The man ringing my doorbell is here to kill me.  I know too much.  But he won’t do it here.  My condo is too public.  He’ll make me drive him somewhere.  It’ll be dark in twenty minutes.
     I walk to the door, open it and invite him in as there’s simply no place for me to hide.
     He’s very short, in his mid fifties, white-haired and feral faced, with chilly reptilian eyes.  I’ve seen warmer peepers on a cobra.  He’s wearing an indecently expensive grey herringbone suit, white shirt, and plain black tie.  His shoes are shined to a high gloss.  He must be good at his trade.  He has that commanding presence that makes one feel he’s facing a fait accompli.
     He motions me into the living room with a .22 Ruger automatic, sits down, then lights a cigarette, a Pall Mall.  I take a seat on the sofa across from him.
     He smiles, his thin lips barely covering a prominent overbite.  “You were expecting me then,” he murmurs.
    "You’re not surprised.”
     “No.”
     He grins.  “Sorry.  Nothing personal.”
     “I’m sure.”
     “Just so you know.”  He blows a smoke ring of perfect symmetry.  A man happy in his work.
     “My cousin, right?” I say, sure of his response.
     He hesitates, then sighs.  “Yes.”  He looks at his Rolex watch.  “But don’t worry, we got some time to--uh--kill.”  A hit man with a sense of humor.  What next?
     I ask permission to dip into the pocket of my robe.
     He reaches over and pats me down.  Nothing in there except an atomizer.  I explain I have a sore throat.  He grants approval with an affable nod of his head,  and I place the ice blue atomizer on top of the coffee table.
     My hands are shaking slightly.  I offer him a cognac.  He accepts.  I pour us a drink from the crystal decanter.  The snifters are ruby red, the color of blood.  I quickly uncover the yellow Chinese ash tray from beneath the latest issue of Newsweek and push it over to him.
     “You’re a cool one,” he remarks, staring with interest at the atomizer.
     I sip my Courvoisier and wonder what he’s planned to use; a garrote, a knife?  Perhaps the Ruger.  Two shots in the back of the head.
     “Nice.”  He nods at the atomizer, sips the cognac with evident pleasure, smacks his lips, and lightly taps cigarette rubble into the ash tray.  His hands are steady, his nails manicured.  “Interesting little atomizer,” he says.  “Weird color.  You get that in Europe?”
     I shake my head.
     “Japan?”
     I shrug.  “I’ll tell you how I got it; it’s an interesting story.”
     He smirks.  “We got a few minutes.”
     He’s very sure of himself.  And why not?
     My cousin has several hitters on the payroll.  This one is Emile.  The heroin trade is lucrative for those at the top.  And my cousin Anthony Genovese is one of the kingpins in this neck of the woods.  I used to do his books, so I know whereof I speak.  That’s my problem.  Tony doesn’t believe in loose ends.  I just didn’t move fast enough.  Shoulda gone to Mexico with my brother while I still had the chance.  Maybe I’ll do it now.  Tony never backs off.
     Emile puts down the Ruger, takes a deep pull on the cigarette, and urges me into my story.
     I pick up the little atomizer and lay it gently in the palm of my hand.  It is decorated with a delicate filigree of arcane golden runes and features a squeeze bulb top.  It is two inches high and an inch in diameter.
     “When I was a kid,” I begin softly, “I was a runt.  There was this big stud named Falco who made my life miserable.  I hated the guy.  Spent most of my waking hours either planning his extermination or, more practically, how I could stay out of his way.”
     Emile frowns.  I’ll bet he can relate to this, with his five, four frame.
     “Anyway, I was about sixteen the night I found this old woman in an alley, lying in the snow.  Falco had been on my trail that evening, along with another kid named Charlie.  They’d already snatched my lunch money, slapped me silly in front of Marjorie Helfer, and finally they’d taken my pants down in front of the Jefferson High School student body."
     Emile throws me a sympathetic grin.  But his eyes are utterly cold, like moonstones.
     “Well, this lady had taken a bad fall,” I continue.  “But before I could get over to help her up, along come Falco and Charlie.  I ducked into a doorway and watched the  the two sharks rifle her pockets and purse, grab her watch, and take off laughing.”
     “Naughty, naughty,” murmurs Emile.
     “Yeah.  She was hardly breathing.  There was blood dripping from her ears and mouth, and she had a big bruise on her forehead.  She was conscious, though.  I asked her if I should call an ambulance.  She said no, to just take her to her place.  I got her on her feet, and we staggered a few blocks to an old house on 77th & Hazel.”
     Emile checks his watch.  “Go on,” he says.
     “I finally got her home and helped clean her up.  I really felt sorry for her.  She said I’d saved her life.  She was quite feeble and was probably right about that.  I remember how black her eyes were and how her soft voice mesmerized me.
     “Maybe she wanted a virgin piece of ass,” jokes Emile, but the laughter fails to reach those stone killer eyes.
     “No.  But the place really stunk.  There were dusty books on the wall and a small parlor where the odd smell was the strongest.  Can’t tell you what the odor was, but I liked to puke from it.”
     Emile smiles and pours himself some more cognac.  I hope it holds out.
     “She was older than Methuselah.  Her breath was indescribable.  But boy was she grateful to me--very grateful.  Seems she was the last living remainder of a medieval Celtic tribe of alchemists.  For more than four hundred years they’d dealt in black magic, potions, and the occult.  And if you ask me, the last of her tribe was on its last legs.  She must have been close to ninety.  How she wound up here in Chicago beats me.
     “Anyway, she brewed me some god awful tea, sat me down in the parlor, and said she owed me big time and that her tribe always paid its debts.  Then she asked me questions about my life.  I finally got around to Falco, my nemeses.  I told her how they’d rolled her and took her stuff.  Christ!  You shoulda seen the look on her face.  I still get the shivers when I think of it.”
     “Great.  Better hurry it up, pal.”  Emile’s eyes have gone flat and shiny, and a quiver creeps up my spine.  He probably plans to take me for a quick ride after dark, then drop me off at some meat packing or cement plant.  My cousin owns several of each.
     “Okay, okay, I’ll move it along.  The old gal went to a bookcase, slid it aside, and came out with a small, sealed beaker of a colorless elixir.  She said that when the stuff was exposed to the air, it would make blue smoke–but only for the right person.  She filled an atomizer, using a hypodermic needle, and made me repeat a bunch of bizarre incantations.  We had to say ‘em together.  She knew them by heart, but I had to read them out of a greasy old manuscript held together with paste and scotch tape.  She warned that if I ever repeated ‘the words’ aloud or to anyone else, I’d be plenty sorry.  I didn’t doubt it.  She told me what the stuff could do, and under what circumstances it might be employed.  Then she wished me well.  I never saw her again.”
     Emile frowns.  “Interesting, but that’s enough of  ‘Let’s Pretend.’  My car’s outside.”  He gets to his feet and waves the gun at me.  No more Mr. Nice Guy.
     I stand and gently squeeze the atomizer, directing a small cloud of pale blue smoke into Emile’s face.
     He jumps back, and sits down on the sofa.  “What the hell?”
     I study him for the usual signs.  Already he’s forgotten the gun.
     Wrinkling his nose, Emile murmurs, “Hey!  Watch that shit.  What are you trying to pull?”  Suddenly, though,  something terrible is going on behind those flinty eyes of his.  His shoulders slump.  He bows his head.  The Ruger falls to the floor.
     I watch him go under.  “Emile, you don’t really want to do this.  Do you?”
     His eyes are blank, the light of comprehension fading fast.  “Uh?”
     “You don’t want to kill me.”
     “No,” he mumbles,  “doan wanna do that.”  His voice is hollow, like it’s coming from far away..  He’s lost color.
     “In fact,” says I, “you’re going straight back to my cousin’s, aren’t ya?”
     “Yes.”  He looks like a Hollywood zombie, about the way Falco and Charlie looked twenty years ago, just seconds before they tandem leaped to their deaths from Marshall Field’s sixteenth floor window.
     “In fact, Emile, you’re going to walk in there and put five slugs into my cousin’s face.  Right?”
     “Right.”
     “Good.  But first you’re gonna tell him who sent you.”
     “Yes.”
     “Then you’re gonna put that last slug through your right eye.”
 There’s no discernible pause.  “Yes.” .
     “Get going.”
     He turns stiffly, bends down and pockets the revolver, then slowly walks to the door.  His gait is a bit unsteady, as though he’s just jogged a few hundred miles.
     “Oh, and Emile.”
     He stops and turns.  “Yes?”
     “You have a nice day.”

"Blue Smoke" first appeared in the Nocturnal Lyric

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