McKain's Dilemma

by Williamson, Chet

  "Well, I was pissed, to put it mildly. So I decided to get in touch with Chris myself, just to reason with him a little, and to apologize for old Trigger Eshleman. But when I got through to him, he played it very dumb, saying that he didn't know what I was talking about, that he hadn't sent any letter—which was utter crap—and he demanded to know what the hell I had meant by sending that asshole, as he referred to my gunsel, to take a shot at him. I told him that he knew damn well why, and that if he had any brains he'd keep his mouth shut in future. Then he hung up on me. Three days later I get another fucking letter. Okay, now I'm starting to get a little freaked out. I mean to say, what's going on here? Has he gone to the police and is he in protective custody? What the fuck is happening? Maybe it's time to reason with the man, make him see that he can't hang me without hanging himself, which is what I should have done in the first place. But now I can't get through to him. I get the out of town story that you got. So I figure if I want to find somebody, call a detective. And there you were."

  "You told me a phony story, and I found him for you."

  "Yes you did."

  "And you killed him."

  Runnells stood up, walked to the bar, and poured a drink of scotch.

  "Little early for that, isn't it?"

  He nodded. "Join me?"

  What the fuck, I thought. What the fuck. "Sure." He brought a drink, straight, and I sipped at it.

  "It was about eleven-thirty," he went on, sitting down again. "Michael and I didn't have to break in. I just knocked lightly and muttered something like it's me. Shouldn't have worked, but it did. I guess he thought it was Arkassian, because he opened the door right away, and we walked in. He looked scared as hell, and from the smell I think he peed himself. As soon as he saw it was us, he tried to run out, but Michael grabbed him. Then he starts yelling, so Michael has to smack him in the mouth to shut him up.

  "Now honestly, McKain, when we went in there we had no intention whatsoever of killing the little shit. I wanted to be reasonable, and to get him to agree to stop playing hide and seek and fuck your friends, and get life back to normal for both of us. But he didn't seem to want that. He lied and denied and treated me as if I were stupid or something, and I didn't like that at all. I told him quite logically that it made no sense for him to go to the police, because if I ended up in jail, he and Ben would be there too on drug charges. Then he told me I had nothing on him, and to just leave him the hell alone." Runnells snickered. "I've got to admit, I was getting a little turned on by the whole situation. I mean, he was just so scared. I started to tease him then, about being in prison, and all the big black boogies cramming it in his ass, and I guess he just went a little crazy and took a swing at me. Oh, he missed, so no harm done, but it made me so mad that I hit him back."

  Runnells tossed back his drink and licked his lips. "Do you know that was the first time I had ever hit anyone. And it felt good. He went over backward just like the Puerto Rican in the bar after Michael hit him in the throat, and I knew then why Michael liked it so much. Hell, it's impossible not to like it.

  "In fact I liked it so much I kept it up. Nobody knew we were there, nobody'd seen us go in—of course I didn't think of these things at the time, but I suppose they were there subconsciously, letting me do what I did without fear. And as I was doing it, hitting him and watching him cry and moan and bleed, I told myself that this was the only way it would be settled and no one would know except Michael. And when I thought about Michael I realized that he was there with me too, hitting Chris and kicking him and pounding his head against the floor, and pretty soon Chris wasn't moving at all, and I knew we'd killed him, Michael and I. We were both glowing, like people after sex."

  He looked up at me, and it seemed as though his face was glowing still, at just the memory. "What a shame," I said, "that you didn't have your camera with you."

  Runnells shook his head as though he pitied me. "I'm not expecting you to understand, McKain."

  "Then why are you telling me all this?"

  He shrugged. "Truth is good for the soul."

  "Why did you really go to see Arkassian then?"

  "To give him money."

  "You've lost me."

  "Chris might have told him about my little videotape. He might have known about the blackmail, probably did. So I gave him something for his pains, that simple."

  "You told him you killed Townes?"

  "No. I didn't say we did, and I didn't say we didn't. I just gave him a . . . bereavement gift, that's all."

  "Wouldn't it have been easier to do that at the beginning?"

  "Pay the blackmail?"

  I nodded.

  "Easier," he replied, "but not as much fun."

  I shook my head, not believing him. "I can't imagine that Arkassian took money to make up for having his lover murdered."

  "There's a lot you can't imagine, McKain. You live a very sheltered life. People lie and cheat and steal and kill all the time, you know? Wild world out there. Ben can find another girl. And his kind don't run to the cops. They run from them."

  "Why did you leave the cigarette lighter?"

  He started to laugh then, a real, sincere laugh that let me know he was genuinely amused, that it was really all a game even though people died. "That was silly, wasn't it? Like the mark of Zorro or something. I don't know why I did it. Just for fun, I guess. Just to take a little risk. Although if I'd known you were going to get your nose into it I never would've done it." He bit his upper lip thoughtfully. "Oh, what the hell, maybe I would have at that. After all, I fooled you anyway, didn't I?"

  I gave a quick nod. "AIDS."

  "AIDS," he repeated. "You've got to admit that was a hell of a performance. And frankly, you surprised me. I thought you might believe it all right, but I had no idea you'd let me go and forget about it."

  "But you tried it anyway."

  "I had to. The only other solution would be to try and kill you, and I didn't know who you might have already talked to about it. You get killed, and there are police at my door an hour later. So all in all, things worked out well for both of us. You're alive and I'm safe."

  He wasn't safe, I thought. He was a dead man, but didn't know enough to lie down. "How did you make yourself look so bad?"

  "Makeup. I did a lot of theatre in college, still keep a makeup kit handy. I wish you would've looked at my leg—I worked awfully hard on that, and you barely gave it a glance. Still, I was convincing enough."

  He was convincing all right. I swear to God that I thought he was telling the truth. His face, his body, everything had been thin and twisted to an extent I wouldn't have believed possible with makeup alone. I wondered then, in an unreasoning moment of fancy, if Runnells was some sort of monster in human form, who, that day in the park, had let slip just slightly his semblance of humanity, giving me a glimpse of the sick and rotten creature beneath.

  And then I thought, more realistically, no—I had seen sickness and gauntness and approaching death because I had wanted to see those things, because I had not wanted to go on the journey alone. The son of a bitch had tricked me fair and square, but now it was my turn to get back.

  I reached inside my jacket, and tugged the gun out of my waistband. Runnells looked at it as though he'd expected to see it, but was still shaken by the sight. I just held it, not pointing it at him, resting it on my thigh.

  "What's that supposed to mean?" he asked, and I heard his voice shake, and was glad.

  "It means that I don't know what the fuck you're talking about when you say that I'm your man. It means that I'm going to turn in your ass to the New York City cops for Townes's murder, and that I'm going to turn it in to the locals for the death of your wife. They can fight over you. It means that Michael goes too. Maybe he'll learn to be a fag in jail. But all that, of course," I went on as I raised the gun and centered its sights on him, "is contingent upon my not putting a bullet through your snotty face right now while I'm still pissed enough to do it."

  Then h
e smiled at me, and though he couldn't know it, my finger tightened on the trigger, and my breath stopped, and I was within a breath of killing him and becoming a murderer myself.

  But I stopped. Where he didn't, I stopped short of it, and stayed human.

  "You won't do any of that, McKain," he said more calmly than I liked. "First of all, you're no killer. And second, I do own you. At least enough to keep myself free."

  "How do you figure that?"

  "You waited too long."

  There was self-satisfaction in his face, but I swear I could see sympathy there as well. I let the pistol rest on my thigh.

  "You waited too long, McKain. It's been a year. A whole year since Townes died, and not much less time since you knew I did it. When did you find out about the cigarette lighter, huh? That wasn't in the papers, so you had to find out from a cop in New York, didn't you?"

  I didn't answer him. My gut felt cold and hollow.

  "But the cigarette lighter was the magic little case-breaker, wasn't it? So why'd you keep your mouth shut all this time? Payoff? Promise of one? And when you didn't get it, you went to the cops? Finally? And what if I was to say I told you Townes was blackmailing me and that's why I wanted you to find him, so you knew all along. You knew I killed him, and you asked me for money to keep it quiet."

  "I'll tell them the truth. Exactly what happened."

  "You think they're going to believe that AIDS story? First of all, they wouldn't believe anybody'd try something that off the wall, and if they believed that, they sure as hell wouldn't believe you fell for it. Not Super Sleuth."

  He sat back and crossed his legs. "Look, do I have to go into any more scenarios here? You're fucked, McKain. You tell the story about my wife, and they won't believe that either. There's no hard evidence, and why the hell would I have told you that if I hadn't trusted you with my life? And why would I trust you with my life if you weren't my man? And, too, it might look like you made the whole thing up just to get back at me for not paying you enough to keep your mouth shut about Townes." He shook his head in mock sadness. "I might go to jail, but so might you. And even if you don't, your reputation will be shit. Probably lose your license at the least, do hard time at worst. Is it worth so much to you to see me in jail?"

  I nodded. "It might be."

  "Then think about this." His smile was gone now. "I won't serve any time for Leona, and I'll get manslaughter at most for Townes, maybe nothing at all if I can get a good lawyer—and with my money I can—to show that Michael killed Townes alone, that I tried to stop him, but he was too strong, and he threatened to kill me if I told the truth. Even if I'm an accomplice, what with good behavior and parole, I bet I wouldn't serve two years. Now are you going to throw away your reputation, waste your whole life, maybe go to jail, to send me on a two-year vacation to a lock-up full of other homosexual men? This is justice to you?" He grinned at me. "I hope that when I die God is that kind."

  He looked at me as though he'd just pulled a rug out from beneath me, and in a way he had. I felt rudderless, confused. I'd been so sure of what I was going to do when I had come out there—make him confess, force him at gunpoint, if necessary, to call the police, clean up this mess that I'd had a part in making. And now the bastard thought he had me.

  But I knew something that he didn't. I knew that I was going to die. And I told myself that it didn't matter what happened, it didn't matter if I killed him right now, shot him in the gut so he took a long time to bleed to death. It didn't matter, because then I could shoot myself and end it and be damned.

  And be damned.

  And I thought I would be, if that's how I ended it, if that's what I did to Carlie and Ev. At times I felt I owed Ev nothing, although I could not stop loving her. But I owed Carlie more. I didn't owe her going through life knowing that her father was a murderer and a suicide. Christ, he was already a manic depressive, and that was bad enough. No, I couldn't do that to her. And would my insurance pay off if I killed myself? I didn't think so. Did they ever? Could you buy a suicide clause? And if so, who the hell ever would? No, I couldn't kill him. Runnells had me. For now, at least, he had me.

  "But it won't last," I said aloud.

  The words tarnished the brightness of his grin, but not much. "What?" he asked.

  "Your smile," I told him. "You won't be smiling long. You think you have me, and for now maybe you do. But that won't last. I'll find a way, Runnells. I'll find a way around you. You won't drag me down with you."

  "I don't have to drag you anywhere, McKain. As far as I'm concerned, it's over. You go your way, I go mine."

  "No. I'll have you yet. I've just got to figure out how to hang you without hanging myself."

  He chuckled. "That's quite a dilemma, isn't it?"

  "That's how some of us live," I told him. "From one dilemma to the next."

  Runnells pursed his lips and eyed me appraisingly. "I should have been wary of you when I first saw your eyes, McKain. They're very intent eyes. Very sharp. Very . . . probing. They're blue, aren't they?"

  I nodded.

  "Chris Townes had blue eyes too. They grayed over when he died."

  "Beating a weak queen to death doesn't impress me. You and your moron try the same thing on me, and I'll get to kill you legally."

  "Don't be too vengeful, McKain."

  "Don't be too relaxed, Runnells."

  "You won't try to kill me. You're no vigilante. You're not the type."

  I stood up and stuffed the .38 back into my belt, letting the butt stick out so he could see it. "Watch your back, motherfucker," I said, and headed for the door.

  "You won't go to the police," he called after me, as if to reassure himself.

  I didn't answer, just pushed open the door and started down the hall. Eshleman, who had been sitting on a love seat under a portrait of a man in a Civil War uniform, got up when he saw me, partially blocking my way out. From behind, Runnells shouted something I didn't understand. I tried to walk around Eshleman, but he put a hand on my right shoulder to stop me.

  I didn't want to be stopped, and I didn't want to be touched, especially not by Michael Eshleman. With one quick move, I jerked my shoulder free and gave him a backhanded fist across the face. He had just opened his mouth to say something, and the fist caught him right in his jaw. There was a harsh, cracking sound, followed by a high-pitched cry of pain, and he staggered back, hitting the arm of the love seat and falling to his knees. With the first shock of pain gone, he gave a low growl and twisted his body around, tackling my legs and knocking me to the carpeted floor.

  I didn't try and fight him. He was half a head taller than me and fifty pounds heavier. Instead I wrenched out my .38 and stuck it six inches away from his eyes.

  "Let go or I'll kill you," I told him, and meant it. He wasn't so stupid that he didn't believe me. He let go.

  When I got up, Runnells was standing in the hall several feet away, his face almost as white as his lying makeup had made it nearly a year before. "Come here," I said, still holding my gun. It's amazing how strong a loaded weapon can make you feel. Amazing too how quick people are to obey you.

  Runnells obeyed, walking toward me as though he expected to feel a slug splatter into him at any moment. "McKain," he husked out, "McKain, control yourself . . ."

  I didn't control myself, but I didn't shoot him. Hitting someone had felt so good that I wanted to do it again. I just smiled as Runnells approached me, giving him no indication of what I had in mind, then punched out with a quick left that caught him right on the nose, propelling him straight back so that he fell over the still-reclining Eshleman in a cluster of arms and legs.

  Eshleman tried to push him off and surge to his feet, but I pointed the gun at him again, and he subsided. Beside him, Runnells blubbered, holding his hand to his face. There was blood seeping through his fingers. I had broken his nose. I felt it when I hit him, and I didn't feel like a bully at all. I felt like I had gotten some of my own back. But not enough. Not nearly enough.

>   "Someday you're not gonna have that gun . . ." I could barely understand the words that Eshleman gibbered over his broken jaw, but from his cavalier attitude I guessed that it was not the first time it had been broken. "I'll fuckin' kill you then . . ."

  I backed down the hall, then stuck the pistol in my belt. "Curb your dog, Runnells. And watch your back." Then, disobeying my own advice, I turned my back on them, walked down the hall, into the entryway, and out the door, closing it behind me. It stayed closed as I watched it in the rearview mirror when I drove away. I didn't expect them to come after me with guns blazing. Carlton Runnells wouldn't have wanted to explain my bullet-riddled corpse.

  As I pulled onto the blacktop and headed for home, I felt lousy. True, I now had to my credit a broken jaw and a broken nose. But they didn't even begin to make up for my own broken life.

  Chapter 13

  I didn't know what to do. I should have gone to the police and told the truth to whoever would listen to me, but I was afraid. All that I had left to lose was my reputation as a good investigator. And that was all I could leave behind to be remembered by—my reputation. My honor, if you will.

  I didn't let Runnells go that first time out of any selfish motive. I got no money out of it, no favors of any sort. I let him go out of compassion, thinking that justice had been served. Runnells would die, and Townes, in a way, had deserved death. But now I found that the situation had been an illusion, and that now, ironically, it was selfishness and self-image that prevented me from turning two vicious and conscienceless killers over to the justice they deserved.