Elmore Leonard - City Primeval

The kitchen was back of the wall that was a few feet behind the couch. Clement could come out again through the dining-L, to Raymond’s right, or he could come out from the front hall, to Raymond’s left.

Either way, it didn’t seem to make much difference.

Raymond moved from the desk over to the front windows, glancing out at the spectacle of lights and reflecting glass, before turning to stand with his back to it. The apartment looked more comfortable at night with the lamps on; Raymond still didn’t like the colors though, green and gray.

Clement was saying from the kitchen, “That was interesting, that talk we had in your office. I never done that before with a cop… like seeing where each other’s coming from. You know it?…”

He’ll have something in his hand, Raymond thought.

“… Yeah, that was interesting. Getting down to the basics of life, you might say. I mean our kind of life. You want a drink?…”

Here we go, Raymond thought. He didn’t answer.

“… Don’t say I didn’t ask you. We got some Chivas… No, that’s it for the Chivas, aaaall gone. How ’bout a beer? Got some cold Miller’s… That mean no? How come you’re not talking?”

It’s his turn, Raymond thought, holding the Colt 9-mm at his side, looking at the dining-L, then moving his gaze slowly across the wall that was behind the couch to the entrance hall.

Clement was saying now, “See, what I got out of that talk we had-me and you are on different sides, but we’re alike in a lot of ways…”

He’s trying to put you to sleep, Raymond thought.

“… You know it? I figured you were a real serious type, but I see you got a sense of humor.”

Clement appeared, coming out of the front hall with a bottle of beer in each hand and walked over to the desk. “It might be a little weird, your sense of humor, but then each person’s got their own style, way of doing things.”

Raymond watched him place the bottle in his right hand on the desk, then, maybe twelve inches from the Walther. The hand remained there.

“I brought you a beer just in case,” Clement said.

The hand came slowly, carefully, away from the desk to the front of his denim jacket.

“I got a opener here someplace, stuck it in my jeans. Okay, partner? I’m just going in here to get the opener.” He glanced down.

The hand moved inside the denim jacket.

Raymond raised the Colt 9-mm, extended.

As Clement looked up, Raymond shot him three times. He fired seeing Clement’s eyes and fired again in the roomful of sound, still seeing the man’s eyes, and fired again as Clement was slammed against the couch and almost went over it with the momentum but collapsed into cushions and lay there, denim legs stretching to the beer bottle on the floor with foam oozing out of it, his hands holding his chest and stomach now as though he were holding his life in, not wanting it to escape, his eyes open in stunned surprise.

He said, “You shot me… Jesus Christ, you shot me…”

Raymond approached him. He reached down, gently moving Clement’s hands aside, felt a handle and drew it from Clement’s belt. Raymond looked at it in his hand as he straightened. A curved handle that was fashioned from bone or the horn of an animal, attached to a stainless steel bottle opener.

Raymond went to the desk. He placed the opener next to the Walther, picked up the phone and dialed a number he had known for fifteen years. As he waited he reholstered the Colt. When a voice came on Raymond identified himself, gave the address and hung up.

Clement was staring at him, eyes glazed, clouding over. “You call EMS?”

“I called the Wayne County Morgue.”

Clement continued to stare, dazed, eyes unblinking.

Raymond could hear street sounds very faintly, far away.

Clement said, “I don’t believe it… what did you kill me for?”

Raymond didn’t answer. Maybe tomorrow he’d think of something he might have said. After a little while Raymond picked up the opener from the desk and began paring the nail of his right index finger with the sharply pointed hooked edge.