Donald Westlake - The Ax

I park the same place I did on Tuesday, and walk back down the dark country road toward Urf's house. It's nine-thirty, Thursday night, the 26th of June, and I am here to kill him. He could have an entire harem with him tonight, I don't care. Tonight he dies.

I'm feeling such time pressure now. It's not only that I've been at this for nearly two months, though that's part of it. Having to think about these deadly things all the time, do these deadly things, it's wearing me down. I take less pleasure in life, and for that I don't blame the downsizing, the chop, the adjustment, whatever you want to call it; I blame this grim hell I'm living through. Food doesn't taste as good as it used to, simple pleasures like music or television or driving or just feeling the sun on my face have all flattened and become drab, and as for sex, well…

Though that problem did start with the downsizing.

Once I'm out of this. Once it's over. Once I'm out of this and safe on the farther shore, with the new job, with my life back. Then the colors will be bright again.

So that's a reason to want it over, but now there's an even more compelling one, and that's Urf's children. If they follow their normal pattern, and why shouldn't they, next week is when they'll arrive for their summer visit with their father. The 4th of July is on Friday this year, so they'll surely want their travel to be finished well before the weekend, which means I have less than a week before they show up to complicate my life beyond imagining.

No time at all. Weekends are impossible. Mondays and Wednesdays are impossible as well, because of Marjorie's job with Dr. Carney. By the time I pick her up at six in the evening and drive her home, with dinner still to come, it's far too late to set out for Slate, New York. So if I don't get him tonight, I won't have another try at him for five days, not until next Tuesday, and by then his children could already be here.

I'm a little later tonight, deliberately, assuming his pattern is never to come home directly from work. And I seem to be right; his house is as dark as it was when I arrived on Tuesday. The nightlight in his bedroom, nothing more.

There's a learning curve with this house, as well. Tonight, I walk past the two parked vehicles and the entrance to the enclosed porch, go directly on down to the end and around the corner, then straight through the original front door. I walk through the TV room without kneeing the sofa, glance in at the lit bedroom and the dim kitchen, and make my way to the dark office, where I sit again at his desk.

Not home yet. Out drinking his dinner. Anesthetizing himself, just for me.

It's a little warm in here, but I keep my windbreaker on. In the pockets are the things I've brought, just in case. The coil of picture wire. The small roll of duct tape. The four-inch length of heavy iron pipe, one end wrapped with electric tape for a better grip. The cotton gloves.

I don't have a particular plan, not yet. It all depends what the circumstances are, when Urf gets here.

I put my feet up on the desk, and cross my ankles. A car drives by, southbound, out there on the road. Then nothing. I sit and wait for Urf to come home.

Light. I blink.

"Wake up, you!"

"Oh, my God!" I twitch, and my feet fall off the desk and thud to the floor, jolting me forward in the swivel chair. I stare in the harshness of the overhead light. My eyes are gummy, my mouth sticky.

I fell asleep.

He's in the doorway. His left hand is still across his body, fingers touching the light switch. His right hand holds the revolver I last saw in his bedside table. He stares at me. He weaves left and right in the doorway. Even as I'm realizing the horror of the situation, I can see that he's pretty drunk. "Mister…" I say, trying to remember his name. Urf, not Urf. Fallon.

"Don't move!"

My hand has started upward, to wipe my sticky-feeling mouth, but now I freeze, hand in midair. "Fallon," I say. "Mister Fallon."

"What are you doin here?" He's aggressive because he's afraid, and he's afraid because he's bewildered.

What am I doing here? I have to have a reason, something I can tell him. "Mister Fallon," I say again, stuck at that part of it.

"You broke into my house!"

"No! No, I didn't." I protest that in full honesty.

"The door was locked!"

"No, it wasn't." Even though he told me not to move, I do move, pointing away to my right as I say, "The big door by the living room. I knocked, and… that wasn't locked."

He frowns mightily, and I see him trying to think about that door that's never used. Is it locked? He doesn't know. He says, "It's trespassing."

Fair enough. Break in or walk in, it is trespassing, he's right about that. I say, "I wanted to wait for you. I'm sorry I fell asleep."

" I don't know you," he says. I'm not being particularly threatening or intimidating, so his aggression and fear are becoming less, but he's still as bewildered as I am as to what reason I'm going to give for my being here.

Is it because we're both paper line managers? Polymer paper? I've just come by for some shoptalk, a little chat about our fascinating employment? At this time of night? Unannounced, walking into his empty house?

And then I see it, all at once, and I turn my honest face up to him, and I say, "Mr. Fallon, I need your help."

He squints at me. The revolver is still pointed in my direction, but he no longer touches the light switch. That other hand is pressed against the doorframe now, to help him keep from weaving. He says, "Did Edna send you, is that what this is?"

I remember, from his tax returns, that Edna is an ex-wife. I say, "I don't know anybody named Edna, Mr. Fallon. My name is Burke Devore, I'm the production line manager for the polymer paper line at Halcyon Mills over in Connecticut, over in Belial."

Again he squints. "Halcyon," he says. He keeps up with the trade journals, but how closely? Will he know it's all over at Halcyon? He says, "Didn't they get merged?"

"Yes," I say. "That's the whole trouble, it looks like they're gonna move the whole goddam thing up to Canada—"

"Cocksuckers," he says.

"I just don't want to lose my job," I say.

"Lotta that goin' around," he says.

"Too much of it. Mr. Fallon," I say, "I read about you in Pulp, remember that piece a few months ago?"

"They got some stuff wrong in there," he complains, "made me look like a damn fool doesn't know his own job."

"I thought it made you look terrific at your job," I tell him, lying. "That's why I'm here."

He shakes his head, befuddled. "I don't know what the fuck you think you're talkin' about," he says.

"I'm good at my job, Mr. Fallon, believe me I am," I tell him, with great sincerity, "but these days you can't just be good at the job, you've got to be perfect at it. I don't have much time. They're going to decide pretty soon this summer, do I stay on, does the line stay here or does it get pulled to Canada—"

"Fuckin' bastards."

"I thought," I tell him, "if I could talk to Mr. Fallon, if we could just talk about the job, I could maybe pick up some pointers, get to where I could— I can do the job, Mr. Fallon, but I'm not that good, talking about it, I can't express myself. In that piece in Pulp, you could express yourself. I was hoping, my idea was, we could just talk, and then maybe I'd be better at it on the job. There's gonna be an interview, I'm not exactly sure when."

He studies me. The revolver now dangles at his side, pointing at the floor. He says, "You sound desperate."

"I am desperate. I don't want to lose that job. I keep thinking about it and thinking about it, and today I finally made the decision to come here and ask you for help, and after dinner I drove over here from Connecticut."