Scrapper (2015) by Matt Bell

Author:Matt Bell [Bell, Matt]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Mystery & Crime, Hard-Boiled
Publisher: Soho Press
Published: 2015-07-10T20:06:13+00:00

FLORIDA

THE KILLER WAS NOT AFRAID. The killer knew who he was, how he had been made, made himself: The killer almost joined the marines. The killer almost remained a Catholic. The killer almost had a successful insurance business. The killer almost earned a criminal justice degree. The killer almost went to jail for threatening his then fiancée. The killer almost went to jail for shoving a police officer. All this in the almost-distant past and now the killer was almost thirty. Now the killer rented his home but he almost always thought of it as his.

The killer did not think of himself in the third person but there almost wasn’t enough of him to justify the first. The killer was living a life of almost but surely almost had not made him afraid.

The killer was not afraid. There had been four hundred police responses to his neighborhood in thirteen months but still the killer was not afraid and because he was not afraid he had placed fifty of those calls himself.

The killer was not afraid when he made his complaints: This loud party, he said; This garage door left open; These unbearable potholes; These children playing in the streets, where they might be hurt.

The killer was not afraid when he reported suspicious persons, loose dogs.

The killer was not afraid when he said Burglar into his cell phone, when he said Thief. Even if he had not seen any actual burglaries, any actual theft. Only almost, the potential of.

When the dispatcher asked him to describe the suspicious persons, he was not afraid when he said he was almost sure they were black males, when almost every single time he said they were young and black and suspicious.

The killer was not afraid of the suspected burglars or the suspected thieves. The killer was not afraid of the thugs he thought he saw, their dark shapes moving from house to house, looking in windows, eyeing flat-screen televisions and surround-sound systems.

The killer, who did not know he was a killer yet, was not afraid of meeting one of these thugs while he patrolled the streets, in command of the neighborhood watch.

Why not? Because the killer was not afraid.

Surely the killer was not afraid behind the wheel of the car, with his pistol on the passenger seat. Not just because it was raining and hard to see. It wasn’t the weather the killer wasn’t afraid of.

The killer was not afraid for his home.

The killer was not afraid for his wife.

The killer was not afraid because he was there, watching and waiting.

He would not let them make him afraid.

Even though he couldn’t say who they were.

The killer was not afraid when he dialed the emergency number.

The killer was not afraid when he said into the phone, There’s a real suspicious guy here.

When he said, Walking around in the rain. This guy is up to no good or he is on drugs.

When he said, These assholes. They always get away.

The absence of doubt. The pushing back of almost.

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