Роберт Паркер - Double Play

From his right, up the street, a car came slowly toward him with its lights out. As it passed under the streetlight, he saw that it was a gray Ford sedan. It was very quiet, as if the engine had been shut off and the car was gliding in neutral. It stopped a house short of Jackie’s. No one got out. Burke sat still breathing gently through his nose. It was a two-door sedan with a black and yellow New York State license tag. After a while two men got out of the front seat of the Ford. One from the driver’s side, one from the passenger’s side. The man who got out the passenger’s side was carrying a small canvas bag. Burke wondered if there was anyone left in the car. It would make sense for them to leave a driver, but one of the men had come out from the driver’s side. Three people weren’t going to ride around for a while crammed into the front seat, while the back seat was empty. So if there was anyone, he was in the back seat and why would he stay there sitting in the back seat while the other men went to work?

The two men started across the neighboring front lawn walking toward the corner of Jackie’s house. When they reached it they turned toward the back, away from the streetlights. Burke stood and walked quietly across the street, past the Ford sedan, after them. Nothing happened. He made no sound as he walked in his stocking feet across Jackie’s neat grass lawn, and down along the side of Jackie’s house. In the shadow of the house, away from the streetlight, Burke stopped and listened while his pupils dilated. He could hear movement very slightly, and then as his eyes adjusted he could see the two men in vague shape gathered together at the back door. Burke moved closer. One of the men held a big revolver in his hand. The other had taken a flat bar from the canvas bag. Burke moved closer, his left shoulder brushing the house. There was no more relaxing into it. Now it was all focus, the two men and himself. Nothing else existed. The man with the flat bar whispered to the man with the gun. The sound in the night was shocking. The man with the gun whispered back. Burke was only ten feet away. He cocked both hammers on the shotgun. Both the men straightened and whirled toward the sound.

With his back pressed to the house, aiming at them across his body, Burke said, “Shotgun, both barrels.” The men hesitated. “Ten-gauge,” Burke said. “Cut both of you in two.” The men stared into the darkness trying to see. He was too close. From where he was, with a double-barreled ten-gauge, he couldn’t miss. Who was with him? “Drop the gun or I’ll kill you,” Burke said. The man with the gun hesitated, then decided. He turned suddenly, bringing the gun up, and Burke shot him in the chest with one barrel. The man made a sound of air suddenly expelled and went three feet backward and fell on his back. “Okay,” the man with the flat bar said. “Okay.” He put his hands in the air.

Burke saw movement at the window.

“Don’t come out,” he yelled. “Don’t call the cops. Don’t do anything.”

With the shotgun pushed up against the underside of the man’s chin Burke took a handgun from a holster on the man’s right hip. He dropped the gun into the canvas bag, put the flat bar in there as well.

“Okay,” he said. “Drag your pal to the car and stick him in the trunk.”

“He’s too fucking heavy.”

Burke jabbed the muzzle of the shotgun against the man’s cheek.

“Ow,” the man said and put his hand to his face.

“Do it, or I’ll drag you both.”

The man stooped down, got hold of his friend’s arms and began to drag him toward the Ford. Burke followed him. No lights went on in the neighborhood. No police cars roared up to the house. You could fire off an anti-aircraft gun in most neighborhoods, Burke thought, and no one would call the cops. They wouldn’t know it was an anti-aircraft gun. Just a loud noise. Go back to sleep, Edna. The man struggled to get the body in the trunk and by the time he finally succeeded he and the rear end of the Ford were smeared with blood.

“Close the trunk,” Burke said.

He did.

“You drive,” Burke said.

He kept the shotgun level until the man slipped into the driver’s seat, then he got into the passenger’s seat, put the canvas bag on the floor, and lay the still-cocked shotgun across his lap with the barrel pointing at the driver.

“Where?” the man said.

His voice was hoarse.

“Straight until I tell you something else,” Burke said.

The man put the keys in the ignition, pressed the starter button, put the car in gear and drove.

The man stared straight ahead, as he drove slowly, without speaking. Burke watched him for a moment. He was a thick pale-faced man with a lot of flesh around his neck. He was wearing a tan golf jacket and a white broadcloth shirt. He was having trouble swallowing. Burke was silent. No cars passed them as they drove. As they went under a streetlight Burke could see the sweat on the man’s face. In the quiet night with only the sound of the tires on the pavement, Burke could hear how shallow the man’s breathing was.

There was a bus stop past a gas station on the right.

“Pull over,” Burke said. “Leave the motor on.”

The man pulled in and stopped in the empty space of the bus stop.

“I might not kill you,” Burke said.

The man didn’t answer.

“I want to kill you,” Burke said. “You would have killed me back there if you could have.”

The man shook his head.

“But I need something from you,” Burke said. “So I might have to let you go.”

The man turned and looked at him.

“If you got it and give it to me,” Burke said.

The man nodded.

“What’s your name?” Burke said.

The man cleared his throat.

“Richard,” he said.

Burke nodded as if a suspicion had been confirmed.

“Okay, Richard,” Burke said, “here’s how it is. You give me what I want and I let you go. Or you don’t — because you won’t, because you can’t, makes no difference to me — and I cut you in two with the shotgun and dump you in the trunk on top of your buddy.”

“Whaddya want?” Richard said.

“What were you doing at that house?”

“I don’t know. I just went along with Chuck, for backup, you know?”

“Richard,” Burke said, “you don’t seem to get your situation here. If that’s the kind of answers you can give me, you’re going to be dead in maybe a minute.”

Richard looked down at the steering wheel and shook his head as if to clear it.

“We was going to kill the nigger,” he said.

“Why?”

“Guy wanted him dead.”

“What guy?”

“I can’t tell you that,” Richard said.

Burke laughed softly. He put the muzzle of the shotgun against Richard’s right cheekbone.

“I can’t. I rat and I’m a dead man.”

“And if you don’t?” Burke said softly.

Richard was silent for a moment, shaking his head slowly, staring at the empty street. Burke could see tears on his cheeks.

“Was it Paglia?” Burke said.

Richard nodded slowly.

“He hire you himself?” Burke said.

Richard shook his head.

“Who?” Burke said.

“Cash.” Richard was almost whispering.

“Tall thin guy?”

Richard nodded.

“Paglia’s shooter?” Burke said. “Sort of high shoulders?”

Richard nodded again, crying silently.

“How do you get in touch with him?” Burke said.

Richard started to shake his head. Burke jabbed his cheek with the shotgun.

“I...” Richard said. “I... You call a joint on the West Side, the Black Cat Club, leave a message with the bartender.”

“And Cash calls you back.”

“Yeah, or he meets you someplace.”