AHMM, January-February 2007

by Dell Magazine Authors

  "I was an administrative manager at home office."

  From paper shuffler to valet, Heather resists saying. “So how is the great man?"

  "May I come in for a minute?"

  Heather stands aside. Avery enters and nods to Bascombe. Neither man moves to shake hands.

  Avery unzips his case. “I accessed your records. Seventeen years at the company."

  "Seventeen years, four months, eleven days."

  "I'll cut to the chase, Heather,” Avery says, withdrawing a document. “Mr. Smithert appreciates your loyalty and long service. He's authorized me to offer you an enhanced severance package."

  Heather laughs. “Anything is enhanced compared to what we peons got."

  Chuck Avery flushes. “Fred Smithert is a convenient target. Nothing is ever said about the impediments raised by the old guard to his strategic business initiatives. To his visions."

  "When was he there to explain? He took the money and ran."

  "I frankly don't approve of what Mr. Smithert is doing here,” Avery says, tossing the document on a nightstand. “Overreacting to harassment."

  "Harassment?” Heather says, her voice rising.

  Bascombe steps between them. “I presume these papers are satisfactory. We'll look them over."

  "Marshall."

  "My wife is understandably upset."

  "Marshall."

  "Obviously, there are no-contact and nondisclosure clauses. I can come back.” Avery glances at his watch. “Shall we say in an hour?"

  "Marshall, if I want us to play good cop, bad cop, I'll let you know."

  "No, we shall not say in an hour."

  Heather looks at her husband, startled by his tone.

  "Well, then, when?” asks a perturbed Avery.

  "Tomorrow. Shall we say lunch?"

  "It's a straightforward and generous offer.” Chuck Avery sighs. “I suppose I can be free for a short—"

  "Not you. Mr. Fred Smithert."

  "He's an extremely busy man."

  "Not too busy to eat lunch and to share a pitcher of an exceptional sangria. I received a tip from our desk clerk that the Café La Gloria has the city's finest. It's a block from Plaza de la Tendillas, on Calle Claudio Marcelo. You can't miss it."

  Chuck Avery says, “This is doubtful. Even if Mr. Smithert can be persuaded, he requires assurances that there won't be a scene."

  "No scene,” Bascombe says, then smiles. “And we're buying lunch and the sangria."

  After Avery's gone, Heather says, “What on earth is going on? What about Sevilla?"

  "Sevilla can wait. Think of this, dear. You can tear up the agreement in front of him."

  "Marshall, is that all?"

  "Did you see my thesaurus, dear?” Bascombe says, pawing through a bag. “I need a synonym for bittersweet."

  * * * *

  La Gloria is a neighborhood bar. Bullfighting posters fill the walls. The brass rail is polished. Fans and schoolhouse lamps hang from a coved ceiling.

  Fred Smithert and Chuck Avery come in. Avery whispers in Smithert's ear and perches at the bar. Smithert walks to the Bascombes. He's in khakis and a pullover, as if an ordinary retiree whiling away at cheap buffets and public golf courses.

  Marshall and Heather are on one side of the table. Fred Smithert sits across from them and says, “You're a newspaper reporter of some sort. You wrote a book too. Your name rang a bell to Chuck. He got online."

  "Hel-lo,” Heather wants to say, but she can't make her mouth work. She's thoroughly displeased at herself for being intimidated by Fred Satan.

  From a pitcher, Bascombe fills three glasses with sangria. “This should be a treat. I saw the proprietor add a splash of Cointreau. A very nice touch indeed. Yes, I am a syndicated beverage writer."

  Bascombe lifts his glass in toast. Heather follows suit.

  Fred Smithert lifts his glass and drinks. “I read the front page, business section, and sports. I'm not up to speed on your kind of writing."

  "Hmm,” Bascombe says. He flips open a pocket notebook and writes, an example of going the extra mile, or rather, this being Europe, the extra kilometer. It's not that difficult and expensive, and the rewards—

  "Ninety-plus newspapers you're in. I'm impressed,” Smithert probes.

  Heather Bascombe puts the severance document on the table. Smithert finally acknowledges her. “I don't see your signature."

  "Try the chorizo, Mr. Smithert. The almonds too,” Bascombe says, sliding over the tapas on saucer-sized plates. “Spain's fabled appetizers. The nuts are sautéed in olive oil. You won't find these in a packet on an airplane, perhaps even on a corporate jet."

  Fred Smithert raises eyebrows at the dig and does so, washing the food down with sangria as he studies the pair.

  Heather Bascombe tears the severance agreement neatly in half.

  Smithert laughs. “You've made a costly statement, young lady. Consider yourself a footnote on the list of know-nothing losers who've insulted me. Everybody's a Monday morning quarterback. Everybody sees the big picture when it's in reruns. Everybody is so anxious for a scapegoat, they overlook the economic downturn and negative market dynamics."

  He gets up and says to Bascombe, “If you use your bully pulpit to skewer me in print, your libel insurance premiums better be paid up."

  "And your life insurance premiums, sir, are they current?” Bascombe asks.

  Smithert sits down. “What the hell does that mean?"

  Bascombe shrugs. “I'm making rhetorical chitchat."

  Smithert leans forward. “Sounds like a threat to me."

  Bascombe sips his sangria. “The tip was correct. This is a winner, unquestionably among the top sangrias in Córdoba. It's the complexity. The sugars, the esters, the aromatics. The quality of the red wine base too, a Rioja or Ribera from northern Spain. This drink is so subtly complex that it could mask any number of chemicals."

  "Chemicals?” Smithert says.

  "Oh, for instance, deadly untraceable toxins."

  "Don't attempt to bluff me, friend. I'm good at a lot of things, poker included. I've played Texas Hold ‘Em in Vegas with the best."

  "Numerous natural substances are poisonous until processed. Take that great tropical staple, cassava. Squeezing the cyanide from the root transforms it from poison to manna."

  Heather is stunned. Marshall hadn't given her an inkling, but she plays along. “Almonds and cyanide. Isn't it almonds they smell in the detective shows when somebody dies of cyanide poisoning?"

  "Nice try,” Smithert says. “We're drinking from the same pitcher."

  "But from different glasses, Mr. Smithert,” Bascombe says. “Glasses that preceded you."

  Smithert pushes his drink to the middle of the table.

  Bascombe continues, “The initial symptoms may be tingling in the extremities. Of course, by then it's too late."

  "You've abused my good disposition too long,” Smithert says.

  He hurries out, Chuck Avery in his slipstream. Heather tears the document halves into quarters.

  * * * *

  In their room, Heather says, “You didn't, did you, Marshall? You wouldn't, would you?"

  Bascombe sits heavily on the bed. “In a way, I'm indebted to Fred Smithert. If not for him, we wouldn't have met. However, he's remained within you, an infection, a malignant growth. I wanted to remove him, to free you from him. This meeting gave me the opportunity.

  "And nature abhors a coincidence, doesn't it, dear? What are the odds of you randomly spotting this man seven time zones from home? Did your e-mail network of former colleagues inform you? The electronic jungle drums?"

  "Somebody backpacking through Europe saw him last week in that restaurant. I suggested the plaza for us, lousy sangria or not, in the hope that he had a routine. I was dumbfounded that he did."

  "To spit in his face. Figuratively."

  Heather sits beside him. “Marshall, if you did poison him, you'll be caught."

  "But I didn't, dear. Regardless
of how impervious Smithert is to a bluff, I don't think he'll sleep well tonight. You spit in his face by refusing his bribe, and you're married to an unbalanced person who entertains homicidal fantasies. He's scared, dear. He's frightened to death. Anyone would be."

  Heather holds him, knowing Marshall didn't poison Smithert, so relieved that she won't lose him.

  * * * *

  They linger in the south of Spain. Bascombe writes features on sherry country and their vintages. He writes a spread on the tapa and its near-infinite variations. There may be cookbook potential, in which Heather will actively collaborate. They have a second honeymoon that is far more a honeymoon than the first.

  They pass back through Córdoba. Tomorrow they'll catch the train to Madrid, then fly home. They make a return visit to Smithert's compound for a quick look. There is no BMW in the driveway, no other vehicles either. Clusters of rotting grapes droop from the vines. On the gate is a realtor's se vende sign.

  "For sale,” Heather translates.

  "I wonder where he went,” Marshall Bascombe says.

  "Marsh, dear,” Heather says, taking his hand. “Let it go, okay?"

  Copyright © 2006 Gary Alexander

  [Back to Table of Contents]

  BLOOD MONEY by DAVID EDGERLEY GATES

  Fifty thousand dollars was a lot of money to turn down.

  Colonel Benét found the bounty hunter overscrupulous.

  "Simple justice,” the colonel said. “An eye for an eye."

  "You don't appear to be looking for justice,” Placido Geist told him. “You're soliciting murder for hire."

  "I didn't realize your principles were so inelastic."

  "My principles are elastic enough, but my neck isn't,” the bounty hunter said. “What you're asking me to do would get me a brief drop on a short rope."

  "I want recompense."

  "You want retribution."

  "Call it what you will,” the colonel said stiffly.

  "I call it nothing I want a part of."

  "Are you all that squeamish? Your reputation would suggest otherwise."

  "My reputation isn't something I'm required to inhabit with the understanding that it invites insult,” Placido Geist said.

  "I doubted you'd accept the commission,” Lockjaw Lamar told him.

  * * * *

  "And then some,” the bounty hunter snorted.

  The judge smiled. “You don't sound very taken with Colonel Benét."

  "I understand he's suffered a bitter loss, but the solution is out of line with his injury."

  "His only son dead and any hope for a grandchild lost?"

  "You're acting Devil's Advocate."

  "A role that singles me out, often enough."

  The bounty hunter smiled as well. The two men had met during a charged political inquiry that resulted in damage to a good many reputations and elevated others less deserving.

  "The argument, if I might label it so,” the judge said, “is that Colonel Benét requires a blood price be paid."

  "He's not entitled to it."

  "The man got your back up, I see."

  "It's one thing to contemplate revenge,” Placido Geist said to the judge. “I know I have."

  The judge had been a party to it too, and chose to let the bounty hunter's remark pass.

  "It's another thing entirely to compass a homicide."

  "Conspiracy to commit a killing is felony murder. Unless you could contrive to make it appear otherwise, an assassination cloaked as, say, self-defense."

  "Well, that's what he thought he was paying for. Which, on balance, is why I found him offensive,” the bounty hunter said.

  "That he'd hire it done."

  "And seek to avoid penalty. It's a coward's choice."

  "You think he should gun the man himself and face whatever consequences afterwards?"

  "It would be a damn sight more honest, and honorable."

  "Maybe honorable doesn't enter into it,” the judge said.

  "But he wants his name attached to the business, that's the point. Not whispered about. Spoken of. An open secret."

  "Not probative. A rumor doesn't invite indictment."

  "No, but it intimidates. Colonel Benét wants his fiat, his whim, made corporal."

  "To demonstrate his reach."

  "I'd suggest it was a demonstration of his own vanity."

  "To have this man—what's his name, Emory?—put down like a dog that kills chickens, simply because he can."

  They agreed, then, on the moral point. It was the shoal water of particular incident they'd run aground in. And it was to be admitted that Colonel Benét had in fact suffered an irredeemable injury. It was also pretty much agreed that what had happened was simple bad luck: Nathan Benét, the colonel's son and heir, the repository of his dynastic ambitions, had been the unhappy victim of another man's carelessness, or stupidity, but the inquest ruled it accidental death, and no charge of manslaughter was filed. Set at liberty, the man Colonel Benét held responsible promptly departed the immediate environs, sensibly assuming Texas law could be bought, and was reported to be presently at large in the Bootheel of New Mexico.

  The facts were these. A woman named Magdalena Benavidez maintained a house of ill repute in Del Valle, just south of the capital. It was much frequented by state legislators, and she enjoyed the protection of both the Austin city police and Travis County sheriff's deputies. On the afternoon in question, the man later identified as Kick Emory was disporting himself in one of the upper front rooms. Kick was an itinerant, not exactly a bum, but someone who put his hand to what he found, whether it were carpentry or cowpunching, and it happened he found himself flush with money that week in Austin. He spent most of the week at Magdalena's cathouse, favoring one girl over the others, a red-headed Anglo who called herself Philadelphia Sinclair and claimed to be from back East. In truth, her name was Jemmie Dart, she'd been a whore for all her grown life, and she'd never been east of Kansas.

  Why, might we ask, did Nathan Benét also happen to be frequenting a whorehouse on the afternoon in dispute? It was a question his father seemed unlikely or unwilling to address. Nathan was recently married; his wife was in fact now pregnant with their first child; he had nothing to answer for and had everything to look forward to. Let's say simply that a man of his background, with his responsibilities—and his father's expectations—found it easier, or somehow simpler, to get his pipe smoked without consequences. It was certainly common enough, and Magdalena's was exactly the place you'd go, discreet if openly talked of (in male company), flagrant behavior kept private, transactions to be negotiated, anything to be had for a price.

  This, then, was the concatenation of circumstance.

  Kick Emory caromed off the roof of the veranda in a shower of glass, thrown out the window of Jemmie Dart's room by one of Magdalena's bouncers. Violence offered the whore, perhaps, or merely underpayment, but later inquiries made it unclear. He then slid off the roof of the veranda and fell on Nathan Benét.

  Kick was unhurt, if bruised and embarrassed. Nathan's neck was broken. The coroner's jury returned a verdict of death by misadventure; a man in his underclothes wasn't an instrument of murder. The problem was compounded by both the personal and the political: The colonel's boy couldn't be dead of stupidity.

  There was more than enough blame to go around, and further accident, or unhappiness. The colonel's daughter-in-law lost her child, and the colonel was denied the fruit of his son's seed. Magdalena Benavidez and her establishment were too well protected for the colonel to attack in person, but the whore Jemmie Dart disappeared, perhaps returning to the family she'd sometimes spoken of. More likely she was sold into the cribs of El Paso, and from there across the river. The bouncer was found dead in an irrigation ditch, drowned in two inches of water and alleged to be drunk at the time.

  Such a series of mischance didn't go unnoticed.

  "He's stalking them,” Placido Geist said.

  "Anybody involved with his son's death, culpab
le or no."

  "They're all culpable, in his view."

  "I take your point,” Lamar said. He could see the bounty hunter was wrestling with himself, but the judge wasn't someone who'd intrude on another man's internal struggle. He understood well enough how your gut could tighten with anger or guilt.

  "Damn the man,” Placido Geist said. He meant Benét.

  Not that Kick Emory was any prize himself. He'd been in and out of scrapes for all his adult life, short though it was to date, and had done time in Kansas for manslaughter. There was, therefore, some logic in the colonel's demand that Kick be held accountable, as the world at large might best be rid of him and his skills at courting trouble.

  But this was an abstraction and an excuse, Placido Geist argued, not the situation as it obtained on the ground. If there were a greater social good in Kick Emory's demise, Colonel Benét was using it to mask a personal vendetta.

  "He wouldn't be the first,” Lamar said.

  "No, nor will he be the last, but a better man would own up to the fact that his motives weren't pure."

  "Absolute moral certainty is always suspect,” Lamar agreed.

  "What happened last month over in Dime Box?"

  "Oh, hell,” the bounty hunter said, looking awkward. “That was a sorry piece of work, I'd be the first to admit."

  "And now the shoe's on the other foot."

  "When did I hire you to be my conscience?"

  Lamar looked at him over the rims of his spectacles. It was a gaze he'd practiced when he was still active on the bench, and it signified that the judge wasn't to be trifled with.

  The incident he was referring to did Placido Geist little credit. He'd killed a man based on circumstantial evidence—no more than his instinct and experience. That he'd been right to do so, his instinct and experience being more than most men's, cut little ice with the young man's father, Farragut Hagerty, a rancher of no small influence in East Texas*. Placido Geist felt scant remorse, but the matter was proving troublesome.

  [Footnote: * See"The Cottonwoods,"AHMM, October 2006.]

  "I hear old man Hagerty's put up bounty money for you,” the judge said.

  "I hear the same,” Placido Geist admitted.