(First printed in Judas Ezine)
ONE FOR THREE
by
Stephen D. Rogers
My first shot went high, spraying an unopened bottle of top-shelf liquor over the large mirror behind the bar.
My second shot took out the mirror.
My third shot snapped his head back. His flung knife broke a pilsner and his flowing blood meant the floor needed to be mopped the second time this decade.
Shaunessy took one look at the damage and swore. "Hey Garrett, he only wanted five hundred dollars not to wreck my place. You charged me five hundred to stop him and then you shot the place up."
I stared at the dead man, trying to regain my breath without losing my lunch. None of the other customers had so much as stirred during the fight. Shaunessy's was that kind of bar.
"If you don't want to pay me a bonus just say so."
* * *
"I want you to find my brother."
Some clients you take for the money and some you take because they might be grateful afterwards. Vanessa fell into the latter category, a leggy brunette who didn't feel she had to apologize for being beautiful.
I wasn't proud of my motivation but I reminded myself that pride came before a fall.
"When was the last time you saw him?" I picked up a blank legal pad and wrote the date on the top line. It impressed the hell out of clients.
She recrossed her legs again which impressed the hell out of me. "A little over two years ago."
"Do you have a picture?"
Vanessa leaned forward to slide a photograph across my desk, and I took the opportunity to glance down her blouse before looking at the man grinning over a barbecue grill.
I'd last seen him a little over two months ago. Her brother was the punk I had killed in Shaunessy's bar.
Vanessa sniffed. "Our mother is dying of cancer and she wants to see him one last time. They didn't part on the best of terms."
"Can I keep this?"
She nodded. "My mother doesn't know I'm hiring you."
I slid the photograph into my no longer empty middle drawer. "What kind of work does your brother do?" Uncertain how to handle the situation I pretended not to recognize the man I'd shot to death.
"I don't know. His lack of any visible means of support was a source of constant friction."
I nodded and continued to ask her questions about his friends, romances, last known address. I took his name and particulars, her name and particulars. After folding her retainer into my shirt pocket, I showed her out of my office.
The inquest had ruled the killing self-defense. I had just started talking to the punk when he pulled a knife and came at me in a threatening manner. Shaunessy backed up my story and no one else in the bar saw anything different.
Now his sister was hiring me to find him.
Why hadn't I told Vanessa that her brother was dead? Why didn't she know it herself? Had the police been unable to find a next-of-kin?
I poured myself a drink and called a friend over at police headquarters. Actually, friend was a strong word but he was willing to look something up.
The family had been notified which left me with three possibilities.
One, Vanessa was going through the motions for her mother's sake. Why keep me in the dark then?
Two, Vanessa didn't know I killed her brother. She wanted me to discover who did and figured I'd be more likely to get involved if it was only a missing persons case.
Three, she knew I pulled the trigger.
I downed my drink and poured another, returned the bottle in the filing cabinet. Clients liked the three filing cabinets too, not knowing that only one of the drawers contained any files.
Maybe she wasn't even his sister. Maybe his family had neglected to notify his partners in crime and Vanessa was looking for money owed.
Pulling the check from my pocket, I nodded at the name on the check. So Vanessa stole his sister's checkbook or she opened a fake account. Or she was really his sister.
I should deposit the money on the way to Shaunessy's.
It wasn't as if I had anything to investigate. I knew where her brother was and he wasn't coming back. I'd learn as much on a bar stool as I would pounding the pavement.
Vanessa was sitting in a car across the street when I left the office. Perhaps she was just pulling herself together after meeting with me but I didn't really think so.
I tensed as I walked towards the lot as though flexed muscles would deflect her car when she tried to run me down. I heard her start the engine and listened for the squeal of tires.
Safely reaching my car, I wiped sweat from my forehead. Maybe I'd skip the bank and go straight to the whiskey.
They said that drinking never solved anything, but neither did not drinking. In fact it was probably the same people who said that violence never solved anything and I could certainly disprove that.
I drove out of the lot with my gun on the passenger seat, watched in the mirror as Vanessa joined the stream of traffic three cars back.
Was her mother really dying of cancer?
After my father was killed in the line of duty trying to stop a liquor store robbery, my mother smoked herself into an early grave.
How much did Vanessa know about what happened to her brother? How much did she know about me?
The shooting had been in the news. It didn't make sense that the family didn't know the identity of the man responsible for their loss.
What was the truth and did it even matter?
Vanessa followed me across town to Shaunessy's. While I made some half-hearted attempts to shake her, Vanessa hung on me like a bad conscience.
I figured that one of three things was going to happen. One, she was going to leave the bar in a body bag. Two, I was going to leave the bar in a body bag. Three, she was going to buy me a drink.
While the third possibility had the most appeal, I checked my gun again before going inside.
I sat at the bar and watched the front door in the mirror Shaunessy had replaced, so new that it stuck out like a sore thumb in this dump.
I ordered two shots and Shaunessy spotted me a third.
By the time Vanessa entered the bar, my eyes had adjusted enough to see that she walking towards me with one hand stuck in her purse.
* * *
Although I'll never know for certain what Vanessa knew, the jury knew that killing an unarmed woman was murder.
If revenge was her aim, she hit it with one shot.