The Contractor

by Paul Moomaw

  I am feeling guilty, but not about Washburn. I feel guilty about the dog.

  Chapter 52

  Katherine has made good on her desire to take me to Spokane and now our luggage is in the corner room on the eleventh floor while we sit at a table in the restaurant above. We have a view to the west, and the evening sky still holds a faint glow, just barely lighter than the mountains outlined beneath it. Katherine is wearing a deep blue cocktail dress that I have not seen her in before. It makes a backdrop to the necklace so that the jewels in it sparkle like stars against a night sky. She is more animated that I have known her to be, almost hypomanic, and has been since she picked me up at midmorning in Seattle. Now she leans forward and shifts her eyes from side to side, then looks at me.

  “All these women are eating their hearts out. I can tell from the way they try so hard not to look like they’re looking at me.” She leans back in her chair, her eyes glinting. “I’ve never made anyone jealous before,” she says. Then she cocks her head to one side and frowns slightly. “I guess that’s not true. Eddy always has been. Sometimes I’ve wondered if he is my punishment for something I did in another life.”

  I reach across the table and squeeze her hand briefly. “The women can’t help envying a beautiful princess. And as for your brother, as you said so elegantly the other day, fuck him.”

  She smiles and licks her lips. “I’d rather fuck you.”

  “You’re the boss tonight.”

  “Damn straight. Fuck ‘em and forget ‘em. I don’t think I’ll be able to forget you, though.”

  I do not respond. My plan to leave Seattle for good has been hanging between us for several days, unmentioned. I have pushed the issue resolutely to one side. Either she will come, or she will not; and I have begun to understand that if I must go alone, I will be all right with that. I can look forward to the solitude and peace, even if Katherine is not there. I would have said that my decision to retire and leave was based on practical reasons, but as soon as I made it I felt an overwhelming sense of freedom. That was an epiphany for me. I could almost physically experience the truth, that all the years I have prided myself on being in charge of my life and making my own decisions I was deluded. I have not been free. I think the only way I can be free is to be alone. I wonder if Katherine feels the same way.

  “So you’re going to sell your house, move to the woods, and spend the rest of your days just fishing,” Katherine says.

  I nod. “And cooking great meals for you,” I risk. Katherine ignores the opening.

  “When I die I’ll come back as a trout,” she says. “A trout in the Yaak. You can catch me and eat me and we’ll always be together.” We have both ordered veal piccata and she cuts a bite and puts it in her mouth, then looks at me with her eyebrows arched high as she chews.

  “I almost always put back the fish I catch.”

  “Catch and release?” Katherine nods. “I should have known.” She takes another bite of veal. “I think maybe life is all catch and release. Some big fisherman in the sky catches us and sticks us in a body, and then after a while we get released, only we always get caught again, over and over.”

  “It doesn’t seem like much fun.”

  “Maybe not fun, but exciting,” she says and becomes even more animated. “No matter how shitty it is this time around, you get to look forward to the next one because it may be better.”

  “You make it sound like the lottery.”

  She nods vigorously. “That’s a thought. Maybe that’s why people can’t resist buying Powerball tickets.”

  We finish the meal and Katherine does not want to order desert. She says she has something special waiting in the room. When we get there she goes to her suitcase and pulls out a bottle of red wine.

  “When I bought this the wine guy said it wouldn’t hit its prime for eight or ten years. It’s been nine and a half, so the time is now. I got us some nice cheese to go with it.” She points at the easy chair in the corner between the windows. “Go sit there,” she says. I sit and she takes the bottle into the bathroom with a corkscrew. I can hear the cork come out and then the rustle of shrink wrap being removed from glasses. A little later she comes back into the room. The glasses are full and the cheese has been sliced into wedges and placed on the little hotel tray the glasses had sat on. Katherine hands me a glass and holds out the cheese. I take a wedge and nibble at it. Is is a Stilton, well aged with a sharp edge.

  Katherine lifts her glass. “Here’s to good endings and better beginnings.” We touch glasses and I drink. It is a very good wine, Spanish, from the period before their vintners went California.

  “Now just sit and drink,” Katherine says. She puts the cheese and her glass on the little round table next to me and settles to her knees. She unties my shoes and removes them, then pulls my socks off. She unbuckles my belt and as she does I reach down to help pull my trousers but she pushes my hands away.

  “I want to do everything. You have to be my sex doll.” She pulls my pants off, and my underwear, and then unbuttons my shirt. She stands up and pulls it over my shoulders and tosses it into the pile of other clothes on the floor. Then she bends over me and kisses me. Her tongue caresses my gums and then finds my tongue and wraps around it. I start to get hard and her hand finds my penis and squeeze it. Her tongue comes out of my mouth and licks my earlobe and then she licks and nibbles her way down my jaw and neck and across my chest to my nipples. She nibbles and sucks on the nipples and that sets me on fire. Then she works her way down to by groin and licks the sides of my penis.

  “Finish your wine so you don’t spill it,” she says. I drain the glass and she takes it from me and places it on the table. Then she takes my penis in her mouth and I feel her tongue working up and down it like a snake. I stroke her hair once and move my fingers through the curls, and after that I allow myself to be completely passive, sitting there, watching her head move as her mouth makes me burn.

  And the rest of the evening is gone. I wake up to the dim gray light of pre-dawn. The room is utterly still, too still. Even the air does not move at all. I sit in the chill room with my eyes squeezed shut. I am naked in the chair and my body is cold, but my heart feels even icier, and I am terrified of opening my eyes because I know what I will see when I do, and I do not want to see that.

  Finally, I cup my palms over my face and open my eyes to the safe darkness they provide. Then, as slowly as I can, I pull my hands away.

  Katherine lies on the bed, still wearing her dress, the necklace around her neck. Her hands rest on her abdomen, wrapped around her wine glass.

  I push myself out of the chair and go to the bed. I stare at her body, shaking my head back and forth. Someone is making a sound and after a while I realize it is me, a kind of whining hum that forms somewhere in the back of my throat and forces its way past closed lips. I press my hand against my mouth to make the sound stop, then reach down and touch Katherine’s face. The skin has not lost all of its warmth and so I do all the usual desperate things, feeling for a pulse at the neck and wrist, holding my ear against her mouth to feel a breath, nudging her and calling her name, telling her to wake up. But I know that I am only going through the motions, the ritual of hopelessness. I know death, and Katherine is dead.

  I go to the window and stare out. In the distance Mount Spokane is beginning to glimmer, and the first sounds of early morning traffic rise from the street. I have a brief fantasy of taking Katherine in my arms and leaping with her from the window to the pavement below, but it goes away immediately. I know that I could never make that jump. I am too afraid of heights.

  The ludicrousness of that thought brings me back to myself. I look at Katherine again and turn away. The wine bottle and the other glass are on the little table. Next to them are a sheet of hotel stationery with writing on it and a sealed envelope. The envelope has Jennifer Angwin’s name written on it. I pick up the sheet of paper. It is a note to me. I go to the chair and sit down with the note. I stare out the window for a mome
nt, then force my eyes back to the paper.

  “Dearest Daniel,” it begins.

  “I am sorry about the drug in the wine but it was the easiest way. I hope you don’t have a headache. I have taken care of everything so there will be no problem. I even remembered to put the Do Not Disturb sign on the door so no one will barge in on you. I wiped down the bottle and the glass so your fingerprints won’t show.

  “The envelope is a note to Jennifer. It explains that it was time for me to leave, and tells her how to deal with the estate that I have left for Paula. I am sure the authorities will read it, and then they won’t have any doubts that I did this on my own.

  “Remember I told you once that the trick to living was knowing when it was time to die. Or at least guessing, like the beans in the jar. This is that time. I used to wonder what Sheherezade would have done if she had ever really run out of stories to tell. Now I know.

  “I hope I’m right and you’re wrong about what comes next.

  “Please do not judge me.”

  And it was signed, “Katherine.”

  I hold the note in my hand and stare at it but I do not really see it. I am numb. I have no feelings at all. I stand up and look at Katherine again. There is a mirror above the head of the bed and I catch a glimpse of myself in it. My eyes look as dead as Katherine.

  Eventually I realize that I have things to take care of. I cannot change anything and it will do no good for me to stay here. I bend down slowly, pick up my clothes, and get dressed. Then I look around the room to see what needs doing. I take the bottle and glass and put them in my suitcase. I doubt they will pay attention to being one glass short.

  I look again at Katherine. No, not Katherine. She is dead. This is just a body. It could be any corpse. There is no one there. I reach around the body’s neck and unclasp the necklace. If that were still Katherine I might be tempted to leave it with her. But now it is just something for someone else to steal—a maid, or a policeman. I do not really want it myself.

  When I gave it to Katherine I let go of it. I have always believed gifts should be that way, with no obligations. What I give is no longer mine. But for now I will take it back for safekeeping.

  I slip the necklace into my suitcase, zip it closed and step to the door. I take one last look at the body Katherine lived in. Then I open the door, step through, and close it softly behind me. The Do Not Disturb sign hangs from the handle as she said it would.

  No one pays any attention to me as I go downstairs, walk through the lobby, and out onto the sidewalk. Katherine’s car needs to stay, so I walk the few blocks from the hotel to the large station that houses Amtrak and Greyhound. A bus is leaving for Seattle within the hour and I buy a ticket for it.

  The bus is half empty when it pulls out of the station and I have a seat to myself. I watch the buildings slide by until we are on the freeway. I am still numb. I try desperately to feel something, anything. Katherine at least deserves my mourning for her. But I can feel nothing, and the irony of that bites at me. I have spent so much of my life, since early childhood, learning not to feel. Now, when I need to, I cannot. I have taught myself too well. Finally I sit back and stare out the window while I let my mind drift down into the place I learned to find as a young boy hunting deer, a space where no thoughts intrude and time has no meaning. They say the bus ride from Spokane to Seattle takes a good six hours, but when we arrive I have no idea how long it has been.

  I take a taxi to my house and go inside. From force of habit I check messages and there are none. That at least is good. I do not want to have to deal with anything for now. It is a gray afternoon and I am at a loss. I am restless but I have no desire to do anything at all. Finally I make myself go out and walk to the Post Office. My box there is empty, and I am glad of that, too. By the time I get back to the house my body, at least, has relaxed. I make a small omelet and force myself to eat it and then escape into pragmatic mode. I wander around the house taking a mental inventory, beginning to plan my move to Montana. Eventually it is dark enough and late enough to go to bed. I undress and slip under the sheets, but then I just lie there staring at nothing. Finally I get up, put on a robe, and go into the front of the house. I take out the brandy and pour three inches into a glass. Then I sit in my chair, staring at the city lights and drinking. It takes another inch before the brandy takes hold enough that I know I will sleep, and then I go to bed.

  * * *

  I do sleep, but I wake up early the next morning from a dream that leaves me in a dismal mood. It was a dream that made no sense, but that was intensely vivid the way those dreams often are. After I wake it reruns through my mind as if I were still dreaming. I am in a room somewhere and a woman is lying on the floor. She is wearing the blue dress Katherine wore in Spokane and has the necklace around her neck, and she is moving. I am excited that she is alive and I rush to her but it is not Katherine. It is Skeeter, but not really Skeeter, either, and she looks up at me all covered with blood and raises an arm toward me. She is saying something but my ears are filled with a loud buzzing and I cannot understand the words.

  I get out of bed and make coffee. I am not hungry but once again I make myself eat. For the rest of the day pieces of the dream pop into my head, but by the afternoon I am able to push them away because I have occupied my mind with something else. I have thought of a task that I need to accomplish. Three, in fact. Edward Angwin will be the first.

  Katherine asked me not to kill her brother as long as she was alive. When I think of it now, knowing that she planned to die soon, I wonder if she was also saying to kill her brother, please, once she was dead. I remember thinking one time half in jest that I should take Katherine’s name off my hit list and write in Angwin’s. Now Katherine has removed her own name.

  Chapter 53

  I have been hanging out with Angwin for the last two weeks, although he has no idea of that. Every day I have parked a couple of blocks from his apartment and then walked there to wait and watch. I have discovered two things. He has a regular schedule, and he does not have visitors. On Mondays he gets home by seven or shortly after, following his drive from American Lake. On the other weekdays he is home by five fifteen. He goes inside and stays there. I think he must not have friends. He probably has driven them all away over time. On weekends he gets in his car in the morning and drives to a nearby store where he buys a paper and sweet rolls. Then he goes home and stays there.

  Today is Friday of the second week and I am waiting when he gets home. I have brought a gun with me, a small Smith and Wesson .32 caliber semiautomatic. It is not a powerful weapon but it works well and close quarters and makes little noise, especially with the silencer tube attached. I watch Angwin as he lets himself into his apartment. I wait another twenty minutes and go to his door.

  When I knock there is no answer, but I can sense his presence on the other side of the door and I assume he is peeking at me through the security view hole. He proves me right when he says through the door, “What do you want?”

  “I need some of your time,” I say.

  “I sure as hell don’t need any of yours. Go away.”

  “We should talk a little,” I say, which is true. I will have a couple of things to say to him before I kill him.

  “Get off my back! I’ve got the dirt on you and you have it on me so leave it there. Call it a Mexican standoff.”

  “Have you heard about your sister?”

  There is a silence. Then, “No.” I am not surprised he does not know about Katherine. There was a sizable story in the Spokane paper, but only a minor note buried inside the Seattle Times and nothing that I could see on television. And I doubt that his former wife would talk to him about that or anything else.

  “She’s dead.”

  “Did you whack her?” he says. I do not respond and eventually he cannot stand the suspense. There is a click and the door swings.

  I step in fast and slam my right fist into his stomach, just below the rib cage. He gasps and starts to bend over
but I grab his shoulders and shove him back into the room. He stumbles and falls. I pull him to his feet and hit him again in the same spot. Then I cup my hands and slap him hard in the jaw, left and right, hard enough to knock his head back and forth. He would yell if he had any air in him. I make a knife of my right knuckles and slam them into his larynx and he starts to wheeze. Then I drive an elbow into his abdomen and hold onto him as he settles to the floor, half unconscious.

  I turn around and close the door, which has already been open too long for comfort. I take a peek outside as I do, but there is no sign of life. I go back to Angwin and pull out the gun. He stares up at me, dazed and frightened. I slam the pistol into the side of his head just hard enough to make him even more afraid. It feels good, and I realize that I am angry. I can hear the anger in my voice, too, when I start to talk.

  “I didn’t kill Katherine. That’s what she always called you. Eddy. I like that. It fits. Eddy is a little boy’s name, and you’re a nasty little boy.”

  “Who killed her?” he manages to say, his voice a low croak.

  “I guess if anybody did it was you. It took you a lot of years, but you finally got her, Eddy.” I slap the gun against his temple again and he moans. I hit him again, and then again. My anger grows, and this time I do not try to push it away. I fan it, let it become rage, and let the rage turn into a towering flame. I keep hitting him. I want to hurt him. I want him to die one pain-filled piece at a time. I want to slice off his ears, chop off his fingers, rip his nose into ribbons. I want to drive nails through his eardrums. I want him to scream and cry and beg for mercy while I keep hurting him.

  And then the rage is gone as suddenly as it came, because I know that it is only a poor, pale substitute for the grief Katherine deserves, that I owe her, and that I cannot feel. When I speak again my voice is calm and matter of fact.