Gregg Hurwitz - The Kill Clause

Bowrick walked with a distinctive slouch, shoulders humped, hips tucked slightly like a spanked dog’s, favoring his right leg. His black-and-white flannel hung open, fringing his thighs like a skirt. Tim waited for him to turn the corner onto Penmar before following on foot. Two blocks down, Bowrick lifted the latch on a waist-high fence and slipped into a ragged front yard with an oval of dirt that used to be a lawn. The house itself, a prefab with tract-home simplicity, sat slightly crooked on the lot, its Ty-D-Bol turquoise clapboards water-warped and misaligned. By the time Tim strolled past, Bowrick had disappeared through the front door.

Tim retrieved his car, parking a few houses up from Bowrick’s, and sat pretending to study a map. After about five minutes a tricked-out Escalade pulled up and honked despite the late hour. Bowrick emerged holding a small duffel bag and hopped into the car. As it passed Tim, he caught a glimpse of the driver-a Hispanic kid in a wife-beater tank top with orange fire tattoos on his shoulders and neck.

Probably off to do a late-night drop.

Tim waited until the sound of the engine faded, then grabbed the camera from his backseat and approached the house. He searched the front yard for dog shit and, not noticing any, hopped the fence. Six strides, then he flattened himself against the side wall and pulled on latex gloves. The neighboring houses were a good thirty feet away, not because the yards were ample but because Bowrick’s house was so small it couldn’t fill even its modest plot. Tim edged over and peered through the window. The house, basically a single large room, recalled Tim’s apartment in its bare functionality. A desk, a flimsy bureau, twin bed, sheets thrown back. Tim made his way to the rear and peeked through the bathroom window to ensure that the house was empty. The back door housed a mean Schlage and two dead bolts, so Tim returned to the bathroom window, popped the screen, and wormed his way through, coming down with his hands on the fortunately closed toilet seat.

No toothbrush in the toothbrush holder. No toothpaste.

Tim slipped into the main room. Two folded shirts and a pair of socks waited on the bed, as if Bowrick had set them there to be packed, then decided against them.

Bowrick was clearly gone for an overnight, probably longer.

Tim pulled the chair out from the desk, placed it in the middle of the room, and stood on it. It took eight Polaroid shots to provide panoramic documentation of the interior. Tim set the hazy white photos on the bed to resolve, crossed to the desk, and began rifling through the drawers. Bills and a checkbook belonging to David Smith. Five twenties hidden under a paper tray in the top drawer said Bowrick wasn’t gone for good.

A tacky shrine had been set up on an overturned crate in the corner. Fake gold cross, a miniature oil painting of Jesus wearing the crown of thorns, a few burned-down candles. Its presence in Bowrick’s house served only to reinforce Tim’s distrust of men who turned their moral compass over to a God who tolerated Joe Mengele and Serb death squads. He cut short his condemnatory thoughts, recognizing he’d come to the case with prejudice. He refocused on taking in information before filtering it.

Tim searched the closets, drawers, mattress, cupboards beneath the sink. Two hard hats-one cracked-and Carhartt overalls were mounded on the closet floor. The carpet curled up from the wall seams, and he pulled it back farther to see if it hid a gun safe embedded in the floor. No weapons in the house. Largest blade was a steak knife on the brief run of counter tile that passed for a kitchen. Two doors, two windows-great kill zone.

He meticulously replaced everything to its original position. He smoothed his footprints out of the carpet, left the second desk drawer halfway open as it had been, adjusted the bottom right corner of the comforter so it drooped to touch the ground just so.

The Polaroids had dried on the bed, and he checked the room against them. He’d replaced the sole Bic pen too close to the edge of the desk. The top sheet needed to be folded over just under the pillows. A Car and Driver magazine on the bureau required a quarter rotation to the right. He retouched and reskewed until everything in the room perfectly matched the photographs again.

Then he slid out the bathroom window, replaced the screen, and eased back out onto the sidewalk. He contemplated calling the Stork, but the man’s distinctive looks made for dangerous stakeout material. He called Mitchell from the car, but Mitchell kept his cell phone turned off even when unnecessary, as was the habit of any smart EOD bomb tech. He reached Robert with his next call and had him hand the phone off to his brother, which he did angrily.

“I’ve just left Bowrick’s place.”

“Holy shit, you found him alrea-”

“Listen to me. He lives at 2116 Penmar, but I believe he headed out for a few nights. I’ve been on it for the past three days, and I need to sleep. I want you to head down here and keep an eye on the house-very low-profile. Just you. Alone. Do not get spotted. And don’t bring weapons. Do you understand me? No pistol, no nothing. Just sit on the house and alert me if he returns. I’ll be back at nine hundred tomorrow to take over for you. Can you do that?”

“Of course.”

“I’ll keep the Nextel on.”

Tim felt slightly euphoric, as he always did on the trail. To celebrate he debated allowing himself the indulgence of returning Dray’s call, the thought calling forth a crisp picture of his daughter’s room waiting still furnished across the hall. With the image came the bristling of imbedded thorns, a sudden crashing return from the salve of numbness. Now that he was off task, his thoughts became his enemies again; it was as if, finding nothing else on which to teethe, they turned cannibalistic. His mind nosed around his vulnerabilities, moving deliberately from Ginny to Dray to Robert to all other things that had recently spun from his grasp. When he emerged from his thoughts, he was a few blocks from his building. He anticipated stepping into the apartment’s empty embrace and how different it would feel from his house, which would smell of wood and lingering barbecue and ketchup-stained paper plates in the trash can. Thoughts of the myriad compelling security and safety concerns managed to put a pretty good damper on his yearning for a spontaneous visit.

He took a pull off the bottle of water left over from lunch, but it didn’t help dissolve the sourness at the back of his throat. It remained, firm-rooted and dry-most likely the aftertaste of death and murder, both of which he’d been steeped in for the past month. Maybe he needed something stronger to wash it away.

A neon martini glass beckoned from a dark-tinted window, and he jerked the Beemer left into a parking lot and coasted up to the white valet stand.

The thrumming bass from the car pulling out and the all-black attire of the couple whisking in indicated that Tim had accidentally arrived at a club rather than a bar. He disliked hip in most of its variations, but it was too late now, and besides, a drink was a drink.

As he got out of his car, a kid with slicked-back hair presented a ripped stub from an effluvium of bad cologne, then slid behind the wheel and screeched around the corner. Tim looked at the five blank spaces in front of the club and turned a befuddled glance at the remaining valet. “Is there some reason you can’t leave the car right here?”

The valet coughed out a snicker. “Uh, yeah. It’s a ’97.”

A bouncer manned a maroon rope in front of the door. He was fit, half white, half Asian, and handsome as fuck. Tim disliked him instantly, blindly.

Tim approached and flicked his hand at the dark door, from which issued cigarette smoke and a tune heavy on beat and metallics. The bouncer kept his head tilted back as if in a constant state of boredom or appraisal. “Get in line please, pal.”