21 Tales Read Online Free PDF

waited twenty minutes before signaling to Susie that I was heading off to McGinty’s for a couple of beers. She nodded back, somewhat distracted.
    I went to McGinty’s and had a couple of pints of Guiness. Checked my watch, saw it was quarter to ten. By this time Susie would’ve gotten off the phone. I threw a twenty down for Joe and headed off to Barb’s apartment building.
    Ten minutes later I parked my car on a side street, trying as much as I could to keep in the shadows. A couple of days earlier I had taken a hammer from my tool chest and left it in the trunk of my car. Now I had the hammer inside my jacket and was headed  towards Barb’s apartment – a ground level unit with its own private entrance. Using the spare key she had left with Susie, I let myself into her apartment.
    She was sitting on the sofa wearing a nightshirt that barely covered her chubby thighs. A bottle of wine next to her was three quarters empty. She blinked a few times before she recognized me and then asked what I was doing there, her words slurred by the wine.
    “There’s something I have to do,” I told her.
    Her eyes narrowed as she looked at me. “Why are you wearing gloves?”
    I didn’t answer her. Annoyed, she asked, “Susie know you’re here?”
    I nodded.
    “What happened, is she worried I’m going to hurt myself? Jesus, she shouldn’t take me so seriously. Especially after my Thursday night meetings.”
    “That’s not why I’m here.” I let out a heavy sigh. “I’ve got no choice, Barb, I have to reclaim my fortune.”
    She stared blankly at me before her mouth twisted unpleasantly. “You’re not making any sense.”
    “Sure I am. You fucked everything up when you stole my fortune.”
    The unpleasantness had spread to the rest of her face. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. But I don’t think I want you here.”
    “This will just take a minute.” I stopped for a moment so I could gather my thoughts. Somehow I had to get through to her. I don’t know why, but it just seemed important for her to understand. “Do you have any idea what fate is?” I asked.
    She didn’t say anything. Just stared at me dumbly. Her complexion had always been too pasty. Still, before Tom had split on her you could argue that she was kind of cute. Not now though, not with the extra weight she had packed on, not with how fleshy her face had become, like several layers of stucco had been slapped on. I could barely make out her eyes buried under all that extra flesh.
    “Let me explain,” I continued after realizing she wasn’t going to answer me. “Fate is something real, something tangible. Kind of like a wave, or maybe more like a wind current.”
    “I don’t know what you’re talking about, and I don’t really care either. You’re giving me a headache.”
    “I’ve got to explain this to you, Barb. When you swapped fortunes with me, you caused whatever wind current I was about to ride to bend around me instead. Unless I find a way to bend that current back to me I’ve got no chance of being published. I’m sorry, Barb, but I’ve got to reclaim my fortune.”
    She sniffed, her expression more petulant than anything else. “I’m calling Susie and telling her that you’re here bothering me.”
    She reached for the phone. I moved quickly then, slipping the hammer out from under my jacket and swinging hard as I reached for her. I caught her on the side of the head. The way her eyes rolled up in their sockets she was probably dead then. The hammer, though, got stuck in her skull and it was a struggle to get it out. After I did, I hit her a few more times. There was no doubt she was dead by the time I left.
    When I got to my car, I wrapped the hammer in an old towel and tossed it and the gloves into the trunk, planning to find a dumpster later. I guess on the way home I must’ve been driving erratically. A cop pulled me over. After he shined a flashlight in my face, he took a step from the car and had his