Sudden Mischief

"I should have sent you packing," Brad said, "the minute she sent you to me."

"I probably hurried things along," I said. "But you'd have gotten yourself into this rat's alley anyway."

"What I don't understand," Susan said, "the sexual harassment suit really started the unraveling of this whole thing. Why didn't you just show the pictures of Jeanette to her husband. It would have stopped him in his tracks."

"I don't kiss and tell," Brad said.

"Chivalry?" Susan said.

"Whatever you think of me," Brad said, "there are things I believe in."

Susan looked at me. I shrugged.

"Hitler liked dogs," I said.

"What the hell's that supposed to mean," Brad said.

"People are inconsistent," I said.

"Then why in heaven's name did you let him in?" Susan said.

I knew the "him" was me. Neither one of them seemed able to use my name. I wasn't sure why, but I didn't mind.

"To humor you."

"You think?" Susan said to me.

"Maybe there was a little more," I said. "Maybe he hoped that I would find him in such serious need of cash that you would relent and open your heart and your coffers."

Susan nodded.

"And he was probably scared. Gavin and Wechsler would have leaned on him pretty hard before they set him up in the fund-raiser scam. He might have thought a, ah, bully boy would be useful."

"And he would have thought he could manipulate you," Susan said. "And he would have assumed that you would protect him because of me."

"Which I will," I said.

"No," Susan said. "You won't."

The kitchen was quiet except for the soft white sound of air conditioning. I let my gun rest against my right thigh. Cony Brown was a pro and Brad had cranked him.

"So," Sterling said, "you are prepared to throw me to the wolves? Both of you?"

He looked hard at Susan. She had one last sip of her strong coffee and put the cup down and folded her hands behind it on the counter top. She looked back at Sterling.

Then she said to me, her eyes still on Sterling, "Do you think he killed Carla Quagliozzi?"

"Yes."

"And… cut out her tongue?"

"Yes."

Something happened to Sterling's face. Something stirred behind his eyes that changed the way he looked. Something repellent peeked out through the bland Ivy League disguise. It was nameless, and base, and it wasn't human. We both saw it. Perhaps Susan had seen it as often in her work. She didn't flinch.

She said, "You did that, didn't you, Brad."

The thing darted in and out of sight behind his eyes. He didn't speak. Susan got up from the counter and walked around it and stood in front of Sterling.

"You killed that woman and cut her tongue out," she said. "Didn't you."

The kitchen was cool and still. I could feel the trapezius muscles on top of my shoulders begin to bunch. I took in some air and made them relax. When Sterling finally spoke it was shocking. His voice came out in an eerily adolescent whine.

"What was I supposed to do?" he said. "They send some gangster to hurt me and I have to shoot him and the cops are after me. And I'm desperate. And down on my luck, for cripes sake, and go to her for help and she won't help. She says she's going to tell."

"Tell the police?" Susan said gently.

"Yes. Because of him."

I knew he meant me. So did Susan.

"He kept coming around, and then the cops, and she was going to go there and tell on me."

"To the police?" Susan said. "She was going to the police?"

"Yes."

Tears had formed in Sterling's eyes.

"She was my wife, for cripes sake. She was supposed to help me."

"So you had to kill her?" Susan said.

"I was supposed to let her tell?"

"And the… tongue," Susan said.

"So they'd know."

The sound of his voice had lost all hint of the man from whom it came. It sounded like a drill bit binding in metal.

"They'd know what?"

"That she was going to tell on us, so I had to kill her. It was a, a symbol. So they'd know I was protecting all of us."

"They being Gavin and Wechsler?"

"'Course."

Susan looked at me.

"What did you use?" I said.

"My jackknife. My father always said a man was no better than the knife he carried. I always carry a good jackknife."

"And what did you do with it?"

"With what?"

"The tongue," I said.

"The thing in the sink, you know…" He made a grinding noise.

"Disposal," Susan said.

"Yuh, disposal." He gestured down, with his forefinger.

Susan stared at him for a moment with no expression on her face, then she turned and walked back and stood next to me. The counter was between Sterling and us. He looked a little dazed.

"What was I supposed to do," he said. "Everybody I turn to lets me down."

Susan took a deep breath and let it out and walked to the end of the counter and picked up the phone.

"No," Sterling said.

He put his right hand behind him, feeling for the gun in his back pocket. I brought mine up from beside my thigh and aimed it at the middle of his chest.

"Try to use the gun and I'll kill you," I said.

Sterling froze in mid gesture. He looked at Susan.

"Take the gun out slowly, hold it with your thumb and forefinger only, and put it on the counter in front of me. And step back away from it."

The thing in behind his eyes was seething now. He didn't want to give up the gun. He wanted to kill both of us and everyone else who wouldn't help him. But the thing didn't make him blind. Maybe he saw something in my eyes. Maybe he knew that shooting him would satisfy me in ways that few things could. Slowly and carefully he took the gun out and put it on the counter. It was a Targa.380. He still seemed dazed. I picked the gun up and stuck it in my belt.

"Susie," he said. "For God's sake, Susie."

Susan dialed 911.

"I'm not going to stay here," he said. "You can shoot me if you want."

I shook my head. And he turned and walked from the kitchen. I followed him. He went through the living room to the hall and out the apartment door, down the stairway, and out the front door of the building. The door swung shut and latched gently behind him. From the front hall window I watched him run in the late afternoon sunshine under the filtering trees, up Li

Susan came to stand beside me. She put her forehead against the wall beside the window and closed her eyes.

"My God," she said. "My God."

I stood beside her without touching her, and we stood like that until the cops came.

chapter forty-nine

SUSAN AND I sat across from each other in her kitchen with a bottle of Irish whisky on the counter between us and no lights on. Pearl had been liberated from the office and tended to, and was lying on the couch in the living room. The cops were gone. The sun was down, and the early evening had taken on a bluish tint outside the kitchen windows.

"What will happen to him?" Susan said.

"Brad? They'll catch him."

"You seem so sure."

"He's too dumb," I said. "He won't last long."