The Professional

Zel nodded slightly.

“But you do,” he said.

“Yeah,” I said. “But they’ll know soon enough. Boo left an eyewitness alive.”

Zel shook his head sadly.

“Poor dumb bastard,” Zel said.

“Gary Eisenhower,” I said. “He was unconscious when we found him, but when he wakes up, he’ll pretty sure be mentioning Boo’s name.”

Zel nodded.

“So why are you here,” Zel said.

I paused. The room wasn’t much, but it was neat. No dirty dishes, no crumbs on the table. The refrigerator was old and made a lot of noise. Otherwise, there was no sound anywhere, and no sense that there was anyone alive in the building but me and Zel under the one-hundred-watt bulb.

“I don’t know,” I said. “I just figured I oughta talk with you before the cops came to get him.”

“Boo won’t want to go,” Zel said.

“They’ll come in large numbers,” I said.

“Yeah,” Zel said. “They do that.”

He got up and got two bottles of beer from the refrigerator and gave me one and sat down again.

“You know why he killed her?” I said.

“I got an idea,” Zel said.

I nodded.

“Here’s my theory,” I said. “See what you think.”

Zel nodded.

“I figure she came on to him,” I said.

Zel turned the beer bottle on the tabletop and didn’t say anything.

“I figure she came on to him so she could get him to kill her husband,” I said.

“Why’d she want him dead?” Zel said, watching the bottle as he turned it slowly, as if turning it just right was as important as anything he was going to do this day.

“So she’d get his money,” I said. “And be with Gary Eisenhower.”

“And why Boo?” Zel said.

“She didn’t know anybody else,” I said. “She tried Tony Marcus, didn’t work.”

“She thought it would?” Zel said.

“She had a lot of faith in sex,” I said.

Zel nodded and stopped twirling his bottle long enough to drink some beer.

“So Boo goes for it and pops Jackson,” I said. “And she gets his dough and moves in with Gary and Estelle.”

“Three of them,” Zel said.

“Yep. I guess Estelle kind of liked the idea.”

Zel shrugged.

“But it didn’t work,” I said. “Pretty soon Beth wants all of Gary, and Estelle don’t like it.”

Zel was twirling his bottle again. He hadn’t drunk much of his beer. I hadn’t drunk any of mine.

“So,” I said. “Beth calls in Boo, and with the same gun he used on Jackson, he pops Estelle for her.”

“Dumb,” Zel said, and shook his head sadly. “Dumb.”

“So there’s Beth, thanks to Boo, right where she wants to be. Money, Gary”-I raised my hands-“what could be better.”

Zel drank some beer.

“But…”

Zel nodded.

“But Boo thinks that he’s done her these two huge favors,” I said. “So she’s supposed to love him.”

“Boo never been with any women but whores, I think,” Zel said.

“And Beth thinks that since she bopped him several times, she’s done him several huge favors,” I said, “and wants no more to do with him.”

Zel nodded. His beer was gone. He got up and got another one from the refrigerator, looked at my bottle, saw that it was full, and sat down.

“They had a confrontation a week or so ago,” I said. “He tries to talk with her, she shoves him and runs inside. Middle of the day, Boo stands for a while and walks away.”

“You was following him?” Zel said.

I shook my head.

“Had a guy on her,” I said.

“So you been thinking about her for a while,” Zel said.

“Yes.”

“Was the guy watching tonight?” Zel said.

“Was through for the night,” I said. “And having a drink in the Taj bar. When he comes out, he sees Boo heading away from Gary’s apartment and calls me.”

“And you figure Boo went over there, kicked in the door, decked her boyfriend, and beat her to death?”

“Something like that,” I said.

“Why tonight?” Zel said.

I shrugged.

“Love unrequited,” I said. “The pressure built. He drink?”

“Some,” Zel said. “I tried to keep him from drinking much, but he’s hard to control.”

“Bad when he’s drunk?”

“Yes.”

“Will he come back here?” I said.

“Sooner or later,” Zel said. “Except I can shoot, I ain’t much, and Boo’s less. But we been together a long time.”

“He’s killed three people,” I said.

“He can’t do no time,” Zel said. “I tole you that.”

“I can’t let him walk around loose,” I said.

Zel looked at his beer bottle for a moment.

“I know,” he said.

We sat for a moment. Then I stood.

“Thanks for the beer,” I said.

And I left.

Chapter 67

BOO CAME HOME about two-thirty this afternoon,” I said to Susan.

“You have someone watching?” she said.

“Vi

We were in Susan’s living room, upstairs from her office. Susan usually had a glass of wine after her last patient, and when I could, I liked to join her. In honor of that, Susan had stocked some Sam Adams Winter Ale, which I was especially fond of, and I was having some while she sipped her wine.

“Did Gary wake up yet?” Susan said.

“He’s coming around, Belson says. But he’s still foggy.”

“What are you going to do about Boo?” Susan said.

“I don’t know,” I said.

“You don’t want to turn him in,” Susan said.

“He’s not right in the head,” I said.

“And Beth exploited him,” Susan said.

“Yes.”

“You can’t let him go,” Susan said.

“I know.”

“So,” Susan said. “Basically you’re stalling.”

“I am,” I said.

“What do you hope will happen?” Susan said.

“Mostly I’m hoping you’ll stop asking me about it,” I said.

Susan looked at me silently for a moment.

Then she said, “Wow. This is really bothering you.”

“Yes.”

“And you don’t want to talk about it,” she said.

“No,” I said.

Susan stood and went to the kitchen. She got a second bottle of Winter Ale from the refrigerator, popped the cap, brought the bottle back, and set it on the coffee table in front of me. Then she kissed me on the top of the head and went back and sat down on the couch. Pearl, who was sleeping at the other end of the couch with her head hanging over the arm, raised her head up for a minute and looked at Susan, saw that there was no food forthcoming, and put her head back down.

“We won’t talk about Boo,” Susan said.

“Good,” I said.

“But we could talk about Beth and Estelle and Gary,” Susan said. “And their circle.”

“Sure,” I said.

“In one way or another, they all earned what happened to them,” Susan said.

“None of them earned getting murdered,” I said.

“Does anyone?” Susan said.

“Sometimes, maybe,” I said. “I don’t want to generalize.”

“No,” Susan said. “You almost never do. But at the heart of all this is their own behavior.”

“Especially Gary,” I said.

“Yes.”

“Boys just want to have fun,” I said.

“This boy exploited the pathologies of women,” Susan said.

“And it caught up with him,” I said.

“Pathologies are pathologies,” Susan said. “They don’t go away when you’re through using them.”

I nodded.

“Thing is,” I said. “He probably had no intention that any of this would happen.”

“No,” Susan said. “Probably not. He’s just careless. And he went around spreading his careless good times.”

“And making money at it.”

“Yes, that makes it a little worse,” Susan said. “But I suspect that was just a nice side effect.”

“Like a guy likes to go to the track,” I said. “He likes to hang around the paddock when the horses come out. He likes to look at them. Likes to handicap. Likes to watch them run. And if he happens to win some money, even better.”

“But if he doesn’t win, he still goes to the track,” Susan said.

“Yes.”

“Fun-loving Gary,” Susan said.