Ken Douglas - Dead Ringer

It moved again.

It was an animal. At first he thought maybe it was a cat, he had cats on the brain, but as his eyes got used to the dark he saw that it was a possum. He smiled, started for the door. The possum scurried between the hedge bushes and the wall, ducking out of sight.

He keyed the lock, entered, laughing at the possum, when something smacked into him. Gordon rolled with the punch as the lights came on.

“Fuck! Where is she?” The man was wiry, with squinty eyes and he had a gun pointed at Gordon’s belly. There was no doubt it was Horace Nighthyde. He looked like a ferret.

“What are you doing in my apartment? What do you want?” Gordon reached up, massaged his jaw. It was going to be sore in the morning, if he lived to see the morning.

“Don’t give me any crap. This isn’t your place and we both know it, so tell me what I want and I’ll be out of your face.”

“Can I get up?” Gordon pushed himself to his feet without waiting for a reply. His own gun was in Maggie’s bedroom in a bureau drawer, the others out in the trunk of his car. None of them any help now.

“I said, where is she?” Nighthyde had sweat running down his forehead. His gun hand was shaking.

“Who?”

“Don’t play stupid with me. I followed you from that bar in the Shore to that fag place the other night. You went in, I saw.”

“That’s why you dumped the body there, because you saw us together?”

“So, tell me where she is and you can live to go there again.” Nighthyde’s dark eyes glowed, the pupils were pin pricks, as if he’d been doing drugs. Was it fear?

“Come on, Horace. How many people are you going to kill because you fucked up and shot Frankie Fujimori by mistake?” Gordon edged to the right.

“Don’t move.”

“I’m just going over to the sofa. You popped me a good one, I’m a little dizzy.”

“What do you mean, mistake?” Nighthyde motioned toward the sofa with the gun, signaling it was okay for Gordon to go over and sit.

“Your pal Striker screwed up.” Gordon eased over to the sofa, sat down with a sigh. He continued to rub his jaw as if he were in pain. “Fujimori was a child molester and a killer of little girls, but not the man you were supposed to kill.”

“What do you know about it?”

“I know another Japanese man, a guy named Ichiro Yamamoto was in that store. I know he used to work for Congressman Nishikawa and that he was selling out Nishikawa to the cops on a diamonds for weapons scam. I know Striker used to work for Nishikawa and that the company he works for now operates with Yakuza money. I know Nishikawa’s thick with the Yakuza and I know he hates the idea of some little punk sending him to jail.” The last two were a guess, but he thought the odds were pretty good they were as true as everything else he’d said.

“Striker woulda told me if I got the wrong one.”

“No he wouldn’t, you fucked up and the next day Yamamoto decided to clam up. He told the cops he made up the whole thing and with that, the need for Striker to have him hit went away. So even though you got the wrong guy, Striker couldn’t tell you because he needed you to get rid of the witness.” Gordon was really guessing now, but it all made sense. It couldn’t have happened any other way.

“Aw fuck.” Horace felt drained. The guy on the couch was too scared to lie. Horace wanted to puke. He’d killed that old lady and the fucking kid for a mistake. For a God dammed mistake.

“You don’t look so good, Horace.”

“Shut the fuck up. Fucking faggot, think you know it all.”

“Gordon,” the fag said.

“What?” Horace tightened his hand on the gun as he watched the fag holding onto his jaw. He grinned, he still had a mean right cross.

“Gordon, that’s my name.”

“I oughta do you and get it over with.” Damn faggot had balls.

“Do me, as you put it, and Mr. Striker and yourself will wind up being strapped down as they stick in the needle?”

“The fuck you talking about?”

“The death penalty, Horace. For you for sure. A cop’s mother, another’s kid. The kid’s the capper, you’ll get the needle, no doubt.”

“So, if I’m going down, what’s one more body?”

“Tomorrow I’m gonna meet with Striker. I have a deal that ends it. You walk away, we walk away. As far as the cops are concerned, the world’s better off without Frankie Fujimori. And, as of now, they believe Wolfe’s kid climbed over that balcony and fell, his wife ate her gun and Norton’s mother took her own life. Maggie’s twin will just have to go down as unsolved.”

“Twin?”

“Don’t act so surprised, you’ve already figured it out. And yes, you got Margo Kenyon. That was another mistake, dumping her body behind the bar. We never would’ve been involved if you hadn’t done that, never would’ve figured it all out. And before you think you can shut me up by pulling that trigger, you’d better wonder whether or not I wrote it all down and left it in an envelope with someone to go public with if anything happens to me or Maggie.”

“Don’t make sense, nothing in it for you.” Horace tightened his grip on the gun.

“Margo Kenyon inherited over three million dollars from her father when he died. We get to keep it, me and Maggie.”

Horace was stunned. They get to keep three million bucks if they keep quiet, but if something happens to either one of them, someone opens an envelope somewhere and tells the world about how fucking stupid he’d been, hitting cops’ kin. Yeah, Striker would leave ’em alone, at least until he found out who had that envelope.

He saw the payoff for the Twin sinking down a rat hole. No way could he do her now. Striker might even try to renege on the old broad and the kid. It wasn’t fair. Minutes ago he was looking at a fortune, now this clown and the woman were getting it.

“So, you and Striker got it all worked out?” Horace moved in closer, stood above Gordon, pointed the gun at his head.

Gordon looked past him, said, “Jasmine, you’re not supposed to be up. Get back to bed.”

The kid was here? Horace snuck a quick glace over his shoulder.

And pain blasted through his hand.

Horace spun his eyes back toward the fag. The fucker was in flight, coming toward him like a killer bird. He tried to bring the Beretta to bear, but it was gone. Bastard had kicked the gun from his hand.

Then the faggot was on him. Hands circled his neck, claws dug in, cut off his air. Pain thundered from his groin, bastard had kneed him in the balls. No air, can’t breathe. He was falling backward, fucker on top of him.

Air, need air.

Horace jabbed a fist into the faggot’s belly, but he didn’t let go. He hit him again and still he held on, thumbs digging into his windpipe. Again, again, again, but each blow was a pale imitation of the one before. Horace had no power behind his fists. He was a two year old trying to stop a train.

His head pounded into the carpet as he thudded to the floor with the faggot still on top of him, hands still on his neck, still squeezing. Horace was getting dizzy. He was going to die here. Fucking faggot was killing him. He could feel his eyes popping out as he stared into the faggot’s cold glare. There was no mercy in those eyes, the faggot was going to kill him. No doubt.

Horace struggled a hand into a back pocket, fingers snaked inside, closed around Virgil’s knife. He was going to pass out, but first his thumb hit the button, flicked the knife open.

No strength for a good thrust, but he gave it his best effort, a swipe at the fucker’s chest.

The faggot jumped back.

Horace sucked air, wheezing like a sick dog, he couldn’t get enough.

All of a sudden, the faggot was on the other side of the room, his yellow Hawaiian shirt covered in blood.