Doug Allyn - The Best American Mystery Stories 2003

“I don’t believe you,” I said.

“Don’t, then.” Ray shrugged.

“You’re sick. Death turns you on. Everything about death. It gets you going. Ever since you came over here, you’ve had this covetous look in your eye—”

“Covetous?” Ray played the innocent. “Covetous of what?”

“Of my body, that’s what!”

“Nonsense!” Ray said.

“And you know what? I don’t think you’re even a pansy or anything. All you care is that it’s a body, and that it’s dead.”

“Tom, I can’t believe you’re saying that. It’s too awful!”

“It’s awful because it’s true. You don’t care how they do it, or why, just so long as you’re alone with them afterwards.”

“Tom, don’t be ridiculous! I do nothing of the sort!”

“Oh yeah? I don’t believe you. And I don’t believe you have it in you to kill anybody yourself. In this city, you could pick up just about any stranger you saw on the street, if you were clever enough. All you’d have to do is take them home, or to a dark, secluded spot — maybe the park. If you were capable of killing anyone, that’s what you’d do.”

“Put the gun down, Tom. You’re talking crazy! I’m — I’m worried about you. You don’t really want to hurt me, do you?”

“Oh, yes, I want to hurt you, Ray. You bet I do. You’re scum. You’re worse than scum. You’re a scavenger. I’d rather hurt you, but I’m going to take you in. Come on, get up.”

I stood up and waved the gun at him. Ray got up.

“Take me in? On what charge? You can’t prove anything!”

Ray had a point. I had no evidence of his crimes.

“What am I going to do with you, then?” I asked aloud.

“Why don’t you just kill me?” Ray suggested.

“No good,” I said. “I’d never beat the rap.”

“Kill me, then kill yourself. Solves all your problems.”

“You have a death wish or something? I’m sorely tempted.”

“If that doesn’t grab you, why not join me?”

“Join you?” I was incredulous.

“Sure, we’d make a great team! Tom and Ray, the help line boys! Two is better than one. Hey, we could use the good cop, bad cop routine on them! I bet we’d have more successes that way. It’s clear to me from that suicide note that you’re finished with police work. Well, now Ray’s here to hand you back your future on a silver platter. You could quit your job at the police force and come work with me full-time. What do you say?”

“You do this full-time? How do you make a living?”

“Tom. I thought you were brighter than that! I invite myself in. I help them out. I get my kicks, and then I go rooting around for loot. They can’t take it with them, and I may as well have it. That’s how I collect my fee.”

“Your fee,” I repeated.

“You think I’d do any of this out of the goodness of my heart? It’s a business, Tommy baby. So are you in or out?”

“How much do you make?”

“Some nights are better than others. I bet you don’t have much dough lying around. Maybe you got some baseball cards—”

“You’re not getting my baseball cards,” I said. “Or me.”

“And I was so close.”

“Your apartment must be filled with stolen goods,” I said.

“It’s not easy to fence everything so fast.”

“Uh-huh.” I said, grinning. “That’s what I figured.”

I emptied my clip into Ray. He fell down all bloody.

I set my Glock down on the kitchen table. I opened my front door, looked up and down the hallway to make sure no one was watching, and went into the hall. I closed my door. I kicked it hard three times with the heel of my boot until I busted the lock and splintered the jamb and the door flew wide open. I went to the bathroom, tore down the suicide notes, and set them aflame using one match. I let them burn in my fingers until I dropped them into the toilet, and I flushed the ashes down and away.

I went to the phone and called the precinct house. Captain Feliciano happened to be the operations officer on duty tonight.

“Tony, it’s Tom,” I said.

“Hey, Tom!” he said. “You’re off tonight, aren’t you?”

“Yeah, and I had a bit of a problem here. I was just sitting here watching television in the dark, and some guy broke in through my front door. It looked like he was pointing a gun at me through the pocket of his jacket. He said if I didn’t give him all my money, he was going to kill me. I didn’t want to take any chances, so—”

Feliciano sighed. “How many times did you shoot him, Tom?”

“That damned trigger jammed on me again, Tony, so I blew the one in the chamber and all seventeen in the clip.”

“Eighteen, huh? So I take it he’s dead.”

I glanced at Ray, not moving. “You take it correctly, sir.”

“What kind of a gun did he have on him?”

“It wasn’t a gun at all. It must have been his fingers.”

“Well, that’s okay,” my captain said. “Just swear in court that you saw the butt of the gun poking out of his jacket. And you’re sure he intended to burglarize you?”

“Oh, I’m positive,” I said. “He had his moves down cold, like he’s done this dozens of times before. I bet he’s got tons of stolen goods at his place. Can we get a warrant?”

“Don’t sweat it, Tom. You did the right thing. I’ll have dispatch send a car over to take your report. Just relax. You don’t have a thing to worry about. I’ll see to it myself.”

“Thanks, Tony, captain, sir,” I said, to cover the bases.

Captain Feliciano laughed good-naturedly and hung up.

Ray lay there darkly staining my carpet.

I looked over at my Glock and smiled. In the end, it hadn’t let me down at all. It had given me one last chance to prove I was worthy. I picked it up and found the barrel still warm and smoking. I cooled it off with a nice, long, sloppy kiss.

From Measures of Poison

Between the hammer of the midwestern sun and the relentless sweep of the bone-dry wind, the small town of Wheatshocker seemed crushed flat and just about to blow across the plains. Long billows of dust filled the empty streets like strings of fog. Male dogs learned to squat or leaned against withered fence posts so the wind wouldn’t blow them over when they lifted their legs to pee. The piss dried instantly on the sere dirt, then blew away before the dogs finished. Shadows as black as tar huddled protectively in the shallow dunes that lined the few buildings left on the main street. Most of the windowfronts were as empty as a fool’s laugh, while those with glass were etched in formless shapes by the sharp, ghostly wind. The red bricks of the Farmers Bank and Trust had faded to a pallid pink, held in place by desiccated, crumbling mortar. A ’32 Ford sedan idled in the bank’s alley, as dusty as the rest of the heaps parked in front of the bank. A humpbacked man as small as a child sat behind the wheel, smoking a ready-roll. Only a pro would have noticed the low chortle of the reground cam in his engine. Nothing moved down the street but a mismatched team of mules slowly pulling a wagon with a large Negro in overalls and a canvas-covered bed.

The heat-stunned silence was shattered by a single gunshot. Four armed men backed out of the bank, carrying a canvas laundry bag and pushing along an old lady in a feedsack dress and a young girl in white ruffles.

“And stay down, you damn hayseeds!” the red-headed one shouted. “We’ve got hostages!”

The group scrambled into the sedan, the last man firing a shot into the bank’s front window, then the car sped down the dusty street and around a corner after the wagon with its plodding mules. The crumbling sidewalk in front of the bank slowly filled with a group of confused customers and tellers huddled together like the survivors of a natural disaster. A red-faced man, holding a handkerchief against a bloody knot on his bald head, shoved through the crowd, and stared into the dust cloud into which the bank robbers had disappeared.