The October List

the money; everything else – receipts, bloody tissues and a Bic pen – she left in the bag. She looked around and noticed a Department of Sanitation truck, filled to the brim, en route to the processing facility on 14th Street at the Hudson River.
    She slung the shopping bag into the back of the truck as the driver waited for the light to change.
    Gabriela gripping his arm, Daniel set a good pace and they wove through the herds of pedestrians filling the streets on this blustery Sunday afternoon.

CHAPTER
29
     

1:40 p.m., Sunday
30 minutes earlier
     

 

 
     
    Frank Walsh was standing in the tiny kitchen of his dim Greenwich Village apartment, thinking of the killing that morning.
    It hadn’t been easy.
    Using a knife never was.
    The problem was you generally couldn’t stab somebody to death. You had to slash , go for the neck, the legs – the femoral arteries. The groin was good too. But stabbing? It took forever.
    And add to the mix: If the person you were fighting was good at defense, as the victim that morning had been, you had to stay alert, you had to move, you had to be fast and you had to improvise; in knife fighting, advantages changed in seconds.
    Solid – okay, pudgy – Frank pulled his Greek fisherman cap off and scratched his unruly red hair and the scalp beneath as he stood at the open cupboard door. With his left hand he absently pinched a roll of fat around his belly. He decided against the potato chips.
    He continued to debate the food options. But was distracted.
    Gabby was on his mind. As often she was.
    Then his mind, his clever mind, slipped back to the fight that morning. Recalling the animal lust, the pure satisfaction – born somewhere, a shrink would probably say, out of revenge for the bullying he’d suffered as a teenager. He felt pride too at his skill with the blade.
    He wished he could tell Gabby about the confrontation, though some things he knew it was best to keep from her. Felt a deep ping in his belly as he pictured her and thought of the present he’d just received. He wondered what she was wearing at the moment.
    Then he turned his attention back to mealtime. His kitchen was a central hub of the apartment. The cabinets were white and the handles had actual release levers, as if the room were a galley on a ship that regularly sailed through gales. If the doors weren’t secured, Doritos, Tuna Helper and macaroni and cheese would fly to the floor in the swells.
    Chips? No chips?
    No chips, he decided. And continued to stare.
    He took a breath and sensed something smelled off. Not spoiled food. What? He looked around. Noted the old scabby table, plumbed steady with folded Post-it notes under one leg. His hat sat on it. Was the hat gamy? He smelled it. Yep, that was it.
    Did Greek fishermen really wear Greek fisherman hats? he wondered.
    He’d have to wash it, he guessed. But would that take the good luck away? He’d worn it during the fight that morning. He slipped it into a Baggie until he decided.
    Back to the Titanic cabinets and the fridge. No chips, but not doing the celery thing. Celery is evil.
    An apple.
    Frank snagged a shiny red McIntosh, huge, and a bag of Ruffles and loped back to his cluttered desk, snug in the corner of his bedroom. Just as he sat in the plush chair, he thought: Hell. Forgot the beverage. The. Beverage. He returned to the kitchen and got a Diet Coke from the chair beside the table, filled with magazines and books, piled high.
    He glanced at the present Gabby had sent him. His heart stuttered. Man, he was in heaven.
    Gabby …
    How much have we lost? he wondered. Squeezing his belly. Six pounds in the past month. If he weighed himself after peeing.
    He munched and sipped, wished the soda was cold. Should have fridged it. Why do I forget things? Frank Walsh knew he had trouble focusing, but he also took pride that it was a negative compensation for being so talented in other ways.
    Like his knives.
    He regarded his specimens of cutting-edge weapons, which took up two bookshelves.
    When was the curved kukri going to arrive? He thought of the beautiful blade – the picture on eBay had depicted a classic Nepalese army knife.
    Then he returned to reality.
    All the fucking Post-it notes I keep buying. Have to remember to use them for more than propping up table legs.
    Write: Put the soda in the fridge.
    How hard was that?
    He slowed down on the chips. Take your time. Write that down too. Don’t eat another until you’ve masticated and