by John Lutz
What they were saying, when you boil away all the medical jargon, was that my number was up.
A Handgun for Protection
I had to have her. Lani Sundale was her name, and for the past three Saturday nights I'd sat at the corner of the bar in the Lost Beach Lounge and listened to her talk to her friends — another girl, a blonde — and a tall, husky guy with graying hair and bushy eyebrows. Once there was an older woman with a lot of jewelry who acted like she was the gray haired guy's wife. They'd sit and drink and gab to each other about nothing in particular, and I'd sit working on my bourbon and water, watching her reflection in the back bar mirror.
It wasn't until the second Saturday night, when she got a telephone call, that I learned her name, but even before that I was — well, let's say committed.
Lani was a dark haired, medium-height, liquid motion girl, shapely and a little heavier than was the style, like a woman should be. But with her face she didn't need her body. She really got to me right off: high cheekbones, upturned nose, and slightly parted, pouty little red lips, as if she'd just been slapped. Then she had those big dark eyes that kind of looked deep into a guy and asked questions. And from time to time she'd look up at me in the mirror and smile like it just might mean something.
The fourth Saturday night she came in alone.
I swiveled on my bar stool with practiced casualness to face her booth. "Where's your friends?"
She shrugged and smiled. "Other things to do." Past her outside the window, I could see the blank night sky and the huge Pacific rolling darkly on the beach.
"No stars tonight," I said. "You're the shiningest thing around."
"You're trying to tell me it's going to rain," she said, still with the smile. It was a kind of crooked, wicked little smile that looked perfect on her. "I drink whiskey sours."
I ordered her one, myself a bourbon and water, and sat down across from her in the soft vinyl booth. Two guys down the bar looked at me briefly with naked envy.
"Your name's Lani," I told her. She didn't seem surprised that I knew. "I'm Dennis Conners."
The bartender brought our drinks on a tray, and Lani raised her glass, "To new acquaintances."
Three drinks later we left together.
It was about four when Lani drove me back to the Lounge parking lot to pick up my car. Hard as it was for me to see much in the dark, I knew we were in an expensive section of coast real estate where a lot of wealthy people had plush beach houses, like the beach house I'd just visited with Lani.
She drove her black convertible fast, not bothering to stop and put up the top against the sparse, cold raindrops that stung our faces. What I liked most about her then was that she didn't bother with the ashamed act, and when we reached the parking lot and the car had stopped, she leaned over, and gave me a kiss with that tilted little grin.
"See you again?" she said as I got out of the car.
"We'll most likely run across one another," I said with a smile, slamming the heavy door.
I could hear her laughter over the roar and screech of tires as the big convertible backed and turned onto the empty highway. I walked back to my car slowly.
During the next two weeks we were together at the beach house half a dozen times. The place spelled money, all right.
Not real big but definitely plush, stone fireplace, deep carpeting, rough sawn beams, modern kitchen, expensive and comfortable furniture. There was no place the two of us would rather have been, the way it felt with the heavy drapes drawn and a low fire throwing out its twisted, moving shadows. And the way we could hear that wild ocean curl up moaning on the beach, over and over again. It was a night like that, late, when she started talking about her husband.
"Howard's crippled," she said. "An automobile accident. He'll never get out of his wheelchair." She looked up at me as if she'd just explained something.
"How long ago?" I asked.
"Two years. It was his own fault. Drunk at ninety miles an hour. He can't complain."
"I've been drunk at ninety miles an hour myself."
"Oh, so have I." The shrug and tilted smile. "We all take our chances."
I wondered how much her husband knew about her. How much I knew about her. From time to time I'd marveled at how skillfully she could cover up the bruises on her face and neck with makeup. She was all that mattered to me now, and it made me ache with a strange compassion for her husband, thinking how it would be watching her from a wheelchair.
"Let's get going," she said, standing and slipping into her suede high heeled shoes. "The fire's getting low."
I yanked her back by the elbow. Then I walked over and put another log on the fire.
Where I lived, at a motel in North Beach, was quite a comedown from the beach house love nest. During the long days of dwindling heat and afternoon showers I'd lie on my bed, sipping bourbon over ice and thinking about Lani and myself. I'm no kind of fool, and I knew what was happening didn't exactly tally. With her money and looks Lani could have had her choice of big husky young ones, her kind. I never kidded myself; I was over thirty-five, blond hair getting a little thin and once-athletic body now sporting a slight drinker's paunch. Not a bad looking guy, but not the pick of the litter. And my not-so-lucrative occupation of water skiing instructor during the vacation season would hardly have attracted Lani. I already owed her over five hundred dollars she never expected to get back.
Maybe any guy in my situation would have wondered how he'd got so lucky. I didn't know or really care. I only knew I had what I wanted most. And even during the day I could close my eyes and lean back in my bed five miles from sea and hear the tortured surf of the rolling night ocean.
"He has more money than he could burn," Lani said to me one night at the beach house.
"Howard?"
She nodded and ran her fingernails through the hair on my chest.
"You're his wife," I told her. "Half of all he owns is yours and vice versa."
"You're something I own that isn't half his, Dennis. We own each other. I feel more married to you than to Howard."
"Divorce him," I said. "You'd get your half."
She pulled her head away from me for a moment and looked incredulous.
"Are you kidding? The court wouldn't look too kindly on a woman leaving a cripple. And Howard's really ruthless. His lawyers might bring out something from my past."
"Or present."
She tried to bite my arm, and I pulled her back by the hair. I knew what she'd been talking toward and I didn't care. I didn't care about anything but her. She was twisting her head all around, laughing, as I slapped her and shoved her away. She was still laughing when she said it. "Dennis, there's only one."
I interrupted her. "I'll kill him for you," I said.
We were both serious then. She sat up and we stared at each other. The twin reflections of the fire were tiny star-points of red light in her dark eyes. I reached for her.
The beach house was where we discussed the thing in detail, weighing one plan after another. We always met there and nowhere else. I'd conceal my old sedan in the shadows behind a jagged stand of rock and walk down through the grass and cool sand to the door off the wooden sun deck. She'd be waiting for me.
"Listen," she said to me one night when the sea wind was howling in gusts around the sturdy house, "why don't we use this on him?" She opened her purse and drew out a small, snub-nosed .32 caliber revolver.
I took it from her and turned it over in my hand. A compact, ugly weapon with an unusual eight shot cylinder, the purity of its flawless white pearl grips made the rest of it seem all the uglier. "Whose?" I asked.
Lani closed her purse and tossed it onto the sofa from where she sat on an oversized cushion. "Howard gave it to me just after we were married, for protection."
"Then it can be traced to you."
She shook her head impatiently. "He bought it for me in Europe, when he was on a business trip in a communist bloc country. Brought it back illegally, really. I looked int
o this thing, Dennis. I know the police can identify the type and make of weapon used from the bullet, only this make gun won't even be known to them. All they'll be able to say for sure is it was a .32 caliber."
I looked at her admiringly and slipped the revolver into my pants pocket. "You do your homework like a good girl. How many people know you own this thing?"
"Quite a few people were there when Howard gave it to me three years ago, but only a few people have seen it since. I doubt if anybody even knows what caliber it is. I know I can pretend I don't." She was watching me closely as I thoughtfully rubbed the back of my hand across my mouth."What happens if the police ask you to produce the gun? Nothing to prevent them from matching it with the murder bullet then."
Lani laughed. "In three years I lost it! Let them search for it if they want. It'll be at the bottom of the ocean where you threw it." She was grinning secretively, her dark hair hanging loose over one ear and the makeup under one eye smudged.
"Why not let me in on your entire plan?" I said. "The whole thing would come off better."
"I didn't mean to take over or anything. I just want it to be safe for you, baby, for both of us. So we can enjoy afterward together."
I wondered then if afterward would be like before.
"I know this gun is safe," Lani went on. "No matter where you got another one the police might eventually trace it. But with this one they can't."
"Is it registered or anything?"
"No, Howard just gave it to me."
"But the people who saw him give it to you, couldn't they identify it?"
"Not if they never saw it again." She took a sip of the expensive blended whiskey she was drinking from the bottle and looked up smiling at me with her head tilted back and kind of resting on one shoulder. "I think I've got an idea you'll like," she said. Her lips were parted wide, still glistening wet from the whiskey.
That's how three nights later I found myself dressed only in swimming trunks and deck shoes, seated uncomfortably in the hard, barnacle-clad wooden structure of the underside of the long pier that jutted out into the sea from Howard Sundale's private beach. To the right, beyond the rise of sand, I could see the lights of his sprawling hacienda style house as I kept shifting my weight and feeling the spray from the surf lick at my ankles. I'd always considered myself small time, maybe, not the toughest but smart, and here I was killing for a woman. There'd been plenty of passed up opportunities to kill for money. I knew it wasn't Lani's money at all; I'd have wanted her rich or poor.
I unconsciously glanced at my wrist for the engraved watch I'd been careful not to wear, and I cursed softly as the white foaming breakers surged out their rolling lives beneath me. It had to be ten o'clock!
Lani had guaranteed me that Belson, her husband's chauffeur and handyman, would bring Howard for his nightly stroll out onto the long pier at ten o'clock.
"Belson always wheels him there," she'd said. "It's habit with them. Only this time I'll call Belson back to the house for a moment and he'll leave Howard there alone — for you."
The idea then was simple and effective. I was to climb up from my hiding place, shoot Howard, strip him of ring, watch and wallet, then swim back along the shoreline to near where my car was hidden and drive for North Beach Bridge, where I'd throw the murder gun into deep water.
At first I'd been for just rolling Howard wheelchair and all into the ocean. But Lani had assured me it was better to make it look like murder and robbery for the very expensive ring he was known to wear. Less chance of a mistake that way, she'd argued, than if we tried to get tricky and outwit the police by faking an accident. And Howard's upper body was exceptionally strong. Even without the use of his legs he'd be able to stay afloat and make his way to shore.
So at last we'd agreed on the revolver.
I looked up from my place in the shadows. Something was passing between me and the house lights. Two forms were moving through the night toward the pier: Howard Sundale hunched in his wheelchair, and Belson, a tall, slender man leaning forward, propelling the chair with straight arms and short but smooth steps.
As they drew nearer I saw that the lower part of Howard's body was covered by a blanket, and Belson, an elderly man with unruly curly hair, was wearing a light windbreaker and a servant's look of polite blankness. They turned onto the pier and passed over me, and I crouched listening to the wheelchair's rubber tires' choppy rhythm over the rough planks.
A minute later I heard Lani's voice, clear, urgent. "Belson! Belson, will you come to the house for a minute? It's important!"
Belson said something to Howard I couldn't understand. Then I heard his hurried, measured footsteps pass over me and away. Then quiet. I drew the revolver from its waterproof plastic bag.
Howard Sundale was sitting motionless, staring seaward, and the sound of the rushing surf was enough to cover my noise as I climbed up onto the pier, checked to make sure Belson was gone, then walked softly in my canvas deck shoes toward the wheelchair.
"Mr. Sundale?"
He was startled as I moved around to stand in front of him. "Who are you?"
Howard Sundale was not what I'd expected. He was a lean faced, broad shouldered, virile looking man in his forties, keen blue eyes beneath wind-ruffled sandy hair. I understood now why Lani hadn't wanted me to risk pushing him into the sea. He appeared momentarily surprised, then wary when I brought the gun around from behind me and aimed it at him. His eyes darted for a moment in the direction of the distant house lights.
"For Lani, I suppose," he said. Fear made his voice too high.
I nodded. "You should try to understand."
He smiled a knowing, hopeless little frightened smile as I aimed for his heart and pulled the trigger twice.
Quickly I slipped off his diamond ring and wristwatch, amazed at the coolness of his still hands. Then I reached around for his wallet, couldn't find it, discovered it was in his side pocket. I put it all in the plastic bag with the revolver, sealed the bag shut, then slipped off the pier into the water. As I lowered myself I found I was laughing at the way Howard was sitting motionless and dead in the moonlight, still looking out to sea as if there was something there that had caught his attention. Then the cold water sobered me.
I followed the case in the papers. Murder and robbery, the police were saying. An expensive wristwatch, his wallet and a diamond ring valued at over five thousand dollars the victim was known always to wear were missing. At first Belson, the elderly chauffeur, was suspected. He claimed, of all things, that he'd been having an affair with his employer's wife and was with her at the time of the shooting.
That must have brought a laugh from the law, especially with the way Lani looked and the act she was putting on. Finally the old guy was cleared and released anyway.
The month Lani and I let pass after the funeral was the longest thirty days of my life. On the night we'd agreed to meet, I reached the beach house first, let myself in and waited before the struggling, growing fire that I'd built.
She was fifteen minutes late, smiling when she came in. We kissed and it was good to hold her again. I squeezed the nape of her neck, pulled her head back and kissed her hard.
"Wait . . . Wait!" she gasped. "Let's have a drink first." There was a fleck of blood on her trembling lower lip.
I watched her walk into the kitchen to mix our drinks. When she returned the smile returned with her. "I told you it would work, Dennis."
"You told me," I said, accepting my drink.
She saw the pearl handled revolver then, where I'd laid it on the coffee table. Quickly she walked to it, picked it up and examined it. There was surprise in her eyes, in the down-turned, pouting mouth. "What happened?"
"I forgot to throw it into the sea, took it home with me by mistake and didn't realize it until this afternoon."
She put the gun down. "You're kidding?"
"No, I was mixed up that night. Not thinking straight. Your husband was the first man I ever killed."
She stood for a
moment, pondering what I'd said. After a while she took a sip of her drink, put it down and came to me.
"Did the police question you about the gun?" I asked her.
"Uh-hm. I told them it was lost."
"I'll get rid of it tonight on my way home."
"Tomorrow morning," Lani corrected me as her arms snaked around my shoulders. "And we'll meet here again tomorrow night . . . and the night after that and after that . . ."
Despite her words her enthusiasm seemed to be slipping. That didn't matter to me.
Lani was the first one at the beach house the next evening. It was a windy, moon-bright night, only a few dark clouds racing above the yellow dappled sea at right-angles to the surf, as she opened the door to my knock and let me in. Her first words were what I expected.
"Did you get rid of the gun?"
"No." I watched her eyes darken and narrow slightly.
"No?"
"I'm keeping it," I said, "for protection."
"What do you mean, Dennis?" The anger crackled in her voice.
I only smiled. "I mean I have the revolver, and I've left a letter to be opened in the event of my death telling a lawyer where it's hidden."
Lani turned, walked from me with her head bowed then wheeled to face me. "Explain it! It doesn't scare me and I know it should."
"It should," I said, crossing the room and seating myself on the sofa with my legs outstretched. "I wiped the gun clean of prints when I brought it here, then lifted it by a pencil in the barrel when I left here after you last night. Your fingerprints are on it now, nice and clear."
She cocked her head at me, gave me a confused, crooked half-smile. "So what — it's my gun. My prints would naturally be on it."
"But yours are the only prints on it," I said. "No one could have shot Howard without erasing or overlapping them. Meaning that you had to have handled the weapon after the murder or during. If that gun ever happened to find its way to the police . . ."
Her eyebrows raised.
"I could tell them I found it," she said with a try for spunk, "and then it was stolen from me."