Джон Макдональд: Murder Run-Around

“He said so,” she said in a flat voice. Bren could see that her calm was achieved only through great effort.

“How gullible is Gowan Teed?”

“You know that as well as I. I’d say he was anything but gullible.”

“Do you know what hotel he’s at?”

“Yes.”

“Have you got some black thread?”

She frowned in confusion. “Y-yes.”

“Use your phone and call up Gowan Teed. Tell him that you sneaked out to phone him. Tell him that I’ve been taken care of, that August had several drinks to celebrate and wants you to go away with him. Say that August told you that he is going to leave Gowan Teed holding the bag on a big deal coming up, and that the authorities will quiet down if they can get their hands on someone.

“Say that you called him because you know he’ll be generous with you for giving him the information. Tell him that August and my body are in your apartment and that you’re afraid to go back; that August is making too much noise. What do you think?”

She waited a long time before answering. “I think I see what you mean.” She looked at August. “We can slide the chair over there facing the door. The little bedroom lamp doesn’t throw much light. With the table beside him and the lamp on it he would look—”

“Exactly.”

“But how about the two kinds of bullets in August?”

He snapped his fingers. “You could meet Teed in front and hand him August’s gun. I’ll clean it off. You could say that you sneaked it out of here and that August has still another gun. I’ll let August use mine.”

She stood with her back against the door. The one small light glowed near August’s chair, shining upward on his face. She moved the table a few inches and went back to the door. Bren lay on the floor off to the other side of the table, his face in the light.

He said, “Does the black ink look like Hood in this light, Laena?”

“That spot on your forehead. It looks like a hole. It’s... horrible.”

“That’s the way I want it to be.”

“Turn your head just a little bit this way. Good.”

Bren memorized the position, stood up and checked the gun once more. To make the position of the gun more realistic once he had forced himself to wrap Brikel’s fat chilling fingers around the grip, it had been necessary to thumbtack the dead man’s coatsleeve to the wooden arm of the chair. He bent over and sighted along the gun, saw that it aimed just to the left of the door, where Gowan Teed would enter.

The black thread was doubled for strength, drawn back and looped around one leg of the small table.

Bren said, “Get down there, Laena. He ought to be along soon. Did he sound suspicious?”

“A little. Puzzled, sort of.”

After she had gone, lie went to the door and looked at Brikel. In death Brikel had become more of a symbol than an individual. It was hard to imagine that the slack body had constituted a menace. To hold Brikel’s head erect, he had inserted the hook of a wire coat hanger in the back of the man’s collar, twisted the other portion of the hanger around the top of the back of the chair.

He took his position on the floor, found the end of the doubled thread and waited. He forced himself to take long slow breaths so that it would be easier to hold his breath when Gowan Teed arrived. The minutes dragged on. Had Teed become suspicious of Laena? Had Brikel been in a position where he could have crossed Teed? Bren was becoming cramped from his position. The heavy thump of his heart seemed audible in the room.

There was a soft footstep in the hall, the tiny scrape of leather on tile. Bren half shut his eyes. He could see the door. It opened slowly inward and Gowan Teed stood there, the lamplight making a small glitter on his rimless glasses. The glasses were incongruous in comparison with the lean gun in his hand, the bulk of the silencer lengthening the barrel by a good four inches. His head moved in quick birdlike motions as he took in the room.

Teed said softly, as he pushed the door shut, “Stupid, August. Very stupid to kill him here. You make it difficult. The girl told me something interesting. Put the gun away, August. We must talk.”

Gowan Teed stood tense, pointed his weapon toward Brikel. His voice was more shrill. “You’re drunk, August. Put the gun away!”

With a slow movement of his fingers, Bren increased the tension on the thread. He had a horror of it breaking. The jet-white blast, the whip-thunder of the shot was enormous, contained as it was in the tile and plaster room.

Gowan Teed fired three methodical shots. Each shot was a bit louder than the last as the packing in the silencer was worn away. The third shot was as loud as a cap pistol. Harris heard the thud of slug into dead flash with each shot.

Teed reached slowly for the door knob, and then his hand paused. He came on tiptoe across the room.

When he was within range, Bren swung his legs parallel to the floor, striking Teed at ankle level, sweeping his feet out from under him. Teed gasped as he fell. Bren scrambled onto him, found that Teed had a surprising wiriness. He caught the gun wrist and Teed twisted it away, trying to bring the weapon to bear.

Bren flattened down against him, got his right hand on Teed’s sparse hair, lifted the head and banged it down solidly against the tile. Teed sighed as his muscles relaxed. Bren lifted himself up, delicately gauged the distance, chopped Teed on the jaw with a right hand blow that didn’t travel over eight inches.

The other gun dangled from Brikel’s index finger. Bren pried out the thumb tacks, released the thread, unhooked the coat hanger. As he did so, Brikel’s body bent slowly forward, head descending. As it passed the balance point, Brikel fell heavily, face down, across the unconscious Teed.

There were voices in the hall. Bren raced into the bathroom and scrubbed the ink from his forehead. He hid there, hearing the door open, the voices louder, Laena’s shrill, scream.

The concrete bench in Alameda Park was, absurdly, in the precise shape of an overstaffed sofa. The afternoon sun touched the flowers, the children on bicycles, the men selling kikos.

Bren Harris sat and smoked nervously, glancing at his watch from time to time. At last he saw her, a distant tiny figure, the sun making her hair look pure white, her shoulders square in the dark suit. She walked slowly. On impulse he stood up and went down a curving side path, watching until he saw her go by. He followed.

He came up behind her, watching the rhythm of her walk, hair in movement, slight swing of her slender arms.

“Can you pick up girls in this park?” he asked.

She whirled. “Bren, you didn’t have to stay. I told you in the note that you should go back. I’m not right for you, Bren. I’m no good for anyone, even myself.”

He put his hands on her shoulders. “Shake well before using. Let me decide what is right for me. How are you and the policia getting along?”

She smiled. “They think I’m a trusting little girl with naughty friends. Teed’s adopted embassy has given him up. He’ll be a long, long time in a Mexican cell. Bren, please. Go home and forget me.”

“After all the trouble I went to figuring out that you’d be walking through here at this time?”

“Don’t joke about it.”

A great hairy clattering insect appeared a few inches from her cheek. With a frightened gasp she ran into the circle of his arm, her face against his chest, shuddering.

The super-salesman who held the mechanical monster on the end of a string said, with a wide grin, “Buy souvenir de Mejico, meester.”

Bren looked down at the top of Laena’s fair head. He said softly, “No thanks, friend. I’ve already got one.”