100 Malicious Little Mysteries

Pigeon by William F. Nolan

When Vince Thompson entered his apartment, he saw the small white square of paper under the door.

Well, he thought, it’s about time. Been a month since the last one.

He locked the door behind him and unfolded the paper. It was like all the others: a phone number and the letter R typed at the bottom. Nothing else. Vince ignited the edge of the paper with his lighter and watched the number blacken and curl into ash. Then he dusted his fingers and reached for the phone.

“Vince?” R’s voice was cold and metallic over the wire.

“Yeah. I just got the message.”

“Ready to go to work?”

“Just fill me in.”

“It’s tonight. Top of Bel Air Road off Sunset. You follow it all the way up. To the left, at the summit, you’ll see a stretch of open ground. About a hundred feet in is a small white stucco house set into the hill with a two-car garage in front. You station yourself inside the garage. Door’s unlocked, so you’ll have no problem getting in. Your pigeon should arrive by eleven. You be there by 10:45 just in case.”

“Fine. What’s my boy look like?”

“Tall. Fairly slim build. Around forty or so.”

“This one for the usual?”

“Maybe more if the job’s real clean. We’ll see.”

“Anything else I need to know?”

“That’s it, Vince.” The voice clicked off.

Thompson replaced the receiver and leaned heavily back on the couch. He grinned to himself, thinking of a quick two grand for one night’s work. Wilma would be real pleased to get that coat he’d been promising her. Tomorrow night they’d celebrate, go dancing, drink some good champagne...

Vince lit a cigarette, drawing the smoke deep into his lungs. R was sure some operator. Like a ghost. Nobody sees him, nobody knows who he is. As he’d told Mitch, Vince didn’t like the feeling you get working for a guy with no face. A square of white paper, a phone number, some orders, a dead man — and a couple of thousand bucks. No problems. No loose ends. But sometimes it made Vince jumpy. He’d been asking around, among some of the wise boys, but no one seemed to know anything. R was just a voice. Well, for the kind of dough Vince was getting he could keep his curiosity curbed. Actually, with R figuring all the angles, it was a perfect set-up.

Vince checked his watch: 9:30. He estimated a half hour to reach Bel Air, another ten minutes to the top. Which meant he still had time to stop downstairs for a couple of quick ones.

The place was packed. Full house for a Friday night. Vince managed to push his way to the bar. He ordered a scotch and water, and looked over the crowd.

Here I am, he thought, ready to kill a man tonight and it might even turn out to be one of you guys. He sipped his drink slowly.

How many jobs had he done for R? Ten? A dozen? It didn’t matter, really. To Vince Thompson, killing was a business and it was up to R to keep the books. A year ago, when he hit L.A. from Frisco, his old pal Mitch had put in the good word on him to R, and he was in.

His gaze swept the room once more. Jerks! Poor dumb jerks pushing trucks for a living or delivering milk or sweating over a desk in some seedy office. Hell, he’d make more tonight with one shot than these dummies would make in three months!

He finished his drink, had another.

When he left the bar, he felt just right: not high, but brought to a fine cutting edge. He knew he could handle the job without any trouble and be back at his apartment by midnight. He might even give Wilma a late buzz and tell her the news.

Just at the entrance to Bel Air Road, under the tall, wrought-iron gate off Sunset, Vince pulled his car to a stop. Nobody around, no other cars. Quickly he reached under the dash and unstrapped the slim Italian Beretta he always carried there. He flipped out the magazine, checked it, and eased the gun into his coat. He sighed, feeling whole once more.

One of the toughest rules Vince had to accept, when he started working for R, concerned the Beretta. None of R’s boys packed a gun before a job. That way, according to R, they were always clean if the cops picked them up between jobs. For Vince, the rule seemed all wrong. Without his Beretta he felt half-naked; he’d carried it since he was sixteen; he was never fully at ease without it.

Bel Air Road twisted up sharply past the rich hillside homes, and Vince felt the Merc slide a bit on the turns. He backed off. It was no use pushing it because the road was dark and narrow and he didn’t want to get tangled up with another car on the way down.

The climb was a steep one. At the top, he pulled the Merc far over on the dirt shoulder under some trees and cut the engine. His car would be out of sight here. Below him, stretching for miles, Vince could see the glittering lights of Beverly Hills and Hollywood.

He got out of the Merc and stretched. Chilly as hell up here, Vince thought, feeling the cold wind against his face. He looked around.

As usual, R had arranged a perfect set-up for the job. No other houses nearby, a long stretch of open ground between the garage and the road. If anybody heard the shot, it would sound like a car backfiring on the steep grade. Perfect.

Vince checked his watch again. 10:44. He’d better get moving. When he reached the garage, a low modern structure with a sliding door, he nodded. No lock, just as R had said. The door slid up quietly under his hand.

Inside, near the far corner, he saw several stacked cartons. Vince allowed the door to slide down behind him as he moved toward the boxes.

He eased down on the cool concrete, his back against the wall. When the door opened, his pigeon would make a perfect target against the lights of the car.

Minutes ticked by. A cigarette would be too risky, he knew, so he quit thinking about a smoke. He slipped the thin Beretta into his right hand, letting one finger curl slowly around the trigger. One shot. That’s all he needed to do the job. He’d earned a marksmanship medal in the service, and he’d had plenty of practice since. Plenty.

Vince Thompson stiffened at the sound of a car on the road below him. The high whine of the straining engine increased in volume. He eased forward, transferring his weight to the balls of his feet; the Beretta was up and ready.

He heard the car pull off the road and bump over the open stretch of ground.

His pigeon all right.

Vince pressed close against the stacked cartons, waiting. Outside, he heard a car door open, the dry scuff of shoes against the ground.

Any second now...

The garage door began to slide upward and Vince sighted along the Beretta’s thin barrel, ready to squeeze the trigger.

Vince swore, drawing in his breath sharply.

No one was there.

Just the bright cones of two powerful headlights in the open doorway.

Vince felt his mouth go dry and his heart begin to pound inside his chest. He squinted into the glare. Nothing.

Only the lights, the smooth sound of the car’s idling engine, and the wind.

Suddenly he was remembering the metallic voice of R: “Tall. Fairly slim build. Around forty or so.”

Which, Vince realized, was a thumbnail description of himself.

Sure, it all figured. His bitching about working for a faceless man, quizzing Mitch, nosing around the boys for information he didn’t really need...

He was becoming a risk — and R didn’t believe in risks.

Okay, then, Vince told himself, get the hell out of here. If you can reach the Merc you’ve got a chance. But first, fix those lights.

Two shots and the twin beams winked out in a soft shower of glass. In the thick darkness, he was up and running.

Ahead of him, the way seemed clear. He twisted past the car in front of the garage and struck out across ground, crouched low, the Beretta poised for action.

Then Vince Thompson went blind.

A dozen bright flashlight beams dipped up from the dark ground, slicing into his eyes.

God! They were all around him!

If anyone heard the sudden roar, it must have sounded like a car backfiring on the steep grade.