Everybody Kills Somebody Sometime

Thirty-five

The situation was strange, to say the least. Four men in the room, two naked on the bed and one holding a gun. The fourth one-me-wasn’t sure what was going to happen next.

“This ain’t right,” Davis said.

“Shut up!” That came from both Ravisi and Jerry.

“You guys can walk away from this real easy,” Jerry told them. “Just tell my friend who hired you to work him over and warn him off.

“Warn him off of what?” Ravisi asked. “We don’t even know what we was warning him off of.”

“How’s that?” I asked.

“Look,” Ravisi said, “we got hired over the phone, and we picked up our pay at a drop. That’s it.”

“And what were you told to do?” Jerry asked.

“Work this guy over,” Ravisi said, indicating me with an impatient wave.

Jerry looked at me, the first time he took his eyes off the two men. Ravisi took the opportunity to move. He lunged for the top of the bed, sliding his hand beneath one of the pillows. I could only think that he was going for a hidden gun.

“Jerry!”

The big man’s head snapped back around as Ravisi’s hand was coming out from under the pillow. Jerry squeezed the trigger of the big.45. The bullet struck Ravisi in the chest and splattered the wall behind him with blood and guts. The gun in the hood’s right hand went off and a.38 slug hit Davis in the left temple and splashed his brains all over the sheets.

“Jesus!” I shouted. “Christ!”

“Take it easy,” Jerry said.

He stepped to the bed and swept the snub-nosed.38 to the floor, then checked both men before holstering his own gun.

“Are they dead?” I asked.

“Can’t get any deader.”

“Christ,” I said, again. My chest felt tight, like I was having a heart attack, and I’d broken out in a sweat. Jerry looked over at me, then got right in my face and slapped me-not hard, but hard enough.

“Breathe,” he said.

“Huh?”

“Come on,” he said, “Deep breaths.”

I took a deep breath and let it out.

“Another one.”

I did it again, and again. Suddenly, the steel band around my chest was gone. I still felt hot, but at least I could breathe.

“Okay?” he asked. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” I said, “yeah. I think so.”

“We have to look around,” he said, “but don’t leave your fingerprints anywhere.”

“What?”

“We have to search the place and then get outta here before the cops come.”

“W-what are we lookin’ for?”

“Anythin’ that will tell us who these two were workin’ for. Come on, Mr. G. The place ain’t that big.”

We went through the place as thoroughly as we could and as fast as we could. The clerk might have called the cops, or maybe the girl had, before the shooting. Certainly someone must have called themafter the shots, but I still didn’t hear any sirens. I was careful to keep my eyes averted from the bed, which was soaking through with the blood of both men. I’d had enough of dead bodies in the past couple of days to last me a lifetime. Watching the lead rip through these two right in front of me was more than enough.

“Find anything?” Jerry asked.

“No.” I’d picked up a pen from somewhere and was using it to open drawers and go through things, even underwear. “You?”

“I got a phone book and calendar,” he said.

“Anythin’ on it?”

“I don’t know.” He shoved it into his pocket. “Let’s get out of here.

I started to put down the pen I was using, then thought better of it and shoved it in my pocket.

“You touch anything?” he asked.

“I don’t think so.”

“Ya gotta be sure,” Jerry said. “From the minute we came in, did you touch anything?”

“No,” I said, “no. You kicked open the door, so … no.”

“Then let’s get out of here.”

As we went through the lobby I noticed that the clerk still had his head down on the desk. He’d either stayed that way the whole time, or had assumed the position when he heard us coming down the stairs.

In the car Jerry got behind the wheel again.

“What about the clerk?” I asked. “Or the girl?”

“What about them?”

“Either one can identify us.”

“They won’t say a word.”

“Why not?”

“Fear,” he answered. “In my business, it’s my best friend. Come on, gimme some directions.”

“Where to?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “We might as well go back to your place. I think we’re done for the night, don’t you?”

“More than done,” I agreed.

When we got to my place we approached it slowly, carefully. I didn’t know if we were expecting more goons, or the cops. I didn’t want anyone to be there because I needed to sit quietly, have a beer and think.

Once we were inside and established that we were alone I grabbed two bottles of Piels from the refrigerator, handed one to Jerry, and then went to sit on the sofa in the living room. Jerry chose the big, overstuffed armchair across from me.

“I’m sorry,” I said to him.

“What for?”

“That you had to kill those men.”

“I didn’t kill both of ’em,” he said. “I killed one and he killed the other one.”

“Whichever way it went-”

“And there ain’t nothin’ for you to be sorry about,” he went on. “The idiot went for a gun. I’m sorry I had to kill ’im before we got what you were after.”

“You didn’t believe them?”

“What? That they got hired on the phone and picked up their money from a drop?” he shrugged. “Could be. It ain’t the way I would work, but these two weren’t real pros.”

“Well,” I said, “I’m back to square one. At least with them warning me off I had somebody to go lookin’ for; I had a reason to believe that the threats made to Dean Martin were real.”

“Look on the bright side,” he said.

“What’s the bright side?”

“With those two dead,” he said, “whoever hired them is gonna have to hire somebody new to go after you.”

“To go after-you mean-”

“They ain’t about to let it go,” Jerry said. “You got beat up and threatened off and you still kept goin’. Next time, they’re gonna try harder.”

Christ. I hadn’t thought of that.