice on the other end.  “Baby girl!  Is that you?”

It sure is.  I need your help.  “Hey big daddy.  It sure is good to hear your voice.”

“Stiletto?  Damn baby, I didn’t think I’d ever hear that sweet voice again.”  A short pause.  “What’s up baby?  You was only s’posed to call if you found some heat.  You got trouble?”

“Yeah, I got trouble.  I need you to check a plate for me.  You ready?”

“Hold on baby, let me get a pen.”  She could hear fumbling around on the other end.  “Okay shoot.”

“Alright, Wisconsin plate Victor, November, Yankee, Hotel, Romeo, Tango.  You got that?”

“Yeah I got it.  Give me a second.  I just got this new, super fast computer, state of the art.  I’m still figuring it out though.  Okay, ready?”  That was fast.  “The plates belong to a fella’ named Vincent Valentino.  Heh, heh, Vinny Heart, cute, sounds like an amateur.  What about him?”

“He ran me off the road yesterday.  I figured he was small time.  I need to know who hired him though.  I figure they’re just messing with me right now.  Otherwise they’d have hired a pro and I would not have seen it coming.  I don’t know how they found me.  Anyway, I need everything you can get me on this guy.  I’m worried about Mark and the kids.”

“That’s the bad thing about baggage baby.”  He paused.  “You gotta’ carry it around wit’ ya’.  Listen baby, anything you need, we’ll get it done.”

Rufus did some more searching and found all the info they could possibly want about Vincent Valentino.  Vinny Heart, what a dick.  There was a ton out there.  Just as Shelia had hoped, he was small time trying to prove he was big time.  His scent was all over the place.  Pigs, that’s what they called his type.  They never cleaned up their messes.  They were the ones that took the fall in place of the pros.  Shelia would have to put the squeeze on Vinny.  He wouldn’t know what hit him.

He had a near east side address.  The sucker couldn’t even pop for a pad where the real players lived.  Talk about small time, he was living on the fringes.  He actually had a pretty big rep in Milwaukee.  The whole city was small time though.  All the heavy hitters in the area worked out of Chicago.  Shelia always got a kick out of how competitive Milwaukeeans tried to be with Chicagoans.  They didn’t realize that the rest of the world saw their city as a northern suburb of Chicago.  They were a small town trying to be a big city.  Everybody there had something to prove.  Sometimes that made them more dangerous, but usually it just made them sloppy.  Vincent Valentino, or Vinny Heart as he was known on the street, was sloppy.

Shelia was getting her things – the little bit of equipment she had brought with her – together when her cell phone rang.  It was Mark’s phone calling.  Something must have happened at work.  He’d been having a rough time lately.  She answered, “Hey baby, what’s up?”

“Mom?”  Alyssa’s voice was shaky and scared.

“Al?  Why aren’t you at school yet?”  This wasn’t good.

Shelia woke to the wail of approaching sirens.  ‘I hope there weren’t any witnesses.’  Somebody obviously saw her minivan wrapped around the big oak that managed to get the better of the MPV.  Squads, an ambulance or two, maybe a fire truck, she didn’t need that.  She didn’t have a choice though.  The van wasn’t going anywhere.  She’d have to wait it out.

Little crowds began gathering all up and down the street.  She definitely couldn’t run.  The little boy with the curly locks that she had almost creamed was in the arms of a woman who had to be his mother, same curly locks.  Hers had been hit with a straightener though.  She scanned the woman’s face, obviously hadn’t seen a thing.  There was too much concern in her expression as she looked on the wreck of the minivan to have any idea that it had almost killed her child.  Shelia continued to scan the crowd.  None of the faces showed any clue that they had witnessed anything.  Somebody must have seen something.  Either way, Shelia needed a story fast.  A police squad fishtailed around the corner in front of her.  It’s not quite an emergency any more boys.  You can relax a little.

The story, why is this big silver minivan wrapped around this innocent, though terribly strong, oak?  Shelia quickly rifled through ideas.  Drunk driver?  No way, too early in the morning.  Maybe he’s a third shifter.  There you go, stopped at the bar after work.  He spent two hours pounding them down and then couldn’t see straight enough to make it home.  That would have to do.  The officer was standing at the window.  Two ambulances and another squad pulled in around the scene.  She let her intense expression give way to one a bit more innocent and confused.

“Are you alright Miss?”  The officer’s calm and reassuring voice didn’t fit his rough appearance.

She glanced up at his nametag, O’Malley.  She almost laughed.  Her dad used to crack jokes about Irish flat feet.  This guy had never walked a beat in his life.  He was too round for that.  She shook her head before responding.  “I think so.”

“You mind telling me how you managed to get your car around this tree?”  His tone remained completely relaxed.  He was good at this.  He must have a lot of experience dealing with scared moms.

Shelia played the part perfectly.  She continued, the slightest tremble in her voice, “I swerved to miss a car.  I think the driver might have been drunk.  They were all over the road.  They must have clipped my back end.”  She kept her eyes fixed on O’Malley’s.  She didn’t flinch.

“Can you give me a description of the vehicle?  Did you get the plates?  Did you see the driver of the vehicle at all?”  He was sold.  He seemed completely bored with the situation.  Nothing to report here Captain.

Shelia noticed out of the corner of her eye that other officers were questioning the various groups of onlookers that had gathered to watch the excitement.  It looked like a block party.  Can’t worry about them.  “It was a big black car.  It happened so fast.  I didn’t see the plates.  I don’t know, I think it might have had four doors.”

“You don’t know what kind of car it was?”

Yeah Sherlock, it was a late model Cadillac Deville, license plate number “VNY HRT”.  “No.”  She shook her head again and gave him a distant look, “It was black.”

O’Malley sighed and took a deep breath.  It was always the same with these women.  He’s looking for a big black car.  Well at least he’s kind of sure that it has four doors.  That narrows it down.  “Thanks Ma’am.  I’ll send a paramedic over to have a look at you.”

“Oh that’s okay.  I’m all right.  I’m just a little groggy.”  No examinations here thanks.  We’ll be just fine.

“Look lady,” O’Malley seemed to be losing his patience.  He must be working overtime and eager to get done.  “You’ve got blood all over your chin and your lips and nose are obviously swollen.  Now my friend,” He paused and read the paramedic’s name tag, “Williams…Williams what’s your first name?  My friend Steve Williams is going to take a quick look at you.  You don’t have to go to the hospital, but I need to know that you don’t have anything broken.  Okay?”  His eyebrows raised and his eyes bugged slightly as he finished.

Shelia just nodded.  Steve could have a look, but she wasn’t getting stuck in any hospital.  There was work to do.  She needed to know what kind of a jackass drives around running people off the road with personalized plates on his Cadillac.  He wouldn’t be hard to find; one of those wanna’ be big city players stuck in a small town that they had confused for a big city.  The poor moron would be so eager to prove he was a player that his scent would be all over the city.  Once she found him, she could find out who hired him and how they found her.

By the time Steve finished looking Shelia over, she was out of the van and it was being loaded onto a flatbed tow truck.  O’Malley had been back.  Thankfully, if there were any witnesses they didn’t feel like talking.  All the better, this was her fish to fry.  She didn’t need the cops getting in her way.

Suddenly, a wave of panic swept over her.  What about Mark and the kids?  Obviously somebody knew who she was.  This somebody didn’t want her dead.  If they did, they would have hired a pro and not some jackass from Wisconsin.  Whoever had a price on her head was just messing with her.  That was the type that would use your family to get to you.  They’d make you suffer before they took you out.  She called Mark.

“Hey Babe.  What’s up?  Is everything okay?”  Same tone as always, blissfully unaware of the world he was living in.  He was so lucky.

Scared and alone, scared and alone, “I had an accident this morning.”

“Oh my god!  Are you alright?”

“I’m okay.  The van’s in pretty rough shape though.  I hit a tree.”

“How did you hit a tree?”

“Drunk driver, I swerved to miss him but he hit the back of my van and I slammed right into a tree.”  She kept up the scared and alone act.  After twelve years of marriage, she knew just how to play it.  Let him be the hero and come to her rescue.  That’s what she’d do.

“Where are you?”  He was beginning to freak out.

“Honey, I’m okay.”  She eased up a bit on the scared and alone.  “Don’t freak out or you’ll end up wrapping your car around a tree before you get to me.”

“Alright,” a little calmer, “where are you?”

She didn’t know.  She wasn’t sure just yet why she was where she was either.  He’d definitely want to know why she wasn’t at work.  “I’m not sure.  Wait, let me look at the street signs.  I’ll be waiting on the corner of Lucy Lane and Deborah Way.”  She hated these subdivisions.  Oops, we ran out of names for our streets.  Guess we’ll have to use common first names in place of something that means something.

“Where the hell is that?”

“I don’t know.”  Here comes the story.  “I was dropping off Stacy’s candle order on my way to work.  She lives in Brookfield past 124th in this subdivision from hell that I’m stuck in.  Anyway, after I dropped it off I got lost because all of these streets curve around and cross each other ninety five times and…”

“Wait a minute.”  Mark interrupted her, “I’ll look the intersection up on Mapquest.  Don’t worry about it.  Who’s Stacy?”

Who’s Stacy?  Good question.  “You know, I work with her.  You met her at the Christmas party two years ago, the one downtown at the Grain Exchange.  We hung out with her and her husband Tim.  Stacy Fleming?  Is any of this ringing a bell?”  Mark never remembered anything.

“No, we hung out with a lot of people that night.  Anyway, it doesn’t matter.  I’m on my way.  I’ll see you in a bit.  Love you.”

“I love you too babe.”  Scared and alone, scared and alone, “Please hurry.”

She couldn’t believe he didn’t ask if they caught the guy.  She’d tell him it was a hit a run and give him the same song and dance she gave O’Malley.  He’d want to find the guy and kick his ass.  He always fancied himself a hero.  She let him pretend he was.  He was always in control of the situation.  She let him be.

The crowd began to break up as the flatbed pulled away with the van.  Then the ambulances left and then all of the squads except for O’Malley’s.  “Can I give you a lift somewhere Ms. Ramsey?”

“No thanks.  My husband’s on his way.”  ‘And I’m done with the pride of the Brookfield P.D., Sergeant O’Malley’, “He’s picking me up at that corner over there.”  She pointed at the intersection.  “Thanks anyway.”

“Alright, take it easy Ms. Ramsey.”  He fished a card out of his pocket.  “If you remember anything about the vehicle that hit you, please give me a call.”

She nodded as she took the card.  ‘Will do Sarge.’  He left.  Shelia walked to the corner to wait for Mark.  She put the finishing touches on her story as she went.

The traffic on 45 North was like every other morning, a slow crawl.  Wisconsin drivers suck.  They were like cattle slowly trudging off to the slaughter.  Shelia ran a hand through her thin blond hair and sighed as it fell right back into place.  How the hell did she end up here?  She glanced at the rear-view mirror.  Three cars back a black Caddy was slowly rolling along with the rest of the cattle.  That same car had been following her for the past four days.  She would have never noticed except that it was quite a few years old and stuck out among the big, lumbering SUV’s and the little Honda’s like a dandelion on the green of a well groomed golf course.  On top of that, she left her house at a different time every morning. Yet that same car followed her from 60th and Cleveland to 124th and Capitol every day that week. That Caddy was definitely following her.

Shelia flipped the radio on, trying to get her mind off of the Caddy.  Instantly Bon Jovi was hollering, “…It’s my life and it’s now or never.  I ain’t gonna’ live forever…”.  Shelia sang it right back at him.  She loved Bon Jovi.  She loved that song.  It reminded her of a time when her life really was hers.  It hadn’t been for quite some time.  Now her life belonged mostly to Mark and the kids.  She didn’t have any regrets, but there definitely was a big part of her that missed the person she used to be.  The person she was before she became just another working mom.  Bon Jovi was still hollering at her, but she wasn’t really paying attention to him anymore.

Shelia pulled off on to the Capitol exit.  She had gotten so lost in her thoughts that when she checked her mirror again, she was surprised to see the black Caddy was right behind her.  She was so wrapped up that she had forgotten it was back there.  It wasn’t three cars back anymore though.  It was right behind her, and following a bit too close.  She passed her turn on 124th and kept heading west on Capitol.  The Caddy had made that turn with her every morning that week, but this time it followed her straight.

“Okay Shelia, where the hell are you going?”  She said just as she realized that she was chewing on the pinky nail of her left hand.  A nervous habit from when she was young, she had given that up years ago.  Mark was always on her case about it.

“Hey honey, if you’re hungry I can make you something.  You don’t have to eat your hand.”  That’s what he would say when he’d catch her chewing on her nails.  Oh well, he wasn’t around and that Caddy had her nervous.

Shelia kept an eye on the rear-view as she changed lanes.  The Caddy wasn’t trying to appear inconspicuous anymore.  It was obviously following her.  She couldn’t get a good look at the driver and the car didn’t have a front plate.  ‘What the hell do you want?  Where the hell am I going?’  She decided to try and lose the Caddy.  The little engine in the big silver minivan whined its disapproval as she buried the gas pedal into the floor.  The Caddy gave chase immediately, swallowing up the little bit of distance Shelia had managed to put between them.

Shelia quickly realized that there was no way she was losing the big Caddy.  The little four popper in the van was no match for the power plant that Caddy's big hood concealed.  She banked a hard right from the center lane, smoke and squealing tires.  ‘Mario Andretti, the soccer mom,’ she thought.  If she hadn’t felt like she was running for her life she might have chuckled.  It didn’t seem so funny as the big van leaned far to the left, dangerously close to rolling over.  She managed to keep her cool and stay on the road as it curved ahead of her.  She didn’t have any idea where she was going, lost in one of those subdivisions where the roads cross twenty six times and they all seem to lead to nowhere.  The Caddy hadn’t been able to make the Grand Prix worthy turn with her and was nowhere in sight.  Confident that she had lost the big Caddy, she tried to get her wits back about her and find a way out of the suburban maze she was lost in.

She turned right and then left, eighty-six roads to nowhere.  How the hell do these people find their homes at the end of the day?  She couldn’t tell if the houses were all beginning to look the same or if she was passing the same houses again and again.  It was like a bad episode of “The Twilight Zone”, trapped in subdivision that had an abundance of roads that all led back to where they began.  Maybe it was a sub dimension.  This time she chuckled.

Finally, she pulled over to get her bearings.  Lucy Lane, Deborah Way, all of the streets carried common women’s names.  What happen to Lincoln or Main?  Maybe she was in hell.  Maybe she’d spend eternity driving in circles, stuck in a subdivision that was probably only one hundred feet from a busy road and civilization.  She decided to try another left turn.  What’s the difference?  As soon as she made it around the corner, she saw the black Caddy heading right for her.  It was so close that she barely had time to react.  She cranked the wheel to the right but the Caddy clipped her rear quarter panel and sent her careening up onto the sidewalk.  She smacked her head against her side window as she bounced up onto the curb with her van’s tail end threatening to spin around in front of her.  The pounding of her heart against her chest reverberated through her whole body like the bass at a rock concert.  Her knuckles were quickly turning white from the grip she had on the steering wheel.  She didn’t even notice the pain in her fingers.  Instincts took over as she got on the gas again and managed to straighten the big minivan out.

Shelia’s head was a little cloudy from being slammed around, not so much that she didn’t see the little boy riding his tricycle down the same sidewalk she was flying down though.  He couldn’t have been more than three years old, curly blond hair.  Where the hell were his parents?  She cranked the wheel to the left and flew back over the curb into the road.  Three seconds later and she would’ve splattered that curly haired little cutey all over the sidewalk.  “Damn it,” she shouted.  “What the hell did I do to deserve this?”

She didn't get a chance to turn and look for the Caddy again before it slammed into her rear end.  This time she spun out of control.  Her foot instinctively nailed the gas pedal to the floor, but that only served to slam her head on into a giant oak tree on the other side of the street.  Her head hit the headrest first and then the air bag.  Little white dots danced all about before her eyes as a purple haze began crowding her vision.  She laid her head down on the steering wheel.  Her whole world was spinning as her stomach threatened to violently spew its contents all over the upholstery that had just been cleaned.

The sound of squealing tires helped her focus return.  They were coming back for more.  Shelia kept her head down and feigned unconsciousness, not that she was far from it.  Just keep driving.  Just keep driving.  It did.  The Caddy crept by and Shelia kept her head down until it was passed.  Once it was, she picked her head up ever so slightly and peered over the steering wheel.  The car wore Wisconsin plates, “VNY HRT”.  ‘What the hell does that mean?’  Whatever it meant, she knew the owner was an amateur.  She was still alive.

Stiletto Rose is a story I started immediately after finishing the first draft of Lake of Dragons. The concept actually began as a joke. I was teasing my wife because she and her sister were investigating something. I can't remember what the something is now, but it inspired me to take my wife's initials - S.R. - and use them to develop a "super detective" name. The name I came up with was Stiletto Rose. I thought that name was pretty spectacular so I started working on a story line to go with it. The tagline, "Don't let her beauty fool you, this flower is pure poison," popped into my head. That actually got me pretty excited about the concept. I decided to write a comic book about this assassin whose favorite weapon was a spring loaded blade in the stiletto heel of her leather boot. She was quite fond of delivering the death blow via that blade on the end of a reverse crescent kick across the throat. At this point, I was pretty stoked about the concept. As it turns out, I suck at writing comic books. Add that to the fact that my attempts at drawing look like a third grader's depiction of their family drawn in crayon and my dreams for a Stiletto Rose comic book were destroyed.

Stiletto Rose didn't die due to my inability to pen comic books though. I spent a little more time on her back story and she became the star of a novel. Stiletto was born to Jack Rose (formerly Rosatti) and Tasha (a prostitute who was hooked on heroin). Jack had to leave home when his father - Big John Rosatti, head of one of the most powerful mafia families in Chicago - discovered that his wife had been cheating on him for years and Jack wasn't actually his son. When Jack was fifteen, Big John had his mother killed. He would have had Jack killed too, but Christopher (Jack's uncle on his mother's side) managed to get Jack out of the house. Christopher took Jack to stay with an Irish fellow named, Miles Blaney who owned a bookstore and, unbeknownst to Jack, was his biological father. Miles is fascinated with several Asian cultures and histories. He is also a martial arts expert and trains Jack who ultimately becomes an assassin. On his way to becoming that, he takes odd jobs delivering drugs, collecting on debts, or doing small time hits.

Tasha becomes one of Jack's regular deliveries. At the time, Jack is nineteen and Tasha is twenty-five. Jack ends up falling in love with her and she becomes pregnant. Housing a child drastically changes Tasha's outlook on life and she gets herself off of the heroin. Jack starts working his way up in one of Rosatti family's rival organizations and he starts earning bigger payoffs. By the time Tasha is ready to deliver the baby, Jack has saved enough that this one last big hit will afford them the opportunity to get out of the city and try to begin a life together. It just isn't meant to be though.

After Jack gets his big payoff, he rushes to the hotel that he and Tasha have been living in and finds her hanging from the ceiling by a belt. He walks over to the bloody mess that is crying on the bed and meets his daughter. After Tasha delivered her on her own, she was overwhelmed with emotion and guilt. She feels unfit to be a mother, shoots up, and hangs herself. Jack is left with a child to raise. He names her Stiletto, cleans her up, and they move back in with Miles. Jack never gets out of the life. In fact, his new responsibility makes him feel like he has to continue to earn bigger pay days. Jack and Miles raise Stiletto and she eventually enters the "family business". By the time she is sixteen years old, she is an efficient killing machine.

Just after Stiletto turns eight years old, Jack gets a line on a bigger hit than he has ever managed in his life. A family in Miami that is having trouble with their Colombian supplier seeks him out to not only kill the head of the operation, but to completely destroy it. They pair him up with Rufus Walker, an ex-marine and explosives expert. Neither man likes the idea of teaming up with someone on a hit. They both work alone. However, the hit goes off with out a stitch. Jack does the killing and Rufus blows everything up. A partnership is born that will last until Jack dies in Rufus's arms on an airstrip after a hit. Rufus managed to kill the shooter, but can't save Jack. Jack's dying wish is that Rufus look after Stiletto.

Rufus takes on the responsibility of raising Stiletto and they become family. Stiletto continues to mature as an assassin and begins working for the Rosatti family. Of course, she has no idea that she is working for people that could have been her relatives, though they don't share any blood. She ends up falling in love with one of the men she works with, Danny. Danny would have been a cousin had Big John been Jack's biological father. Stiletto and Danny have a relationship that becomes very serious and at seventeen, she becomes pregnant with his child. Danny turns his back on her and breaks her heart. Her pain is more than Rufus can bear. He kidnaps Danny and tortures him to death. The horrifying things that Rufus does to Danny as he is killing him, affect him so deeply that he never kills again.

Once Danny is dead, Stiletto and Rufus have to go into hiding because the entire Rosatti family and their network are trying to kill them. Rufus moves near Beloit, Wisconsin where he has a farm that belonged to his grandmother and they move Stiletto to Milwaukee. Stiletto's identity is erased and she becomes Shelia Brody. It isn't long before she meets someone new, Mark Ramsey. They marry, he adopts Alyssa and a few years later, they have a son named Matt. The years go by and the memory of Stiletto Rose slowly fades. When her husband is killed and her children kidnapped, it all comes back. Stiletto Rose will have to return if Shelia hopes to save her children...

That is the back story...well, a condensed version of it anyway. I may actually dive deeper into it in prequels because I really like the back story of this one. For now, I'm going to release Stiletto Rose via this blog. Stay tuned. I will try to release a chapter per week. I hope you love the story.

This is an old one. I think I wrote "Death Sentence" back in high school. I thought it was pretty cool back then. It seems a little silly now. Enjoy.

                                                                                                        ####

            Bill rested his body on the ancient mattress that lay upon the floor in his run down inner city apartment.  In his hand he held his most prized possession, a chrome Smith & Wesson .357 Magnum.  He admired the gun, marveling at the way it reflected the glare of the sole light bulb that jutted from the ceiling above his head.  This gun was his companion, his partner.  He fancied it as part of himself, an extension of his right arm.  It was a thing of beauty.

            Bill was a big man, roughly 6’ 4” tall with a 250 lb. muscular body draped across broad shoulders.  He kept himself in good shape.  Since he lost his last job there wasn’t much else to do but work out.  Work out and steal, that’s what he did.  That night wouldn’t be any different.  Bill was hungry.

            He glanced over at the red glow of the clock that sat on the floor next to him, 7:35 pm.  'Time to go,' he thought and hopped up off the mattress.  He grabbed a handful of shells out of a box next to his door, threw six in his revolver and the rest in his pocket as he headed out the door.

            The hallway smelled like spicy B.O. and some kind of ethnic cooking that Bill was less than fond of.  He breathed as little as possible when making any trips up or down the hallway.  On his was down the hall Bill bumped into Larry, the landlord.  Larry was a short, stocky, balding man of about 45.  He also happened to be one of the stinky blokes that made this hallway such a rancid, uninviting environment.

            “I’ll have the rent tomorrow,” Bill said with a smile, before Larry could ask about it.

            “Huh?”  Larry seemed a bit startled, “Oh, okay thanks”.

            Bill bounded down the steps like a twelve year old boy headed out for the daily stickball game.  The only difference was that Bill was showing his age by whistling the theme from “The Andy Griffith Show”.  He hated that song but he always caught himself whistling it.  In three long strides Bill was down the stairway and pounding through the door.  He had about five minutes to make three blocks.  That would get him to the quick mart by 7:40 pm.  The safe would be open by 7:45 pm, and that’s what Bill was after.  He figured he’d take about fifteen hundred bucks.  It was Sunday night and there were no weekend deposits so this was the best time to hit.  That store was a big fat turkey on Thanksgiving morning and Bill was planning a feast.  He loped down the sidewalk feeling pretty good.

            When Bill walked into the quick mart there was only one other person, other than the two clerks in the store.  Perfect, he thought because that one customer was on his way out.  Bill nodded and winked at that gentleman who returned the gesture with a smile as they passed in the doorway.  Bill looked behind the counter.  One clerk, an average sized, middle-aged man was filling up the safe while the other clerk, a tall, thin, pale redheaded kid of about sixteen stood at the counter.

            “Can I help you?” the redhead asked with a shiny, metallic smile.

            “Absolutely,” Bill replied returning the smile.  “I’ll take a pack of Marlboro box and…” he paused.  “What’s that guy’s name?”

            “Oh him?”  The boy said gesturing behind himself, “That’s Roy.  He’s da’ boss.”

            Bill couldn’t help but smile at the boy’s innocent, pasty face.  “Okay, then I’ll take a pack of Marlboro’s and tell Roy I’ll take all the money he’s got there in the safe.”  With that Bill hauled out his mighty hand held cannon and thrust it into pale face’s forehead.

            “Oh shit,” the boy whispered.  “Roy.  Roy this guy wants the money.”

            Roy began to turn around slowly, catching the light glimmering off the barrel of Bill’s gun.  He didn’t know what to do.  He wasn’t about to give this big, scum ball gorilla the money, but he didn’t want to see his only son, Ben take a bullet either.

            Just then the door opened and a woman walked in with two small children.  Bill spun around and aimed his gun at the woman.  “Do your kids a favor, don’t…”

            Before Bill could finish Roy lunged at him, tackling the big man.  As the two men were headed toward the floor the gun went off and Bill dropped it.  Then he noticed that one of the cherubs that had just come in with his mother was now missing most of his face.  Blood splattered against the walls and poured out of what was left of the poor boy’s exploded head.  The mother started screaming and Roy pounded on the back of Bill’s head, but Bill tuned everything else out and concentrated on the bloody mess that used to be a little boy.  Bill had never killed anyone before and would never think of killing a kid.  He could taste bile welling up in the back of his throat.  Then a good shot to the back of his head from Roy quickly snapped him back to reality.  Instinctively, Bill threw his left elbow back and connected with Roy’s nose, busting it along with Roy’s two front teeth.  Roy was done, for the time being.

            When Bill got up the back of his head was throbbing from Roy’s blows and Ben was standing in front of him.  Bill was now staring down the barrel of his own gun.  He didn’t like it so much from this angle.  He glanced over and saw that the poor mother who had interrupted the robbery with her two boys was now holding her baby’s lifeless body in her arms wailing madly.  While she sobbed she tried to push the boy’s brains back into his shattered skull.  Goddamn, why did that have to happen?

            Then he turned his attention back to Ben.  “Give me the gun kid.”

            “I called the police,” Ben stuttered.  “You ain’t goin’ anywhere.”

            Bill lunged at Ben and heard a loud crack.  Almost instantly he felt hot metal tear through his left shoulder.  He grabbed the gun with his right hand and drove his forehead into Ben’s nose knocking the would-be hero out on contact.  With his gun back in his own hands, Bill charged for the door.

            He stopped by the poor woman who was still trying to revive her dead son and said, “Hey lady, I’m real sorry.  Gimme’ your car keys.”  The words dropped heavily off of Bill's tongue. If only he could keep them from passing his lips, but he had to get out before the cops came.  Sirens were already wailing across the night sky.  The lady didn’t respond so Bill grabbed her purse and found the keys himself.

            Within’ moments Bill was in the woman’s blue Ford peeling out into the street right in front of a squad that immediately gave chase.  Bill’s shoulder was throbbing.  The pain seemed to expand with every pulse.  ‘Dammit,’ he thought.  ‘I didn’t even get the money.’  Blood pumped out of his shoulder like Niagara Falls.  He was starting to feel woozy, having trouble controlling the car.  He started nodding off when he saw a semi headed straight for him.  He yanked on the wheel but the big Ford responded like a big Ford, slow.  It was too late.  He saw a bright flash, a brilliant light like nothing he’d ever seen as his stolen car pounded into the front of a mountain of Peterbilt truck.

            When Bill woke, he was surrounded by light.  He was obviously in the center of some type of room but he couldn’t make out any walls or doors. There didn't appear to be any kind of ceiling, or anything else for that matter.  Everything was just bright, white light.  It was seamless.  There was no beginning and no end.  Bill looked at his shoulder and there wasn’t even a scar.  ‘What the hell?’  He thought.  ‘Am I dreaming?  Am I dead?’

            Finally he spoke.  “I must be dead,” he muttered

            “Not yet,” a voice responded.  He couldn’t tell from where, “but you will be.”

            “Who is that?”  Bill demanded, turning nervous circles desperately trying to locate the source of the voice.  “What the hell is going on here?  Who the hell are you?”

            “Who I am isn’t important,” the voice continued, “you’re in the future Bill.  How does your shoulder feel?  It was a mess when we brought you in.”

            “This doesn’t make any sense.  Somebody better tell me what the fuck is going on!”

            “Relax Bill.”  The voice continued in the same monotonous tone that it had begun, “It is exactly fifty years and two weeks from that fateful day at the market on Lincoln Avenue…”

            “Fifty years?  Are you crazy?  What, have I been in a coma?”  Bill interrupted.   His mind was freaking out.  He was sure that this was some kind of a dream or maybe hell or who knows what.

            “Bill, we brought you here.  We pulled you out of that car wreck because it would have killed you.  We brought you here with a time traveling device.  I would explain it to you but there are quite a few things that we know about our world now that you could not possibly understand.  Any explanation would only serve to confuse you more than you already are.  The important thing is that we brought you here because we need you.  We healed your shoulder because we need you to be strong.”  The voice droned on like some kind of learn to tape.  Bill was ready to scream.

            “Need me for what?”  Bill’s patience was at its end.

            “Testing Bill,” the voice calmly responded.  “You see Bill, we’ve developed a new, more humane method of administering capital punishment.  Your job is simple, Bill.  You just have to lay back, relax and we’ll determine if it works.

The sky was a radiant blue that day, not a cloud to spoil its clear perfection.  The sun beat down on my forehead.  It felt like it was cooking me.  I hoped that I was tanning rather than burning.  Just as the heat got to the point of being unbearable, a cool breeze picked up and took the burn away.  It was a perfect balance, the warm rays of sunshine being offset by a cool breeze.  I strolled through the park with my head up to the sky loving it.

As I walked the path, I noticed that the trees along side it were spaced too meticulously to be the work of Mother Nature.  She was much more random in her perfection.  I forgave them for being planted by men.  I was just happy to have their company.  They didn’t have any shade to offer me, as the sun was directly overhead.  They did give the squirrels a place to play though.  It was a wonderful distraction from real life.  The squirrels chased each other up the trees and down, squeaking the whole time.  I wondered what they were saying.  I tried to duplicate the sounds they were making, but I couldn’t get my mouth to do it.

I laughed out loud at myself just as a young fellow, maybe nine years old cruised by on a scooter.  He wore a helmet and all the pads that I never wore as a kid.  He looked back at me like I was crazy.  His raised eyebrows just made me laugh harder.  Maybe I am crazy.  I kept on.  My laughter subsided as the young man rode on out of sight.

I heard a crow cawing to my right.  They always sound so evil, nasty birds.  Nasty birds, that reminded me of a time when I had taken my son to the zoo.  He couldn’t have been more than two years old.  He was just starting to talk a lot.  We went to the aviary and he put his face right up to a bird that was roosting.  I can’t remember what kind of bird it was, but I remember what he said.  He looked at that bird, sneered up his lip and in a raspy little voice said, “Nasty birds.”  I laughed so hard I almost dropped him.  He really meant it.  We still tease him about that.

I started looking for the crow that had squawked, that nasty bird.  I came to a clearing.  There was a small building, bathrooms I think.  It was square and made of brick with two glass block windows that had vents in the middle of them.  The roof of the building came to a point and perched right at the top of it was the crow.  It was a big one.  I don’t think that I’ve ever seen a crow that big.  He must have been at least a foot and a half tall.  Well, maybe not that big, but he was a moose as far as birds go.  I sat and stared at him.  He stared right back at me.  Five minutes must have past while I was looking at him.  All he did was sit and squawk at me.

“You like birds do you?”  A man’s voice said.

At first I couldn’t spot the source of the voice.  I looked around.

He spoke again, “What the hell are you looking for?  I’m right here.”

Directly in front of the building that the crow perched upon was a park bench.  I hadn’t noticed it before.  Nor had I noticed the elderly fellow seated upon it.  I was confused.  How did I miss that?  I had been looking right at him.  Maybe I am crazy.  I chuckled at myself.

“Yeah, I like birds alright.  I have a cockatiel at home named Hercules.  I know that it’s kind of a funny name for a little bird, but the kids named him.  They were young and into Disney movies.  Hercules had just come out, blah, blah, blah.  You know how kids are.”  I have a tendency to talk too much and that day was no exception.

“Nope.  I can’t say that I do.  I’ve never had any.  I like kids just fine.  I just never got around to marrying.”  He shrugged.  “You want to have a seat?”

I shrugged right back.  “Sure.”  He seemed to have the same problem with being a little too wordy that I had.

As I walked toward the bench, I recognized him.  It was my grandfather.  No, it couldn’t be.  He had died fifteen years before that.  The resemblance was uncanny though.  He had a bit more gray hair and a few more wrinkles, but fifteen years will do that to you.  My face must have shown my shock.

“What’s the matter with you?  Why you looking at me like that?”  He squinted up his eyebrows.

I shook my head.  “Nothing,” I said.  “You just look like somebody I know.  Or knew, I should say.”

His expression said aha, but he said, “I get that a lot.  I look like everybody.”

I chuckled.

“What’s funny about that?”

“Nothing.  You just have a very distinctive look about you.  I can’t imagine that there are a whole bunch of people that look like you.  Besides my grandfather, but he died over fifteen years ago.”

He humphed, “Maybe you don’t get out enough.”

I shrugged, “Maybe not.”  I extended my hand as I sat beside him on the bench.  “Sean.  Sean O’Brien.  Pleased to meet you.”

As he shook my hand he said, “Emil Rukavina.  Likewise.”

He may as well have hit me in the head with a hammer.  “What?” I asked, shaking my head.

“I said Emil Rukavina,” he repeated himself.  “I know, Emil’s not a very common name anymore and Rukavina.  Well, I guess there aren’t that many Croatians running around this town anymore either.  There used to be though.”

I looked closer at him.  It just didn’t make any sense.  “That was my grandpa’s name, Emil Rukavina.”

“Hm, good name.”  Then he changed the subject.  “What would you have named him?”

“What?”  I was too stunned to have any idea what he might be talking about.

“The bird, your bird, you said the kids named him.  It sounded like you weren’t too fond of the name.  What would you call him?”

He had diverted me.  “Oh, I don’t know.  I probably would have called him Napoleon.  When he walks back and forth on his perch, he kind of hunches over and sticks the tops of his wings out.  They look like shoulders.  It looks like he’s a little dude walking with his hands behind his back.  It reminds me of a movie I saw with Napoleon as one of the characters.”

He reached in his pocket and pulled out a pack of Salems.  He offered me one.  I declined and got one of my own.  I can’t smoke those menthols.  It’s like smoking a candy cane.  I heard that the menthol crystallizes your lungs.  I suppose that could have been my mother trying to scare me off of smoking, but I wasn’t going to chance it.  Not that smoking regular cigarettes was any safer.  Somehow it made sense in my head.  Maybe I am crazy.

“My grandpa smoked Salems.” I said as I lit my cigarette.

“Alright kid,” he began.  “You’re pretty hung up on this.  Didn’t you say that he died over fifteen years ago?”

“Yeah,” I nodded.  “Mother’s Day, 1990.  I don’t remember any of it though.  I guess I blacked it out.  It sucks really.  I wish I could remember.  My mom has told me all of this stuff about it, but I don’t remember anything.  My wife says that it’s probably better that way.  I only have good memories.  I don’t know.  I wish I could remember.  I’ve even thought about getting hypnotized.  It seems kind of weird that I don’t remember you dying and here you are talking with me.  It’s kind of like I found you.”

“Slow down kid.  I already told you that I never had any kids of my own.”  He put his hand out as if he were stopping me.

I shrugged, “Maybe you have amnesia or something.”

“Do you hear yourself?”  A quizzical expression came to his face.  “Do you think that your family’s been lying to you for, what did you say, fifteen years?”

I sighed, “I know it sounds crazy, but you look just like him.  You sound like him.  You have his name.  You smoke his cigarettes for Christ’s sake.”  I shook my head, hands out in front of me as if I were holding something.  “I guess when you really want something to be real your mind plays tricks on you.  Has that ever happened to you?  Did you ever convince yourself that something you wanted to be true was, even when you knew it wasn’t?”

“I suppose.”  He nodded.  “But you know what they say.”

“What’s that?” I looked over at him.

“You can have a handful of want in this hand and a handful of shit in the other.  What do you got more of?”  He had his hands out and clenched into fists, as if he were holding something in each of them.  Then he opened them both and said, “Shit.”

My jaw hung open as he said this.  I tried to respond but I couldn’t.  I couldn’t say anything.  My grandfather said that all the time.  He used that expression so much that when I think of him that is the first thing that comes to my mind.  That expression was part of him.  All of it, the words, the look on his face, even the hand gestures.  This man that I was talking to was my grandpa.  I just knew it.  I started to get angry.  Why wouldn’t he just give up the charade, hug me and tell me how much he’s missed me.

“You’ll catch flies if you keep your mouth hanging open like that.”  He looked up at the sky.

I shook my head.  “What the hell are you trying to do to me?”  My eyes started misting up.

“What’s your problem kid?”  He looked honestly confused by my behavior.

I was losing it.  How could it be that this guy was a perfect replica of my grandpa but wasn’t him?  Why couldn’t I remember anything about his death?  I don’t remember the hospital, the wake, the burial, nothing.  I was a pallbearer and I don’t even remember carrying his casket.  How can that be?

He spoke again.  “Maybe I’ll be getting along.  I think we’ve talked enough today.  Maybe we’ll bump into each other again someday, some other time.”  He started to get up.

“No!”  My shout startled him.  I put a hand on his arm.  “Don’t go yet.  I’m sorry.  I just really thought…well, I don’t know what I thought.”  I dried my eyes.  “Look, you look like you might have a story or two in you.  Would you humor me and tell me one?  Just let me pretend for a minute.  Please.”

A wide smile spread across his face.  “Sure,” he said.  “As long as you quit all that emotional crap.  Crying never solved nothing for nobody.”

I smiled right back at him.  “I know.  Somebody told me that a long time ago.”

“A story,” he began.  “Let’s see.  I was driving a delivery truck.  Oh that was a whole lot of years ago.  There was this fellow, Charlie Campman.  Nothing but trouble that guy was.”

As he told his story, I closed my eyes.  I had heard that story no less than twenty times from my grandpa when I was a boy.  It was the same story and he was telling it exactly the same.  Word for word it was the same.  The sound of his voice was the same.  I imagined myself sitting at his kitchen table across from him.  He was drinking coffee and smoking a cigarette and I was eating grandma’s cheesecake and drinking a soda.  I loved listening to his stories.

When he finished the story I sat for a moment with my eyes still closed.  Tears wanted to come out, but I was holding them in.  I folded my hands against my chest and took a deep breath in through my nose.  I smelled a mix of cigarettes, Hall’s, and coffee, the smell of my grandpa.  I smiled big as I opened my eyes and turned to look at him.  He was gone.  I stood up and spun a quick circle.  There was nobody around but me.  He couldn’t have gotten away from me that fast.  He was just talking to me.  I took another look around.  Nothing.  I was alone.

As I stood there, memories flooded into my head.  I remembered running from school to the hospital.  I remembered looking at my grandpa in his casket.  I remembered touching his face.  He was cold.  I remembered carrying his casket.  It all flooded back in at once.  I fell to my knees, put my head in my hands and balled.  I’m not sure how long I sat like that, but I might have stayed all day.  Instead, I was interrupted by a loud squawk.

I raised my head up and wiped tears from my cheeks.  They were quickly replaced by reinforcements.  The crow was still there.  He was staring at me.  He squawked again and then flew away.  As he left, it felt like a huge weight was being lifted off my shoulders.  I waved and he was gone.  I looked around again, still nobody but me.  I smiled, collected myself and started for home.

I don’t suppose I’ll ever see Emil Rukavina again, except in my head.  Who knows though?  Maybe I will.

The darkness surrounding me is much less than pitch, but dark nonetheless.  My room looks like a dream, everything having a bluish hue except for the alarm clock.  Its unrelenting bright green glow mocks me as seconds bleed into minutes that bleed into hours.  2:00 a.m. stares at me from the top of my dresser.  I should be sleeping but my mind won’t shut up and give me a moment of peace.

The shape lying next to me looks so far away, far across a desolate, uninviting desert of blankets.  Our bed seems so much bigger than it ever has before.  Perhaps it is the dream light of the moon slipping quietly in between the thin slits in the blinds or maybe it is my mind playing tricks on me as it remembers the argument we had. Whatever the cause, it certainly seems that if I reach across that desert of blankets I won’t come close to touching her.  Would she hear me if I shouted her name, or would my voice trail off long before it reached her ears?  How can she sleep?

She lays in a fetal position with her back to me, using the smallest portion of the bed that she can fit her body into.  The blanket covering her slowly rises and falls with the steady rhythm of her breathing.  I hold my own breath.  The mechanical sameness of every breath she takes is all that disturbs the silence.  Is she really asleep, or is she pretending?  The pattern of her breath seems much too steady to be faked.  She gasps suddenly and her body convulses like one of those actors pretending to die while a gorgeous doctor - with calculatedly messy hair - yells, “Clear!” and then hits the pretend patient with a defibrillator.  I jump a bit myself, her mid slumber outburst startling me.  She sits up and looks around the room, obviously spooked and disoriented.  Is she awake now?  Can she see anything?  Her head darts around nervously as she scans the room.  She looks right at me and squints, her face wrinkling up like she has a mouthful of raw lemons.  Slowly she relaxes and curls back into sleep.  My questions are answered.

What terror startled her so?  Perhaps she had been falling in a dream.  The worst dreams end with falling.  They say that if you don’t wake up before you hit the ground, you die.  I’m not sure who they are, but that is what they say.  I wonder if you would remember the fall if it didn’t wake you up.  I’m reminded of a reoccurring dream I have that involves falling.  I’m standing at the top of an unbelievably tall cliff.  The earth below looks like it does when viewed from a jet plane, all small and far away.  I feel I’m higher than even jets fly when I’m on this cliff though.  Every time I dream of this place, the sun is setting.  It’s so far away and it does such wondrous and amazing things to the sky.  The colors are shocking and vibrant; blues and pinks, oranges and reds, violets and colors that I don’t even know the names of.  I stare at it with mouth agape.  Then I feel the wind, wind that isn’t there in the beginning but comes after a time.  Prior to my feeling the wind, I’m comfortable and after it begins, I’m freezing.  That is no exaggeration.  I’m not merely cold.  No, I am freezing.  The tone of my skin hints of a pale blue, much like the white walls in my room look bathed in darkness and filtered moonlight, ghostly and ethereal.  I shiver, slightly at first, then violently, almost to the point of convulsion.  My teeth slam together, like chattering but faster and harder.  Always it is like that.

Initially I’m not afraid, just cold and confused.  The wind seems to blow from every direction, swirling all about me like a tornado.  Then I hear a howl behind me, or a screech.  It’s hard to determine the right word.  It’s high pitched on the surface, like a bird whistling with all its might.  However, beneath that squeal is a growl.  It’s deep and guttural.  Primal.  My heart pounds against my chest faster and faster.  Whatever is making that noise sounds to be directly behind me.  At this point, the cold no longer bothers me, yet my body still violently shakes.  I want to run, but the cliff before me offers no route for escape.  I inhale deeply and gather myself.  My fists clench.  Though I’m sure that the size of whatever thing makes a noise like that must be unbelievably immense, instinct or self-preservation takes over.  I spin around.  Nothing.  The howling, moaning, screaming, screeching, whatever that damnable sound is continues.  It comes from all directions, above, below and everywhere.  My hands clamp over my ears as I crouch to my knees, curling into a tight ball.  It just gets louder and louder.  It hurts.  I’m afraid my eardrums might pop.  Then suddenly, it stops.

Everything becomes still, not just calm but completely still, like death.  When I lift my head again, I’m surrounded by perfect white light.  It must be a zillion times brighter than the sun, yet it doesn’t burn my eyes.  The terror flees and the shaking stops.  Then I see it, small at first and then bigger and bigger as it approaches.  I don’t know what it is but I know that I want it.  It’s a sphere of color, not just one color but all colors all at once.  As I look at it, I’m filled with excitement like riding a bicycle for the first time without falling.  It’s as if the whole range of human emotion is rushing through me all equal and at the same time.  Perhaps it’s euphoria or bliss.  I don’t know, but if there is a Heaven this must be what it feels like.

I reach out for it as it approaches.  I stretch myself over the edge of the cliff.  It gets closer and closer to me.  I can almost graze it with my fingertips.  It moves slowly, methodically.  The howling comes again.  This time I’m not afraid.  I stretch further, reaching for my prize, defiant of that ominous, hellish moaning.  It floats just beyond my reach.

Then I see her, that white witch.  She’s not a fairy tale witch, green, ugly, and riding a broomstick.  In fact, she’s quite beautiful save for the terrible smile she wears.  She swoops down at my head, screaming that awful scream.  She circles me and swipes at me with her perfect hands.  I ignore her rants and continue to reach for my prize.  I’m so close now.  I almost have it within my grasp.  I just know that everything I’ve ever wanted is right there, just beyond my fingertips.  I lean out, further still, reaching, stretching, yearning.

Finally, the witch stops her attack.  But then, she does the unthinkable.  She grabs hold of my prize, my desire and she pulls it away.  It’s no easy task for her.  My prize seems to want me as much as I want it.  We stretch toward each other, but the witch is horrible and strong.  I keep reaching and reaching as that damnable, awful witch smiles that wicked smile and screams that grotesque song.  I fall.

The icy wind blasting my face and the wild convulsions in my belly - like butterflies on steroids - should have me terrified.  I’m not afraid though.  No.  I’m empty, lost, alone.  I have nothing.  She has taken it all from me, that witch, that succubus, that hateful spirit.

Sometimes when I wake from that dream, I can still hear that crazy howling.  It lingers.  It always ends with the same kind of startled convulsion that she just had, that shape laying across the bed from me in the darkness.  I wonder if she loses everything in her dreams that end in a start like that.

Her breathing slowly slips back into a steady and mechanical rhythm.  Too many thoughts race and dance through my head for me to find the same sleep that she’s enjoying; the argument we had, the words we said, that thick stack of papers she gave me.  I thought that we had it all planned out but she was cashing out before we hit the jackpot.  I guess it had never been her jackpot anyway.  I don’t think that she ever really wanted it.  It doesn’t matter now; she’s taken it away and given me my choice.  I can leave her and the kids and chase that jackpot on my own or I can forget the whole thing and always be left to wonder what might have been.  What kind of choice is that?  Neither option is anything that I want.  This bed just isn’t big enough.  “Stay on your side of the desert,” I whisper, “witch.”