Shoot The Moon (and more)

by Max Allan Collins

  Lou brought me my coffee and said, “Those guys ever find you, Harry?”

  “What guys?”

  A voice from behind me said, “Hiya, Harry.”

  “Well, Frank, how the hell’re you? Going on duty soon?”

  “Yeah, in a few minutes. You just finishing up your shift, huh?”

  “That’s right. How’ve ya been?” I hadn’t seen much of Frank lately, since that night a while back when I had to stick around and play cop after that one deal. Should have hit that bitch harder.

  “Been rough, Harry, what with my regular tours of duty and trying to look into this rapist thing in my spare time.”

  “Any luck?”

  “Not a bit.”

  Frank was a small guy, but even a heel like me couldn’t help but take a shine to the son of a bitch. He was everything a cop ought to be, honest and family-loving and all like that. Only his clean living was taking wear, putting deep lines in his face, around his clear blue eyes, and it seemed like his sandy crewcut was starting back farther on his head every time I saw him.

  “Say, Harry,” Frank said, “did you hear about the guy on the highway?”

  I put down the paper. “What guy?”

  “State cops found a dead guy out here along the highway a couple weeks ago, hushed it all up, not even the chief knew about it.”

  “Oh, really? Ain’t that something.” Lou was there with my breakfast, but all of a sudden I wasn’t hungry

  “That’s what I was trying to tell you about, Harry,” Lou said, putting the food down in front of me.

  “What?”

  “Those two FBI men was in asking about that little guy you was talking to in here a couple weeks ago. That little guy, remember? He was the one got killed, I guess.”

  “FBI?” I said.

  “Yeah,” Frank chimed in, “seems this guy was important or something. Joker was a government courier of some kind.”

  “Govern... government courier?” I took a sip of my coffee as casually as I could.

  “These FBI guys are putting on a full-scale investigation,” Frank said. “I talked to them this afternoon, before they started going ’round town to ask questions. Too bad we can’t get them to work on this rapist deal while they’re at it.”

  “Yeah, too bad.”

  “What’s this about you seeing that guy the night he was killed? And right here in the diner?”

  “Oh, uh, I was just...”

  Lou said, “Haven’t you talked to those guys yet, Harry? I sent ’em out to your girl’s place, figured you’d be out there at the Seaside with Molly. You must’ve just missed ’em.”

  I took another swallow of the coffee and tried to think.

  “What’s wrong, Harry?” Frank said.

  “Hell,” Lou laughed, slapping the counter, “he’s drinking his coffee black. What’s with you, Harry? You know you can’t stomach it without cream and sugar.”

  The Love Rack

  I guess I'm resigned to the fact that I'm going to die. Or as resigned to dying as a man can get, anyway. They've told me, you see, that they're going to kill me. And I have no reason to doubt them. It's as simple as that.

  Haven't eaten in quite a while but I'm not overly hungry. Wonder if it matters if you die on an empty stomach? At least there won't be anything left in me to embarrass anybody. I hear a man's bowels clean themselves out once he's dead, and I'd hate like hell to be an embarrassing corpse.

  I have had a woman, though, and not long ago. A very beautiful woman, too, with soft gold hair and warm brown eyes. Yes, yes, I've known her that way, I've had that much. Seems as if we made love all night long. Wonderful. I've got no complaints about that part of it. Haven't known her long but I could love her if I had a while, I think. Hell, maybe I love her right now.

  Her face is her face, but it's also someone else's. From a long time ago. It's all very confusing.

  She lies still, not far from me, as though she were dead.

  Perhaps she is.

  After a while it gets kind of hard to remember....

  In the evening I went out with a young woman who wouldn't. I dropped her off at her place and went back out into the city and got lost for a while and drank. Don't own a car, so I walked the streets rather than take a cab. I don't live far from the downtown anyway. It had been raining and the streets were shiny black like patent leather. Once I almost got hit when I decided to look at my reflection in the funny black mirror which turned out to be the middle of the funny black street. I called the driver who nearly clipped me a motherfucker - I sober up quickly - and tottered off in the vague direction of my apartment.

  I got back around two or three in the morning. Not drunk, mind you, but not ready to take on a high wire act either.

  I went into the bedroom, stripped down to my shorts, flopped down on the bed. Thought sleep would come easy, but no go. My head ached, and badly. Migraines hit me from time to time, and this was a time.

  Got to sleep in an hour or so.

  I dreamed. I dreamed I was spread out on a long wooden frame, my legs and arms tied to the ends of it. Then a girl, young and pretty, with the face of someone I loved once, began to twist a wheel which caused the frame to extend and started pulling my limbs apart from my body. I just lay there on the rack and screamed while she kept working the wheel, her face chiseled stone.

  I awoke in a cold sweat, naturally, and shook off the damn thing as quickly as I could, before rolling over and back to sleep again. I had had to get used to the dream, because I'd had it as an unwanted bed partner for years.

  When I got back to sleep the dream took over again and just as my right arm was being slowly stretched free of my shoulder, someone started playing kettle drums outside.

  I sat up in bed.

  Knocking. Someone at the door.

  I said, "Damn," and got up and threw on my trousers and kept on saying "Damn" till I reached the door.

  When I opened it I found a man about my size, though not quite as heavy as I am, waiting for me patiently. He wore a rather handsome tweed overcoat and an air of having made it big in something or other. The only real catch was the undernourished look he had, complete with chalk-cheeked face with vein-lined bones jutting out from it at sharp angles. Also he seemed vaguely familiar, like something from an old newsreel, and he was smiling like a long-lost brother.

  He said, "Hello, Smitty."

  "Okay. Hello. Who the hell're you?"

  "It's been a while. Don't you remember?"

  "No."

  "Aren't you going to ask me in, take my coat?"

  "No."

  "Now, come on, Smitt..."

  "Who the hell're you?"

  "It's Vin, Smitt, Vin, don't you know me?"

  "Vin. Thompson? Vin Thompson?"

  "Korea wasn't that long ago, was it?"

  "It's been long enough."

  "Am I disturbing you?"

  "Oh no, everybody drops in at three in the morning."

  "I didn't wake up the wife or kids, did I?"

  "I'm not married and don't have any kids that I know of." "You didn't marry that girl back home? That Karen?"

  "No. I got a letter from her while I was still over

  there. Married somebody else, the bitch."

  "Sorry, Smitt."

  "Don't be."

  "Well, Smitty?"

  "Well what?"

  "Aren't you going to ask me in?"

  "No."

  "Smitty, we fought together."

  "The hell we did. I was a lieutenant and you were a lieutenant colonel. I barely knew you. Besides, ask me if I give a damn about all that army shit."

  "Do you, Smitt? Do you give a damn?"

  That didn't deserve an answer. I started to close the door on this unwanted ghost when he reached into one of the large pockets on the handsome tweed coat. When his hand came back it had an automatic in it.

  "Okay," I said, suddenly giving a damn, "come on in."

  "Good to see you, Smitt. Close the door, will y
ou?"

  "Drop dead."

  He shrugged and kicked it shut.

  I rubbed by eyes, belched, and collapsed on the davenport.

  "You tired or something, Smitt?"

  "What makes you think that?"

  A deck of cigarettes appeared in Vin's hand from out the other kangaroo's pouch on the tweed coat. He gave himself a cigarette and tossed another in my direction. He lit his with a steelcase lighter but motioned for me to use the book of matches in front of me on the coffee table. I thought about firing the whole book and throwing it in Vin's face for a minute. For a minute.

  "We were in the army together, Smitt, you and me." He puffed the smoke in and out dreamily. But his eyes were hungry in their hollow sockets.

  "I hardly knew you, Vin. You were my superior officer." "We spoke a few times. I liked you. That's why I remembered you."

  "I was a lousy soldier."

  "You weren't bad."

  "I stunk. I drew flies, I stunk so bad as a soldier. I hated it and didn't give a damn about anything but my own ass. And I was scared as hell most of the time. All the time."

  "You're a modest man, Smitt." Half his face smiled.

  "Everybody was scared."

  "Not the way I was."

  "You went home with an honorable discharge."

  "That's a laugh. I went apeshit when I got that letter saying Karen was married. I went off my nut and went out and slept with every slant-eyed thing with two legs that came along. You know how I got that discharge? Discharge is right. I got it for the eight kinds of VD I caught over there."

  "Don't make me sick, Smitt."

  "I'm making myself sick. If I'd been an enlisted man they'd've tossed my in the brig instead of home. Shit. I don't exactly feel like taking a stroll down that memory lane. So why not let it alone, Vin. Okay?"

  "Shut-up, Smitt."

  So now "war buddy" Vin turns nasty, huh? "Okay, pal, it's your gun."

  "I said shut-up, Smitt."

  I did.

  "Your full name is Phillip James Smith, you are a veteran of the Korean War, presently working as a freelance insurance investigator."

  He looked at me as if he expected an answer; since he hadn't asked a question I didn't have one for him.

  "Well?" he asked. Demanded.

  "Well what?"

  "Is what I've said correct?"

  "Yeah, yeah, so what?"

  "And you carry a firearm?"

  "No."

  "You don't? Don't try lying to me, Smitty."

  "I own a gun, but I've never carried it with me. It's a little .32 revolver. I never even fired it once. Carried it on a couple jobs, few years ago, but that's about it."

  "Go get it."

  "What?"

  "The gun. Your gun. Go get it. But no shells, please. I've got shells for you. Then throw on some clothes and we'll get moving. Hustle, Smitt."

  "What's going on?"

  He showed me a plastic I.D. of some kind which identified him as an FBI agent. Looked legit, as far as I could tell.

  "So," I said, "Uncle Sam wants me."

  "You might say that."

  "Well he can't have me. He had me once and that was one time too many."

  "I'm got giving you a choice, Smitt."

  "I have to take the gun?"

  "Yes."

  "But it's just a .32, wouldn't stop a fly..."

  "If you have to shoot, aim at the head."

  "If I have to shoot...what kind of shit is this...?"

  "Hurry up."

  The man driving the car kept his mouth shut the whole time. He wore a black suit which looked slept-in and a black tie which was food-stained and black shoes which looked like they'd just finished kicking somebody's teeth in. I noticed all of that because I was practically sitting on top of him; Thompson, the driver and I were all piled into the front seat of a black Lincoln Continental. There was a solid partition, a black padded wall without a window or anything, separating the front from the back. So I didn't know who or what the hell was back there. Nor by this time did I care. Still had the migraine, paisley spots floating in front of my eyes.

  The heater was on heavy and it was hot in the car, as crammed together as we all were, though outside it was cold, crisp October. The driver switched off the heater and rolled down the window. Since I was sweating like a pig on a barbecue, I took this as a gesture of good will.

  "I appreciate that, buddy, thanks a lot." I gave him a cheerful look.

  The driver cleared his throat and shot a clot of mucous out the window. Then he rolled it back up and let me sweat some more. He turned his head toward me for a moment and his face looked like a slab of cement with a single crack running across it. An unfriendly crack at that, surrounded by pockmarks.

  I didn't speak to him again.

  "I don't have to tell you I don't like any of this, do I?" I asked Thompson.

  "I didn't exactly expect you to, Smitt."

  "How do I know this is on the level, really FBI and all?"

  "You don't."

  "How do you know I'll even go though with the damn thing, whatever it is?"

  "You will carry it out, just as I outline it to you, because if you don't you'll sour my entire assignment and I'll be forced to eliminate you."

  "Just like that."

  "Just like that."

  "You motherfucker."

  "Shut-up, Smitty."

  I did.

  We drove on through the cold crisp October night and I pretended I didn't hear the sounds going on behind the black padded partition. Unidentifiable sounds, but sounds. Then I relaxed. Tried to ignore the press of Vin's automatic in my side.

  The whole damn set-up sounded far-fetched as hell, but then I didn't have much say about it.

  Vin and his men were assigned to guard the daughter of Edward Stewart, a United States Senator who'd been murdered a few weeks before. The daughter, whose name was Susan - Suzie to her friends - had seen the murderer, but hadn't revealed her knowledge until recently, within the last several days. I'd seen the girl's picture in the papers; it had been getting some big press. I asked Vin why she'd waited to talk and he told me that she was twenty years old and probably scared half out of her mind, which I could easily understand. After all, I was thirty-five and completely scared out of my mind.

  Anyway, Vin and a couple other government agents were supposed to watch Susan Stewart closely, until proper steps were taken. Whatever the hell the proper steps were.

  Now and then I would stop and ask Vin a clarifying question or two and Vin would tell me to shut-up. But I was pretty well convinced of all this. As you would've been, had someone with an automatic been doing the convincing.

  The pay-off was that there'd been some related emergency come up in the past few hours which called for Vin and all of his men. And they needed someone to watch the girl for the hour they'd have to be gone, the exact hour being three-thirty to four-thirty a.m. Fifteen minutes away. And I was the lucky candidate. Why me, you ask? Don't you think maybe I was asking that question enough?

  Not that Vin didn't have some answers for me. He and I had been friendly during Korea and he knew I lived in the city, since we'd exchanged goddamn Christmas cards for a few years after service. And, because I was an insurance investigator, I was in some vague way further qualified for the job. According to Vin he immediately thought of me when he'd gotten in this spot, and supposedly the "office" Vin worked out of had prepared a list of likely civilians to recruit in such emergencies. And I was the only one on this sucker list Vin knew personally.

  So there I sat. In the front seat of a black Lincoln Continental, a manned automatic sitting on my one side and a hunk of pock-marked concrete on the other.

  At five till four the driver brought the Lincoln to a halt in front of an aging brownstone.

  It had to be said, and the nerve to say it came to me, God knows from where. "Damn it, Vin, what is all this crap you're spoon-feeding me supposed to mean? How can you expect me to believe you? That you
can't spare just one of your men for this task? And how can you be sure I'll be an obedient dog and not just head for the proverbial hills after you guys dump me off?"

  Vin shrugged, backed the automatic off. The long-lost-war-buddy look took over his face again. "I'm not going to wave any flags, Smitt, but..."

  "Put a hold on that crap, pal. It won't take with me. You say for security sake you can't call the cops, so you haul in a civilian, take him into your confidence and lay the whole bag on his shoulders. My ass! And why me, for Christ's sake, Vin, I'm anything but a hero. Hell, man, you could've done better picking a bum off the..."

  "You hold it, Smitt. I told you we couldn't tell you everything. Do you want to know too much? It's on your shoulders, you say, and why you? I said this was spur of the moment, Smitty, I'm taking a chance, a big one. Believe me, my head'll be on the chopping block if you blow this. It isn't the way I want it, Smitty, but so help me God it's the only possible way it can be."

  I sat there for a moment.

  "Well, Smitt?"

  "Give me a cigarette, damn it."

  He did, lit it for me off the dash lighter.

  "What would you do, Vin, if I got out of this car and walked away from it?"

  Vin lifted his shoulders and set them back down. "Not a damn thing, Smitty. Not a damn thing."

  I bit my lower lip. Sure, sure he says I can walk away. But those eyes, damn flint-gray deep-socketed eyes say he'll shoot me down as I get out of the car. Let me fall to the gutter as he drives off.

  "I'll do it."

  "Good, Smitty, good."

  Play the Star-Spangled Banner, why don't you, you red-white-and-blue bastard? Damn you, damn, damn, damn this whole thing anyway. If security's so important, doesn't that mean I'll be a loose end left to tie up, to make sure the secret's still a secret? No, never - the FBI wouldn't do that. Like hell.

  "I'll do it. Not that I really had a choice."

  Vin shrugged again. He did that a lot. "Okay, Smitt, let's get out of the car and I'll introduce you to Suzie Stewart."

  "That sounds like a new doll from Matel."

  "Just get out and we'll get your babysitting over with. We're on a pretty tight time schedule, you know, Smitt. Oh. Here's a box of shells for you."