Shank

by Robert J. Krog

  “Use your left hand.”

  “As you wish.”

  “Please don’t say that, you’re ruining a favorite movie by doing it.”

  Shaw set his piece down on the trail and backed away. He felt confident he could take the ranger if he had to. His other Sig was at the small of his back. He had surprise on his side, and action was faster than reaction. He’d cleared holster once and shot a policeman dead in a similar circumstance. Since he wasn’t acting illegally, the agency had been able to protect him on grounds that the homicide was self-defense, a clear case of police overreach.

  “Take three steps back, get your card out, and toss it down next to your gun. After that, back up another three steps.”

  Shaw complied. The ranger approached the card, knelt carefully to pick it up, held it out beside his pistol, and gave it a look. His gun was trained on Shaw the whole time.

  “Satisfied?” Shaw asked when the look of frustrated disgust passed across the ranger’s face and settled there.

  The ranger stood over the Sig and pulled out his phone. He scanned the ID and waited.

  “That’s a nice piece,” he told Shaw as they waited, “it’d be a crying shame if it ended up in the evidence room, and I picked it up at auction after you end up in jail. This ID better be real.”

  Shaw leaned against a tree, grinning.

  “You’re a cocky SOB,” the ranger said, his gun still in hand.

  “I have the law on my side, Ranger Rick. No offense.”

  The look of disgust was still there and settled in further as the ranger realized he had nothing but bluffs to offer the hardened killer. “You know what? I could take you out, and no one would ever question it. It’d be my word against your corpse.”

  Coolly, Shaw replied, “You just checked my ID. That’d look awfully suspicious.”

  “Corpses’ IDs get run, too. You could and ought to be corpse.” He raised the Smith and Wesson .44 Magnum and cocked it.

  “Murder, Ranger Rick? Is that your style?” Shaw asked, his heart racing with excitement. His grin broadened uncontrollably. Could the ranger miss at this range? Could he dodge aside, behind the tree, and clear his pistol fast enough to come around the other side shooting?

  “It’s yours. Why not?”

  “I can live with it. Can you?”

  The rage in the ranger’s face warred with his conscience. A notification ding came from his phone. He looked at it. Shaw’s phone rang from his belt clip.

  “You mind if I answer this?” he asked.

  The ranger looked up from the screen and stood there with the revolver pointed at him. Slowly, Shaw used his right hand to unclip his phone and answer the call.

  “Shaw here.”

  Brenda’s voice on the other end asked, “Hi, Shank, we received an alert on your ID. Is everything okay?”

  “I’m fine. Job’s over. Ranger Rick here is just doing his job.”

  “Very good,” Brenda said on the other end. “We won’t notify legal unless you call in, then. Take care. Watch your caboose so you can take me out on a date one of these days.”

  “I always do. Nix the date plans. I still don’t do entanglements.” He ended the call.

  The ranger lowered his gun, let the hammer down slowly, and holstered it. He stuck Shaw’s ID in his pocket and bent to pick up the Sig lying on the path. He stuck it in his belt and gestured for Shaw to proceed him up the trail.

  “You seem like an authentic, contract killer piece of shit. Let’s have a look at what you did up the trail, shall we?”

  Shaw nodded and walked up the way he’d come. Behind him, the ranger made a call.

  “Yeah, got a situation here. I was investigating some gunshots and bumped into a LifeEnders contractor. Yep, I know. Me, too. His ID checks out, and I got the info on who the contract was for, so I can verify the poor bastards were murdered legally. Heading up west on Woodland Trail. Yeah, about half a mile from the trailhead now. See you in a bit.”

  Shaw led him to the bodies. He didn’t often return like this. His encounters with the law were infrequent. The two seminarians were where he’d left them. No animals had been at them yet. He paused and half turned so he could keep an eye on the ranger. Times like this, someone unused to dealing with homicides might get emotional and trigger-happy.

  The ranger’s expression was cold as he surveyed the scene. He walked around it carefully, trying not to disturb anything. He touched nothing and waited for the assistance he’d requested.

  “Catholic priests in training, is it?” he asked.

  “Yes,” Shaw said.

  “They must have been a real threat to someone. These guys are usually real dangerous fellows, hearing confessions, visiting the sick, giving homilies. I can see how they’d make a lot of enemies. Looks like you had a real fight on your hands, too.”

  Shaw merely smiled and waited, not taking the bait.

  “Some men would call you a coward for shooting unarmed men. Not me. I’m sure you pick those who can fight back most of the time, like nuns, grade school kids, old ladies, vets in wheelchairs, pregnant woman, Buddhists—real dangerous people. They probably all need killing.”

  Shaw yawned. The ranger saw that, reddened, and made fists. When Shaw ignored it, he picked a spot a little down the path and waited in brooding silence. The other ranger he’d called arrived not long after with the forensic kit. The first ranger put gloves on before checking the licenses of the deceased. He verified them against the information from LEI in disgust. When those were confirmed, the two looked for anything they could to suggest he’d strayed from protocol. In the end, they had to let him go. Before they did, they took his Sig apart and tossed the pieces and his ID on the ground with a terse, “You’re free to go.”

  They headed back toward the trailhead without him. It took him 10 minutes to find all the pieces of his Sig and reassemble it.

  When he got back to Memphis, he delivered the news to her in person, at her apartment. She listened as he relayed how Cunningham and Donato had died. He watched dispassionately as she gasped, doubled over, and fell to the floor weeping.

  “I suppose it was a death befitting a priest,” he remarked.

  She said something to him, but it was garbled.

  “Sorry, I can’t understand you,” he said.

  She repeated it, just as garbled. He sighed.

  “If you want to tell me about it later, just leave it as part of the client satisfaction survey on the LEI website,” he told her.

  Sitting in his own apartment as the snow fell outside his window, he reflected with amusement that people didn’t make sense. She’d paid for the men to be killed. She’d demanded it. It had cost her a lot of money, enough for an expensive new car. And yet she was unsatisfied. People should know what they want. They’d be a lot happier if they did.

  Recalling the complaint the park ranger had made, he pulled his tablet over and searched for “movie quote as you wish.” When the reference popped up, it was for a fluffy fantasy flick. Not his type of show. He set the tablet aside. Getting bored. What to do?

  After a minute, he pulled up his favorite documentary channel and browsed until he found a piece on World War Two snipers. There was something interesting. He queued it up, got a beer and an apple, and made a sandwich. Back in the living room, he set the meal on the coffee table and hit play.

  Chapter 2

  Writing and Moonlight

  Roger sat up and rubbed his eyes. He hadn’t marked the time before falling asleep and didn’t know how long he’d been out. He did that often. He found the mouse and clicked, waking the computer atop the large, old desk. He stretched his legs under the desk and read.

  The boy with the square eyes bounced over the wall like a rubber ball and landed in Portia’s yard with a splash. She looked at him, dark eyes wide, and rose petal mouth tightly shut.

  “May I introduce myself, Miss?” the jouncy boy asked, pulling himself together.

  He didn’t remember writing it, exactly, t
hough something like it had been on his mind. “While it’s a beneficial and fruitful collaboration,” he said over his shoulder, assuming Kilkenny was somewhere close, “it’s disconcerting at times, my furry friend, not knowing where I end, and you begin. You can’t tell me, can you?”

  The pooka slid his dark, sleek horse head over his shoulder and reviewed their work. “I think the splash is me,” it told him in a voice like the wind through the heather.

  “Dating Emma is making me more whimsical than ever. Is that good or bad?”

  “She’s good for you.”

  Roger frowned at the pooka beside him. “That’s not what I asked.”

  “It’s what you need.”

  “Okay, is whimsical good or bad for my writing?”

  “Emma is good for you.”

  “Oh, la de da, that’s not what I’m asking, but what you’re telling me is, this whimsy is bad writing.”

  “Emma is good for you.”

  “You’re no use, old pal.”

  The pooka’s head slid away from his shoulder.

  “Where’re you going?” he asked.

  “There’s moonlight.”

  “Of course.”

  “I guess we’re going to a later mass tomorrow morning?” he asked as he opened the door.

  “I suppose so. It’s late now.”

  The pooka slipped off into the darkness, shadows blending and melting in the frosty air of midnight. Roger watched over his shoulder out the window until he couldn’t see Kilkenny anymore, then he rose, poured himself a glass of wine, and sipped it slowly until it was gone, idly trying out variations on the next passage in the enigmatic story he’d begun earlier, with his muse whispering like the breeze over his shoulder. Later, near morning, a few hundred words added, and the story almost done, he showered, set an alarm so he’d make it to mass on time, and went to bed to dream of Emma.

  Chapter 3

  Poison Prescription

  Shaw frowned. The security for the city councilman being provided by a contractor other than the police department was a problem. The firm was owned and run by Harold Johns, an old buddy of Shaw’s, now out of the shooter business and into security, so kind of on the other side.

 

  she sent back.

 

  She ignored his complaint, as usual, and stuck to business.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  Shaw set the phone aside and picked up the book he’d been reading. LEI kept dossiers on likely targets, such as political figures. The phone dinged within three minutes.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  Chapter 4

  Divorces are Expensive

  When her phone rang at 7:00 in the morning on a cold Friday, Augusta thought it had to be family. It was Susan, though. She answered, getting up from the breakfast table quickly with brisk motions to the children to finish up and brush their teeth.

  “Susan, how are things?” she asked.

  “It was him. It was Jack. The private investigator couldn’t get anything out of LEI or Murder, Inc., of course, but he got pictures of Jack talking to flannel shirt man. He hired him. My husband tried to have me killed.”

  Susan’s voice was flat at first, giving way to bitter disgust by the end.

  “I’m sorry.”

  There was quiet on the connection, and Augusta wondered if it the call had dropped.

  “Susan?”

  “Yes?” She might have been crying. Augusta couldn’t tell.

  “At least you know for sure and can take action now. How are the children?”

  “They think it’s great that they’re staying with their grandmother. They don’t know anything.”

  “Do you need me to come over today?”

  “No, I have my sister and brother dropping by later. I wanted to thank you for getting the private investigator for me. I’ll pay you back when I can.”

  “There’s no need. If you need him to get more evidence, have him bill me. If you need help with lawyer’s fees and court costs in the divorce, just ask, dear. I want to help.”

  Susan laughed, and her voice cracked, making it clear she’d been crying. Augusta could hear the tears in her voice after that. “There’s more. I never would have believed it. Jack has another family. There’s a younger woman with two kids who lives out in Collierville, in a house half again as large as ours. How could he?”

  Augusta didn’t know what to say to that. Poor dear. That man is an absolute pig. No, he’s an absolute villain.

  “Your private investigator said he was trying to have me killed to combine the families and get my life insurance. He’s seen it done before. Kill off the wife. Get her insurance. Pretend to grieve, then suddenly meet another woman within a year, have a whirlwind romance, get married, and consolidate the families. ‘Hey kids, here are your new siblings!’ and the kicker is, they really are. The investigator said having a hit put on Jack would be cheaper than a divorce, but that it would cancel his life insurance, of course, if the insurance company found out. That’s why Jack paid to have my murder look like a random robbery. Apparently, the shooter specializes in this sort of insurance fraud.”

  “Don’t do that, Susan. That won’t make it right. Send him the pictures, and tell him the jig is up, just in case he hasn’t canceled it already. The insurance company will surely investigate two attempted murders on the same person with a $3,000,000 policy on her.”

&nb
sp; “Three million,” Susan said. “I had no idea it was so much; I couldn’t believe it when I saw it. And I had no idea how much Jack was bringing in since he made partner at the firm, the son of a bitch. God, I’ve been such a fool, working my ass off to raise our children, while he runs around with a whole other damn family.” She broke down completely on the other end.

  “I’m so sorry, dear. Do you need me to come over until your brother and sister arrive? You need to let Jack know it’s no use now. He’ll never get the $3,000,000 if he has you killed. It’ll all go into a trust for your children, to be managed by someone on your side of the family. That’s how they handle these things since the law legalizing murder was passed.”

  How is that we live in such a world? I guess if abortion is okay in the eyes of the law, legal murder of adults isn’t much worse. She listened to Susan weep on the other end of the connection. Finally, she asked again, “Why don’t you let me come over, and we’ll do what needs to be done. I know a great divorce attorney. I wouldn’t usually recommend that—I never have before—but in your case, I think I should.”

  “Thank you,” Susan said after a few more sobs.

  “I’ll be there after I drop the children off at school. Look for me around 8:20.”

  She hung up and got ready in a hurry. She’d spent quite a bit of her spare time with Susan since the incident in the Kroger parking lot. When the cops had said that it looked like an assassination attempt, she’d wanted to be around, just in case. The woman was sweet, hardworking, devoted to her husband and children, severely overworked, and underappreciated. Jack had put on a good show of concern, talked about getting her a handgun, and then gone golfing the same day she’d nearly been killed. He only spent part of each weekend with the children. Susan was raising her adorable, well-behaved gaggle of children as an all but single mother.

  I’ve never wanted to kill anyone, Lord, she prayed. Forgive me. Help me not to wish for Jack’s death.