How Do You Like Your Blue-Eyed Boy? by Barry Graham

couple of candles. Janine sat on the couch. I filled a basin with warm water and lavender oil. She took off her shoes and socks. I set the basin on the floor in front of the couch, then took each of her feet and placed them in the water. I slipped my hands into the water and, softly, stroked her feet clean, stroked the rage and tension out of them.
    A woman had done that for me after the first time I deliberately killed a person. As I massaged Janine’s feet I recalled the look on the kid’s face, his chest and throat exploding as I shot him again and again. When he finally lay at my feet, blood and piss running  out of him, I was almost overwhelmed by how little I felt. So this is what it’s like, I thought to myself.
    I toweled her feet dry. Then we went to bed. “Do you think the cops’ll find me?” she asked.
    “If they try hard enough, probably. But I don’t think they’ll bother. I don’t expect they’ll mount a citywide manhunt because some idiot got his face sliced. Don’t worry about it.” I turned off the light.
    I wasn’t sure if she’d be able to sleep, but she dropped off in a matter of minutes. I lay with her and held her from behind. I listened to the clunking drone of the air-conditioning. It was eighty degrees outside. I thought about the things that would happen outside my locked door that night, things I would read about in the paper or watch on the next day’s news. Tim. Janine. Mara. A young man cut up in a diner. Finally I slept.

FOUR
    Tim was cremated and then nothing happened. No announcement was made by the cops about the progress of the investigation. I shouldn’t have been surprised—those responsible for the deployment of police resources were probably glad to see Tim silenced. I’d half-expected the County Sheriff to show up at the funeral service to gloat.
    I wanted to do an article on Tim’s death and the cops’ lack of interest, but there was no one I could do it for. The Phoenix Weekly wasn’t coming out anymore, and the Arizona Republic had its own guys working on it.
    “You’re letting your heart rule your head,” Janine told me. “Spike says there’s no way the cops can find the killer. Is writing an article going to change that? Will it catch the killer and bring Tim back to life?”
    “There might be no chance of catching the hit man. But they could investigate Fallowell and try to prove that he ordered it.”
    “How? Do you think he kept a record of it? Maybe has a list of contract killers in his personnel files? Is there a temp agency for assassins?” Seeing my expression, she stopped. “I’m sorry, babe. I’m not trying to be mean to you. But somebody has to tell you. Let it go. There’s nothing you can do.”
    Fallowell didn’t even deny it.
    It took me a day or so to find out where his office was. None of the workers at his day care centers were prepared to tell me. I finally found that he had a suite in an office building in the business district downtown.
    I drove there in the middle of the afternoon. I parked my car amongst the nice new ones and got out. The icy blast of the air-conditioning hit me as soon as I entered the building. I was wearing jeans and a T-shirt, and for a second I considered going back to my car to get my emergency sweater from the trunk.
    Instead I got in the elevator and rode it to the fifth floor. I got out and walked around until I saw a plaque engraved ANTHONY FALLOWELL ENTERPRISES LTD. I went through the door into a reception area. There was a desk with a teenage girl sitting behind it. She gave me an uneasy look. I was probably the first guy without a suit she had seen all day.
    “Hello. Can I help you?”
    “Hope so. I’d like to talk to Tony Fallowell.”
    “Is he expecting you?”
    “No.”
    “He might be busy.”
    “I don’t care.”
    She thinned her lips and looked at me as she picked up the phone. “There’s a gentleman here to see you,” she told her boss. “Sorry, what’s your name?” she asked