He kicked the creeper out of his way and moved to a sink in the corner. He turned on the water and washed his hands, keeping an eye on her in the mirror. He toweled off with an old chamois.
Without turning, he said, “I might be in the market for what you’re selling—if the price is right.”
She hadn’t moved. “Three grand up front, and thirty when the job is done.”
“Pretty steep.”
“No, it’s not. If you’ve done your homework, you know it’s at the low end of the price curve.”
“In that case, why don’t you charge more?”
“I’m a humanitarian.”
Near the sink was a wall switch that would turn on the overhead lights. He thought about using it, decided not to. This felt like a transaction that ought to be conducted in the dark.
“Maybe you could go a little lower,” he said, turning finally to face her across yards of oil-stained concrete. “Cut a working man a break.”
“I don’t haggle. Thirty-three thousand total, all cash. Take it or leave it.”
“You’re not working too hard to close the sale.”
“I got other prospects.”
“I’ll just bet you do.” All kinds of prospects. A hot babe with a gun. She ought to be airbrushed on the side of a van. “You know, maybe if we work out an arrangement, we could go someplace and celebrate.”
“That wouldn’t be such a good idea, Gil. Gotta keep our heads down.”
“Yeah, I guess. Too bad, though. I’d like to see what’s inside those jeans.”
“Flesh and bone, mostly, just like anyone else. Gotta say you’re treating this whole thing kinda light. You serious about this job?”
“You bet I’m serious. When I make up my mind to do something, I don’t dick around.”
“So you’re not gonna get cold feet, like some people?”
“No way, honey. I’m in. I am all in.”
She appraised him for a moment, then nodded. “Good to know.”
He noticed how she stayed close to the doorway, away from the windows set in the garage door. Not much traffic on the road outside, only the occasional sweep of headlights and whoosh of rainwater spray, but she wasn’t taking any chances on being seen.
“So who’s the target?” she asked.
“Grapevine didn’t tell you?”
“Grapevine says you didn’t say.”
He hadn’t. He was cautious like that. Even now he didn’t like to come right out with it.
She noted his hesitation and added, “I’ve pretty much gotta know, unless you want me to just start shooting people at random.”
“It’s my wife. That a problem for you?”
“Why would it be?”
“What I heard about you ...” He wasn’t sure how to put it. “They said you might not take this kind of job. They said you got, um, moral standards, or something.”
“I’m still here, aren’t I?”
“So they were wrong about you?”
“Let’s just say I can be flexible. And times are tough all over.”
Gil nodded. “Fair enough. Can you get it done?”
“I always get it done. What’s the timetable?”
This part of the conversation was easy. He’d rehearsed it a hundred times. Now it was really happening, and even the atmosphere was right—the dark garage, the spatter of rain on the windows, the girl with an outlaw’s name watching him with her hard blue eyes.
“I’ll be out of town next weekend. It’s a perfect alibi. On Saturday night she’ll be home alone. We have a townhouse on Seascape Island. End unit, and the one next door is empty. Very isolated. You can do her and make it look like a break-in that went wrong.”
He’d spit the words out in a rush. He was out of breath when he finished.
She studied him. “You’ve given this a lot of thought.”
“Hell, yeah. It’s all planned. The last piece of the puzzle is you.”
“Can I ask a question? Why do it? Why take the risk?”
He noticed he was still holding the chamois. He rubbed his hands with it, although they were clean. “She’s been talking about a divorce.”
“Might be simpler to just cut her loose.”
“I can’t do that.” He rubbed harder. “See, her dad started this garage. She inherited it from him.”
“And if she leaves you, you’ll lose the business.”
“I built it up,” he said fiercely. “Her old man never did shit. I’m the only decent mechanic he ever hired. I put in eighteen-hour days. I don’t deserve to lose everything.”
“Killing your wife just for a gas station. Pretty cold.”
“It’s a service station.” He balled up the chamois and flung it into a corner. “Full service. And what the fuck do you care? You here to pass judgment or do a job?”
“Both, actually.”
A moment passed while the rain tapped on the windows, a low rhythmic sound.
“So,” he said finally, “can I hire you?”
“Too late, Gil.” She reached into her handbag. “Your wife already did.”
She fired three shots, but Gil heard only one.
2
Bonnie spent fifteen minutes in the garage, tidying up. Even in this modern world, some things never changed. It was always a woman’s job to clean up after a man.
Her main concerns were to erase any traces of her visit to the repair shop and to make Gil Krauss’s death look like a robbery gone bad. Which, incidentally, was the same scenario he’d had in mind for his wife. She guessed that would qualify as irony.
She pulled on gloves and wiped down the door that led from the office to the garage. It was the only thing she’d touched with her bare hands. In the office she removed all the bills from the cash box. She stuffed the money into her handbag, alongside the special compartment containing her handgun. The gun was a black-market .22 she’d acquired from a small arms dealer named Mama Blessing who, as it happened, lived right here in Maritime. It was not silenced. A silencer would only have bulked up the handbag, possibly raising Gil’s suspicions. Anyway, in a closed garage alongside a mostly empty highway, there was little danger of anyone overhearing a few small-caliber gunshots.
The last thing she did was approach the body. Gil Krauss lay dead on the floor with three holes in his chest. His eyes were open and shocked.
He was a big man with hairy arms and a broad, unintelligent face. She hadn’t particularly wanted to kill him, but she hadn’t minded it, either. She’d held off doing anything final until she was sure he was serious. If he’d just been venting steam, she could have let him off with a warning. Some guys were all talk. Some wouldn’t go through with it when it became too real. But Gil had worked it all out, had a definite date, an alibi, and apparently cash on hand. He would have hooked up with a shooter soon enough.
She checked his pockets for a throwaway cell phone and found it. No surprise that he had it on him; he’d been waiting for a callback from the shooter he’d contacted. She didn’t want the police checking the call log and figuring out that he was trying to meet up with a mob guy. That would only complicate things. It had to be an open-and-shut case, the kind of thing the cops could confidently declare closed so they could go back to writing traffic tickets and scarfing down crullers with a clear conscience.
She slipped the phone into her purse. From the back pocket of his trousers she recovered his wallet. She pulled out all the cash, stuffed it into her purse, and left the wallet on the floor.
Anything else? She rolled back his sleeve and found a wristwatch. It looked pricey. She undid the clasp and flipped it over. His initials were engraved on the back. Sweet. She dumped it into her handbag also.
Before leaving, she took a last look at Gil Krauss. She hadn’t done a hit since the Alec Dante case. That was more than two years ago, during the big hurricane. The job had led to its very own shit storm and several more deaths, but nobody had hired her for those. Frank Lazzaro’s wife had been in touch once, offering
reimbursement for getting rid of her sadistic, psychopathic, crime-lord husband, but Bonnie had told her to forget about it. It wasn’t generosity on her part; she didn’t want anything that could tie her to Lazzaro’s death. That particular bit of business was the sort of thing that could come back to bite a girl in the ass.
It hadn’t, though. By now she was sure—almost sure—that anyone who knew about her involvement had died in the warehouse that night. Well, except for Mrs. Lazzaro, and she wouldn’t talk.
So everything was copacetic in that department. In most departments, in fact. Even her personal life was surprisingly okay. She might have turned thirty last June, a dubious milestone that she’d acknowledged by drinking alone and passing out on her sofa, but she was still alive and still kicking ass.
She’d outlived her namesake by seven years, and she’d survived the hostile intentions of one international hit man, one crazy mob underboss, and one ultraviolent Asian street gang, not to mention a disgruntled individual with a crossbow and a pissed-off former client with a gun. By all rights she should have been dead many times over, starting when she was fourteen years old and listened from hiding as her parents got shot to death in the next room.
So yeah, she couldn’t complain. For the first time in a long while—maybe for the first time ever—life was good. And she intended to make it last.
3
As she drove out of Maritime, Bonnie lit a cigarette, her first since the hit. It tasted fine.
She dialed through the radio, looking for some balls-to-the-wall rock music, settling on an oldies station playing Jefferson Airplane. The song was older than her ride, and that was saying something, because her ride was a well-used vomit-green Jeep Wrangler that had been with her since she’d started the detective agency eight years ago, and it hadn’t been remotely new even then.
Heading south, she hit Miramar and stopped at a public park, where she tossed the .22 into the inlet. It made a dim splash in the darkness.
By now, her tummy was rumbling. A hit always made her hungry. Horny, too. She really ought to talk to somebody about that.
She drove to a McDonald’s with a twenty-four-hour drive-through. She ordered a combo and ate it in the Jeep. The radio was playing Creedence. “Bad Moon Rising.” It seemed appropriate.
So far, the job had gone well enough, but the toughest part was still ahead. That was the part where her client had to handle things on her own. Bonnie hoped Mrs. Joy Krauss could hold it together. She wasn’t completely sure.
It was sheer good luck that Joy had tumbled to her hubby’s plot to put her in the ground. Late one night, she’d overheard him leaving a phone message with a potential hitter. He wasn’t dumb enough to use their home phone—he’d used his disposable cell—but he called from the den in their condo when he thought his wife was asleep.
The next day Joy came to Bonnie’s office. How she knew about Bonnie Parker and her highly illegal sideline, she didn’t say. Some people knew, that’s all. Like Gil had said: rumors.
A hit on the husband was the obvious way to proceed. Sure, Gil could have been sent to jail, but Bonnie didn’t see the percentage in that. He would get out eventually. And a hit on his wife was something that could be arranged from inside a prison, maybe even more easily than on the outside.
The only way for Joy Krauss to be really safe was to put her husband permanently out of the way. And since that was the same fate he’d had in store for her, it seemed only fair. Sauce for the gander and all that.
If only Joy could remember to see it that way, and keep from going all squishy now that the pressure was on.
Finished with the meal, she carried the food wrappers to a trash bin at the rear. She popped the SIM card out of Gil’s phone and smashed it under her foot, then tossed the phone and the shattered card into the bin, along with the gloves she’d worn.
That took care of everything that could tie her to the crime scene except the victim’s cash and his wristwatch. She had plans for the watch. After a couple weeks, she would fence it through an intermediary. She didn’t give a crap about the money. She just wanted the watch to end up in police custody, where it would add weight to the robbery scenario. Gil’s engraved initials on the back would make it easy to spot.
As for the cash—hell, the job ought to have some perks. It wasn’t like she could take a tax deduction for the black-market guns she bought.
On the highway again, she doubled back to Seascape Island. Under the circumstances, there was some degree of risk in going to see Joy Krauss in person, but she decided to chance it. She had a feeling Joy might need a little more handholding than her average client.
She’d never been to the Krausses’ condo. Joy had met with her twice, first in her office for the initial consultation, and later, when the down payment was made, at a coffee bar in Sandy Hook—miles away, where no one who mattered had seen them together.
The condo was a narrow two-story unit overlooking the Crab River inlet. Bonnie parked on the far side of the development and walked there in a light drizzle. She was grateful for the rain; it meant no one was around.
Joy was reassuringly composed as she answered the door and let her into the kitchen on the first floor. She maintained her poise as she offered Bonnie a seat at the kitchen table, where a honey dispenser in the shape of a bear stared up at her from a lazy Susan.
But as she poured herself a cup of coffee, her hands began to shake. The reality of the situation was beginning to catch up with her. Bonnie had seen it before. There were a lot of ways people could react. The key was to be sure Joy didn’t go the wrong way.
“Okay,” Bonnie said briskly, “here’s how you’re gonna play it. You sit tight, do nothing until ten o’clock. That’s ’cause your hubby works late a lot, and sometimes he goes out for a drink after.” Having shadowed Gil for the past two nights, she knew this to be true. “So you aren’t worried until a fair amount of time has passed. Got it?”
Joy sank into the chair on the other side of the table. “Yes,” she murmured. She didn’t sound very sure.
“Righty-o. Around ten you call the gas station. Do that, so there’s a record of the call. When you don’t get an answer, you try to buzz him up on his cell. Leave a voicemail message both times. Don’t get all dramatic about it. You could be sorta pissed off. Like, where the fuck are you?”
Joy nodded. “I can do that.”
“’Course you can. You’re a Jersey gal. Attitude comes naturally to us. Now it’s around midnight, time for you to get officially concerned. You call the cops. Not nine-eleven, the local number. It’s not an emergency, you’re just saying, like, if they happen to have a prowl car in the area, maybe they could check on the gas station.”
Joy stirred the coffee with her finger, a pointless gesture since she hadn’t added milk or sugar. “I could say the place has been robbed before, and I’m worried—”
“Ixnay on at-thay. Don’t bring up the subject of crime. You don’t go there. You let them tell you about that.”
Another nod, shakier than the last one.
“Which they will,” Bonnie went on. She thought about lighting a cig but decided against it. She didn’t want the odor of smoke lingering in the condo when the police showed up. “There’s not a whole lotta action in this burg, and it won’t take long for a patrol unit to drop by the gas station and see the door’s open. They’ll find him inside.”
Joy gazed into the black depths of her coffee. “Where ... did you do it? In the office or ...?”
“It doesn’t matter and you don’t want to know.” The less she knew, the less chance there was of her blurting out something she shouldn’t say. “It may take them a while to get back to you. They won’t make the notification by phone. They’ll come over. You need to be in your nightgown and robe.”
“Like I was asleep?”
“No, you were too worried about your husband to sleep. You were watching TV. And I want you to really watch TV, so you can tell them what you saw. Turn on a movie or whatev
er and pay enough attention so you can talk about it if you have to.”
She swallowed. “Will I have to?”
“Probably not, but we need to cover all our bases. Capisce?”
“Mmm-hmm.”
“So the boys in blue are here. I don’t want you getting all hysterical. You’re not Sally Field and you’re not going for a friggin’ statuette. Stunned and speechless is the way to play it. A few tears won’t hurt, but don’t go crazy with the waterworks. Be like you can’t take it all in, like you don’t know how to react.”
“I’ll try.”
“Don’t worry that they’ll suspect you if you’re underplaying it. They expect you to be kinda numb and spaced out. That’s natural. It’s the ones who overdo it who get in trouble.”
“Right. Right.” Distracted, her head nodding mechanically.
“Everybody thinks they can act, but not everybody can. Look at Steven Seagal.”
Okay, the reference was dated, but Joy didn’t even crack a smile. She was really scared. It occurred to Bonnie that maybe coffee wasn’t such a great idea.
“You got any sedatives in the house?” she asked gently. “Valium or something?”
“I think so. It may have expired.”
“Take some anyway. Just enough to take the edge off. But don’t go near the liquor cabinet.”
“I don’t drink.”
“Good. Don’t start. Nasty habit. Like smoking.”
“Don’t you smoke?”
“I drink too. I also kill people for money, and sometimes I wear the same underwear two days in a row. I’m not exactly a role model.”
This, at least, got a grin out of her. But the grin faded as she asked, “Will they make me identify the body?”
“No, they don’t do that. You’ll never have to see him again, unless you opt for an open casket.” Bonnie winced. “Sorry—shouldn’t have said that.”
“It’s all right. You’re sure he’s dead?”
This was a seriously dumb question, but Bonnie didn’t judge her for it. Civilians generally lost their bearings when shit got real.
Bad to the Bone (Bonnie Parker, PI Book 3) Page 2