Ken Douglas - Gecko

“ Turnbull, the man’s name is Turnbull, not Turnbill,” Donna screamed the thought.

“ I know.” Jim repositioned the pencil in his left hand with the eraser against the heel of the palm and the pointed end sticking out between the two middle fingers. Then he balled his hand into a fist with the sharpened pencil sticking out like a deadly spike. He took a deep breath, held it, then jacked his arm forward, driving the pencil into the big man’s left eye and on up into his brain.

Death was instantaneous.

“ What the-” Turnbull screamed, but Jim cut it short by bringing his right forearm down on the left side of Turnbull’s head, striking the temple with the hard cast. Turnbull fell forward. Dead.

Though it had been almost forty years since he had killed, he’d killed a lot back then. Apparently he still remembered how. He stood and backed away. The two men were slumped down, heads on the table. The big one oozed blood out of his eye. The thick red liquid didn’t quite cover the orange eraser. A grotesque sight. Turnbull looked like he was peacefully asleep.

“ Are they dead?”

“ Big nose certainly is.”

“ How about the other one?”

Jim bent, touched two fingers of his left hand to Turnbull’s neck, on the carotid artery.

“ Dead,” he thought.

“ Shoot through!” Donna thought.

“ I don’t understand?”

“ Shoot through, before you get caught.”

“ I don’t understand the expression.”

“ It means, ‘Get the hell out of here. Take off!’”

“ And go where? There’s a policeman on the other side of the door.”

“ I forgot. Say, how come he didn’t come in when that weasel screamed?”

“ Good question.”

“ Better check.”

“ Yeah.” He grabbed the doorknob with a shaky left hand. His sweaty palm slid over it without opening the door. It had been a long time since he had sweat fear. He gripped the knob harder and turned it. The latch clicked and echoed throughout the room, causing the fine hair on the back of his hands and neck to tingle out a warning. He felt sweat under his arms as he swung the door open and poked his head into the hall.

The policeman was sitting back in his chair. He looked like he was asleep. Jim stepped into the hall and for a second time, in less than five minutes, he pressed the index and middle finger of his left hand against a carotid artery in a vain search for a sign of life. He found none.

“ Dead,” he thought.

“ Now what?” Donna asked.

“ Don’t know,” Jim thought back. But he knew he was going to have to do something, and quickly, so he grabbed the back of the chair with his good left hand, wrapped his bad right arm around the front of the dead police officer and dragged him into the small room.

He started back for the door, then stopped. Where could he go? Once the bodies were discovered, they would go to both his house and his condo. He put his hands into his pockets. No wallet, no money, no credit cards, they took them away when they booked him. He could hardly go to the officer on duty and ask for his property back.

He turned to the dead men.

“ You’re not going to search the bodies?”

“ Got any better ideas?”

“ No.”

In the inside jacket pocket of the dead Turnbull he found a wallet which held just under six hundred dollars, a driver’s license along with several credit cards, all in the name of Patrick Langley. He also found five business cards in the name of Jeff Turnbull, Attorney at Law.

He took the money, credit cards and driver’s license, leaving only the phony business cards. Any time the police spent trying to worry over who Turnbull really was, was time not spent trying to catch and crucify Jim Monday.

Next he opened Big Nose’s sportcoat and fished inside for a wallet. There was none. Great, he thought, one of those who keeps it in his pants. He lifted the coat off the dead man’s buttocks and smiled as he saw the telltale bulge in the left hip pocket. This man wasn’t used to wearing a suit. He slid his fingers into the pocket, pulled out the wallet.

Pay dirt, three thousand dollars in hundreds, plus another hundred in twenties. Thirty one hundred dollars. No credit cards. No driver’s license, only a business card in the name Richard Monroe, Attorney at Law. A false name for a dead man. Another problem for the police.

He gave Turnbull-Langley another look. They were about the same size. He took off his coat and laid it on the floor. Then he pulled the well dressed dead man away from the table.

“ What are you doing?”

“ I’m going to undress him.”

“ Oh my God. Why?”

“ My clothes look like they’ve been slept in and I need a shave. How far do you think I’d get walking out of here looking like this? But dressed in Turnbull’s clothes I’ve got a chance. His suit doesn’t look like it’s spent the night in jail, my clothes do.”

Without further thought, he took off the dead man’s coat. He felt a slight tingle run up his spine as he unbuttoned the vest and removed it. His hands trembled and he fought shaking fingers as he took off the tie and the white shirt.

“ Now the hard part,” he said under his breath.

He pulled the dead man out of the chair, laid him out on the floor. He untied and removed the leather shoes, leaving the socks. Then he loosened the belt, pulled off the trousers.

For a couple seconds he studied the dead man, wondering if he had children who would be crying tonight. He shrugged off the thought and undressed, leaving his clothes in a pile on the floor. He took another look at the bodies, then he put on the dead man’s suit. Everything fit, the jacket even covered his cast, but he grimaced as he put on the shoes, they were at least a size too small and they hurt. But his Nike trainers hardly went with the suit, so he stuffed his feet into the expensive leather.

“ You forgot the tie.”

“ I hate ties.”

“ You’ve gone this far, put it on,” she thought and he obeyed.

“ Time to go,” he thought and once again he started for the door.

“ Wait a minute. What about the policeman’s gun?”

“ They have metal detectors in police stations and jails, to keep guns out.”

“ Oh.” Then she added a thought, “Do they check you when you leave?”

“ I don’t know, but I’m not going to take the chance. I’m going to leave the gun.”

“ Then, let’s go,” she thought.

Jim opened the door, looked down a long corridor with several tall oak doors opposite each other, anyone of which could open and disgorge a policeman or policemen who could cut off his escape.

He stepped into the hallway and made his hurting feet move along the tiled floor. Sweat rolled down the back of his neck and still another chill crept up his spine. He tried to control his breathing by sucking air deep into his gut. He concentrated on swinging his arms in a casual, but purposeful manner. A man with a mission, but not in a hurry. A man with time, but not too much. He needn’t have bothered, because he reached the end of the hallway without incident. No police, no lawyers, no clerks, no one.

He held onto the rail as he went down the stairs, gritting his teeth against the pain the cramped shoes were causing. He had to turn right at the bottom, into another corridor, this one filled with people. He plunged ahead, passing them without acknowledging them. He might as well have been alone. The many voices and languages of the hustling police station all carried on as if he were invisible, just another attorney doing his job. The corridor opened onto a large room full of uniformed policemen, talking, drinking coffee, writing, laughing, doing their jobs. They paid him no attention as he waded among them, a fish among sharks.