Jack Kilborn & J. A. Konrath Read online

  “Yeah, but this isn’t about me. It’s about you. I might be dead either way, but how would you feel if I died thinking that your hit man persona was sub-par?”

  Victor shrugged. “I get paid either way.”

  “Is it just about the money, though?”

  “Sure.”

  “Do you really believe that?”

  “I kill for money. That’s what an assassin does. When I slit your throat, I won’t feel a thing.”

  I wasn’t happy that the conversation had turned to slit throats, and I shifted uncomfortably in my seat. “How many people have you killed?”

  “I told you, you’re my first.”

  “You haven’t killed anybody? Not even for recreation?”

  He shook his head.

  “What about animals?”

  “No animals.”

  “Have you ever flushed a goldfish?”

  “Look, I don’t need to have dozens of corpses stacked in my closet to deal with somebody like you. I can kill you. It’s not a problem.”

  “I’m not trying to be a pain here,” I insisted. “I’m just wondering how you got the gig of terminating me without any previous murder credits.”

  “I sorta fell into the job. You know how it goes.”

  “You padded your resume, didn’t you?”

  “That’s none of your concern.”

  “You did! You lied about your experience! What are you going to do if your boss finds out?”

  “I didn’t lie about anything.”

  I shook my head and made a tsk-tsk sound. “Lying by omission is still a lie.”

  “You know what? I’ve had way more than enough of you.” Victor pointed the knife at my throat. “Got anything else to say before I gut you?”

  “That’s not where the knife should be pointed if you’re planning to gut me.”

  “Don’t tell me how to do my job.”

  “I’m just saying. Not many guts in my neck.”

  “Sure there are.”

  “Do you even know what a gut is?”

  “That’s it. You’re dead, Mayhem.”

  “My name’s not Mayhem.”

  He blinked. “What?”

  “Are you looking for Andrew Mayhem? He lives next door. Shorter guy, glasses…”

  “You said you were Andrew Mayhem.”

  “Your knife made me nervous. I wasn’t thinking.”

  He looked at me for about three seconds as if trying to decide if I was lying, and then clearly decided that I was, in fact, lying. “You know what? I’d kill you for free,” he said.

  “How much are you getting paid?”

  “None of your business.”

  “Of course it’s my business! I have a right to know my market value. How much?”

  “I don’t discuss salary with anybody. And it’s time for you to die.”

  “You keep saying that, and yet my guts are still sealed up in my neck.”

  Victor looked so angry and frustrated that I thought he might scream. I used the opportunity to strike.

  “Did you just throw a fucking juice box at me?” he asked, rubbing his forehead.

  “I did.”

  “You…you…there’s something wrong with you, man! How is it possible that nobody else has murdered you yet?”

  “See, Victor, you’re not listening. This isn’t about me. It’s about—”

  He began to pace around my living room, wildly swinging the knife. “You know what, I didn’t even want this crappy job! I was happy at the Wal-Mart! I’m just trying to earn enough money to go back to school! I didn’t ask to get hit in the head by a goddamn juice box!”

  I noticed to my horror that the juice box, which lay on its side, had leaked some grape juice onto the carpet. Helen was going to go ballistic when she got home. The juice boxes were never, ever to be consumed in the living room. Granted, the rule was intended for my children, Theresa and Kyle, but I’d get in just as much trouble. Damn.

  Victor continued pacing back and forth across my floor, alternating between shouting in frustration and muttering silently. I kind of felt sorry for him. I still held the straw, and tried to figure out how good my chances were of plunging it into his eye when he wasn’t looking.

  Suddenly he turned to me, eyes wide with fury, raised the knife over his head, and brought it down toward my face—

  —stopping a few inches from my nose.

  It occurred to me that a substantial portion of my plan had revolved around the idea that I would break out my lightning-fast reflexes to escape from danger at the exact moment when Victor finally snapped. But if Victor hadn’t stopped the knife’s downward trajectory by his own choice, I would probably have a blade sticking deep into my face. T’was not a pleasant thought.

  “I’m sorry,” I said.

  Victor lowered the knife. “This job sucks,” he said.

  “Most jobs do.”

  I realized that my palms were sweating profusely now that I’d come so close to being stabbed in the nostrils, and my stomach kind of hurt. What had happened to my lightning fast reflexes? The knife could have gone all the way through my nose and up into my brain! I’d be dead! And then Victor would collect his paycheck even though he was a below-average assassin!

  I wiped my palms off on my jeans, hoping he wouldn’t notice.

  “Did I scare you?” he asked.

  “No.”

  “I bet I did.”

  “Okay, yeah, you did, but that knife looks sharp, all right? You can’t expect me not to be a little uncomfortable when you’re trying to stab me with it.”

  “I bet you almost wet your pants.”

  “Would it make you feel better if I had?”

  He shook his head. “That would probably be awkward.”

  “Yeah, for me too.”

  He sighed. I sighed back.

  “Why didn’t you finish stabbing me?” I asked.

  “Dunno.”

  “Are you having second thoughts?”

  “Maybe. I just…do you ever feel like you’re playing a part that isn’t really you? I mean, I feel ridiculous in this spiked jacket. What do you think?”

  “Honestly, I thought the jacket was pretty cool.”

  “It’s too hot. And it doesn’t fit right in the back. And these spiky things keep scraping on furniture and stuff. I wonder if I should just give up the whole idea of killing people for a living. I don’t think I’m cut out for it. I like being the lovable guy. I like being cuddly.”

  “Cuddly is good. So how much trouble will you get in if you don’t kill me?”

  “I’m not sure. Not too much. He was only paying me fifty bucks.”

  “Fifty bucks? Fifty?”

  “Yeah.”

  “My life is only worth fifty dollars? Are you kidding me?”

  “Is that low?”

  “Of course it’s low! Holy crap, I was thinking you were making at least five figures, probably six!”

  “I made seven dollars an hour at Wal-Mart.”

  “I can’t believe you would kill me for fifty bucks. That’s just insulting. Who hired you?”

  “Todd McBride.”

  “Don’t know him. But people try to kill me every once in a while. It’s just part of being me. But…fifty bucks? You’d pay an exterminator more than that to kill some bugs! Perhaps you should leave.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Sorry this didn’t work out.”

  “Me too. I’ll resign in the morning. I didn’t really want to see sliced flesh anyway.” He turned around, took a step toward the kitchen, then hesitated and returned his attention to me. “You know, I’m out fifty bucks.”

  “Yeah, and…?”

  “Maybe you could pitch in a little. It doesn’t have to be the whole fifty, but something for my time would be nice.”

  “I’ll be honest with you. Paying somebody not to kill me would feel sort of like paying for sex.”

  “You’re just saying that because your wife monitors the finances, aren’t you?”

  “No, I’m saying it because it would make me feel icky.”

  Victor frowned. “Oh.”

  “Sorry.”

  He stood there for a moment, silent.

  “Well, do you have any of those juice boxes left?”

  “I think there’s one in the fridge.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Don’t take the cherry one.”

  “Okay.”

  Victor wandered into the kitchen and rummaged through the refrigerator. I heard him leave and sat on the recliner for a while, more than a little annoyed. I couldn’t even get back into my book.

  Still, at least I was alive. And I’d helped Victor realize that the life of a killer-for-hire wasn’t for just anybody with access to a bladed weapon. So the evening wasn’t a total loss. In fact, since I now knew that my lightning fast reflexes needed to be honed, I had fodder for self-improvement.

  If you really thought about it, it was a very worthwhile experience.

  I returned to the novel, feeling good.

  Then Helen came home and I got in trouble because I forgot to clean up the grape juice on the carpet. So the rest of the night sucked.

  A Harry McGlade Mystery by JA Konrath

  “I want you to kill the man that my husband hired to kill the man that I hired to kill my husband.”

  If I had been paying attention, I still wouldn’t have understood what she wanted me to do. But I was busy looking at her legs, which weren’t adequately covered by her skirt. She had great legs, curvy without being heavy, tan and long, and she had them crossed in that sexy way that women cross their legs, knee over knee, not the ugly way that guys do it, with the ankle on the knee, though if she did cross her legs that way it would have been sexy too.

  “Mr. McGlade, d
id you hear what I just said?”

  “Hmm? Yeah, sure I did, baby. The man, the husband, I got it.”

  “So you’ll do it?”

  “Do what?”

  “Kill the man that my husband—”

  I held up my hand. “Whoa. Hold it right there. I’m just a plain old private eye. That’s what is says on the door you just walked through. The door even has a big magnifying glass silhouette logo thingy painted on it, which I paid way too much money for, just so no one gets confused. I don’t kill people for money. Absolutely, positively, no way.” I leaned forward a little. “But, for the sake of argument, how much money are we talking about here?”

  “I don’t know where else to turn.”

  The tears came, and she buried her face in her hands, giving me the opportunity to look at her legs again. Marietta Garbonzo had found me through the ad I placed in the Chicago phone book. The ad used the expensive magnifying glass logo, along with the tagline, Harry McGlade Investigators: We’ll Do Whatever it Takes. It brought in more customers than my last tagline: No Job Too Small, No Fee Too High, or the one prior to that, We’ll Investigate Your Privates.

  Mrs. Garbonzo had never been to a private eye before, and she was playing her role to the hilt. Besides the short skirt and tight blouse, she had gone to town with the hair and make-up; her blonde locks curled and sprayed, her lips painted deep, glossy red, her purple eye shadow so thick that she managed to get some on her collar.

  “My husband beats me, Mr. McGlade. Do you know why?”

  “Beats me,” I said, shrugging. Her wailing kicked in again. I wondered where she worked out. Legs like that, she must work out.

  “He’s insane, Mr. McGlade. We’ve been married for a year, and Roy always had a temper. I once saw him attack another man with a tire iron. They were having an argument, Roy went out to the car, grabbed a crow bar from the trunk, then came back and practically killed him.”

  “Where do you work out?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Exercise. Do you belong to a gym, or work out at home?”

  “Mr. McGlade, I’m trying to tell you about my husband.”

  “I know, the insane guy who beats you. Probably shouldn’t have married a guy who used a tire iron for anything other than changing tires.”

  “I married too young. But while we were dating, he treated me kindly. It was only after we married that the abuse began.”

  She turned her head away and unbuttoned her blouse. My gaze shifted from her legs to her chest. She had a nice chest, packed tight into a silky black bra with lace around the edges and an underwire that displayed things to a good effect, both lifting and separating.

  “See these bruises?”

  “Hmm?”

  “It’s humiliating to reveal them, but I don’t know where else to go.”

  “Does he hit you anywhere else? You can show me, I’m a professional.”

  The tears returned. “I hired a man to kill him, Mr. McGlade. I hired a man to kill my husband. But somehow Roy found out about it, and he hired a man to kill the man I hired. So I’d like you to kill his man so my man can kill him.”

  I removed the bottle of whiskey from my desk that I keep there for medicinal purposes, like getting drunk. I unscrewed the cap, wiped off the bottle neck with my tie, and handed it to her.

  “You’re not making sense, Mrs. Garbonzo. Have a swig of this.”

  “I shouldn’t. When I drink I lose my inhibitions.”

  “Keep the bottle.”

  She took a sip, coughing after it went down.

  “I already paid the assassin. I paid him a lot of money, and he won’t refund it. But I’m afraid he’ll die before he kills my husband, so I need someone to kill the man who is after him.”

  “Shouldn’t you tell the guy you hired that he’s got a hit on him?”

  “I called him. He says not to worry. But I am worried, Mr. McGlade.”

  “As I said before, I don’t kill people for money.”

  “Even if you’re killing someone who kills people for money?”

  “But I’d be killing someone who is killing someone who kills people for money. What prevents that killer from hiring someone to kill me because he’s killing someone who is killing someone that I…hand me that bottle.”

  I took a swig.

  “Please, Mr. McGlade. I’m a desperate woman. I’ll do anything.”

  She walked around the desk and stood before me, shivering in her bra, her breath coming out in short gasps through red, wet lips. Her hands rested on my shoulders, squeezing, and she bent forward.

  “My laundry,” I said.

  “What?”

  “Do my laundry.”

  “Mr. McGlade, I’m offering you my body.”

  “And it’s a tempting offer, Mrs. Garbonzo. But that will take, what, five minutes? I’ve got about six loads of laundry back at my place, they take an hour for each cycle.”

  “Isn’t there a dry cleaner in your neighborhood?”

  “A hassle. I’d have to write my name on all the labels, on every sock, on the elastic band of my whitey tighties, plus haul six bags of clothes down the street. You want me to help you? I get five hundred a day, plus expenses. And you do my laundry.”

  “And you’ll kill him?”

  “No. I don’t kill people for money. Or for laundry. But I’ll protect your guy from getting whacked.”

  “Thank you, Mr. McGlade.”

  She leaned down to kiss me. Not wanting to appear rude, I let her. And so she didn’t feel unwanted, I stuck my hand up her skirt.

  “You won’t tell the police, will you Mr. McGlade?”

  “Look, baby, I’m not your priest and I’m not your lawyer and I’m not your shrink. I’m just a man. A man who will keep his mouth shut, except when I’m eating. Or talking, or sleeping, because sometimes I sleep with my mouth open because I have the apnea.”

  “Thank you, Mr. McGlade.”

  “I’ll take the first week in advance, Visa and MasterCard are fine. Here are my spare keys.”

  “Your keys?”

  “For my apartment. It’s in Hyde Park. I don’t have a hamper, so I leave my dirty clothes all over the floor. Do the bed sheets too—those haven’t been washed since, well, ever. Washer and dryer are in the basement of the building, washer costs seventy-five cents, dryer costs fifty cents for each thirty minutes, and the heavy things like jeans and sweaters take about a buck fifty to dry. Make yourself at home, but don’t touch anything, sit on anything, eat any of my food, or turn on the TV.”

  I gave her my address, and she gave me a check and all of her info. The info was surprising.

  “You hired a killer from the personal ads in Famous Soldier Magazine?”

  “I didn’t know where else to go.”

  “How about the police? A divorce attorney?”

  “My husband is a rich and powerful man, Mr. McGlade. You don’t recognize his name?”

  I flipped though my mental Rolodex. “Roy Garbonzo? Is he the Roy Garbonzo that owns Happy Roy’s Chicken Shack?”

  “Yes.”

  “He seems so happy on those commercials.”

  “He’s a beast, Mr. McGlade.”

  “The guy is like a hundred and thirty years old. And on those commercials, he’s always laughing and signing and dancing with that claymation chicken. He’s the guy that’s abusing you?”

  “Would you like to see the proof again?”

  “If it isn’t too much trouble.”

  She grabbed my face in one hand, squeezing my cheeks together.

  “Happy Roy is a vicious psycho, Mr. McGlade. He’s a brutal, misogynist pig who enjoys inflicting pain.”

  “He’s probably rich too.”

  Mrs. Garbonzo narrowed her eyes. “He’s wealthy, yes. What are you implying?”

  “I like his extra spicy recipe. Do you get to take chicken home for free? You probably have a fridge stuffed full of it, am I right?”

  She released my face and buttoned up her blouse.

  “I have to go. My husband gets paranoid when I go out.”

  “Maybe because when you go out, you hire people to kill him.”

  She picked up her purse and headed for the door. “I expect you to call me when you’ve made some progress.”

  “That includes ironing,” I called after her. “And hanging the stuff up. I don’t have any hangers, so you’ll have to buy some.”

  After she left, I turned off all the office lights and closed the blinds, because what I had to do next, I had to do in complete privacy.

  I took a nap.