Live Bait

3

Marty Pullman was sitting on the closed toilet lid in his downstairs bathroom, staring down the muzzle of a.357 Magnum. The round black hole looked very large, which worried him. Worse yet, the toilet faced the big mirror on the sliding doors that enclosed the bathtub, and he wasn’t too keen on watching his own snuff film. He thought about it for a minute, then got into the bathtub and slid the doors closed behind him.

He smiled a little as he aimed the shower nozzle toward the back of the tub and turned the spray on full blast. He may have made a mess of his life, but he sure as hell wasn’t going to make a mess of his death.

Finally satisfied, he sat down in the tub and put the muzzle in his mouth. Water poured over his head, his clothes, his shoes.

He hesitated for just a few seconds, wondering again what, if anything, he’d done last night. Not that it would matter now, he thought, slipping his thumb through the trigger guard.

‘Mr Pullman?’

Marty froze, his thumb quivering on the trigger. Goddamn it, he was hallucinating. He had to be. No one ever came to this house, and certainly no one would just let himself in – except maybe a Jehovah’s Witness, which made him glad he had the gun.

‘Mr Pullman?’ The male voice was louder now, closer, and he sounded young. ‘Are you in there, sir?’ A forceful knock rattled the bathroom door in its frame.

The gun tasted terrible as he pulled it from his mouth, and he spat into the water swirling toward the drain. ‘Who is it?’ he shouted, trying his best to sound scary and aggressive.

‘Sorry to disturb you, Mr Pullman, but Mrs Gilbert told me to break the door down if I had to…’

‘Who the hell are you and how do you know Lily?’ Marty shouted.

‘Jeff Montgomery, sir? I work at the nursery?’

The kid spoke only in questions. God, that was irritating. Marty looked down at the gun and sighed. He was never going to get this done. ‘Stay right where you are. I’ll be out in a minute.’

He scrambled out of the tub, stripped out of his drenched clothes, then stuffed gun, clothes, and shoes into the hamper. He wrapped a towel around his waist, then opened the bathroom door.

A tall, good-looking kid – eighteen or nineteen at most – was standing awkwardly in the hallway, hands stuffed into his jeans pockets.

‘Okay. Here I am. Now tell me why Lily wanted you to break my door down.’

Jeff Montgomery had big blue eyes that grew comically wide when he noticed the thick scar that slashed a diagonal across Marty’s bare chest. He looked away quickly.

‘Uh… I didn’t actually break down your door? It was open? And Mrs Gilbert has been trying to call you forever, but no one answered your phone? And jeez, Mr Pullman, I’m really sorry, but Mr Gilbert passed away.’

Marty didn’t move for a minute; didn’t even blink; then he rubbed the heel of his hand hard against his forehead, as if it would help him absorb the information. ‘What?’ he whispered. ‘Morey’s dead?’

The kid pressed his lips together and scowled down at the floor, trying not to cry, and Marty’s opinion of him shot up a few degrees, even if he did end every sentence with a question mark. Anyone who liked Morey enough to cry for him couldn’t be all bad.

‘He was shot, Mr Pullman. Someone shot Mr Gilbert.’

Marty didn’t say anything, but he felt the blood drain from his face as if someone had just pulled a plug. He sagged sideways against the bathroom door frame, glad it was there to hold him up.

Jesus Christ, he hated this world.