The Best American Mystery Stories 1997

Elmore Leonard Karen Makes Out from Murder for Love

They danced until Karen said she had to be up early tomorrow. No argument, he walked with her through the crowd outside Monaco, then along Ocean Drive in the dark to her car. He said, “Lady, you wore me out.” He was in his forties, weathered but young-acting, natural, didn’t come on with any singles-bar bullshit buying her a drink, or comment when she said thank you, she’d have Jim Beam on the rocks. They had cooled off by the time they reached her Honda and he took her hand and gave her a peck on the cheek saying he hoped to see her again. In no hurry to make something happen. That was fine with Karen. He said “Ciao,” and walked off.

Two nights later they left Monaco, came out of that pounding sound to a sidewalk café and drinks and he became Carl Tillman, skipper of a charter deep-sea fishing boat out of American Marina, Bahia Mar. He was single, married seven years and divorced, no children; he lived in a ground-floor two-bedroom apartment in North Miami — one of the bedrooms full of fishing gear he didn’t know where else to store. Carl said his boat was out of the water, getting ready to move it to Haulover Dock, closer to where he lived.

Karen liked his weathered, kind of shaggy look, the crow’s-feet when he smiled. She liked his soft brown eyes that looked right at her talking about making his living on the ocean, about hurricanes, the trendy scene here on South Beach, movies. He went to the movies every week and told Karen — raising his eyebrows in a vague, kind of stoned way — his favorite actor was Jack Nicholson. Karen asked him if that was his Nicholson impression or was he doing Christian Slater doing Nicholson? Me told her she had a keen eve; but couldn’t understand why she thought Dennis Quaid was a hunk. That was okay.

He said. “You’re a social worker.”

Karen said, “A social worker—”

“A teacher.”

“What kind of teacher?”

“You teach Psychology. College level.”

She shook her head.

“English Lit.”

“I’m not a teacher.”

“Then why’d you ask what kind I thought you were?”

She said, “You want me to tell you what I do?”

“You’re a lawyer. Wait. The Honda — you’re a public defender.” Karen shook her head and he said, “Don’t tell me. I want to guess, even if it takes a while.” He said, “If that’s okay with you.”

Fine. Some guys, she’d tell them what she did and they were turned off by it. Or they’d act surprised and then self-conscious and start asking dumb questions. “But how can a girl do that?” Assholes.

That night in the bathroom brushing her teeth Karen stared at her reflection. She liked to look at herself in mirrors: touch her short blond hair, check out her fanny in profile, long legs in a straight skirt above her knees, Karen still a size six approaching thirty. She didn’t think she looked like a social worker or a schoolteacher, even college level. A lawyer maybe, but not a public defender. Karen was low-key high style. She could wear her favorite Calvin Klein suit, the black one her dad had given her for Christmas, her Sig Sauer .38 for evening wear snug against the small of her back, and no one would think for a moment she was packing.

Her new boyfriend called and stopped by her house in Coral Gables Friday evening in a white BMW convertible. They went to a movie and had supper and when he brought her home they kissed in the doorway, arms slipping around each other, holding, Karen thanking God he was a good kisser, comfortable with him, but not quite ready to take her clothes off. When she turned to the door he said, “I can wait. You think it’ll be long?”

Karen said. “What’re you doing Sunday?”

They kissed the moment he walked in and made love in the afternoon, sunlight flat on the window shades, the bed stripped down to a fresh white sheet. They made love in a hurry because they couldn’t wait, had at each other and lay perspiring after. When they made love again. Karen holding his lean body between her legs and not wanting to let go, it lasted and lasted and got them smiling at each other, saying things like “Wow,” and “Oh, my God,” it was so good, serious business but really fun. They went out for a while, came back to her yellow stucco bungalow in Coral Gables, and made love on the living room floor.

Carl said, “We could try it again in the morning.”

“I have to be dressed and out of here by six.”

“You’re a flight attendant.”

She said. “Keep guessing.”

Monday morning Karen Sisco was outside the federal courthouse in Miami with a pump-action shotgun on her hip. Karen’s right hand gripped the neck of the stock, the barrel extending above her head. Several more U.S. deputy marshals were out here with her, while inside, three Colombian nationals were being charged in District Court with the possession of cocaine in excess of five hundred kilograms. One of the marshals said he hoped the scudders liked Atlanta as they’d be doing thirty to life there pretty soon. He said, “Hey. Karen, you want to go with me, drop ’em off? I know a nice hotel we could stay at.”

She looked over at the good-ole-boy marshals grinning, shuffling their feet, waiting for her reply. Karen said, “Gary, I’d go with you in a minute if it wasn’t a mortal sin.” They liked that. It was funny, she’d been standing here thinking she’d gone to bed with four different boyfriends in her life: an Eric at Florida Atlantic, a Bill right alter she graduated, then a Greg, three years of going to bed with Greg, and now Carl. Only four in her whole life, but two more than the national average for women in the U.S. according to Time magazine, their report of a recent sex survey. The average woman had two partners in her lifetime, the average man, six. Karen had thought everybody was getting laid with a lot more different ones than that.

She saw her boss now. Milt Dancey, an old-time marshal in charge of court support, come out of the building to stand looking around, a pack of cigarettes in his hand. Mill looked this way and gave Karen a nod, but paused to light a cigarette before coming over. A guy from the Miami FBI office was with him.

Milt said. “Karen, you know Daniel Burdon?”

Not Dan, not Danny, Daniel. Karen knew him, one of the younger black guys over there, tall and good looking, confident, known to brag about how many women he’d had of all kinds and color. He’d flashed his smile at Karen one time, hitting on her. Karen turned him down saying, “You have two reasons you want to go out with me.” Daniel, smiling, said he knew of one reason, what was the other one? Karen said. “So you can tell your buddies you banged a marshal.” Daniel said, “Yeah, but you could use it, too, girl. Brag on getting me in the sack.” See? That’s the kind of guy he was.

Milt said. “He wants to ask you about a Carl Tillman.”

No flashing smile this time. Daniel Burdon had on a serious, sort of innocent expression, saying to her, “You know the man, Karen? Guy in his forties, sandy hair, goes about five-ten, one-sixty?”

Karen said. “What’s this, a test? Do I know him?”

Milt reached for her shotgun. “Here, Karen, lemme take that while you’re talking.”

She turned a shoulder saying, “It’s okay. I’m not gonna shoot him,” her fist tight on the neck of the twelve-gauge. She said to Daniel, “You have Carl under surveillance?”

“Since last Monday.”

“You’ve seen us together — so what’s this do-I-know-him shit? You playing a game with me?”

“What I meant to ask, Karen, was how long have you known him?”

“We met last week, Tuesday.”

“And you saw him Thursday. Friday, spent Sunday with him, went to the beach, came back to your place... What’s he think about you being with the marshals’ service?”

“I haven’t told him.”

“How come?”

“He wants to guess what I do.”

“Still working on it, huh? What you think, he a nice guy? Has a sporty car, has money, huh? He a pretty big spender?”

“Look,” Karen said, “why don’t you quit dickin’ around and tell me what this is about, okay?”

“See, Karen, the situation’s so unusual,” Daniel said, still with the innocent expression, “I don’t know how to put it, you know, delicately. Find out a U.S. marshal’s fucking a bank robber.”

Milt Dancey thought Karen was going to swing at Daniel with the shotgun. He took it from her this time and told the Bureau man to behave himself, watch his mouth if he wanted cooperation here. Stick to the facts. This Carl Tillman was a suspect in a bank robbery, a possible suspect in a half-dozen more, all the robberies, judging from the bank videos, committed by the same guy. The FBI referred to him as “Slick,” having nicknames for all their perps. They had prints off a teller’s counter might be the guy’s, but no match in their files and not enough evidence on Carl Edward Tillman — the name on his driver’s license and car registration — to bring him in. He appeared to be most recently cherry, just getting into a career of crime. His motivation, pissed off at banks because Florida Southern foreclosed on his note and sold his forty-eight-foot Hatteras for nonpayment.

It stopped Karen for a moment. He might’ve lied about his boat, telling her he was moving it to Haulover; but that didn’t make him a bank robber. She said, “What’ve you got, a video picture, a teller identified him?”

Daniel said. “Since you mentioned it,” taking a Bureau wanted fiver from his inside coat pocket, the sheet folded once down the middle. He opened it and Karen was looking at four photos taken from bank video cameras of robberies in progress, the bandits framed in teller windows, three black guys, one white.

Karen said, “Which one?” and Daniel gave her a look before pointing to the white guy: a man with slicked-back hair, an earring, a full mustache, and dark sunglasses. She said, “That’s not Carl Tillman,” and felt instant relief. There was no resemblance.

“Look at it good.”

“What can I tell you? It’s not him.”

“Look at the nose.”

“You serious?”

“That’s your friend Carl’s nose.”

It was. Carl’s slender, rather elegant nose. Or like his. Karen said, “You’re going with a nose ID, that’s all you’ve got?”

“A witness,” Daniel said, “believes she saw this man — right after what would be the first robbery he pulled — run from the bank to a strip mall up the street and drive off in a while BMW convertible. The witness got a partial on the license number and that brought us to your friend Carl.”

Karen said, “You ran his name and date of birth...”

“Looked him up in NCIC, FCIC, and Warrant Information, drew a blank. That’s why I think he’s just getting his feet wet. Managed to pull off a few, two three grand each, and found himself a new profession.”

“What do you want me to do,” Karen said, “get his prints on a beer can?”

Daniel raised his eyebrows. “That would be a start. Might even be all we need. What I’d like you to do, Karen, is snuggle up to the man and find out his secrets. You know what I’m saying — intimate things, like did he ever use another name...”

“Be your snitch,” Karen said, knowing it was a mistake as soon as the words were out of her mouth.

It got Daniel’s eyebrows raised again. He said, “That what it sounds like to you? I thought you were a federal agent. Karen. Maybe you’re too close to him — is that it? Don’t want the man to think ill of you?”

Milt said, “That’s enough of that shit,” standing up for Karen as he would any of his people, not because she was a woman; he had learned not to open doors for her. The only time she wanted to be first through the door was on a fugitive warrant, this girl who scored higher with a handgun, more times than not, than any marshal in the Southern District of Florida.

Daniel was saying, “Man, I need to use her. Is she on our side or not?”

Milt handed Karen her shotgun. “Here, you want to shoot him, go ahead.”

“Look,” Daniel said, “Karen can get me a close read on the man, where he’s lived before, if he ever went by other names, if he has any identifying marks on his body, scars, maybe a gunshot wound, tattoos, things only lovely Karen would see when the man has his clothes off.”

Karen took a moment. She said. “There is one thing I noticed.”

“Yeah? What’s that?”

“He’s got the letters f-u-o-n tattooed on his penis.”

Daniel frowned at her. “Foo-on?”

“That’s when it’s, you might say, limp. When he has a hard-on it says Fuck the Federal Bureau of Investigation.”

Daniel Burdon grinned at Karen. He said, “Girl, you and I have to get together. I mean it.”

Karen could handle “girl.” Go either way. Girl, looking at herself in a mirror applying blush-on. Woman, well, that’s what she was. Though until just a few years ago she only thought of women old enough to be her mother as women. Women getting together to form organizations of women, saying, Look, we’re different from men. Isolating themselves in these groups instead of mixing it up with men and beating them at their own men’s games. Men in general were stronger physically than women. Some men were stronger than other men and Karen was stronger than some too; so what did that prove? If she had to put a man on the ground, no matter how big or strong he was, she’d do it. One way or another. Up front, in his face. What she couldn’t see herself playing was this sneaky role. Trying to get the stuff on Carl, a guy she liked, a lot, would think of with tender feelings and miss him during the day and want to be with him. Shit... Okay, she’d play the game, but not undercover. She’d first let him know she was a federal officer and see what he thought about it.

Could Carl be a bank robber?

She’d reserve judgment. Assume almost anyone could at one time or another and go from there.

What Karen did, she came home and put a pot roast in the oven and left her bag on the kitchen table, open, the grip of a Beretta nine slicking out in plain sight.

Carl arrived, they kissed in the living room. Karen feeling it but barely looking at him. When he smelled the pot roast cooking Karen said, “Come on, you can make the drinks while I put the potatoes on.” In the kitchen, then, she stood with the refrigerator door open, her back to Carl, giving him time to notice the pistol. Finally he said, “Jesus, you’re a cop.”

She had rehearsed this moment. The idea: turn saying, “You guessed,” sounding surprised: then look at the pistol and say something like “Nuts, I gave it away.” But she didn’t. He said, “Jesus, you’re a cop,” and she turned from the refrigerator with an ice tray and said, “Federal. I’m a U.S. marshal.”

“I would never’ve guessed,” Carl said, “not in a million years.”

Thinking about it before, she didn’t know if he’d wig out or what. She looked at him now, and he seemed to be taking it okay, smiling a little.

Не said. “But why?”

“Why what?”

“Are you a marshal?”

“Well, first of all, my dad has a company, Marshall Sisco Investigations...”

“You mean because of his name, Marshall?”

“What I am — they’re not spelled the same. No, but as soon as I learned to drive I started doing surveillance jobs for him. Like following some guy who was trying to screw his insurance company, a phony claim. I got the idea of going into law enforcement. So after a couple of years at Miami I transferred to Florida Atlantic and got in their Criminal Justice program.”

“I mean why not FBI, if you’re gonna do it, or DEA?”

“Well, for one thing, I liked to smoke grass when I was younger, so DEA didn’t appeal to me at all. Secret Service guys I met were so fucking secretive, you ask them a question, they’d go, ‘You’ll have to check with Washington on that.’ See, different federal agents would come to school to give talks. I got to know a couple of marshals — we’d go out after, have a few beers, and I liked them. They’re nice guys, condescending at first, naturally; but after a few years they got over it.”

Carl was making drinks now. Early Times for Karen, Dewar’s in his glass, both with a splash. Standing at the sink, letting the faucet run, he said, “What do you do?”

“I’m on court security this week. My regular assignment is warrants. We go after fugitives, most of them parole violators.”

Carl handed her a drink. “Murderers?”

“If they were involved in a federal crime when they did it. Usually drugs.”

“Bank robbery, that’s federal, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, some guys come out of corrections and go right back to work.”

“You catch many?”

“Bank robbers?” Karen said. “Nine out of ten,” looking right at him.

Carl raised his glass. “Cheers.”

While they were having dinner at the kitchen table he said. “You’re quiet this evening.”

“I’m tired, I was on my feet all day, with a shotgun.”

“I can’t picture that,” Carl said. “You don’t look like a U.S. marshal, or any kind of cop.”

“What do I look like?”

“A knockout. You’re the best-looking girl I’ve ever been this close to. I got a pretty close look at Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio, when they were here shooting Scarface? But you’re a lot better looking. I like your freckles.”

“I used to be loaded with them.”

“You have some gravy on your chin. Right here.”

Karen touched it with her napkin. She said, “I’d like to see your boat.”

He was chewing pot roast and had to wait before saying, “I told you it was out of the water?”

“Yeah?”

“I don’t have the boat anymore. It was repossessed when I fell behind in my payments.”

“The bank sold it?”

“Yeah. Florida Southern. I didn’t want to tell you when we first met. Get off to a shaky start.”

“But now that you can tell me I’ve got gravy on my chin...”

“I didn’t want you to think I was some kind of loser.”

“What’ve you been doing since?”

“Working as a mate, up at Haulover.”

“You still have your place, your apartment?”

“Yeah, I get paid, I can swing that, no problem.”

“I have a friend in the marshals lives in North Miami, on Alamanda off a Hundred and twenty-fifth.”

Carl nodded. “That’s not far from me.”

“You want to go out after?”

“I thought you were tired.”

“I am.”

“Then why don’t we stay home?” Carl smiled. “What do you think?”

“Fine.”

They made love in the dark. He wanted to turn the lamp on, but Karen said, no, leave it off.

Geraldine Regal, the first teller at Sun Federal on Kendall Drive, watched a man with slicked-back hair and sunglasses fishing in his inside coat pocket as he approached her window. It was 9:40, Tuesday morning. At first she thought the guy was Latin. Kind of cool, except that up close his hair looked shellacked, almost metallic. She wanted to ask him if it hurt. He brought papers, deposit slips, and a blank check from the pocket saying, “I’m gonna make this out for four thousand.” Began filling out the check and said. “You hear about the woman trapeze artist, her husband’s divorcing her?”

Geraldine said she didn’t think so, smiling, because it was a little weird, a customer she’d never seen before telling her a joke.

“They’re in court. The husband’s lawyer asks her, ‘Isn’t it true that on Monday, March the fifth, hanging from the trapeze upside down, without a net, you had sex with the ringmaster, the lion tamer, two clowns, and a dwarf?’”

Geraldine waited. The man paused, head down as he finished making out the check. Now he looked up.

“The woman trapeze artist thinks for a minute and says, ‘What was that date again?’”

Geraldine was laughing as he handed her the check, smiling as she saw it was a note written on a blank check, neatly printed in block letters, that said:

Geraldine stopped smiling. The guy with the metallic hair was telling her he wanted it in hundreds, fifties, and twenties, loose, no bank straps or rubber bands, no bait money, no dye packs, no bills off the bottom of the drawer, and he wanted his note back. Now.

“The teller didn’t have four grand in her drawer,” Daniel Burdon said, “so the guy settled for twenty-eight hundred and was out of there. Slick changing his style — we know it’s the same guy, with the shiny hair? Only now he’s the Joker. The trouble is, see, I ain’t Batman.”

Daniel and Karen Sisco were in the hallway outside the central courtroom on the second floor, Daniel resting his long frame against the railing, where you could look below at the atrium, with its fountain and potted palms.

“No witness to see him hop in his BMW this time. The man coming to realize that was dumb, using his own car.”

Karen said, “Or it’s not Carl Tillman.”

“You see him last night?”

“He came over.”

“Yeah, how was it?”

Karen looked up at Daniel’s deadpan expression. “I told him I was a federal agent and he didn’t freak.”

“So he’s cool, huh?”

“He’s a nice guy.”

“Cordial. Tells jokes robbing banks. I talked to the people at Florida Southern, where he had his boat loan? Found out he was seeing one of the tellers. Not at the main office, one of their branches, girl named Kathy Lopez. Big brown eyes, cute as a puppy, just started working there. She’s out with Tillman she tells him about her job, what she does, how she’s counting money all day. I asked was Tillman interested, want to know anything in particular? Oh, yeah, he wanted to know what she was supposed to do if the bank ever got robbed. So she tells him about dye packs, how they work, how she gets a two-hundred-dollar bonus if she’s ever robbed and can slip one in with the loot. The next time he’s in, cute little Kathy Lopez shows him one, explains how you walk out the door with a pack of fake twenties? A half minute later the tear gas blows and you have that red shit all over you and the money you stole. I checked the reports on the other robberies he pulled? Every one of them he said to the teller, no dye packs or that bait money with the registered serial numbers.”

“Making conversation,” Karen said, trying hard to maintain her composure. “People like to talk about what they do.”

Daniel smiled.

And Karen said, “Carl’s not your man.”

“Tell me why you’re so sure.”

“I know him. He’s a good guy.”

“Karen, you hear yourself? You’re telling me what you feel, not what you know. Tell me about him — you like the way he dances, what?”

Karen didn’t answer that one. She wanted Daniel to leave her alone.

He said, “Okay, you want to put a wager on it, you say Tillman’s clean?”

That brought her back, hooked her, and she said, “How much?”

“You lose, you go out dancing with me.”

“Great. And it I’m right, what do I get?”

“My undying respect,” Daniel said.

As soon as Karen got home she called her dad at Marshall Sisco Investigations and told him about Carl Tillman, the robbery suspect in her life, and about Daniel Burdon’s confident, condescending, smart-ass, irritating attitude.

Her dad said, “Is this guy colored?”

“Daniel?”

“I know he is. Friends of mine at Metro-Dade call him the white man’s Burdon, on account of he gets on their nerves always being right. I mean your guy. There’s a running back in the NFL named Tillman. I forget who he’s with.”

Karen said. “You’re not helping any.”

“The Tillman in the pros is colored — the reason I asked. I think he’s with the Bears.”

“Carl’s white.”

“Okay, and you say you’re crazy about him?”

“I like him, a lot.”

“But you aren’t sure he isn’t doing the banks.”

“I said I can’t believe he is.”

“Why don’t you ask him?”

“Come on — if he is he’s not gonna tell me.”

“How do you know?”

She didn’t say anything and after a few moments her dad asked if she was still there.

“He’s coming over tonight,” Karen said.

“You want me to talk to him?”

“You’re not serious.”

“Then what’d you call me for?”

“I’m not sure what to do.”

“Let the FBI work it.”

“I’m supposed to be helping them.”

“Yeah, but what good are you? You want to believe the guy’s clean. Honey, the only way to find out if he is, you have to assume he isn’t. You know what I’m saying? Why does a person rob banks? For money, yeah. But you have to be dumb, too, considering the odds against you, the security, cameras taking your picture... So another reason could be the risk involved, it turns him on. The same reason he’s playing around with you...”

“He isn’t playing around.”

“I’m glad I didn’t say, ‘Sucking up to get information, see what you know.’”

“He’s never mentioned banks.” Karen paused. “Well, he might’ve once.”

“You could bring it up, see how he reacts. He gets sweaty, call for backup. Look, whether he’s playing around or loves you with all his heart, he’s still risking twenty years. He doesn’t know if you’re on to him or not and that heightens the risk. It’s like he thinks he’s Cary Grant stealing jewels from the broad’s home where he’s having dinner, in his tux. But your guy’s still dumb if he robs banks. You know all that. Your frame of mind, you just don’t want to accept it.”

“You think I should draw him out. See if I can set him up.”

“Actually,” her dad said, “I think you should find another boyfriend.”

Karen remembered Christopher Walken in The Dogs of War placing his gun on a table in the front hall — the doorbell ringing — and laying a newspaper over the gun before he opened the door. She remembered it because at one time she was in love with Christopher Walken, not even caring that he wore his pants so high.

Carl reminded her some of Christopher Walken, the way he smiled with his eyes. He came a little after seven. Karen had on khaki shorts and a T-shirt, tennis shoes without socks.

“I thought we were going out.”

They kissed and she touched his face, moving her hand lightly over his skin, smelling his after-shave, feeling the spot where his right earlobe was pierced.

“I’m making drinks,” Karen said. “Let’s have one and then I’ll get ready.” She started for the kitchen.

“Can I help?”

“You’ve been working all day. Sit down, relax.”

It took her a couple of minutes. Karen returned to the living room with a drink in each hand, her leather bag hanging from her shoulder. “This one’s yours.” Carl took it and she dipped her shoulder to let the bag slip off and drop to the coffee table. Carl grinned.

“What’ve you got in there, a gun?”

“Two pounds of heavy metal. How was your day?”

They sat on the sofa and he told how it took almost four hours to land an eight-foot marlin, the leader wound around its bill. Carl said he worked his tail off hauling the fish aboard and the guy decided he didn’t want it.

Karen said, “After you got back from Kendall?”

It gave him pause.

“Why do you think I was in Kendall?”

Carl had to wait while she sipped her drink.

“Didn’t you stop by Florida Southern and withdraw twenty-eight hundred?”

That got him staring at her, but with no expression to speak of. Karen thinking, Tell me you were somewhere else and can prove it.

But he didn’t; he kept staring.

“No dye packs, no bait money. Are you still seeing Kathy Lopez?”

Carl hunched over to put his drink on the coffee table and sat like that, leaning on his thighs, not looking at her now as Karen studied his profile, his elegant nose. She looked at his glass, his prints all over it, and felt sorry for him.

“Carl, you blew it.”

He turned his head to look at her past his shoulder. He said. “I’m leaving,” pushed up from the sofa and said, “If this is what you think of me...”

Karen said, “Carl, cut the shit,” and put her drink down. Now, if he picked up her bag, that would cancel out any remaining doubts. She watched him pick up her bag. He got the Beretta out and let the bag drop.

“Carl, sit down. Will you, please?”

“I’m leaving. I’m walking out and you’ll never see me again. But first...” He made her get a knife from the kitchen and cut the phone line in there and in the bedroom.

He was pretty dumb. In the living room again he said, “You know something? We could’ve made it.”

Jesus. And he had seemed like such a cool guy. Karen watched him go to the front door and open it before turning to her again.

“How about letting me have five minutes? For old times’ sake.”

It was becoming embarrassing, sad. She said. “Carl, don’t you understand? You’re under arrest.”

He said, “I don’t want to hurt you, Karen, so don’t try to stop me.” He went out the door.

Karen walked over to the chest where she dropped her car keys and mail coming in the house: a bombé chest by the front door, the door still open. She laid aside the folded copy of the Herald she’d placed there over her Sig Sauer .38, picked up the pistol, and went out to the front stoop, into the yellow glow of the porch light. She saw Carl at his car now, its white shape pale against the dark street, only about forty feet away.

“Carl, don’t make it hard, okay?”

He had the car door open and half turned to look back. “I said I don’t want to hurt you.”

Karen said. “Yeah, well...” raised the pistol to rack the slide, and cupped her left hand under the grip. She said, “You move to get in the car. I’ll shoot.”

Carl turned his head again with a sad, wistful expression. “No you won’t, sweetheart.”

Don’t say ciao, Karen thought. Please.

Carl said, “Ciao,” turned to get in the car, and she shot him. Fired a single round at his left thigh and hit him where she’d aimed, in the fleshy part just below his butt. Carl howled and slumped inside against the seat and the steering wheel, his leg extended straight out, his hand gripping it, his eyes raised with a bewildered frown as Karen approached. The poor dumb guy looking at twenty years, and maybe a limp.

Karen felt she should say something. After all, for a few days there they were as intimate as two people can get. She thought about it for several moments. Carl staring up at her with rheumy eyes. Finally Karen said, “Carl. I want you to know I had a pretty good time, considering.”

It was the best she could do.