Short Stories
By Scott Niven
Two Days Later
“I know you killed someone, sir,” the boy said in my direction. A smile danced across his face.
I glanced around the waiting room to see who else had heard the kid’s accusation. His mother stood by the front desk, yapping with the secretary. The others in the room, two fifty-plus men and a young college-aged woman, were too busy sniffling, wheezing, and coughing to pay us any attention.
“Killed someone?” I duplicated the boy’s smile. “What makes you say that?”
“I can smell it,” the boy said. “Ten-year-olds have a keen sense of smell.”
“Is that so?” I laughed in what I hoped was a show of comradery: two guys – one ten, the other thirty-three – sitting beside one another having a chummy talk about the smell of death.
The boy didn’t buy it. “You’re evil. Someone needs to deal with you.”
“Uh-huh.” I surveyed the room again.
“And they need to deal with you soon. Before you kill more innocents.”
“Look, kid. I got a fever of 101. Don’t you watch cop shows? Killers never get sick. You got the wrong guy.”
The boy’s head swung left and right. “Nope. You’re the killer. I smell it. Wait’ll I tell mom.”
I peeked at “mom” and wished she had taken her kid to some other lousy doctor. Nonchalantly, my left hand fondled the .32 caliber pistol through the lining of my jacket.
“Now, kid, your mom’s not gonna believe you. She’ll be upset, and warn you about talking to strangers. And that’s what I am. Not a killer. A stranger.”
“A stranger who kills,” the boy said. “My mom trusts me. She’ll believe, and then she’ll call the police.”
I shuffled my back against the chair so the sweat gathering beneath my armpit could run freely. The kid knew. Forget why. Forget how. Some way, the kid just knew.
My right foot tapped against the floor as I unbuttoned my jacket. “Why don’t you pretend you never saw me, kid? Better for both of us that way. You don’t like me, and I’m starting not to like you.”
The boy smiled. “Killer. Killer, killer, killer.”
The coldness of the gun shocked my probing hand. I dipped my entire wrist in the jacket pocket. “Warning you, kid. Stop your mouth. Now.”
“You like jail, sir?” he asked. “Do you? You’ll be there soon.”
A pair of women strolled through the front entrance. The kid’s eyes flickered to them. I used the distraction to wedge my hand deeper inside my pocket.
“I’m going to tell those two women all about you,” the boy said. “Going to tell them everything.”
“Please, kid. Shut up.” My voice cracked on the word “up.”
The two women glanced at the secretary, saw she was busy with the brat’s mom, then sat in chairs across from us. I watched them flash the boy “oh, we’re mothers, too” smiles of approval.
“I have something to tell you both,” the boy said to their smiles.
The women exchanged a curious look, then focused their eyes on the boy. I clutched the gun beneath the lining of my jacket.
“What is it, young man?”
“Yes, what would you like to tell us?”
My finger caressed the trigger. I waited.
The boy grinned. “I know you both killed someone,” he said to the women. “I can smell it.”
Fortunately, the dark pants I wore hid my embarrassing surge of relief.
The pants didn’t, however, hide the smell.
End
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