Night Kills

by Ed Gorman

  Half an hour later Brolan was in his office finishing up the last-minute duties of the day-looking at a stem letter from the Screen Actors Guild about the impending actors' strike; calling a client and doing a little hand-holding, the man concerned that his bills were running too high (in fact, per-hour profitability on this particular account had been sinking steadily) when the intercom buzzed.

  "Yes?" he said.

  "Line three."

  "Any idea who it is?"

  "Sorry. He wouldn't give a name."

  Brolan thought a moment. "All right. Three?"

  "Right."

  She clicked off.

  Brolan picked up the phone. "Hello?"

  "You don't know who I am."

  "All right."

  "But I know who you are."

  "I see."

  "And more significantly, Mr. Brolan, I know what you've done." Brolan felt acid beginning to eat up his stomach and run up to his chest. Boiling.

  "I really should hang up," Brolan said.

  "But you won't."

  "What makes you so sure?"

  The male voice-muffled somehow-said, "Because you want to hear what I'm going to say next."

  "And what will that be?"

  "That you killed Emma."

  "I don't know any Emma."

  "Of course you do, Mr. Brolan. We're both grown-ups here. We shouldn't try childish games."

  "Who is this?"

  He reached in his desk drawer for some antacid tablets.

  "I want you to meet me tonight, Mr. Brolan."

  "Where?"

  "At the end of this conversation, I'll give you the address."

  "What if I don't show up?"

  "Then I go to the police. Would you like that, Mr. Brolan?"

  Brolan's throat was starting to constrict. "I'll have to think this over."

  "Nine o'clock, Mr. Brolan."

  And then the man gave him the address.

  "Did you write that down, Mr. Brolan?"

  It was the turn of the other man to pause. "We pay for our sins, don't we Mr. Brolan?"

  With that he hung up.

  Brolan had two more antacid tablets.

  7

  AFTER WORK Brolan went home. The first thing he checked was the freezer. The woman was still there, blue-tinted and almost embryonic in the way she was hunched over. In the kitchen he had a cheese sandwich and a handful of potato chips and a Pepsi. High school repast He tried watching the local news, but after it was clear that there would be no mention of a missing woman, he went upstairs, changed into jeans, a blue sweatshirt, and a pair of Nikes. Restless, he decided to kill the remaining two hours before his appointment by driving around. He did that sometimes when nothing else made any emotional sense-just drove, one with wind and darkness, ego and identity vanished. He was probably never more relaxed than at these times.

  The address he'd been given turned out to be near North Oaks, a relatively recent development that sat on the edge of the suburbs. By nine, snow flurries had started flecking his windshield, and the wind was so hard, it rocked his car. As he drove through a small business district with a strip mall and some other stores on the other side of the street, he thought of Christmas time, the way people bent into the furious wind, hurrying on their way home to warmth and shelter. How innocent his life of even twenty-four-hours before seemed now. No dead women in freezers.

  He had no trouble finding the address. It was an impressive duplex designed to resemble town houses. No lights shone on either side. He rolled to the kerb and shut off the engine. Wind continued to rock the car. He had another forbidden cigarette, and as he sat there smoking it, he sensed eyes on him. Knowing eyes, watching.

  Taking only a few drags before flicking the cigarette into the darkness, Brolan got out of the car and started up the walk. Actually few lights shone in the entire prosperous middle-class neighbourhood. He wondered if everybody there was elderly.

  At the door he raised an ornate brass knocker twice and let it fall. It sounded metallic in the chilly silence.

  No response.

  This time he used his knuckles.

  Still nothing.

  The impression of eyes watching him remained. He wondered for the thousandth time since the phone call who the caller was and how he knew about the dead woman and why he thought Brolan had killed her.

  His hand fell to the knob and turned it. He pushed inward and felt the door start to open.

  This didn't make much sense. Who left their front doors unlocked this way? Images from a thousand TV cop shows came to him. He'd walk inside and find the man who'd called him sprawled dead on the floor. The killer had left the door open on his way out.

  Frightened but curious, he pushed his way inside.

  Darkness, a shadowy gloom illuminated only by ghostly streetlight through gauzy curtains. The shape of fashionable furniture dark against the greater darkness. He inched inward, keeping the door behind him ajar in case he needed to run. The floor was hardwood. Even walking on tiptoe he made a certain amount of noise.

  Once his eyes began adjusting to the gloom, he could see more clearly. The living room looked like a popular-culture display in a museum. The walls carried several framed blow-ups of movie stars, from Gary Cooper to Marilyn Monroe. An enormous TV screen sat between two sections of built-in bookcases that were filled with VHS tapes, everything neatly filed and apparently alphabetized. He got close enough to read some of the tides on the books in the other cases. They ran from tides as serious as Andrew Sarris's surveys of American film to books about Saturday matinee serials.

  He was just about to explore the other parts of the duplex when he heard a thrumming against the hardwood. At first he didn't recognize the sound. But within moments his mind registered: wheelchair.

  And so it was: a wheelchair bearing a small, somewhat twisted man rolled into sight, there in the ghostly light from the street. The man wore a dark turtleneck and what appeared to be jeans. His hair was combed back in a trendy way.

  Brolan would have felt pity for such a man except the man was making it very difficult for him to do so.

  The man was pointing a.45 at Brolan's chest.

  "You're Mr. Brolan?"

  "I've got to tell you. Guns scare the hell out of me. I wish you'd put that thing down."

  "In due time, Mr. Brolan. I have some questions first." A kind of unreality came over Brolan. He was standing in a darkened room with a crippled man in a wheelchair. The man held a gun on him. Back home Brolan had found a dead woman in a freezer chest. Images burned and faded; all this was like a fever dream he prayed would end soon.

  "I want to talk about Emma," the man said.

  "I don't know any Emma."

  "She was hired to walk about and bump you in a certain bar the other night."

  "Hired? What the hell are you talking about?"

  "Hired," the man said. Then he added, "Why did you kill her?"

  Carefully Brolan put a hand to his head. Despite the chilly night and despite the fact that the duplex was not exactly warm, Brolan's head was wet with sweat. As were his back and his shorts. "Do me a favour."

  "And what would that be?"

  "Don't say that anymore. That I killed her, I mean. I don't know who you are, and I don't know who she was, but I didn't kill her."

  "But she did bump into you the night before last?"

  "Yes."

  "And then what happened?"

  Brolan shrugged, his eyes focused on the.45 in the man's hand. Wind rattled windows; sleet sprayed like tossed sand against the glass. "We had words. I was pretty drunk. I don't remember. But it wasn't anything serious." He smiled at the craziness of all this. "It certainly wasn't something you'd kill somebody for."

  "You're not telling me everything, are you, Mr. Brolan?"

  Brolan said, "Who was she?"

  For a time the man didn't speak. In the shadows Brolan could see that the man's gaze wandered away for a time. Brolan decided this was the best chance he'd have to sla
p the gun away. He lunged.

  The man raised the.45 and pushed it right against Brolan's forehead.

  Brolan's sweat turned chill; he felt as if he had a terrible case of the flu.

  He withdrew from the man. The man kept the gun pointed level at Brolan's heart.

  "She was the woman I loved," the man said. "Do you find that funny? That a man like me would love a woman like her?"

  "Why would I find that funny?"

  "Pathetic, then? Perhaps you find it pathetic, Mr. Brolan."

  "You loved her. That isn't hard to understand."

  "Then you can understand why I want to kill the man who killed her."

  Brolan paused. "You still think I did it?"

  "Yes."

  "But why? What motive would I have?"

  "That's what I want you to tell me, Mr. Brolan." As the man spoke, Brolan let his eyes roam the dark room. He saw a leather recliner to his right that he could dive behind if he were quick enough and lucky enough.

  The more the man spoke, the more aggrieved he sounded. For the first time Brolan began actually to believe that the man might well kill him.

  Brolan said, "We could help each other."

  "And how would that be, Mr. Brolan?"

  "We could help each other find out who really did it."

  "What is it you're not telling me, Mr. Brolan? You're like a little child. I can hear guilt in your voice, but I need you to be more specific."

  Brolan dove then.

  Without any grace, without any apprehension of injuring himself, he pitched his body to the right, aiming directly for the side of the chair that would shield him from any bullets. He lay there, panting, sodden with his sweat, waiting.

  No sound but the wind and the heaving of his lungs.

  The man said, "You were too quick for me, Mr. Brolan. It's the advantage of having a body capable of action." Brolan said nothing.

  The man laughed. It was a short, harsh sound. It almost seemed to pain him. He tossed something heavy to the floor. "It wasn't a real gun, Mr. Brolan. I bought it at a Republic Studio auction. Have you ever heard of Lash La Rue?"

  Getting up from the floor, Brolan said, "You little son of a bitch. You were holding Lash La Rue's gun on me?"

  8

  HE LIKED THE DANGER. Oh, to be sure; he liked the sweet young sex, too, but it was the danger itself that was the real thrill. He'd once bought a girl here who said she was thirteen, but he suspected she was even younger. Happily.

  The place was Loring Park, not so far from the Guthrie Theatre. Despite the best intentions of the city council and various outraged civic groups, parts of Loring Park remained a meat market for a very special kind of shopper.

  Take tonight If you knew where to look, finding the kids willing to sell themselves for dope or food or yankee cash was easy enough. You drove to a certain section of the park, and there they were. Now, in the way of his headlights, they looked more than delectable. (Girls only. In his twenties, worried that he might be gay, he'd tried it once with a guy. It had neither excited him nor even shamed him especially. It just bored him. No; for him it was girls only). There were about a dozen girls ranging from the ages of perhaps fourteen to maybe sixteen or seventeen. Fat ones, skinny ones, white ones, black ones, clean-looking ones, dirty-looking ones. The boys, if you were interested, ran along the same lines. His own preference was usually the same-a short, thin girl with largish breasts. He even had a special preference in nipples. He liked smaller ones that came taut and erect quickly under his thumb. And one more thing: He liked innocent faces. In an era of breast-fuckers, mouth-fuckers, butt-fuckers, and God-knew-what-else, he considered himself still a romantic. He fucked faces. Sad little-girl faces especially.

  He saw her in the arc of his headlights as he went up a small incline. She stood this side of a copse of trees. He knew immediately she was the one. Not too scruffy, not Girl Scout clean. A wan, pretty face and a body that looked ripe beneath a blouse, denim jacket, and jeans. She had long blonde hair blowing now in the steady wind. She made no concessions to him-no whore smile, no whore jiggle of ass or touching of breasts or pussy. Had some self-respect. He liked that.

  He pulled up alongside her. He always did the same thing. Opened the passenger window and pushed his face out in a big grin. Then he waved the crisp new fifty-dollar bill in her general direction.

  "Is that really a fifty?" she asked. Judging by her voice, he'd put her somewhere around fifteen. A little more knowing than a real kid. Been around some but not too much. That was another thing he liked about her.

  "It sure is."

  "And it's for me?"

  "If we get along."

  "I think I've seen you before."

  "Oh?"

  "Uh-huh."

  "Aren't you cold out there?"

  She smiled. It was a halting smile and all the lovelier for its hesitancy. He tried not to notice how much dental work she needed. "Yeah, I guess so."

  "Why don't you get in, then?"

  "I got to tell you."

  "Got to tell me what?"

  "There's some stuff I won't do."

  "I'm a pretty normal guy."

  She grinned again. This time there was just a hint of irony in it. That part he didn't like so much. "If you say so," she said, "but I'm serious."

  "About the stuff you won't do?"

  "Right."

  "Well, you tell me what those things are, and I promise I won't ask you."

  "And I get the fifty?"

  "And you get the fifty."

  She got inside. She smelled of cold night air and cigarettes and just faintly of sweat.

  She shut the door.

  "What's your name?" he said.

  She looked at him oddly. "Are you a cop?"

  He laughed. "Hardly."

  "Then why do you want to know?"

  "Maybe I'm just being polite."

  She shrugged and looked out the window at the park that was quickly fading from view. "Denise."

  "That's a pretty name."

  "I don't want you to put it up my behind, all right?"

  He smiled at her little-girl crudeness. She was a find, was Denise. "All right," he said.

  "And no rough stuff."

  "You don't have to worry about that."

  "One guy really beat the shit out of me once. I had to go to the free clinic."

  "Anything else?"

  "Huh-uh. As long as you wear a condom, I mean."

  He smiled again. "I'm well supplied."

  She looked out at Hennepin Avenue. On this part of the strip all the houses and businesses looked as if they could qualify for urban renewal.

  "Mind if I ask where you're from?"

  "You sure ask a lot of questions."

  Her sweet little pussy would more than make up for her sour attitude, he thought. "Has it ever crossed your mind that maybe I like you, and I'm interested in you?"

  "Yeah. Right." They drove some more. She said, "St. Louis."

  "Beg pardon?" His mind had been drifting.

  "I'm from St. Louis."

  "Oh. That's a nice city. The Gateway Arch and all."

  "Well, I'm not actually from the city."

  "From a small town not too far from there."

  "Farm girl?"

  "Yeah. There somethin' wrong with that?"

  He smiled. "No; just asking." He drove a while longer, and then he said, "You don't like it, do you?"

  "Like what?"

  "You know. Having sex for money."

  "Seems like I don't have a lotta choice."

  "Can I be honest?"

  She stared out the window, shrugged.

  "That kind of turns me on," he said.

  "What does?"

  "That you don't like it."

  "I'm happy for you."

  "You should take that as a compliment. It just means you've got some dignity; some self-respect."

  "Yeah, I've got a lot of self-respect all right." He took her hand. At first she resisted; nothing obvious
, simply held back. He took her hand and placed it on his crotch.

  "Feels good," he said.

  "Right."

  He smiled again. "You really don't like it, do you?"

  "Would you like it, mister? Somebody always pawing at you?"

  He started thinking very seriously about where it was going to happen. Where exactly he was going to kill her.

  She said, "I'm sorry I'm so down tonight. It's my mother's birthday."

  "That should make you happy."

  "She's dead."

  "Oh. I'm sorry."

  "So, it kind of burns me out. She was only forty-one." Then she said, "So, I still get it, right?"

  "Get it?"

  "The fifty?"

  "If you're a good little girl." She looked out the window again. It was time. They were nearly out in the country. He needed a dark road.

  He was getting excited.

  9

  ONCE THEY GOT THE LIGHTS ON and started talking, both men calmed down. Greg Wagner even rolled his wheelchair out into the kitchen and got them a couple of Diet Pepsis. As Brolan sipped his, he decided that there wasn't much alternative to telling Wagner the truth. So, he told him all of it. Her throwing the drink in his face the night before the murder. Finding the body in the freezer.

  "She's in the freezer?" Wagner said.

  "Yes."

  "How about turning her over to the authorities?"

  "Right. And guess who they'd blame for killing her." Wagner stared at him.

  "I guess you're right."

  In any other circumstance Brolan would have been checking out this living room carefully. Especially the video library. Brolan enjoyed old movies. He'd read Norman Cousins's book about recovering from cancer, how once a day you had to treat yourself to pure enjoyment. For Brolan that meant putting his home phone on answering service and getting a big bowl of popcorn and a couple of ice-cold soft drinks and watching some old westerns. He liked particularly the Allan "Rocky" Lane pictures of his boyhood, even though Rocky had ended up rather ingloriously doing the voice-over for Mr. Ed.

  Brolan found himself smiling a lot He always did this around people with handicaps. He felt sorry for the guy and wanted to be sure the guy knew it At this point he was not able to see anything but the man's spina bifida. But all the movie icons in this orderly, beautifully appointed room told him a great deal about Wagner's soul.