Cold Smoked

by K. K. Beck

  He put his hands on his hips and looked over at the two of them. “Why don’t you sit down in those chairs over there,” he said. “This might take a while.”

  Jane and Don moved obediently across the room to two vinyl-covered chairs arranged in front of the drawn curtains. As she sat down, Jane realized how much she’d been shaking. Bob perched coolly on the bed, sharing it with Gunther’s corpse. “So where’d you get the gun?” he said to Don.

  Don wet his lip with the tip of his tongue. “A guy in a bar,” he said. “He sold it to me for fifty bucks.”

  “No guns,” Bob said plaintively. “I told you, no guns. It’s a parole violation, you could go back to the slammer.” He stared down at the revolver. “It’s not the same one, is it?”

  “No. I ditched that like you told me.”

  Bob looked over at Jane. “Okay, how’s this sound? You checked in with this guy. You had some kind of a lovers’ quarrel. You shot him, then turned the gun on yourself.”

  “It won’t work,” she said quickly.

  “Okay, honey,” he said to her. “Tell me why it won’t work.”

  “Timing. I was seen alive and well by a handful of Japanese fish buyers around the time he died. I was happy. I sang.”

  She turned to Don. “The police will see right through it. Right now, Don, you can claim self-defense. If you kill me, too, there’s no way you can do that. It’s too risky. You’d go back to jail. Or even face the death penalty.”

  Bob rubbed the skin between his eyes wearily. “Okay, maybe this is better. You and Gunther here had some kind of sicko thing going. He knocks you around a lot. You have dinner with me, cry on my shoulder. He finds out. Knocks you around some more.” He looked very pleased with himself and ran a thumb along his knuckles. “You’ll have a nice mess of bruises on your face to go with the story. You shoot him. You panic and call me. I show up here, and being the good citizen I am, I take the gun away from you. Then I pick up the phone and call the cops.”

  “That would be good,” said Don. “But the phone doesn’t work. The guy made like to use it and I kinda pulled it out.”

  Bob sighed loudly. “Okay, she called me on the pay phone and I call the cops on the pay phone.” Then he smiled at Jane. “Hey, that’s even better. If there’s a record of Don calling me, I’ll say it was you.”

  “Where did I get the gun?” said Jane.

  Bob shrugged. “You bought it from a guy in a bar. Same as Don. For fifty bucks. Gunther was getting jealous. Beating you up. You were scared.”

  “The gun could be traced somehow,” said Jane. She looked over at Don. He gave her a pleading look, but he kept the gun pointed at her. She gave him an “I won’t snitch” smile. He smiled back.

  Bob watched the little exchange. “What the hell’s going on?” he said.

  “We need to know what really happened, Don, if we can come up with a story that will work,” Jane said. “You’re the one who’ll suffer if we don’t.”

  “Shut up!” said Bob.

  But Don leaned forward eagerly toward Jane. “I was following him, like Bob said to.” So that was how Bob had learned she had arrived in town with Gunther.

  Don turned to his brother. “I knew he’d spotted me, so I went across the street to phone you, and when I came back, he was standing in front of the car in his stocking feet, writing down the license number. I followed him back into the room and told him to lay off.”

  “Yeah?” Jane said softly.

  “Go ahead. Get him to talk,” Bob said in a fierce whisper to Jane. “Then we’ll have to kill you for sure.”

  “I already explained why that won’t work,” she said. “Don might have to go back to jail.”

  Don wanted to go on with his story. “I just gave him a little push, and he whipped me around in some weird hold. I took the gun out. I just wanted to scare him. Somehow the thing went off, same as before. I guess the action’s kind of light.”

  “Just give me the gun,” said Bob. “We’ll say she killed him.”

  Jane turned to Don. “If you give him the gun, he’ll give it to the police. They’ll find out about that other time. They’ll find out, because that gun belonged to the dead girl’s sister. It’s legally registered. They can trace it. You might end up on death row.”

  Don licked his lips. “Maybe you’re right,” he said.

  Bob jumped in. “Shit! It’s the same one. I’ll get rid of it for you, Don, like you should have when I told you to.”

  “Don’t give it to him,” said Jane. “He can make you go to jail again. You went to jail before, for dealing. He didn’t save you then, did he?”

  Don hung his head a little. The gun wasn’t pointed at anyone in particular just then. “I was doing the deals for him. I got caught. It wasn’t his fault. He paid for the attorney.”

  “You were doing the deals so he had enough money to stuff coke up his nose, weren’t you?” said Jane.

  “Give me the gun, Don,” Bob said. “Don’t be stupid.”

  “He’s not stupid,” said Jane. “But you think he is.” She turned back to Don, whose large foolish eyes were now glazed over with tears.

  “I’m in big trouble,” he said in a childish voice.

  “Don’t give him the gun, Don,” she repeated.

  Bob jumped up and slapped her hard across the face. “Shut up!” he said. Her face stung, but she knew she had Bob scared.

  “Hey, Bob, don’t,” said Don. “She’s trying to help me.”

  “I help you!” said Bob, sounding enraged. “I’m the one who always takes care of you, got that?”

  “Then why did you tell me he’d killed that girl in Seattle?” said Jane.

  “Yeah,” Don said. “How come you told her that? You said no one but us should ever know.”

  “For Christ’s sake, she’s lying. Don’t be stupid,” said Bob.

  “He called you stupid again, Don,” said Jane. She clicked her tongue. “How did you get into that room at the Meade Hotel? Was that Bob’s idea, too? Like following Gunther?”

  “He wanted me to scare that Carla bitch,” said Don. “He gave me the key to her room he got from Norm. I went in there, gave her a push. Then I realized it was the wrong one. They looked sort of the same. Hair, eyes. I never noticed much what she looked like. Plain little broad with light hair. He told me she’d be there, so scare her so she wouldn’t write shit about us. I gave her one little push and out comes this gun. I grab it and she tries to grab it back.”

  “An accident,” Jane said soothingly. “Happens all the time. You could get out of that easy, I bet.”

  “That’s not what Bob said,” Don said dubiously.

  “Just give me the goddamn gun,” said Bob. “Jesus Christ. Just do what I fucking say.”

  “Keep the gun,” said Jane. “If he has it, he can send you away again.”

  “Don,” said Bob, “I just wanted to help you. Protect you. Keep you out of jail. You know I’ve always taken care of you.”

  Jane kept talking to Don. “If Bob had gone and pushed Carla around himself, you wouldn’t be in trouble, would you?” she said. “He’s been making you do all the dangerous stuff, the stuff that can get you in trouble. Like selling coke.”

  Don nodded, his lips clenched and his eyes full of tears.

  “I know the truth can hurt,” she said gently. “I bet he’s been doing that since you were kids. He pretends to care about you, but he doesn’t. He’ll send you back to jail again. Or the noose. In this state, they hang you, Don.”

  “Give me the gun,” said Bob. “Right now.”

  “If you give it to him, Don, we’re both dead,” said Jane.

  “Don’t listen to her!” cried Bob. “You can make her shut up. Just shoot her. We’ll ditch the gun afterward. No one will ever know.”

  “Don,” Jane said, “he wants you to kill me so he can get rid of you. He wants your prints on the gun, powder burns on your hands. He’ll call the cops and hand you over. He’s wanted you out of the loop for
a long time. He thinks you’re unstable. He thinks you’re stupid. He probably won’t even visit you in prison. He’ll just be laughing about how he managed to get you sent away.”

  “Stop it!” Bob screamed. “Shut the fuck up!”

  “Bob wouldn’t do that,” said Don. “He says I’m a big help. He’s always said that.”

  Jane shook her head sadly. “That’s not what he tells other people. When we were having dinner tonight, he told me you were stupid, but that you were loyal and always did what he said. He said when you were a kid you always had problems in school because you were stupid, but that you were stupid enough to do whatever he wanted.”

  “No,” said Bob. “No, she’s lying. Give me the gun, Don, please. We’ll take care of this bitch. I’ll make sure you make out okay on this deal.”

  Jane didn’t take her eyes off Don’s face. “I don’t think so,” she said. “He told me you always did what he says. He thinks you’re going to do it again. But you have the gun, Don. The gun he didn’t want you to have. You kept it so he can’t make you do anything, ever again. Not as long as you have that gun.”

  “Give it to me right now,” Bob said in the firm voice of a parent delivering an ultimatum. He seized his brother’s hand and tried to wrestle the revolver away from him.

  “It’s mine!” Don said with a sob.

  There was a dull, slapping sound, like a heavy book falling onto the floor. She didn’t realize it was a shot until she saw Bob reel away, clutching his chest. He collapsed, falling backward on the bed on top of Gunther’s body.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  Don turned and looked at her. Tears were streaming down his face. “Oh, my God,” he said. He still held the gun. He went over to Bob’s body, bent down and kissed his brother’s forehead. “Bob, I didn’t mean it. I’m sorry. Jesus, no,” he sobbed.

  “Maybe he’ll be okay,” said Jane. She didn’t think so. A trickle of bright blood and spittle oozed out of the corner of Bob’s mouth. “We can call the medics. Let’s go find a phone.”

  “I don’t know what to do,” Don whimpered. “What shall I do?”

  “We’ll get him some help,” said Jane, trying to sound confident. She got up from her chair.

  “It’s not my fault,” he said. He backed away from Bob’s body and turned to face her.

  “No, it’s not,” she said. “You didn’t really want to hurt him.”

  “You made me do it,” he said, sounding surprised. “You told me to.” He looked down at the gun, then over at his brother’s corpse. The room was completely still.

  “If Bob could talk, he’d ask me to shoot you,” he said.

  “No, he’d want you to get help,” she began.

  “Shut up!” he said, bringing the gun up to her chest. “I listened to you before, and Bob is dead!”

  Jane said, “Please, Don, no,” in a terrified whisper.

  He didn’t move, and there was indecision on his face. “If I kill you and go away, no one will be able to prove anything. I’ll get rid of the gun. I have to kill you. Bob would tell me to. Right?”

  He seemed to want her to help him come up with a plan that was in his best interest, even if it meant her dying. She couldn’t come up with an argument that would stop him from killing her, even to save her life. It would have been better to have let them hand her over to the police, as Bob had planned.

  “Besides, it was your fault,” Don said.

  He steadied the gun and took aim. She closed her eyes, but the shot did not come. She opened them again, and only then did she hear the rhythmic beeping that penetrated the silence.

  “What the fuck’s that?” Don demanded.

  She looked over at the table across the room and saw Gunther’s laptop computer, lid open, a row of green lights glowing. Maybe Gunther didn’t have an adapter for American sockets and relied on the built-in battery, which was now about to fade out.

  “Gunther’s tape recorder,” said Jane. “It’s voice activated. He always taped everything. That beeping means the tape needs to be turned over.”

  Don looked horrified. “You mean everything here is on tape? We gotta stop it.”

  “I’ll show you how it works,” said Jane.

  He didn’t seem to find anything odd about her apparently helping him to destroy evidence of her own murder. She went over and flipped down the computer’s cover, forming a compact mass.

  He came up behind her. “It looks like a computer,” he said, sounding confused.

  She held it up and turned it around. “There’s a tricky little catch back here,” she said. “Maybe you can figure it out.”

  Don put the gun on the table. “Okay,” he said politely, reaching out to take the laptop.

  She whirled around and pushed the hard corner of the computer into the middle of his face. He let out a howl and fell to his knees. His hands covered his face, and blood welled between his clenched fingers. “You broke my nose,” he said in a muffled voice. “It hurts so bad.”

  She grabbed the gun and pointed it at him. She wanted to pull the trigger and end it once and for all, but instead she backed toward the door.

  “My nose hurts,” he said, yowling in protest. “That was so mean.”

  Jane unbolted the door and threw it open. There was no one outside. A light rain fell softly. She ran out the door, into the parking lot toward the red neon smudge of letters reading “Office.”

  She made it to the smoky little room, where a startled older woman sat nodding in front of The Montel Williams Show. Jane blurted out her story, and the woman called the police and bolted the office door until they arrived. The police listened to her, took the gun and evacuated the motel. Jane and the clerk and a traveling salesman clutching a big sample case, and a couple who wore robes and nothing else and begged to be allowed to get their clothes and go home to their respective spouses, were herded away behind a yellow plastic tape.

  Police cars parked at crazy angles surrounded the area, and their radios crackled. A series of officers asked Jane over and over again how many people were in the room and if Don was armed. An attempt was made to call the room, even though Jane told them the phone had been yanked out of the wall. An officer put a bullhorn to his lips but was restrained by another, who said a negotiating team was on its way; finally, the door to the room opened slowly and Don, his face covered in blood, walked out into the rain and blinked at the wall of lights in front of him, holding up his hands.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  About a week later, after all the activity had died down somewhat and Jane was beginning to feel more normal, Carla called. She was anxious for Jane to turn in her salmon story to Norm Carver. Jane said she would, although everything seemed unimportant and pointless just now. She drove over to the office at Fishermen’s Terminal and handed over the copy and the disk, and Norm handed her a sheaf of faxes. If they hadn’t had “Blue Salmon” in the headline, she wouldn’t have paid any attention.

  The first one was from Amanda Braithwaite’s company. It said there was no need to panic, blue salmon was just a genetic anomaly and wasn’t being prepared for sale.

  The second fax came directly from the International Salmon Exporters Association. It was a press release that said that blue salmon was a tremendous hit and a triumph of aquaculture. The salmon was being featured in a dozen gourmet magazines. It added that production was extremely limited, and demand was overwhelming. Apparently enough had been found, worldwide, for a state dinner at the White House.

  The third fax also came from the International Salmon Exporters Association. It announced tersely that Amanda Braithwaite had resigned the generic salmon account because of “creative differences” and acknowledged her important roll in “uniting salmon farmers around the world.”

  Poor old Amanda had apparently shot herself in the foot, thought Jane. A hit fell in her lap and all she could think was how to kiss off the whole thing.

  “Anything interesting?” said Norm, paddling through his messy desk.

/>   “Kind of,” Jane said. “But I’m through with the fish business. Why don’t you pay me off right now? I’ve had some expenses, you know. And make the check out to Carla. She’s been writing all this stuff. It’s pretty good, too, though I doubt you’ve been reading any of it.”

  “Really?” said Norm. “Maybe I should let her come back.”

  “It better be at twice the pay,” Jane said. “She’s got a good offer for a good state job.” Norm looked as if he were thinking it over as she left the office.

  A week later another Swiss sat in Jane’s living room. He had come, he said, to prepare a final report on the death of his company’s operative. He was French speaking, young, blond, with soft hazel eyes. She found it easier to tell him her story in French. It gave some distance to the proceedings.

  When he had noted down everything with a fountain pen and put the papers in his briefcase with a decisive click, he said, “We were able to retrieve the last entry from his computer. He made a positive report about you. You will be receiving a check from Zurich in the next two weeks for your work on this case. We will pay you in American dollars, unless you prefer Swiss francs.”

  Jane nodded, touched at Gunther’s punctiliousness. “Another agent will be assigned to Gunther’s case,” the young man went on. “Perhaps he will want to ask you some things about it.”

  “Gunther said he would pay me twenty thousand dollars if I got someone to confess to tampering with farmed salmon,” she said. “Does that offer still stand?”

  He raised an eyebrow. “Yes, that too is in his report. The amount was approved by the client.”

  “Did you know Mr. Kessler?” she asked him.

  He looked uncomfortable. “Not very well. He was a very hard worker.”

  “His parents owned a hotel in Lucerne,” she said.

  He nodded. “Yes. They are retired now. I have already spoken to them.”

  “He loved Puccini,” said Jane. “That’s all I’ll ever know about him.” She began to cry, and he handed her a crisp white handkerchief.

  “None of this would have happened,” she said, sniffling, “if it weren’t for guns. We have these guns here, and things that never would have turned out deadly do, because of guns. That’s what happened to that girl, too. Gunther did everything right, but he didn’t have a gun.”