Willows and Parker Box Set

by Laurence Gough

  Willows was less than thirty feet away, running full-tilt through the rain. Franklin, standing in the doorway, steadied himself against the jamb and took careful aim. Parker stepped around the corner and into his line of fire. The hood of her poncho had fallen back and her face, framed by her hair, was a pale, delicate oval. She was less than an arm’s length away. Franklin moved the blade front sight of the automatic across her dark green eyes, the scattering of freckles across the bridge of her nose, her tightly compressed lips, back up to her eyelashes, spiky with rain. His finger curled around the trigger, tightened imperceptibly.

  Click.

  Parker’s eyes glittered feverishly. Time arched its back and showed its teeth. Franklin slammed shut the door.

  Willows was clutching her arm, squeezing too hard, glaring at her. “Why the hell didn’t you stay up on the roof!”

  “Don’t you shout at me!” Parker screamed. She wrenched free her arm, glaring at Willows.

  Willows tore off his poncho, stuffed shells into the Remington. A cop raced down the alley towards them on his Harley, lights flashing, siren wailing maniacally. Willows heard a clunk as the cop geared down, using the transmission as a brake. The fourteen-thousand-dollar motorcycle fishtailed wildly and then dipped and went over on its side, danced across the lane in a shower of glass and metal and plastic fragments. The cop jumped clear of his bike. He landed on his back and skipped through the puddles like a stone, his Marushi crash helmet trailing a dull white smear on the asphalt.

  Willows used the barrel of the Remington gingerly to push open the warehouse door.

  “Stay here,” he said. “Cover me.”

  “To hell with you,” said Parker. She was right behind Willows as he slipped into the building. The motorcycle cop yelled something. Parker kicked the door shut.

  *

  The interior of the building was vast, dimly lit, and perfectly silent. A wide central aisle bisected the floor area. To the left there was row upon row of high steel shelves crammed with cardboard boxes roughly the size and shape of a coffin. Off to the right there was a long conveyor-belt and several large pieces of oddly shaped machinery, including something that looked to Parker like a huge mixmaster.

  At the far end of the aisle a cluster of alabaster men and alabaster women stood naked and motionless, caught in a dim circle of light. Like everything else in the building, the figures were covered in a thick layer of fine white dust.

  Mannequins. It was a mannequin factory. The creatures were seven feet tall, very thin, with smooth androgynous bodies and wedge-shaped faces that were featureless except for their outsized, brightly-coloured glass eyes.

  To Franklin, it seemed that the eyes were gazing coldly and critically down at him, following his every move. He reached out to touch one of the mannequins. Dust sloughed away like a corrupt outer layer of skin.

  Walt sneezed.

  Franklin heard the door slam shut, heard Willows throw the bolt. He eased a little deeper into the shadows, kicking up small white clouds of dust with every shuffling step he took. He inserted a fresh clip into the automatic, tickled Walt’s ear with the barrel.

  “What’s your name?”

  “Walt.”

  Franklin pressed the barrel against Walt’s cheek. “Take a deep breath, Walt, and then scream just as long and loud as you can.”

  Walt made a croaking sound.

  “Louder,” said Franklin, and tapped Walt on the bridge of his puffy alcoholic’s nose.

  Walt screamed.

  “Much louder,” said Franklin, screwing the barrel of the automatic into Walt’s eye.

  Walt screamed again, getting off a good one.

  “See what you can do when you really try?” said Franklin, patting him on the shoulder.

  Willows and Parker had taken cover on the left side of the aisle, behind the first row of steel shelves. The sound of Walt’s screams came to them clearly. “He’s up at the far end of the building,” Willows said to Parker. “I’m going to cut over to the other side, stay behind the machinery and try to outflank him. Force him down to this end. You wait right here. When you’re sure of him, take him out.”

  Parker nodded. She swung out the cylinder of her .38 and checked the load.

  “No speeches,” said Willows, wanting to make sure there was no doubt in Parker’s mind. “Don’t say a word to him. Just shoot.”

  Willows was halfway down the aisle when Franklin started throwing the eyes. The first handful fell short, hitting the concrete floor and bouncing high in the air. Willows dropped and rolled, scrambled behind one of the massive wooden posts that supported the warehouse’s roof structure. Dozens more of the eyes clattered on the cement, bounced off the machinery and steel shelves, drummed hollowly on the coffin-shaped cardboard boxes. Willows watched with a dreadful fascination as one of the eyes rolled through the dust and came to rest less than a foot away from him. The eye was exactly the same shade of blue that Dave Atkinson’s eyes had been. Willows tightened his grip on the Remington.

  Something rumbled softly in the aisle. Willows looked up and saw a handcart speeding towards him, crammed with mannequins in poses that were at the same time both coquettish and grotesque. As the mass of ivory-smooth bodies swayed and shifted in a stiff, self-conscious little dance, clouds of fine white dust boiled up in the wake of the cart. Willows jumped to his feet and peered uncertainly into the milky gloom, caught a glimpse of colour somewhere behind the confused tangle of limbs. He stepped into the aisle and fired the Remington five times in half as many seconds. Heads exploded, bodies were chopped in half, arms and legs shattered. The handcart slowed, and then stopped. Willows hop-scotched through the wreckage. A man lay on his back on the floor, fie was covered in dust, as white as a ghost.

  Jenny’s friend, Walt.

  Willows still had the Remington pointed at him when George Franklin stepped casually out from between two rows of shelves and fired from the hip, hitting Willows right in the ten ring. Willows staggered backwards. His hands clenched and unclenched spasmodically. He dropped the Remington. His knees buckled and he started to fail. Franklin shot him a second time, hitting him in the side.

  Standing in the classic shooter’s stance, her body turned slightly away from the target, legs spread wide and her weapon in a two-handed grip, Parker fired six times at a range of less than twenty feet and missed with all six shots.

  Franklin stared at her, his eyes flat and incurious, devoid of life, cold as glass. He smiled at her, and worked the bolt of the Winchester.

  Parker willed herself to move, to step back into the deeper shadows between the rows of shelves. She flipped open the cylinder of the revolver, ejected the spent shells and began to reload.

  Franklin’s attention was deflected by Walt, who was trying to get to his feet. He waited until Walt was on his hands and knees and then, still smiling, shot him through the head.

  Parker risked a quick look into the aisle. Franklin waved a plaster forearm at her. He’d tied a square of white cloth torn from his dress to the stump of the arm. Parker forced herself to keep her eyes on him, not to glance down at Willows.

  “Is it too late to give up?” said Franklin.

  “Better late than never,” said Parker. Her voice surprised her. It was weak, shaky. She wondered if she was in shock. She pointed her revolver at Franklin. He skipped back behind a row of shelves.

  Parker sat down in the dust. She rested her gun on her thigh and scrubbed her face with her hands. She knew she should keep Franklin talking, because as long as he kept talking, she’d know where he was. But he was a cop too. Wouldn’t he follow the same strategy? And if he did, who had the advantage?

  “You remember my partner,” said Franklin. “You remember Atkinson?”

  “Of course,” said Parker. She picked up the .38. It might have been nerves, or an acoustical quirk, but Franklin sounded closer. She stood up.

  “He was a real charmer, wouldn’t you agree?”

  “I wouldn’t know,” said Parker.r />
  “You went to bed with him, didn’t you?”

  “What?”

  “Come on Claire. Everybody went to bed with Dave, the women couldn’t keep their hands off him.” Franklin laughed harshly. “Why, he was even sleeping with my wife!”

  It wasn’t the acoustics, and it wasn’t her nerves. Franklin was moving in on her, inching closer with every word he spoke. Crouching, staying low, Parker backed away from the aisle. A hand suddenly slapped at her face, stiff fingers clawing at her eyes. Twisting down and away, she thrust out the revolver and pulled the trigger. The hand disintegrated in a shower of plaster dust. Parker choked back a scream.

  “You ever meet my wife?” said Franklin.

  “No.”

  “You sure about that?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “Just asking,” said Franklin mildly. “You mind if I smoke?”

  “Help yourself.”

  “Thank you,” said Franklin.

  Parker heard the rasp of a match, Franklin exhaling noisily. She knew he had to be very close, that he was waiting for her to panic and bolt into the open.

  “Dorothy is forty-three years old and maybe thirty pounds overweight,” said Franklin. “What was it about her that Dave found so attractive? I couldn’t figure it out, but finally I did. He was sticking it into me at the same time as he was screwing my wife, and that’s what really gave him a kick.”

  “How did you find out about it?” said Parker.

  “I’m a detective. It was easy. She confessed.”

  Parker had a sudden, chilling thought. “Where is Dorothy now, George?”

  “Probably stretched out on the chesterfield, watching the soaps.” A slight pause. “It was Dave I was after, not her. My only problem was how to knock him off without getting caught. I gave it a lot of thought, Claire. Finally I figured, what better way than in the middle of a homicide investigation?”

  “Except it wasn’t the middle,” said Parker. “It was only the beginning.”

  “Hey,” said Franklin, “maybe I got carried away a little, but don’t be so quick to judge. Wait’ll you try being God sometime, you’ll soon see how hard it is to stop.”

  Willows lay flat on his back in the rubble, his head cradled between a pair of hard, cold breasts. Dust had settled in his nostrils and the corners of his eyes. He concentrated on Franklin’s voice, which seemed garbled, an octave too low, like a tape recording run at the wrong speed. He saw Franklin take another tiny, mincing, cautious step towards Parker. Franklin was only a few feet away but he was too busy hunting Parker to pay any attention to Willows.

  Despite the considerable protection afforded by the multiple layers of DuPont Kevlar in Willows’ bulletproof vest, the first shot from the .460 Magnum had hit him with so much force that he’d been paralysed by the shock of impact.

  Now he was drowning in pain.

  Pain flowed in hot, undulating waves from high up in his chest, in the area of his heart. Another kind of pain, sharper and less constant, radiated from his right side. He lifted his head an inch, looking for the Remington. The broken ends of his ribs grated together so loudly that he was sure Franklin must hear them. He repressed a groan, and raised his head another fraction of an inch. The Remington was lying on the floor within easy reach, as if someone had placed it there. Franklin took another mincing step down the aisle. Willows swallowed noisily. The whining in his ears faded away, and he could suddenly understand what Franklin was saying.

  “… not that it was easy, Claire. There were a million details to work out. Where to do it. How to do it. When to do it. Not who to do it to, though.” Franklin’s giggle was high-pitched, girlish. “That’s because I always picked the names at random. You know why? Because it was fairer that way, and I wanted to be fair.” A pause. “Are you listening to me, Claire?”

  “I’m listening,” said Parker.

  “The best part, the part I enjoyed the most, was figuring out what kind of junk to leave behind for that overdressed bloodhound Goldstein to chew on, worry over. It gave me a kick, watching Goldstein waste his time.”

  “I’ll bet,” said Parker, hardly aware of what she was saying. She could hear the rasp of Franklin’s breathing, smell the smoke from his cigarette, almost hear him thinking. Her heart hammered in her chest. She was soaked in sweat, exhausted, limp. She was going to have to do something very soon, take the initiative before Franklin decided to pounce.

  “I knew Bradley’d have to stick me behind a desk after Dave got shot,” Franklin continued, “but I could hardly believe my luck when he made me assistant liaison officer, dumped me right in the middle of the whole fucking investigation.” Another fit of giggling. “From then on, I always knew exactly what everybody was up to, right down to the last detail. It was perfect.” Franklin’s voice hardened. “At least, it was perfect until you and Jack decided to set up an ambush without telling anybody about it.”

  “We tried to call you. You weren’t at the office. Nobody answered at your home number.”

  “Oh well,” said Franklin, “the main thing is that I eventually got here.” Another fit of giggling. “Better late than never.”

  Willows gritted his teeth. He pushed himself to a sitting position, forced himself to his feet.

  Franklin turned, his face slack with amazement. At the same moment, Parker stepped into the aisle and began shooting. She was so close to Franklin that the muzzle blast from her .38 charred and blackened the bodice of his white dress, and the revolver and her hands and wrists turned red with his blood.

  Franklin gave Parker a stern, disapproving look. He opened his mouth, licked his lips. Parker reached out and took the Winchester away from him. Their eyes locked. Franklin swayed, and then fell back, arms akimbo. He hit the concrete and dust flew up all around him. He shuddered, and was still. Examining the photographs the next morning, Mel Dutton would marvel at the way the dust that was everywhere had been displaced by Franklin’s falling body, pushed back so it formed a cleared space exactly the same shape but slightly larger than his corpse.

  Willows limped over, clutching his side. Together, he and Parker knelt beside Franklin.

  Franklin’s eyes dropped to Willows’ chest, the ragged, gaping hole in his jacket and, beneath, the finely woven fabric of the Kevlar vest.

  “Clothes make the man, eh, Jack?”

  “Looks to me as if we both dressed for the occasion,” said Willows.

  Franklin gave Willows a sad and empty smile, teeth flashing red with lipstick and blood. He tugged weakly at the tattered hem of his dress. The dark leather of the automatic’s holster gleamed against the pale, loose flesh of his thigh. Parker saw that he was wearing panties and that he’d shaved his legs. He mewed like a gull, his fingers plucking feebly at the hem. Was it possible he was embarrassed? Parker pulled the dress down past his knees.

  “Sweet thing,” croaked Franklin.

  “I’m going for an ambulance,” said Parker.

  Franklin was sweating heavily. The thickly applied makeup on his face had bubbled and ruptured, flowed in thick rivulets down his sunken, stubbled cheeks. He blinked up at Willows and said, “Questions, Jack?”

  “Why the singles club?”

  “Had to start somewhere, didn’t I? It was either that or the phone book.”

  “Is that where you first met your wife, at the club?”

  “Yeah, right. After I decided to kill Atkinson, I went back. First time in a long time, but nothing had changed. I broke in through a rear door. The keys to the filing cabinets were in McCormick’s desk. It wasn’t locked …” Franklin faded. Willows watched him work to gather his strength. “That was my wife in the Christmas picture I hung on the wall in McCormick’s office.”

  “The picture with the shoes in it. Were you having a little fun with us, George?”

  “She’s still got those shoes. Tucked away in a plastic bag in the attic. I left one just like them on Jervis when I shot Patterson. Hearts stitched above the arch. Real nice …”


  Franklin coughed. A fine red mist hung in the air. Blood from the exit wounds in his back had formed a wide pool beside him, crawled along his left arm and wormed its way between his splayed fingers. “I loved her so much,” he said quietly. “I loved her so much and it turned out I didn’t know her at all.” Sunk deep in sockets of mauve and black, Franklin’s eyes were listless and dull, the pupils tiny despite the low light level inside the warehouse. He closed his eyes and then opened them, searching for Willows. He clutched spasmodically at Willows’ lapel and said, “Talk to me, Jack. I’m dying.”

  Willows took Franklin’s hand, held it firmly. He was bleeding inside, where Franklin had shot him in the ribs. He felt feverish, giddy, full of laughter and panic.

  Afterwards, when they asked him what he’d talked about, he couldn’t remember a single word.

  DEATH ON A NO. 8 HOOK

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  This one is for my mother