Killshot

by Elmore Leonard

  * * *

  Carmen would tell later that she saw the gun, or what she thought was a gun, when Wayne came downstairs and walked by her office followed by the two men and the one with the hair had hesitated for a moment to look at her. She saw what she believed was a gun in his belt. When Wayne hit him the gun must’ve slipped down and he was holding it against his groin as he ran into the office, so it wouldn’t fall down his pants leg. Carmen said she didn’t find out until later that what Wayne had yelled at her was to call the police.

  What she did was run after them, up the hall and the stairs to the second floor, where she saw Wayne going into Nelson’s office. By the time she got there . . .

  Carmen would tell what happened next in a quiet voice, looking off, separating it step by step in her mind, seeing it, she said, almost in slow motion.

  “I saw Wayne from behind. He was in the middle of the room. The one with the hair was by the window, with his pants open in front. He was wearing cowboy boots. As Wayne moved toward him he pulled the gun—it had a bright metal finish—out of his pants. He was raising it when Wayne threw the sleever bar at him. But it missed. The man ducked, twisting around, and the sleever bar went through that big window in front, smashing the glass. But because the man turned away as he ducked, it gave Wayne time to grab him. That was when the gun fired. It fired again, it fired three times altogether. Wayne had hold of his arm with one hand and his clothes, the front of his coat, with the other and was shoving him toward the window. Somehow Wayne had a good enough grip to pick him up, not much but I saw the cowboy boots off the floor, his legs kicking as Wayne gave him a shove and he went out through the broken window. I ran into the room thinking for sure Wayne had been shot, but he was all right, he was looking out the window as I reached him and looked out, expecting to see the man lying on the roof that was just below the window, but he wasn’t. It was all covered with broken glass. Then I noticed the little fence around the roof was broken off and hanging down where he had fallen through it to land on the ground. I didn’t see him though. That is, not right away. The one I saw first was the heavyset older man, going toward a car parked on the street and looking this way. Not at us, he was looking at the other one, with the hair. We both saw him then, running across the front lawn away from the office, running but limping. When he got to the car he turned around and fired his gun twice, but I don’t think he hit the house even. The heavyset one pushed him and it looked like they started to argue with each other, the younger one pointing this way. I think there was blood on his face and the front of his jacket. The heavyset one gave him another shove and got him in the car. Then he went around to the driver’s side and got in. They made a U-turn and drove away, north.”

  Carmen noticed the police called her Carmen and Wayne Wayne, but they called Nelson Davies Mr. Davies. He had arrived with the police, Nelson wearing a suit and tie as always, a matching hanky in the breast pocket.

  The questioning was done in the office lobby, Carmen telling her story several times: to the local Algonac officers, both of them who were on duty, to investigators from the Michigan State Police, an officer from the Township Police and four deputies from the St. Clair County Sheriff’s office. All those different uniforms. She could see Wayne was irritated. First, because he was supposed to meet Lionel and had to stay here and second, because of the way they asked him questions, almost as though what happened was his fault. Beginning with, What was he doing in Mr. Davies’s office?

  Did he tell the two guys he was Mr. Davies?

  Did he let them think it?

  Did he try to get tough, antagonize them?

  Did he realize he could have endangered the lives of the other people in the office?

  Wayne said that was why he got the two guys out of there. They were so sure he had the money, he didn’t see any choice but let them think it.

  They wanted to know if he was trying to kill them with that crowbar.

  Wayne said it was a sleever bar, or some guys called it a connecting bar or rod, they used it in their work to pry the ends of iron beams, get them to fit snug. He said if his intention was to kill those two guys he would’ve gone for their heads. He said, “What I don’t understand, why don’t you go over to Walpole and find out who drives an ’86 Cadillac? That shouldn’t be too hard.”

  Some of the police didn’t care for this kind of talk. One of the sheriff’s deputies asked Wayne if he had an attitude problem. Wayne, who’d walk off a job if the raising-gang foreman showed poor judgment, said, “No, sir, I’m just curious why you’re sitting around here with your finger up your butt.”

  Carmen didn’t blame him for being arrogant. Especially when the deputy told Wayne if the guy he’d thrown out the window was seriously injured, the guy could take him to court. Wayne said, “It might be the only way you’ll ever see him.”

  They were the ones with the attitude. Carmen saw them as either very serious and impersonal, not showing any kind of sympathy except to Nelson, or they were condescending and treated her like a child. “Now, Carmen, you think you can tell us again exactly what you saw?” And she’d hear Wayne say, “Jesus Christ.” At one point Nelson asked her to make a fresh pot of coffee for the officers. She didn’t dare look at Wayne.

  He showed his irritation while she managed to keep hers inside. Until, listening to Nelson and the police talking, it sounded as though they’d known about the two guys all along. When Carmen asked Nelson about it he said, “Well, of course. One of them called me.”

  “But you didn’t tell anybody,” Carmen said.

  “I told the police.”

  “I mean any of us, my husband.”

  “Because the guy called again and changed the arrangement,” Nelson said. “If he was coming to Wildwood then we had to, well, the police had to set up a surveillance. We had to think of the safety of the homeowners out there.”

  Carmen listened to Nelson saying he wished the two guys had come out to Wildwood. They sure would never have suspected those people raking leaves were police officers.

  “You could’ve called Wayne, told him not to come.”

  Nelson said, “What?” He said, “To tell you the truth I didn’t think he was coming anyway. Or if he did it would only be, well, as a courtesy.”

  “To humor me?” Carmen said.

  Nelson grinned. “You said it, I didn’t.” He looked over at Wayne. “Am I right? Don’t answer if it’ll get you in trouble.”

  Wayne said, “Are we through?”

  It was after six by the time they got home. Wayne popped open beers. He handed one to Carmen sitting at the kitchen counter. She took a sip and looked up at him.

  “When Nelson mentioned the cops out at Wildwood raking leaves, I thought of saying, ‘You must’ve had leaves hauled in, ’cause there sure aren’t any trees out there.’ “

  “You should’ve.”

  After a minute Carmen said, “All those guys acted so . . . sure of themselves.”

  “Like they know what they’re doing.”

  After another minute she said, “What an asshole.”

  “Which one?”

  “Nelson, who else? I should’ve figured him out before this, just from the way he makes his lower loops.”

  Wayne said, “His lower loops, uh?”

  “In his writing. The way he makes them, you know, very elaborate, ornate, it means he’s preoccupied with himself. His upper loops are okay, they show mental alertness.”

  “What’s that prove?” Wayne said. “You have to be mentally alert to be a good bullshitter?”

  “Well, I know one thing,” Carmen said, “I’m not gonna work for that jerk anymore.”

  Wayne raised his beer can to her.

  “Some good has come of this after all.”

  6

  * * *

  ARMAND HAD THOUGHT he liked being called Bird, but now he wasn’t so sure. Not the way Richie, bleeding all over himself, kept moaning, saying to him, “Bird, you have a hanky? Man, I’m cut bad. Bird, get
me to Donna’s.” Saying Donna knew first aid. Richie had a cut on his chin where he went through the window and landed on the broken glass. That’s all was wrong with him, a cut and sore knees he kept rubbing, getting blood on his pants. Armand had a sore back and ribs where the guy had worked him over with the iron bar, a tough guy. They had to run into one of those, not only a tough guy but the wrong guy. Armand believed the blood on Richie made the injury look worse than it was.

  He said, “Let me see,” and looked over as Richie raised his chin. “You could use a few stitches, that’s all.”

  They drove through Marine City, passed the street that went to Donna’s street and Richie got excited. “Stop. Where you going?”

  “Over to Sarnia.”

  “That’s in Canada.”

  “We can’t drive around in this car,” Armand said. “The guy saw it.”

  The guy who was no real estate man and also the woman. They had both gotten a good look at the car. Armand remembered who the guy was now, with that same pickup truck as yesterday. The guy with IRONWORKERS on the back of his jacket talking to Lionel Adam in Island Variety.

  He was pretty sure the woman worked at the real estate office. He could see her now, looking out the back door at them, getting a good look. She was the one that had called out a guy’s name, probably the ironworker’s, but Armand couldn’t think of it now.

  He was too busy seeing what could happen to him. If he was picked up, the ironworker and the real estate woman would say, yeah, he’s the guy. Pretty soon the police would find out where he’s from and that he’s driving a car owned by the son-in-law of a guy, also from Toronto, who was shot and killed yesterday in Detroit. Armand knew one thing for sure: he couldn’t let this get to where they looked him up on their computer machine.

  Now Richie was saying that he was going to get the son of a bitch. “I promised him and I will.”

  “Which son of a bitch?” Armand asked him.

  “The real estate guy. Why didn’t you shoot? They’re standing right there in the window, Bird. There’s the guy big as life. Why didn’t you fucking shoot?”

  “That’s the guy you want, ‘ey?”

  “Man, you had him.”

  There was so much this punk didn’t know.

  “Let me tell you something, okay?”

  “What?”

  “That wasn’t the real estate guy.”

  “What’re you talking about?”

  “I’ll explain it to you sometime. What I want to tell you now, the only time you take out your gun and aim at somebody is when you gonna kill them.”

  “You could’ve back there.”

  “No, no could’ve. Only when you know you can do it. Then all it takes is one shot. It’s the same as with a hunter, a guy that knows what he’s doing. He don’t take the shot if he thinks he could miss, or might only wound it. See, then he has to go find the animal to finish it. Okay, what if it’s a kind of animal that could eat him up? Like a lion that’s mad now ’cause it’s shot and waits to jump out at the guy. You understand? That’s why you always make sure. One shot, one kill.”

  “Man, I’m bleeding something fierce.”

  “Don’t get it on the seat. What I’m saying, you don’t want to have to shoot anything more than once.”

  “I’m in fucking pain.”

  This guy was not only a punk, he was a baby.

  “We gonna take you to a hospital,” Armand said.

  “In Sarnia?”

  “I think it’s St. Joseph’s. I’ll know it when I see it. Me and my brothers went there one time to kill a guy.”

  Richie said, “No shit,” quieter.

  This was how you got his attention, tell him how the big boys did it.

  “None of that bullshit,” Armand said, “like in the movie you see the guy who’s gonna do it come in the hospital? Then you see him go in a room and close the door. He comes out, he has a white coat on and everybody’s suppose to think he’s a doctor. This guy nobody in the hospital ever saw before.”

  “Or the janitor,” Richie said. “I’ve seen it where the guy’s suppose to be a janitor. With a mop, you know, and a bucket? Yeah, nobody says, ‘Hey, who the fuck are you?’ “

  “Listen, okay? You want to learn something?”

  “Yeah, go ahead.”

  “We get to the floor, one of my brothers holds the elevator. My other brother, this kind of setup, watches for anybody that might come along.” Armand thinking, Like a nurse. But didn’t say it. He paused, still thinking of a nurse and what happened after, months later . . .

  Until Richie said, “This’s at night?”

  It brought Armand back. “Yes, it’s at night. I go in the room where the sick guy is—I think he had a heart attack. I mean why he was there. I pull the sheet up over his face and pop him. Once.” Armand took his hand from the steering wheel and pointed to his mouth. “Right here. One shot.”

  “One shot, one kill,” Richie said. “What’d the guy do?”

  “He died.”

  “I mean what’d he do you had to blow him away?”

  “I don’t know. I didn’t ask.”

  “Why not?”

  “It’s not any of my business, it was a job.”

  “You blow a guy away, it’s none of your business?”

  “Whatever he did isn’t, no.”

  “Were you pissed off at him?”

  “I didn’t know him. Don’t you understand nothing?”

  “To me, that doesn’t make sense,” Richie said. “Me, I have to be pissed off at the guy. Like you know, he doesn’t do what I tell him.”

  Driving along the river road toward Port Huron Armand turned to look at Richie, blood all over him, holding the bloody handkerchief to his chin. Some things maybe you couldn’t explain to a guy like this.

  They crossed into Canada over the Blue Water Bridge. It was midafternoon. The customs officer in his uniform checked the Ontario license plate and asked where they lived. Armand said, Toronto; they were here looking for work at the oil refinery. The customs officer hunched over to stare through the window at Richie, at the dark stains on his coat. He asked where they’d been. Armand said they went to Port Huron, to fool around, and his friend cut himself trying to open a beer bottle with his mouth. The customs officer said, “That’s kind of stupid, isn’t it?” Armand told him his friend was a stupid guy. It was the only thing he said that was true. The customs man shook his head and waved them on.

  Armand parked by the hospital emergency entrance. He let Richie go in alone and waited in the car so he could take this time to think, plan ahead.

  They would return south along the Canadian side of the river. Take Vidal Street out of Sarnia, he remembered that from nine years ago with his brothers. Go down past miles of petroleum and chemical works, Ontario Hydro, another name he remembered. Go all the way to Wallaceburg, yeah, and then cross that swing bridge over the Snye River and you were on Walpole Island. Like coming in the back door.

  He didn’t believe Richie had ever killed anybody. Okay, maybe with a shiv one time in prison. But he would be surprised if Richie had ever used a gun, as he said to blow a guy away. That was something he picked up at the movies, that blowing away. Armand tried to think how his brothers used to say it. They would say they were going to do a guy. Or they might say so-and-so got popped. Maybe because when you used a suppressor it made a popping sound, like an air rifle. The old man’s son-in-law would ask if he’d go see somebody. Go see a guy. No one Armand could think of ever used the word kill. Maybe because it was a mortal sin.

  Wait a minute. Armand remembered now that Richie had used the word kill. . . . No, that was when he was in prison and killed a guy and some other guys had tried to kill him. The migrant worker, the hitchhiker he picked up, he said he would have robbed the guy and shot a hole in him if the cop hadn’t been there. But that one, and Richie saying he had blown people away during holdups, robbing a store one time and a gas station, didn’t make sense. Killing a person without a good
reason. Or, as he said, because he was pissed off. That was how a punk would imagine it and make up a story.

  He did shoot at the guy in the real estate office.