He took a few steps forward, but stopped in front of a big, deep drawer that had been yanked out of the desk to the right of the door. It was lying upside down, and as he stood there Martin could see that every door and drawer in the kitchen had been opened, and the contents dumped onto the floor. It looked like a tiny tornado had hit the kitchen section of Macy’s or Capwell’s. Plates, pots, pans, silverware, a blender, a toaster—there was hardly a place to step without stumbling or tripping.
Martin stepped through the doorway that led to the living room. He didn’t need to go much further, though, because even standing at the edge of the big living room he could see that this room had also been ransacked (“tossed”). He could also see that whoever had killed Val had also killed Angela. She was lying on her stomach, with both hands out in front of her. It looked as if she’d thrown her arms out as she fell, and as her hands hit they had skidded forward. Her face was turned away from him, to the right, but he knew it was her. For one thing, he recognized her thick, dark hair. It was her best feature, Martin had thought more than once—had even said so to Linda. She was wearing the light blue bathrobe she often wore around the house in the morning, and the matching slippers—but one of them had come off. The bathrobe was hiked up so that Martin could see the backs of her knees; he could see the blue lines of some spider veins running down toward her calves.
Martin was no expert, but he could tell she’d probably been shot as she was running away from whoever came storming into the house. This was because of the position of her body, but also because there were two big dark circles in the center of her back, each of which had a small, dime-size hole in the center. Even from where he was, Martin knew that the circles were made by the blood that had seeped out of bullet holes. About five feet in front of her was a sliding glass door that led out onto the big balcony fronting the house, and from which you could see the Livermore valley as it stretched east. She’d probably stood there thousands of times, looking out and having her morning coffee, or an evening drink. Today, though, she hadn’t made it to the door, or onto the balcony.
Martin stood there in the living room, trying to think. The living room had been torn apart just like the kitchen, and he felt certain that if he went down the hall he’d see that the same thing was true throughout the house.
He looked down at Angela. He felt frozen. What was he supposed to do right now? He needed to call the police. That’s what they’re for, right? Someone’s dead, you call the police. He was in over his head—they would take care of it. Maybe, he thought, I’ll just call, and then leave. At least someone will know about this.
Outside, he could hear the dog, still barking.
“Fuck,” he said in a whisper, as if he were worried he might be overheard.
He shook himself out of his daze and walked back into the kitchen, stepping over all the crap on the floor. He wasn’t being careful now. He looked around for a phone and saw one sitting on a side table, to the right of the sliding glass door. He took a deep breath, reached down and picked up the receiver. He told himself to just dial, and then someone would be on the other end—someone who knew what to do, and who could help him. But his hand was shaking, and so it was hard to get his fingers into the little hole. After a couple of tries he managed it, then waited, listening to the faint sound of the dog’s barking and looking out through the sliding glass door, at the pool. It was covered with acacia flowers, floating in the quiet of the breezeless morning.
“Operator,” a voice said. It was a woman’s voice, and he found this vaguely comforting.
“Yes,” he said. “Get me the police.” He knew that it was exactly the line he’d heard dozens of times on TV, but he didn’t care.
“Is this an emergency, sir?” the woman asked.
He nodded. “Yes,” he said. “It is. Please hurry.” He looked around at the kitchen, and then back out into the living room. From where he was standing he could see only Angela’s feet, but it was enough. It was definitely an emergency.
He listened to the buzzing silence on the other end, and then he heard someone pick up the phone.
“Police Department,” someone—a man—said.
Jesus, he thought. What am I doing? He hung up the phone with a bang.
He took a deep breath. I need to get the fuck out of here, he said to himself.
MARTIN STARTED HIS CAR, but he didn’t pull out immediately. He was still trying to clear his head. Someone—probably Derek Hano—had come to the house and killed Val and Angela. Maybe Val and Derek had an argument, and Hano had gotten pissed off, had gone berserk. Maybe he’d killed Val, and then realized he had to kill Angela, too, to cover his tracks.
But what about the ropes, the wire on Val’s hand, and the finger? Why had Hano cut off Val’s finger? And what about the house? Why was it torn apart like that?
Martin listened to the sound of the dog barking. He was still at it, though Martin thought he might be getting tired. His bark was starting to sound a little scratchy. His mind drifted to the day he’d watched Val walk into the kennel, and then come out with the trash bag full of money. And then it all clicked into place. Of course. Whoever had killed Val had been after his money—the cash he was sure to have on hand for the upcoming drug buy. Val had even said it was going to be a bigger deal than usual, right? Hano would have known all about that, wouldn’t he? People had killed for less, that’s for sure.
And so Hano had tried to get Val to tell him where the money was. That would explain why he’d tied him up and cut off his finger. But why had it gotten that far? Wouldn’t Val have just told him where to find it? Who would suffer like that for a few hundred thousand dollars?
It was an open question, because, Martin knew, Hano hadn’t found the money. And he knew this, of course, because Rex was still in his kennel, barking away, and the money was in the kennel. Martin was almost certain of that fact. And he was equally certain that no one—not Hano, not anyone—could get in there without bloodshed. Either the dog would have to die or the person trying to get into the kennel would have to die.
Something had happened. For one thing, only one finger had been cut off of Val’s hand. This meant that before Hano cut off more of Val’s fingers, really put him through the wringer, he had decided to shoot him. But he’d killed him without finding the money. Again, Martin was positive about this. He’d obviously looked for a while—the house was torn to shreds—but probably only after Val was dead.
Maybe, Martin thought, Hano hadn’t realized Angela was there, and she’d interrupted them. Martin could see it; Val is screaming, she runs down the path, shouting to him, wondering what’s wrong, and he yells to her to run. And so Hano shoots Val, chases Angela up the path and into the house, and shoots her. Or maybe he chases Angela and kills her, and then comes back for Val. But by then, Val has gotten himself free from whatever situation he was in. (Because there was that, too: Val had obviously been tied up when his finger had been cut off, but he was untied when Martin found him.) So yes, maybe Val gets free somehow, before Hano can really butcher him. Unfortunately for him, though, Hano comes back and shoots him. But maybe that wasn’t right. Maybe it had been some other series of events. Whatever had happened, Val and Angela were dead, Hano was gone, and the money was in Rex’s shed.
He sat there, thinking. He knew he should drive away. He’d been there for at least twenty minutes, probably longer. With each passing minute, the odds of someone showing up increased—maybe one of Val’s stable boys, for example.
But Martin also knew that he was now officially out of a lucrative side job. No more Val, no more paid courier flights to Mexico. And that meant the odds of his going broke had risen fairly dramatically (though his debt to Val had just been erased—that was something, anyway).
On the other hand, if he got out of the car, walked down the path, and killed the dog, he could have the money. In five minutes, he could drive away a rich man.
Martin turned off the engine. He could hear Rex barking. It occurred to h
im that Rex probably knew that Val was dead. He’d probably heard Val screaming when Hano cut off his finger, and he could probably smell his blood—or even his dead body (his corpse). It was probably driving him crazy, making him more ferocious than ever. It was a bad time, in other words, to break into his kennel. But he had to do it. It would be like the fairy tale (he didn’t know which one—they were all pretty much the same) in which the knight has to slay the dragon to get to the hoard of treasure. But it’s an angry dragon, one that has been grievously wronged, and one that is therefore exceptionally pissed off.
He sat there trying to figure out a way to kill the dog. Stab him through the fence with a pitchfork from the barn (he wasn’t sure, but he thought he might be able to do this through the chain-link fencing). Whack him over the head with a sledge hammer (though he wouldn’t be able to do this without opening the gate, he knew). He wondered if Val had a gun anywhere on the property. Probably. But where?
Then he remembered that he had his own gun, the .22 he’d stolen from Miriam’s bedroom (or from Hal’s bedroom, if you wanted to put it that way—it was Hal’s gun; he was pretty sure of that).
He got out of the car and opened the trunk. He pulled back the square of carpet that covered the spare tire, and then reached in and pulled out the pistol. It felt heavy in his hand, heavier than he remembered, especially for such a small gun. But maybe that was because he was so nervous—so scared. Whatever the case—whether or not it was actually a heavy gun—Martin had the distinct impression that it was happy to be out of its hiding place. Maybe, like Miriam’s jewelry box, it preferred the light of day, and even resented being hidden away, kept out of sight. Maybe it hadn’t been happy under Miriam’s bed, either. Maybe it had been thrilled when a mysterious stranger (Martin) came in and rescued it from its cramped life with the other guns under the Weavers’ bed, and had then been confused and disappointed when Martin stashed it away in the darkness of his trunk. I deserve better than this, it might have thought.
Martin took the clip out of the handle, or the butt, or whatever it was called, and saw that it was loaded (and again he felt anger at Hal Weaver for leaving a loaded gun lying around his house—talk about irresponsible). Then, moving carefully, he reinserted the clip and lowered the gun to his side. It was almost like a derringer, and he felt a little foolish. But it was the only gun he had, and overall, he felt all right—less nervous than he would have thought. It was just a dog, right? And an asshole dog at that. If you had to pick a dog to kill, this would be the one, at least in Martin’s opinion.
He slipped through the gate, trying to be quiet even though he knew it didn’t matter. The dog was barking, regardless. Woof, woof, woof. It had gotten to the point where Martin hardly even heard it. He walked straight to the kennel. He didn’t look to his right as he passed the entryway to the kitchen, and in fact he willed himself not to think about the fact that Angela was lying dead inside the house. He also willed himself not to think about how, if the police showed up at this very instant, they’d peg him for the killer. He might eventually be able to prove his innocence—different guns and so on—but it would be the beginning of the end for him. At the very least, they’d get him for breaking and entering (into the Weavers’ house), and it wasn’t all that unlikely that they’d be able to connect him to Val’s drug operation (though he wasn’t sure how, exactly).
As he walked up to the kennel, Rex exploded into the chain-link fence, barking and snarling. Spit was flying everywhere. You killed my master, his bark said. I’ll tear your fucking face off. Martin wanted to explain that he wasn’t the one who’d killed Val, that it had been someone else. Derek Hano, the cocky asshole from Southern California, the one with the bullshit story about his dad and Pearl Harbor (yeah, Martin thought, and my dad helped launch Apollo 11 to the moon).
Martin took a deep breath. He gripped the gun with both hands, raised it in front of him, and aimed it at the dog. He squeezed his eyes shut and pulled the trigger. The gun went off with a bang (not a boom, but his hands did jerk upward with the recoil). It had more kick than he’d expected.
He opened his eyes to the sound of continued barking—a furious torrent of dog words. I hate you. I’ll kill you. I’ll rip your throat out. Stuff like that. Because he wasn’t dead. Not because he was impervious to the gun’s small bullets (Martin’s initial fear). No, it was because Martin had missed him, even though he was standing about four feet away from him.
Jesus Christ, Martin said under his breath. He was shaking. But he took another deep breath, raised the gun—and then lowered it. He knew that even though Val’s house was isolated, it wasn’t unlikely that someone on the hill would hear the sound of gunfire, even the pop-gun sound of the .22. This had to be the last shot, and after the dog was dead he needed to find the money and take off. Time was passing.
Martin took one long stride forward, until he was practically nose-to-nose with the dog. Rex lunged at the fence, smashing his nose into it, trying to get his teeth through the mesh and into Martin. Dog spit flew onto his shoes, and he took an involuntary step backward. He was worried that the dog might burst through the fencing, but as he watched him struggle he felt slightly reassured. This wasn’t a sliding glass door, and he wasn’t the landscaper guy who’d had his arm ripped up like a leg of lamb (“like a leg of lamb”). He really wasn’t in danger.
He put the barrel of the gun through the actual mesh of the fence and was about to squeeze the trigger, but he saw that Rex had pivoted to the left and that he was going to miss again. Fuck, he said. He stepped to the right, trying to aim directly at the dog through the fence. But it didn’t work, because Rex leapt up at him, right at his face, and Martin was so startled that he dropped the gun. For a panicked second he thought it had fallen into the kennel, and that he was going to have to try to retrieve it from there (or not—in which case the police would find it, and eventually trace his fingerprints).
Goddamnit! he said—shouted. He leaned down and fumbled for the gun. Instantly, the dog was low down with him, biting at the bottom of the fencing, trying, it seemed, to get his teeth onto the gun. Maybe he knew what was going on—though if that were the case, his strategy of all-out aggression was probably less effective than hiding in the shed would have been. That would have forced Martin to go in after him, something he wouldn’t have done even for a million dollars.
Martin was having a hard time picking up the gun. It kept eluding his hand, as if it had decided suddenly that it didn’t want to be involved in the slaughter of a helpless animal, however much of an asshole it might be. Yes, it was happy to be out of the trunk, but enough was enough. And so finally Martin just dropped down to his knees and grabbed the gun. He put both hands on it, pinning it down for a second, and then raised it and pointed into Rex’s chest. He was only about eight or ten inches away, the spit and (now) the foul odor of his breath shooting out onto Martin’s face. Martin scooted back a little bit, trying to get room to aim. He lifted the gun and pointed—and then dropped his hands into his lap.
He couldn’t do it.
Yes, he’d already fired a shot at Rex; had narrowly missed, in fact. But it occurred to him that he’d actually missed on purpose. Not consciously, of course. Consciously he’d wanted the dog dead. Out of the way. He still did. But unconsciously . . . ? Martin wasn’t so sure. He was suddenly exhausted.
I can’t do this, he thought.
He looked down at his hands lying in his lap, clutching the gun. Pick up the gun and shoot the dog, he said to them. But they didn’t respond, and for some reason he wasn’t quite able—or willing—to send the executive order down to his hands to get to fucking work, rise up, pull the trigger, kill the dog. Worse, the gun seemed to be in on the mutiny. It seemed to be telling his hands to rebel, to ignore Martin and do the right thing—which in this case, at least according to them (and according to the gun), was to let the dog live.
Shit, he thought.
The dog was unmoved by Martin’s change of heart. It was as desp
erate as ever to tear into him. In fact, he thought, it seemed to have sensed his weakness. It was lunging at him, then backing up and lunging again. If ever a dog deserved to die, Martin thought, this is the dog. He’s a wild animal.
Martin stood up slowly. He felt like the big-game hunter who’d finally gotten his trophy animal in his sights—the lion or the bear or whatever—only to chicken out at the last second. He’d hiked for days into the wilderness, and though he hadn’t really been scared, when push had came to shove he’d looked the animal in the eye . . . and blinked. Here, Martin knew, the big-game-hunter analogy only went so far: the dog was in a cage and couldn’t get at him. In fact, it was more like shooting ducks in a barrel than hunting a lion or a bear. But whatever analogy you came up with, Martin had failed. Worse, Rex seemed to know it, and he was taunting Martin now, daring him to put a bullet into him.
Woof, woof, woof. Martin sighed, and looked down at his little .22 revolver. Would it have stopped him, anyway? Maybe not, he thought.
He stood there, staring, fantasizing about ways to get past the dog and into the kennel. Dig a tunnel (too time consuming). Get some tranquilizers (maybe Angela had some in her bathroom), hide them in some hamburger from Val’s fridge, and wait for the dog to pass out (not realistic, not right now). He shook his head. I’m really fucking this up, he thought.
Something for Nothing Page 28