You lost, Jim; I won. And so we were married and I lived unhappily ever after. Pat is headstrong; domineering without ability to dominate; add her father’s money. It took me a long time to realize I was a kept patsy — pushed around at her whim, too puppy-dog grateful to know it.
As soon as I caught on, the marriage went sour. She didn’t want kids; actually, I was acting in that capacity, and she couldn’t stand it when I showed independence. Suddenly, she wanted out.
Conveniently enough, Jim, in all that time you never married. Why?
Divorce? The hell I’d give her one! Maybe it was time for her to grow up. I suggested it in that battle we had.
Well, you don’t argue with children, you tell them. The divorce was out. I’d matured. Finally had control of the business; next, I’d control my family... including the kids she’d bear me.
Pat said it was a fine curtain speech, but unfortunately I was too weak. Was I? The next few months would tell.
Then came the shock of the day when I accidentally discovered she’d been seeing Jim! My best friend! And my wife...
“I loved you both. But: It’s my: birthday.”
Frank aimed carefully.
Two almost-simultaneous shots echoed in the canyon, disturbed a circling hawk, frightened a doe, made no impression on the omnipresent manzanita, and very quickly dulled to nothing in the late-afternoon winds of the Coast Ranges.
A voice from a thousand miles away: “Run like hell?”
An answer, tremulous as though aged: “No, not from this one. We’ll tell them it was a hunting accident.”
Unconscious habit, born in days of fear that were never expected to return, with greater intensity drew them shoulder to shoulder. Pat, sprawled back over the fallen tree, lay unmoving where two tiny motes had pushed her. The bullet holes, like two bleeding close-spaced eyes, were an inch and one-half apart.
The Last Kill
by Charles Runyon
The “Organization” had it’s big eye on Johnny Quill. Johnny knew he had to make this kill by the rule book... but he hadn’t counted on the woman.
Three hours out of New York International Airport, Johnny Quill rose from his seat to learn which of his fellow passengers he had to kill.
He walked down the aisle of the Viscount, carrying his shaving kit in his left rand. The empty space below his armpit made him itchy and nervous; he’d hated to leave his gun behind when he went through customs.
But he’d have to get used to the emptiness; this would be his last job.
At the spigot, he drew a cup of water and looked back through the cabin. The passengers seemed half-alive, sunk in midflight lethargy. In the nearest seat, a fat man in a flowered shirt cleaned his camera lens with a camel-hair brush. Johnny wondered, was he the man the Organization had sentenced to death? Or was it the black-haired girl with the purple eyelids, whose fingers made typing motions while she slept? Or one of sixty others...?
Johnny tightened his jaw and drew another cup of water. If he looked long enough, he’d begin to think of them as people. He had to think of them as machines, one of which he’d be assigned to turn off. It had helped before...
He crushed the cup in his bony fist and pushed open the door of the lavatory. It was empty; his contact hadn’t yet arrived.
Plugging in his electric shaver, he stooped to the mirror and began shaving his lean face. His light blond beard was not yet visible, but the shaver’s hum would cover the sound of conversation.
He wondered if he looked like the businessman he’d claimed to be in his passport. The gray suit was conservative enough; the maroon tie sufficiently bland. The white scars bunched along his jaw could have been trophies of college football; the thin nose could have been broken in a gentlemanly brawl. Yes, he’d pass...
The door opened and a bald, sticky man squeezed in. He looked like he’d just boarded a rush hour subway. His cheap suit was rumpled, his tie twisted.
“Quill?” he asked.
Johnny nodded, wrinkling his nose at the odor of sweat which had filled the cubicle. “Make it short, huh?”
The stocky man scowled at Johnny’s image. “I oughta see some identification.”
“You saw the signal. I don’t drink two cups of water because I like the stuff.”
The man’s scowl dissolved into a thick smile. “You must be Quill. They said you were a big, independent bastard.” He sobered abruptly. “Okay. She’s in the second seat from the rear, left side. Dark blonde, wearing a brown wool suit and a white blouse.”
Johnny’s hand tightened on the shaver. He’d never had to kill a woman before. “What did she do?”
“I’ll get to that, Quill. She’s only half the package. Her husband is the other half.”
“Oh?” The back of his neck prickled. This was beginning to sound like a nasty one. “Isn’t he sitting with her?”
“He’s sitting in hell for all we know. He pulled out of our operation in Montana three years ago. We’ve been watching the woman ever since, waiting for him to get in touch. Last week she bought a ticket to Trinidad.”
Johnny turned. “Trinidad’s a jump-off. He could be in Central or South America.”
“I doubt it. She can’t go far past Trinidad without making contact. He cleaned out their bank account when he left, and she sold her old car to buy the ticket.”
“Considerate husband. Is he dangerous?”
“To the organization he’s poison. Knows too many names. To you...” The stocky man shrugged. “He hasn’t played in your league. Spent all his time on the gambling end. Started in Montana, was working in Havana when that caved in on us. They moved him back to Montana and he finally joined the bottle a day club. About the time we decided he wasn’t a good risk, he disappeared.”
“What about his wife? Didn’t he have enough sense to keep her out of it?”
“Until he left, yeah. But he must’ve got a message to her telling her where he is, and he might’ve told her some other things. I think you’d better hit her, too.”
Johnny’s jaw tightened. “I don’t give a damn what you think. What’re the orders?”
The stocky man scowled. “Just make sure she isn’t dangerous.”
Wonderful, thought Johnny. Ten more years and they’ll let me wipe my own nose. How do you make sure of someone unless they’re dead? “They have names, these two?”
“Howard and Norma McLain. But they’d probably change them. Here’s a photo.”
Johnny took the two-by-three studio portrait. The man had curly black hair and big moist eyes. Lush-type, thought Johnny, the kind who marries a woman because he wants a mother.
The woman took his breath for a second. Her pale eyes jumped from the photo and pierced him with sharp intelligence. The forward set of her jaw told Johnny she probably wore the pants in the family; the smooth, wide slope of her shoulders hinted that she’d fill them beautifully.
What a waste, he thought. What a helluva waste.
He shredded the photo and flushed it into the Atlantic. “You say you watched her for three years?”
“I helped.”
“She have a lot of friends?”
“Hell! She never even smiled at the butcher.”
Thoughtfully, Johnny unplugged his razor and returned it to the shaving kit. The job might be slightly interesting, after all. “Anything else?”
“Yeah. I get off in Burmuda and you’ll be the only one watching her. Don’t lean on her. If she gets scared, she won’t make contact.”
“Don’t be elementary.” He zipped up the shaving kit. “You better go now, before they start thinking we’re a pair of queens.”