Victor Gischler - Suicide Squeeze

“You already know, then.” She shrugged. “There it is.” She took the lighter out of her purse, almost lit her cigarette but remembered she was in a hospital. She put away the lighter, didn’t know what to do with her hands.

“What will you do now?”

“Go someplace,” she said. “Get my head together. Figure things out.”

“I know someone at Langley,” the general said. “And there’s always consulting. I have a few names.”

“I don’t need any of your names, Father.”

He frowned. “Don’t you?”

“No.”

A long pause, then he said, “I suppose you don’t. Or, if you did, you wouldn’t say.”

“No.”

“Fair enough.” His eyes shifted to the small table under the window. “Your inheritance is over there.” He closed his eyes again.

She went to the table, opened the highly polished wooden box. Two pistols inside, spotless, nickel six-shooters. In their hometown library, there was a picture of her father in Korea wearing the pistols. To the best of Joellen’s knowledge, the revolvers had never been fired in combat. Her father was simply a ridiculous show-off.

“The brilliance of John Wayne in The Searchers,” her father said, eyes still closed, “is that he clings to his quest even when it’s obvious his quest is doomed. What else is there for him to do? He has come home in defeat, a Confederate who’s refused to surrender his sword. He has no cause. What else can he do but invent a new one for himself?”

“What are you telling me, Father?”

He said, “I’m just telling you about a good film. His quest becomes his life.” He opened his eyes, looked at his daughter. “Goals are nothing. That you pursue them is everything.”

Somehow, Joellen doubted that was what John Ford had in mind.

“I’m leaving the house and the money to Eliot.” Joellen’s brother.

“It’s yours,” Joellen said. “Do as you wish.” You rotten old bastard.

A thin, weak smile spread on his face. “I know what you’re thinking.”

“I’m thinking that you’ve complained for years about Eliot wasting his life as a painter and wasting your money studying in Paris and Rome where he was doing a lot more screwing and drinking than painting. So naturally you want to reward him with a big inheritance.”

“You don’t understand,” he said. “Eliot doesn’t stand a chance. The world would eat him alive. It’s the only way.”

“I know.” She put her hand on the rail of the hospital bed, touched his thin arm with a finger.

“I’m going to die now,” he said.

“I know.”

“Don’t leave, please.” He put a frail hand over hers. “I might fall asleep again, but don’t go. I don’t know why, but I hate the thought that I’d die and nobody would be here. The doctor gives me fifty-fifty on lasting the night. I’m full of narcotics.”

“I won’t go anywhere.”

“I’ll see your mother soon,” the general said.

“I like the pistols, Father. I’ll keep them. If I move somewhere with a fireplace, I’ll put them on the mantel.”

“Do you remember that dog we had in Virginia? What was it? When you were a teenager. Some kind of terrier.”

“It was a Jack Russell terrier,” Joellen told him.

“Yes, I remember. That was a damn fine dog.”

And five minutes later he was gone.

Joellen understood she was drunk, pushed the bottle away, and it tipped over, spilled the remainder of its contents across the table. She left the mess. To hell with it.

She pushed herself away from the table, stood on rubbery legs. She made it as far as the couch and fell asleep with her clothes on.

Conner drove back to Pensacola.

Jerry had said the thing was insured for a hundred thousand. Conner remembered something else Jerry had said.

Any collectible is really only worth what somebody is willing to pay.

There must be somebody else out there, a serious collector who didn’t mind throwing a lot of money around. If Conner could find another buyer, he wouldn’t have to deal with Becker. He was so close to doing something right. There was a stack of money right there in front of his face. All he had to do was reach out and grab it. If only he knew how.

Rocky Big. Rocky would know what to do. Rocky had known whom to call about the Dybek paintings.

But he couldn’t go to Rocky empty-handed. Conner needed to get his hands on the card. He had to show Rocky he could deliver the goods.

He started the Plymouth, pointed it toward the Electric Jenny . He’d need to search the sailboat one more time. Conner was certain the card was someplace simple, right under his nose.

Conner drove thirty seconds, stopped, turned around. What he really needed was to talk to Rocky first. No sense getting all involved with this scheme if Rocky knew a dozen reasons it was a bad idea. Maybe Conner wouldn’t be able to sell the card even if he found it somehow.

Conner changed his mind yet again, headed for the beach. It had been too long since he’d visited his favorite stool at Salty’s Saloon. And what he really needed was a drink.

Conner walked into the empty bar and said, “Sid, I want an Absolut martini straight up.”

Sid tore his eyes from the television behind the bar. A baseball game. When he saw Conner, he raised an eyebrow. “You know I can’t float you with the expensive stuff. How about a beer?”

Conner slapped a twenty-dollar bill on the bar. “My friend Andrew Jackson is buying.”

Sid put his hands together, bowed his head, and mumbled a prayer.

“What are you doing, Sid?”

“You’ve got cash,” Sid said. “That’s one of the signs of the apocalypse, ain’t it? I want to get right with God.”

“It’s too late for you. Fix the drink.”

“Uh-huh.” He threw ice and vodka into a shaker, splashed in some token vermouth. He shook it all up, poured it into a delicate glass with a long stem. Two olives. He shoved it in front of Conner, and said, “What’s that crazy outfit you’re wearing?”

“Kirk,” Conner said. “I’m a captain, so show a little respect.”

“Whatever. There was a woman in here looking for you.”

Conner’s hand froze halfway to the martini. “The hell you say.”

“Scout’s honor.”

“I thought you discouraged women from coming in here.” Conner’s hand found the glass, hoisted it to his lips. His mouth made a third of it disappear. His stomach received the gift, turned up the heat. All of his body parts working together in harmony. Togetherness made the world go round.

“Sure I discourage them,” Sid said. “This ain’t no hoochie pickup bar. It’s a guys’ bar. Sports on the tube and cheap beer.”

“Uh-huh. What did she look like?” Conner worried it was Becker. She didn’t seem like the kind of woman who would tolerate being jerked around. Conner didn’t want another kick in the teeth.

Sid described the woman. Tyranny.

Conner’s heart and stomach did a strange flop-and-flutter thing, the result of curiosity, worry, excitement, and desperate hope all mixed together. He threw down the rest of the martini, told Sid to build him another. “Not so much vermouth this time.”

Sid brought the drink. Conner drank.

“Hey, turn up the TV,” Conner said.

Sid glanced at the screen. “It’s a commercial.”

Conner leaned over the bar, grabbed the remote, and turned up the volume. It was a commercial telling people they could own their own business. Be your own boss. Internet access terminals about the size of ATM machines. Put them in hotel lobbies and malls. Conner liked the simple idea of making the rounds once a week, picking up the money, letting the machines do all the work. But the more he thought about it, the more he saw the problems. People would vandalize the machines. He’d need insurance. Maintenance. They’d turn out to be more work than a regular job.