Part 1.
On the Lower East Side of Manhattan lives Dooly Barzino. A brief rundown on the important aspects of Dooly: he is 28, he is 5’5, he is 160 lbs, most of it situated around his gut, he is Italian, and, perhaps most importantly, he is quite firmly connected in the Barzino crime family, as he is, after all, the second youngest son to his father– Don Barzoni’s second wife.
Dooly lives in an apartment on the lower east side, which consists of a foyer (empty), bedroom (sparse), bathroom (bordering on defunct), and another bedroom which has been converted to a study. Despite the relative squalor in which he lives, Dooly is quite fond of his little abode. There’s a cat that eats all the rats in his apartment that he is pretty sure doesn’t have rabies, the train works as a nice alarm to rattle him out of bed in the morning, and the coffee shop a block down actually makes a pretty good espresso.
What he loves most however is his study, or rather he loves what is inside the study. Hundreds of books fill the room, stacked seemingly haphazardly all across the room. The books come in all shapes in sizes, new and old ranging across any genre Dooly could get his hands on. The only things not covered in the room are the two chairs in which to read, Dooly sits in the one on the right. This room is also the only room with a window, but Dooly could not bear to read his books in darkness, so he sleeps in a room with less personality than a jail cell, but on days when the sun shines through the clouds and into his study, he knows he made the right choice.
Technically, Dooly should not be able to afford even this relatively inhospitable, living station due to his job status, or rather lack of job status. In the books, Dooly has no job, in addition he technically does not have an apartment. In fact, the legal records on Dooly are frighteningly slim, he’s never gotten a license, never gotten arrested, besides the proof that Dooly was born, there isn’t much proof he exists at all. He did try to register to vote one time but his form was flagged as fraud and destroyed. One of the only proofs of existence he owns is his library card, which a family member got for him through some back market avenue.
It should be said that Dooly probably could have gotten an ID, it would not have been easy most likely, but it was by no means outside of the realm of possibility for him, Dooly simply accepted the life he was in.
In lieu of a job, Dooly instead helps the family out with his chores, or his “allotment,” everybody’s got to do something, and so does Dooly. His allotment is clean up, which boils down to cleaning up the scene after somebody gets whacked. It is not the most glorious of jobs, but he supposed it could be worse, better than doing the actual whacking after all.
So most days, Dooly spends his business hours cleaning up blood and phlegm from different nooks and crannies across the various nondescript and rundown warehouses across the city. Back in the day, his family used to just tie bricks to peoples shoes and throw them in the harbor, but with the new age of cell phones it was better to be a bit more discreet.
Discreet was the name of the game, or at least that’s what his family had always said to Dooly,
“It’s better to think that the mafia is over, and we keep in power than to have our day in the sun and live the rest of our lives in the dark of a prison.” So sure, Dooly had a bit of a crappy life, but it kept him safe. Right?
If you asked Dooly he’d probably say he was A-ok, “No problems here I love my life.” But there wasn’t a night that passed that Dooly didn’t glance out his window towards the downtown area. The only thing that kept him sane was reading.
When Dooly was reading he could ignore his anger over lack of promotion, nor the fact that there was a piece of brain that was stuck in his hair, nor even the fact that the extra chair he had bought along with his first, they had come in a set, had never had a person to use it.
Dooly’s life more or less followed this pathway for the first 28 years of his life. He slowly got over his general revulsion to remnants of murder, and his life of crime melted into a life of mundanity. For the most part it followed the exact same routine in different locations, a real “same shit different toilet” type of deal.
The only breaks to this schedule were the weekly “dinners.” A raucous affair, the Barzino dinners were the envy of anyone who was anyone in the crime scene. To be honest, they’re not really dinners so much as formal galas in which the Barzino’s got to flex their power to others in the organized crime world. Dooly got in through his familial connection, but for some reason he kept getting placed at the kids table.
On the third of January, slightly before his 29th birthday, Dooly attended what would become one of the more poignant dinners he would attend. It started pretty much the same as all the others; him trying to avoid the social climbers and never really managing. Every time it was always pretty much the same conversation: them saying he looked good or that he looked like he’d lost weight (both usually incorrect), and then somehow try and worm their way into a meeting with Dooly’s father.
It would be one thing if Dooly could actually get them a meeting, then the brown nosing would at least make sense, but the truth of it was that Dooly couldn’t get a meeting for himself if he tried. In fact, as far as Dooly was aware, Don Barzino thought his name was Dolomite. He thought this because a few months back Don had made a list ranking all of his children and his name was not on it, however there was a Dolomite scribbled in the margins with a question mark next to it. His (incorrect) name hadn’t even made it onto the list.
This particular dinner appeared to be heading in pretty much the same direction as every other dinner; pleasantries were made, Don made a toast in which everyone had to applaud, and a few guests who enjoyed themselves too much were taken out a door and never heard from again. Dooly made note of one of those guests, he’d eaten a lot of cheese with his wine, it would not be an easy clean up.
Those dark thoughts aside, Dooly more or less enjoyed himself; one of his favorite cousins, Franco Beneditze, had come which gave Dooly someone to talk to. Franco was a few years younger than Dooly, so he had been on the cleaning circuit just like Dooly.
“How’s your cleaning going?” Dooly asked, “Because I feel like mine has been getting so much worse lately.”
“Cleaning?” Franco responds confused, “I haven’t had to do a cleaning job in months.”
“So what are you doing now, then?” Dooly asked,
“Oh you know, mostly just drug running or other more tame things, they’re just preparing me for the bigger stuff, seeing if I can keep an even keel.”
“Wow man, that’s great, I’m really proud of you,” Dooly said. He was trying to keep a straight face, but on the inside he couldn’t help feeling more than a bit put off, he’d been power washing blood and shit out of concrete for years longer than Franco, yet his cousin got a promotion before him?
“I wouldn’t worry about it too much Dooly, you’ll get there one day I’m sure, they’ll see your talents sooner or later,” Franco reassures him, but Dooly barely hears him, too wrapped up in his inner turmoil.
“Hey,” Franco says, attempting to pull Dooly out of his reverie, “all the higher level guys are meeting tonight after the party, I got invited to it and I’ll throw your name out there, try and get some recognition for you going”
“You’d do that for me?” Dooly says astounded.
“Sure thing,” Franco responds with a reassuring smile, “I bet you’re just getting lost in the weeds, once I remind them I’m sure they’ll promote you right away.”
Dooly walked away from that party more enthusiastic than he’d felt in years. Sure it stung that his younger cousin had gotten promoted over him, especially since Franco absolutely sucked at his last job, but Dooly finally felt like he had a foot in the door. No, he had a Franco in the door.
On his way home he got a ring from one of his “bosses” telling him he had another cleanup the next day, one of those party guests he was sure. The first of many, Dooly thought morosely.
He had some free time however, so he decided to take a trip to the library nearby. There was a library by his apartment, but it wasn’t in great condition; it was mostly used by the local youths to smoke and do whatever else youths did these days. However, this library was in much better condition, in fact it was one of the main reasons he even bothered to go to the parties.
Dooly opened the door and breathed in a deep breath, enjoying the pleasant aroma of the thousands of books around him. He walked towards the fiction section hoping to find something he had not seen before. After about an hour of looking, a voice asks over his shoulder, “Find anything you like?”
With such a lengthy introduction to Dooly, I feel the need to at the very least give an image of the owner of the aforementioned voice. Especially because of her grand importance to Dooly. Therefore, she is summarized thusly:
Her name is Annette, she is 27 years old, and she works at the library.
Dooly turns around and rests his eyes on a 27ish looking woman wearing a nametag that read: “Annette, librarian.”
“I’ve never seen you before,” Dooly states.
“Do you say that to everyone you’ve never met before?” Annette responds.
Dooly’s cheeks turn red, “No, I just mean I come here often, and I’ve never seen you here before.”
“Why are you always here?” Annette asks, although she doesn’t really seem all that interested. In fact she had turned around to reorganize a few books.
“Well my family has all these parties, and I like to come here after,” Dooly says to the back of her head.
“Can’t be too fun of a party if it ends so early,” She says
Dooly feels a little defensive, “Well actually a bunch of people went and attended a secret meeting, so it had to end early.” If that had any impact on Annette, Dooly couldn’t tell, in fact, it almost felt like she hadn’t been listening at all.
“Well I just started yesterday, so that’s why probably you’ve never seen me” Annette responds turning back around to face him, “anyways you should read that one,” she points to a book behind Dooly’s shoulder, “that’s my favorite anyways.”
Dooly turns to inspect the book, it’s a purple, weathered book, which just so happened to be one of the very few he had not read before.
“Thanks,” Dooly says, “I’ll check it out.” But Annette, librarian, was already gone.
Part 2.
Dooly walked home in a daze. If you asked, he probably couldn’t tell you exactly why he was feeling this way, which was odd since he usually had a pretty good track on his emotions.
Luckily, I am the narrator, and I can tell you quite easily why Dooly was feeling this way. In fact I could tell you how this story ended too if I wanted. But I don’t really want to, I mean you could just skip to the end if you wanted to either, but I digress.
Dooly walked home in a daze because he was in love. Well probably not love at
this point, but at the very least on the right track. He didn’t exactly know what to do with it however, as up to this point the only things he had ever loved had been his stories, an actual person was much too vague of a concept for him to get right away.
Dooly was so wrapped up in his newfound feelings that he failed to recognize
that he had not been updated on a new job since he had left the party.
It wasn’t completely out of this world not to happen, but for only one guy to be whacked after a dinner party? C’mon. In fact, Dooly had received a call from absolutely nobody from his family. That, however, wasn’t that uncommon. Dooly wasn’t that popular if you didn’t recognize.
However, Dooly’s night went down just as all of his previous nights had, he read his new book, the one Annette the librarian had suggested, and it was quite good. Not the best book he’d ever read, but certainly worth the read.
It was about a family crime syndicate, a guilty pleasure for Dooly, he had read just about every mob book he could. It was about a lowly grunt who was raised to the head of the family. One can surmise why Dooly liked it so much.
The next morning started as usual. Dooly was shaken out of bed by the train’s rattling, and he checked out the first usual spot for cleanup. That’s where the ordinarity ended. Nobody had texted him, which he was growing more and more apprehensive about.
This isn’t usual Dooly thought, I am beginning to grow more and more apprehensive about this.
However, as he made his way from the second to the third, the last spot usually on the list, Dooly remembered something from the night before.
Franco must have said something at the meeting he thought with growing excitement, maybe I’m going to be promoted! And what better place to throw a surprise promotion party than at his last shift, no wonder nobody had texted him, they hadn’t wanted to spoil the surprise.
Dooly needed a change in scenery. Looking at dead bodies twenty-four-seven was not the best way to spend a day, and it really did a number on your nostrils. Plus, there had to be more to life than this Dooly thought.
In the back of his mind, Dooly couldn’t help but think about how a promotion may bring him into the other side of town more. By the library more often. A slight smile graced his face, that would not be too bad at all.
Dooly reached the last spot 40 minutes before he was technically supposed to, so he waited in the car. He didn’t want to get there before everyone was ready and spoil the surprise. In fact, Dooly waited an extra 10 minutes, just to be safe.
He glanced over himself in the rear view mirror. Usually by now he was a bit of a gruesome sight. Spending all day cleaning bodies will do that to you. But since there hadn’t been anything to clean up today, he was actually pretty clean. Sure his jumpsuit wasn’t exactly spotless, it had a few blood stains dotting it, but it had definitely seen worse days.
Dooly popped out of the car and made his way to the warehouse doors, pausing before pushing them in. He looked back at his van with its cleaning supplies and took a mental picture. Today is the start of your new life, he thought, pushing the door open and stepping inside.
Silence greeted him.
Wow, they must really be hiding, Dooly thought to himself. But with each step inside the building he became more and more sure that there was not a surprise promotion party in this abandoned warehouse. The kicker was the dead body in a tuxedo laying face down several steps in front of the doors.
Better get the bleach Dooly thought staring down at the body, he remembered this one from the party too. Mr. Bean-dip. He couldn’t really tell from the face, it wasn’t really there anymore, but he did recognize the smell, and it was not pleasant.
Dooly turned back to the car, shoulders slumped and feet scraping.
“Happy Birthday,” He sang to himself, all alone.
It was a morose car ride back to the apartment, Dooly’s favorite song, “Requiem in D minor” by Mozart, played and he had to turn it off; he couldn’t let his dark mood ruin something he loved. It was such a morose ride, that Dooly nearly forgot to stop by the library to return his new book.
He bought and put on a new shirt before he walked in the door. It was one of those tourist shirts that you’d buy at a bodega. Usually Dooly wouldn’t spend money on such an overpriced shirt, especially when his jumpsuit was relatively clean, but for some reason, the thought of walking into the library with a bloodstained shirt on was an even more frightening idea than walking into his promotion party.
As he walked through the doors, he immediately spotted Annette, and made a beeline for her, while at the same time trying to look like he was casually browsing. It was not very convincing.
“Hi Dooly” he heard over his shoulder as he pretended to look at a selection of books. He turned around and it was her.
“Hello, Annette” he said, attempting to make it seem like he had to read her name tag, “I see you remember my name.”
“Only because it is so cartoonish” she responded with a smirk. “Otherwise you are very forgettable.”
“Ah, I see,” Dooly thought he knew disappointment. Be it from never making it past five foot seven, his own mother dubbing him, “the other one,” or even that day’s promotion bait and snatch. All of those paled before the mountain of despair that now rested upon his shoulders. He could never recover.
That disappointment must have been pretty obvious, “I’m just messing with you” Annette said laughing, “C’mon let’s find you a new book.” She grabbed his sleeve and pulled him to a book section.
Dooly was back! From the throes of anguish he now soared high amongst the eagles, trying his best to hide the grin that was creeping across his face. Eventually he gave up, and simply enjoyed the moment he found himself in.
They went from shelf to shelf looking at different books and talking about them. From time to time Dooly would look at her face while she was looking elsewhere and wonder why in the world she was talking to him. She also seemed to love to laugh, especially at the things Dooly said. This confused Dooly since he had never thought of himself as a particularly funny person.
He wasn’t by the way.
So that is how Dooly and Annette spent their afternoon. A couple of times Annette had to be pulled away by another customer to help them. After which Dooly always convinced himself that she wouldn’t come back, and that it wouldn’t bother him, but she always did.
They talked about everything they could think of. Annette talked about her life and her past, which I am sure was super interesting. Dooly pretended not to hear her when she would ask about his life or job. It was an interesting dynamic, but it worked.
In the end, they settled on another mystery novel. Annette said it was fitting since Dooly seemed so mysterious himself.
As she checked his book out, Annette paused, “You never told me it was your birthday!” she said, “I’m so sorry I wouldn’t have wasted so much of your time, I’m sure you wanted to spend it with your family.”
“Ah yes,” Dooly responded. “Those guys, I love them so much.”
“Well happy birthday Dooly, I hope this book is good enough to make up for that” She replied awkwardly, handing it over.
“Thanks, that means a lot” He said, and he meant it. Dooly looked over his shoulder as he walked out the door, Annette was there, waving to him.
Dooly got in his car, and thought he was going to have a heart attack. The sheer reality of the afternoon had just hit him. He also let out some gas, he’d been holding it all the whole time, and he was starting to get light headed.
He opened the book in his lap and a piece of paper fell into his lap. Dooly looked at the paper. I genuinely think that Dooly almost had an actual heart attack here. He flipped it over, and there looking back at him was a set of numbers. Underneath them a message: “If you ever want to do something besides reading, give me a call!”
It was a phone number to me more exact. To be even more exact it was Annette’s phone number. Finally, Dooly had something to put into his contact list besides the clean up guy.
Dooly drove home in a daze, head positively in the clouds. It was probably not safe, he could have hit someone. Not that Dooly cared, the most beautiful girl in the whole world (in Dooly’s opinion) gave him her number, let them roll off his window, he was driving on air.
Dooly opened his door with a whistle a snap, gliding through the door with practiced ease, he didn’t even notice his door had been unlocked until he was halfway up the stairs, at which point he froze, holding his breath, listening.
He thought he heard faint breathing coming from inside his study. His books! He thought in a panic, I’m being robbed! Dooly charges up the stairs, looking for some sort of weapon to arm himself with on the way.
He sees nothing besides the book he’d picked out with Annette. It was a paperback, but it’d have to do. He curled it up into a roll and charged into the room screaming, “Hands off my books you fiends!”
Dooly doesn’t see anyone in the room. At least not at first, he spins around and sees a lump lying next to the door, obscured by the darkness.
“Dooly” a croaking voice says from the lump.
Wait a minute, that lump is Franco Dooly thinks, correctly I might add.
“Franco, are you alright?” Dooly says as he rushes over to his side.
Franco coughs twice before responding, blood pouring from his mouth with each rasp.
“No, Dooly I am not alright, those bastards winged me in the side.”
“What happened?” Dooly asks, “Why haven’t I heard from anyone, why are you so hurt?”
“It was that damn higher level meeting Dooly” Franco responded, “someone must have informed somebody that had a score to settle; everyone’s dead.”
“Oh” Dooly responds, a touch overwhelmed, “that’s not good.”
“That’s only the beginning, they also found that list your dad made, and whacked everyone on that too.”
“Oh” Dooly responds, a touch more overwhelmed, “that’s not good.”
“I don’t think you realize Dooly, all your brothers and sisters are dead” Franco says looking at Dooly.
“No,” Dooly says gently, “I understood that.”
“So you understand you are now the de facto head of the Barzino crime family?”
Dooly had not understood that.
“Oh; that is really not good.”
Before you say, “Well Dooly wanted this, so shouldn’t he be happy?” Ok yeah sure he wanted a promotion, but jumping to the head of the whole organization? I think even Dooly knew this was a bit much. Plus all of his brothers and sisters were dead, which I assume wasn’t the way Dooly wanted it to go. Probably.
“I know Dooly, but don’t worry too much, I’m here and I’ll take care of you” Franco states reassuringly, and as Dooly looked him in the eye, he could tell that he truly meant what he said.
“We’ll get through this together Dooly, trust me.” and with those words, Franco fell to the floor, dead.
I’d describe the next few hours of Dooly’s life, but to be honest, they were pretty embarrassing, and since he is the protagonist of this story, I think it’s probably for the best that his emotional breakdown is kept to himself.
Part 3.
The next day, Dooly anxiously walked into the mansion that now belonged to him. Well first he disposed of Franco, then he went to the mansion. Dooly was not entirely sure why he was there, sure Franco had said he was the new head, but surely those were simply the words of a dying man, somebody here would be able to tell him what he was actually supposed to do now. Hell, Dooly thought, maybe I’ll actually get that promotion after all, he didn’t keep his hopes up though.
He’d only ever been inside for the occasional dinner party, so he found it hard to navigate the mansion in the daylight. Luckily when he found himself stranded down a hallway that he found unrecognizable, a voice sounded from behind him.
“Hello sir, I do believe they are waiting for you in the main dining room” a posh British voice said from behind him, “I would be most indubitably pleased to direct you to that area.”
Dooly jumped at the sound, and then fought to regain his composure. Turning around, the shape that the voice came in was that of the most stereotypical British butler he had ever seen. Dooly’s dad had specifically gone out of his way to “get” the most proper sounding man he possibly could. In fact, the guy hadn’t even been a butler originally, they hired him off his voice alone. Don Barzino paid the butler a million dollars a year too. Just for having a cool accent.
So the pair of men walked together through the house. Dooly tried to make small talk, but he was a bit intimidated by just how posh the butler truly was. On the other hand, the butler was actually pretty lost himself, big house ya know, so his mind was a little preoccupied.
After going in circles for a while, ducking through a kitchen, and walking through the garage, the pair made it to a set of large oak doors. The butler tried to give Dooly a glance of reassurance, but Dooly just thought he was looking down on him, in a posh way.
The butler opened the door and ushered Dooly inside, before stating, “heir apparent to the Barzino Crime family, Dooly Barzino.” Dooly looked across at the comically large dining table, and sitting at the other side were two of the oldest men he had ever seen.
“Thank you Theodore,” the one on the right said, “you can go now.”
“My name is Dooly” said Dooly.
“Yes, we know, we are thanking the butler”
Theodore, the butler, gave a mind-bendingly posh bow, and walked out of the door. Now Dooly was all alone.
“Come over here Dooly, let’s get a better look at you, my cataracts are getting worse these days,” The one on the left said.
Dooly walked over and stood in front of the two, realization dawning in his head as he stood in front of what he now knew were the famous Fred, and Ed, the two most notorious hitmen in the Barzino family history.
They were also identical twins, that’s how they’d always gotten away with their hits. Nobody was ever sure which was which so you couldn’t convict either one. Nowadays, they mostly operate in an advisory setting, however they still usually liked to keep themselves separate, just in case. It also made seeing them together an extremely important symbol.
Must be pretty important though Dooly, I wonder what is going on.
“We assume you must be wondering what is going on,” the two brothers said in unison. Or at least they tried to say in unison, to be completely honest, they were getting pretty long in the teeth, and the cool little mystical twin things they used to be able to do got a little muddled. They were past the point of caring though, and Dooly was too polite to say anything, so they continued.
“To tell the truth, Dooly, your whole family is dead” they said, “I know that must be devastating, but it happened so we figured we should be blunt.”
“I knew that,” Dooly replied, “What are you going to do now though?”
The twins exchanged a glance before continuing, “you’re the head of the crime family now Dooly, that’s up to you.”
Dooly’s head spun as he reeled with this new revelation; he’d never been in charge of anything, and now he was supposed to be in charge of everything?
“I don’t think you have the right guy,” Dooly said in a panic, “my dad didn’t even know my name, I don’t think he wanted me to take over his entire crime empire.”
“No shit kid,” they responded, which I have to admit is pretty rude, “But you are the only one left, so it has gotta be you.”
The two old men slowly got out of their chairs and walked to the door, talking over their shoulders, “We scheduled a meeting with the remnants of the crime syndicate in an hour,” “If we were you, we’d figure this whole thing out before then.”
With that, they closed the door, leaving Dooly alone with his thoughts.
Dooly was, once again, overwhelmed. Can you blame him though? I feel like this is a pretty overwhelming moment. Dooly did the only thing he could think of, he pulled a piece of paper out of his pocket and called the number.
It answered after two rings.
“Hello?” Annette, the librarian asked.
“Hi Annette, this is Dooly, from the library,” “Or well I’m not from the library, I live somewhere else, I just met you there.”
Annette laughed, “Yes Dooly, I know, what’s up?”
The back of Dooly’s head started to sweat. Sure she’d technically asked him out on the paper but still, first times are scary.
“I just wanted to see if you maybe would want to go on a date with me on friday?”
“I can’t…” This was not the response Dooly had wanted. “But I can on Saturday, how’s that work?” That was the response Dooly wanted. He set the date in stone and leaned back into his chair, a slight smile on his lips.
“Bring the group in,” Dooly said, ready to face the world.
“They won’t be here for another hour sir,” Theodore the butler said from behind Dooly.
“Oh,” Dooly said, uncowed, “Well bring them in when they get here.”
Part 4.
This may come as a surprise, but Dooly was actually not that bad of a crime boss. Not amazing, I should say, but definitely not awful. A lot of people, namely everyone in his deceased family would be surprised by this, since the only real experience Dooly had in crime was cleaning up dead bodies, however, Dooly did have his books. Turns out some of those authors knew what they were doing, and Dooly used his treasure trove of books to his advantage.
His first goal was to figure out who had spilled the beans on the whole “topic secret meeting of all the top guys.” Dooly put his top guys, which didn’t mean much since all the top guys were dead, on the case; the brothers Fred and Ed, who promised him they wouldn’t sleep until they found and whacked “whoever that son of a bitch traitor was.” Dooly didn’t have as harsh of feelings towards the mole, firstly because he hadn’t liked the people that had been killed very much, and secondly because he wouldn’t have been in charge of the family without it. However, the remaining people seemed pretty bent out of shape so he let it continue.
In the first few weeks Dooly learned a few pretty important facts. The first thing he had learned was that the whole “keep everything a secret, live in the shadows,” thing was total bullshit, the family had bought every single person of notice in the city, and the only one who hadn’t known turned out to have been Dooly. Second was that it was surprisingly easy to keep your double life secret from the girl you had just started dating. For some reason Annette never seemed to ask what Dooly did during the day, and he kept his time with her mainly on the weekends. He did catch her glancing suspiciously at him when a few waiters seemed overly subservient to him, but she never seemed to question his life too deeply.
It was odd, sometimes Dooly would try to remember what his life was like only a few months ago, however it all seemed so foreign to him now. So much more straightforward than his new life at the top. In a way he almost missed cleaning up those corpses, it had certainly been simpler.
Dooly was pondering that exact thought when he got a call from Ed,
“Hey boss,” yes, everyone called him boss now, “we found the damn rat, whacked and put it in that old warehouse you used to clean from time to time,”
“Great, I know just the one” replied Dooly, finally feeling as if the rocky roads he’d been navigating were starting to even out, “why don’t you let me clean this one out, for old time sake.”
Ed hung the phone up without answering, it’s not like Dooly was that respected yet.
The drive over to the warehouse was actually quite nice, the sun was out, Dooly rolled the window down and “Requiem in D minor” by Mozart came on the radio, Dooly cranked the volume. It was such a nice drive, that Dooly almost forgot to call Annette to tell her he’d be a little late to pick her up, having to clean up a dead body and all. She didn’t answer, so he left a message.
He opened the warehouse with a smile on his face, actually excited to clean a corpse for once.
He looked down at the body on the floor.
Annette, librarian’s, unblinking eyes stared back.
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