by Parnell Hall
Minton shrugged. “Maybe, but I still think you’re bluffing.” His hand flicked. “You know what this is?”
I knew what it was. That is, I didn’t know the make or the caliber, but I knew it was an automatic pistol with a silencer.
I’d had a gun pulled on me once before, back when I first started working for Richard, by an irate husband who didn’t take kindly to the idea of being served with a divorce complaint. While it scared me to death, at least that time I didn’t figure the guy intended to use it.
I figured Minton did.
Remind me never to hire myself out as a prognosticator. As usual, I figured wrong.
“Relax,” Minton said. “I’m not going to shoot you with it. I just wondered if you knew what it was. Obviously you don’t. So I’ll tell you. This is the gun that killed Nubar.”
I wouldn’t have thought my eyes could have gotten any wider, but they must have, because I could see Minton’s grin.
“Means something to you, does it? Just beginning to get the picture, aren’t you?”
“No,” I said. “No, I don’t understand at all.”
I was fighting for time. Hoping he’d talk. Hoping he’d give the cops a chance to move in.
“No,” I repeated. “I don’t understand at all. You ditched the gun you used on Steerwell. I figured you’d ditch the gun you used on Nubar.”
“You figured wrong. I ditched the gun at Steerwell’s because something happened. I’d just plugged him and a car drove up. Naturally I didn’t want to get caught with the rod. I dropped it on the floor beside him and slipped out the back door. I crept around the house and saw the guy going in. It wasn’t the cops or anything, it was only the punk who hired him. I figured, great, the perfect fall guy, let him find the gun. I figured he’d panic and take it with him. Then he’d be fucked. He didn’t, and then some crazy broad picked it up, but that’s all right. He got the credit for bringing it. So when he went in the house, I hopped in my car and took off
“I had this other gun in the car. Same model. Absolutely cold. No way to make a trace, an essential in my profession. I took it, went out and plugged Nubar. But I didn’t ditch this gun. I kept it for an occasion just like this.”
He grinned at me. “Now I’ll tell you what happened. You hired Steerwell, and you killed him, too. You also killed Nubar. You had it in for me because I identified you. I was the one who was going to put you away. You figured I was the main witness, without me the case would fall apart, so you decided to do me in, too. Now, I don’t know about the pictures or any letter you wrote to the cops. I think it’s bullshit. If you did, well, it’s because you were trying to frame me for the murders.
“But here’s what happened. You came to my office this afternoon and threatened me. My secretary can vouch for that. You admitted you had the pictures. You told me to meet you out here and you’d give them back.
“I didn’t care about those pictures, but I wanted to know what your game was, so I came. When I got here you pulled a gun.”
He shifted it into his left hand and held it on me.
“This gun. The gun you used to kill Nubar. You fired a shot at me with this gun and you missed.
“And that’s when I shot you with this one.”
Quick draw Minton. His hand flicked and suddenly there was something in it. A tough private eye would have said he saw a glint of blue steel. Frankly, I didn’t see shit. But I knew damn well the son of a bitch was holding a gun.
Minton took another step in.
“I’ll put the Nubar gun in your hand and fire off a shot. That will put your fingerprints on the gun and the powder marks on your hand, so the paraffin test will show you fired it. I don’t like it much. I’ll have to claim I shot you, and the whole bit. But it will be self-defense. And under the circumstances, it’s the best I can do.”
He moved in another step. He wanted to be so close he couldn’t miss. There were only ten feet between us now. I figured a little closer and he’d fire.
What should I do? What could I do? I didn’t know. I had no idea. “PRIVATE DETECTIVE HASN’T A CLUE: Stands Like Dope, Gets Shot in Face.”
What thoughts run through your mind at a time like that? I know what thoughts ran through mine: “We Polked ’em in ’44, and we’ll Pierce ’em in ’52.” I don’t know if that was an actual campaign slogan, or if our American History teacher just made it up, but that was the maxim my classmates and I used to learn the terms of office of two of the more obscure presidents, James K. Polk, elected in 1844, and Franklin Pierce, elected in 1852. “And Zachary Taylor up the middle” was the saying that got us 1848. That, obviously, was no slogan—I made that one up myself.
At any rate, that’s what flashed through my mind: “We Polked ’em in ’44, and we’ll Pierce ’em in ’52.” I bet an analyst could get some mileage out of that. Polk and Pierce are both prodding terms, obvious phallic symbolism. Plus the fact that I was about to be Polked and Pierced by a bullet, a bullet shot by a gun, another phallic extension. Yeah, a shrink would have a field day with that.
But I think the real explanation was much simpler than that. I think it was simple regression to childhood. Wanting to be a kid again. Wanting to have no cares or responsibilities. Harkening back to a time when your biggest problem was who was president when. Not how you gonna feed your wife and kids, are you gonna stay out of jail, and will you stop a bullet.
Yeah, that’s what I think it was.
My own version of Rosebud.
Minton leveled the gun and I knew the time had come.
So this is it. It all ends here. Bang. Silence. Darkness. The Void. Never to see my kid grow up. Never to write the great American novel. To die unknown. Unpublished. Unsung.
Unpaid.
To die for nothing, literally.
Some favor.
There was nothing I could do. Dodge? Dodge a bullet? That’s an old expression, one used to describe someone achieving an impossible feat. Escaping in spite of overwhelming odds. That was all I had to do.
Sorry.
Not up to it.
Not even up to trying.
Stand like a schmuck and die.
Oh, shit!
Great. His last words were, “Oh, shit!”
A shadow moved in the dark behind Minton.
The cavalry.
A cop.
I saw an arm go up with something in it and come down on Minton’s head, hard. There was a sick, thunking sound, and Minton slumped forward onto the ground. The shadow moved again as the cop bent over Minton, presumably to remove his gun, though it was too dark for me to see. The cop straightened, turned. Light fell on his face, and I gawked. The cop was MacAullif. He looked at me, and shook his head.
“You’re not getting any better at this, are you?”
38.
“WHAT THE HELL ARE you doing here?”
“Just a minute,” MacAullif said. He was busily engaged in tying Minton’s hands behind him with a short cord that he’d taken out of his jacket pocket. “You gotta learn something about procedure. You secure the perpetrator first, then you talk.” He gave the cord a final tug. “There. That ought to do it. Though I don’t think this one’s coming around for some time, anyway.”
“What’d you hit him with?”
“Butt of a gun.” MacAullif got to his feet. “.38 Special, if you’re keepin’ score.”
I stared at him. “What are you doing here?”
“Savin’ your ass, it looks like.”
“No, I mean—”
“I know what you mean. I just thought you might need a little help.”
“I thought you had three murders pending.”
“One of the joys of being a sergeant is being able to delegate authority. I’m sure my boy Daniels is doing a hell of a job.”
“When’d you get here?”
“Yesterday. I picked you up at your hotel yesterday afternoon. I’ve been on your tail ever since.”
“Why? Why tail me? Why didn’t you just let me
know you were here?”
MacAullif cocked his head on one side. “That might have been easier, now, mightn’t it? But the thing is, we don’t seem to tell each other everything, do we? And the fact is, you were holding out on me. And with you holding out on me, I wanted to know what the real story was, not just the version you chose to give me. See what I mean?”
“Yeah. Yeah,” I said. I have a very slow reaction time, and the whole thing was just beginning to dawn on me. “You’re saying you’ve been following me since yesterday afternoon?”
“That’s right.”
“Then that means ...”
“What?”
“The cops weren’t.”
“I’m a cop.”
“No. The other cops. The Atlantic City cops. The boys from Major Crimes.”
“I don’t know them. I’m from New York.”
“Yes, but ...”
“But what?”
“They weren’t following me.”
“No one’s been following you but me.”
“You sure?”
“Hey. I’m a cop. I can spot a tail. Aside from me, you’ve been clean.”
I told you I’m a slow take. The fact is, I said it again, just to nail it down.
“Then ... the cops ... weren’t ... following me.”
“No.”
I blinked twice. “Jesus Christ!”
“What?”
“I could have been killed!”
MacAullif nodded. “That seems entirely likely.”
I felt completely numb. “Good lord,” I murmured. My knees felt wobbly. “Excuse me,” I said, “but I’m going to sit down.”
I did. I was sorry to plummet so in MacAullif’s estimation, but there was no help for it.
MacAullif grinned. “Ah! The old post-lookin’-down-the-mouth-of-the-gun-barrel syndrome. Don’t worry. Cops get it, too. Rookies and veterans. Maybe not quite so dramatically, but they do.”
I remembered something. “Oh, shit,” I said.
“What?”
I reached in my inside jacket pocket. “Here’s a trick I learned from you,” I told him. I tugged it out.
“What’s that?”
“It’s a pocket dictaphone. My wife gave it to me last Christmas. I’m supposed to be writing the great American novel with it.”
“Any luck?”
“Naw, it inhibits me. I can’t think of what to say. This is the first time I used it.”
I was glad about the dictaphone. It gave me something to do and something to talk about. Something mindless. Something mechanical.
I switched it off, ran it back a bit.
“Let’s see if it came out.”
I stopped it. Put it on play.
MacAullif’s voice came over loud and clear, saying, “Ah! The old post-lookin’-down-the-mouth-of-the-gun-barrel syndrome.”
I clicked it off.
“Came out great,” I said.
“Yeah, nice work,” MacAullif said. “But you gotta run it back and knock off the end of it.”
“Why? Just ’cause I come off like a chickenshit asshole?”
“Don’t be stupid,” MacAullif said. “I’m sure they know that already. The thing is, I don’t want them to know I was here.”
“Why not?”
“You’re bein’ stupid again.” MacAullif spoke slowly and evenly, as if addressing a child. “My name is MacAullif. Why am I down here? The boys from Major Crimes aren’t stupid. I don’t want them getting a lead to my daughter.”
“Right,” I said. “I’m sorry. I guess looking at a gun kind of scrambles my wits.”
“You didn’t have much to start with,” MacAullif said. “Just run it back and erase it.”
“O. K.,” I said. “We’re gonna have to be quiet when I do. The only way to erase is to record, and the mike picks up everything, regardless of what the volume’s set at. So when I switch it on, we can’t talk.”
“Probably a blessing,” MacAullif said.
I ran it back to just before MacAullif knocked Minton on the head.
“Leave in the sound of the blow,” MacAullif said.
“Why?”
“You knocked him out, then you switched off the machine.”
“You think the cops are gonna buy that?”
“No, but it’s the best story you got. And they can’t disprove it. You leave out the blow, and the whole thing sounds fishy as hell.”
I left in the sound of the blow. I switched the recorder on. MacAullif and I stood in silence for a couple of minutes. I switched it off record and put it on play. Dead air. I’d gone far enough. I switched it off and hit rewind to send the tape back to the top of the reel.
“O. K.,” MacAullif said. “Now, we’re lucky the son of a bitch didn’t mention Harold. If he had, we have to ditch the tape. The way things stand, it’s fine.” He looked at me. “So the son of a bitch I.D.’d you instead of Harold?”
“Yeah.”
“That was stupid. But if he wasn’t stupid, you wouldn’t have caught him. All right. The way things stand, there’s no reason Harold’s name should come up. It’s peripheral and it’s not important. If Minton mentions him, well, there’s nothing we can do about that, but there’s no reason why he should, and even if he does, the cops aren’t gonna pay that much attention. We got Minton dead to rights. So the only problem we got is the felony rap they got on you for grabbing those pix.”
“No problem. I can handle that.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah, I’m sure. I’m handing them a murderer. They’re gonna let the pix slide. Particularly if I give ’em the pictures back.”
“Most of the pictures,” MacAullif said.
“Absolutely.”
“O.K.,” MacAullif said. “You gotta call the cops, and I gotta get out of here. Now tell me, where do Harold and Barbara stand?”
“At the moment they stand nowhere, but they’re gonna get their best shot. They’ve both had the shit scared out of them. They’re gonna need help, and they’re gonna find they got no one to cling to but each other.”
“How do you know that?” MacAullif said.
“Well, Harold’s little playmate’s on her way home to Salt Lake City under an assumed name. The cops won’t find her and Harold won’t find her. She’s out of it.”
“And Barbara’s friend?”
“Barbara’s friend is out of it, too. He just doesn’t know it yet.”
“O.K.,” MacAullif said. “Now I gotta go. There’s a pay phone on the corner. I’ll watch this bird just to make sure he doesn’t come to while you call the cops. As soon as you come back I’ll take off.”
“Fine.”
“And listen,” MacAullif said. “Hey. Thanks a lot.”
“Don’t mention it,” I told him.
“Can you handle everything?” MacAullif said. “Is there anything you need?”
I thought a moment. “Yeah. Yeah, there is.”
“What?”
“The gun you bopped Minton with. Is that your police issue?”
“Shit, no,” MacAullif said. “On a job like this I carry my own piece.”
“Fine,” I said. “Look. I’m staying at the Comfort Inn on Route 30. On your way out of town just put it in a box with my name on it and leave it at the desk.”
MacAullif looked at me. “You serious?”
“Absolutely,” I told him.
“O.K.,” he said. “Anything else?”
“Yeah,” I said.
“What’s that?”
“Take the bullets out of it, would you? I don’t wanna shoot myself in the leg.”
39.
I WAS FULFILLING a life-long fantasy. It was something I’d always dreamed of doing. It was something I’d been reading about in detective stories all my life. The hero captures the bad guy single-handed, ties him hand and foot, and calls the cops to come pick him up.
Of course, I hadn’t really captured Minton single-handed, but the cops didn’t know that. They suspected it, bu
t they didn’t know it.
Barnes switched the recorder off and cocked his head at me.
“The end of this recordings been erased,” he said.
“Oh, really?” I said.
“Yeah, really. The mike is on, but there’s nothing happening. The recording has been recorded over. It’s been erased. It’s just dead air.”
“Of course, it’s dead air,” I said. “After I hit Minton, who was I gonna talk to?”
Barnes shook his head. “No, no, no. It’s been erased. You can tell the difference. There’s a click. The click of the recorder being switched on when you recorded over the end.”
“Or maybe that’s the click of me shutting it off,” I said.
“And then what’s the recording beyond there?”
“Oh, something I recorded at another time,” I said. “Perhaps when I was working on a book. That’s what my wife gave me this thing for, you see. To write books.”
“Is it your usual practice to record long passages of dead air?” Barnes asked.
“Well, my thought process is sometimes a little slow.”
“You can say that again.”
We were standing near the mouth of the alley. Preston came out along with two officers leading the handcuffed Minton. They stuck him in the back of a patrol car. The cops got in and drove off. Preston walked up to us.
“Clam got anything to say?” Preston asked.
“He not only says it, he taped it,” Barnes said. “You can have a listen yourself when we get back.”
“Any good?” Preston asked.
“Not bad. It fries Minton’s ass.”
“I’m sure it does. So the clam came through, huh?”
“Well, I’m sure he had help,” Barnes said. “The thing is, he erased the end of the tape recording, so we’ll never know. So I guess we have to credit him with the collar.”
“I suppose so. Though you know and I know this guy would have trouble bringing back a runaway three-year-old.”
“May I say something?” I said.
“Boy, the clam’s talkative,” Preston said.
“It’s the thrill of the capture,” Barnes said. “Does it every time.”
“What do you want to say, clam?”
