Макс Коллинз - Shoot the Moon (and more)

“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.”

Some babysitter.

When I got out of the Lincoln I tried looking into the back seat to see who or what was behind the black panel, but the windows were shaded, like a hearse. Vin tugged me along and we went up the half flight of stairs. Behind us concrete-slab sat at the Lincoln’s wheel, gunning it now and then. Sounded like a purring cat. Jungle cat.

Inside the brownstone, beyond the vestibule, were more stairs, four flights of which we climbed, ignoring dozens of closed numberless prison-gray doors on each different floor. The building was unnaturally soundless. Like a massive tomb. The smell of paint was in the air.

Finally, on the fourth floor around the corner and at the end of a narrow corridor, waited another of the unnumbered grey cells. Vin gripped the automatic firmly as he worked a key in the Yale lock. He eased the door open, whispered:

“Vin, Hal.”

“Okay. He with you?”

“Yeah.”

The room was dimly lit and sparsely furnished. It smelled musty, like a run-down funeral parlor. The color scheme of the room was in charming faded browns: two chairs, a bureau, a bed and a standing lamp wearing its shade crooked. There was a doorway to the left of the bed, either to a closet, I supposed, or to the john. Possibly the john, because there was no one in the room except Vin, his buddy Hal and me. And I didn’t think Susan Stewart would be waiting in a closet.

Hal said, “You Smith?”

I said, “Me Jane.”

Vin frowned, said, “Cut it out, Smitt.”

“Sorry,” I said to Hal, “just trying to brighten a dreary situation. Glad to meet you, Hal.”

I held out my hand to Hal and got a sneer in return.

“Don’t mind Hal, Smitty.”

But I did. I did mind Hal, Hal’s attitude, Hal’s B.O., and Hal’s neanderthal appearance. This was an FBI man? He wore a tacky brown suit two sizes too small for his five foot wide frame and white socks glared up over his brown shoes. All of him but the white socks blended in nicely with the room’s mud-brown decor.

“Where’s Miss Stewart?” I dropped a spent cigarette to the floor and ground it out.

Hal jerked a thumb toward the door by the bed. From behind the door came the sound of a flushing toilet, and I deduced that it concealed the john and not a closet and watched as it opened and Susan (a.k.a., Suzie) Stewart came out.

She wasn’t bad. Not the Playmate of the Month, mind you, not top heavy enough for that. She reminded me so much of someone else it shook me. But she wasn’t Karen. She was just a nervous young thing with hands moving around as if looking for someone to latch onto and full lips twitching and her lean long-legged body shifting uneasily as she walked over to me.

“You... you’re mister... mister Smith?”

“Yeah. Smitty’ll do. Glad to know you, Miss Stewart,” and she took my hand and shook it. She had a nice soft hand, smooth, but no fishy grip either. Who needed Hal?

“I’m going to have to lock the door, Smitty,” Vin told me. “You won’t have a key. In approximately an hour I’ll be back and relieve you of Miss Stewart and that will be all.”

“I turn in my badge so soon?”

“That’s right, Smitt.”

“Okay by me. What if somebody tries to get in?”

“Anyone who is supposed to get in will have a key.”

“What about... unwanted guests?”

“Better use that box of shells I gave you and get that .32 of your loaded up.”

“Now, come on, Vin, come on!”

“I’m leveling with you Smitt. Load it. And use it if you have to.” Half-smiled. “Aim at the head, remember?”

“Yeah, I remember.”

He motioned Hal out, patted me on the shoulder and give me his weird almost-smile and closed the door. I heard him working the lock on the other side. And that was it.

“Trapped,” she said.

She smiled, gently. Pretty girl, shoulder length hair, darkish blonde, eyes big bright and brown, wisp of a nose, nice lips, teeth with a sexy little buck to them, clean clear complexion, pretty girl.

“How did you... get into this, Smitty?”

I shrugged, a habit I picked up from Vin. “I don’t know, Miss Stewart. I don’t know. But I sure am in it.”

“You seem... seem different, somehow... than what they said... said you’d be.”

“Thanks.” As nervous as she was, I half thought they’d told her to expect the Boston Strangler.

“I... I didn’t mean anything bad... just... just that they said...”

“What did they say?”

“Nothing... nothing at all.”

“Tell me, kid. What have you got to lose?”

“I’m sorry... sorry... maybe I shouldn’t be talking to you... maybe we better... it’d be better not to talk... they’ll be mad.”

Shrugged again. “I don’t care, Miss Stewart. I’d rather talk to you, though. Might help me to piece some more of this together so I could understand it a little.”

Her mouth took on a slightly pouty look; eyes teary. “It’s better... better not to understand. Care if I... sleep a while?”

“Go ahead.”

She reclined on the bed. The short dress hiked up over long nyloned legs. Lovely legs.

I looked away.

I opened the box of shells and loaded the .32. It was coldly new, though ten years old. Unfired. I hadn’t shot a gun since Korea, and then unwillingly. Damn. Started filling the cylinder of the little revolver with the bullets. Looked over at the girl, who had fallen asleep. Nice girl. Pretty. Looked a little bit like Karen. Quite a bit like Karen.

Karen.

Karen, that bitch.

Married in some suburb with a bunch of brats hanging on her and her bastard Brad with his fifty thou a year. Fuck ’em.

I got a Christmas card from them once, had their picture on it, Karen, the bastard, the brats and a Collie who looked like the bastard only more intelligent. The bastard. Lucky bastard.

Damn Christmas cards anyway, Christmas cards to Vin Thompson helped get me in this hole in the first place. And damn Karen for being Karen.

Susan Stewart, pretty like Karen, so much like Karen, or like Karen was. So pretty. But nervous, so nervous.

And why not? Of course she’s nervous, her father dead and her the only witness. Her father was an important senator, too, by God what was it he was involved in? Hearings on organized crime, wasn’t it? A lot of people could have wanted him dead, and the kind of people who wouldn’t mind making him that way.

Not to mention some of the “straight” people involved with organized crime who sit at their fat corporate desks and tsk tsk the high crime rate. The kind of people who don’t like to look at the truth themselves, let alone let others look at it. Maybe Senator Stewart was clearing some of the fog away and somebody didn’t like that. A lot of people like fog.

And I was one of those people sitting in the fog and wondering just what the hell was going on.

The girl slept.

I laid the .32 on my lap and leaned back in the hard chair and stared at the door and at the girl and back again, shifting from one to the other every minute or so, girl, door, girl, door...