to mention others. Do you want to talk about it? This is the time to think of yourself.'
“But, sir, I'm completely innocent.” Demure. Soft.
“I see,” he says, placing the silver thing between her teeth, jamming it in and firing as she brings her arms up. BBOOOOOOOMMMMM! He'd killed her over and over all night long. But it was morning and the dangerous, deadly lady was still alive and he couldn't make it go away this time. Not with the sun coming up.
It was cool this morning and Eichord had a thermos in the car with him, and he unscrewed the cap and poured half a cup of black coffee. Steam swirled out of the cup when he sat it on the dashboard, and the front windshield fogged up across the lower part of the glass. He took a sip of the steaming coffee and wrote something beside one of his notes. The legal pad was beside him in the seat. It said:
The newspaper was propped up in the space between him and the wheel, a guy killing some time drinking coffee and reading the paper while he waited for someone. The window cracked a little, the cool air helping him. There was still time to get real and forget this altogether.
He'd never done anything like this. Ever. A couple of times there'd been things happening on the job. He'd seen others go nuts, get carried away. Seen somebody shot once when it didn't have to be. Eichord had killed three men in his lifetime and had hated it each time. He wondered as he sat there if he had the balls for this, this morning, and oddly enough he decided that balls would be the least of his worries.
He ran it through his mental fixative one more time. The aftermath of what he was about to do had an unknown black hole in the middle. An area where it could all come tumbling down around his ears. The maid who comes in to clean, the neighbor who hears something, the witness who sees the remembered face, the forensics that everybody forgets, the package of money left on the closet shelf to take you down later.
There's always a bottom line. The bottom line here was more innocent women. He tried to recall all of their names to give him some poison to work with, starting with Diane Question-mark and working his way backward. Diane Taluvera. Poke Salad Annie. Shit, all of a sudden they were a nameless, faceless blur of cadavers.
People! The front door. Scumwad and his bitch. A black car he hadn't seen before in the drive and big Al wheels over, gets in while she helps him, collapses the chair, packs it all away nice and neat. Doors slam. She leans in and they kiss for a long time. Lovers. Isn't that sweet?
He planned to wait five minutes, but three is all he can stand. If the man returns ... Fuck it. Ad-lib, we will. Eichord has to piss, of course, and fuck that too. It's too late for piss. He's in the driveway. Out. Forgot the fucking box. Back in. Gets the box and stuff in the sack. Up to the door. Rings. Doesn't wait to find out if she'll answer, but starts pounding, really hammering on the fucker, and Eichord has a fist like a college shotput, hard and heavy.
It opens and a woman snarls, “Keep your goddamn shirt on, for crissakes, you don't have to beat the goddamn door down—'
“Nicki Dodd?” he says with the shield case open in one hand, the sack heavy and down beside him in the other.
“Yeah?'
“Ma'am, you are a material witness in a Homicide investigation...” A barrage of double-talk that he'd learned from a New York City Vice cop years back, starting to Mirandize her as he invited himself in, pushing by her in the doorway, the ID and shield long gone now, a given, pushing his way in with all the authority of all the Homicide dicks in the history of the world, shoving his way in in the time honored manner, shouldering past with bad vibes and ugly warnings, muscling into the darkened early-morning house with copper eyes and gunmetal words: “— anything you say can and will be used against you.” Nothing makes ‘em drop their drawers like Miranda. It's television that does it. All those bad movies. Everybody knows when they hear that bullshit about how you have the right to remain silent. Sure, bitch. Take the fifth.
“Am I under arrest?” The tone saying. What the fuck is THIS shit? Not a worried bone in her thin body. Think gas chamber, he tells himself.
“Ma'am, do you know what this is?” His hand is going out to her and he makes her take something, dropping it before the fingers touch so she won't feel the pliofilm.
“What the—” She looks like she never saw such an object before.
“Do you own a gun, ma'am?” He takes the bullet from her quickly.
“No.'
“I have a couple of questions, ma'am. Let's sit here, shall we? This won't take a second.” He watches as she writes her scrawl across the Miranda form.
“I don't say shit without an attorney.” She's moving back.
“Huh uh.” He takes hold of her in his strong hands, pushing her down in the nearest chair. “It doesn't work that way. I ask questions. If you answer them, THEN you call the lawyer. If I don't get answers...” He trailed off, walking behind her. “We have lots of problems. First, we know you and Mr. Schumway killed Diane Taluvera and others. You wanna talk about it or what?” Moving around behind her.
“This is bullshit. I'm—'
“NO. Sit.'
“Hey! You can't do this. There are rules. I know my rights and—'
Would he ever forget the sneer in that voice? “You don't know sweet shit, lady. Here are the rules: there are no rules. Okay? Now. You get one chance.” He did something quietly, soundlessly, but then there was a metal noise again, he restrained her back in the chair. “Will you admit you helped kill Diane Taluvera and others? No time. Talk. Yes or no?'
“You're crazy. You're fucking NUTS. I never killed anybody, you stupid son of—” The silver thing went off up close against her right temple. She had reached for the bullet with her right hand. There was some blood. Some noise. He looked around and picked up the brass.
Don't bog down. Keep moving. Don't worry about anything now, you've either got it covered or fuck it, you know? Everything gets dumped out of the sack and onto the sofa. Long white sofa, and godDAMN it get control of your hands, asshole. Get control of your asshole hands.
A Baggie inside the evidence bag. Three rounds. U.S..25 Colt Auto. Oldies but goodies. The silver thing a Frommer Lilliput. Exposed hammer. Not like the locked-breech weapons of the larger Frommers. Little Hungarian pocket guns that had some fuckup features like a hammer to catch on the way out and an exterior barrel casing that had a way of getting dented and totally screwing the weapon over. Some kind of crazy Rube Goldberg locking system. All in all, a piece of shit, but this little sweetheart was clean and cold. Freezer-cool and sheep-dipped as a piece can get. Never saw a cop's drop-gun case, never saw the inside of a Confiscated Property room. Right off a wise-guy stiff some five years back. Even the ammo was old, but it still made a bang. Bim-bam-boom.
And he finally fumbles the rounds out on the table beside Nicki's chair. Drops them and the spent casing into one of her pockets. Picks up a little lint on the oil. Does some things to the Lilliput. Runs an oily rag through a few times afterward. Puts a couple rounds in the mag. Takes the decedent's right hand and closes it around the grip. Mother-of-pearl. The left hand over the slide. Lets that hand drop. Cocked and unlocked. Stuffs it into the ballistics box and fires a second round. Picks up the brass and drops it into the sack. The noise is not a factor.
Rearranges the hands and feet. Nicki Dodd is looking good. Keep moving. No sweat. Looking real fine. Okay. We either got some time or we don't. He sees the legal pad in his head. Nicki had shown up with Schumway to the surveillance team working the four-to-twelve trick last night. He'd taken a chance and had Dana lift surveillance at midnight. The graveyard tour was thrilled, of course. Fucking house plants.
Prints. Powder—for the shooting team. Lint on the rounds. Nothing worse than rounds in a magazine somebody has wiped off. Angle of the dangle to match the heat of the meat. All by the numbers now. A weapon that's gonna look like it was fired once, and by the decedent, lead in the head, spent brass by her ass. Double- check—you got the second round in the box, the casing in the sack. So far so good.
There is no sense of being executioner or any of that superior, lofty, silly shit. No sense of right or wrong. We can sit down and worry later if this has bought us a ticket into hell, right? There's time or there isn't—so go to it. Eichord starts in the master bedroom and takes his time, working his way back downstairs to Nicki. She'll wait for him now. Yes, sir.
The only time problem is the timing problem. And that's no problem at all. Everything is under control. The arrest warrant gets served. The search warrant covers the entry. He'll be right there with the shooting team.
