Elmore Leonard - Up in Honey's Room

Bo said, “A Schmeisser?”

Dr. Taylor smiled at him again. “Where did you get that, from a comic book? Americans can be very ignorant. They call it a Schmeisser, but Hugo Schmeisser had absolutely nothing to do with the design or creation of the weapon, nothing.”

Bo said, “May I see the Walther?”

The doctor extended it holding the barrel.

“Be careful, it’s fully loaded. The safety is on the left side of the slide. It’s on.”

Bo shifted the P38 to his left hand. He raised the hem of the gray cashmere and brought out his Walther PPK from the band of the girdle he was wearing as sort of a holster and now had a pistol in each hand, his Walther not looking anything like Dr. Taylor’s Walther.

“I see we both hold dear the law of self-preservation,” the doctor said. “Do you know how many times my life has been threatened? Do you think I would dare answer the door at night without a pistol in my hand?”

“How many times?” Bo said.

“In letters I receive in the mail. In notes I find, here and at my office. In phone calls-I’m talking about actual threats against my life. Some might be from the same person, it’s difficult to tell. One of the recent letters said, ‘I am a little guy in that I am short, but I have a big gun. Quit spouting off about Jews or you will pay with your life.’”

“How interesting,” Bo said, “he tells you he’s short.”

“Yes, isn’t it strange?” The doctor said, “Oh, I see you’re still wearing your skirt. You’re so chic, but at the same time you make a delightful Buster Brown.”

Bo said, “Thank you, Doctor,” with a coy smile and bounced his hair.

He had decided how he would do the job.

He slipped the PPK again into the girdle beneath his skirt and could feel it against his tummy, Bo turning to the powder room with the doctor’s P38 in his right hand now. He snicked the safety off, opened the door, and shot Joe Aubrey in the back of the head, bam, and saw part of the white wall spewed red before he could close the door again.

The doctor stood rigid in his maroon silk smoking jacket, his eyes stuck wide open, his eyes raising then to the sound of a wom-an’s voice calling from upstairs.

“Michael?”

Bo looked toward the staircase. It would be the doctor’s wife, though he didn’t see her yet, the upstairs dark.

“Answer her,” Bo said. “Aren’t you all right?”

The doctor called out, “I’m okay, Rosemary.”

Bo saw her now, a pale nightgown coming out of the dark, her hand sliding along the round banister, Rosemary joining the party, and Bo revised how he’d finish the job. She reached the bottom of the stairs and saw him in the lamplight. Now he turned, extending the pistol, and shot Dr. Taylor in the chest, shot him through the chest, a china lamp behind him shattering as his wife screamed and Bo shot him again.

Now she’ll throw herself on his body and wail in anguish, Bo thought, the way the women of Odessa wailed running to the wall, their men lying dead and the fucking Romanians eyeing the women as they walked away. But this one has not had the experience of people killed by gunfire. She seems unsure if he was alive or dead. Really? A nine-millimeter parabellum slug having torn through his chest? Two of them. What did she expect him to do, sit up? Ah, now she crept to her husband lying on the floor and went to her knees saying his name, crying, confused.

Bo stepped over to hunch down next to her and could see into her nightgown the way she was crouched, so-so breasts hanging limp. He touched her shoulder, then brushed her hair from the side of her face, telling her in a soft tone of voice, “He’s dead, Rosemary.” Now he placed the muzzle of the Walther against her temple, turned his face away and shot her through the head.

He used her nightgown to wipe the Walther clean and placed it in Rosemary’s right hand, pressing her fingers to the grip. He noticed the diamond on her left hand, an impressive stone he believed he could twist from her finger. It occurred to Bo he could take whatever the doctor had in his billfold. Look in the bedroom for jewelry, cash, objects of value-the doctor must do well in his practice, a house this size.

Except he hadn’t planned it to look like a robbery.

As soon as he saw Rosemary coming down the stairs he set the scene. She finds her husband and Mr. Aubrey doing nasty things with each other in the powder room. She has suspected her husband and now catches him going at it with Mr. Aubrey, shoots them both in a blind rage and turns the gun on herself.

He thought about it for several moments.

She’s consumed with a feeling of unbearable shame.

Would the police see that?

Or she can’t imagine spending the rest of her life in prison. Or she’s insane. Or whatever way the police would see it, looking at the evidence.

What was the evidence?

Bo was thinking he’d have to take their clothes off. Dress Mr. Aubrey and now undress him, without getting bloodstains on Vera’s skirt. At least unzip their flies. What was Mr. Aubrey doing? He had to piss. Bo hears him saying to Rosemary, “You’re being a foolish girl. I’m going to piss and be on my way.”

How did he get here?

He must have come with the doctor.

Yes? The police arrive and they see Rosemary has killed her husband and Mr. Aubrey. The police pose motives to explain why Rosemary, with her drooping dugs, is the killer. Why, why, why. Stuck with looking for her motive. Never seeing this as a robbery. Or even thinking of robbery as a possibility.

What he should do, give Vera a call.

In case he’s overlooked something.

He would tell her he changed the plan. He wanted to tell her, proud of the way it worked out, improvising as he went along. Call her and get it over with. You changed the plan. Aubrey is not buried in a cornfield. You decided to take care of the doctor too. “Vera, you know he’ll fold under FBI pressure. I thought, since I’m out running errands anyway . . . ” Tell her, “The moment I saw Rosemary descending the stairs in her see-through nighty, I was inspired.”

Make it sound easy and Vera will love it.

Vera was under the covers, the phone in bed with her.

She said, “Wait. Start over. Bo, I was sound asleep. You’re at Dr. Taylor’s?”

Listening to him, not once interrupting, she began to push herself higher on the pillows bunched against the headboard. By the time Bo, winding down, was describing his action as inspired, Vera was sitting up in bed smoking a cigarette. Before she said a word she reminded herself, You need him .

“Bo, I love it.”

“I knew you would.”

“You could be a playwright.”

“You know I’ve always wanted to write.”

“But you can’t leave Aubrey there.”

It stopped Bo in his tracks.

“Why? It doesn’t work without Mr. Aubrey. He’s the other man.”

“But as soon as he’s found dead, the check he gave me is worthless.”

“Yes, but who knows when that will be?”

“Rosemary has a maid who comes every day.”

“Go to the bank early, as soon as it opens.”

“Bo, I’m making it out for fifty thousand. I’m not going to deposit the check of a man who was murdered the day before.”

“What if I move Mr. Aubrey?”

“I don’t know,” Vera said.

“He gave you the check and went home to Georgia, as far as anyone knows.”

“I’d still be afraid of it.”

“Even if he’s in the river, never to be seen again?”

“I don’t know.” She needed to think about it and said, “There’s still Dr. Taylor.”

“I could drop him off too.”

“Give me a minute,” Vera said. She slept naked and got out of bed this way, chilled as she went to the tea cart that served as her bedroom bar, poured a slivovitz and drank it down; poured another and brought it to the bed with her.