Эд Горман: Murder Straight Up

“You could just give me the gun.”

“What?” She hadn’t quite heard me.

“You could just give me the gun.”

“Are you afraid I’ll kill you, too?”

“Yes.”

“Then you don’t know much about me.”

“I guess I don’t, after all.”

“It’s funny because I was about to ask you if you’d take the gun and kill me.”

She was serious.

“I couldn’t do that.”

“Can you imagine what it’s going to be like for my children and my ex-husband? All the scandal.”

“They’ll be all right eventually.”

“In school I was always the good little girl. When they read about me in the papers, the people who grew up with me won’t know what to think.”

“I don’t suppose they will.”

“You’re a very nice man. You really are.”

“Thank you.” And I meant it. “Don’t be foolish, Kelly. You’re strong. You can handle things.” I was beginning to suspect what she had in mind.

“I’m not strong, that’s the irony. After all this, I’m still not strong.”

“Just call the goddamn police and get it over with. Give him the gun, Kelly.” Fitzgerald’s voice droned in the aching silence and we looked down at him as if he were Lazarus.

“Just give him the gun, Kelly,” Fitzgerald said again. He didn’t look natty now. Not at all.

“That’s just what you’d do, isn’t it, Robert? No nerve.”

I could see what she was going to do and I couldn’t stop her and I wasn’t even sure I wanted to. She twisted the gun around to her forehead and pulled the trigger, and just like that she fell to the floor.

“My God, my God!” was all Fitzgerald could get out.

I knelt down beside her and closed my eyes so I wouldn’t have to look at the mess where the top of her head had been. I took her hand and held it tightly and finally, finally I got myself to cry and goddamn but I cried, goddamn but I did.

Then I stood up and went over to where Fitzgerald sat in shock. I got him up high enough from the chair to get three good punches into his face, and then I went out to phone Edelman.

Edelman wore his big crepe-soled shoes.

Another homicide man was actually handling the case, Edelman not actually being on duty tonight, but he came in with his gloomy officiousness, and when he saw me he came over and did exactly the right thing, put his arm around me and said, “You look pretty bad, kiddo.”

“I feel pretty bad.” Then I said, “Your wife told me about your high blood pressure.”

“I’ll be all right.”

“I worry about you, Edelman, you crazy bastard. I really worry about you.”

“Yeah, well,” he said, “I worry about you, too.” Then he grinned. “Was it you who worked over Fitzgerald?”

“Yeah.”

“You did nice work.” Then he smiled and went away again.

Three days later my agent called and said I got the dinner-theater part, and then another security company called and asked if I’d like to come to work for them, and then my kid called and said he’d gotten a B-minus average, which, given the way both of us hated school of any kind, was a damn good report card.

I played some basketball, and finally got Becker to give me my locker stuff back, and stared at the phone a lot.

Friday it rained, and Friday she called.

“How’re you doing?”

“I’m doing okay. How’re you doing?”

“Oh,” she said, “I guess you could say I’m doing okay, too.” Then she asked about the case, and I told her.

“How’s Rex?”

“I slapped him last night.”

“Are you serious?”

“Yes.”

“How did he take it?”

“He got hysterical, actually. He said I was a, quote, ‘stupid neurotic bitch and that I should get out of his fucking office.’ Unquote.”

“Good old Rex.”

“God, I miss you, Dwyer.”

“Yeah, but do you miss me more than you miss Chad?”

“I don’t have to miss Chad. He’s always either cruising around my apartment or having flowers sent over. My place looks like a mortuary.”

“So what’re you going to do?”

“Take a little vacation?”

“Where?”

“Mexico.”

“For what?”

“To think things through. I’ve got to get rid of him, Dwyer. I really do.”

I’d gone through a similar love affair once. I know how difficult it can be.

“You don’t have to be faithful or anything,” she said.

“You’d like me to be faithful, huh?”

“Well...”

“How long do I have to be faithful?”

“Well, Jesus, Dwyer, if we got married you’d have to be faithful forever.”

“Well, how long do I have to be faithful this time?”

“What an asshole.”

“How long?”

“Six days. Max. I’ll probably get dysentery and have to come back after three. But six days max.”

“Six days max I can be faithful.”

She laughed. “God, I love you, Dwyer, I really do.”

“You make me crazy.”

“I know that. I make me crazy, too.”

“Take care of yourself, kiddo.”

“Yeah,” she said, “you too.”

The next call I got was a real surprise. It was a moving company, the front office, saying I’d been listed as a job reference for a Miss Bobby Lee Davies.

“You’re shitting me,” I said.

“I beg your pardon?” asked the rather prim woman. “I must have the wrong number.” And with that she hung up.

Two minutes after that another call came through. The country music in the background was a good indication of whom I was about to talk to.

“Hi, Jack.”

She’d never called me Jack before. Ever. And I didn’t want her to do it again, either.

“You’re going to get a call this afternoon. I just need a teensy favor.”

“I got the call. And no favors, Bobby Lee. Have your sugar daddy Becker do you some favors.”

“He fired me.”

“What?”

“True-blue, Dwyer. He fired me. Said I was getting too pushy. Can you imagine?”

“Oh, no, Bobby Lee, I could never imagine you being too pushy.”

But my sarcasm was lost on her.

“Do you know how many monthly payments I’ve got, Dwyer? I’ve got payments on my GTO, on my VCR, on my stereo, at the kennel for my German shepherd, for the Merle Haggard Golden Collection I’m buying...” She sounded as if she might cry. “I can’t ask my daddy to help me anymore because he’ll just say it serves me right for giving myself to a married man. He’ll just say I should have learned my lesson before.”

“Before?”

“I can’t help it, Dwyer. I just can’t seem to fall in love with anybody who isn’t wearing a ring.” Then she paused. “Jack, I heard tell that you’ve gone and got yourself a job at a new security company.”

“Bobby Lee, Jesus Christ.”

“I’ll thank you, Jack, much as I respect you, to refrain from taking the Lord’s name in my presence. As soon as Earl kicked me out, the first place I headed was back to the Baptist church. There’ll be no more sin for this young lady.”

A week and a half later, Bobby Lee, repentant as shit, started work as the receptionist at my new place of employment, the American Security Agency.