Misfit by Adam Braver Page B

go. You’ll have everything you need.”
    â€œBut I want them to be afraid.”
    â€œAfraid?”
    â€œWhen I kick down that door, I want to see it in their eyes.”

    â€œFrank,” Ruditsky says. “He says he still wants to kick down the door.”
    â€œSo let him kick the door down.”
    Ruditsky pauses. He draws in a breath. He speaks, seemingly without exhaling. “Okay, we kick down the door. But just for effect . . . It’s just for effect . . . Then it stops when I go for the pictures.”
    â€œAfter we bust down the fucking door.”
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    It’s at about this point that Florence Kotz’s complaint against the defendants begins.
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    The front door is heavy; dark, solid wood. It’ll take a tank to smash it down. Ruditsky doesn’t want to go through the front. He tells DiMaggio that’s a bullshit plan. They’ll be glowing under the street lamps and porch lights, might as well smile for the mug shots. Already he’s noticed some neighbors peeking out their windows.
    He orders the group to the side of the house. DiMaggio goes reluctantly. From there, they snake into the backyard, each holding the gate for the next, until Sinatra, the last of the bunch, passes through. “All clear,” Sinatra announces, looking backward when he hears a cricket chirp.
    Irwin whispers that the entrance doesn’t look right. Maybe they ought to pause. Just to make sure. It feels funny going in this way.
    â€œHow about you not worry about plans,” Ruditsky says. “And how about I stay the boss.”

    Sinatra smiles. “All clear,” he says again.
    Irwin carries the camera. Sanicola and Karen carry police flashlights, gripped as though they’re shaking hands. DiMaggio holds a bat, a fact not lost on anyone.
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    Virginia Blasgen thinks the two well-dressed men look familiar, but out of place in the neighborhood. She pulls the drapes open a little wider. Steals a quick glance when they walk toward the elm. She puts a finger beneath her nose to hold back a sneeze and almost suffocates swallowing it. It comes to her. The short one, she’d swear, is Frank Sinatra, and the tall one is the ballplayer, Joe DiMaggio, Marilyn Monroe’s husband.
    Maybe Sheila Stewart’s dedication has paid off.
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    Hold your breath, Ruditsky motions. Keep your voices down. And don’t rattle the change in your pockets. Nobody needs the upstairs neighbors taking notice.
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    It’s easy to picture Florence Kotz in her Murphy bed. With the closet door wide open and the frame pulled down, the mattress would take up the better part of the room. One can imagine a single end table pushed against the wall, holding an alarm clock with fluorescent hands, a small flexible reading light, and a glass half full of water. Covering her would be a brown cotton blanket that’s snugly tucked beneath a rose-hemmed chenille bedspread; it is November. Sleeping soundly, long acclimated to the footsteps above her, maybe Florence stirs a
little with the rattling outside the back door, shifting and rolling over to face the other way. Her Murphy bed has a solid frame; the mesh supports are still tight. It doesn’t sag or squeak. She’d hardly notice her own movements. Nor would she notice the usual night sounds: screens banging with the breeze, car doors slamming, or the alley cats rummaging through the garbage cans.
    But with the crash she’s instantly awake. There is no processing. No evaluation. She’s sitting upright in her bed, frozen in place as though chilled mercury streams through her veins. And she can hear feet stamping through her kitchen, crunching over the broken glass. There are voices. Hushed to a whisper, but not as though they’re trying to conceal themselves; it’s more that they’re startled by the magnitude of their own presence in such small quarters. She’s paralyzed. Darkness gives the only sense of