by Otto Penzler
He shrugged; he looked very different in his short hair. “He’s kind of abusive. He don’t yell at her, but just looking at them, you can see him glaring at her all the time, real ugly. Saying things that hurt her.”
“She doesn’t stand up to him?”
He shook his head, no. “They’re very one-sided arguments. He either sits there and ignores her or he’s giving her foul looks and it looks like he’s chewing her out or something.”
“Sounds like a sweet guy.”
“After the drinking and dining and dancing, they head to the bar. Both nights so far, she’s gone off to bed around eleven and he’s stayed and shut the joint down.”
“Good. That means he’s alone when he walks back to their cabin.”
Adam nodded. “But this place is crawlin’ with people.”
“Not at two in the morning. Most of these people are sleeping or fucking by then.”
“Maybe so. He’s got a fancy watch, some heavy gold jewelry.”
“Well that’s very good. Now we got ourselves a motive.”
“But she’s the one with jewels.” He whistled. “You should see the rocks hanging off that dame.”
“Well, we aren’t interested in those.”
“What about the stuff you steal off him? Just toss it somewhere?”
“Hell, no! Broker’ll have it fenced for us. A little extra dough for our trouble.”
He grinned. “Great. This is easy money. Vacation with pay.”
“Don’t ever think that…don’t ever let your guard down.”
“I know that,” he said defensively.
“It’s unlucky to think that way,” I said, and knocked on wood. Real wood.
—
We met up with Betty and Veronica at the dance; I took Betty because Adam was into knockers and Veronica had them. Betty was pleasant company, but I wasn’t listening to her babble. I was keeping an eye on the Bennedicts, who were seated at a corner table under a Buffalo head.
He really was an asshole. You could tell, by the way he sneered at her and spit sentences out at her, that he’d spent a lifetime—or at least a marriage—making her miserable. His hatred for her was something you could see as well as sense, like steam over asphalt. She was taking it placidly. Cool as Cher while Sonny prattled on.
But I had a hunch she usually took it more personally. Right now she could be placid: she knew the son of a bitch was going to die this weekend.
“Did you ever do Lauderdale?” Betty was saying. “I got so drunk there….”
The band was playing “Crazy” and a decent girl singer was doing a respectable Patsy Cline. What a great song.
I said, “I won a chug-a-lug contest at Boonie’s in ’72.”
Betty was impressed. “Were you even in college then?”
“No. I had a hell of a fake I.D., though.”
“Bitchen!”
Around eleven, the band took a break and we walked the girls to their cabins, hand in hand, like high school sweethearts. Gas lanterns on poles scorched the night orangely; a half-moon threw some silvery light on us, too. Adam disappeared around the side of the cabin with Veronica and I stood and watched Betty beam at me and rock girlishly on her heels. She smelled of perfume and beer, which mingled with the scent of pines; it was more pleasant than it sounds.
She was making with the dimples. “You’re so nice.”
“Well thanks.”
“And I’m a good judge of character.”
“I bet you are.”
Then she put her arms around me and pressed her slim frame to me and put her tongue half-way down my throat.
She pulled herself away and smiled coquetishly and said, “That’s all you get tonight. See you tomorrow.”
As if on cue, Veronica appeared with her lipstick mussed up and her sweater askew.
“Good night, boys,” Veronica said, and they slipped inside, giggling like the school girls they were.
“Fuck,” Adam said, scowling. “All I got was a little bare tit.”
“Not so little.”
“I thought I was gonna get laid.”
I shrugged. “Instead you got screwed.”
We walked. We passed a cabin that was getting some remodeling and repairs; I’d noticed it earlier. A ladder was leaned up against the side, for some re-roofing. Adam made a wide circle around the ladder. I walked under it just to watch him squirm.
When I fell back in step with him, he said, “You gonna do the hit tonight?”
“No.”
“Bar closes at midnight on Sundays. Gonna do it then?”
“Yes.”
He sighed. “Good.”
We walked, and it was the place where one path went toward my cabin, and another toward his.
“Well,” he said, “maybe I’ll get lucky tomorrow night.”
“No pick-ups the night of the hit. I need back-up more than either of us needs an alibi, or an easy fuck, either.”
“Oh. Of course. You’re right. Sorry. ‘Night.”
“ ’Night, Bill.”
Then I went back and picked up the waitress cowgirl and took her to my cabin; she had some dope in her purse, and I smoked a little with her, just to be nice, and apologized for not having a rubber, and she said, Don’t sweat it, pardner, I’m on the pill, and she rode me in her cowboy boots until my dick said yahoo.
—
The next morning I had breakfast in the cafe with Adam and he seemed preoccupied as I ate my scrambled eggs and bacon, and he poked at his French toast.
“Bill,” I said. “What’s wrong?”
“I’m worried.”
“What about?”
We were seated in a rough-wood booth and had plenty of privacy; we kept our voices down. Our conversation, after all, wasn’t really proper breakfast conversation.
“I don’t think you should hit him like that.”
“Like what?”
He frowned. “On his way back to his cabin after the bar closes.”
“Oh? Why?”
“He might not be drunk enough. Bar closes early Sunday night, remember? ”
“Jesus,” I said. “The fucker starts drinking at noon. What more do you want?”
“But there could be people around.”
“At midnight?”
“It’s a resort. People get romantic at resorts. Moonlight strolls…”
“You got a better idea?”
He nodded. “Do it in his room. Take the wife’s jewels and it’s a robbery got out of hand. In and out. No fuss, no muss.”
“Are you high? What about the wife?”
“She won’t be there.”
“What are you talking about?”
He started gesturing, earnestly. “She gets worried about him, see. It’s midnight, and she goes looking for him. While she’s gone, he gets back, flops on the bed, you come in, bing bang boom.”
I just looked at him. “Are you psychic now? How do we know she’ll do that?”
He swallowed; took a nibble at a forkful of syrup-dripping French toast. Smiled kind of nervously.
“She told me so,” he said.
We were walking now. The sun was filtering through the trees and birds were chirping and the sounds of children laughing wafted through the air.
“Are you fucking nuts? Making contact with the client?”
“Quarry—she contacted me! I swear!”
“Then she’s fucking nuts. Jesus!” I sat on a bench by a flower bed. “It’s off. I’m calling the Broker. It’s over.”
“Listen to me! Listen. She was waiting for me at my cabin last night. After we struck out with the college girls? She was fuckin’ waitin’ for me! She told me she knew who I was.”
“How did she know that?”
“She said she saw me watching them. She figured it out. She guessed.”
“And, of course, you confirmed her suspicions.”
He swallowed. “Yeah.”
“You dumb-ass dickhead. Who said it first?”
“
Who said what first?”
“Who mentioned ‘killing.’ Who mentioned ‘murder.’ ”
His cheek twitched. “Well…me, I guess. She kept saying she knew why I was here. And then she said, I’m why you’re here. I hired you.”
“And you copped to it. God. I’m on the next bus.”
“Quarry! Listen…this is better this way. This is much better.”
“What did she do, fuck you?”
He blanched; looked at his feet.
“Oh God,” I said. “You did get lucky last night. Fuck. You fucked the client. Did you tell her there were two of us?”
“No.”
“She’s seen us together.”
“I told her you’re just a guy I latched onto here to look less conspicuous.”
“Did she buy it?”
“Why shouldn’t she? I say we scrap Plan A and move to Plan B. It’s better.”
“Plan B being…?”
“Quarry, she’s going to leave the door unlocked. She’ll wait for him to get back from the bar, and when he’s asleep, she’ll unlock the door, go out and pretend to be looking for him, and come back and find him dead, and her jewels gone. Help-police-I-been-robbed-my-husband’s-been-shot. You know.”
“She’s being pretty fucking helpful, you ask me.”
His face clenched like a fist. “The bastard has beat her for years. And he’s got a girl friend a third his age. He’s been threatening to divorce her, and since they signed a pre-marital agreement, she gets jackshit, if they divorce. The bastard.”
“Quite a sob story.”
“I told you: we’re doing the world a favor. And now she’s doing us one. Why shoot him right out in the open, when we can walk in his room and do it? You got to stick this out, Quarry. Shit, man, it’s five grand apiece, and change!”
I thought about it.
“Quarry?”
I’d been thinking a long time.
“Okay,” I said. “Give her the high sign. We’ll do it her way.”
—
The Bar W Bar was a cozy rustic room decorated with framed photos of movie cowboys from Ken Maynard to John Wayne, from Audie Murphy to the Man with No Name. On a brown mock-leather stool up at the bar, Baxter Bennedict sat, a thin handsome drunk in a pale blue polyester sportcoat and pale yellow Ban-Lon sportshirt, gulping martinis and telling anyone who’d listen his sad story.
I didn’t sit near enough to be part of the conversation, but I could hear him.
“Milking me fucking dry,” he was saying. “You’d think with sixteen goddamn locations, I’d be sitting pretty. I was the first guy in the Chicago area to offer a paint job under thirty dollars—$29.95! That’s a good fucking deal—isn’t it?”
The bartender—a young fellow in a buckskin vest, polishing a glass—nodded sympathetically.
“Now this competition. Killing me. What the fuck kind of paint job can you get for $19.99? Will you answer me that one? And now that bitch has the nerve…”
Now he was muttering. The bartender began to move away, but Baxter started in again.
“She wants me to sell! My life’s work. Started from nothing. And she wants me to sell! Pitiful fucking money they offered. Pitiful…”
“Last call, Mr. Bennedict,” the bartender said. Then he repeated it, louder, without the “Mr. Bennedict.” The place was only moderately busy. A few couples. A solitary drinker or two. The Wistful Wagon Lodge had emptied out, largely, this afternoon—even Betty and Veronica were gone. Sunday. People had to go to work tomorrow. Except, of course, for those who owned their own businesses, like Baxter here.
Or had unusual professions, like mine.
I waited until the slender figure had stumbled half-way home before I approached him. No one was around. The nearest cabin was dark.
“Mr. Bennedict,” I said.
“Yeah?” He turned, trying to focus his bleary eyes.
“I couldn’t help but hear what you said. I think I have a solution for your problems.”
“Yeah?” He grinned. “And what the hell would that be?”
He walked, on the unsteadiest of legs, up to me.
I showed him the nine millimeter with its bulky sound suppresser. It probably looked like a ray gun to him.
“Fuck! What is this, a fucking hold-up?”
“Yes. Keep your voice down or it’ll turn into a fucking homicide. Got me?”
That turned him sober. “Got you. What do you want?”
“What do you think? Your watch and your rings.”
He smirked disgustedly and removed them; handed them over.
“Now your sports coat.”
“My what?”
“Your sports coat. I just can’t get enough polyester.”
He snorted a laugh. “You’re out of your gourd, pal.”
He slipped off the sports coat and handed it out toward me with two fingers; he was weaving a little, smirking drunkenly.
I took the coat with my left hand, and the silenced nine millimeter went thup thup thup; three small, brilliant blossoms of red appeared on his light yellow Ban-Lon. He was dead before he had time to think about it.
I dragged his body behind a clump of trees and left him there, his worries behind him.
—
I watched from behind a tree as Bernice Bennedict slipped out of their cabin; she was wearing a dark halter top and dark slacks that almost blended with her burnt-black skin, making a wraith of her. She had a big white handbag on a shoulder strap. She was so dark the white bag seemed to float in space as she headed toward the lodge.
Only she stopped and found her own tree to duck behind. I smiled to myself.
Then, wearing the pale blue polyester sports coat, I entered their cabin, through the door she’d left open. The room was completely dark but for some minor filtering in of light through curtained windows. I quickly arranged some pillows under sheets and covers, to create the impression of a person in the bed.
And I called Adam’s cabin.
“Hey, Bill,” I said. “It’s Jim.”
His voice was breathless. “Is it done?”
“No. I got cornered coming out of the bar by that waitress I was out with last night. She latched onto me—she’s in my john.”
“What, are you in your room?”
“Yeah. I saw Bennedict leave the bar at midnight, and his wife passed us, heading for the lodge, just minutes ago. You’ve got a clear shot at him.”
“What? Me? I’m the fucking lookout!”
“Tonight’s the night and we go to Plan C.”
“I didn’t know there was a Plan C.”
“Listen, asshole—it was you who wanted to switch plans. You’ve got a piece, don’t you?”
“Of course…”
“Well, you’re elected. Go!”
And I hung up.
I stood in the doorway of the bathroom, which faced the bed. I sure as hell didn’t turn any lights on, although my left hand hovered by the switch. The nine millimeter with the silencer was heavy in my right hand. But I didn’t mind.
Adam came in quickly and didn’t do too bad a job of it: four silenced slugs. He should have checked the body—it never occurred to him he’d just slaughtered a bunch of pillows—but if somebody had been in that bed, they’d have been dead.
He went to the dresser where he knew the jewels would be, and was picking up the jewelry box when the door opened and she came in, the little revolver already in her hand.
Before she could fire, I turned on the bathroom light and said, “If I don’t hear the gun hit the floor immediately, you’re fucking dead.”
She was just a black shape, except for the white handbag; but I saw the flash of silver as the gun bounced to the carpeted floor.
“What…?” Adam was saying. It was too dark to see any expression, but he was obviously as confused as he was spooked.
“Shut the door, lady,” I said, “and turn on the lights.”
She did.
She really was a beautiful woman, or
had been, dark eyes and scarlet-painted mouth in that finely carved model’s face, but it was just a leathery mask to me.
“What…” Adam said. He looked shocked as hell, which made sense; the gun was in his waistband, the jewelry box in his hands.
“You didn’t know there were two of us, did you, Mrs. Bennedict?”
She was sneering faintly; she shook her head, no.
“You see, kid,” I told Adam, “she wanted her husband hit, but she wanted the hitman dead, too. Cleaner. Tidier. Right?”
“Fuck you,” she said.
“I’m not much for sloppy seconds, thanks. Bet you got a nice legal license for that little purse pea-shooter of yours, don’t you? Perfect protection for when you stumble in on an intruder who’s just killed your loving husband. Who is dead, by the way. Somebody’ll run across him in the morning, probably.”
“You bitch!” Adam said. He raised his own gun, which was a .38 Browning with a home-made suppresser.
“Don’t you know it’s bad luck to kill a woman?” I said.
She was frozen, one eye twitching.
Adam was trembling. He swallowed; nodded. “Okay,” he said, lowering the gun. “Okay.”
“Go,” I told him.
She stepped aside as he slipped out the door, shutting it behind him.
“Thank you,” she said, and I shot her twice in the chest.
I slipped the bulky silenced automatic in my waistband; grabbed the jewel box off the dresser.
“I make my own luck,” I told her, but she didn’t hear me, as I stepped over her.
—
I never worked with Adam again. I think he was disturbed, when he read the papers and realized I’d iced the woman after all. Maybe he got out of the business. Or maybe he wound up dead in a ditch, his lucky skull ring still on his little finger. Broker never said, and I was never interested enough to ask.
Now, years later, lounging in the hot tub at Sylvan Lodge, I look back on my actions and wonder how I could have ever have been so young, and so rash.
Killing the woman was understandable. She’d double-crossed us; she would’ve killed us both without batting a false lash.
But sleeping with that cowgirl waitress, on the job. Smoking dope. Not using a rubber.
I was really pushing my luck that time.
Villain: Mr. Smith
The Partnership
DAVID MORRELL
