Blvd. of Blood

Book 3, chapters 4–6

(Upcoming appearances: April 26, 12–3, Breakwater Books, Guilford CT | June 1, 12–5, Skullastic Book Fair @ American Legion Post 16, Shelton CT | July 15, 6–7:30, Hagaman Library, East Haven CT)

This is a serialized “thriller” novel. Continued from here. Table of contents for ease of navigation here.

(Colin Lang has asked for time off ostensibly so he can minister to his ailing mother at Sunset Grove but actually so he can perpetrate some horrible crime that is the whole reason for this book on April tenth. His accomplice, Bernard Feldstein has been paranoiacally avoiding the police-adjacent Twitter phishing attempt (“Ilyana”) to learn his identity. Good luck, everyone!)

4.

Colin arranged everything with Sunset Grove. He finished up some projects and passed their dangling remainders along to team members. He would not be going to work during the day, and so there would be a different pattern than the rest of the year, but it would still be a pattern. He had to establish a pattern, of course.

On Friday he rose early, as though it were a work day, and got a quick bike ride and hike in. He felt invigorated. If nothing else, he was in better shape than he had been in years.

He fried some eggs for breakfast. Perhaps, he thought, he should listen to the radio while he ate. He had a dim memory of his father frying eggs while singing along to classic rock. But the only radio he owned was in his car. He considered getting up and putting a CD on, but then he figured he was better off focusing on the plan.

At nine, timed precisely, he was in the car, backing out of the driveway. He took Blande Boulevard to I-81. He was watching the traffic patterns, naturally. This would be the first time in years, holidays excepted, that he drove to Salton on a weekday. The Friday traffic was light. It was a nice day for April: clouds, but no rain.

He stopped at a rest stop off the highway to use the bathroom. He didn’t want to be early. But perhaps even the precedent of the rest stop would come in handy.

The whole key was that he must act in a perfectly predictable way, every day, including the day of the Incident. As long as he kept to a pattern, there would be no reason to suspect him.

There was only one place that he allowed variation, and that was in his thoughts. All his life, his thoughts had been free when his body had ticked its clockwork way forward through time. Now, he explored different possibilities for the upcoming week. Especially, as he drove, he wondered what he would do with the spoiler, the one factor that had not been incorporated into the plan when he’d sketched it out last fall. What would he do about Carol?

5.

In The Swan with Two Throttles, a dive bar on Flax Street, Stone and Randall sat drinking. They had decided to drink one each of every kind of drink they could think of until they passed out. They’d already had a beer, a margarita, a gin and tonic, and a Harvey Wallbanger each, and in pretty quick succession. It was Randall’s turn to think of one, and he was already drunk.

“Two Shirley Temples,” Randall called.

“You idiot, those are non-alcoholic.”

“Oh, right. Waitress! Two white Russians.”

While they waited, Stone said, “Hey you know who else is a white Russian?”

“Rocky?” said Randall. “No, wait, the other guy.”

“That chick who wanted to bang Nardo. Remember her?”

“Dude, all Russians are white.”

“What the hell was her name? Svetlana? Ivana?”

“Oh! I remember! Ilyana.”

“Barista Ilyana. You know what I’m going to do?” said Stone. The white Russians appeared in front of them. “I’m going to get Nardo laid.”

“I’d like to see that! I mean, how are you going to achieve this wonder?” Not all of these words were pronounced clearly, but they got the point across.

Stone had his phone out. He was logging into Twitter. After a search or two he found @barista_Ilyana, and drunkenly typed out the message: “I know you want to bang nardo you can find him at the pizza king on north street pretty much all day good luck he has the clap.” He started laughing and finally, after much consideration, deleted the clap part before sending. Give the guy a break. He finished his white Russian and called for two martinis.

“Nardo said you said Twitter was for homos,” Randall pointed out afterwards.

Stone snorted. “I just don’t give a shit about his boring-ass wrestling.”

“Oh.”

“Shoot me in the head if I ever have to look at his feed again.”

It was April seventh.

6.

It is impossible to kill your wife. It’s possible, of course, but you’ll always get caught. The same is true for a husband, or a girlfriend. You don’t have to watch too many true crime specials to figure that out.

Carol was fond of a particular loose-leaf tea, which she bought in little pressed cakes and brewed in a special infuser Colin had bought her—one infuser for her house, one for his. The tea cake expanded in hot water, blossoming into a large hunk of tea leaves.

Let’s say Colin had been busy rewiring a lamp and he happened to leave the exposed cord plugged in on the hardwood floor. Say he made some tea for a still sleeping Carol and set it on the edge of the night stand, then left to get bagels. Such was his inexperience that he’d put too many tea cakes in the infuser, though—three or four—and filled it with hot water to the brim. While he was out of the house, the tea cakes would expand. They’d displace the water and the brewing tea would overflow the infuser and flow down to the floor…connecting the current between the cord and the metal bed frame of Colin’s bed. Since Carol usually slept with her head pillowed on her biceps, her hand stretched above her head and resting against (Colin had noticed) the metal bars of the metal headboard…

Was that enough current to kill someone? How could you ever look up whether it was enough current to kill someone without implicating yourself? Would it be clear that the time of death happened while Colin was away? Would the whole thing even look like an accident? Would Colin be held to be so irresponsible that his act would be criminal anyway?

No, there was no way to kill Carol Wernick. And yet her concerned visits would have to stop if Colin was going to get anything done.

Colin had spent the weekend keeping the same schedule as Friday: ten fifteen to five at Sunset Grove. He shared a lunch with mother and then left just before dinner. They passed the day watching her stories in the TV room, or playing cards “with the girls.”

“What’s all this attention for?” she asked, flattered.

“I just had some time off, mom.”

But he told the staff some canned stories of forgetfulness. “Maybe it’s no big deal,” he admitted.

“We’ll keep an eye on her,” the Jamaican nurses promised.

When he came back from Salton, Carol would come over with dinner. It was actually useful, telling her about the day, because it reinforced the little fibs he’d fed the staff and made them more “real” and therefore easier to remember. But if she kept this up—the plan did not accommodate her keeping this up.

Breaking up with her would probably be just as bad as killing her—the whole point was to create a pattern and not deviate from it, and ending a relationship was by definition a deviation. Instead, Sunday night he acted distraught. He sent her home fairly early, balancing concern that she needed to be at work tomorrow with a desire to be alone with his worry. He figured the next day he could get her to stay away for a few days, enough time for his Monday and Tuesday night plans; and then, in case he was tired Wednesday night, Wednesday night, too.

After she left he did the laundry—the laundry. He sat with his white board for a while. There really was no way to kill her or dump her. When the drier buzzed, Colin went down in the basement.

He opened the drier, to make sure the clothes truly were dry, but then realized if he touched them the whole reason for washing them could be compromised. He didn’t want any oil from his skin getting deposited on the material.

Of course, he was going to have to wear the clothes. But with the exception of the gloves, nothing in the drier would end up touching his skin—he’d have a full suit of clothes underneath. Colin squatted a moment in front of the drier’s open mouth, trying to figure if this caution was rational. Finally he stuck an elbow in. It all felt dry. Even if an elbow was not so sensitive, even if the clothes were a little wet, surely they would dry in the two days they were scheduled to sit there.

Colin left the clothes, pulled out the lint filter, and peeled the lint off. He put the lint in a plastic bag, and then scraped the filter with a paper towel. This just generated more lint, as the paper towel started to disintegrate, so Colin washed the filter off thoroughly. He took the bag full of lint with him, the next morning, as he drove to see his mother. He stopped at that rest stop off I-81 to use the bathroom. The lint went in a garbage can there.

He’d have to fix the Carol problem tonight. He regretted not having it checked off yet.

Continued here.