Ed Lacy - The Best That Ever Did It

Martin smiled bitterly. “Your stupid jokes. Sam, killing was never a part of our plans, and we're not a couple of goons, we won't be caught.”

Sam crushed his cigarette against the wall. “We have been smart, the best ever. But using a gun is where we start being dumb.”

“Killing is a last resort, but can you think of any other way? We could try robbing him of the money, but that might not work, and it's too risky.”

“And murder isn't?” Sam snapped.

“Look, Sam, the police are efficient because most killings fit one of several patterns. But this—be no motive anybody but us could possibly know about and... Look, I once read where some police authority said the perfect murder would have to be an insane act where a man suddenly shoots a total stranger on the street—no motive, no connection, no possible clues. That's the first thing came to me when I read the paper—we're shooting a stranger.”

“He saw us—you—before,” Sam said, lighting another cigarette. “Marty, there's things a man can do and can't do. I can't go through with a murder. That's all!”

“Merely saying 'That's all' doesn't solve anything for us. I'll do the actual trigger pulling, if that will make you feel any better. Yes, he saw us. He spoke to me once, a casual conversation in a bar some three months ago—and I was using a phony name. Who can remember that except him, and he'll be dead? For all practical purposes we're walking up to a total stranger and shooting him without rhyme or reason. Unless we're nabbed at the scene of the killing—and that we'll work out carefully, of course—the police will have to be lucky, downright stupid fumbling lucky, to even get on our trail.”

“Murder is out.”

Pearson walked over and shook his partner. “Stop talking like a goddamn parrot! If we get rid of him we're safe, have money, the good life. I'm back with Therese, you're a big actor. If he lives we're bums the rest of our lives and end up serving a lot of time. Killing is our only out. As you said, we couldn't foresee this, but we're in it and getting in deeper is our only escape.”

“But... Marty, you talk so calmly about... murder!” Sam said, pushing the smaller man away.

“I'm not calm. I'm scared crazy, but not that frightened I've stopped thinking, can't realize what has to be done. Be simple, we come upon him alone in the street today—it has to be today —best tonight. One quick shot and we're gone before anybody finds the body. Then we keep on with the cases we have cooking. Another month or two, we leave the country.”

“Why not leave at once after, I mean... if... we do it?”

“Because we haven't got enough and what difference will it make? If they're on to us, they can extradite us from Europe. No, we keep on going as usual, like nothing happened. Sam, I've thought this out, racked my head till it hurts. How can they ever connect us with it? How can the police possibly stumble upon us? What can go wrong?”

Sam looked for an ashtray, finally thumbed his cigarette out the one window. “Marty, up to now it's been like a game— the whole works: outsmarting the army, the French cops, the stuff we've been doing here. It worked smooth because we never hurt nobody, worked our own angles... but now, a deliberate cold-blooded murder, I can't go that, I just can't!”

Pearson said coldly, “And I can't think of living without Therese. We've put in over five months on this, we already have about twenty-five grand set for sure, another fifteen thousand in the works. I'm not throwing all that over because this kid gets lucky. Get this through your dumb head—there's little risk—he himself won't have the slightest idea why we're killing him.”

“As you said, the cops can be lucky.”

“Luck has been riding with us, all down the line.” Pearson opened his camera bag and dropped two Lugers on the bed. “Look how lucky it was I never sold these, held on to them.”

Sam stared at the guns, his thin lips moving. Finally he pulled himself together, asked quietly, “Threatening me, Marty?”

“Killing you would be a wrong move, leave too many trails. But I want Therese so badly I considered it. Think it over, Sam. It's rough but we've been living on cream so far, can't complain. Get dressed, take a shower, take a walk and get the air... start thinking. Have a good breakfast. Think, then tell me what else we can do but kill him. Show me any other out, even a cockeyed one, and I'll be the first to take it. But you know killing is the only way. Think about it, Sam, think real hard... we have a couple of hours.”

CHAPTER 2

SHE HAD four very large rooms in one of these old, high-ceilinged apartment houses that never look like much on the outside. It was a front apartment overlooking the Hudson River, and full of severe modern furniture that looked uncomfortable —or maybe it was the violent colors. Everything was a patch-quilt of brash red and blinding yellows and mysterious purples. And somehow the effect didn't quite come off—it was as if she'd copied a room and overdone it. One wall was lined with books—in colorful jackets too—but they all looked too new, as if she joined every book club out and stacked the books away as they came.

Betsy Turner was wearing a Chinese-like outfit—tight red pants and a loose yellow house coat that should have given her an exotic look, but her kid's face was an almost comical contrast. Her face reminded me of the Kewpie dolls that used to be so popular—her nose and eyes and lips took up all her face, almost seemed to be overcrowding it.

Frankly I didn't get the play—the carefully made-up face, those tight pants showing off her strong legs, the teasing outline of firm breasts whenever the coat touched them. Either Mrs. Turner was expecting somebody after I left, or she wanted other kinds of work for her thirty a day.

To keep my eyes off her, I said “Hello” and glanced around at the several amateurish oils on the wall—like those pre-sketched canvas deals where you fill in the colors by number. In one corner of the living room there was an easel with a half-finished painting of a river scene—and without numbers. Near it was a large TV set, and near that one of these expensive record players. I said, “Nice place here. You paint much?”

“I play at it. I also decorated this apartment. Do you like it?”

From the tone of her voice it seemed important to her that I liked it. “Rather unusual. Yeah, I like it,” I said. And the canvases, the books, the stacks of records—they could mean a lot of things, including loneliness. But hell, the fine ebony wood cabinet of the TV was easily a cop's salary for a month, or two, and the high-fidelity record player wasn't anything you found in a box of Cracker Jacks.... No wonder Ed Turner walked around with his hand out. And considering the short time he'd been on the force, he was a joker with a talent for letting people see his palms.

“I made this Chinese house coat too,” she said, turning like a model for me to see it—and her. She sure packed a healthy figure. Only she still gave me this Kewpie-doll feeling—an expensive one.

“Looks wonderful. Very becoming.”

She smiled faintly, like a kid with a good report card. “Please sit down over there, Mr. Harris.” She pointed to a veneer bucket chair with dainty wrought-iron legs.

I sat down on a pigskin hassock, said, “Doubt if the chair is guaranteed to hold 248 pounds.”

She sat down on a banana-yellow contour couch.

There was a moment of silence and I studied her legs, which were worth studying. She motioned toward a bottle and several glasses on a marble table with driftwood legs. “Noilly Prat, Mr. Harris?”

“No thanks, Mrs. Turner. And what is it?” We sounded like a soap opera.

She smiled and her lips were thick and red and girlish, and my temperature shot up. “Vermouth—French. I'm not much of a drinker, but this place has been giving me the jitters ever since Ed... died. It's a jinx apartment, and it caused our first real fight.”