Doug Allyn - The Best American Mystery Stories 2003

Fanning away the smoke from between them, Mr. Happer says, “You sure you tossed the place right, huh? You weren’t in no hurry.”

“No hurry at all.” Gordon feels the old man squeezing him.

Mr. Happer raises a hand suddenly, leans to the side to catch something Ustinov says. He nods, as if he’s approving, then props his elbows on the desk. He looks at Gordon.

“You sure?” And there it is. The question.

“I’m sure, Mr. Happer.” Gordon likes the way his voice is deep and smooth.

“I gotta ask you straight up, you know that, don’t you?” The old coot’s face is expressionless.

Deny. Deny. Deny. Gordon doesn’t even blink. He feels good.

Finally, the old man blinks and Gordon says, “Mr. Happer. I’ve always been straight with you. You know that.”

Mr. Happer waves his hand again as he falls back in his chair.

“Son of a bitch dumped the money awfully fast.” Mr. Happer looks again at the TV.

Gordon stops himself from reminding the old bastard that their agreement was simple. Find Smutt, get as much as you can from him, then whack him and leave him where he’ll be found. He did his job. A contract is a contract.

Gordon waits. He wants to say, “Well, if that’s all—” but knows better. He waits for Mr. Happer to dismiss him.

The old man turns around and looks at the windows that face the river. He takes another puff of his cigar, lets out a long trail of smoke, and then says, “That’s what I get for dealing with bums like Smutt. At least he got his.”

Turning to Gordon, the old man smiles, and it sends a chill up Gordon’s back.

“I was thinking of asking you if you happen to know where Smutt used to hang out. Maybe he had another place. But the money’s long gone.”

When the old man looks back at his TV, Gordon casually looks at the windows. A gunshot rings out and excited voices, including Ustinov’s, rise on the TV. Gordon waits.

Finally, after the commotion on the riverboat calms down, Mr. Happer looks at Gordon and says, “I know where to get you.”

Gordon stands and nods at the old man and leaves, Mr. Happer’s dismissal echoing in his mind. He knows where to get me. Goodbye and hello at the same time.

Stepping out into the sunlight again, Gordon squints and stretches, then walks down the stairs. He looks at the brown, swirling river water and laughs to himself. Ustinov is still on the river-boat, floating on his own brown water, trying to solve the murder with Mr. Happer watching intently. It strikes Gordon as very, very funny.

Before pulling away in his Caddy, he slips on his sunglasses and looks around. He spots the tail two minutes later, a black Chevy.

Gordon Urquhart’s bedroom smells of cheap aftershave and faintly of mildew. Waiting in the darkness, Stella Dauphine sits on Gordon’s double bed, her .22 Beretta next to her hand.

She wears a lightweight tan trench coat and matching tan high heels, a pair of skin-tight gloves on her hands. A young-looking thirty, Stella has curly hair that touches her shoulders. For a thin woman, she’s buxom, which made her popular in high school but proved a hindrance in the mundane office jobs she held throughout her twenties.

Beneath the trench coat, she wears nothing except a pair of Barely There sheer, thigh-high stockings. She runs a hand over her knee and up to the top of her left thigh-high, pulling it up a little as she waits.

Closing her eyes, she listens intently.

She didn’t used to be Stella Dauphine. Born Carla Stellos, she changed her name after a year in New Orleans. After seeing a late-night movie on TV — A Streetcar Named Desire — and after parking her car on Dauphine Street, she decided on the change. She felt more like a Stella Dauphine every day.

Her eyes snap open a heartbeat after she hears a distinct metallic click at the back door. The door creaks open. Standing at the foot of the bed, Stella picks up her Beretta, unfastens the trench coat, her gun hidden in the folds of the coat as she waits.

She feels a slight breath of summer air flow into the room and hears a voice sigh and then light footsteps moving toward the bedroom. A figure steps into the doorway.

The light flashes on.

Gordon Urquhart’s there, a neat .22 Bersa in his hand.

Stella opens the trench coat and lets it fall off her shoulders.

As Gordon looks down at her naked body, Stella squeezes off a round, which strikes Gordon on the right side of his chest. He’s stunned, so stunned he drops his gun. Gordon’s mouth opens as he stumbles into the room, falling against the chest of drawers. Blood seeps through the fingers of his right hand, which he’s pressed against his wound.

“You shot me!”

“Kick your gun over here.”

Gordon’s face is ashen. He blinks at her, looks at his chest, and stammers, “You shot me!”

“If you don’t shut up, I’ll shoot you again.” Stella’s mouth is set in a grim, determined slit. “Now kick the gun.”

Gordon swings his foot and the gun slides across the hardwood floor. Stella steps forward and kicks it back under Gordon’s bed.

The big man is breathing hard now. Blood has saturated his shirt.

“I think you hit an artery,” he says weakly.

“Then we don’t have much time, do we?”

“For what?”

Stella points her chin at the bed. “Sit, before you collapse.”

Gordon moves to the bed and sits.

Stella moves to the doorway between the bedroom and kitchen, the Beretta still trained on Gordon.

“So,” she says. “Where is it?”

He looks at her as if he hasn’t the foggiest idea.

“Mr. Happer told me to give you ten seconds to come up with the money you took off Smutt.” Stella narrows her eyes, “One. Two. Three—”

“I gave him the four hundred.”

“Four. Five. Six—”

Gordon raises his head and says, “Go ahead and shoot me. There’s no money.”

“Seven. Eight. Nine—”

“If I had it, you think I’d be dumb enough to have it on me? I spotted your Chevy as soon as I left the Governor Nicholls Wharf.”

Stella squeezes off another round, which knocks the lamp off the end table next to the bed.

“Dammit!” Gordon groans in pain. “I don’t have any more money. Smutt blew it all.”

Stella brushes her hair away from her face with her right hand and tells him, “Mr. Happer doesn’t believe you and I don’t believe you.”

Gordon clears his throat and says, “Mr. Happer and me go back a long way, lady. He knows better.”

A cold smile crosses Stella’s thin lips. “I’ll just whack you and toss the place. I’ll still get my fee.”

“This is crazy. I tell you, there’s no more money.”

Stella aims the Beretta with both hands again, this time at Gordon’s face. She says, “So you and the old man go back a ways, huh? Well, I’m the one he calls when things go badly. And you’re as bad as they come.”

Gordon nods at her. “I seen you around. I know all about you. And you got me all wrong, lady.”

Stella watches his eyes closely as she says, “When Smutt left the Fairgrounds, he went straight to his parole officer’s house and paid the man off. Three grand. Stiff payoff, but Smutt figured it was worth it. Then he went to two restaurants, gorged himself. Then dropped some cash at the betting parlor on Rampart.”

She watches Gordon’s pupils. A pinprick of recognition comes to them as soon as she says the words “Six grand. He had about six grand left. You took it off him.”

“No way.”

Stella fires again, into Gordon’s belly, and he howls.

“That’s it.” Stella’s smile broadens. “Keep denying it.”

“I don’t have it!” Gordon slumps backward.

Stella levels her weapon, aiming at Gordon’s forehead. She pauses, giving him one last chance.