Crime After Crime (1999) Anthology by Joan Hess; Ed Gorman; Martin H. Greenberg

Author:Joan Hess; Ed Gorman; Martin H. Greenberg [Greenberg, Joan Hess; Ed Gorman; Martin H.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

STALKING HORSE

SUSAN B. KELLY

Susan B. Kelly is an accomplished writer who can get to the point of her story so subtly a reader will finish it and be on to the next before the truth sets in. Her most recent novel is Kid Stuff. In this tale of double crosses and deals in London, we find out just what a life is worth nowadays—and what the payment can cost as well.

I’ve never understood why it has to be the roughest pubs in London. Surely you can set up a hit in comfort. I suppose the clients expect it—graffitied benches, sawdust on the floor, ashtrays that were last emptied for the royal wedding—not the sort of place they will be seen by anyone they know. Just the sort of place you can get someone killed for the price of three weeks in the Seychelles in the high season.

Accidents, I tell them, are my speciality, along with burglaries/muggings-gone-horribly-wrong. They don’t seem to mind that I’m a woman, after the initial surprise. Well and good: Women are less visible, less likely to arouse suspicion. We are also the less sentimental sex. If you want a job done right, get a woman to do it.

Amateurs, all of them. One chap even offered to pay me by cheque. It will come, mind you. One day—soon—they will brandish garish plastic and ask, “American Express?”

“Cash,” I told him, “used notes; don’t take it all out of your savings account at once. If the police suspect you:, they can and will examine your bank accounts and five grand in cash is not easy to explain away. Yes, they will suspect you. You have motive. You must have. You wouldn’t be here otherwise. Sell something that won’t be missed; swap the Rolex for a fake. Half up front, half on delivery.”

They have to justify themselves, these amateurs. One man told me at length that he had nothing against his wife, was even quite fond of her, his childhood sweetheart. But she was middle-aged now and thickening round the waist, greying round the hair. She had not kept up as he climbed the greasy pole, talking too much and too loudly at cocktail parties about her garden and the price of carpets. His Gucci mistress was getting restless, turning thirty and looking for a ring on her finger. They expect more sympathy from me than from a man—women are harder on their own sex.

“Divorce? Are you serious? The business is half hers—on paper, anyway, and that’s what will matter in court. Do you know what divorce would cost me?”

Five grand to arrange a little accident: so much more economical and you get to keep the kids. Death: so much quicker, cleaner, more final. Besides, she’s sagging, wrinkled; she won’t find anyone else. She’ll be sad and lonely. It’s kinder this way. She’s being killed with kindness.

I tell them, “Meet me by the canal (in the tearoom at Fortnum’s, in front of the Elgin Marbles in the British Museum) two days from now.

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