Ed Gorman - Cold Blue Midnight

They got her in the trunk and drove away.

Rick gave directions. They drove for nearly an hour, finally coming to a stop at a deserted stone mansion. Rick explained that it had once been an artists' colony but had burned down. A huge red barn, sagging westward now with age, sat adjacent to the charred and empty mansion.

Adam drove into the barn.

He climbed out into darkness. The barn smelled of wet hay and animal feces.

They got the woman out of the trunk and took her into one of the stalls where horses once slept.

She was still breathing, but not with any great energy or regularity.

Rick found a rusted lantern and got it going, hanging it on a peg above the woman.

Adam watched as Rick ripped all the woman's clothes off and then proceeded to rape her. All the time he was having her he was also hitting her, again and again and again in the face until nothing recognizable was left of her looks. Adam wanted to say something but was, frankly, a little afraid of Rick at the moment.

When Rick was done, he stood up and nodded for Adam to take his turn. Adam's first impulse was to decline but then he felt that icy ripple of fear down his back.

This was one intense guy, this Rick.

Adam took his turn.

But he didn't hit her and he finished as quickly as he could.

When he was done, he stood up. Rick was gone.

The woman moaned.

From out of the darkness, Rick said, 'You want to finish her or shall I?'

'Be my guest.'

'Afraid, huh?'

'No, I'm not afraid.'

'You really kill somebody before?'

'Yes.'

'Then kill her.'

'Maybe you're the one who's afraid.'

Rick laughed. 'Hey, pal, we're talking about you here, not me. Finish her.'

'How?'

'However you want to.'

The others, he'd cut their throats. 'I don't have a knife with me.'

'Kick her.'

'Where?'

'Where the hell do you think kick her? In the head. Right about the temple.'

'In the head?'

'Sure. Just pretend you're punting a football.'

'You've done that before?'

'Two or three times.'

'What's it like?'

'You know, when your foot makes contact with the skullit's a real satisfying feeling.'

'Wow.'

'Do it.'

Adam nodded. Maybe it would be fun, after all.

He stepped up to the naked woman sprawled on the hay beneath him. Her face really was gone now, just blood and broken bones. Her moaning got fainter and fainter.

Rain pattered the leaky barn roof; a lonely dog barked somewhere nearby; the engine of a plane could be heard faintly, faintly.

'Go ahead.'

He was hesitant at first, self-conscious with Rick watching, but then he did it, one quick short violent kick, and he had to admit, it really was satisfying.

'Wow,' he said. 'You were rightabout how your toe feels when it connects with the skull.'

'Kick her again.'

'Really?'

'Sure. Probably take a couple times to do it right.'

He kicked her again.

This time her head canted a little, as if it wanted to roll away.

'You think she's dead?'

'Why don't you make sure?'

'You mean another one?'

Rick laughed. 'They don't cost you anything, do they?'

He kicked her again, just above the temple.

The tip of his toe felt her skull start to go this time.

'She's dead.'

'I'll make sure for you.'

'You want to kick her?'

'Sure,' Rick said.

He kicked very hard.

Blood started pouring from her nose.

'Man,' Adam said, 'you really gave it to her.'

Coming down the stairs now, six blocks from a fashionable area of restaurants, Adam thought back to that night two years ago and shook his head. He enjoyed taking risks, but within reason.

But Rick, when he got down or depressed, or angry with something that Adam had done

Adam stood for a moment on the corner taking in the fresh night air. Well, as fresh as you were going to get in New York City, anyway.

The lighted phone booth reminded him of a million films noirs he'd seen over the years. How he loved them. Bogart. Robert Ryan. Lawrence Tierney (who maybe had the greatest noir face of all)…

Hearing his footsteps echo in the night, turning up the collar of his trench coat, tilting his head against the bitter wind… he felt like a character in a film noir himself.

When he got to the phone booth, Adam took out his wallet and his Ma Bell credit card and went to work.

Four minutes later their phone was ringing back in Chicago.

Ringing and ringing and

Adam got a bad feeling.

He could see Rick being so upset about the latest of Adam's dalliances (well, the latest till he'd arrived here in New York) that his mate went out tonight and did something stupid.

Rick was always a wild card.

Always.

Adam replaced the receiver.

Then he was out of the booth and walking again, a character in a black-and-white film circa 1948, one with a lot of blue and lonely sax music…

'Excuse me.'

Jill had been in the middle of buttering a piece of wheatbread she'd bought fresh from the bakery earlier that day, and exchanging some choice gossip with Kate, when her phone rang.

She picked it up. 'Hello?'

'Hi. It's me, Mitch.'

She glanced at Kate, feeling guilty, the way she had when her older brother always smirked about her boyfriends calling the house.

Kate seemed to know immediately who it was.

'I'm sort of busy right now, Mitch. Kate's here.'

'This is business. Jill.'

'Business?'

'Yes. You heard about Eric Brooks?'

'Yes.'

'Well, my boss is going to question you, probably later tonight.'

'Isn't that normal? I mean, I was up there, seeing Eric.'

'Anything noteworthy take place?'

'Not really. Excuse me a second.' She covered the yellow receiver, the yellow matching the walls of the kitchen, and said to Kate, 'The police are going to question me.'

Kate frowned. 'Boy, that's all you need. Publicity again.'

To Mitch, Jill said, 'This is all routine, right?'

'I hope so.'

'You don't sound sure.'

'My Lieutenant iswell, I don't know if you remember me talking about him, but Lieutenant Sievers isn't exactly a criminology genius. He's very old-school. And he tends to pursue the first person who looks like a good suspect.'

She thought of tabloid journalists hiding in wait wherever she went. Could it all happen again?

'Eric was alive and well when I left there.'

'I'm sure he was.'

'Do you have any advice?'

'Don't let him rile you. The Lieutenant, I mean. He's very good at making people feel guilty, even when they're not.'

'God, I'm not looking forward to this.'

'Maybe…' He paused. 'Maybe I could come over and give you a little moral support.'

She glanced at Kate, still feeling embarrassed about talking to Mitch in front of her, probably because she knew that Kate still disliked Mitch for what he'd done to Jill.

She did not want to say what she said next. But somehow the words came, symbols of all the loneliness and tenderness and emptiness she'd known since Mitch had so abruptly left her life. 'I'd like that.'

'I'll be there in twenty minutes.'

She hung up and said to Kate, 'I guess I'm going to have company a little later.'

Kate looked at her levelly. 'You sure you want him coming around again, Jill?'

Jill smiled sardonically. ''That's the funny thing. I do want him coming around again.'

Doris spent an hour on the phone talking to a college classmate who'd called a few weeks earlier. Doris hadn't gotten a chance to return the call till now, which gave her the perfect opportunity to be in the second den, the smaller one, that her mother used as an office.

As Doris and her friend Amy went through the latest on divorces, births, re-marriages and promotions, Doris carefully examined everything on the green felt desk pad, and then began working her way through the desk drawers.