Blood on Their Hands (Mystery Writers of America Presents: MWA Classics)

by Brendan DuBois

  Look there, one VC said. “Mister macho man struts his stuff.’’

  A laugh. “Sure does look ridiculous, doesn’t it?”

  “That’s his whole image, man. Macho high-tech warrior. Keen mind and buff body. Not afraid of anything in the business world, not afraid of anything else as well.”

  “Is it true he challenged Ellison to a boxing match?”

  The second VC guy laughed again. “Yep. Said something like sailing was one thing, but getting into a ring and pounding somebody else’s head in was something else. Lucky for both of them, Ellison ignored him.”

  Out on the field, a scrimmage as such was going on, a touch football game it looked like, with guys and even some gals out there, running plays. Hank was the centerpiece, the quarterback, tossing the ball with accuracy to his workers downfield. She smiled at seeing the lumbering form of dear old Jess, being the good employee, trying to fit in with the team.

  The first VC said, “How much practice did it take for him to make those plays?”

  “Who knows? But that’s Hank Zamett. Take away his macho guy image, and he’s just another high-tech geek looking to make a buck, one of thousands.”

  “Yeah, looking to make a buck with our help.”

  “Sure, but—”

  And Laura didn’t hear the rest of the conversation. The game was suddenly over. The people of Zamett Systems were clustered about a form on the ground, a man who wasn’t moving, a man who looked like—

  “Jess!” she screamed, dropping her drink, running up to the field, running up to where Jess’s poor young heart had just given out.

  The sound of the shot caused her ears to ring, and she grinned at Hank. “Man, that sucker sure was loud. You see, every other time I’ve pulled the trigger, I’ve had ear protection. How are you doing?”

  Hank’s face was now the color of his tank-top T-shirt. “Laura...”

  She looked on the carpeted floor, and then quickly bent down and picked up the spent cartridge. It was still warm. “There. I know how particular you can be about your surroundings. And sorry about the window and all that, but I had to get your attention. Do you see my point, Hank?”

  A tiny nod. She waved the pistol at him. “I’m sorry, Hank. How about a word or two tossed my way? Okay?”

  He said quickly, “I understand.”

  She tried a smile. “Oh, that’s pretty good, Hank. But I don’t think you do understand. I don’t think you understand what it’s like to be a widow at my age, to see her husband pour his life—his honest-to-God life—into a company, and to see him die for his efforts. For that’s what happened, right? You worked and worked and worked poor Jess to death, and for what? This fancy house? This office? Your company?”

  Hank said not a word. She shifted in her chair. “And what did you think I was going to do? Play the grieving widow and go away and hide? After what you did to him?”

  He started speaking slowly, as if afraid the wrong phrase, the wrong syllable, would cause another shot to ring out. “Laura, I do understand. Honest. And no doubt I was too harsh and too business-like in settling Jess’s affairs with the company. But we can go beyond that. Honest we can.”

  Laura said, “Oh, yes, before this night is over, we are certainly going beyond that.”

  And she fired again.

  Earlier in her life she had never quite understood the phrase “one day at a time,” or “getting through it, hour by hour.” Laura had never really had any tragedy or misfortune come by her way, and it had seemed like an incredibly complex joke, until that long weepy afternoon, the day after Jess’s funeral, when she realized that This Was It. Never again would she hear his voice, never again would she feel his lips against the back of her neck, never again would she wake up in the middle of the night from a bad dream and be comforted by his gentle, slumbering presence next to her.

  That’s when she would sit on the couch and stare at the blank television screen, and the light green numbers on the DVD player. Watching each minute flick by on the clock seemed to take hours, and it both fascinated and horrified her, that this deep grief, this dark mourning, could seem to take so long. Her days were interrupted by phone calls, by friends and family stopping by, and she would watch herself talk to these people, like she was standing just above and behind her body, quietly admiring how she could talk without breaking down in tears.

  But the tears did come. A week after the funeral, an embarrassed-looking teenage boy, wearing a blue, ill-fitting security uniform, came by with a cardboard box with Jess’s possessions. There weren’t that many items in the box, and the young boy shoved a bunch of papers and receipts to sign—which she did, automatically—and after he left, she sat down, cross-legged on the floor, to go through them. There were some pens and pencils, a plastic lunch container, some of his own books, and at the bottom, tumbled and broken and shattered, were all the little bits of pottery she had given to him as gifts over the month.

  That day, she had cried for a very long time.

  “So,” Laura said, looking at the corner of the office, where broken colored glass was now spread across the floor. “I guess I took out that lamp shade over there. It looked like a Tiffany. Am I right?”

  Hank nodded, lips clenched tight, his hands now trembling on top of his desk.

  Laura went on. “Not a bad guess on my part. And I suppose I should have been a better guesser, back when you sent that poor kid over with Jess’s stuff. Right? I mean, I should have guessed that hidden in all that paperwork that was sent over would be some release forms. Of course. Absolving you and the company of any guilt in Jess’s death, making sure that any and all projects that Jess worked on, that Jess dreamed up and designed, all those projects belonged to you and the company. One hundred percent. That I wouldn’t get a single penny. Tell me, Hank, is that the usual cost of doing business? Working your people to death? Cheating the widow of one of your brightest stars? Is that what you do, day in and day out?”

  Hank cleared his throat, seemed to choke, and then cleared his throat again. “It was all legal. Strictly legal.”

  Laura steadied the pistol again in her hands. “Sure it was. But was it right, Hank? Was it?”

  He didn’t say anything.

  Her own lawyer was a retired district court judge, Leo Cutler, specializing in wills and divorces, and he had no good news for her the day she saw him.

  “I’m very sorry, Mrs. Cutler, but the forms you signed were all drawn up correctly. We may have a case that you signed these forms under mental duress, but it could be a very long and drawn-out affair. Zamett Systems has a high-powered legal team in their corner. They could bury you with years’ worth of motions and countersuits.”

  She sat stiffly in the chair, hands folded in her lap. “Are you suggesting I drop it?”

  The older man shook his head. “No, I’m just telling you that the chances of success are quite slim. I don’t think we have a chance.”

  Laura stood up. “All right, then. I’ll do it myself.”

  Leo look confused. “Do what?”

  As she walked out the door, she said, “Make one more gift. For Jess.”

  She took a breath, stood up, and was pleased again to see the flash of fear in the man’s eyes. She drew down the pistol to his chest and said, “This is it, Hank. I’ve already wasted two rounds on you, and I’m not going to waste any more. Any last words?”

  A whisper. “No.”

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t hear you. What did you say?”

  Tears were now forming in his eyes. “Please, Laura...don’t.”

  “Don’t do what?”

  “Don’t shoot me! Please!”

  Laura said, “Go on, Hank. Now you’re making an impression. Keep on begging. I like the sound of that.”

  Now the tears were going down his red cheeks. “Please don’t shoot me! I beg you! Please! I don’t want to get shot...please, for the love of God, Laura, please don’t shoot me...I’ll make it all up to you, honest to God I will…”


  Laura leaned over the desk. “Like you did to my husband? Like that?”

  He shook his head violently, weeping, snot now dribbling out of his nose. “That was wrong...I know it was...Laura, please, I beg you, please don’t shoot me.”

  She said, “Give me one more round of begging, Hank. Tell me what a miserable son of a bitch you are. Tell me how you hurt people.”

  Hank nodded frantically. “That’s right, that’s right. I am a miserable son of a bitch. A weak bastard who hurts people, day in and day out. I swear to God I’m sorry. I won’t do it again. I swear I won’t. Laura, just...please don’t shoot me...I don’t want to die!”

  Now she was really smiling, and even though the pistol was double-action, she thumbed back the hammer for emphasis.

  Hank started screeching. “You promised! You promised you wouldn’t hurt me! You promised!”

  “No, Hank,” she said calmly. “I just asked you to give me one more round of begging. I didn’t promise you a damn thing.”

  And she kept the pistol aimed center at his chest, as she pulled the trigger back, as fast as she could, the explosions sounding even louder in the office.

  All things considered, the police were very polite, and only toward the end, when she had signed all the necessary paperwork for the bail bondsmen, did her younger brother Jake come in to see her. She got up from the interview chair and kissed him on the cheek, and he started talking and she said, “Jake, please, no lectures tonight. All right? I’m quite tired. I just want to go home.”

  He glared at her as he looked at some paperwork on a clipboard. “You’re a lucky woman.”

  “So I’ve been told.”

  “Hank Zamett is still deciding on whether to press charges on you for assault, and the department is still deciding on whether to charge you with reckless discharge of a firearm.”

  She said innocently, “Is there a law against discharging blank cartridges?”

  The glare continued. “That was dumb and out of line, Laura. Bad enough you had to fire off two real ones in his office. When you fired off those blanks, you damn near gave him a heart attack. Why? For Jess?”

  “No,” she said. “For me. Look, can I go?”

  He turned to the door. “Sure. I’ll drive you home.”

  “Thanks.”

  Late at night, she sat before Jess’s computer, her pottery-worn fingers tapping hesitantly at the keyboard, gently moving the mouse around, trying to get the files ready, the files she was getting ready to post and e-mail around the world. On one of the little graphics on the screen—icons, right?—she double-clicked on the mouse, and a miniature movie screen popped up on the computer. There, in full sound and color, was Hank Zamett, macho man who was afraid of nothing, whimpering and begging like a baby boy.

  Fair enough. Came out nice. She did what she had to do, and in an instant, it was all sent out across the Internet. Very shortly, millions of people around the world could see Hank Zamett in action, a type of action that she was certain would drive him and his business into dust.

  She sat back in Jess’s chair, rubbed at the armrests, imagined she could almost make out his scent there. Oh, Jess, she thought. I do miss you so.

  She moved the chair about and then picked up a piece of pottery. Some hours ago it had been on Hank Zamett’s desk, and only through some judicious moves on her part was she able to retrieve it and put it in her purse before the cops arrived. She tilted the pot and looked inside, at the electronics gear that enabled this little piece of hers to act like a surveillance camera, a camera that had been in a perfect place to catch Hank in all his glory.

  Laura brought the pot up to her lips, kissed it gently. “For you, love,” she whispered. “One more gift for you.”

  Jojo’s Gold

  Noreen Ayers

  “All you turkeys is just narrow-minded. You got no power o’ vision,” JoJo said. JoJo had this big idea he could find gold ore beneath the sand on the beach. I could not hold that against him. Every man must have his dream. But JoJo’s dream turned him into the devil’s own target.

  I get ahead of myself. You have to understand how we were together, what a team the four of us made, how that makes what happened all the more a cause for grief.

  Cindylee was of our company. Cindylee would listen to JoJo go on about the gold, then say, “You got the IQ of a watermelon, JoJo.”

  He would just eat it up. There she’d be, standing with the wind whipping her skirt, pasting her hair to her cheek. She’d be eating an apple and spitting out wrinkled peel she didn’t like.

  And Buddy, he’d be all casual laid out on his army blanket spread there on the sand, and he wouldn’t even look over, just tell JoJo he was a sun-fried fool.

  JoJo would pluck a bottle cap off the bottom of his metal detector, toss it toward Cindylee, and wait for that cockeyed smile where her lips disappear but her eyes glow with sea-shine. Then off he’d go, waltzing with that widget he thought was his gold-finder but to us looked like a saucer on a broomstick.

  Each of us, we had our talents. That’s what made us stand alone or stand together, did not matter at all. Cindylee could find clothes by just snapping her fingers. People leave clothes on benches, window ledges, over tree limbs, as if they know Cindylee will be coming along when she is in the right need for something to wear.

  Buddy now, I swear: Dollar bills sail through the air and into his hand like paper airplanes. Pay phones spit out quarters when he passes by. Folks with holes in their pockets and hay in their heads stroll along the edge of the sand in front of him, dropping coins in his path. That’s Buddy.

  Now me, I got a good eye for recyclables. Once I carried a chair which was right out there on Coast Highway where anybody could have grabbed it, carried it down to the thrift store and got a whole twenty bucks for it. I can spy a mess of bottles from a mile away. I scrounge for stuff left out for trash pickup that the city sure don’t need.

  And JoJo? He could stash more stuff in his beat-up golf bag than marbles in a gunny sack. He could turn a profit on wire coat hangers, old cans, and car keys. What he’d do, he’d sell them to an artist in Laguna, and this artist would make tinkling mobiles out of them to sell to the tourists as if they had never seen a thing so clever. If only JoJo hadn’t gone and got greedy, we would all be back to those heavenly days.

  It started when JoJo made off with a book on minerals last June. He used to lift books out of the library, see. Not a thief, no no. But if you don’t have an address, you can’t get a library card. So yes, JoJo would filch books, but the thing was, he always brought them back in when he was done. Then the library went and put in those electronic doodads that could spot a gnat’s knuckle. The result of which was to make JoJo stop bringing books back. So you could say the library itself contributed to the crime. He could get them out all right, because he’d just open a back window and drop them to the ground, but throwing them back up was not a viable option, as the businessmen say.

  Anyway, that book on minerals he did not return, and this is what he learned: Salt domes form around oil deposits. “What’s in the ocean?” he says.

  Fish and garbage, we say.

  “In the water,” he says, like a chemist. “Salt,” he says. He figures if oil is attracted to salt, then there’s a chance gold and other precious ores would be too. Figure out where the salt domes are under the sand, then tell the mining companies. The mining companies could dig it out, JoJo would collect a finder’s fee, and we could all be in tall cotton.

  I said, “I don’t see no salt domes, JoJo.”

  “Dunes are domes, dummy,” and JoJo liked the sound of that, and we all laughed. Dunes are domes, dummy. “It’s here, boys,” he’d say. Boys, even though there was Cindylee. “It’s here,” he said, “I just hafta find it.”

  “Always you just hafta find it, you numbskull,” Buddy said, who never had more than a dishwashing job in the last thirty years, but what he did own was opinions.

  It would go on like that, our bunch hunkered down a
t the spot we called The Place by the foot of the cliff near the Hotel Laguna. Movie stars used to stay at that hotel. It’s got a tower, a red Spanish-tile roof, and a private stretch of white sand marked off by signs with hardly anybody on it. Every morning we’d meet up just the other side of that stretch, smoke a cigarette, and talk our talk, and then JoJo would haul out his detector from his golf bag and go out on his skinny legs till he was no bigger than a gull in our sight. We’d watch him swing that chunk of steel over the sand like a slow man sweeping a rug that’s already been swept. Then the rest of us would pool our pennies for half a six-pack to kick off the morning. We would split up then and meet back at The Place a couple hours later.

  So this one day we were lounging around on some ratty towels the laundry boy from the hotel let us have, and here come JoJo walking his metal detector like a pup on a string. He had on a new pair of pants and redder-’n-hell suspenders, but the same old lop-eared boots.

  “So JoJo,” Cindylee says while putting on her second sweater because it was a chill April. She’s about forty—younger than us, but not as good lookin’. “You among the wealthy yet?”

  “Who says I can’t find gold on the beach?” He holds out his wrist and shows us a thing gleaming.

  Buddy gets up for a look. “Holy crackers,” he says—Buddy’s religious. It’s a Rolex, or I’m a blind surgeon.” It was a watch all right, but I can’t tell a Rolex from a Rolaid, so I said the smart thing, which is no-thing.

  JoJo commenced to tell how he come by it. “Down by those hangover houses is where I found it.” He looks at Cindylee. “One of us could wear it once in a while,” he says.

  “You could put a poster up, offer a reward,” Buddy says. “Now why would I do that?”