MaxAllan Collins - Quarry's vote

“I understand,” I said.

“What?”

“I understand.”

“Understand?”

“That you’re just hired help.”

His eyes tensed.

“That this is nothing personal. I used to be in this business myself. I was a hell of a lot better at it than you, and I never killed a whole fucking family, but…” I got a hold of myself and smiled tightly at him. “… but I want you to think about telling me who sent you. If you do that, I might give you a pass.”

He shook his head. “They’d kill me.”

“What do you think I’ll do?” I said, and I whapped him on the side of the head with the nine-millimeter. He went down on the soft carpet, hard. He was out, or pretending to be, a trickle of blood like a red thread down his temple. I took off my belt and quickly lashed his wrists behind him. I kicked his gun under the sofa. I could have used the thing, the silencer would’ve come in handy, but I didn’t want to touch it. Not that gun.

I went to the door. Before I dealt with him, I had to deal with the back-up man. The man who’d been parked alongside the road. He might be gone, now. Seeing me come bopping along, when I was supposed to be home getting shot, might have sent him running. Or he might be coming in any minute now to help his partner. Those were pretty much the probabilities.

Thinking it over, I went back through the dark house to the side door. You could smell death in that house. I’d forgotten that, or anyway hadn’t thought about it in a long time. The smell of it. Of blood. Of shit. Of death.

I opened the back door and he was standing there, on the steps, about to come in, a ghostly pale presence in black, skinny and taller than me and with a revolver in his hand. A fucking revolver! Even his idiot friend knew enough to carry a silenced automatic…

Him standing there was a surprise to me, but then he was surprised to see me, too, so we both lost about the same amount of time and before he could raise and fire his revolver, I kicked his balls up in him. He howled and doubled over and I kicked the gun out of his hand, thankful that he hadn’t fired it reflexively. Then I slapped him with the nine-millimeter and he looked up at me with a face as pale as a sick child; cheek streaked with blood, eyes begging, he said, “No.. please no…”

I slapped him again with it and he went down on the small cement area, like so much kindling.

I really didn’t want to shoot him with the nine-millimeter. I hadn’t had time to map any of this out, but I knew I wanted to contain it; I knew I didn’t want to fill the night with gunfire. I was hovering over him indecisively when he reached out and grabbed my ankle and sat me down hard on my ass.

He didn’t want to stick around to fight; he didn’t even bother looking for the revolver he dropped. He just wanted to get away from me, from here, from everything. He ran, ran back toward the brush and trees that separated my house from the road, where his car waited. He was perhaps fifty feet away when I hefted the nine-millimeter and hurled it, hitting him in the back of the head, sending him face down to the ground. He didn’t move. Maybe he really was unconscious this time.

Enough fucking around. I went over to the woodpile and got the axe and went over to him and swung and it split his head like a melon.

Some of him splashed on my face and I knelt and untucked his sweatshirt in back and wiped myself off. On the ground around him, I felt around for the nine-millimeter; found it. Over nearer the house I found his revolver, which I heaved into the trees. Then I went back in the house where his partner was waking up.

“Your partner seems to have taken off without you,” I said.

“Oh God,” he said, quietly, pitifully. He was sitting up, hands still behind him. He was sitting next to Chris, who sat in my big comfortable chair staring with vacant eyes at the fire, which was damn near out by this time.

I untied his hands, put the gun in my waistband, slipped my belt back on. I stood over him, but didn’t want to wave the gun in his face. Wanted him to think he might have some chance, at some point, to overpower me.

“And now,” I said, “you’re going to tell me who sent you. I think I know. But you’re going to tell me…”

He shook his head. “You’re going to kill me anyway.”

“Let’s suppose that’s the case. What do you have to lose by telling me?”

“What… what do I have to gain?”

Good point.

“Well… you could buy some time. Maybe your partner is still out there, waiting to make his move. Waiting to come in and blow me away and get you out of this.”

He thought about that.

“You’re not a pro, are you?”

He said, “No… not really.”

“You didn’t stake me out or anything. You just had information about me, where I lived, and you came and did this.”

He nodded.

“No careful planning. No surveillance. No days on the scene ahead of time. Just one day, or night rather. In and out. Just the hit.”

He nodded again.

“Were you told to do the woman?”

He swallowed.

“Answer me. It’ll go easier if you answer me.”

“Whoever was here.”

“And she was here.”

He nodded, looked at the floor.

“You shot her four times.”

He didn’t say anything.

“Ever kill a woman before?”

He shook his head no. Then added: “Not a white one.”

Seemed I was in the presence of another Vietnam vet.

“How did it feel?”

He swallowed.

“Just answer me.”

“It… didn’t feel like anything. It was no different.”

“Than killing a man, you mean.”

“Yeah… yeah, than killing a man.”

“Or some slant.”

“Or… or some slant.”

“She was pregnant.”

He looked at me sharply. “Really?”

“Really.”

“I… I didn’t know that.”

“Would it have made a difference?”

“Sure… sure it would.”

“Why did you shoot her four times?”

“To… to make sure.”

Nam or not, he wasn’t a pro. Didn’t claim to be.

“Who hired this?”

“I don’t know.”

“Who hired this?”

“I can’t say. They’d kill me.”

“They can’t kill you any deader than I would.”

“They… they could kill my family. You don’t know who I am. You can’t do anything to my family.”

“Yeah, but on the other hand, I could cut your nuts off with a steak knife.”

He was shaking. “I can’t stop you from whatever you do to me. That was… was your wife in there.”

“That was my wife in there.”

“Then there’s no getting out of this. You killed my partner, didn’t you?”

I said nothing.

“You killed him,” the guy said, shaking his head. He was crying; quietly crying.

“I killed him,” I said.

He looked at me, his face slick. “I didn’t hear a shot.”

“I used an axe.”

He shivered. “God, oh God…”

“Are you praying or swearing?”

“Why don’t you just do it?”

“It’s political, isn’t it? It’s because I turned that job down. It’s because it’s political and I’m a loose end.”

He shook his head no, emphatically. “I don’t know. I don’t know. I have nothing to say to you.” He was staring at the floor.

“You’re going to say it all,” I said, trying to control the rage, and I reached down and pulled him up to a standing position, by his sweatshirt, and yanked the gun out and buried it in his stomach. He made a sucking-in sound; I was looking right at him, I could smell the minty mouthwash on his breath, see the hysteria in his dark eyes. “You won’t die in your sleep, like she did. You’ll crawl around the floor trying to keep your intestines from falling out, but all you’ll get out of the effort is bloody fucking hands. Now talk.”