Linwood Barclay - Parting Shot

He had a feeling Jeremy Pilford would be his last stand. He’d made a great debut with Craig Pierce, and Pilford would be the closing number. A short but memorable career. Not that he wouldn’t have liked it to be much longer, but once he was done with the Big Baby, it was a safe bet that everyone would know who he was. No more anonymity. No more solitary celebrations.

No longer would it just be his work that was famous. It would be him . Cory had no doubt of that. His exploits would spread far beyond websites like Just Deserts. He’d make the evening news. He’d be on CNN.

The world would know his name.

Did the world know his sister’s name? Did the world know his brother’s name? Fuck, no. They’d gone and devoted their lives to such noble causes, and what did they have to show for it, really?

Losers.

Even his parents, with all their advocacy work over the years, never achieved the kind of fame he was undoubtedly going to earn.

He just wanted to be able to enjoy it. And to enjoy it, he had to stay alive.

That was where Carol Beakman came in.

Cory could imagine any number of scenarios where he might need her. At some point, the police might corner him. Storm a building. Come in with guns blazing. That was how they operated. Shoot first, ask questions later. But they wouldn’t want to do that if he had the woman with him. They’d have to be more careful.

She’d be his lifesaver when the going got tough. And what the hell, if it turned out he didn’t need her, he’d dispose of her.

Like he did with Dolores.

But man, that did hurt. Cory had loved Dolores. Really, really loved her. She was his first real girlfriend, which was saying something for a guy in his thirties. Cory was not exactly the most popular student in high school. (Again, not like his siblings, who were getting laid practically out of kindergarten.) But Dolly and him, they’d really connected. How many girls were willing to come along to watch a dog make Alpo out of somebody? Plus, she was way more than a bystander. She was the one who got Pierce’s attention out back of the pizza place where he worked, which allowed Cory to come up from behind, put the chloroform-soaked rag over his mouth. Dude powered down like a twenty-year-old laptop.

She’d helped him with Pierce, and she’d helped him with the other guy — only problem there was that it was the wrong guy. Dolly’d been idly going through Gaffney’s wallet, and had pulled out his driver’s license. Said: “Uh oh.”

Cory’d never forget that Uh oh .

Well, he felt bad about it, too. The poor bastard didn’t deserve what had happened to him. But it had happened in good faith. Cory honestly believed it was Jeremy Pilford they were marking up. His intentions were honorable. Sometimes there was collateral damage. Get over it. Move on.

Maybe that was the turning point for Dolly. Although, he had to admit, there were warning signs even before that.

Like that time Dolly asked whether they were just as bad as those they targeted. “Maybe someone else,” she once said, “will come after us the way we went after the first guy.”

She could never say a target’s name out loud. Not Pierce’s, not Gaffney’s. Pilford, she could say his name, because they hadn’t done him yet. But if they’d gotten him, she’d have had amnesia when it came to the guy’s name. It was her way of distancing herself, tricking her mind into believing she wasn’t involved. Cory, on the other hand, couldn’t say Pierce’s name enough, at least so long as no one other than Dolly was listening.

One time, she started talking about what the police would do to them if they got caught. What was it she’d said?

“You’re the one they’re really going to go after, once they know it was all your idea.”

Yeah, that was it. What the fuck did that mean? Cory had a pretty good idea. Dolly was already thinking ahead. If they got picked up, she’d sell him out. Say she was coerced. Say she was scared to do anything but go along with what he wanted.

He loved her so much. Funny how one’s feelings for someone could turn on a dime.

He’d started watching her more closely since the Gaffney fuckup. Tried to read between the lines of everything she said and did. There was definitely something wrong.

And then Carol Beakman showed up. At the door, for Christ’s sake.

Maybe if she’d phoned Dolly on her cell, everything would have turned out differently. But Carol didn’t have Dolly’s cell phone number, and when she tried to call her on the landline at her parents’ house, she’d found it disconnected.

So she drove to the house, came to the door, and that was really when everything started to go to shit.

He and Dolly had been sitting in the kitchen. She’d fried him up a couple of sausages on top of the stove, was about to put them into buns, when there was a rapping at the front door. Cory could see the instant panic in her eyes. This was it! They’d come for them. She’d put the pan back on the burner, didn’t even think to turn off the gas before she went to see who it was. Cory turned off the stove, and by the time he’d joined Dolly, the door was open, and he could see that it was not the fucking FBI or Starsky and Hutch or even Dudley Do-Right of the Mounties.

It was that woman Dolly had talked to just as they were nabbing Brian Gaffney, who was supposed to be Jeremy Pilford, but you couldn’t dwell on these things forever.

Anyway, now here she was again.

She was so sorry to bother them, she said. But there was this situation that had come up, something about her boyfriend and the fact that his father was a cop, and the way she rambled on, it was hard to make any sense of what she was saying.

But then she said something that really caught Cory’s attention.

Right about the time that they ran into each other outside Knight’s, a man had been kidnapped and held captive and his body tattooed. Just a horrible thing. Carol and her boyfriend had been seen on the bar’s video, which led the police to them. Carol hadn’t given the police Dolly’s name, but the more she considered it, the more she thought she should get in touch with Dolly in case she had any information that might help the cops.

“It was just unbelievable,” Carol said. “I saw a picture. What was done to this guy, it was horrific.”

Cory thought it could have been handled so well. All Dolly had to say was, Gee, thanks for telling us, but we didn’t see a thing, did we, Cory?

But no .

She looked at Cory, her lip all quivery. Said something like Oh my God oh my God oh my God.

Or words to that effect. She totally lost it.

“We’re fucked!” she said. “They’re going to find us!”

Cory had tried to laugh it off. Told this Carol Beakman that Dolly was just messin’ with her. But Dolly wouldn’t calm down, and Cory could see Carol had to be thinking, holy shit, what did I just walk into here?

So she started to leave.

Which didn’t strike Cory as a very good idea. Hold on, he said to her. There’s been a misunderstanding. Let’s try to sort this all out.

But Carol was already heading to her car. Cory was about to shoot out the door after her, but not before telling Dolly to get a grip, look what she’d done.

Dolly’d screamed, “It’s over! I can’t do this shit any more. I can’t, I can’t! You’re crazy, that’s what you are! You’re a fucking psycho!”

Cory found his hands around her neck. He pushed her up against the wall and squeezed with everything he had. She put up a good fight, he had to give her that. Kicked and flailed about, but he didn’t let go, didn’t stop squeezing. Not until she slid down the wall and crumpled into a heap on the floor.