Lawrence Block - Eight Million Ways to Die

"Sure."

I rode up on the elevator. He wasn't in South America, I thought. I knew damned well he wasn't in South America. He was here in New York and he was going to kill again because he liked it.

Maybe he'd done it before. Maybe Kim was the first time he found out it felt good to him. But he'd liked it enough to do it again the same way, and the next time he wouldn't need an excuse. Just a victim and a hotel room and his trusty machete.

Have a couple of drinks, Durkin had suggested.

I didn't even feel like a drink.

Ten days, I thought. Just go to bed sober and you've got ten days.

I took the gun out of my pocket and put it on the dresser. I was still carrying the ivory bracelet in another pocket and I took it out and set it down next to the gun, still wrapped in paper towels from Kim's kitchen. I got out of my slacks and jacket, hung them in the closet, and took off my shirt. The bulletproof vest was a tricky thing to get out of and a cumbersome thing to wear, and most of the cops I knew hated wearing them. On the other hand, nobody likes getting shot.

I took the thing off and draped it over the dresser next to the gun and bracelet. Bulletproof vests aren't just bulky, they're also warm, and I'd perspired inside this one and my undershirt had dark circles under the arms. I took off the undershirt and my shorts and my socks, and something clicked, some little alarm went off, and I was turning toward the bathroom door when it flew open.

He sailed through it, a big man, olive skinned, wild-eyed. He was as naked as I was and there was a machete in his hand with a gleaming foot-long blade.

I threw the mesh at him. He swung the machete and knocked it aside. I grabbed the gun off the dresser and dove out of his way. The blade arced down, missing me, and his arm rose again and I shot him four times in the chest.

The LL train starts at Eighth Avenue, crosses Manhattan along Fourteenth Street, and winds up way the hell out in Canarsie. Its first stop across the river in Brooklyn is at Bedford Avenue and North Seventh Street. I left it there and walked around until I found his house. It took me a while and I took a couple of wrong turns, but it was a good day for walking, the sun out, the sky clear, and a little warmth in the air for a change.

There was a heavy windowless door to the right of the garage. I poked the doorbell but got no response, and I couldn't hear the bell sounding within. Hadn't he said something about disconnecting the bell? I jabbed it again, heard nothing.

There was a brass knocker mounted on the door and I used it. Nothing happened. I cupped my hands and shouted, "Chance, open up! It's Scudder." Then I pounded on the door some more, with the knocker and with my hands.

The door looked and felt awfully solid. I gave it a tentative nudge with my shoulder and decided it was unlikely I could kick it in. I could break a window and get in that way, but in Greenpoint some neighbor would call the cops, or pick up a gun and come over himself.

I banged on the door some more. A motor worked, and a winch began lifting the electrically operated garage door.

"This way," he said. "Before you knock my damn door down."

I went in through the garage and he pushed a button to lower the door again. "My front door doesn't open," he said. "Didn't I show you that before? It's all sealed shut with bars and shit."

"That's great if you have a fire."

"Then I go out a window. But when'd you ever hear of the firehouse burning down?"

He was dressed as I'd last seen him, in light blue denim pants and a navy blue pullover. "You forgot your coffee," he said. "Or I forgot to give it to you. Day before yesterday, remember? You were gonna take a couple pounds home with you."

"You're right, I forgot."

"For your girlfriend. Fine-looking woman. I got some coffee made. You'll have a cup, won't you?"

"Thanks."

I went into the kitchen with him. I said, "You're a hard man to get hold of."

"Well, I sort of stopped checking with my service."

"I know. Have you heard a newscast lately? Or read a paper?"

"Not lately. You drink it black, right?"

"Right. It's all over, Chance." He looked at me. "We got the guy."

"The guy. The killer."

"That's right. I thought I'd come out and tell you about it."

"Well," he said. "I guess I'd like to hear it."

* * *

I went through the whole thing in a fair amount of detail. I was used to it by now. It was the middle of the afternoon and I'd been telling the story to one person or another ever since I'd put four bullets into Pedro Antonio Marquez a little after two in the morning.

"So you killed him," Chance said. "How do you feel about that?"

"It's too early to tell."

I knew how Durkin felt about it. He couldn't have been happier. "When they're dead," he had said, "you know they're not going to be back on the street in three years, doing it again. And this one was a fucking animal. He had that taste of blood and he liked it."

"It's the same guy?" Chance wanted to know. "There's no question?"

"No question. They got confirmation from the manager of the Powhattan Motel. They also matched a couple of latent prints, one from the Powhattan and one from the Galaxy, so that ties him to both killings. And the machete's the weapon used in both killings. They even found minute traces of blood where the hilt meets the handle, and the type matches either Kim or Cookie, I forget which one."

"How'd he get into your hotel?"

"He walked right through the lobby and rode up in the elevator."

"I thought they had the place staked out."

"They did. He walked right past them, picked up his key at the desk and went to his room."

"How could he do that?"

"Easiest thing in the world," I said. "He checked in the day before, just in case. He was setting things up. When he got the word that I was looking for him, he went back to my hotel, went up to his room, then went to my room and let himself in. The locks in my hotel aren't much of a challenge. He took off his clothes and sharpened his machete and waited for me to come home."

"And it almost worked."

"It should have worked. He could have waited behind the door and killed me before I knew what was happening. Or he could have stayed in the bathroom a few more minutes and given me time to get into bed. But he got too much of a kick out of killing and that's what screwed him up. He wanted us both naked when he took me out, so he waited in the bathroom, and he couldn't wait for me to get into bed because he was too keyed up, too excited. Of course if I hadn't had the gun handy he'd have killed me anyway."

"He couldn't have been all alone."

"He was alone as far as the killings were concerned. He probably had partners in the emerald operation. The cops may get somewhere looking for them and they may not. Even if they do, there's no real way to make a case against anybody."

He nodded. "What happened to the brother? Kim's boyfriend, the one who started everything."

"He hasn't turned up. He's probably dead. Or he's still running, and he'll live until his Colombian friends catch up with him."

"Will they do that?"

"Probably. They're supposed to be relentless."

"And that room clerk? What's his name, Calderуn?"

"That's right. Well, if he's holed up somewhere in Queens, he can read about it in the paper and ask for his old job back."

He started to say something, then changed his mind and took both our cups back to the kitchen to refill them. He came back with them and gave me mine.

"You were up late," he said.

"All night."

"You been to sleep at all?"

"Not yet."

"Myself, I doze off in a chair now and then. But when I get in bed I can't sleep, I can't even lie there. I go work out and take a sauna and a shower and drink some more coffee and sit around some more. Over and over."