Killer Year

by Lee Child

Stay for the $525.12 check.

  Or leave now and meet Petty and make $500 cash. Pick up the check Monday.

  Thing is, the check from Sherlock Holmes is a sure thing. It’s there, cash in pocket. Take the subway to Allegheny, bus down to Aramingo, walk over to Toys “R” Us and pick up that toy Lexus. Toys “R” Us is open all night on Christmas Eve.

  But that would be like throwing away five hundred dollars.

  A thousand bucks at Christmas would be a very good thing.

  Considering you’re going to be spending a lot of it alone.

  If you skip the check though, and Petty turns out to be full of shit, then you have zero dollars for Christmas.

  Sure, you’ve got an ATM card.

  And if you used it at an ATM machine, you wouldn’t be able to do a damn thing, because the minimum withdrawal at most machines is twenty dollars.

  You’ve got $17.45.

  You know because you checked this morning.

  You ate a single hot dog for lunch, and washed it down with rusty water from a City Hall fountain, because all the cash you had in the world was four dollars. And three bucks of that needed to go to public transportation. You wanted another hot dog.

  So there’s your choice.

  Cash the check now, or cash the check later.

  Fucking Shenice.

  Why couldn’t she have been here at 5:15 P.M. like she always was?

  The guy behind you keeps saying, “Smoke? Smoke?” looking for buyers. After all, the checks are here. It’s Christmas Eve. The party’s just getting started. The line inches forward. You’re almost in the door. You can almost feel the warmth from within.

  You make up your mind.

  You give Shenice the middle finger and tell her:

  “Merry Fucking Christmas.”

  Not your wisest move.

  The job with the Polish mob pretty much involves standing there and looking tough. The Polish mob doesn’t have the numbers yet, so for now, they’re content with renting numbers. They want to terrify the Russians. Make them crap their dress pants. There are casinos coming to the waterfront, and everybody’s playing angles. The Poles figure strike early, strike audaciously.

  They’re going to meet the Russians at an abandoned furniture warehouse down near the waterfront.

  They’re going to tell them how it’s going to be.

  Take a few fingers and testicles, if need be.

  The Russians, though, don’t want to mess around. They’ve already got the warehouse wired.

  With enough C-4 to send the roof over to Jersey.

  You don’t know any of this. You ride up the service elevator with Petty, who’s giving you the useless lowdown.

  “All you got to do is stand there,” Petty tells you, “and look like a bad motherfucker.”

  You get to the floor, join the others.

  You stand there.

  You look like a bad motherfucker.

  Right up until—

  A cell phone rings.

  “Allo?”

  And then—

  Ah, you shouldn’t worry.

  All’s well this Christmas Eve.

  Your boy, as it turns out, will get his Lexus. Lora’s new boyfriend picked it up for him, in an effort to ingratiate himself with your ex-wife.

  And what’s happened to you isn’t even going to ruin your son’s Christmas. The police won’t notify Lora for a few days, when they find your head on a roof across the street and learn your name from your teeth.

  Your body is in the ruined basement.

  They’ll dig it out eventually.

  But hey—at least you’re wearing your best T-shirt.

  Righteous Son

  by Dave White

  I tease Dave White about his voice. To me (and my wife), he’s a dead vocal ringer for actor Paul Giamatti. Especially when Dave gets exasperated (which is sort of often). This is why, in certain small crime writer circles, Dave is known as “Giamatti.” Just wait until Dave reads from one of his own novels for an audiobook edition someday. You’ll scramble for the cover, thinking, I didn’t know Paul Giamatti did audiobooks … .

  But you know the best thing about Dave? His voice. And by that I mean his writerly voice. It was brimming with muscle and maturity in the very first Dave White story I read: “Closure” over at Kevin Burton Smith’s Thrilling Detective Web Site. I couldn’t believe a young punk barely out of college had written it. And in the years since, Dave’s followed that award winner with many fine stories, including the one below. Just when you think you’ve tagged Dave, he swerves to the left and gives you something unexpected and cool like “Righteous Son.”

  (As you read this, imagine the voice of Paul Giamatti in your head. I swear, it helps.)

  —Duane Swierczynski, author of The Blonde

  “Son of righteousness shine upon the west also.”

  —Rutgers College motto

  “Think you’re a bit out of place, college boy.”

  The barkeep put a dirty glass of beer in front of me. The swinging doors of the saloon were unable to keep out the dust, hot air, and smell of horse manure. For the second time today I felt alone, distant. These sensations weren’t evident at home.

  “How’d you know I was a college boy?” I asked.

  “Y’all got that smug-ass look. You know, like you better than this town.” He ran his hand along the stubble at his chin. “Where you from, anyway?”

  “New Jersey.”

  I took a sip of the beer. It tasted like gravel.

  “No. How smart are you, college boy? What college?”

  “Rutgers College.”

  “Never heard of it. What are you doing so far from home?”

  I finished the beer, surprised I didn’t have to chew the last gulp. I was in the middle of nowhere drinking beer that was awful. This wasn’t how my life was supposed to go, I wasn’t supposed to be in Texas or California or Oklahoma or wherever I was. All I wanted was to get this over with and go back home.

  “I’m looking for somebody.”

  The barkeep found a dirty rag and wiped at some moisture on the wooden bar. He didn’t appear to wipe it down often; the top of the bar was warped and looked like a hilly road. Like the mountains I had to cross to get here.

  “Course you are,” he said. “Everyone out here lookin’ for someone or somethin’.”

  A dark spot seemed to catch his eye, and he rubbed the rag hard into the spot. He didn’t ask if I wanted another drink. It didn’t bother me much, because I didn’t.

  “You know John Westing?” I asked.

  The rag stopped, but only briefly.

  “Yeah. I know him.”

  My hands flinched. I tried to cover it by putting them on my belt. All I found was the handle of my father’s Civil War pistol.

  “Lemme give you some advice, college.” The barkeep gave a crooked grin. “Don’t get into any poker games while you’re here.”

  “Don’t plan on staying long enough for games.”

  The grin didn’t leave his face. “You’re talking real tough, college. Why you lookin’ for Westing?”

  “If you know him, you know he’s originally from New Jersey. I have a message for him.”

  “He won’t be in for a while. He prospects.” The barkeep turned his back to me. “You came all the way out here just to deliver a message?”

  Sweat formed where my hat met my head. It wasn’t from the heat.

  “It’s going to be a loud message.”

  My mother sat in the dark in our Trenton house. Her face was silhouetted in front of a pulled curtain. I could see only her profile and it was shaded in darkness. The house was quiet except for the sniffle of crying.

  “It was a good funeral. They did Father proud,” I said.

  “Are you going back to school, Samuel?” she asked.

  We were in the sitting room, she sitting on the stool of the piano she used to play when my parents entertained guests. She had pulled the stool away from the piano to the window. I st
ood in the doorway, watching her.

  “In the morning.”

  The air was still and musty. I wanted her to open some windows, but she refused. She thought that if she let the air in, it would take what was left of my father out.

  “How is your roommate?” she asked, her voice hollow.

  “He’s fine.” I thought about the last time we talked. My roommate sitting on the park bench alone, looking at the sky, confused.

  “Will he be coming here in the summer again?”

  I didn’t say anything.

  “He’s a good boy. It’s a shame he has no one. You can’t always watch out for him, however.”

  “He’s like a brother to me.”

  She shuddered at the words.

  “Your father wanted you to have something,” she said, as if she hadn’t heard me. “He told me on his deathbed.”

  She got out of her chair and walked to me, her arms outstretched. In her hands was a thick wooden box. One I’d seen only once before in my life. She placed it in my hands. She tried to smile, but her eyes misled her face. There were dark circles beneath them, garnished with tears.

  I opened the lid and looked at the metal inside.

  “It’s your father’s gun,” my mother said. “From the war.”

  I closed the lid. I was very young when the war raged. I can remember bits of my father before he went to fight, a bright man always quick with a smile. I remember more clearly after the war, the light of the smile no longer gracing his face.

  The gun returned with me to Rutgers the next day.

  The barkeep nodded toward the door as a group of prospectors came in.

  “The one with the beard,” he grunted.

  I turned on my stool. There were three men with dirt caked on their clothes and their faces. They were loud, swearing and laughing and yelling, until one finally said, “Hey, Red, three whiskeys and six beers!”

  The barkeep fished out glasses from behind the bar.

  “How’d you do out there, boys?” Red said.

  The one with the long gray beard said, “Same as always. A little bit, but nothing major. It’ll come.” He glanced at me. “Big crowd in here today, Red. Who’s the new blood?”

  “This is—” Red looked at me.

  “Samuel Donne,” I said, rising from my bar stool.

  “Your accent, it sounds like mine.” A grin appeared beneath his dusty gray beard. “New Jersey?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “John Westing,” he said and we shook hands. “What’s a New Jersey boy doing way out west? Too hot to be out here for laughs. You’re too young to be here prospecting. We got all the gold anyway.”

  His cracked, dry face shuddered as he chuckled.

  “Looking for you, sir,” I said, not joining his laughter.

  He took his hat off and placed it on the table his friends were sitting at. Dusted off the shoulder of his jacket.

  “Me? Where are you coming from? And why would you come out all this way to see me?”

  “I’m coming from New Brunswick, sir.”

  I let it sink in. Let the realization rise through his body until I saw it in his eyes.

  “Bartholomew lives in New Brunswick. Goes to the college there.”

  I nodded.

  “I’m Bartholomew’s roommate.”

  “My son’s roommate.” He appeared to be thinking it over. “Well, why don’t you join us for a drink and a game of cards?”

  The box rested on my desk. I sat on my bed, polishing my shoes. Across from me, Bartholomew Westing sorted through some envelopes. He’d just taken in the mail.

  “What are you doing this evening?” he asked.

  These moments were always difficult. Bartholomew rarely had plans and he usually counted on me to make up for that.

  “I can’t tell you,” I said.

  Our room was bare, the walls a soft white color, the floor uncovered. We kept the room simple, temporary. A reminder to us that college leads us to a larger goal, it was not a place for us to stay.

  “You can’t tell me?” Bartholomew smiled. He shifted his frail body toward me to hear me. He looked like he’d just woken up and hadn’t eaten in a week. Since I’d been away, it was possible both were true.

  I got up, looked into the hallway, then closed the door to our room.

  “I saw Harriet near Kirkpatrick Chapel this morning.”

  “Damn you.”

  “What?”

  “You are lucky and you don’t even know it. Every woman you meet falls for you. You have it so easy. I meet a woman and she wants me to help her study.”

  I shrugged.

  Bartholomew’s tired eyes were still scanning the addresses on the envelopes. “So you will be with her, then? I was hoping we could go to the pub.”

  “Not tonight.”

  “Why not? You’re always with Harriet.”

  “Let me see her tonight. We can go to the pub anytime.”

  “No. We can’t! You have no idea what the world has been dealing me lately. We need to talk. We need to drink. It’s time to have fun like the old days. Harriet will still be around for you.”

  The frustration in his voice prickled my skin. I didn’t answer.

  “We used to be like brothers, Samuel.”

  He held an envelope under the light of a candle.

  “We still are,” I said.

  “A woman is dividing us. I’m alone, and you don’t care. Soon, I’ll lose you as well,” he said. “My own brother.”

  Again, I didn’t answer, this time because I noticed the color drain from his face. His shoulders slumped as well.

  “Are you going to be all right? This is about more than you and me, it seems,” I said.

  “Go be with Harriet. I’ve just received a letter from my father,” he said. “I’d prefer to read it alone.”

  Four of us sat around the table, beers in one hand, cards in the other. As John Westing got more and more drunk, the more he talked, the more he rambled. He seemed to consider me his best friend.

  I never played cards before and Red was right, I shouldn’t have. The little money I had was draining away before me.

  “My son the college graduate,” Westing was saying. “It never fit him, it will never fit him. It’s not in his blood.”

  I folded my hand, and took a sip of beer to keep from breaking the man’s neck.

  “You see, Sam, the thing my son never realized is you can’t get away from who you are. Violence is in our family, and it’s passed down from generation to generation. He thought by going to school he could become his own man.”

  He drank an entire glass of beer in one gulp. After the third beer, I had to admit, the taste improved.

  Red brought us all another round. Though it had been dark now for hours, I could still feel the heat of the still air on my skin. The temperature didn’t seem to cool out here, only settle.

  I tried to watch the others play cards, but Westing kept talking, “I’ve killed men, Sam. I didn’t like it, but I’ve done it. My father killed men. It runs in the blood. I came out here, hoping to get rich, but I knew at some point I would have to kill again. I wrote my son a letter telling him just that. I told him there would come a point where he’d have to kill, too.

  “But he wouldn’t listen, he’s never listened to that. He tries to run from his past. He attends one of the first colleges created in this fine nation. If we go to war, he will not go. But there will come a time where he has to make a choice, and he’ll have to kill someone.”

  The next hand was dealt, and I got three queens, a deuce, and an eight. I bet. The rest immediately folded.

  We played a few more hands and soon I was out of money. Red laughed at me, reminded me how he warned me to stay away from cards. I didn’t speak to him.

  John Westing had his arm around me now, was talking into my ear, spittle flying from his lips.

  “So, you’ve come all this way,” he said. “It must have taken you weeks by wagon. Why are you here?”
/>
  This was the moment. My hands shook, my throat closed, but I got the words out.

  “I’m here to kill you.” The words came from my mouth, but they felt as if someone else had spoken them.

  Westing laughed. The other cardplayers laughed, too.

  Finally composing himself, he sucked down his beer, and said, “Why would you want to do that?”

  I put my hand around the grip of my gun and said, “Your son is dead. And it’s your fault.”

  On most occasions, I didn’t like taking Harriet to my room. But after we’d had a few drinks at dinner, it didn’t seem to matter. We climbed the steps arm in arm, she stopping to giggle, me stopping to nuzzle her neck.

  Outside my door, I pressed her against the wall, kissing her deeply. Her scent surrounded me, the smell of powder on her skin. Her hands ran through my hair, and she groaned softly.

  I opened the door and Harriet pulled away from me, stepping over the threshold. She turned into the room, froze, and screamed. I came in behind her only to see my roommate, noose around his neck, hanging from the ceiling.

  John Westing drank another beer, confident that I wasn’t going to shoot him. He even asked his drinking buddies to leave. They listened. The dirt on his face was now hardened and some of it rolled off as he spoke.

  “My son committed suicide? I always knew he was weak.”

  “Sir, with all due respect,” I said, “your son was stronger than you’ll ever be.”

  He balled his fists and ground them into the tabletop. “You have no idea what it means to be a Westing. Bartholomew was an embarrassment to me. His mother, God rest her soul, thought the same thing.”

  His eyes were glazed over from the alcohol. He couldn’t sit in his chair without having to catch his balance on the table. Now was my chance. I reached to my belt and began to pull out the revolver.

  “Why don’t you just put that on the table, okay, Sam? Where we both can see it.”

  For some reason, the strength in his voice stopped me. His demeanor hadn’t changed, but there was darkness in his voice. Something I couldn’t put my finger on, but it scared me.