He picks up the pistol and tucks it into his pants.
He walks to the door, pulls it open.
Evelyn stands on the other side, the black night behind her. Her red hair frames her pale, slender, reptilian face. Her blue eyes are large and glossy with alcohol. Her red lips are moist. She smiles when she sees him.
‘How’d it go?’
‘Why don’t you come on in?’
‘You’re starting to trust me.’
She steps into the room and walks to the bed and sits down. She kicks off her heels and rubs her feet against one another and splays her toes as much as her pantyhose will allow. He closes the door and puts his back to it. He stands looking at her and she looks back smiling her beautiful-ugly smile.
She pats the bed beside her with a slender-fingered hand.
‘Let’s talk,’ she says.
He thinks of the pistol tucked into his pants.
Pull it out, Eugene, use it to smash her nose to smithereens. Tape her up while she’s incapacitated. It’s going to get ugly eventually, you might as well start it ugly. Do it now before she suspects anything. This is your best chance and you know it.
He walks to the bed and sits down.
She puts a hand on his thigh, rubs the flat of her palm against his leg. Even through the thick fabric of his pants her touch brings goosebumps out on his flesh.
‘How’d it go?’
‘He has a shirt with blood on it in his suitcase. He also still has the typewriter he typed the blackmail note on. Typewriters have distinctive prints, same as people. And the police must’ve picked up the note from my table when they searched my apartment, so they’re sure to put them together. And I put the knife in a drawer.’
‘You wore gloves?’
Eugene nods.
‘Good. Then it’s all set up.’
‘It is.’
‘We can call the police tomorrow and end it.’
Just do it, Eugene. If you don’t want to hurt her face, take the gun out and hit her in the back of the head. Hit the soft spot at the back of her skull and knock her out. Do it and get it over with. There’s no sense in prolonging any of this.
He nods. ‘Tomorrow.’
‘Then tonight is ours,’ she says. She rubs her hand up the inside of his thigh to his groin. He pulls away.
‘You’re drunk.’
‘I want to feel close to you, Gene. We’re almost on the other side of this and I want to feel close to you.’
She leans in, puts her mouth against his mouth. He can taste the whiskey she’s been drinking, both sharp and earthy. At first he doesn’t respond to her kiss, tells himself this can’t happen, but it does happen, and he finds himself pushing his mouth against hers, biting her lip. He loves her taste and her scent. She smells of that flowery perfume of hers and beneath that sweat and salt and sex. He reaches to her neck and strokes her smooth skin. Then moves his hand down her chest, across her breasts, feeling them through the fine thin fabric of her clothes.
You’re being stupid, Eugene. You need to get on with this. You let her seduce you you’ll fall in love with her all over again and won’t be able to follow through with it. Then where will you be? Prison, that’s where. Or dead.
She reaches her hand into his pants and stops, pulls back from the kiss blinking at him in surprise. She removes her hand from his pants. In it, his pistol. She looks down at it for a time with an unreadable expression on her face, then smiles.
‘You won’t be needing this anymore.’
She leans over and sets it on the nightstand.
‘Now where were we? Oh, that’s right.’
She pushes Eugene so that he falls back on the bed. He picks up his head as he lies there and looks toward her. She gets to her feet, reaches up under her dress, and pulls down her pantyhose. She almost falls as she pulls them around her left heel and kicks them away while hopping on her right foot, but manages to catch herself on the edge of the bed before going down, and laughs at her own clumsiness. Once she regains her balance she stands and looks at him smiling.
Her eyes full of knowledge she’s ready to impart.
2
Evelyn steps forward, looking at this man lying before her. He’s beautiful and intelligent and mean enough that she might not destroy him as she’s destroyed others who came before. She can be a hard woman and cold, has long suspected her heart dead or absent, but he’s brought feeling to that previously numb part of her. She can imagine a future with him, backyard cookouts, angry fights over trivial matters, makeup sex. She can imagine bearing his children. Their boys will be hellraisers and their girl will be a heart-breaker. Like she was.
Now that this is almost finished she allows herself to believe in the possibility of that future. She knows things can still go wrong. She knows the future is unpredictable. But it seems to her things very well might work out.
She allows herself to believe in the possibility.
Her biggest concern is Daddy. If Eugene isn’t wanted for those two murders, or convicted of them, Daddy will consider him a problem; he knows too much, and people who know too much about Daddy’s business tend to die.
They’ll have to leave before that can happen. They’ll have to pack their bags and go away, take a ship across the Atlantic, live in Paris or London.
They’ll think of something together.
But first they get through this. First they clear Eugene’s name.
They can worry about what comes after once there is an after.
She leans forward and puts her hands on his knees and runs them up the inside of his thighs. She unbuttons his pants and pulls them down to his knees, smiling to herself as he gasps. She leans forward and kisses his slightly protruding stomach, runs her tongue along the line of hair leading to his belly button. The stink of his sweat is strong, but she likes it. He smells like man. She strokes his penis and feels it stiffen and grow in her hand and likes that feeling of power. She did that with her mere touch. She puts her mouth around him and tastes salt and teases him with her tongue.
He reaches down and runs his fingers through her hair and brushes them along the back of her neck, pushing himself deeper into her mouth. She likes his touch, and the strength of his desire, but she pushes his hand away and holds it down against the mattress. She’s in charge of this and will not be led. She takes her mouth off of him. She strokes his penis slowly. Then stops. She runs her fingernails along the inside of his thighs. She smiles and crawls on top of him.
‘I want you inside.’
3
Eugene lies in bed, staring at the ceiling, Evelyn asleep on her stomach beside him. His hand rests comfortably on her naked bottom. His penis lies limp and sticky against his leg. Now’s the time to do this. He can take her by surprise. If he doesn’t do it now he’ll never do it, and he’ll end up dead.
That’s how he needs to think about it. He must get to Manning before Manning gets to him, and the only way he’s certain he can do that is through his daughter. Otherwise he must accept that people like him, little people of no importance, are mere pawns to be moved about and sacrificed as needed, and he refuses to be a pawn. He refuses to be sacrificed. Which means he needs to stop bellyaching about what must be done and do it.
He slips out of bed and picks up his pants from the floor. He puts his legs into them, pulls them up, buttons them. He walks to the table and puts on the leather gloves. He picks up the duct tape. He looks over to the bed where Evelyn lies asleep, her face calm, a smile on her lips. Her pale back is smooth and beautiful. He’d much rather kiss the freckles down the length of her spine than do what he’s about to do.
He inhales and exhales in jagged breaths. He tries to think of an alternative to what he’s about to do. He could get on his motorcycle and ride away. He could simply leave all this. He could do that, but it would solve nothing. He’d still be wanted for murder. It wouldn’t matter where he went or what he did, it would always hang over him. He can’t live like that. These last few days during
which he’s been wanted for murder have been the hardest of his life. He can’t imagine living in such a state for years.
But he doesn’t want to do what he’s about to do. He believes Evelyn’s being straight with him. He believes she cares for him. He knows he cares for her. He doesn’t want to destroy that. But he’s afraid he must. He’s certain of it.
Or they could follow through on Evelyn’s plan. Afterwards maybe she could get him a meeting with her father. He could explain that all he cared about was getting his life back and now that he’s got it back he wants only to live it, to live it with Evelyn. Maybe that would be enough.
No. He knows better than that.
He has only one choice. If he cares at all about his own survival he has but one choice, and it doesn’t matter how much he hates it.
The alternative is death.
He looks again at Evelyn lying peacefully in bed and wants more than anything to lie beside her. To feel the warmth of her body against his body. He wants to wake beside her and look into her eyes and regret nothing.
But, so far as he can tell, that isn’t possible.
He pulls the end of the duct tape, listening to it peel off the roll. Evelyn stirs but doesn’t awaken. Soon she will — to an ugly surprise.
He exhales in a heavy sigh.
Then steps forward quickly, rushing toward Evelyn. He puts his knee into her neck to hold her down, pulls her arms behind her back, and wraps her wrists with tape.
She wakes with a scream and fights him, but he doesn’t stop.
Not until he’s finished.
FORTY-THREE
Carl sits up in bed and tries to read a story called ‘I Joined a Gang of Hoods’ in the most recent issue of Stag, but is finding it impossible to concentrate. Instead his mind turns to his last conversation with Friedman. He went to his partner’s house and said we need to talk. He said you’re right, I need to get this under control, but now isn’t the time. We’re wrapping up this case. If I try to quit now I’ll get sick, I’ll be useless. Let me finish this case, bring in the milkman, then I’ll take time off and clean up. I have vacation days coming. I know how you feel about me using, you made that clear, but I need time. Friedman looked at him in silence, then nodded. Keep yourself as clean as possible. Use as little as you need to to keep yourself functioning, but when we wrap up this case you get yourself clean. I mean it. I won’t watch you kill yourself. Okay, Carl said. Okay. And about earlier, when I said we weren’t friends, I didn’t mean it. Friedman nodded, said I know, I’ll see you tomorrow at work, Carl, and went inside.
So he bought himself some time, which is good.
And if he finds another source he might not have to quit. It only got out because he was buying from within the department. That was a mistake. He can find another source. He can wave his badge around some jazz club and confiscate what he wants. He won’t arrest anybody, he’s not that big a hypocrite, just scare them a little and take their junk. Why not? There’s no downside.
Except he really does need to quit. He hates that his life now revolves around using. He hates the control it has over him. He lost Candice to it already, and she was the first glimpse of light he’d seen since Naomi’s death. For months he’s been walking toward a dark horizon and when light finally appears there, a faint white line, he runs in the opposite direction so that he can remain in darkness.
Only a fool would do such a thing.
If he’d known at the beginning this would lead to the needle he’d never have used in the first place. He just wanted a little quiet in his mind. He wanted to get away from himself. And he got what he wanted, didn’t he? For a while he got exactly what he wanted. But things have turned and he knows it, and he knows too he needs to do something about it. He needs to quit.
He’ll maintain until this case is closed, and then he’ll take some time off. He needs to do exactly what he told Friedman he’d do. He needs to regain control of himself and his life. He’s fifty-six years old, not twenty. He shouldn’t be living in some rooming house making mistakes he knows better than to make.
And what’s he going to do about this case?
Neighbors and coworkers have been questioned. Evidence has been catalogued. Reports have been written. The only thing left is to find the guy and arrest him. His picture is out to the uniforms, and his apartment and the bar at which he works are being watched, so it’s now nothing but a waiting game.
Part of him hopes they wait forever. Then he never has to quit. The case can remain open till the sun explodes and its fires envelop the earth. That would be good. He could use junk forever and Friedman wouldn’t be able to call him a liar.
He needs to quit.
They should follow up with Darryl Castor tomorrow, find out if he learned anything about where the milkman might be.
Then something occurs to him, and he sits up in bed unable to believe a connection he’s overlooked until now. They’ve been operating under the assumption that Eugene Dahl was working alone when he killed Theodore Stuart, but Carl now thinks that Darryl Castor might be reason to doubt that. The man is called Fingers because he has them in everything. He knows everybody. Someone has a product they don’t know what to do with, Darryl Castor can find him a buyer. Someone needs something extra delivered with the morning milk, Darryl Castor knows where to get it. There’s a chance he worked for James Manning at some point, peddled goods for him. He could easily be the connection between James Manning and Eugene Dahl.
But if that’s true, if that’s a legitimate piece of the puzzle, it means the picture he’s been putting together is wrong. It means he might have to tear the whole thing apart and start again, start with this piece and work outward.
If his mind was clear he’d have thought of this much sooner. He’d have investigated it sooner. He used to be a good cop. He used to take pride in being a good cop. He can’t believe he let the junk get to him in this way. It’s confused his mind. He’s either on the stuff or sick and in need of it.
This job was the only thing he had left that he gave a damn about after Naomi died, and he’s thrown it away. He let himself stop caring. He told himself it didn’t matter. But he needs to care again, and he should care. Despite what he sometimes tells himself, he knows it matters.
He needs to get some sleep. It’s late and he needs to get some sleep. His eyes sting and he knows his mind isn’t functioning at full capacity. He needs to get some sleep, and tomorrow he needs to start approaching this case like a real cop. He needs to become a real cop again. He needs to start with that new piece of the puzzle and see if he can’t put together a different picture.
But not tonight. His brain is too worked over. He needs rest.
He throws the magazine he’d been reading to the floor, then reaches to the nightstand and clicks off the lamp.
FORTY-FOUR
1
Next morning, with sunlight just beginning to seep in through the curtains, Eugene lights a cigarette and watches Evelyn as she stirs in bed, asleep on her stomach, taped up so she can move neither her arms nor her legs. Until this is finished, he’s stuck in a dangerous situation with a dangerous woman. He might still feel love for her, but that’s got nothing to do with anything. If they ever had a chance together, and he doesn’t think they did, that chance is a thing of the past.
You should kill her. You’re going have to do it eventually. You know that, right? If you’re to walk away from this situation she can’t live to walk away from it herself.
He closes his eyes and pinches the bridge of his nose, lifting his glasses and rubbing the skin where they usually rest.
You don’t know that. I might think of a way for her to live.
God, he’s tired.
No, you have to kill her. You might as well do it now.
But he can’t kill her now. If his plan is going to work she can’t have been dead for days when the police find her. They have ways of determining such things.
I can’t think like that. She doesn’t have to die.
I’ll think of a way around it.
It’s been a long night. He hasn’t slept at all.
2
Once her wrists and ankles were taped he rolled her onto her back. She glared at him with tear-filled eyes, a bubble of snot in her left nostril making her look to Eugene like a small child, and called him a motherfucker. I trusted you, you piece of shit. I was willing to give up everything for you, and you do this? She was nude. Her breasts had settled toward her armpits. Her red pubic hair glistened with sweat and flakes of his dried seed. Seeing her that way, nude and vulnerable and once-used, made him feel uncomfortably predacious, so he pulled her into a sitting position and wrapped a sheet around her shoulders.
‘I’m sorry. I can’t think of another way out of this.’
‘Fuck you.’ Rage flared in her eyes.
He looked back in silence for some time, then nodded, resigned to what this situation had become. He turned and walked to her purse. He picked it up and dug through it, found a Berretta 418 in a thigh holster, then the message he’d left her at the front desk, which was what he’d been looking for.
He took that note and the biblical passage he typed earlier in the evening and carried them both to the bathroom sink. He set them on fire and watched them burn. He turned on the water and rinsed the ashes down the drain.
He walked back out to the main room, removed the gloves from his sweaty hands, lit a cigarette. He sat down.
‘Whatever your plan is, it won’t work.’ She turned to look at him after she spoke, the anger now gone from her eyes.
‘That so?’
‘You know it is. Your hand is shaking.’
He looked at the cigarette pinched between his shivering fingers as a short piece of ash fell from it to his leg. He rubbed it into the fabric of his pants.
‘It’s been a long day.’
‘You’re scared. I understand that. But you’re being stupid. We had a plan, a good plan, and we can still follow through on it. Lou will take his own fall and that’ll be that. We can be together. Isn’t that what you want?’
The Last Tomorrow Page 29
