Frank had no idea what I was capable of doing. No one knows the limits of what another person can do, especially an angry, humiliated person, furious at finding themselves trapped.
By trapped, I mean, seeing some faceless hated thing swelling in the only possible exit, blocking it; and escape—survival—requiring the removal of that thing, by force if necessary. The impersonal thing being a dumb dense obstacle in shadow, to be flung into oblivion, or crushed.
Outwardly I was a busy householder, spending my days in domestic chores, vacuuming dirt from the carpets, knifing sausages apart, banging nails into stair treads, boiling eggs in a pot, seething stews, watching Amala crazy-legged, eyes shut, beatific in her lotus posture in the room facing the back garden, practicing yoga breathing or chanting. Inwardly, I was committing murder.
The simplest way was what my father would have called envoûtement, killing him with a curse, by casting a spell. I needed a witch for that, but I had a gun.
Like a flash of light illuminating the bright needles in a soulful crystal, I saw it clearly, the confrontation, swift and conclusive, and—like that (I was chopping a banana)—the deed done. With the pistol the Zorrillas had given me long ago, a souvenir from my beginnings, the .32-caliber Colt semiautomatic, flat-sided, hammerless, small enough to conceal. I could carry it in my pants’ pocket. The magazine held eight rounds, more than enough to punch the life out of Frank.
On the pretext of a deal favoring him—settling the house business for good—I would call ahead to Miss Muntner to arrange a convenient time to see Frank. She would say, as she always did when I called, He’s in a meeting, can I take a message? And I’d say, I’m prepared to agree to whatever terms Frank proposes. I need to get on with my life. Please tell him I concede.
Because the words yes and no were not in Frank’s vocabulary, time would pass, Frank deliberating, not saying anything definite. But I knew that it was part of his manipulative nature to enjoy his adversaries coming to his office, cap in hand, being kept in his waiting room for an hour or more, suffering in silence, the unexplained delay such a humiliation that they often crept away without seeing him, defeated by his stubborn intransigence.
He would keep me waiting—that would please him—and the prospect of my having to wait would induce him to agree to see me. I was humbled, a petitioner, in a weak position, pleading for a resolution. He could get me to sign anything: I was desperate, I was small, he loomed over me, he’d won. But if we settled he would not be able to go on torturing me. He valued delay, preferring the power to torture over the finality of resolution. Frank loved unfinished business.
Still, he’d agree to the charade. A day and time would be fixed. He’d instruct Miss Muntner to tell me to wait. I’d be happy to wait, it would anger me and fill me with resolve, tense in the chair, a tightly wound spring, contracting further with each passing minute, my hand in my pocket, my loaded pistol in my damp hand.
Just before closing time, around five, Miss Muntner would say, Frank will see you now.
And as this was the end of the workday, she’d excuse herself and leave, knowing that Frank was about to engage me in a long and evasive discussion. Being a tormentor he was someone who hated conclusions. The torturer never wants his victim to die, he needs him to go on feeling pain.
As I entered his office he’d remain seated behind his big desk, probably would rock back in his swivel chair as a sign of defiance.
Have a seat, Fidge.
I’ll stand, thanks.
My reply would bewilder him. He’d expected me as a supplicant, prepared to agree to anything, even to his suggestion to sit down. In his confusion, his lopsided face would register a smirk of doubt, because I hadn’t sat when he told me to.
Frank, I’ve got something for you.
I’m waiting, he’d say, uncertain, now suspecting a trick.
Then, in one movement, I’d pull the gun out and aim it at his mismatched eyes. He’d jump to his feet, backing away, whining and pleading, holding his hands in front of his face, in a futile gesture of protection, just as I’d once imagined him doing.
I’d allow him to gibber, I’d savor his fear, I’d smile as he begged for mercy. His clownish, bug-eyed look of terror would stay in my memory as a continual satisfaction, a souvenir of my triumph.
Bang, into his face, blasting through the meat of his hands, snapping off his fingers. Then, bang, a body shot burst through his chest, and when he fell, a coup de grâce, exploding his scheming head.
Very messy, though, and loud.
I was in my car, shopping for frozen peas and canned salmon and a pot of cream, when I saw a subtler way of disposing of him. His parking garage was in the basement of his building on Main Street, his car always parked in his designated stall. I would sneak into the garage and crawl under his car with bolt cutters and weaken his brake lines, not sever them but cut them so that they would only snap when, at high speed, he stamped on the brake pedal. Oh, yes, and I’d monkey with his airbags—they were tricky to remove but easy to deactivate.
And when he braked, a car stopping in front of him, or his taking a sharp curve (I imagined him at the turn into Gully Lane), or careering down a hill and wanting to stop (leaving Vita’s at the hill descending from the archway to the Winthrop Estates) his lines would snap, his brakes would fail, and Frank who never used seat belts would find himself thrust into the windshield, and if not killed instantly then so badly injured he’d spend the rest of his life as a quadriplegic, perhaps with brain damage, drooling and incoherent, dangerous only to himself.
The thought of Frank in a wheelchair, incontinent, wearing a diaper, infantilized, or living out his life in a vegetative state, was actually more satisfying to me than seeing him bleeding to death on his office floor.
No drama or looming shadows accompanied my fratricidal imaginings. I saw the whole procedure bathed in sunshine. This was not a crime of passion but rather a carefully planned execution, like frying a serial killer in Old Sparky. Frank was a danger to me and to the community; he was in my way, and I needed to remove him for good, to destroy him before he destroyed me. And it would cheer me up if he suffered in the process. It was justifiable fratricide. I was entitled to kill him, and blameless; nothing could stop me, and the only hesitation I felt was that I was faced with so many possible methods—such a rich variety of ways to dispose of him. I wanted the best way, but each time I imagined a magnificent murder I thought of how I might improve on it.
At dinner, “salmon pea wiggle” (Mother’s family recipe), I sat eating, and visualizing a peacemaking feast, attended by Frolic and Victor, Vita and Gabe, Amala watching from a window, because Frank would object to her being at the table. I liked the thought of her watching, her elbow on the sill, her chin propped on her hand, her lovely hair backlit by the sun.
Frank would preside, monopolizing the attention, offering advice, thanking me for seeing the wisdom of my caving in to his wishes—I had promised to bring a check, the large five-figure sum that Miss Milgrim had suggested. It was a complete climb-down on my part, I’d agreed to his every demand, I had surrendered, and it was obvious that I was ruined.
After Frank’s sermonizing, and the others’ fawning admiration—perhaps Vita’s bearded boyfriend would be there—it would be my turn, my concession speech.
“I’m here to acknowledge that we’ve reached the end of the road, one we started on long ago, as children, the so-called Bad Angel brothers in Littleford . . .”
In this somber vein I would speak about finality, how—after this wonderful meal—we would go no further, our protracted negotiations were on the point of concluding for good.
“All that remains is one last act—the toast.”
Handing Frank a wineglass, I’d make the toast, praising his tenacity, listing his many accomplishments, speak of his ingenuity—and anyone who knew Frank well would discern a measure of ambiguity. Astute listeners like these family members would understand that, as I listed his achievements, I was also enumerating his scams and transgressions.
“Drink to my health,” I’d say. “I’ll drink to yours.”
He’d say something sarcastic, not witty, playing to the table, Frolic and Vita and the two boys, and Vita’s boyfriend, and Amala squinting at the window. Then, following my example, he’d drain his glass.
Potassium cyanide is so fast acting that within a minute he’d be dazed and staggering, then collapsed on the floor, frothing at the mouth, his legs thrashing, his nerves like hot wires fizzling and fusing, his synapses burned away. And while the others knelt over him, fretting and trying to coax him back to life, I’d slip out and be gone, on a plane that very night to Arizona, unfindable, in the care and protection of the Zorrillas.
Patting the cream of the salmon pea wiggle from my lips with a napkin, I thought, Yes, what about the Zorrillas?
Forever in my debt for saving Don Carlos, the Zorrillas could be recruited to help kill Frank. They’d been in touch from time to time, notably with cobalt suggestions and the quinceañera invitation, but I had asked very little of them. Now I considered a carefully plotted scheme, a classic cartel hit, first a phone call from me to Paco, and then his putting me in touch with one of his sicarios. Their drug business must now extend to New England, and they needed enforcers to guarantee their control of the market.
El Alacrán will help you . . .
I’d meet the man they called the Scorpion; I’d show him where Frank lived, where he worked, his office, his usual haunts, the diner, the Littleford Golf Club where he met clients. I’d provide photos of his car and of the man himself, not in profile, but the whole complicated face, the sagging eye, the drawn-down mouth, the palsied cheek, and the other sporty frat-boy side.
The Scorpion, with some of his men, would ambush Frank and take him to a secluded area, the Fells, upriver, a warehouse, a back alley, and they would deal with him in the brutal manner of a meaningful cartel killing, never a simple hit but a set of specific mutilations—cut out his tongue, because he talked too much and lied, hack off his hands, because he stole, castrate him because he meddled with my wife, and last a decapitation, the cartel expression of supreme power, his head swinging from a lamppost in Littleford Square.
It pleased me to imagine Frank’s mutilated corpse, discovered and photographed, a horror to all. But reflecting on this savagery, I decided that I wanted it to be personal. I needed him to see me making him suffer and striking the last blow. I didn’t want to outsource it.
At my desk one day, I conceived a better idea. Using his letterhead (I had plenty of examples in my desk drawer), I would create a copy of his stationery and write his remorseful suicide note. Addressing it to his wife and son, and to the world at large, I would list all his regrets, all his lies and deceptions, the many instances when he’d cheated on me, as well as the ruses he’d employed to scam his clients. A long confessional letter. I am a hollow man, I’d write in his voice. I don’t deserve to live.
And with my pistol in my pocket, I’d visit him in his office, holding him hostage as he pleaded for his life. I would demand he sign a letter indicating that he wished to remove his name from the title deed.
“Oh, and this, too . . .”
Concealing the first page of the suicide note I’d have him sign and date the last page, no text above his name.
“At this juncture, we’re square,” he’d say. “You have what you want. Put the gun down, Cal.”
“I don’t have what I want yet.”
And approaching him I would contrive to shoot him in such a way that it looked self-inflicted. Or perhaps make him drink poison. Or push him out the window—anything that could pass for a convincing suicide, leaving the remorseful note behind.
Plotting it in my mind, enjoyable though it was to contemplate, I envisaged resistance—the staged suicide becoming a struggle, Frank flopping around the room and frustrating me so badly I saw myself bludgeoning him to death with the oversized gavel he kept on his desk, souvenir of a big courtroom win. But I loved the detail in a confessional letter, and I spent many evenings lying on my bed, my face upturned to the Frank-like stains on the ceiling, elaborating versions of it in my head.
I was cracking the top of a soft-boiled egg one morning, planning to take a drive, when I thought, Something simpler. A trip together, the pretext being a way of finding harmony (and offering him money). He was proud of his vacation home on the South Shore. The deed would be done there. No letter, no confession, no signatures, no evidence: this would be a sudden and unexplained disappearance, a knock on his head, or a pill in his drink, the Zorrillas’ cyanide. When he was unconscious, I’d hedge my bet by suffocating him, since shooting always created blood spatter. A plastic bag over his head would do the trick. Imagining him sucking at it, and finally expiring, gave me hours of pleasure.
When he was dead, I’d stuff his corpse into a barrel and roll him into a trash compactor at the town’s transfer station. Disposing of his body would be easy. The hard part would be getting him to agree to the pretext, the little trip out of town to discuss peace and harmony and cash. The trouble was that he didn’t want a resolution. He’d refuse to get into a car with me. He didn’t trust me.
A news report on TV of a melee at a bowling alley in Winterville gave me an idea. What about a brawl? A fight with Frank in a public place would satisfy my need to hurt him before killing him. I could invite him to lunch at the Littleford Diner and start a fight with him there, witnessed by sixty people in booths, who’d swear it was a fair fight.
After sitting down with him in the diner, I’d object loudly to something he said, toss a cup of hot coffee in his face, and we’d go at it. He was weak, not a fighter with heft. While pretending to be seriously injured I’d batter him senseless before a shocked roomful of people. Hey, a fight between brothers that got out of hand—where’s the headline? I’d find a way to break his neck. But what if he didn’t die, and recovered, and sued me?
Strolling on the footpath by the river on many afternoons, I thought of other ways. As a miner I knew enough about explosives to blow him up in his car. Or take him sailing, no serious violence, just tip him over the side into the ocean, screaming abuse at him, and linger near him until he sank. Or corner him at knifepoint. Colombians I’d worked with regarded a stabbing as the truest way of killing an enemy, since it was done at close quarters. A shooting implied distance, but a knifing was intimate, the blade an extension of your arm. Stick him in the eye, stick him in the heart.
My Zambian partner, Johnson Moyo, told me that in West Africa one year, scouting a source of diamonds, he’d heard the story of a rebel leader in Liberia, also called Johnson (this coincidence of names was the reason for the tale). He’d captured his enemy, the country’s president, Major Doe. Doe had been responsible for the massacre of six hundred people hiding in a church, many of them women and children. This Johnson sat Major Doe before him in shackles and had his men strip him naked. Johnson interrogated Doe, and for every unsatisfactory answer, Doe was beaten with clubs. Johnson sat before him, drinking beer, upraised at a table, like a judge at a bench.
“Cut off his ears,” he said to his men. And this was done, one ear at a time. And while Doe bled and begged for his life, Johnson shouted at him, ordered Doe’s fingers and toes cut off, unshackled him and forced him to stand on his mutilated feet. Doe implored them to put him out of his misery, and Johnson finally granted this wish, stabbing him in the face, later putting his body on display in the town,
Given time, and a little assistance, I was capable of that.