Page 97 of Letters From Victor

“Please,” Edith said. The word was soft, almost pleading.

I let go of my purse and sat back down, though my body remained rigid, ready to spring.

Edith set her glass on the bar—unfinished—and walked slowly back to me. She didn’t sit, rather stood over me like a looming question mark.

“I know this is a lot to take in,” she said. “But you need to understand that we did what we thought was best for you.”

“We?” I asked. “So you agreed with all of this?”

She hesitated. “Not at first, no. But in time, I came to accept it.” She sat down beside me and placed a hand on my knee. “Think back, Barbara. I was there for every important moment. All those scraped knees? I was the one who patched you up. When your cat died, who held you until you stopped crying? When Johnny O’Dell broke your heart in the tenth grade, who sat up with you all night? I watched you cross that graduation stage, cheered you on at every movie premiere, and when you walked down the aisle, I was right there.” She stared at me, long and hard, tears tracing slow paths down her cheeks. “Ineverabandoned you.”

37

VICTOR

“Phil! If it’s such a goddamn emergency,” I hollered as I headed down the basement steps, “you could at least pick up the phone.”

Silence.

“Phil?”

I smelled him before I saw him. That ripe, unmistakable stink. I tasted the copper in the back of my throat. Blood. A lot of it.

I drew my revolver, thumbed back the hammer, and took another tentative step down.

“Phil?” I didn’t expect an answer.

I took the remaining steps carefully, each one echoing in the oppressive silence. The flickering fluorescent light overhead stuttered, throwing jagged shadows against the concrete floor.

Phil dangled from a meat hook in the ceiling. The chain groaned. His flesh was flayed in strips, raw and glistening. His massive frame swayed gently, like a grotesque piñata. What was left of him looked more like a side of beef than a man. Except for his face. That part they left untouched, his dead eyes locked straight ahead. A slick red pool stretched out beneath him, the blood soaking into the cracks in the concrete like veins in stone.

“Jesus Christ.”

I swept the room with my revolver, each shadow and corner getting its due attention. When I was sure I was alone, I lowered my weapon and turned back to Phil.

“Who the hell did you piss off?” I muttered.

Blood and mildew—two smells that never belonged together. But here they were, clinging to my sinuses like cheap cologne. I wiped at my nose with the back of my hand and took a slow breath through my mouth. The atmosphere was soupy. Breathing felt like sucking air through a wet rag.

I moved closer to Phil’s body, careful to keep my shoes out of the blood. It glistened under the flickering light, still wet, still warm. Recent. Too recent. I followed the cuts, the places where his skin used to be. Stripped clean, down to the bone in some places, hanging like tattered rags. The precision was surgical. This wasn’t some back-alley hack job. This was the work of a pro. A pro with a message.

I fought the urge to pull Phil down. There was nothing I could do for him now, and touching the body would only leave evidence. Not that the cops would bother—they stayed well clear of my affairs—but it was good practice to be careful.

I scanned the room again, this time looking for something more specific—a note, an object, some kind of calling card. Pros liked to leave their mark, a signature to let the right people know who wielded the knife. But there was nothing. Just Phil’s papers and ledger strewn about the desk and the dripping silence of this makeshift slaughterhouse.

My gut tightened. Whoever did this wanted me off balance. They wanted me looking over my shoulder, second-guessing my next move. And damn if it wasn’t working.

Phil swore he had Kowalski under control. So what the hell happened? Did he screw it up that bad, or did Kowalski bring in fresh blood—someone with this kind of skill?

“Damn it, Phil. You were smarter than this.”

Kowalski was a hothead and a loudmouth, but he’d never had the stones to come at me outright. If he was making moves like this now, we were in deeper trouble than I thought. Or maybe Phil got to him first and this was retribution. Either way, I was running out of time to figure it out.

My gut burned. It wasn’t just the sight of Phil—or what was left of him. It was the audacity. The goddamn nerve to walk into my house and do this.

Phil wasn’t just an employee. He was family. The kind of loyalty he gave me was rare, and now it was gone for good. I curled my fists, my nails biting into my palms, then forced myself to turn away.

A floorboard groaned at the top of the stairs.

---