This latter quality was Lamarck’s greatest talent, he told himself with great satisfaction, opening the door of his car for his newest acquisition, fifteen years old and recently broken in, possessed of an innocent look and demure movement that made her a noteworthy and enticing member of his eight-girl stable. She’d earned the pimp’s unaccustomed courtesy with a special service of her own earlier in the day. The luxury car started on the first turn of the key, and at seven-thirty, Pierre Lamarck set off on another night’s work, for the nightlife in his city started early and lasted late. There was a convention in town, distributors for something or other. New Orleans attracted a lot of conventions, and he could track the cash flow of his business by their comings and goings. It promised to be a warm and lucrative night.
It had to be him, Kelly thought, half a block away, behind the wheel of his still-rented car. Who else would wear a three-piece suit and be accompanied by a young girl dressed in a tight mini? Certainly not an insurance agent. The girl’s jewelry looked cheap-showy even from this distance. Kelly slipped the car into gear, following. He was able to lie back. How many white Caddies could there be? he wondered, crossing the river, three cars back, eyes locked on his target while peripheral parts of his mind dealt with the other traffic. Once he had to risk a ticket at a traffic light, but otherwise the tracking was simple. The Caddy stopped at the entrance to an upscale hotel, and he saw the girl get out, and walk towards the door, her stride a mixture of the businesslike and the resigned. He didn’t want to see her face all that closely, afraid of what memories might result from it. This was not a night for emotion. Emotion was what had given him the mission. How he accomplished it had to come from something else. That would be a constant struggle, Kelly told himself, but one he would have to contend with successfully. That was, after all, why he’d come to this place, on this night.
The Cadillac moved on a few more blocks, finding a parking place by a seedy, flashy bar close enough to the nice hotels and businesses that a person could walk there quickly, yet never be far from the safety and comfort of civilized safety. A fairly constant stream of taxicabs told him that this aspect of local life had a firm, institutional foundation. He identified the bar in question and found himself a place to park three blocks away.
There was a dual purpose in parking so far from his objective. The walk in along Decatur Street gave him both a feel for the territory and a look at likely places for his action. Surely it would be a long night. Some short-skirted girls smiled at him as mechanically as the changing of the traffic lights, but he walked on, his eyes sweeping left and right while a distant voice reminded him of what he had once thought of such gestures. He silenced that voice with another, more current thought. His clothes were casual, what a moderately comfortable man might wear in this humid heat and heavy atmosphere, dark and anonymous, loose and baggy. They proclaimed money, but not too much, and his stride told people that he was not one to be trifled with. A man of understated substance having a discreet night on the wild side.
He walked into Chats Sauvages at eight-seventeen. His initial impression of the bar was smoke and noise. A small but enthusiastic rock band played at the far end. There was a dance floor, perhaps twenty-five feet square, where people his age and younger moved with the music; and there was Pierre Lamarck, sitting at a table in the corner with a few acquaintances, or so they seemed from their demeanor. Kelly walked to the men’s room, both an immediate necessity and an opportunity to look the place over. There was another entrance on the side, but no closer to Lamarck’s table than the one through which both he and Kelly had entered. The nearest path to the white Caddy led past Kelly’s place at the bar, and that told him where his perch had to be. Kelly ordered a beer and turned conveniently to watch the band.
At nine-ten two young women came to Lamarck. One sat on his lap while the other nibbled at his ear. The other two men at the table watched with neutral interest while both women handed over something to him. Kelly couldn’t tell what it was because he was looking towards the band, careful not to stare too often in Lamarck’s direction. The pimp solved that problem immediately: it turned out, unsurprisingly, to be cash, and the man somewhat ostentatiously wrapped the bills around a roll removed from his pocket. Flash money, Kelly had troubled himself to learn, an important part of a pimp’s public image. The first two women left, and Lamarck was soon joined by another, in what became an intermittent stream that didn’t stop. His table mates enjoyed the same sort of traffic, Kelly saw, sipping their drinks, paying cash, joshing with and occasionally fondling the waitress who served them, then tipping her heavily by way of apology. Kelly moved from time to time. He removed his jacket, rolling up his sleeves, to present a different image to the bar’s patrons, and limiting himself to two beers, which he nursed as carefully as he could. Tedious as it was, he disregarded the unpleasant nature of the evening, instead noticing things. Who went where. Who came and left. Who stayed. Who lingered in one place. Kelly soon started recognizing patterns and identifying individuals to whom he assigned names of his own creation. Most of all he observed everything there was to see about Lamarck. He never took off his suit jacket, kept his back to the wall. He talked amiably with his two companions, but their familiarity was not that of friends. Their joking was too affected. There was too much emphasis on their interactive gestures, not the casual comfort that you saw among people whose company was shared for some purpose other than money. Even pimps got lonely, Kelly thought, and though they sought out their own kind, theirs was not friendship but mere association. The philosophical observations he put aside. If Lamarck never took off his coat, he had to be carrying a weapon.
Just after midnight, Kelly put his coat back on and made yet another trip to the men’s room. In the toilet stall he took the automatic he’d hidden inside his slacks and moved it to the waistband. Two beers in four hours, he thought. His liver ought to have eliminated the alcohol from his system, and even if it hadn’t, two beers should not have had much effect on one as bulky as he. It was an important statement which, he hoped, wasn’t a lie.
His timing was good. Washing his hands for the fifth time, Kelly saw the door open in the mirror. Only the back of the man’s head, but under the dark hair was a white suit, and so Kelly waited, taking his time until he heard the urinal flush. A sanitary sort of fellow, the man turned, and their eyes met in the mirror.
“Excuse me,” Pierre Lamarck said. Kelly stepped away from the sink, still drying his hands with a paper towel.
“I like the ladies,” he said quietly.
“Hmph?” Lamarck had no less than six drinks in him, and his liver had not been up to the task, which didn’t prevent his self-admiration in the dirty mirror.
“The ones that come up to you.” Kelly lowered his voice. “They, uh, work for you, like?”
“You might say that, my man.” Lamarck took out a black plastic comb to readjust his coiffeur. “Why do you ask?”
“I might need a few,” Kelly said with embarrassment.
“A few? You sure you can handle that, my man?” Lamarck asked with a sly grin.
“Some friends in town with me. One’s having a birthday, and—”
“A party,” the pimp observed pleasantly.
“That’s right.” Kelly tried to be shy, but mainly came off as being awkward. The error worked in his favor.
“Well, why didn’t you say so? How many ladies do you require, sir?”
“Three, maybe four. Talk about it outside? I could use some air.”
“Sure thing. Just let me wash my hands, okay?”
“I’ll be outside the front door.”
The street was quiet. Busy city though New Orleans might be, it was still the middle of the week, and the sidewalks, while not empty, weren’t crowded either. Kelly waited, looking away from the bar’s entrance until he felt a friendly hand on his back.
“It’s nothing to be embarrassed about. We all like to have a little fun, especially when we’re away from home, right?”
“I’ll pay top dollar,” Kelly promised with an uneasy smile.
Lamarck grinned, like the man of the world he was, to put this chicken farmer at ease. “With my ladies, you have to. Anything else you might need?”
Kelly coughed and took a few steps, willing Lamarck to follow, which he did. “Maybe some, well, something to help us party, like?”
“I can handle that, too,” Lamarck said as they approached an alley.
“I think I met you before, couple years back. I remember the girl, really, her name was... Pam? Yeah, Pam. Thin, tawny hair.”
“Oh, yeah, she was fun. She’s not with me anymore,” Lamarck said lightly. “But I have lots more. I cater to the men who like ’em young and fresh.”
“I’m sure you do,” Kelly said, reaching behind his back. “They’re all on—I mean they all use things that make it—”
“Happy stuff, man. So they’re always in the mood to party. A lady has to have the proper attitude.” Lamarck stopped at the entrance to the alley, looking outward, maybe worried about cops, which suited Kelly just fine. Behind him, he had not troubled to see, was a dark, scarcely lit corridor of blank brick walls, inhabited by nothing more than trash cans and stray cats, and open at the far end. “Let’s see. Four girls, rest of the evening, shall we say, and something to help get the party started... five hundred should do it. My girls aren’t cheap, but you will get your money’s—”
“Both hands in the open,” Kelly said, the Colt automatic leveled twelve inches from the man’s chest.
Lamarck’s first response was a disbelieving bluster: “My man, that is a very foolish—”
Kelly’s voice was all business. “Arguing with a gun is even more foolish, my man. Turn, walk down the alley, and you might even make it back to the bar for a nightcap.”
“You must need money real bad to try something this dumb,” the pimp said, trying an implied threat.
“Your roll worth dying for?” Kelly asked reasonably. Lamarck measured the odds and turned, moving into the shadows.
“Stop,” Kelly told him after fifty yards, still behind the blank wall of the bar, or perhaps another just like it. His left arm grabbed the man’s neck and pushed him against the bricks. His eyes looked up and down the alley three times. His ears searched for sounds separate from traffic noise and distorted music. For the moment it was a safe and quiet place. “Hand me your gun—real careful.”
“I don’t—” The sound of a hammer being cocked sounded awfully loud, that close to his ear.
“Do I look stupid?”
“Okay, okay,” Lamarck said, his voice losing its smooth edge now. “Let’s be real cool. It’s only money.”
“That’s smart,” Kelly said approvingly. A small automatic appeared. Kelly put his right index finger into the trigger guard. There was no sense in putting fingerprints on the weapon. He was taking enough chances, and as careful as he’d been to this point, the dangers of his action were suddenly very real and very large. The pistol fit nicely into his coat pocket.
“Let’s see the roll next.”
“Right here, man.” Lamarck was starting to lose it. That was both good and bad, Kelly thought. Good because it was pleasing to see. Bad because a panicked man might do something foolish. Instead of relaxing, Kelly actually became more tense.
“Thank you, Mr. Lamarck,” Kelly said politely, to calm the man.
Just then he wavered, and his head turned a few inches or so, as his consciousness asserted itself through the six drinks he’d had this evening. “Wait a minute—you said you knew Pam.”
“I did,” Kelly said.
“But why—” He turned farther to see a face that was bathed in darkness, only eyes showing with light glistening off their moisture, and the rest of the face a shadow white.
“You’re one of the guys who ruined her life.”
Outrage: “Hey, man, she came to me! ”
“And you got her on pills so she could party real good, right?” the disembodied voice asked. Lamarck could hardly remember what the man looked like now.
“That was business, so you met her, so she was a good fuck, right?”
“She certainly was.”
“I shoulda trained her better an’ you coulda had her again insteada—was, you say?”
“She’s dead,” Kelly told him, reaching in his pocket. “Somebody killed her.”
“So? I didn’t do it!” It seemed to Lamarck that he was facing a final exam, a test he didn’t understand, based on rules he didn’t know.
“Yes, I know that,” Kelly said, screwing the silencer onto the pistol. Lamarck saw that somehow, his eyes making the adjustment to the darkness. His voice became a shrill rasp.
“Then what are you doing this for?” the man said, too puzzled even to scream, too paralyzed by the incongruity of the past few minutes, by the passage of his life from the normality of his hangout bar to its end only forty feet away in front of a windowless brick wall, and he had to have an answer. Somehow it was more important than the escape, whose attempt he knew to be futile.
Kelly thought about that for a second or two. He could have said many things, but it was only fair, he decided, to tell the man the truth as the gun came up quickly and finally.
“Practice.”
14
Lessons Learned
The early flight back from New Orleans to Washington National was too short for a movie, and Kelly had already eaten breakfast. He settled on a glass of juice at his window seat and was thankful that the flight was only about a third full as, after every combat action of his life, he went over every detail. It was a habit that had begun in the SEALs. Following every training exercise there had been an event called various things by his various commanders. “Performance Critique” seemed most appropriate at the moment.
His first mistake had been the product of something desired and something forgotten. In wanting to see Lamarck die in the darkness, he’d stood too close, simultaneously forgetting that head wounds often bleed explosively. He’d jumped out of the way of the spouting blood like a child avoiding a wasp in his backyard, but had still not escaped it entirely. The good news was that he’d made only that one mistake; and his selection of dark clothing had mitigated the danger there. Lamarck’s wounds had been immediately and definitively fatal. The pimp had fallen to the ground as limp as a rag doll. The two screws that Kelly had drilled in the top of his pistol held a small cloth bag he’d sewn himself, and the bag had caught the two ejected cartridge cases, leaving the police who’d investigate the scene without that valuable bit of evidence. His stalk had been effectively carried out, just one more anonymous face in a large and anonymous bar.
His hastily selected site for the elimination had also worked well enough. He remembered walking down the alley and blending back into the sidewalk traffic, walking the distance to his car and driving back to the motel. There, he’d changed clothes, bundling the blood-splattered slacks, shirt, and, just to be sure, the underwear as well, into a plastic cleaner bag, which he’d walked across the street and deposited in a supermarket Dumpster. If the clothing was discovered, it might well be taken as something soiled by a sloppy meatcutter. He hadn’t met with Lamarck in the open. The only lighted place in which they’d spoken was the bar’s men’s room, and there fortune—and planning—had smiled on him. The sidewalk they’d walked on was too dark and too anonymous. Perhaps a casual observer who might have known Lamarck could give an investigator a rough idea of Kelly’s size, but little else, and that was a reasonable gamble to have taken, Kelly judged, looking down at the wooded hills of northern Alabama. It had been an apparent robbery, the pimp’s one thousand, four hundred seventy dollars of flash money tucked away in his bag. Cash was cash, after all, and not to have taken it would have shown the police that there had been a real motive in the elimination aside from something easily understandable and agreeably random. The physical side of the event—he could not think of it as a crime—was, he thought, as clean as he could have don
e it.
Psychological? Kelly asked himself. More than anything else Kelly had tested his nerve, the elimination of Pierre Lamarck having been a kind of field experiment, and in that he’d surprised himself. It had been some years since Kelly had entered combat, and he’d halfway expected a case of the shakes after the event. Such things had happened to him more than once before, but though his stride away from Lamarck’s body had been slightly uneasy, he’d handled the escape with the sort of tense aplomb that had marked many of his operations in Vietnam. So much had come back to him. He could catalog the familiar sensations that had returned as though he’d been watching a training film of his own production: the increased sensory awareness, as though his skin had been sandblasted, exposing every nerve; hearing, sight, smell all amplified. I was so fucking alive at that moment, he thought. It was vaguely sad that such a thing had happened due to the ending of a human life, but Lamarck had long since forfeited his right to life. In any just universe, a person—Kelly simply could not think of him as a man—who exploited helpless girls simply did not deserve the privilege of breathing the same air used by other human beings. Perhaps he’d taken the wrong turn, been unloved by his mother or beaten by his father. Perhaps he’d been socially deprived, raised in poverty, or exposed to inadequate schooling. But those were matters for psychiatrists or social workers. Lamarck had acted normally enough to function as a person in his community, and the only question that mattered to Kelly was whether or not he had lived his life in accordance with his own free will. That had clearly been the case, and those who took improper actions, he had long since decided, ought to have considered the possible consequences of those actions. Every girl they exploited might have had a father or mother or sister or brother or lover to be outraged at her victimization. In knowing that and in taking the risk, Lamarck had knowingly gambled his life to some greater or lesser degree. And gambling means that sometimes you lose, Kelly told himself. If he hadn’t weighed the hazards accurately enouah, that was not Kelly’s problem, was it?