Booked to Die

by John Dunning

  She excused herself and went back to the narrow hallway where the rest rooms were.

  All I could think in that moment was that line from Shakespeare, how cowards die a dozen times before their deaths.

  Death was on my mind.

  And I was suddenly very uneasy.

  Mose was talking about the summer’s best fishing trip. I should take up fishing, he was saying: it was good therapy for us type A types. Scouting for books might bear some superficial resemblances to fishing, if you had a good imagination and wanted to stretch a point, but it was too intense. I needed something to help me relax, Mose said.

  Jackie Newton gave me a long look from the far wall. I stared back at him. Levin was talking and shuffling papers. Mose was rattling on about a new lure he had found: fish were supposed to be able to smell it. A waitress brought Mr. Newton’s order, putting plates in front of each gentleman and another in front of the empty space where, a few minutes earlier, Barbara Crowell had been sitting.

  “She sure is taking her time in there,” I said.

  “Who?”

  “Crowell.”

  I got up and started back toward the rest rooms. Behind me, Mose called my name. “Hey, Clifford, what the hell do you think you’re doing?” There was a note of worry in his voice that almost matched what I suddenly felt in my heart. I went past Jackie’s table. Both Jackie and Levin looked at me as I went into the dark hall.

  I called Barbara’s name.

  Doors on opposite sides were designated by gender: pants and skirts. I knocked on the skirts and listened. I pushed the door open and peeped in.

  “Barbara?”

  I was staring at the outer wall of a toilet stall. I called her name again and got nothing. “Hey, I’m coming in,” I said, and did. I looked around the row of johns and there she was, sitting on the floor. She held a small gun in her hand, and she was staring at it the way you imagine a medical student might look at a scalpel before his first operation. Tears were running down her face. She lifted the gun and looked at it, business end first.

  “Hey,” I said, holding out my hands. “Don’t do that.”

  It was a little .22 revolver. You can buy them cheap all over Denver without permits or hassles: a little gun, made for ladies and kids, but more than enough to do what she had in mind.

  “Hey, Barb,” I said. I tried to smile and wondered if it looked real. It was real: a smile of fear. Softly, I said, “You know what they say about suicide, honey. Permanent solution to temporary problem. This gets you nothing.”

  It gets me peace, she seemed to say. I came a little closer and tried to figure my chances. If I rushed her suddenly, without warning, I had about a dead-even chance of getting to her before she could cock the pistol and pull the trigger. She probably didn’t know much about guns—a point for my side. But I was still ten feet away—a big point for her.

  “Listen, I’ve got a great idea,” I said. “You put that back in your purse and let me take you out of here. We’ll go to a place I know and we’ll talk it over. Okay? Okay, Barb? We’ll talk it over, and if I can’t give you at least ten reasons for living we’ll both kill ourselves. Now what could be fairer than that? C’mon, Barb. I’ll buy you a great dinner and we’ll work it out. I know you don’t want to do this.”

  I stopped talking. She had cocked the pistol, taking away my only real chance. I felt a tightness in my chest, almost like hyperventilation.

  “Barb, please… listen to me… Here, look at me.”

  She did. Again, her misery was like a beacon, filling the room.

  “I swear to God there’s a way out of this,” I said. “I swear there is. I promise you, but only if you do the smart thing.”

  I could see it in her eyes: she was on the brink, right at the edge. I’ve seen three people commit suicide, and at the end there’s no doubt that it’s coming. They all look the same, drained of all hope.

  I was going to lose her.

  She spoke. Her voice was raw, the words ragged and broken. “I’ve left a note… It clears you… backs up everything you said…”

  “It won’t mean anything if you do this. Are you hearing me? Barbara, are you listening to what I’m saying?”

  “No.”

  “Just give me one chance. One chance, Barbara, to prove what I’m telling you. I won’t even take the gun away from you, that’s how sure I am that you’ll see things different. Let me tell you something. Newton can’t do anything to me, and I won’t let him do anything more to you, either. I’ve got ways of fixing that bastard that he can’t even imagine yet. Just put the gun away and I’ll tell you about it.”

  It was pointing at her right temple: her finger was on the trigger. She was going to do it. I couldn’t stop her. Janeway, if you’ve got any good quotes, you’d better get ’em up now, because there isn’t going to be any tomorrow.

  “I know a guy who can make Newton hate the day he first saw you. I’m not kidding. I wasn’t just yanking your chain that day when I told you that. Just put the gun down a little and let me say this. Just let me say this much, Barbara. Newton’s a master at playing the system for his own advantage. He’s got it all going his way—money, a sharp lawyer—he knows his rights, old Jackie does. The system’s all greased up for scumbags like Jackie Newton. So we’ll go outside the system. I couldn’t do that when I was a cop, but I damn sure can now. We’ll play Jackie’s game Jackie’s way, and I promise you we’ll make him hate it. And he’ll never be able to lay a hand on you again. That’s the main thing. When we get through with Jackie, he’ll never want to see your face again.”

  “You don’t know him,” she said. “Don’t know what he’s capable of.”

  “Oh yes I do. But I also know what he’s not capable of.”

  She opened her mouth. Nothing came out. I heard a woman come in behind me, stopping suddenly at the end of the toilet partition.

  “What’s going on?” the woman said.

  “Get out of here,” I said.

  She didn’t move: I could feel her behind me; I could hear her breathing.

  “Lady, you better do what I tell you. Just turn around and walk out of here.”

  She went, quickly now. I heard the door swish shut.

  “People will be coming now,” Barbara said.

  “Don’t worry about it. I’ll keep them away from you.”

  “Cops… cops’ll come.”

  “I’ll walk you through that, too. The way it stands now, it’s no big deal.”

  We looked at each other. I hoped to hell I looked sincere. In the distance I heard noises: a woman shouting; someone running; sharp, excited voices. In the dimmer distance, somewhere far outside, a siren.

  “They come fast,” Barbara said.

  “They’re just a phone call away, hon. They’ve got cars all over town.”

  “Janeway…” Her voice broke.

  “I’m right here.”

  “I don’t want to live anymore.”

  “Sure you do. You can’t make that decision now… you don’t know what the alternative is… you haven’t given me a chance yet.”

  Now her voice was bitter. “You had plenty of chances. You couldn’t do anything….”

  The siren got louder. I knew if the cops came in, she would do it. I had maybe two minutes to talk her out of it.

  She put the gun in her mouth and my time was up.

  One last plea. Desperately, I shouted: “Barbara, for Christ’s sake, don’t do this to me!”

  She blinked.

  “Don’t do it,” I said. “Please.”

  And I watched her… slowly… come back from the brink.

  She wavered. The gun came out of her mouth.

  I reached out my hands. She didn’t do anything. The gun was still cocked but she held it limply in her lap.

  I touched her: ruffled her hair with my knuckles, touched her cheeks where the tears still ran. Kneeled and looked in her eyes.

  Outside, the sirens were very close.

  I put an arm
around her shoulder and helped her up. “We’ll go meet them together,” I said. “Give me the gun now and I’ll take you outside.”

  Then the door opened. Jackie Newton was standing in front of us, blocking the way.

  “Get out of the way, Newton,” I said.

  He just stood and looked. His face was full of contempt.

  “Move,” I said.

  He gave a little laugh. “Stupid bitch.”

  And before I could stop her, Barbara brought up the gun and shot him.

  39

  They put her in a police car and segregated the witnesses: mainly me. It was getting to be habit-forming. For the second time in two days I told a uniform the bare facts and was told to wait over here, away from the crowd, until a coat-and-tie arrived from downtown. Barbara sat in the car, huddled into herself while a cop leaned across the seat and tried to talk to her. Reading her rights, I imagined: it was amazing how fast your sympathies passed from the cops to the accused, once you knew something about it and were no longer part of that world where the gathering of information must be just so. A plainclothes cop arrived and took charge. He was a burly guy named O’Hara: I had known him for years, though not well. I thought he was probably pretty good. I heard him tell the uniforms not to ask her anything until she could comprehend what she was being asked and what she was saying. She seemed to be in shock, one of the uniforms said. “Okay, let’s get her downtown right away and have a doctor check her out,” O’Hara said.

  All this happened in a few minutes, while the medics were still working on Jackie Newton on the women’s room floor.

  “Good grief,” O’Hara said when he saw me. “Can’t you stay out of trouble?”

  He went back into the women’s room and came out again a few seconds later.

  “Well, I guess you finally got the bastard.”

  “Hey, all I was was the cheering section, O’Hara. If I’d had anything to do with this, she’d’ve used a real gun.”

  “Lucky for her she didn’t.”

  The shot had hit Newton in the throat and had gone through his neck. The exit wound was at the base of the skull. It was messy, O’Hara said, but probably not fatal.

  Whatever it was, the medics were taking their time.

  “You wanna tell me about it?”

  I told him the story, omitting nothing about why and how long Newton had been asking for it. Even at that it didn’t take long: my main statement would come later, downtown, in a smoky room with a stenographer.

  “What do you think my chances are of seeing her?” I said.

  O’Hara gave a loud laugh. “What a guy. You know better than to ask a question like that, Janeway.”

  “I told her I’d help her through it, if I could.”

  “Well, you shouldn’t’ve told her that.”

  “I believe she is entitled to see a lawyer. That’s the way it works, isn’t it, O’Hara? Or have they changed the rules since I went away?”

  “Where’s your law degree?”

  “Standing over there with its thumb in its ear.”

  I called Mose and he came over.

  “How about going down and talking to Crowell?” I said.

  He blinked and looked at me as if I had suddenly started talking Arabic.

  “I’m serious,” I said.

  “You’re out of your mind, Clifford. You want me to represent that dame?”

  “I want you to go talk to her, let her know she’s not alone. Come on, Mose, nobody does that better than you. Tell her about your last fishing trip. While you’re at it, you might slip in some free advice.”

  “Cliff, listen to me. There’s no way I could properly do something like that. You understand what I’m saying? You know what conflict of interest is, I believe.”

  “Look, I don’t want her facing these dinosaurs alone.”

  O’Hara let out a bellow. “What a guy!”

  They were bringing Newton out now. He lay on a stretcher, his head immobilized by a brace, tubes dangling from his nose and arm. His eyes were open, lovely blue eyes, wet and terrified. He saw me and his terror doubled.

  “Merry Christmas, Jackie,” I said.

  They packed him into the ambulance and slammed the doors. The siren came up and they drove away.

  “She’s damn lucky she didn’t kill him,” O’Hara said.

  “Oh yeah, she’s real lucky. Two months from now she’ll have all her old problems back and a whole shopping cart full of legal problems as well. When she finally does get out of jail she’ll probably find Jackie Newton waiting at the gate.”

  If she does, I thought, I’ll be there too.

  40

  It was still on the right side of seven o’clock when I finished up at headquarters. I was wired to the gills and ready to make something happen. I drove out to Stan Ballard’s house, more on a whim than anything else. A sign on the door said OFFERED BY JOHN BAILEY ASSOC., and under that was a phone number for an agent named Douglas Barton. There was a lockbox on the door: the place had a sad look about it, as if it had just lost its best friend. It was one of those fine old houses, vintage World War I, that still had a lot of life in it. They built houses to last then, not the prefab cardboard they use today. There was a time in Denver, not so long ago, when a house like this wouldn’t last a day on the open market. The oil business was booming and shale was the coming thing, and there was an economic excitement in the Rocky Mountains that hasn’t been here since. But the bottom fell out of the oil bucket, they never did figure how to suck the shale dry, and then HUD got into the real estate business and started giving houses away. The Ballard place lay fallow. There were simply more houses than people.

  I walked up the steps and peeped through the window. Light fell in from old Mr. Greenwald’s place next door and I could see most of the front room. It looked different with everything stripped away. The Ballards had left nothing but the walls and the carpet and, yes, the bookshelves. It was a house made to order for a bookscout, big and solid and already shelved. I wondered what they were asking for it. I went around back and tried to peep in, but visibility was poor: I could see just enough to know that the shelves back there were still intact. I walked across the lawn and tried the garage. It was locked, but I could see that it was a big one, made for two cars and a small workshop. A man could park his car and still have room for five thousand books out here.

  I saw a shadow pass the window next door: Mr. Greenwald was watching. There wasn’t anything to watch, but old habits die hard. I gave him a wave and walked into his yard. His porch light came on and he stood for a moment watching me through the door glass. He didn’t seem to recognize me, but he opened the door anyway.

  “I’m surprised it’s still available,” I said, gesturing to the house.

  “If they don’t sell it soon it’ll start falling apart,” he said.

  “Are they not taking care of it?”

  He made a sour face and waved me away with his hand. “They take care of nothing. They care about nothing. All they want is money. And to play their silly games.”

  “What games?”

  “The game of hating each other. Of beating each other. You never saw anything like it. They act like a pair of dogs with a scrap of meat thrown between them. It’s the worst case of jealousy I’ve ever seen. They don’t care anything about the house: they just want to make sure that if there’s one dollar left over, the other one doesn’t get it.”

  “Do you know what they’re asking for it?”

  “Are you interested?”

  “I don’t know, I might be.”

  “Come on inside; it’s too cold to stand talking like this.”

  Inside, he offered me coffee, which I was happy to accept. We sat in friendly territory—in his kitchen, surrounded by books—and talked.

  “They started at eighty,” he said. “That’s very reasonable for this place, even in these times, don’t you think?”

  I did think, and I said so.

  “When it didn’t sell, they
came way down. I hear it’s sixty-five now and still no takers. I can’t understand that. I’d buy it myself if I had money to burn. I don’t know real estate but I know sixty-five for a place like this is nothing. Ten years ago Stan turned down an offer of a hundred and ten. But those were better times.”

  “There are people who think better times are coming back.”

  “Then those people could find worse things to do with their money. It’s what I’d do, if I were a young man like yourself. I’d buy it strictly as an investment. I’d make them an offer of forty-eight five.”

  “They’d never take it.”

  “They’ll take it. They just want to get rid of it. They’ve sold everything but the house and it’s hanging around their necks like a millstone. Those two never want to lay eyes on each other again, and this house is the only thing that ties them together. They’ll take it, Mr. Janeway. In fact, I think they’ll take less than that.”

  “I didn’t think you remembered me.”

  “I’ve got a good set of eyes and a good memory for a face.”

  “If they’d take fifty I’d buy it in a heartbeat.”

  “Try it on them. They’ll fall all over themselves taking it. You see if I’m not right. I’ve never seen anything like it. Such hate… such pure venom. So much energy wasted, just burnt up, on hate.”

  “Where’d it get started?”

  We looked at each other and I knew what I had begun to suspect: this old man had secrets that he hadn’t yet told anyone.

  “Where’d it get started, Mr. Greenwald?”

  “There are things I can’t talk about… matters of honor.”

  “There are also three dead people. I understand about honor, sir, but somebody out there is killing people and I’m trying to stop them. It’s pretty hard if I’m only playing with half a deck.”

  He seemed lost in thought. Then his eyes locked on mine and he said, “They are not actually brother and sister.” He got up, poured us more coffee, and returned the pot to the stove.

  “How do you figure that?”

  “It’s not something I figured; Stan told me. Val Ballard was an adopted child.”

  “Well, that explains a few things.”