Black Cat Weekly #86

Chapter 7-2

“Move,” Carruthers said.

“Please, Mike, please. What are you doing? Why is he here?”

Mike, his forehead beginning to shine, refused to meet her eyes. Instead, he glanced at the smooth, glossy, spill-impervious surface of the dining room’s parquet floor.

“Mike—please.”

“Dining room,” Carruthers repeated.

The woman, trembling now as if bracing against a February wind, shuffled across the carpet, pleading with Mike as she went.

Carruthers waited until she reached the dining room, taking in her slow, tortured progress while noting she’d begun to sob.

“Turn around,” he said, leveling the g*n at her chest.

“Oh, God. Please.”

“Turn around and shut your eyes.”

“Mike—for God’s sake.”

“I warned you,” Mike said, standing behind the couch, his eyes on Carruthers. “I tried to tell you.”

“Please-please-please—”

But she never got the chance to finish. Carruthers extended the g*n and fired twice, the snap of the suppressed clicks like pennies dropped into an empty coffee can.

* * * *

The woman lay crumpled on the dining room floor, her legs—clad in black fishnet stockings—scissored awkwardly to the side. Carruthers leaned over and tugged her skirt down to protect her modesty.

At his touch, she flinched violently, cried out, and vomited again.

Carruthers gave her a few seconds, pausing to pick up the two brass shells resting on the carpet and then carefully pocketing them.

“Get up.”

“Please,” she whimpered. “Please don’t kill me.”

“I said, get up.”

“Please—I’ll do anything you say. I swear.”

“Last time.”

Shivering so fiercely that Carruthers feared she’d collapse again, the woman righted herself with the help of a polished mahogany dining room chair.

“Please don’t kill me,” she repeated.

“Listen closely to what I’m about to say.”

The woman stared at him without comprehension. He might have just read off a series of baseball scores for all the impact he’d made. He repeated his words.

“I don’t understand what’s happening,” she said, leaning heavily on the chair.

Carruthers didn’t respond. Instead, when he was finally sure he had her attention, he pulled a white card out of his shirt pocket and reached out his hand.

“Take this.”

“What is it?”

He didn’t respond but simply stood with his hand outstretched.

At last, still shaking, she approached, glanced at the lifeless man on the couch, gasped softly at the blood pooling from the hole in his head and the hole in his chest, turned away, and took the card.

Carruthers went over the instructions in detail, taking his time to be sure he kept her attention. The importance of locking herself in the master bedroom as soon as he left. Calling the number on the card. Showering and then leaving everything, including her clothes, towels, and car keys, in the stall.

“Put these on once you’re out of the shower.” He pushed the plastic bag of garments he’d brought from the Impala toward her. “Your car is in the garage, yes?”

“I can’t…” she whispered. “I don’t…”

“Your car?”

She nodded, her face as lifeless as one of the stones lining the living room’s hill-sized fireplace.

“Sit on the bed until you receive a text from the same number you called. Until then, do not, under any circumstances, leave the room. As soon as you get the text, walk downstairs, walk out of the house, and go halfway down the drive. Wait there. A car will get you. Do not, I repeat, do not speak to the driver. Do you understand? Do not speak to her.”

“Yes,” she whispered, either because she did, or she wanted him to think she did. At this point, it was all the same to him.

“Remember to wait for the text,” Carruthers said.

* * * *

Outside, Carruthers placed the Beretta in the bag in the trunk, pulling the zipper shut in one smooth motion. He shut the trunk, got into the car, started the engine, and turned around in the wide drive. He drove slowly, remembering the slight curve halfway down. At the road, he paused for a line of cars headed north before turning and driving back downtown.

When he reached First Street, he parallel parked in the Impala’s original space, pleasantly surprised to find it still open. He popped the trunk, replaced the car key, shut the trunk, and punched in the car’s locking code. He used his phone to extend the parking meter until midnight and then walked back to his hotel.

Enjoying the comfortable temperature, he passed the restaurant where he’d eaten. It was still full of people, despite the hour. He recognized several of the convention guests from the hotel.

“And where did you end up?” the desk girl asked, spying him as he entered the lobby.

“I can’t remember the name. Good burger, though.”

“I love burgers?”

“Good night,” Carruthers said, with a wave.

Back in his room he closed and bolted the door. He undressed and slipped his clothes into the cotton laundry bag he carried with him. He walked into the bathroom. He emerged seven and a half minutes later, toweled dry, and changed into his pajamas. He turned the TV on, retrieved his phone, and checked his messages. He returned just one. When he was finished, he placed the phone back in the drawer. He drew up the covers and watched the remainder of an Antiques Roadshow re-run. When it was over, he turned off the TV and the nightstand light and lay on the bed on his back, arms at his sides again.

Funny, he thought as he drifted off; his wife was also headed to bed not a twenty-minute drive away. He’d rather have been there, with her. But it was only for one night. And precautions, and patterns, and habits. Well, they mattered. Always had.

Andrew Welsh-Huggins is the Shamus Award-nominated author of the Andy Hayes private eye series and the standalone crime novel The End of the Road, and the editor of Columbus Noir. His short fiction has appeared in Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, Mystery Magazine, the anthology Mickey Finn 21st Century Noir Vol. 3, and other magazines and anthologies.]