MY HOBBY
by Tom Fabian
Top
of the morning to you. I hope whoever is reading this is enjoying their day. I,
on the other hand, have had better days—you see I haven’t been feeling too well
lately. But poor health and all, there comes a time in every man’s life when he
must sum up, and that’s what I’m doing.
I suppose I should start
by saying I was always a loving husband and father, and that those objects of
love were taken away from me much too soon. That, however, is not an aspect of
my life I wish to go into at the moment—if you are really interested in finding
out my full story, you’ll have to
take a trip to the nether world and ask my wife and son. It’s the other facets
of my story, my character—which I’d kept hidden from those nearest me, hidden
even from my dear Stella—that come to mind as I sit here with little to do but
think about the past.
Dear Stella, who loved
me because I was dependable and, yes,
maybe even because I was boring. Stella needed stability in her life and found
it with me. I had to keep certain
things hidden from her. I was the family man who would come home from work and
take care of the usual mundane tasks, then after dinner settle down with the
paper or watch the game on television. As far as my wife and son were concerned,
the days went by in a quiet uneventful fashion. And we were happy like that.
“George has no interests, no hobbies even …” I once overheard my wife saying
quite happily. And a neighbor once: “George’s as empty as a shell.” It didn’t
bother me a bit.
The fact of the matter
was, I did have a hobby—a very special hobby. One I could only share with a
select few. You see, I kill people. Or I should say, I
used to kill people. I know what
you’re thinking: thrill-killer. Those nasty reprobates Leopold and Loeb come to
mind. The bastards should have been sent to military school at an early age. Not
enough parental discipline! Or you might be thinking I’m a killer in the vein of
Patricia Highsmith’s Ripley, a sociopath who kills to get ahead. No, I used
to kill in order to help people; it was sort of like charity with me. I
would see people having a hard time and I’d use my talents to get rid of, say, a
nasty father, a vicious wife, an exploitive uncle. You’re probably thinking I’m
some kind of a maniac who is making his vice sound like a philanthropic
enterprise …
Truthfully my hobby went
both ways—it is, after all, as important to give, as it is to receive. There was
always a beneficiary to the crime, and, in that alone, I always took the
greatest satisfaction. But the challenge, the planning, the calculation, the
anticipation, the peculiar sensation of looking into the eyes of my prospect and
sizing them up—that’s where the real thrill was. And, of course, the knowledge
that I had rid the world of a particular vermin. The actual killing? There was
really no joy in that.
I’ve written only a page, yet I feel I’ve come across poorly. So maybe I should explain a few things
about myself. Ask anyone about George Blake and they’ll tell you he’s a gem of a
man. He never ran a red light, was quick to lend money to his friends, never
looked at another woman while he was married, went to church every Sunday, and
was always willing to talk a colleague out of divorcing his wife or having an
affair. In short, by most standards I was a model citizen.
But I digress; back to
the task at hand. I took on my hobby just short of my 29th birthday.
I used to stop off at a bakery on 3rd
Avenue every morning on the way to work. The owner
was a squinty-eyed Belgian who used his wife and children as indentured
servants. A few times, I caught him bellowing at his wife for making a mistake
on the register, and once from where I was standing at the counter I saw him
slapping her around in the backroom.I’ll never forget going
in there the morning after I was fired from my job. I’d been up all night,
hadn’t showered or shaved and walked in completely disheveled. Mrs. Gruen was
behind the counter. She took one look at me, and the next thing I knew I was
sitting at one of the tables with a cup of coffee in one hand and a Danish in
the other, telling her of my troubles. Then her husband came out and spoke
roughly to her in Flemish. She quickly got up and returned to her work.
On that wet and dreary
Wednesday morning, I had an epiphany. I stared into my coffee and thought:
what would happen if this man were to die?
His wife and kids would inherit the business. No more bellowing, no more
slapping, no more indentured servitude. And then the idea came to me.
It didn’t take long to
plan. I monitored his actions, became his shadow. Every night while his wife and
kids were at the bakery preparing everything for the morning rush, he would go
to the bar down the street, get drunk and stumble home through the alleyways.
One night, I parked my car in the alley and waited for him to appear. When he
did I ran him over—twice for good measure.
It’s always special the
first time you do something.
I had found a hobby that
I would pursue for the next 20 years. Life went on more or less as usual. I
found a new job, Stella and I had a son, and I continued to kill: bankers,
lawyers, accountants, brokers, construction workers, salesmen … Poison,
gunshots, tampering with car brakes—I tried to mix it up. I mean, these idiots
that use the same technique several times simply lack imagination and adventure.
They’re trying to laud their stale way of doing this as a trademark … what
bullshit.
Then Stella died, and
shortly thereafter my son. It was difficult to take pleasure in anything after
that. Even killing lost its luster. I wondered if their untimely deaths were
some sort of punishment for me.
Then one day, things
changed again. I was soon to retire and had purchased a place upstate, in
Coxsackie. I had begun to take an interest in life again, which inevitably meant
that I’d take up my hobby again, too.
In my capacity as an
intelligence analyst, I had access to criminal investigative files. Over the
years, the name Jane Masterson kept coming up in connection with mysterious
deaths of men to whom she happened to be married. Jane Masterson, the Black
Widow who the idiot flatfoots had never managed to nab for murdering three
husbands. Jane Masterson, who was now living in Coxsackie. Yes, it would be Jane
Masterson who, as Mathias Gruen initiated me all those years ago, would
re-initiate me into my hobby. I’d have to find an interesting way of doing away
with her. I’d have to take things slowly.
I’d lived my entire life
in the city. And it took awhile to adapt to the slower pace upstate. But I’ve
always been adaptable—hell, you couldn’t do what I’d done for 20 years and not
be adaptable! It was lonely at first, but eventually I made a few friends, and
the house and garden was a continuous source of work. On the days when I wasn’t
busy planning the demise of Jane Masterson, I kept busy trying to cut down the
overgrown yard.
I was planting hedges
the day Stanley Leyton came into my life.
“G’day!” he said with a
broad smile.
An Australian in
Coxsackie? I’ve always hated Australians—uncouth bastards, all of them.
I smiled back, took off
my work gloves, offered my hand and received a bone-crushing handshake. “Stanley
Leyton,” he said.
I told him my name.
“From Brisbane originally. Used to raise horses
there. But I’ve always wanted to live in America. Came up here 15 years ago
to visit a friend and decided that one day I’d make this place my home. How
about you?” he asked.
“The usual story.” I
said. “Worked for a large corporation in the city for 40 years and I’m now
retired up here.” I didn’t want to divulge that I’d worked for the government. I
was hoping he would shove off, but he continued.
“We’re always glad to
welcome new neighbors. Took some time to get to you though. Peggy and I have
been wanting to have you over for dinner one night. You’d be welcome to bring
along that charming young lady friend of yours,” he said, with ill-concealed
humor.
Not much gets past the
residents of a small town. I’d only just begun seeing Sue O’Leary, who was 20
years my junior.
I was about to invent an
excuse when Leyton, ever the pushy bastard, said, “We’ve already spoken to Sue
and know you haven’t got any plans tomorrow, so tomorrow at 8:00.”
When I got up the next
morning, I realized the fridge was almost empty. God how I missed my dear
Stella. While in town buying the necessary staples, I took the opportunity to
find out more about the insufferable Leyton and gather more information about
Coxsackie’s Black Widow. Margaret, who owned the store, was at the counter when
I brought up my eggs, bread, coffee, butter and sugar.
Maggie had been married
to a brute of a husband who had died of natural causes years before I moved to
town. It’s a pity I couldn’t do her a good turn by getting rid of him. As usual,
she had a cup of coffee waiting for me.
“What’s new?” she asked.
“I’ve made a new
friend,” I said.
“Stanley Leyton?”
“How do you know?”
“He’s been asking all
about you.”
“Asking what?”
“Oh, who you are, what
you do, what you’ve done. Nobody in this town minds their own business. But
Leyton takes the cake!”
“Well, I’m there for
dinner tomorrow. Maybe when he realizes that I’ve spent my life tallying tax
records he’ll decide to obsess over someone else.”
We heard car doors slam.
Maggie turned her head to look out the window. “It’s that fortune-hunting Jane
Masterson.” Maggie loved talking about Jane. I never even had to prod her. “Did
you know she’s out to pry Jerry Lawson from his wife.”
So poor old Jerry was to
be her next victim. I wondered if maybe I should speed up my efforts at ridding
the world of dear Jane and save a marriage and an innocent man’s life. Maggie
could have no idea what was going on in my mind and I merely said, “Poor Cynthia
Lawson doesn’t stand a chance.”
Maggie looked up and
smiled at Jane Masterson as she entered the store. The Black Widow was a slight
woman no more than five feet tall. A blonde in faded jeans who herself was
beginning to fade in terms of looks. Still, compared to Cynthia Lawson …
I savored the moment—the
hunter surveying his prey. She had an insolent 7-year-old boy at her side who
could have used some gentle disciplining. Instead, when he snatched a candy bar
off the shelf she smacked him across the face. The child began to wail. I
thought, another point in my favor—finishing her off would mean a lot to the boy
as well. Can you imagine growing up with that for a mother?
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