Ken Douglas - Dead Ringer

“I mean it,” he said.

“What kind of friend?”

“One who won’t talk in front of you, otherwise I’d bring you along.”

“He got up, started for the door, opened it, turned back toward her. “When I get back, we’ll have to find someplace for Jasmine to stay till this is over.”

“What about me? I thought you wanted me to move out, too.”

“I changed my mind. You’re staying here.”

“Why? I don’t get it.”

“We’re after a big fish. We need bait.”

“I don’t think I like the sound of that.”

“I hate it,” he said. “But we don’t have much choice if we want to put an end to this without involving the police.” And all of a sudden, Maggie knew what Gordon was going to do.

“You’re going to kill him, aren’t you?”

“Yes I am.” Then Gordon closed the door and she was alone.

Horace went straight to the motel, got his gun, then drove to the Taco Bell on Fourth Street. Coffee and toast didn’t cut it for breakfast. He ordered five tacos and a large coke, then went to the pay phone in the back to call Striker. He dropped a quarter into the phone.

“Did you mean what you said yesterday?” he said when Striker picked up.

“If I said it, I meant it, but what specifically are you talking about?”

“Having more money than I can count.” Horace felt his knuckles turning white as he gripped the phone. He relaxed his hand.

“Maybe not more than you can count, but you do the woman before tomorrow at this time and I’ll have a briefcase for you with a hundred and fifty large in it. Twenty-five for the woman in Catalina, twenty-five for the kid and a hundred for the Kenyon woman.”

“I already did the Kenyon woman.”

“She’s still walking around.”

“She won’t be tomorrow.” Horace grit his teeth. Striker was paying a lot, but it wasn’t right about the bitch in the alley. He’d done the job, he deserved to be paid. Besides, he didn’t like thinking Virgil died for nothing.

“That’s what I wanted to hear.” Striker sounded smug.

“I might wanna take a vacation after.”

“I understand,” Striker said.

“Anything I should know?”

“They haven’t pulled her car out of the bay yet, so the cops don’t know it was hers.”

“She didn’t call ’em?” Horace tightened his grip on the phone again.

“No.”

“What’s that tell you?” Horace said.

“She knows someone’s coming for her and she doesn’t want the police involved. She’s not afraid.”

“She’s gonna to be ready. That what you’re saying?”

“Maybe,” Striker said.

“Shit.”

“Exactly.”

“That’s why you’re paying so much?”

“If it was easy, I wouldn’t need you.”

“Okay, but I want twenty-five extra for the bitch in the alley,” Horace said. “Fair’s fair.”

“Deal, but I want the Kenyon woman dead by tomorrow.”

“She’ll be dead.” Horace hung up and went to get his tacos.

Maggie took her coffee to the kitchen, washed the cups. She went to the refrigerator to get some ice and saw the Winnie the Pooh magnet for the first time. There were three yellow Post It notes under it.

She lifted the magnet and pulled the notes off the door. The top one was a reminder for Margo to pick up the cleaning from the Main Street Cleaners on Monday. Yesterday, Maggie thought. The second was to remind her to take the car in for a five thousand mile check up. Maggie laughed, she wouldn’t be doing that. Mom’s new address was scrawled across the top of the last one, followed by an address on Balboa Island.

She went to the bedroom, picked up Margo’s purse, then stopped herself. It was way too dressy for faded Levi’s and a sweatshirt. She grabbed the backpack, dumped out the school books, then dumped the contents of the purse into the pack. She reached under the pillow, pulled out the Sigma, put it in the pack, too.

Yes, she’d promised Gordon she’d stay inside with the door locked, but Balboa was a straight shot down Pacific Coast Highway on the bus. She could get there, talk to Margo’s mother and be back way before Gordon.

She jogged up to the guard shack, returned the guard’s wave, then saw a bus glide into the bus stop.

“Hey, wait!” She ran to the stop, caught the bus just in time.

Horace was about to make a pass by the Sand and Sea Condos, when he saw the Kenyon-Nesbitt woman with the new hair running to catch a bus.

She sure wasn’t acting like she was expecting trouble. Not a bit like a woman who’d had her car run into the bay only last night. How come she didn’t call the cops, scream bloody murder? She wasn’t making any sense.

He let a car get between him and the bus. No problem following. Horace fingered the Beretta in the shoulder holster under his sport coat. He missed the bomber jacket, but she’d seen him in it last night. Besides, it had a bullet hole in it and he wasn’t able to get all the blood off it.

He wished he’d had a chance to change the plates on the Toyota, then he could just drive by when she got off the bus and pop her. But he hadn’t and he sure as hell didn’t want anyone writing down Sadie’s license number.

He couldn’t see the woman in the bus, but he’d see her when she got off. “Then what?” he muttered. He couldn’t very well follow her on foot. She’d gotten a good look at him in that stop-and-rob in Long Beach and again in that Safeway.

All of sudden, he pictured her in the supermarket, the way she looked at him. She wasn’t scared. Upset, annoyed, bent outta shape, all that, but not afraid. He tried to concentrate and keep his eyes on the road at the same time. And then he saw the picture in his mind, sure as if he’d been lying in bed with his eyes closed, sure as if he was back in that supermarket. She wasn’t afraid when he’d smacked Virge with that magazine, she was relieved.

“Shit!” He pounded the steering wheel. The woman in the Safeway was the news guy’s wife. When she got away, him and Virge went to the Condos in Huntington Beach and grabbed the other one and, not knowing the difference, Horace left the body by the dumpster in back of the fag place.

“Shit, shit, shit!” He pounded the steering wheel with each outburst. Striker had him kill the woman in Catalina and the kid at the Towers, so the cops wouldn’t follow up on the case with the Kenyon woman and she’d been dead all along.

“What a fuckup,” he moaned. That old woman, the kid, dead for nothing. Horace just wanted out, wanted to go away with Sadie. But it wasn’t gonna happen, not unless he did the woman on the bus. “Calm,” he told himself. His hands were white on the wheel. He relaxed his fingers, one at a time, without taking his eyes off the back of that bus.

Twenty minutes later he was fit to be tied. Driving like an old lady had never been his style, but there was no other way without passing the fucking bus. He wondered how far it went. All the way to San Diego? He hoped not.

It pulled to the stop before Balboa Island and she hopped off. He floored it, passed the bus, hung a right in front of it and took the bridge to Balboa. Where else could she be going?

He found a spot in front of a surf shop, parked and waited. It didn’t take long before he spotted her. She looked like a college kid strolling up the street with that backpack slung over her shoulder.

She walked right past the Toyota and went into the surf shop. Horace could see her in the store, plain as the steering wheel in front of his eyes. A pimply faced kid behind the counter was talking, pointing. She was asking directions.

Horace hoped she bought something good while she was in there, because, if he had his way, it was the last time she was ever gonna do any shopping. He clenched his fists on the wheel, then whipped his head around and pretended he was looking out the back window as she turned toward him and came out of the store.