Murder Comes Easy
EVAN HUNTER
CRIME: Juvenile delinquency
PLACE: New York
YEAR: 1953
BRIEFING: Young criminals are common to all nations, but very few have become as infamous as Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb, two teenage youths from prominent Chicago families who, in 1924, killed the fourteen-year-old son of a millionaire businessman and then tried to demand $10,000 in ransom money. Because of their ages, both escaped the death penalty and went to prison for life. In Britain, the case of Derek Bentley and Christopher Craig, two teenagers who were involved in the murder of a policeman in 1952, became the subject of a highly controversial case-with Bentley, nineteen, being hanged though he had played no direct part in the violence, and Craig, sixteen, who had actually fired the gun, ‘detained at Her Majesty’s pleasure’ because he was under age.
THE STORY:
The whole thing was almost too easy. I had the lock open in about ten seconds, and all I used was a nail file. I stepped inside out of the cold, closed the door gently behind me, stood quietly with my back to it. I didn’t hurry. I eased the .45 out of my coat pocket and checked the clip. Then I shoved the clip home. It made a small click in the darkness of the foyer.
The house branched out from the foyer, one half leading to the kitchen area, the other to the living room and the bedrooms. I knew the house by heart because Mr Williams had gone over the floor plan with me a hundred times.
‘This is a big one, Manny,’ he’d said. ‘A real big one. You do this one right, and you’re in. What I mean, in’
I felt good about that. He’d picked me for the gig, and I knew it was an important one. He could have picked one of the punks, but he wanted it done right, and so he came to Manny Cole. And this would be the one. After this one, I’d be in the upper crust, one of the wheels. It had to be done right.
The living room was dark, just the way Mr Williams had said it would be. I released the .45’s safety with my thumb and stepped on to the thick pile rug that led off the foyer. From the back of the house, trickling under the narrow crack of a bedroom door, amber light spilled on to the rug in a thin, warm wash. I moved through the living room slowly, past the spinet against one wall, past the big picture window with the drawn drapes. I walked straight to the radio-phono combination, fumbled with its dials for a few seconds, and then turned it on full blast.
A jump tune blared into the room, shattering the silence of the house. I tuned the station in more clearly, listening to the high screech of a trumpet beating out a bop chorus. The door to the bedroom popped open, and Gallagher came out.
He was in his undershirt and shorts, blue-striped shorts that hugged his fat middle. He waddled forward with a surprised look on his face, and his stubby fingers reached for a light switch. There was a small click, and then the living room was filled with light. He looked worse with the light on him.
There was lipstick on his face, and I knew why, but that didn’t concern me at the moment. Only Gallagher concerned me. His blue eyes were opened wide, embedded deep in the fleshy folds of his face. His mouth flapped open when he saw the .45 in my fist, and I thought he’d spit out his teeth. Then his face paled, and he began to shake, and the fat shivered all over him.
‘Who... who are you?’ he asked.
I chuckled a little. ‘Mr Williams sent me,’ I said.
‘Williams!’ The word came like an explosion, and his face turned a shade paler. He knew what was coming.
‘Mr Williams doesn’t like the way you’ve been doing things,’ I said.
Gallagher wet his lips. ‘What doesn’t he like?’
‘Lots of things,’ I told him. ‘The fur heist the other night, for example. He doesn’t like people who do things like that.’
‘Those furs were mine,’ Gallagher shouted over the blast of the trumpet. ‘Bart knew that.’
I shook my head. ‘Mr Williams says they were his.’
The music stopped and an announcer began talking. His voice sounded strange in the quiet room.
‘So... so... what are you going to do?’
‘I’m going to kill you, Gallagher.’
‘For God’s sake, kid, you can’t...’
‘As soon as the music starts again,’ I told him. ‘If you’ve got a religion, pray.’
‘Look, kid, for the love of-‘
‘Gallagher, this is a job, like picking up garbage or shining shoes. Just like that. I’m deaf as far as you’re concerned. Understand? I can’t hear anything. I’m deaf.’
The music started then, and panic whipped across Gallagher’s face. He saw my eyes tighten, and he turned to run towards the bedroom, and that’s when I cut loose. I fired low, with the barrel tilted so that the slug would rip upward.
The first one caught him just above the kidneys, spun him around, and slammed him into the wall. He didn’t seem to know whether he should reach for the blood, or whether he should cover the rest of him. And while he was deciding, I pumped two more slugs into him. They tore into his face, nearly ripping his head off.
He fell to the floor, and the fat wiggled for a second before it was still.
I looked down at him just long enough to see the red puddle forming under his head. Then I turned away.
‘Come on out,’ I said.
There was a soft whimper in the bedroom, but no movement.
‘Come on, come on.’
I heard bare feet padding on the rug, and then she was standing in the doorway. She’d thrown a robe around her, and she’d done it pretty quickly because she was still fastening the belt at the waist. The robe belonged to Gallagher, apparently, and it didn’t help much to cover her. The initials RG were over the pocket, but the pocket was nowhere near where it should have been. It hung far to the right of her rounded shoulders.
She had hair like a bed of charcoal, and it hung over one eye. Her lips had a fresh-kissed look, the way they can look only when the lipstick has been bruised into the flesh. Her eyes might have been smouldering a few minutes ago, but they were scared now. Her lips opened a little, and her eyes dropped quickly to the .45, and then over to Gallagher. She took a deep breath, and then stepped back a pace.
She didn’t say anything. She just looked at me with that frightened-animal look in her eyes, wide and brown, and she kept backing away, moving towards the bed. She almost tripped on a pile of silk stockings and underwear on the floor. She looked down quickly, caught her balance, and then started to pull the robe closed over her breasts.
She hesitated for a moment, swallowed hard, and then caught her hand in mid-motion.
‘A fat slob like Gallagher,’ I said. I shook my head. ‘I can’t get over it.’
She was staring at me. ‘You’re... you’re just a kid,’ she said.
‘Shut up!!
‘Look, I... I don’t know Gallagher from a hole in the wall. I was just here, you understand? I got a call, that’s all, and I came. It’s a job, like you told Gallagher. A... a business.’
‘Sure,’ I said. I grinned and took a step closer to her. ‘You scared, baby?’
‘N-n-no.’
‘You should be. You should be damned scared.’
‘Kid, please. I’ll do whatever you say. Anything. Anything at all, kid. Only...’
‘Only what?’
‘Only... Anything you say.’
‘You want to get out of this alive?’ I asked. ‘Is that it?’
She smiled and took a step closer to me, confident of herself now, confident of her body and what it would get her.
The smile was still on her face when I fired. I made it clean and quick. A fast one that caught her right over the bridge of her nose. She was dead before she hit the rug. Quickly, silently, I left the apartment.