EQMM, September-October 2008

by Dell Magazine Authors

  And here's where you ask, why the hell did I load real ammunition? I didn't need to fire any rounds at all, even blanks—all the visuals were set up at Tarnbeck's end. But for whatever reason, habit or caution or, who knows, maybe I'm just a psychopath, the magazine held a full ten rounds. Nothing fancy, just out-of-the-box hollowpoints, but hey, I was only two hundred yards away.

  Tarnbeck stopped the Rover, and I saw its exhaust plume die away. A moment later his door opened. He stepped out, carefully, and paused before stepping away from the vehicle. He turned to close the door—

  Shots. Despite the falling rain and the distance I heard the double-taps clearly. Two close together, then two more, and two more. Tarnbeck's head exploded, his face a mess of red, even as more blood appeared on his jacket. The fake blood-packs burst through his shirt on cue, pointlessly. He stumbled and collapsed.

  I'm embarrassed to say I had a moment of complete confusion: Had I pulled the trigger? Primed with a loaded sniper rifle, had I gone and killed him on autopilot?

  Of course not. Rationality returned after a second, and I swung rapidly around, looking for a second shooter. It helped that I'd thoroughly mapped the terrain beforehand, when we were sketching out our little drama. Only a couple other locations offered clear sightlines and an easy exit—but it didn't matter, I found the guy immediately. He was lying across the hood of a dull-colored sedan a hundred yards further up the hill behind me, holding his long gun in a clean Hawkins stance. Even as I brought the Dragunov up to get a closer look in the scope, he stood and brought his weapon over my way.

  For a moment we stared at each other, through 10x magnification. My surprise was surely greater than his, for he must have expected me, but we fired simultaneously. What can I say?—I was lucky. His bullet cracked past my left ear. Mine struck him in his sternum, and he fell backward, dropping his weapon, to land sprawled in the mud by his car's wheel well.

  One of my maxims is that damage control, in this business, begins with lots more damage. I fired the Dragunov's remaining nine rounds into the claim-jumper, hopped off the truck's roof, and threw the rifle into the cab. No time to run over and stab him with the bayonet a few times, even though I really, really wanted to. I floored the pedal, the ancient GMC diesel groaning as it slowly got up to speed, and glanced back once when I crossed the entrance road.

  The rain had eased, and faces were at all the windows I could see. A few brave or stupid suits had run out to crouch around Tarnbeck. Two golfcarts with security logos bumped across the lawn in the same direction. All that was missing was news ‘copters and TV vans, and they'd be along soon enough.

  We'd gotten our spectacle. Too bad Leeson had upstaged me.

  * * * *

  Considering I had to improvise the next half-hour, I think it came out pretty good. On the one hand, I'd just killed a guy. On the other hand, he had himself just assassinated a Fortune-400 CEO in broad daylight. The police were going to need a battering ram to get through the media crews. I just had to use this attention to my favor.

  Like I said earlier, I'd planned my mission with almost as much care as if it had been real, including the aftermath. So I had a few exit routes mapped out. I chose number two, since it took the backroads.

  The utility truck was clean—I mean, it was filthy and greasy, but I'd worn gloves the whole time. Purple nitrile, like I was some middle-aged scrub nurse. I'll be honest here, latex gives me a rash ... anyway, I was planning to bundle up my clothes and drop them off at the incinerator later. The technicians wouldn't get any useful forensics from the vehicle. The rifle, though, that was a problem. The damn thing was nearly five feet long, and it didn't disassemble into some 007 briefcase either.

  In the end, I found a pen and a sheet of paper in the clutter overflowing the cab, and in big letters I wrote: “I WAS DRIVIN BY AND I SAW A MURDUR, SO I SHOT THE CRIMINEL FOR YOU. DONT THANK ME, JUST A GOOD CITIZIN.” I swept all the debris off the dashboard and put the paper in plain view, with the rifle propped upright on the driver's seat. With the door locked, of course, in case some light-fingered opportunist found it first. Then I called Channel 2 from a pay phone, told them exactly where I'd parked, and walked over to my getaway car.

  You're maybe thinking how careless I was, leaving my own handwriting out for CSI to have fun with. No worries. I used the edge of a clipboard as ruler, printing each stroke of each letter as a separate, straight line. Took awhile, but it created a dead end for the graphologists. I read about that in a novel years ago, and I always wanted to use it.

  So I got away clean. Those crack newshounds almost didn't find the truck first—I should have given better directions, I guess—but they beat the police, and my little note got pride of place in all the coverage. Once the honest-justice storyline was established, no subsequent facts could budge it. The press gleefully slandered Tarnbeck, glad to have a greedy rich guy to kick around, especially one who could no longer sue for libel. Martha Stewart was only in jail for a few months; Ken Lay went to heaven before he could even be sentenced; and Kobi Alexander is still living like a billionaire king in Namibia. It was about time that some pondscum CEO finally paid for his crimes, and, unfortunately for Tarnbeck's posthumous reputation, the Zeitgeist nominated him. Glaring logical inconsistencies in the narrative didn't seem to matter. Anyway, it was out of the headlines after a week.

  There was, however, the small matter of my pay. Leeson had obviously been trying to take advantage of my gullibility to close out his own contract, keeping all the money for himself and setting me up for the fall in the bargain. Yes, in his case justice was served, but I sure didn't see any of that cash. And even if I'd had a signed piece of paper to wave in the faces of Tarnbeck's successors, I couldn't claim to have done what I was hired for, so no joy there either.

  I never even found out who the Green Hornet was.

  But I'll let you in on a small trade secret. Like you might expect, about thirty seconds after Tarnbeck got the last big surprise of his life, his company's stock plunged. Plenty of those faces in the windows must have gone and sold their shares immediately. By the end of the day the price was down eighteen percent—and another five percent before opening the next morning. Now, like I said, that's just not enough for me to make anything on—twenty-three percent of the pocket change I have invested is so paltry I don't want to talk about it. But a hedge fund, with a few hundred million to wager, well, that's a different story. Remember, the original plan was for the whole world to think Tarnbeck was dead—which would have meant the exact same result. What I did was, I tipped Johnny off beforehand. When Tarnbeck suffered his myocardial infarction—you know, his arteries got all clogged, with lead, get it?—Johnny did very, very well.

  In fact, I think I can take credit for about two-thirds of his aggregate returns that quarter. And he was honorable enough to make sure I saw a fair piece of it, in my own account.

  "I'm not going to ask,” Johnny said a few weeks later, when I stopped in. “I'm not interested, it doesn't bother me, I don't want to know."

  The other traders were yelling at each other, telling rude jokes on speakerphone, gulping their liquid caffeine; sunlight reflected from window glass up and down the Hudson; and Johnny's wall of data flashed and scrolled and updated. Just like any other day.

  "I heard some rumors,” I said. “That's all. Sometimes you get lucky."

  "Lucky.” Johnny laughed. “Not like Tarnbeck."

  "He had a very nice life, before it ended. Let's remember him that way."

  One of the phones on Johnny's desk buzzed. He picked up the receiver, then looked at the Caller-ID display and hung up without answering.

  "I heard some rumors, too,” he said.

  "Hmm."

  "In the market, but no one noticed until after. There was odd movement in the company's options that morning."

  "No kidding?"

  "Out-of-the-money puts were being snapped up—it drove the volatility crazy. Someone was betting serious money on a big drop in the share pr
ice."

  "Well, I didn't tell anyone. But you know how hard it is to keep a secret."

  "That's not the funny part.” Johnny glanced up with his punchline. “The puts weren't resold, and a few days later, most of them expired without being exercised."

  I had to think about it for a moment. “I'll be damned. Tarnbeck was betting on his own death, wasn't he?"

  "That's what I figure.” Johnny went back to his screens. “He obviously thought he'd be around to collect."

  The noise level rose, as one of Johnny's traders started jumping up and down and pumping his arms like he'd just caught the touchdown pass. A couple others threw wadded paper and binder clips at him. It could have been eighth grade.

  "Life goes on.” Johnny seemed to be executing a trade, tapping away, back at work.

  "I think I need a vacation,” I said.

  (c)2008 by Mike Wiecek

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  Department of First Stories: AN ILL WIND by Amelia Symington

  Amelia Symington is the pen name of a Canadian who came to “the States” to go to graduate school and fell in love with an American. With her husband and daughter, she lived in New England for a while, where she walked along the ocean for the first time, and experienced the climate and setting that provide the ambience for this first story.

  The sands were drifting into the corpse's eyes and falling into the open mouth. He was lying on his back and his belly made an unnatural mound on the flat beach, a slight hill that was skirted by the scurrying crabs and small birds. The tide was coming in, but he lay high above the tide line, most likely safe from the pull of the ocean. On the other hand, the wind was picking up, and with the storm offshore it was hard to be sure exactly where the high-tide line would be in the next twenty-four hours.

  Wally stood at the corpse's feet, holding his dog, B.D., on a short leash.

  "Don't you go messing up the scene of the crime.” he said.

  B.D. obeyed the tone of voice and calmed down. Like his owner, he was a shaggy, thin old mutt without the energy to fuss for long.

  Wally considered his options. The wind was coming on strong and the forecast was for the last real blow of the season, maybe a bad storm, maybe hurricane strong. The body could easily be buried before the afternoon was out. He walked here every day and he could find it again, if he had the time and brought the dog. But the new sheriff wouldn't want to wait. In Wally's opinion, the young man was way too eager to consolidate his newly elected position by doing, doing, doing.

  That's not going to impress people, he thought. What they want is loyalty and safety and someone they can call on when they really need a hand. That's what Wally himself had done for twenty-five years. He was only mildly annoyed that he'd lost the election last year to the new guy. Another man would have fumed and maybe undermined the new guy's authority, but not Wally. For example, he could wait and call the sheriff later, after he got home. All it would take was a small lie, that he'd forgotten his cell phone. Then, the sheriff would have to wait until the next day, which was the sensible thing with this storm coming up. But it was the sheriff's call, not his.

  Wally pulled his cell phone out of the pocket of his old jeans. First he took a picture of the corpse's face. Anyone could see it was Gene Barnes. Then he took a couple of the body. There were no visible wounds, no pool of blood anywhere. A small flask was visible next to the right hand. Not surprising, since the body stank of alcohol. Then, Wally stood with his back to the ocean and took a quick picture of the few scraggly trees perched on the edge of the beach. They looked like outcasts stranded so far from the line of other small trees that stretched thick and scrubby on either side of this bare hundred yards or so of shoreline. Next he took a shot to the north and another to the south. It seemed unnecessary, but the new sheriff had posted this procedure on his personal Web site for citizens who came across just this sort of thing. Using “triangulation” was supposed to pinpoint the scene for the coroner or the judge or even the jury if it came to that. Wally punched in the sheriff's e-mail address (Bradley@yoursherriff.org) and sent the photos off to him. Finally, Wally punched in his old work number. At least Bradley hadn't changed that.

  "Hello, Bradley? Gene Barnes is dead and stinking up the beach down here about a mile north of the Sparrow Beach stairs. I just sent you pictures."

  "Don't touch a thing, I'll be right there.” To Wally's ears he sounded excited and ready to roll.

  "I'll wait for you down at the stairs,” Wally said, hanging up without waiting for Bradley's advice and starting down the beach with B.D. in tow.

  Some people hated the New England hurricane season, but not Wally. It got your juices flowing, brought neighbors out of their houses and away from their solitary TV sets. In his experience, people were better than generally given credit for, especially when they had an excuse for helping one another out. Now was the time to make a phone call to check on the young mother whose husband was on the road, a quick stop by a retired couple to be sure they had the windows nailed tight, a call to the cousins to assure them all was well. He and Terry were never busier than those days when the storms were threatening. She used to say that the wind sort of blew folks together. Now, the winds reminded him of her, his beloved wife, dead and gone for three long years.

  Of course, there were some people who weren't like that. There were folks who would rob you blind any day of the week, as soon as look at you. Guys like Gene Barnes, for example. As owner and sole worker at Gene's Garage, he was a good mechanic, when he was feeling “born again,” usually around the end of the month. Now, if he'd simply been the town drunk, the ladies would have taken him under their wing, given him castoffs and free meals in exchange for a few hours of sober work hauling away junk or digging new flower beds. He'd have had enough to keep him in booze and they'd have kept him out of trouble, by and large. But Gene had the misfortune to straddle the worlds of respectable productivity and bleary-eyed senselessness. Maybe, Wally thought, it might have been better to lock Gene up from time to time. Instead he'd just taken Gene's keys and driven him home after the heavy man stumbled out of the bar at closing time. Wally always hoped that Gene would sleep it off and be sober enough to work the next day, but Gene usually got up real early looking for a hair of the dog that bit him. No telling how many “repairs” that were never needed were done, or not done right. Gene was more of a menace under the hood of a car than behind the wheel of one.

  Well, he was harmless now, and off to another world. Wally figured that Gene was finding out God's considered judgment about the kind of life that he had lived. Maybe God's good wrath was stirring up this storm and giving Gene the anonymous grave he deserved. Wally silently apologized to the man upstairs, because even if he wasn't the sheriff anymore, Wally knew that he was doing the right thing by reporting this body, and he hoped that God would understand that he meant no disrespect, not leaving this in God's good hands.

  Wally made his way down the beach towards the stairs. The wind was picking up and B.D. was making things difficult by running first ahead and then behind him. The dog wasn't happy that they kept going away from home, but he had faith in Wally, faith that any minute he'd change direction.

  "I know, old fellow. We'll be safe enough when Bradley gets here. We'll get a ride in that nice new truck of his, you'll see."

  Wally always drove an old truck. Never in his life had he bought a new one. The truth was that he'd fallen in love with his first old red Ford, the one he'd had when he was sixteen. It was about the same time that he'd fallen in love with Terry. In his heart he knew that there hadn't been a single day in the last sixty years, not a half-hour even, that he hadn't loved Terry full out.

  The guys made fun of him for it. Lyle was the worst. He had married the banker's daughter, who everyone knew was a trifle balmy, but Lyle didn't seem to understand that he should be damned grateful to find any woman who would settle for a pipsqueak, a man who made the runt of the litter look like good pickings. It took Lyle fift
een years to give up his womanizing and decide to be content with his warm and, in Wally's opinion, far too understanding wife. Wally's best friend, Augie, didn't have money to attract real women, but he was so cute there was always somebody's daughter mooning over his “boyish good looks” and the ever-anticipated literary success that he'd enjoy just as soon as he got over being an accountant. The two men just didn't understand the value of constancy or commitment where women were concerned.

  Then there was Gene, laughing at the way some men were always falling all over themselves on account of one woman or another. Wally knew it was an act, because Terry had told him how Gene had been following her around all her freshman year, and how he asked Terry to marry him and go off with him to Boston when he was accepted to some no-name college there. When she declined, Gene offered to wait till she was through high school, but she told him she was in love with someone else. Gene never went to college, and he started drinking seriously about the time that Wally and Terry were married. For years Wally had worked at not feeling sorry for the guy, but if he'd been the one who lost Terry, he'd just have slipped into the nearest grave and pulled the sod up over his head.

  Wally reached the stairs and sat down to get his breath back. There it was again, a soft pain that swamped his heart and took a short trip down his arm. These days it was his secret. At first he had told the doctor when it happened, but there had been lots of talk about sticking probes into his arteries or even bypass surgery if it came to that. Not for Wally, not after watching Terry fight to keep the pain from her face and waste her precious time being the perfect patient for a bunch of strangers. Not that he'd ever said an unkind word to them or done anything but support her in those last days. It was the hardest thing he ever did. He looked out at the ocean roaring before the wind, free and full of life. When his time came, it would be a short trip to join her and he wasn't going to any hospital to make some doctor feel good about keeping the two of them apart longer.