John Lutz - Urge to Kill

She did manage to do that without his help. She unlocked the brass knob lock, then the deadbolt above, and pushed the door open.

To blinding, flashing brilliance winking from cameras.

Behind the flaring lights she could glimpse figures of at least a dozen people, all facing her. Most of them held cameras high in front of them or in tight to their faces so they could use viewfinders.

Mitzi was stunned. She felt Rob’s grip tighten on her arm so she wouldn’t fall.

“Surprise!” everyone shouted in imperfect unison.

Still stunned, but grinning, Mitzi looked up at Rob. “You! Did you know about this?”

Rob was smiling, yet he did seem genuinely surprised.

“I didn’t,” he said. “I swear it!”

“He’s telling the truth, Mitz.” Jackie’s voice from somewhere over by the sofa. “We didn’t have a chance to tell him. You haven’t been around the club lately, Rob, and Mitzi’s the only one with your phone number, so we had no choice but to surprise you both.”

“More fun that way, anyway,” Ted Tack’s voice said.

Rob’s grip tightened again on Mitzi’s arm, but this time in a gentle signal to gain her attention.

“See, darling,” he said. “I’m honest to a fault.”

“Get them some champagne,” Jackie said. “It’s time for a toast!”

“More champagne,” Mitzi said. “Yeah, I could use that.”

Quinn thought that for Zoe’s safety he shouldn’t spend the night. He didn’t tell her that was why he was leaving, but after they’d made love in her bedroom he showered, dressed, and kissed her good night. She seemed to understand why he was going and kissed him back with a special passion.

Quinn smiled down at her. “You make me want to stay.”

“But you can’t,” she said.

“You’re ahead of me.”

“There’s no ahead or behind. I understand you, that’s all.”

“Your job,” he said.

“No, darling. It’s more than my job.”

He kissed her again and didn’t look back at her as he left.

When he got to his apartment building he was surprised that there wasn’t a package waiting for him in his mailbox. He was sure there was room for it, but he found only the usual fliers and bills.

But when he went upstairs there was the package in front of his apartment door. It was about six inches square, tightly encased in brown wrapping paper fastened with heavy tape. There was no label. Quinn’s name and address were printed in black ink directly on the wrapping. He knew there’d be no fingerprints to be found, and the name and address lettering looked as if it had been done with a ruler and would provide no basis for comparison. The wrapping paper, too, would be a common brand and untraceable.

Still, when he got inside the apartment he put on latex gloves before carefully opening the package.

Inside the wrapping paper was a white box of the sort a large piece of jewelry might come in. Inside the box was a small. 25-caliber Springbok revolver. It was loaded. Its barrel was almost short enough to be called snub-nosed, colored a dusky blue steel like the rest of the revolver except for its checked wooden grip. It looked cheap, like the kind of piece that might blow up in your hand, but Quinn knew it was simple and effective. A close-in weapon. It would be easy to conceal and make very little noise, but it would do the job.

He called Fedderman, who came within fifteen minutes with a guy from the lab named Peterman, who looked about sixteen years old and was all business. Peterman dusted the revolver for prints and found none. The box, paper wrapping, and tape he put in a plastic evidence bag. He and Fedderman took the bag with them when they left. Quinn knew the contents of the evidence bag would provide about as much workable evidence as the revolver. None.

As they went out the door, Fedderman gave Quinn a sad backward glance that had a disturbing finality about it.

Fedderman and Peterman had been there less than twenty minutes. Time seemed to be running faster now, at least for Quinn. As if it might be running out.

He found a clean, soft rag under the sink and wiped print dust off the revolver, then checked it to make sure it was in good working condition. He felt secure in his apartment, but he tucked the gun in his belt anyway, then went into the kitchen and poured himself two fingers of Famous Grouse scotch in a water tumbler.

He made sure the apartment was securely locked, then sat for a long time at his desk, sipping scotch.

When he finally went to bed, he placed the gun beneath his pillow. Being an old single-action revolver, it would have to be cocked by drawing back the hammer before it could be fired. There was little chance of that happening accidentally. It was a good under-the-pillow gun.

The scotch relaxed him enough that he could get to sleep, but a small corner of his mind remained awake.

Lavern Neeson sat in the chair by the bed for hours, cradling the shotgun almost as if it were a child. She listened to Hobbs snore and to the familiar sounds of the building, the steady hum of the air-conditioning, the faint pop and rattle of pipes, the occasional muffled crack of wood expanding or contracting. In the kitchen, the refrigerator cycled on and off.

Shortly before dawn, she stood up from the chair and replaced the shotgun in the closet. Before closing the closet door, she stared for a long time at the box of shells on the top shelf. Such potential for destruction in such small items. Such potential for change with the simple squeeze of a trigger. Instantaneous, irreversible change. Like being yanked with a bang from one world and dropped into another.

The prospect was intimidating, but with every passing day it was less frightening than the world she lived in.

She stood with her bare feet on the cool wood floor, her face buried in her hands, and began to cry. Her sobs were almost silent, and no one was there to see her shoulders quake.

It didn’t take long for her to get herself under control. She’d become an expert at modulating and manipulating her emotions. Her expression was calm. Only her reddened eyes and the tear tracks on her cheeks remained of her violent fit of sobbing.

Peace and rest. She was beginning to associate the shotgun with peace and rest. That was dangerous and she knew it, but she couldn’t stop it.

Less than a minute later she was back in bed with Hobbs, feeling the heat emanating from his muscular body. He lay on his left side, facing away from her, unmoving and unaware, snoring away.

Lavern drifted into an uneasy sleep for a short while, and then the alarm went off.

The sun had barely risen when the landline phone on the table next to Quinn’s bed rang.

He woke slowly, not sure how many rings he’d missed, and tried to get his body to respond to the urgency he felt to answer the phone.

Finally his partially numb right hand found the receiver and clumsily removed it from its cradle.

Lying on his back, he pressed the receiver to his ear, said, “Quinn,” in a sleep-thickened voice.

The voice on the other end of the connection sounded wide awake, crisp, and authoritative.

It said, “Listen carefully. Don’t talk. These are the rules.”

The bedroom was bright with fragments of early morning sunlight when the man Mitzi Lewis knew as Rob Curlew observed her as she slept.

Standing nude, he leaned over her and listened closely to her breathing. She was still sleeping soundly.

Careful to make no noise, he gathered up his clothes and carried them into the bathroom. He ran no water and made little noise getting dressed.

He didn’t want to leave Mitzi, didn’t want to lose this one. But her surprise party last night had been a surprise for him, too. Now almost everyone she knew had seen him and would be able to supply police with descriptions, could identify him. Many of them had photographs of him with Mitzi.