The Ethics of Murder

As I pulled open the front door to the prefab building that served as the Eubank Community Center, a deluge of noise washed over me. The reunion was in full swing. The final strains of a song were fading as the lead singer bellowed through the microphone, “Thank you! We’re gonna take a few minutes now. We’ll be right back!”

In a noisy place filled with nervous people, the noise is like energy. It doesn’t stop, it just changes forms. The impending void left by the lack of music was quickly filled by the constant buzz of excited voices.

Two men and a woman were chatting in a small, loose circle directly in front of the door. The woman and one of the men glanced at me.

He had a slight smile on his face as if he thought he recognized me but wasn’t sure.

The woman flashed a smile that never reached her eyes. Her look said she did recognize me but didn’t want that information revealed.

I glanced past them. I wasn’t there to interrupt their conversation.

The woman touched the other man on the forearm in a silent signal and the three of them moved aside a few feet so I could pass.

As the trio returned to their conversation I moved past them and stopped, glancing around the hall for my buddy Paul. The guy was six feet five and two hundred and ninety pounds. He wouldn’t be difficult to find. I systematically scanned the room.

To my left was the hastily constructed stage. Six sheets of three-quarter inch plywood expanding away from the corner on concrete blocks. They hadn’t bothered to paint the plywood. It probably would be hauled back to the lumber yard tomorrow morning. Small town.

The band having moved to the bar for a break, the stage was occupied only by their equipment. In the back was a nice set of drums. Directly in front of the drums was a guitar on a stand behind the lead singer’s mike. Probably the rhythm guitar. The lead singer is seldom also the lead guitarist.

On the other side of the rhythm guitar was a bass guitar on a stand. On the near side back toward me was the lead guitar, also on a stand behind what was probably the back-up mike. On the edge of the stage right in front of me was a scuffed black violin case. 

The walls and ceiling behind and above the stage were draped with the required strips of crepe paper in the school colors, red and silver.

To my right was the built-in bar. It extended from the front wall near the broad double door ten feet into the room. The musicians were there, lined up across the front, alternating spaces with adoring fans, who were stacked two and three deep.

All of the fans at the bar were women, and all of them were jockeying for position.

The band members were playing their role, smiling and nodding as if they were actually interested in what the women were saying, while occasionally checking out the other women.

They also glanced occasionally in the direction of the men sitting alone at tables around the floor. For the band members, it was a fishing expedition coupled with risk assessment. Each was trying to figure out which woman or women might accompany him to the tour bus during the next break without an irate husband following. 

The two bartenders, both trim young men in black slacks, white shirts with red bowties and black vests, were just busy enough to look harried. I was surprised to see them serving whiskey, gin and vodka as well as various brands of domestic beer.

Extending away from the stage on one side and the bar on the other, tables lined both walls in two staggered rows. Most of them were full and attended by couples, with three or four chairs at a table, and five at some. At a few, the aforementioned temporary loners sat like emasculated slugs, waiting obediently while their females stalked wilder prey. The center of the concrete floor was empty, cleared for dancing.

People were everywhere. Most were sitting at the tables, talking in hushed tones and giggling. Others were standing, chatting and laughing loudly near the bandstand or the bar. Several couples were waiting timidly with cautious smiles near the center of the concrete floor for the band to resume the stage and begin the next song. It was practically an infestation, but I didn’t see Paul anywhere.

My nerves crawled over my skin. These people were not my usual crowd. Even when I’d been in school with some of them twenty-some years ago, they hadn’t been my crowd.

A few couples and a few singles were gathered at the back of the room near the punch and soft-drinks table. That would be the best place to wait for him. I could see both the front and side doors from there, and there was less chance of someone getting in the way. Plus wallflowers aren’t big on chatting.

I started along the right side of the dance floor, making my way toward the back of the room. As I walked, I watched people. In my line of work, being on guard doesn’t take a day off.

Bad things can happen anywhere. The familiarity of the surroundings and the people provided a sense of safety, but it was a false sense. These were not necessarily the same people I’d known all those years ago. For that matter, for all I knew, any one of them might do for a living what I do for a living.

But probably not. If you learn to study people, within a few seconds you can know for sure one three things is true: the subject is either a drone, a stinger, or a stinger who’s a very good actor.

I recognized many of them and nodded in response to a smile or an uncertain wave now and then. I was aware of the names of most of them, and I had them pegged. Most people like to believe they’re unique, but most of them aren’t. Most of them are drones, and most of them live down to the expectations of their teachers, bosses, spouses and friends, straight out of a mold.

I’d shoot myself.

I was relieved to note that none of my classmates who had joined the military were in attendance. I hadn’t expected to see them and I was glad they weren’t there. We had experienced similar events. Shared experience leads to familiarity, and familiarity leads to questions.

Kids? No.

Married? Oh dear god no.

What are you doing now? And your heart freezes for a second and you intentionally lock them in your gaze and you shrug and you say something inert like, Just things, you know.

And something in your eyes speaks to them, and their shared experience tells them to back off, don’t dig further, both for legal reasons and to maintain their current level of respect for you.

Besides, they don’t want to know you’re doing what they’ve considered doing but could never quite bring themselves to do. They don’t want to know you’re still doing the same thing they used to do, only for a lot more money and with a lot less guilt.

And they never, ever ask that question that civilians like to ask of people they know to be former military. Been able to put your training to use in the civilian world? Guys who know you never ask that. Because they know you weren’t an admin clerk or a supply guy or a jet mech or a doctor. You didn’t clean up the mess the other guys made. You made the mess.

But they weren’t here.

Odd that we keep track of the dead but not the living. The few whose whereabouts I knew hadn’t returned alive from whatever conflict they’d attended, whatever mess they’d made. The others, I assumed, had developed the same broad world view and selective memory I had.

They weren’t here because the place wasn’t big enough, interesting enough, or dangerous enough to hold their attention anymore. Same reasons I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t have to. I was here for Paul.

In the quarter-hour I’d been in the building, I’d already been barbed by the females with looks that varied from admiration to a pretentious kind of pity that was borne of ignorance, and by the males with looks of curiosity, fear, false bravado or disgust. The curiosity was fine. At least that was honest. The rest of it was all bullshit. Every one of them, females and males, thought they knew me, but they didn’t even know the theory.

Most foolish of all, with the ego that is common among drones, every one of them displayed an overactive sense of self-worth, as if they were on my radar in some way.

I was indifferent to them.

The closest I could get to feeling anything for them was pity for their ignorance and embarrassment at their timidity. Life is all about priorities. They chose their lives as surely as I’d chosen mine. They just hadn’t wallowed in the mud long enough yet to recognize it as home.

I glanced around the hall again. Were I to describe in graphic terms what I do for a living, these are the folks who would raise their eyebrows and mutter, “Who thinks like that?”

But if they didn’t, they wouldn’t be worthy of those of us who think like that. Guys who offer real-time solutions for real-world problems.

But no need to get all warm and fuzzy. I wasn’t there to make nice with people I don’t care about either way. Indifference is the perfect place to be with me. Just don’t draw my attention. Do that and I mark you off my list.

Do it strongly enough, I mark you off everyone’s list.

Just as I got to the back of the room, the side door opened and Paul walked in.

He raised his right hand and waved,  his sandy brown camouflage Texas Rangers ball cap in his hand. The part in the middle of his scraggly blonde hair led back to an expanding bald spot. His hair hung down to frame his freckle-peppered face, and his worn Levis were scrunched down on top of a pair of old scuffed brown leather lace-ups. If I didn’t know better I’d have sworn those were the same boots he’d worn as we walked to school. Broad suspenders stretched from the waistband of his Levis up over his light-denim shirt, passing halfway down his ample shoulders from his neck.

He crossed the end of the dance floor nonchalantly and put out his hand as if he’d just seen me earlier in the day. “How you doin’, Charlie? How’s life treatin’ you?”

I shook his hand. “Good enough.” I shrugged. “You know. Guy’s gotta make a livin’. How you doin’, Paul? Long time.”

He gripped my hand harder, pulled me against him and draped his left arm around my back, hugging me. “Good to see you, Charlie.”

I tensed and stepped back. Last time I saw two guys that closely engaged one of them had gut-shot the other with a .410 gauge pistol. “You too. So what’s goin’ on, Paul? Why am I here?”

He clapped me on the back, then squeezed my shoulder. Paul always was the touchy-feely type. “I got a real problem, Charlie.” He paused. “Something I need help with.” He turned his head away quickly, pushed his face into the crook of his right elbow and coughed. “Your help.”

I frowned and shrugged. Secrecy? The place was loud enough he didn’t need to speak in code. “Yeah? Hey we all got things we need help with, Paul. I’ll be glad to help you out if I can.”

He nodded. “Good... good deal.” He paused. “Hey, so how long since you was back here?”

I shrugged. “I been back a few times. You know, but not to hang out. Funerals, stuff like that. Maybe... four? Five?” I laughed lightly as I glanced around, keeping tabs on the room. “Funny, you’d think I’d remember.”

He glanced at me and nodded. “You’d think.” Then he said, “Guess maybe we try to forget things like that.”

I wondered what he was trying to forget. I nodded. “Yeah, well... some are easier to forget than others.” Like when I put that creep in the ground as a personal favor to Janet’s dad.

He said, “You heard Champ was killed, yeah?”

I frowned. What? He just brought me back to reminisce? “Yeah. Yeah, I heard. Ran up under a flatbed or somethin’, right?”

“Not or somethin’. He was playin’ kissyface with Shirley Rice at 75 miles per hour on the road to Lorington. Gave ol’ man Johnson’s tow truck a suppository and....”

I shifted my weight from one foot to the other, only half-listening, and glanced around the room again.

“Took Champ off clean at the shoulders, what I heard, but I guess Shirley ducked, or maybe she was just raisin’ up. Anyway, that flatbed cleared her just above the eyebrows, what I heard. You know, I guess there’s some rougher ways to go than others. I mean....”

As some of what he was saying filtered in, I nodded. The band was taking the stage. Some of the ladies at the bar had returned to their tables. The ones still at the bar had smoothed into one row.

“If it was me, I think I’d rather a friend would throw my switch, y’know?”

I looked up at Paul. “Yeah. Yeah, that makes sense.” I leaned forward and lowered my voice. “So that’s it, Paul? You want me to do you?” I jabbed him in the side with my finger.

He leaned back and stared at me, but I was grinning.

“Kidding, man. Lighten up. But c’mon, Paul, what gives? You wanted me here at this lame-ass event and here I am. So what’s goin’ on?”

I thought relief was going to wash his face off the front of his head. “Yeah... yeah, Charlie. Hey, I’ll give it to you. I just want you to know... well, it means a lot to me that you came, Charlie.”

I nodded. “No problem.”

I meant that. Paul’s the only person in this town who looked me in the eye when he spoke to me and never lied. Gotta respect a guy like that.

He reached into his left breast pocket and pulled a pack of low-rent Centurion cigarettes halfway out, then let them drop back into his pocket. “Wanna join me outside?”

“Sure, Paul. Whatever’s easiest.”

We crossed the floor to the side door. Paul pushed it open and we stepped outside, turning our backs to the cold breeze that had come up from the west.

Just as the door closed behind us Paul took my arm and said, “They took her, Charlie. They took Marla.” He turned away and I followed him as he crossed the low cement stoop..

“Marla Simmons?”

He nodded.

“Yeah? So you called the cops or—”

As he stepped off the side onto the dirt path worn through the flattened Bermuda grass, he shook his head. “No, they said not to do that.” He looked at me for a long moment.

“So....”

“So I called you. Let’s get around the corner out of this wind. Then we can talk without freezin’.”

Paul’s shoulders worked as he walked. He reached for his cigarettes again, tapped one out of the pack, then held the pack up over his shoulder.

Centurions. The package says Class A Cigarettes. It’s a lie.

“Want one?”

I shook my head. “Nah. I don’t do that anymore.”

He shrugged and slipped the pack back into his pocket.

I shuddered at the thought of those Centurions, but I couldn’t fault him for buying his poison cheap. Even those were almost six bucks a pack, and that was with a coupon. Ridiculous.

I watched his elbows work and I knew what he was doing. He was curling his left hand into a fist so the middle knuckle was protruding. He’d hold the cigarette loosely between the thumb and forefinger of his right hand, then tap the filter against that knuckle three times.

I remember doing that when he and I first started smoking. We did it to tamp down the tobacco to make the cigarette draw more strongly. After a time it became a habit, then almost a ritual. He raised his right arm and in my mind I could see him placing the cigarette between his lips on the right side, same place he’d always put it.

When we started smoking, I was 15 and Paul was 13. We smoked filterless Camels that I stole from my old man one or two at a time, or Lucky Strikes that Paul swiped from his.

Paul’s dad never missed them because he drank so much. He was too out of it to notice. My old man never missed them because he never drank. He was wound too tightly to notice.

We didn’t care either way. We just wanted to look cool and stay warm on the way to school.

As he walked, he bent slightly, and I knew he was cupping a Bic lighter ripoff in front of his mouth. I could almost feel the heat from that little flame on the inside of my own fingers and palms.

Almost to the corner, he slipped the lighter into his jeans pocket and straightened as he took a drag. He expelled the smoke in a small cloud that whipped away. He slipped around the corner and stopped, then glanced back at me, his shoulders huddled forward for warmth.

I waited for him to talk.

Marla Simmons was a looker. She was petite, with a perfect body and an attitude to match. She’d been a cheerleader in high school, and the last time I saw her she looked and sounded pretty much the same.

She was incredible. In school, her raven-black hair was cut a couple inches above her shoulders and it curved around her head, cupping her head and framing her face. She had a prominent dimple in each cheek, and her lips and nose were perfect. Her eyes were dark brown, bordering on black, her lashes the perfect length, her eyebrows the perfect shape. All of that set off her skin, which was so pale that it was translucent in places. Like I said, incredible.

Paul took another drag and expelled it, then said, “Me an’ Marla, we had a thing.” He watched me closely.

I arched my eyebrows, left my mouth round for just a second, tried to make it look like that caught me off guard. “You and Marla? Marla Simmons? I mean, no offense, but—”

“Aw don’t worry about it,” he said. “I know I ain’t all that. Tell you what, Charlie, I don’t know what she saw in me, but I’m glad for whatever it was.” He frowned. “Hey wait. Didn’t you and her have a thing for awhile?”

I shook my head. “Nah. I had a thing, Paul. She never had a thing. Believe me, where I was concerned, she didn’t even know there was a thing.”

He nodded and took another drag off his cigarette. 

I had had a thing for Marla, a huge thing. For about six years. All through high school and for a couple years afterward. But Marla had never had a thing for me. I understood that. In what world would the cutest cheerleader on the squad be interested romantically in the skinny kid who sold milk in the hallway between classes and during lunch? Bizarro world maybe. No, probably not even there.

Last I heard, she’d married Mack Plummer, the richest man in the county. Everybody knew what a jerk Mack was, but a great bank account makes up for a lot of shortcomings I guess.

As if reading my mind, Paul said, “‘Course, she’s married to Plummer. Guy could buy and sell guys like us several times over.” He looked at me. “Well, guys like me.”

“Yeah, well, but you an’ her had a thing, right?”

He nodded, took another drag, then flipped the butt away. He put one shoe on it and pivoted back and forth for a moment on the ball his foot, grinding it into the grass. “Yeah.” He shrugged. “Thing is, Charlie, I don’t think she’s in any real danger.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah, I think Plummer’s got her.”

“So what can I do, Paul?”

“Well, I’d like to get her back.”

I nodded. “Yeah... well, I figured that much. Thing is, I’m a businessman, y’know?” I looked around.

Wow. So what would probably be my last trip to my last childhood home had suddenly taken a huge turn for the better, at least for me. I had a chance to save Marla, to be her hero. If I pulled it off, even if she never acknowledged it, I’d still know it. But I was getting ahead of myself. And fantasizing.

Paul said, “Yeah, so what’s the deal, Charlie?”

I shrugged. “Paul, were you gonna hire me to clear Mack away from the table? Is that what you wanted to do?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I think that’s what I wanna do.”

“You sure, Paul? You sure you can’t just drop the whole Marla thing? ‘Cause I’m just sayin’, you know, I think you’re probably right. I think Mack’s got her.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. Only I don’t think he took her, y’know?”

He frowned. “But she wants to be with me, Charlie. She told me so.”

“Yeah, well, that ain’t the way the script’s written, Paul.”

He shook his head. “She told me, Charlie. She said it herself. I got money. I’ll pay. I want you to get her back.”

I looked at him. “Yeah... you sure?”

His arms were crossed over his chest, his hands under his biceps. He was shivering. “I’m sure. C’mon, Charlie. I ain’t askin’ for no favors here. I’m just askin’ you to do your job.”

“Yeah. I’ll do my job, Paul. I knew Mack back in the day too, you know? Same as Marla, same as you. I was just thinkin’, what you said earlier about havin’ someone you know throw the switch, as you put it. That might be the way to go.”

He nodded. “Sounds right to me.”

I clapped him on the shoulder. “Yeah. Well hey, let’s get back in before you freeze, eh?”

“Good idea.” He stepped past me toward the corner. “So you’ll do it, right?”

“Yeah, Paul. I’ll do my job. I’ve already been paid.”

I pulled my .32.

* * * * * * *