Anatomy of a Killer (9 page)

10

After Kemp was gone Jordan locked his door from the inside. He took his jacket off, so as not to feel the weight of the Magnum. At the closed window he looked at the black glass.

I’m not built for this and I’m not trained for this. It comes to the same thing. I know so much and no more and it isn’t enough. Or there is always something worse. It comes to the same thing.

Then he turned away from the window because he was beginning to notice his reflection. He packed, the way he had planned it, and he started all over the way he had planned it, because he really did not know anything else.

On Third he parked in the lot next to the diner, heading the car the way he wanted. He thought about leaving the motor running but decided against it. There was light in the diner. There were two other cars in the lot, and somebody friendly might turn off his key, take it out, bring it into the diner for safekeeping maybe. He turned off the motor, put the key in his pocket, stuck the target gun into his belt and buttoned his jacket. If the silencer would only fit the pistol he would have liked that. It was a margin of safety. This was now a job for margins of safety.

He crossed behind the diner where the garbage cans stood, and a cat ran away. The cat made a potato roll over the ground and he picked it up. It was a big, raw potato and he took it along.

At Kemp’s door he knocked.

“Paul?”

“No. Smith.”

“The door’s open. Come on in.”

Jordan went in and closed the door behind him. Kemp was on his bed, dressed, shoes off, a paper across his middle. The paper went up and down with his breathing. Kemp was lying down and stayed that way. This is a bad angle, thought Jordan. The radio next to Kemp was playing mood music.

“Well now. You’re looking better.” Kemp turned the radio down to a mumble and smiled from his pillow. “You come for the job?”

“I got a job.”

“Christ—”

Jordan had the gun out and he worked the potato over the end of the barrel.

“Smith … Wait a minute. Let’s talk….”

Jordan didn’t talk. In the movies there is talk, for the drama. Jordan worked without drama. Or there is talk because there is a grudge. There was no grudge.

“Smith, just lemme….”

“Sit up.”

“Yes, I was gonna say, lemme sit up—”

“Go ahead.”

While Kemp sat up Jordan took a stance. He never fired from the hip because when he fired he was never on the run. He aimed straight-arm and only the potato bothered his aim.

“For God’s sake—”

The voice was hoarse as if it had the worst kind of cold and after that type of sound there was often a scream. Jordan did not want that and would have been ready if the potato did not interfere with balance and sighting.

“Smith … I ask … I beg—”

Dull sound, slightest recoil, potato spraying all over. Kemp’s head snapped back and went
thunk
on the headboard. Mood music mumble. The hole was high and the blood was just filling it. Black in the light.

A drawn-up knee collapsed and the leg dangled a little and Jordan was going down the stairs.

When he got out on the street he stood for a moment and took a deep breath. He thought that the air was just right. He himself felt right and he felt finished with the job he had come to do.

A young couple came down the dark street and Jordan turned his head away out of habit. He crossed the street to his car and noticed that the diner was dark. He got into his car, feeling right and finished. When he put the key into the ignition he noticed that his hand was shaking.

He did not know why it was shaking because everything felt right now and he was done. He took the gun out of his belt, wiped the end of the barrel across his pants because the metal was wet from the raw potato. He wiped and wiped and then he put the gun under the seat. He started the motor, got into gear almost immediately so that the car jumped and the motor died.

It was not his habit to drive this way. He had a routine with the car where he started the motor, nursed it in idle, then got into gear and took off, smooth and gentle-footed.

While he started over again he thought about everything, thinking too much. At first, way in the beginning, the work had been hard, with everything effort. When that became better, a job was achievement. After that, a job was smooth habit. That had been most of the time now and had felt like the final thing.

He took off the way he was used to it, except faster. There was a man by the letterboxes inside the vestibule. He had a lunch bucket under his arm and was getting his mail.

But this time, thought Jordan, there was this. He was done but his hand was shaking. He was done but he drove too fast. If more of me were shaking, he thought, I would know why I’m feeling this way. Just my hands are shaking, so it’s nothing. A fine job up in that room.

What upset him now was that he was thinking about it at all.

He drove through the square and took the street at the other end which went out of town.

Maybe eight minutes since, he thought. That’s three more than planned.

What upset him again was not the loss of three minutes but the thoughts he had about a job which was really well done. This felt indecent.

On the other side of the street someone was walking and then turned up to a house with no lights in the windows. The porch light went on and Jordan saw the girl from the diner. She still had her uniform on and was carrying, a purse over her arm. She went into the house while Jordan passed.

He kept driving because he was now nine minutes off. Yes, yes, yes, and such a fine finish after that godawful thing on the bridge and then under the bridge. I would hate, he suddenly said aloud, to leave here without such a neat thing done like the Kemp job.

The voice shocked him and the thought—that there had to be thought about any of this—shocked him so that he held the wheel hard, rocking on it. The wheel gave with the rocking, the springiness keeping the rocking motion going. Jordan kept nodding back and forth. What now, what now, he kept thinking, what more, what more now. It’s done, it’s done—double everything, because it went with the rocking. All the props gone out from under, he thought, all the props I never knew had been there, like don’t talk to him, don’t touch him, don’t know him too well. But they
don’t
mean a thing, and his thinking got loud again, because I
did
finish….

But he did not recognize himself. He stopped rocking because it made him sick, and he stopped thinking, because that made him sick. He was able to stop thinking because it was easier just to feel the confusion.

She wouldn’t think anything like that about me. Her dumb face knows everything and I’m Smith and sell buttons. Her dumb face doesn’t care if I’m Smith or sell buttons. She never once mentioned anything like it. She mentioned that I am a gentleman. Jeesis. She mentioned that she likes a quiet man. “You want me, Sam? You want me, Sam, and you don’t talk around it. I like that.”

She can’t be all wrong, he thought. She must know something. She’s dumb which just means there’s no confusion, and if she says now, Sam, you look fine and not shivery like one day ago—she can’t be all wrong. He swung the car into a U-turn and drove back toward town.

He knocked on her door, and she said, “Who is it?”

“Smith.”

“Who?”

“Sam. You remember me?” he said through the door.

“Oh, Sam! Come in!”

Jordan went in and closed the door behind him. Betty was on the bed. She had a housecoat on, her shoes were off, and there was a magazine lying across her middle. The magazine went up and down with her breathing. The radio next to her bed was playing mood music.

She said, “Hi, Sam,” and, “You know, you’re looking ever so much better.” She smiled from her pillow and turned the radio down to a mumble.

Jordan let go of the door knob behind him and felt his hand tremble. He did not move away from the door but leaned against it. He began to tremble all over. He did not move, not his eyes or anything, except for his trembling.

Her smile faded a little and then just went away. She raised herself up on one arm and stared at him. “Sam,” she said, and then, “Sam?”

She got off the bed slowly and then she walked toward him and came all the way over. She did not say anything else or walk faster but when she was up to him, she slowly put up her hand and laid it on the side of his face. “What is it, Sammy?” she said.

He leaned his face into her hand and closed his eyes. He had to explain nothing, do nothing, and could just stand this way while the girl came closer and put her face next to his. “Come sit down, Sammy,” she said. “You’ll be all right.”

He sat down in the chair she had and was not trembling any more. She brushed at his lapel and said, “How did you ever get raw potato on there. It’s just like raw potato,” but Jordan was not trembling any more and what she said and did had nothing to do with before any more, with the use of a raw potato. The girl was concerned over his suit and she was concerned that he should sit and rest. It meant that.

“You’re not used to the heat,” she said and opened his tie and collar a little. “Or is it something else?”

“It’s that,” he said, “and also something else. But you don’t have to worry about it, Betty. It’s nothing for you to worry about.”

She sat on the arm of his chair and looked down at him. “Are you sick?”

“No. It’s something hanging on, but I’m not sick. Really, Betty.”

She thought he does not look sick. A little worn, perhaps, needing sleep, but he’s all right. He said so and he smiles.

“What do you need, Sammy? Can I do something?”

He took a cigarette out and asked for a match. He puffed on the flame and then he sat back in the chair and looked at the girl and the room.

“I’d like to stay a moment,” he said.

“Of course, Sam. You mean, you’re leaving?”

“Yes. I’m done here.”

“Ah,” she said. “You’ve done your business. Was it good?”

“I’m done,” he said. “Yes.”

She got up and went to the bed. He watched her lean over the bed and straighten the cover on it. He liked watching her do this. When she straightened up she brushed some hair back and he thought it was a beautiful gesture.

“I’m sorry,” she said, because he was looking at her and she felt that her housecoat looked old. She looked down at herself and straightened the front.

“I like you in that,” he said. “Really. I like you better in a housecoat than in anything else.”

She felt it was nice of him to say this and she made no other remarks about it.

“Can I give you something?” she said, “I don’t have a real kitchen, but iced tea, something like that. I can give you something simple like that.”

He said that he liked iced tea and then when she said there was a can of sardines and some crackers, he said he liked that, too. He watched her in her housecoat, opening and closing the icebox she had, making the iced tea and getting the sardines out on a plate and the crackers. He would not have stopped for any of this somewhere else but he felt calm and well watching her bring all those things and sitting with him afterwards, eating.

“I’m glad you came over before leaving,” she said. “That was very nice of you.”

“I like seeing you, Betty.”

“I think you were very nice, I mean, the times I’ve seen you.”

“I have to go,” he said. “It’s a shame.”

She nodded a little, nothing serious, and put the plate and crackers away. “Maybe, if you come through here again …” she said.

“Yes. I would look you up.”

“Or maybe if you ever get to Miami. You know, I expect to be in Miami sometime. I told you.”

“Yes.”

“It’s warm like this all the time, isn’t it?”

“The sun shines and there’s a breeze from the ocean and nights it’s warm. If there’s something blooming,” he said, “you can smell it, nighttimes.”

He knew nothing like this about Miami, having been there on business only and having finished in a very short time, but he thought all this might be true and he knew that she liked hearing it.

Then she gave him the address of her girl friend in Miami and said if he ever got there and if she herself got there sometime soon….

He went to the door and she stood with him for a moment and brushed at his lapel.

“Well,” she said, and smiled.

“Thank you,” he said, just so.

He kissed her on the side of her mouth and stroked her back.

“I’ve liked you,” she said. “Good-by, Sammy.”

“Good-by,” he said, because this was a short daydream, and he did not want to do anything to change it or to see it become impossible. He stroked her back and felt her hands on his arms.

“If you want me,” she said next to his face, “I mean, before you go. Before you have to go, Sammy….”

They went back to the bed and she turned off the lights and the radio. Then she helped him with his tie and shirt buttons. Then he undressed her, moving as slowly as she.

11

Everything being different, Jordan did not drive back the way he had planned. He left town going south, instead of taking the north way; he doubled around on new roads, replanning the routine, and when morning came he was still in the country and not going straight back on the turnpike as he would have done had all this been the old schedule. None of this was upsetting to him because the job was done and the rest, afterward, had been a matter apart from the job. In the morning he stopped at a hotel, went to bed, slept for twelve hours. It was a deep, dull sleep, with only a moment of thinking just before he dropped off. Her one-room place, with a bed and a corner for cooking on a hotplate. Frill curtains, which had looked new and cheap. Housecoat, and the girl moving around him. Had been reading a magazine on her bed. It had been like coming from work, resting, watching her do housework, then sleeping together.

Having been trained to a very special point, pathetically ordinary things had become Jordan’s peace.

Sandy leaned on the glass counter and looked down at the cigar. He reached into the case and watched his hand take a panatela and when he had it in his mouth he looked across the bowling alley. He especially watched alley six and seven where the Kantovitz Kats and the Burns Machine Company were playing tournament. A man with the white and purple shirt of the Kats came to the counter and asked for three cigars.

“You got any money on this, Sandy?” and he nodded back at the alleys.

“No. I don’t gamble.”

“Too risky for you?” and the man laughed.

“That’s right,” said Sandy and gave the man his cigars. “Who’s winning?”

“They are.”

The phone rang under the counter and Sandy reached down without looking. He put the receiver to his ear and said, “Yeah?” After that he listened for a short while, then said, “No,” and hung up.

“They’re winning,” said the man in the shirt, “but not because of any superior ability. It’s the balls. They got tournament balls and we got all kinds. I think it makes a difference.”

“I told you I’d get you the new ones. You could have ordered….”

“Sandy, we don’t got that kind of dough.”

“I can’t go any lower. I’m giving them to you for what it costs me anyways.”

“Sandy, with your kind of connections you can get ‘em for less than they cost. You know that.”

“I got no connections like that. I don’t make anything on them as it is. Honest.”

“I believe you.” The man lit his cigar and said, “Business is tough.”

“That’s right.”

The phone rang again and Sandy picked it up as before. He said, “Yeah,” and then, “Yeah,” and hung up. He wouldn’t have minded standing at the counter some more and talking, but he pushed himself away and said, “Gotta run. I hope you guys make it.”

“We won’t. But think about those balls, will you, Sandy?”

“I will. I’ll check around,” and then he went to the back for his hat and overcoat.

Sandy had to drive for about fifteen minutes. He tried to go faster, because in the heat the draft helped, but there was a great deal of traffic. He drove with one arm on the window and let the draft run up his sleeve.

Maybe Venuto can help, he thought. He owes several favors and knows Dryer Supply. Maybe he can get the balls at manufacturer’s price, and why not. He owes several favors.

Sandy turned off the thoroughfare and went through the wholesale district. Drygoods, then papergoods. There were trucks and semis parked on the street and angled into alleys.

Because I hate to see somebody lose all the time, thought Sandy. Nice, strong outfit like the Kats, why should they lose all the time, just because of no-good equipment.

He parked with two wheels on the sidewalk and two in the gutter, which was the only way traffic was able to pass him on the street.

He went into a store with the windows painted black half way up and inside nothing but storage space. The place had the dry smell of a great deal of paper. There were tall stacks of it all around, wrapped in brown packages. Sandy went past one side of a shelf which divided the long place in two. The other side of the store was the same as the first, except that there was a desk and a bulb hanging over it. The desk and the bulb were surrounded by paper packets so that the space looked like the inside of a box.

“Hello, Bass,” said Sandy.

“Sit down.”

Sandy took a chair next to the desk and said, “Christ, how can you work in this place?”

The other man didn’t answer. He was bald and squat and the suit he wore didn’t fit the place. It was dark flannel, cut up to date, and his shirt was a fashion pink. His bald head was very smooth and his face had heavy lines.

“Well?” said Bass.

“Nothing. I would have called you.”

“He ever been late before?”

“No. Not unless he calls. He hasn’t called though.” Bass took his ballpoint and made zigzags on an order blank.

“I want you to send somebody down there.”

“That’s no good. I never do that, at this kind of time, and especially with a burg like this Pender—what was it?”

“You just said it. Penderburg.”

“Yes. For all I know the whole place is popping. You should get a paper. I’m sure they got a local paper.”

“You just said it, that it’s a burg. Where’m I going to get a paper from there?”

Sandy shrugged and looked at the stacks all around. “Maybe the car broke down,” he said.

“His car ever break down before, on a job?”

“No.”

“Maybe something else broke down.” Bass looked up and asked, “How long you had him?”

“He’s all right. I see him all the time.”

Bass looked at his ballpoint and then at Sandy. Sandy shook his head.

“No. He’s been fine. He’s quiet, kind of, but that’s all.”

Bass shrugged and got up. He stretched his back and said, “How quiet is fine?” Then he looked at a crack of light between the stacked paper packets, where a window was on the other side. “Meyer is on pins and needles and says I should call you over and get you to explain this thing. And what you’re going to do about it.”

“Frig him,” said Sandy and he got up. “I got things to do.”

Bass turned around and watched Sandy go. Bass was just the man in the middle and the less he had to do with this the better.

“I meant to ask you,” said Sandy and he stopped by the door. “You know Venuto?”

“Who?”

“Never mind,” said Sandy and then he left.

He stood by his car for a moment and watched a semi snake up to a loading platform. And if Venuto can’t do anything, maybe I’ll ask Schultz. I hate to see those Kats lose all the time.

“Hey! Sandy!”

He turned and saw Bass in the door to the paper place.

“He just called your place.”

“From where?”

“He’s in town.”

“Where in town?”

“He left word you should call him at the number you got. You’d know where.”

“Okay. I know,” and Sandy got into his car.

“Wait a minute. Call him up and tell him to show at Meyer’s place.”

“When?”

“Now, damn it. What are we running here, anyways?”

“A business. What else?” and Sandy drove off.

Meyer’s place had terraces and glass walls in the dining rooms, so that the weekend trade from the city could look at the hills in comfort or out at the river. This was not a weekend and the big dining room was locked up. Meyer walked back and forth on the dance floor, and when he looked up he did not see the rolling view outside the large windows but all the empty chairs and tables.

Meyer did not look like a restaurant owner but perhaps like a man who sold houses. He was small and his clothes looked untidy, the kind of untidiness which says there are things more important than clothes. Meyer had a face like a hawk.

The first car which drove into the lot brought Bass. He parked in line with the other cars; he went into the bar and had a drink next to the other guests. There were not very many. They were mostly women having an afternoon drink, and they talked about maid and gardener problems.

Bass went through the door which said
Gentlemen
and from there out through another door which said
Gentlemen
. That way he got into the dining room.

Meyer nodded at him and Bass nodded back. Then Bass sat down at a table and looked out of the windows.

Sandy and Jordan came in by a different way. Not even Meyer had noticed when they had driven up. They came in through the empty terrace and only Sandy said hello.

They all sat down at the empty tables and since there were so many tables, everyone sat at a table by himself. A bug was beating itself to death on the sunny side of the terrace; for a moment there was no other sound.

Meyer looked at Jordan but all Jordan did was look back. The two men did not know each other well. Then Meyer drummed his table a few times and twitched his nose. “All right,” he said. “Done?”

Jordan nodded.

“How come you’re late?”

“There were two of them.”

“The guard too?”

“Had to,” said Jordan.

“How come we didn’t hear sooner?”

“Because I just got back.”

Jordan took a cigarette out of his pocket and put the filter between his teeth. He held it like that, looking almost as if he were grinning.

“All right,” Meyer said again. “I want to know more. Something here isn’t regular.”

“What more?” said Jordan. “You want his head on a platter?”

Bass looked at Sandy and Sandy looked down at his fingernails. Meyer looked shocked. Then he said, “All right. Jokes. All right. But you never been late before. What kept you?”

“I never had to do my own casing,” said Jordan.

Bass had thought Jordan would say something else. He thought the natural answer would have been, I never had to kill two on one job. But Jordan said nothing else. He had closed his eyes, sighing, but kept holding the cigarette in his teeth like before, teeth showing, as if in a grin.

“I want to know more about it,” said Meyer.

This is as bad as doing the thing, thought Jordan. And screw Meyer. Hold that talk. Better not say “screw you” to Meyer.

“More?” said Jordan. “What are you, a pervert?”

After that Jordan lit his cigarette, and everyone watched him doing it because it was the only thing that was happening. When Meyer talked again, he sounded carefully slow, almost uninterested.

“Something ailing you, Jordan?”

“I’m fine.”

“You sound like you need a rest maybe.”

“I don’t want a rest.”

“Oh.”

“There’s a point,” said Bass, “when a man doesn’t necessarily know that he needs a rest. Like when I get to the point—”

“Not the same thing,” said Jordan. “I don’t sell paper, you know that?”

Jordan smoked and looked at Bass because Bass happened to be most in line. Then he looked away from Bass and watched Sandy. Sandy was getting up and walked to the table where Jordan was sitting. He bent sideways a little and looked down at Jordan’s suit.

“How come it’s all buttoned, Sam?” he asked. “With this heat and all, Sam?”

“How come you wear an overcoat all the time, Sandy?”

Sandy said, “Because I’m a little bit nuts,” and then he reached over and patted Jordan on the front where his stomach was.

He did it with the back of his hand and his big signet ring made a hard sound when it tapped.

It took less than a second, Jordan slapping the hand out of the way, and he looked immediately the way he had looked before, but all the others—shocked with the suddenness—did something. They sat up more, touched tie, shifted seat.

“Since when,” said Sandy, “are you carrying a gun, Sammy, while not working?”

Jordan said something filthy, which was almost as much of a shock as the other thing, his sudden slap.

The bug on the terrace had changed his sound. He wasn’t bumping any more but just buzzed. He was on his back, the way it sounded, buzzing. And they could all hear the phone ringing. It was someplace far away and somebody picked it up almost immediately. Meyer looked away, at a door in the back, and everyone waited. Then he got up and left the big room.

Jordan had worked the coal out of the end of his cigarette and watched it smoke itself out in the tray on his table. The dead stub was in his mouth. Sandy asked Bass if he knew Schultz and when Bass answered no, he didn’t know any Schultz, Sandy explained he was interested in buying some bowling balls. This sounded like nonsense to Bass, coming from Sandy, but Bass didn’t feel detached enough to make anything of it. Then Meyer came back.

He had a newspaper in his hand and sat down where he had sat before.

“Business call?” said Bass.

“That was Sherman.” Meyer put the paper on top of his table. He looked down at it, and talked that way. “I don’t think you know Sherman. Just somebody runs errands for me.”

“How about it,” said Jordan. “We done?”

“He just called,” said Meyer, “I should look at the afternoon paper.”

He leafed through it and said, “Only page nineteen.”

Jordan got up and dropped his butt in the ashtray.

“I haven’t slept much,” he said.

“Sleep on this,” said Meyer. “Kemp’s alive.”