“Let’s suppose that’s the case. What do you have to lose by telling me?”
“What . . . what do I have to gain?”
Good point.
“Well . . . you could buy some time. Maybe your partner is still out there, waiting to make his move. Waiting to come in and blow me away and get you out of this.”
He thought about that.
“You’re not a pro, are you?”
He said, “No . . . not really.”
“You didn’t stake me out or anything. You just had information about me, where I lived, and you came and did this.”
He nodded.
“No careful planning. No surveillance. No days on the scene ahead of time. Just one day, or night rather. In and out. Just the hit.”
He nodded again.
“Were you told to do the woman?”
He swallowed.
“Answer me. It’ll go easier if you answer me.”
“Whoever was here.”
“And she was here.”
He nodded, looked at the floor.
“You shot her four times.”
He didn’t say anything.
“Ever kill a woman before?”
He shook his head no. Then added: “Not a white one.”
Seemed I was in the presence of another Vietnam vet.
“How did it feel?”
He swallowed.
“Just answer me.”
“It . . . didn’t feel like anything. It was no different.”
“Than killing a man, you mean.”
“Yeah . . . yeah, than killing a man.”
“Or some slant.”
“Or . . . or some slant.”
“She was pregnant.”
He looked at me sharply. “Really?”
“Really.”
“I . . . I didn’t know that.”
“Would it have made a difference?”
“Sure . . . sure it would.”
“Why did you shoot her four times?”
“To . . . to make sure.”
Nam or not, he wasn’t a pro. Didn’t claim to be.
“Who hired this?”
“I don’t know.”
“Who hired this?”
“I can’t say. They’d kill me.”
“They can’t kill you any deader than I would.”
“They. . . they could kill my family. You don’t know who I am. You can’t do anything to my family.”
“Yeah, but on the other hand, I could cut your nuts off with a steak knife.”
He was shaking. “I can’t stop you from whatever you do to me. That was . . . was your wife in there.”
“That was my wife in there.”
“Then there’s no getting out of this. You killed my partner, didn’t you?”
I said nothing.
“You killed him,” the guy said, shaking his head. He was crying; quietly crying.
“I killed him,” I said.
He looked at me, his face slick. “I didn’t hear a shot.”
“I used an axe.”
He shivered. “God, oh God . . .”
“Are you praying or swearing?”
“Why don’t you just do it?”
“It’s political, isn’t it? It’s because I turned that job down. It’s because it’s political and I’m a loose end.”
He shook his head no, emphatically. “I don’t know. I don’t know. I have nothing to say to you.” He was staring at the floor.
“You’re going to say it all,” I said, trying to control the rage, and I reached down and pulled him up to a standing position, by his sweatshirt, and yanked the gun out and buried it in his stomach. He made a sucking-in sound; I was looking right at him, I could smell the minty mouthwash on his breath, see the hysteria in his dark eyes. “You won’t die in your sleep, like she did. You’ll crawl around the floor trying to keep your intestines from falling out, but all you’ll get out of the effort is bloody fucking hands. Now talk.”
“Fuck you,” he said, sobbing.
“Now you’ve done it,” I said.
“W-what?”
“Gone and made me mad,” I said, and squeezed the trigger. His body muffled the sound and I let him drop and stood over him and watched him die. It took a while.
I went in the bedroom and sat on the bed next to Linda. What had been Linda. Put my hand on her stomach. My hand came away red.
I got a suitcase from the bedroom closet; when I opened it, I found several brightly wrapped packages. Christmas paper and bows, little cards inscribed by her hand, “Love you, Jack—your Linda,” and so on. I left the gifts in the suitcase but filled in around the sides with a few more things: pair of jeans, couple sweaters, socks, underwear, some toiletries. Just enough to get me by for a few days. I’d pick up some new clothes. Linda had some sleeping pills, Seconal, and I took the bottle with me. I had a few business papers I wanted to take along—from the old days, the Broker days—and from the safe in my little office I took my stash of emergency cash, ten grand, in twenties and fifties. Tucked those packets into the suitcase, as well. I left the safe open.
I went outside and took the axe out of the back of the guy’s head, which made a sound like pulling your foot up out of mud, and dragged him by the feet in through the back door, all the way into the living room; he left a snail-like trail of blood and brain matter, even though the mess was facing mostly up. In his pants pocket I found the keys to his car, which I kept. He had no I.D. of any kind, of course. Like a department store window dresser, I arranged my mannequin so that his head was against the metal lip of the fireplace. Near his open right palm I placed the nine-millimeter I used on his partner. I found my hunting jacket hung on the hook by the front door; my car keys were on the kitchen counter and I put them in the right-hand jacket pocket. As if dancing with a clumsy partner, I put it on the other corpse, and draped him near the fireplace as well. I removed his leather gloves; put them on—they fit perfectly—and reached under the sofa for the silenced Luger, leaving the gun near the two dead men. Then I stepped back to look at them, an artist checking his composition. As an afterthought—and with some reluctance, I admit—I removed my Rolex, engraved on the back “To Jack—Love Linda,” and placed it on the left wrist of the corpse wearing my hunting jacket. Now satisfied, I went back out to my little tool shed and got a can of gasoline. Still wearing the gloves, I soaked a good deal of the living room down, dousing the two corpses, and particularly the fireplace, whose dying embers flared into life. I didn’t douse Chris at all—him I hoped would eventually be identified. I splashed some in the hallway. Couldn’t bring myself to splash any around the bedroom. The smell of the gas began to override the death smell.
I went in the bedroom one last time. I was going to kiss her goodbye, but she really wasn’t there anymore, was she? She was gone. I’d fucked up, chose the wrong option, and she was gone. Somebody screamed. Me.
I had lived here a long time. But I could never live here again.
Then I went out the front door, suitcase in hand; I stood on the deck for a moment and held the door open with my foot. Put the suitcase down and lit a kitchen match.
Tossed it in.
The heat rushed back at my face, like an oven door opening.
“Bye, baby,” somebody said.
Me.
Behind me the world turned orange; ahead the world was dark. I walked toward the darkness.
5
_______________________________________________
_______________________________________________
THE PHONE RANG until it woke me. It rang a good long time, because I was way under, but it finally did wake me, and my eyes opened, tentatively, to a darkened motel room, just enough light filtering in around the drapes to let me know it was day.
“Hello,” I said. My mouth was thick and foul from sleep and Seconal.
“Mr. Murphy?”
The voice was male and sounded official and unsure of itself at the same time
.
“Yes. What is it?”
“We were, uh . . . worried about you, sir.”
“I’m touched. Why.”
“It’s . . . Friday, sir. Friday afternoon, and you arrived early Thursday, in the early A.M. Which is to say, Wednesday night, very late.”
I yawned and sat up. Not terribly engrossed in this conversation.
“Yeah, right,” I said. “So?”
“Housekeeping informs us that you haven’t been out of your room since you arrived. You’ve taken no meals, and . . .”
“Is babysitting your guests part of the service here, at . . . where am I?”
“The Ramada Inn. Near O’Hare.”
Yesterday I’d been here with Linda. Not here exactly—at O’Hare, picking up her brother . . . and maybe it wasn’t yesterday, exactly . . .
“So it’s Friday,” I said. Blinking my sleep-crusted eyes. Tasting my gym-sock tongue.
“Friday afternoon,” he said. “Three o’clock, and no sir, we don’t ‘babysit’ our guests. We as a policy respect the privacy of our guests. But housekeeping has checked in periodically—you didn’t put out the ‘do not disturb’ sign—and, frankly, reports were that you were sleeping very soundly . . .”
They thought I was in a coma or something.
“Look,” I said, “who am I speaking to, anyway?”
“My name is Hollis,” he said, somewhat defensively. “I’m an assistant manager.”
“Is that your first name or last name?”
“Last,” he said.
“Well, Mr. Hollis, I appreciate your conscientiousness. But I’m really quite all right. I was just very tired, and needed a good deal of sleep.”
Long pause.
Then: “I understand. I’m sorry to have disturbed you, Mr. Murphy.”
“That’s all right. I like to get up every few days, anyway. Thanks again.”
“You’re welcome, sir.”
His voice still sounded doubtful, suspicious. “I’ll be sure to recommend your facility to my company,” I said.
“Well, thank you, sir,” he said, brightly, mollified.
I hung up.
I sat on the edge of the bed and ran my hand over my face. The grease and growth of beard there confirmed that I had indeed slept for a day and a half. I’d taken too many of those fucking pills. What was I trying to do, kill myself?
That wasn’t in me. I’d worked too hard, for too many years, to survive, to ever throw it away. Even yesterday’s losses—or the day before yesterday or whenever the fuck—weren’t enough to change that. This planet, without Linda on it, was pretty much worthless, but what else was new? It all fit in with the Almighty’s master plan, which was that there was no master plan, or Almighty either.
I’d learned two lessons in Vietnam: the meaningless of life and death; and the importance of survival. They seem to contradict each other, those lessons—but they don’t. I can’t explain it to you. I won’t try.
I got up, feeling woozy from all that drugged sleep; shuffled into the bathroom on rubbery legs and leaned on the sink with one hand and threw water on my face with the other. I looked at myself in the mirror. My eyes were red and dead. My face held no expression at all. There was gray in my beard. I was getting old. Death was coming.
But not today. I went in the other room and dug the little bag with my toiletries out of that suitcase where Linda, in one of her last acts, had hidden my Christmas presents. I would have to open those presents to make room in the suitcase. Waiting till Christmas was out of the question. Death might be here by then.
I shaved; nicked myself twice. I smiled at the mirror, seeing if my face still worked. Seeing if I had the masks needed to go out in the world and mix.
I did.
I showered, cold to wake me up, and once awake, hot to relax me. My stomach was grinding. It had had nothing in it but Seconal for damn near two days.
I got into the jeans and a white Polo sweatshirt Linda had given me for my last birthday. The clothes I’d worn here would have to be tossed, preferably burned; there would be blood and fiber evidence and what have you. But in the meantime, I stuffed a few twenties in my pocket and walked out into an endless hallway connecting with other endless hallways, following various signs until I was in an equally sprawling lobby area, parts of which seemed under construction. It was one of those places that would always be under construction, I thought, growing constantly, like cancer cells. I ignored the hotel’s own restaurants and went out the front door, into a starkly cold and sunny afternoon, a jet roaring overhead, making its descent into the out-of-sight but nearby O’Hare. Within easy walking distance was a Greek/American restaurant that, among other things, served breakfast twenty-four hours a day. I ate a Denver omelet with pancakes on the side; also orange juice and iced tea. It tasted good, all of it, and made me feel alive again. It was a deceptive feeling, I knew, but even a beat-up wreck of a car needs some gas in it, if it’s going to struggle down the road.
And speaking of cars, in the motel’s vast parking lot, I found the dark blue Buick immediately, something leading me there though I had no conscious memory of where I’d left the thing. Before driving it away Wednesday night I’d taken only the time to check for registration and, not surprisingly, had found none. Now it was time to go over the car more thoroughly.
Not that I expected to find anything: it was a new car. It still had the new car smell; the ghost of the price sticker was on the driver window, several bands of paper and glue. But I looked anyway.
In the trunk I found nothing but the jack and spare. It was spotless; nothing had ever been stowed here.
In the backseat, even pulling the cushions out, I found nothing at all. Not even the usual spare change.
Nothing on the floors in back except paper mats.
In the glove compartment, I found three maps: Wisconsin, Illinois, Iowa. There was also a silver flashlight. And a pair of flares.
Also an owner’s manual, warranty literature and such, the likes of which come with any new car. But no name of the car’s owner.
However, there was, on the manual, the rubber-stamp imprint of the car dealership from which the car apparently came: BEST BUY BUICK & OLDS, DAVENPORT, IOWA. Davenport was on the Iowa side of the Quad Cities; Rock Island—the county and the city, and the source of the Buick’s license plate—was on the Illinois side. Interesting.
I found nothing under the front seat, but digging down in the seat, in front, my fingers touched something small and cool. I withdrew a matchbook. It was bright red. In black its shiny surface said THE EMBERS. There was no address, but there was a phone number, and the area code—309—was an Illinois one—that included the Quad Cities.
I pocketed the matchbook and felt my face make something that might have been a smile.
Pros these boys had not been. Even driving a brand-new car, they had managed to leave a trail of stupidity all the way back home. They were lucky they were already dead, or I’d be killing them again.
One at a time, I spread the Illinois and Iowa maps out on the hood of the car; there were no markings on either. On the Wisconsin map, however, highways and roads en route were traced in pen and Paradise Lake was circled.
I folded the maps back up and tucked them under my arm. I walked back into the hotel, the cold air whipping at me, a jet screaming overhead. In the gift shop I found a blue Chicago Bears windbreaker, inappropriate for the time of year, but it would do till I had a chance to stop and buy a real jacket.
Not a hunting one this time, even though that would be appropriate.
I also picked up the Sun Times and the Tribune. The latter had a small inside story about the incident, but in the former, in true tabloid tradition,
MULTIPLE MURDERS
FOLLOWED BY FIRE
had made page two, and had some details, including a few pictures: what seemed to be a high school picture of Linda looking impossibly young, pretty and innocent (like usual) and a shot of firemen w
orking hoses on the burning house; fire must’ve lasted a while, because it was a daylight pic. No pictures of me. There weren’t any, that I knew of, under that name; or dental records or anything else, if they went looking.
I was sitting on the bed, reading the articles a second time, the TV tuned to the “Eyewitness” news, when an update came on.
The glow of the TV was on my face like the set was a hearth I was sitting in front of. A black reporter in a gray topcoat and a black tie was speaking earnestly into a microphone, his breath smoking with cold. Behind him was my A-frame, not recognizably an A anymore, smoking with heat. Even now.
“No official statement has been made,” the reporter was saying, “but one Twin Lakes fire department investigator, who wished to remain anonymous, speculated that the blaze may have begun as an accidental side effect of a ‘fight to the death’ between the man of the house and an intruder. That as yet unidentified intruder apparently stole an undisclosed amount of cash from a safe in the Wilson home, after killing Mrs. Wilson and her visiting brother, Christopher Blakely. Apparently Jack Wilson, the husband, came upon the scene and struggled with the intruder. Both Wilson and the intruder were killed; their struggle, near a roaring fire in a fireplace, may have led to the conflagration.”
Cut to Charley, behind the bar at the Inn, looking haggard, shattered.
“Jack did keep money in his house,” Charley said. “How much, I don’t know. I do know that his brother-in-law and wife were alone in that house that evening, before he joined them about midnight.”
Cut to a closer-up shot of the black reporter. “Wilson apparently killed the intruder by smashing his head against the edge of the metal fireplace. But Wilson was shot during the struggle and was probably dead before the fire flared up.”
Cut back to Charley.
“I don’t know much about Jack’s background,” he said. His voice was quavering. I felt bad about putting him through this. Well, when he discovered the Welcome Inn’s ownership reverted to him upon my death, that would cheer him up some.
“I do know that he saw combat in Vietnam,” Charley was saying, “and he kept guns in his house. It don’t surprise me Jack took the bastard with him.”
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