Chuck Hustmyre: A Killer Like Me

“Is that why you’re here, to make sure I can’t make that deal?”

“I’m here to offer you a seat on the gravy train,” Gaudet said. “There’s still time, brother.”

“What does the mayor want in return?”

“Your word that you’re not a threat.”

“Is that all?” Murphy said. Then casually, like he wasn’t even thinking about it, Murphy reached up with his left hand and unzipped his raincoat.

“And he wants to bring you on as part of the team.”

“Why does he need us?”

Gaudet hefted his pistol. “Because sometimes the negotiations get sticky, and nobody argues with a man holding a gun.”

“Why did you get involved?”

Gaudet shook his head at the stupidity of the question. “Why do you think? I got two kids in private school. I got a wife wants a new car. I got a girlfriend wants her apartment paid for. Everything is all crossways, man. Shit just got cattywampus on me, and I needed the money.”

“But why you?” Murphy said. “Why did the mayor pick you to be his bagman?”

“Right place, right time, I guess.”

Murphy shook his head. “It was payback for you throwing the case against his brother.”

Gaudet stared at Murphy. “That case wasn’t going anywhere. If it wasn’t me, it would have been a captain, or a deputy chief, or somebody at the DA’s office. You can’t put the mayor’s brother in jail, Murphy, and expect the case to go to court. Not in this city.”

A sudden anger swelled through Murphy. He took a half step forward.

Gaudet jabbed his pistol at Murphy. “You stay right there and keep that Irish temper of yours under control.”

Murphy nodded toward the pistol in Gaudet’s hand. “Now what?”

“Depends.”

“On what?”

“On whether you’re with the man or against him.”

“What happens if I’m against him?”

“I told him you wouldn’t be.”

“Why would you do that?”

“Because you’re no choirboy, Murphy.”

“This is different,” Murphy said. “There’s bent and there’s crooked. This is crooked.”

A bead of sweat rolled down Gaudet’s cheek. “He wants to see you.”

“Why?”

“To explain your situation to you.”

“Right now?”

Gaudet wiped a sleeve across his face. “He’s at the Emergency Operations Center. I’ll call him when we get close. He’ll meet us outside.”

“What about his daughter?” Murphy said.

“What about her?”

“Does he want to get her back?”

“Of course he does,” Gaudet said. “He’s worried sick about her. He’s counting on you to find her.”

Murphy doubted that. Gaudet was stalling, trying to work up his nerve. Only five feet separated them. Murphy lowered his right hand near his holstered pistol. He wasn’t going down without a fight. “What if she’s already dead?”

Gaudet shrugged. “If it turns out that way, he’ll mourn for her, but life goes on. We’ve got a city to rebuild.”

“How much is it worth?” Murphy asked.

“What?” Gaudet said.

“The skim.”

“Five percent of every contract.”

Murphy did the math. Five percent was fifty thousand dollars for every million, and the city had awarded hundreds of millions of dollars in contracts since the storm. “That’s a lot of money.”

Gaudet shrugged. “Not every contract is part of the program. The mayor has good instincts. But it’s still very… lucrative.”

“What’s your end?”

“Two hundred thousand so far.”

Gaudet reached behind his back and tossed Murphy a pair of handcuffs. “Put those on.”

Murphy caught them in his left hand. He kept his right hand down. “I’m going to see the mayor in handcuffs, like a prisoner?”

Gaudet nodded. “Until you two straighten out your differences, he’s not taking any chances.”

The meeting with the mayor was a ruse. Gaudet was going to drive him somewhere and kill him. “What if we don’t straighten out our differences?” Murphy said.

“He’s a persuasive man.”

“But if we don’t,” Murphy said, “your job is to kill me, right?”

Gaudet shook his head. “Quit being so dramatic. It ain’t like that.”

Murphy rattled the handcuffs. “Tell me what it’s like then.”

“First, you two talk and straighten out the bad blood. Then he’ll give you an envelope. The first of many.”

Murphy slid his right foot back half a step and angled his left side toward Gaudet. He reached behind his back with both hands like he was going to handcuff himself. As his right hand swung past his side, it was hidden from Gaudet’s view. Murphy hooked the bottom of his raincoat with his thumb and pulled it back away from his pistol.

Gaudet relaxed.

Murphy whipped out his left hand and flung the handcuffs into Gaudet’s face. He lunged to the right and jerked his Glock from its holster. He snapped off three shots. Two bullets hit Gaudet high in the chest. The third put a hole in the wall. Gaudet fired once. His shot punched through the empty space where Murphy had been standing.

Gaudet sagged to the floor. His mouth hung open. He was drooling blood as he fought for breath.

Murphy stood over him while he died.

No one knocked on Murphy’s door. No sounds came from the hallway or the stairs. Nothing but the shrieking of the wind.

Gaudet weighed at least two sixty and was too heavy to move. Murphy knew that if he survived the night he was going to have to explain why he had killed his partner. But that was only if he survived the night. He dug Gaudet’s keys from his pocket. He left his ex-partner’s pistol on the floor where it had fallen.

When Gaudet had raced out of the back lot of the police academy this morning, he had Murphy’s gear bag in the trunk of his car. In that bag were Murphy’s bulletproof vest and two spare magazines for his Glock. He planned to use the five-shot. 38 to kill Jeffries, but he had enough experience to know that plans don’t usually work out the way they’re supposed to.

Murphy walked into his bedroom and pulled a shoe box from the shelf at the top of his closet. Inside, the. 38 was wrapped in an old yellow T-shirt. Murphy unwrapped the snub-nosed revolver and snapped open the cylinder. It was loaded with five rounds of. 38 +P hollow points. He tucked the gun into the front of his pants.

Back in the den, Murphy walked around Gaudet’s body, careful not to tread in the blood that had pooled on the floor. He opened the door and stepped into the hall. As he locked the dead bolt and turned toward the stairs, he heard a frail voice behind him. “Did you hear that awful noise, Mr. Murphy?”

He turned around. It was his shriveled neighbor. She stood at the far end of the hallway, near a picture window that looked out onto the street. “It sounded like a gunshot,” she said. “Did you hear it?”

“Yes, ma’am, I did. I think it was a transformer that blew.”

She was dressed in a shabby housecoat that she clutched around her throat with one arthritic hand. It was the first time Murphy had ever seen her not dressed.

“Are you evacuating?” she asked.

“No, ma’am. I have to work. I’m a policeman.”

She nodded. “I saw you in the newspaper, remember?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Well, you be careful.”

“You too.”

Outside on the street, Murphy walked around the block pressing the panic button on Gaudet’s key fob until he got close enough to the car to set off the alarm. He found the Caprice parked on a parallel street one block from his apartment. He opened the trunk.

Lying next to Murphy’s gear bag was Gaudet’s briefcase. To keep it closed, Gaudet had wrapped it with a bungee cord. Murphy carried his bag and the briefcase to his Taurus. He threw his gear into the backseat and sat down behind the wheel with the briefcase beside him. He turned on the dome light and opened the case. It was still stuffed with cash.