“If she keeps saying that, I’m adding a thousand to the price of the Luger,” Johns threatened.
“Sounds fair. I’ll pay it. What other phrases of death might I teach it in exchange for cash?”
“Please, no more.”
“Angelica, can you say, ‘bullet to the brain?’”
Johns covered her ears and maneuvered her into the crew cab and into her car seat.
“Stone cold!” she shouted.
“Good girl!” Shaw laughed.
A moment later, Johns shut the door and showed him the Luger. Shaw took it reverently and looked it over thoroughly, shining his cell phone flashlight on it. Amused, Johns watched him, leaning against his door, as inside Angelica shouted, “Stone cold, stone cold!”
“It’s a beauty,” Shaw said at last. It appeared to be in good working order.
“I’m glad you like it.”
“You promise it shoots straight? You used it at the range the other day?”
“It does. I did,” Johns said, holding up his hands and laughing.
“You know I’d buy it if it was broken, right?”
“I know, but only the best for the guy who had my six all that time.”
“Here.” He pulled out his wallet and counted out $11,000 in hundreds.
“I only quoted you 10, buddy.”
“Yeah, but it’s still shouting its new phrase,” he said, hooking a thumb at Angelica inside the truck.
Johns shook his head, stifling a laugh, and kept the extra grand. “Is business good these days?”
“It’s good, lucrative, but not as challenging. I’m almost never in any danger. I’ve offed a lot of soft targets, people who couldn’t fight back, though a couple have been well protected by barriers. It’s too easy, really. I need something harder before I get soft myself.”
“You ever gonna retire?”
“I will someday. I’ll buy an island in the Carolinas and a harem to go with it. I have millions stowed away at this point and several investments that are doing well. I’m not even sure how much I have anymore. You?”
“The company is doing good, man. It’s doing good.”
“But not as well as you’d like?”
“No, but it will. We lost an important client a while back that I haven’t replaced yet. Councilman Strauss died of a heart attack, they said, but I suspect he was poisoned. I didn’t press the point, though, because it would be on us if he had been.”
“He was old, wasn’t he?”
“Not that old, but yeah.”
“Not to worry. You’re good at it. You know the business. You’ll get more clients.”
“In this world? Yep, we will.”
“You still do hits on the side?”
“Here and there. When the company is extra busy, I help out. It’s good money, and, like you said, it’s easy money. I have to be careful, though. Angela doesn’t know, and I don’t want her to.”
“She can’t handle it?”
“She wouldn’t understand, buddy.”
Shaw shrugged. “That’s why I don’t do entanglements. With the kind of money we make, we can afford to pay for sex, you know, and keep it simple.”
For the first time, Johns’ openly friendly and even admiring gaze broke into something Shaw couldn’t identify. “I was in love, ya know? I love her. I want her to have the best, and I want to make her proud. She wouldn’t understand, so I left the business and set up in security for her.”
“Wimp.” Shaw laughed. “I never thought you’d get worked up over a woman. They’ve all got the same parts, you know. I thought you’d find one who fit your life, not one you’d have to change for.”
It was Johns’ turn to shrug. “I was in love with her. Now I’m in love with the children. The babies steal your heart, too, in another way. I can’t explain it. I’d do anything for them, even things I wouldn’t do for Angela.”
Shaw raised an eyebrow, but Johns couldn’t see it. They were quiet a moment as Shaw raised the Luger and admired it under his cell phone flashlight again.
“It’s a real beauty, isn’t it?” Johns observed.
“I’ve never seen one this well preserved.”
“Someone took good care of it. Oh, hey, I almost forgot, I have bullets and a spare magazine.” He opened the door of the truck and scooped out the items he’d named, along with an envelope.
“Go home, Daddy?” Angelica asked sleepily. She’d fallen silent as they talked.
“In just a minute, baby.” He shut the door again.
“How much for these?” Shaw asked.
“Included,” he said.
“Nope, I’ll add another grand.”
Over Johns’ protests, Shaw peeled off another ten bills and stuffed them in Johns’ shirt pocket.
“Okay, she’ll probably be shouting ‘bullet to the brain’ later, anyway,” Johns said, giving in.
Shaw grinned and left, waving over his shoulder.
“Take care, buddy!” Johns shouted, getting into his truck.
Back at his own car, Shaw sat in the parking lot a few minutes, looking over the ammo, the spare magazine, and the pistol. He opened the envelope and found a note and tickets for the opera inside. “A neighbor gave us these, but we don’t like opera. I thought you might. You sometimes enjoy the highbrow stuff. Take a woman to the opera and enjoy, my friend.”
He raised an eyebrow and looked the tickets over. They were for something in Italian. He shrugged. Why not? He looked the Luger over again and then, satisfied, he turned the key and exited the parking lot, heading for home, his mind drifting back to Charn and the pooka.
Chapter 6
The Concerned Neighbor
“Gordon!”
The voice calling to him across the garage was that of Father Darren. Shaw was standing by his car, door still open, the Luger, spare magazine, and box of ammo going into his pockets.
“Mike,” he greeted him, turning. He looked around, at first not seeing the priest. There was a failing light, and its flickering confused the scene. But there was Mike, striding up the ramp.
“May we please talk, Gordon?”
“If you like, neighbor. What about?”
“Your profession, of course. You must stop at once and atone for your sins.”
Shaw blinked and gazed, bemused, at the priest. He really meant what he said, and from his voice, he was saying it not entirely out of outrage, but from genuine concern for his neighbor.
Good old Mike. He’ll always be there to use if I need him. “I don’t believe in sin, Mike, just in facts.” He shut his car door and waited. Father Darren crossed the last space between them purposefully and stopped just in front of him. He was an average-sized man, like Shaw, but older and far less physically fit. When he crossed his arms and frowned dourly, Shaw allowed an amused smile to spread across his face. The priest simply didn’t strike him as imposing.
“How have you lied to me for this past year, Gordon, and how can you live with the souls of the slain on your conscience?”
Soft pedal it, or just go full throttle? he asked himself before settling somewhere in the middle. “Is it that hard to understand? I lied by speaking the words I thought would bother you the least. You had no need to know about my actual profession, and now that you know, you’re bothered by it. I was giving you peace of mind. If you hadn’t been stepping out your door right when Mrs. Sanders tracked me down, you’d still have that peace of mind. Unfortunate, isn’t it? Why not just go back to that? It’s not your business. I’m not a member of your parish. You don’t know my clients or my targets. What’s it to you?”
“You’re my neighbor, and your soul is at stake, Gordon. How can it not be my business? We’re friends. We’ve been friends for months, nearly a year. I know you. You can’t honestly be happy doing what you do. It’s okay to leave it behind.”
“It makes me pretty happy, actually. The job satisfaction is great. Look, you aren’t my keeper, neighbor. Let it go. You’ll be happier that way.”
“You
murder people for a living. I can’t.”
“I know what I do, Mike. It’s legal. There’s not a thing you can do.” He shrugged and grinned.
“I can talk to you, pray for you, obstruct you.”
Shaw shook his head. “You don’t want to get in my way, Mike.”
“Yes, I do.”
“Look at it this way. Death is as natural as life. We’re all born, and we all die. It’s inevitable, right?”
“We’re destined for eternal life. Think about your immortal soul and its longing for God. Do you want to be forever separated from all that is good? My friend, why do you do what you do?”
Shaw couldn’t help himself; he laughed, and it came out loud and lasted a minute or more. Father Darren stood waiting, disgust gradually replacing consternation on his face.
“Are you done?” he asked at last. He’d stiffened, waiting for the derisive mirth to end.
Still convulsing a little, Shaw said, “I’m good at it, the pay is great, and there’re a lot of people who need killing. Everyone dies anyway; why not be businesslike about it?”
“You’re a monster, Gordon. Our lives don’t belong to us. They belong to God. We don’t get to pick and choose how or when we die. That’s for Him. Our job is to follow his commandments and love one another.”
“He should take better care of his property, then. I decide when people die quite often.” Shaw was at last recovered from his fit.
“You’re a monster,” Mike said softly, sadly, understanding coming into his eyes.
“Just think of me as the Angel of Death,” Shaw said casually.
“The Angel of Death works for God, not for cash, my friend.”
“Maybe he does freelance work on the side, since religion doesn’t pay very well.” Shaw chuckled, another laughing fit threatening to issue forth. He suppressed it this time.
The priest made another effort, reaching a hand out to Shaw, which was refused. “Please don’t laugh, Gordon, not when your soul is at stake. My friend, you must repent, or face the fires of Hell.”
He was so serious that Shaw said nothing for a long moment. He just looked at him with a slight, twisted smile, vaguely amused yet serious. Finally, he said, “Neighbor, Hell couldn’t be any worse than life on Earth, even if I believed in it.”
“The visions of certain saints say differently.”
“Saints? The visions of saints don’t bother me any more than the ravings of vagrants or addicts on ecstasy or Flakka. The saints would be in that category today and be committed to institutions.”
“Do you really think the people you murder are just gone? Their souls just—”
Shaw interrupted him, “When the brain goes, so does the person, Mike. Souls? So what. Have you ever touched one? I’ve killed more people than I can remember, and I never once saw a soul leave a body up, down, or sideways.”
“You believe in magic but not souls?”
“I believe in kaval because I’ve seen it work—a time or two, anyway—but I don’t trust it because it’s unreliable. I’ve never seen a soul do squat.”
“Satan believes in you even if you don’t believe in him, and he has his hooks deep in you, my friend. Have you no pity for your victims?”
“Mike, the people I kill generally have it coming. Even if they don’t, if I don’t end them, someone else will. I’d rather get paid than for someone else to get paid in my place. If they don’t deserve it, at least they don’t suffer much. In the final analysis, they’d do it to me under the right circumstances. We’re all assholes when push comes to shove, even you, and you’re the nicest guy I know.” It was true. That was why he’d been so neighborly to him.
“Nice?”
“Yeah, you’re a nice guy, which means you’re a sucker, but I got nothing against you.”
“I see. Under the right circumstances, a sucker like me would do you in?”
“Yeah, put us on a desert island with only enough water and food to keep one of us alive until help comes, you’d bash my skull in while I slept, when you got hungry and desperate enough. Anybody would. We’re all killers, in the end, when the animal comes out. I just admit that on the front end and live my life without illusions. I’m good at killing people, but I don’t do it indiscriminately. I do it civilized and legally under carefully proscribed circumstances. That’s all.
“You? You live under an illusion. You’d be happier taking off the blinders and seeing the world the way it really is. I bet a guy in your position could live a whole lot easier if he skimmed the cream off the poor box and the parish fund. Look at you, listening to everyone’s problems, spending time on your knees, and for what?”
“For God, Gordon, for God.”
Shaw laughed. “What did God ever do for you?”
“He died for me, Gordon.”
“Does that pay the bills for you? Does it make you happy?”
“Right now, I’m not happy because I’m worried about you, but my salvation makes me incredibly happy when I think about it. God is the answer to all my desires.” A curious smile lit Father Darren’s eyes.
Shaw saw it but could make nothing of it. Too flooded with derisive amusement to consider it, he barked out another laugh. “The answer to all your desires? Does he give good head? Does he send you girls that give good head? Does he let you take vacations in Aruba?”
Darren only frowned.
“Tell you what, neighbor. I’m going to Aruba in a month or two. Schedule your time off to coincide. We’ll go together, and you can compare what my money and I do for you to what God does for you, okay? We’ll sip cocktails on the beach and play backgammon. I’ll introduce you to some girls. Leave the collar behind. No one will ever know.”
“I’ll know. You’ll know. My guardian angel and my God will know.”
“What a pair of Peeping Toms, right? I hope they get a thrill, at least.”
“The omniscience of God, who is our Creator and has the right to all knowledge about us, is a vastly different thing from a Peeping Tom. You and I, who did not create ourselves, let alone others, have no right to complete information about our neighbors.”
“Then leave me the hell alone, Mike. My business isn’t yours. You’re not my keeper. You just said so.”
“You’re borrowing Cain’s line. Now that I do know your business, my obligation to love you requires me to try to help you escape it.”
“I don’t want to escape it and don’t need your help.” He was getting annoyed. The amusing aspects were gone.
“You need God’s help.”
“You’re not God.”
“I’m His servant.”
“Go serve someone else. Good night.” He locked his car door with his key fob, went around Father Darren, and walked to the building. Shaw looked back and saw Father Darren as he knelt down and prayed beside Shaw’s Cadillac.
Inside his apartment, Shaw sat on the couch, feet on the coffee table, Father Darren forgotten, and studied the information he had on Charn and the pooka. Charn wasn’t really an issue. He had no idea death was coming and wouldn’t be taking precautions. LEI had no record of him even owning a gun. The pooka was an issue, though. It could take any shape it wanted and had other powers, poorly understood. Could it move objects without touching them? Could it summon fire? Unknown. It could use illusions and become invisible, or selectively visible. The goggles from LEI would help with that. The manual was overly long and complicated. The goggles were easy to use, though.
No illusions or fairies here. I’ll need to test them.
Chapter 7
The Ring
“Do you think she’ll like it?” Roger asked Kilkenny. The engagement ring was gold and had three diamonds in it.
“It’s beautiful by every standard I know,” the pooka said.
“Women are hard to judge, young man,” the elderly man behind the jewelry counter said, absently brushing short, wispy gray hair off his forehead. “If you could bring her in to pick it herself, you’d do better on that score, but
if you want to surprise her, you’ll have to ferret out her preferences—cleverly and discretely, of course.”
“He’s probably right about that,” Kilkenny said, sniffing at a potted plant in the corner by the front window. “I’m going to eat this.”
“I wouldn’t do that,” Roger said, trying not to give away that he was talking to an invisible horse.
“It looks tasty, though.”
The elderly man politely asked, perplexed by Roger’s tone and emphasis, “Wouldn’t do what, sir?”
“I want to surprise her, and I’m afraid I wouldn’t be clever or discrete enough.”
“Perhaps you could enlist a mutual friend?”
“I suppose,” he said doubtfully.
“I can tell you what’s most popular now and what’s most classic. And if you recall what her other jewelry is like, I could tell you what will match it well.”
“Okay. Her other jewelry is…well, I have no idea.”
Kilkenny, mouth full of leaves, said, “She wears silver more than gold, a lot of pewter and stainless steel. She likes blue and green stones, but I don’t think she’ll like a blue or green stone for an engagement ring.”
“Why rush it?” the elderly man suggested. “Gather some information as carefully as you can and come back. What I can do now is give you some idea of what the price ranges are.”
“I just remembered. Sorry, the whole process is a little daunting. She likes silver more than gold, and wears a lot of pewter and um, stainless steel things.”
“I see, well, do you suppose she would want a solitaire, or multiple stones?”
“A what or a what?”
The elderly gentleman, a patient smile on his face, showed Roger what he was talking about, various rings that would go well with the metals mentioned. The prices were immense for such little objects. A lovely, delicate diamond solitaire set in a white gold ring was almost $4,000.
“It’s a racket. I swear,” he told Kilkenny as they got into the car. Through the store window, the elderly man lifted the ruined potted plant, examining it.
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