Then the car moved on and I saw the lights checking out the house next door and then it was gone. I kept my eyes on Weller the whole time and he didn’t do nothing stupid. I seen him climb out from under the trees and dust himself off. Then he came walking back to the house. Easy, like he was walking to a bar to meet some buddies.
He came inside. Gave this little sigh, like relief. And laughed. Then he held his hands out. I didn’t even ask him to. I taped ’em up again and he sat down in the chair, picked up his scotch and sipped it.
And, damn, I’ll tell you something. The God’s truth. I felt good. Naw, naw, it wasn’t like I’d seen the light or anything like that crap. But I was thinking that of all the people in my life — my dad or my ex or Toth or anybody else, I never did really trust them. I’d never let myself go all the way. And here, tonight, I did. With a stranger and somebody who had the power to do me some harm. It was a pretty scary feeling but it was also a good feeling.
A little thing, real little. But maybe that’s where stuff like this starts. I realized then that I’d been wrong. I could let him go. Oh, I’d keep him tied up here. Gagged. It’d be a day or so before he’d get out. But he’d agree to that. I knew he would. And I’d write his name and address down, let him know I knew where him and his family lived. But that was only part of why I’d let him go. I wasn’t sure what the rest of it was. But it was something about what’d just happened, something between me and him.
“How you feel?” he asked.
I wasn’t going to give too much away. No, sir. But I couldn’t help saying, “That car coming by? I thought I was gone then. But you did right by me.”
“And you did right too, Jack.” And then he said, “Pour us another round.”
I filled the glasses to the top. We tapped ’em.
“Here’s to you, Jack. And to faith.”
“To faith.”
I tossed back the whisky and when I lowered my head, sniffing air through my nose to clear my head, well, that was when he got me. Right in the face.
He was good, that son of a bitch. Tossed the glass low so that even when I ducked, which of course I did, the booze caught me in the eyes, and, man, that stung like nobody’s business. I couldn’t believe it. I was howling in pain and going for the knife. But it was too late. He had it all planned out, exactly what I was going to do. How I was gonna move. He brought his knee up into my chin and knocked a couple teeth out and I went over onto my back before I could get the knife outa my pocket. Then he dropped down on my belly with his knee — I remembered I’d never bothered to tape his feet up again — and he knocked the wind out, and I was lying there like I was paralyzed, trying to breathe and all. Only I couldn’t. And the pain was incredible but what was worse was the feeling that he didn’t trust me.
I was whispering, “No, no, no! I was going to do it, man. You don’t understand! I was going to let you go.”
I couldn’t see nothing and couldn’t really hear nothing either, my ears were roaring so much. I was gasping, “You don’t understand, you don’t understand.”
Man, the pain was so bad. So bad...
Weller must’ve got the tape off his hands, chewed through it, I guess, ’cause he was rolling me over. I felt him tape my hands together then grab me and drag me over to a chair, tape my feet to the legs. He got some water and threw it in my face to wash the whisky out of my eyes.
He sat down in a chair in front of me. And he just stared at me for a long time while I caught my breath. He picked up his glass, poured more scotch. I shied away, thinking he was going to throw it in my face again but he just sat there, sipping it and staring at me.
“You... I was going to let you go. I was.”
“I know,” he said. Still calm.
“You know?”
“I could see it in your face. I’ve been a salesman for years, remember? I know when I’ve closed a deal.”
I’m a pretty strong guy, ‘specially when I’m mad, and I tried real hard to break through that tape but there was no doing it. “Goddamn you!” I shouted. “You said you weren’t going to turn me in. You, all your goddamn talk about faith—”
“Shhhh,” Weller whispered. And he sat back, crossed his legs. Easy as could be. Looking me up and down. “That fellow your friend shot and killed back at the drugstore? The customer at the counter?”
I nodded slowly.
“He was my friend. It’s his place my wife and I’re staying at this weekend. With all our kids.”
I just stared at him. His friend? What was he saying? “I didn’t—”
“Be quiet,” he said, real soft. “I’ve known him for years. Gerry was one of my best friends.”
“I didn’t want nobody to die. I—”
“But somebody did die. And it was your fault.”
“Toth...”
He whispered, “It was your fault.”
“All right, you tricked me. Call the cops. Get it over with, you goddamn liar.”
“You really don’t understand, do you?” Weller shook his head. Why was he so calm? His hands weren’t shaking. He wasn’t looking around, nervous and all. Nothing like that. He said, “If I’d wanted to turn you in I would just’ve flagged down that squad car a few minutes ago. But I said I wouldn’t do that. And I won’t. I gave you my word I wouldn’t tell the cops a thing about you. And I won’t. Turning you in is the last thing I want to do.”
Then what do you want?” I shouted. “Tell me!” Trying to bust through that tape. And as he unfolded my Buck knife with a click, I was thinking of something I told him.
Oh, man, no... Oh, no.
Yeah, being blind, I guess. That’d be the worst thing I could think of.
“What’re you going to do?” I whispered.
“What’m I going to do, Jack?” Weller said, feeling the blade of the Buck with his thumb and looking me in the eye. “Well, I’ll tell you. I spent a good deal of time tonight proving to you that you shouldn’t kill me. And now...”
“What, man? What?”
“Now I’m going to spend a good deal of time proving to you that you should’ve.”
Then, real slow, Weller finished his scotch and stood up. And he walked toward me, that weird little smile on his face.
Needle Match
Peter Lovesey
Murder was done on Court Eleven on the third day of Wimbledon, 1981. Fortunately for the All England Club, it wasn’t anything obvious like a strangling or a shooting, but the result was the same for the victim, except that he suffered longer. It took three days for him to die. I can tell you exactly how it happened, because I was one of the ball boys for the match.
When I was thirteen I was taught to be invisible. But before you decide this isn’t your kind of story let me promise you it isn’t about magic. There’s nothing spooky about me. And there was nothing spooky about my instructor, Brigadier Romilly. He was flesh and blood all right and so were the terrified kids who sat at his feet.
“You’ll be invisible, every one of you before I’ve finished with you,” he said in his parade-ground voice, and we believed him, we third-years from Merton Comprehensive.
A purple scar like a sabre-cut stretched downwards from the edge of the Brigadier’s left eye, over his mouth to the point of his chin. He’d grown a bristly ginger moustache over part of it, but we could easily see where the two ends joined. Rumour had it that his face had been slashed by a Mau Mau warrior’s machete in the Kenyan terrorist war of the fifties. We didn’t know anything about the Mau Mau, except that the terrorist must have been crazy to tangle with the Brigadier — who grabbed him by the throat and strangled him.
“Don’t ever get the idea that you’re doing this to be seen. You’ll be there, on court with Mr McEnroe and Mr Borg — if I think you’re good enough — and no one will notice you, no one. When the game is in play you’ll be as still as the net-post, and as uninteresting. For Rule Two of the Laws of Tennis states that the court has certain permanent fixtures like the net and the net posts and the umpire’s chair. And the list of permanent fixtures includes you, the ball boys, in your respective places. So you can tell your mothers and fathers and your favourite aunties not to bother to watch. If you’re doing your job they won’t even notice you.”