The Illusion Of Control

by Josh Pachter

About the Author: Josh Pachter is a regular contributor to Mystery Weekly Magazine, Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, and many other crime-fiction publications. He also translates fiction from Dutch and other languages and is the editor of a dozen anthologies, most recently ONLY THE GOOD DIE YOUNG: CRIME FICTION INSPIRED BY THE SONGS OF BILLY JOEL (Untreed Reads) and THE GREAT FILLING STATION HOLDUP: CRIME FICTION INSPIRED BY THE SONGS OF JIMMY BUFFETT (Down and Out Books).

Excerpt

We step into the elevator, me and Mr. Rosetti, and he pushes the “Close Door” button like he does five days a week after leaving his office on the seventeenth floor of 44 Wall in the Financial District. Mondays through Thursdays, we head out on the dot of 5 PM, businessman’s hours, but on Fridays we pick up the weekly payoffs from the dry cleaners and pizza joints and one-man shoe-repair shops and mom-and-pop groceries under our protection, and Mr. Rosetti likes to be home in Brooklyn in time to catch the six o’clock news, so on Fridays we head out at 3:30.

Today is Friday.

Usually, I keep my mouth shut when the boss hits that stupid button. This time, though, I’m pissed because of what he said about Pauline, my ex—who, yeah, she is a tramp, it’s okay for me to say it but not nobody else, not even him. Even though we broke up, me and Pauline—which is to say she took up with another guy and kicked me out of the apartment we shared for the last four years—he’s still got no right to go dissing her, I don’t care who he is or how much muscle he’s got behind him.

Comes to that, I am the muscle behind him, so this time I speak my mind for once. “You know that button don’t do nothing,” I say. “It’s what you call a placebo.”

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