Everybody Pays by Andrew Vachss

Author:Andrew Vachss
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Mystery, (¯`'•.¸//(*_*)\\¸.•'´¯), Fiction
ISBN: 9780375719141
Publisher: Vintage Books USA
Published: 1999-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

HIT MAN

“Don’t you want to know why?” the chubby brunette asked. She was looking across at me, her elbows on the little round table in the corner of the bar, hands clasped under her chin. A damsel in distress. In case that act wouldn’t fly, she moved her elbows closer to center, displaying even more creamy cleavage. Or maybe she just believed in insurance.

Her husband sure did. One point five, the finger had told me, and all hers—they had no kids.

“Anyone who’d want to know that would be a cop,” I told her softly.

Her pale face went chalky.

“They don’t have to prove motive in court,” I said, “but they always want it when the defendant isn’t the one who did it themselves, understand?”

“I . . . think so.”

“Let’s say, just talking hypothetically, a woman’s getting beat up by her husband. She doesn’t know what to do. She tells her story to a guy she meets in a bar. That guy, he takes matters into his own hands. And the husband, he gets killed. Maybe it wasn’t supposed to happen that way. Just a taste of his own medicine that went wrong. Maybe the wife’s a suspect. Maybe she’s not. Kind of depends on what kind of life the husband was living himself, understand?”

“He—”

“Hypothetically, let’s say the husband had a drug habit. Or a lot of gambling debts. Maybe he was playing around with a woman and her boyfriend got jealous. Maybe he’s got a thing for hookers. Who knows? There’s lots of reasons for a guy to get killed. Now, if his wife has a rock-solid alibi for when it goes down, she doesn’t become a suspect automatically . . . but the cops’ll still want to talk to her. You with me so far?”

“Yes. But—”

Christ, she was a dimwit. “Hypothetically speaking, if there was, say, a big life-insurance policy, then no question: The wife is a suspect. Now the cops care about a motive. I mean, the money, there’s a motive, sure. But plenty of guys carry life insurance and they don’t get whacked by their wives. Now, for the cops, greed, that’s plenty of motive all by itself. But that won’t fly with a lot of juries. They always want some more, and the DA knows it. So the cops always ask around, see if there isn’t anything else they can throw in. You understand what I’m talking about?”

“Sure. And I—”

I held up one hand, palm out like a traffic cop. “Another thing about cops: they’re always wired. You know what that means?”

“Like on TV? With a little—?”

“Right. Doesn’t take up any more space than . . . this,” I said, showing her the wireless disk I held in my cupped hand.

Her mouth made a nice round O! but she didn’t say a word. Finally.

“Now get up,” I told her, “and go over to the pay phone. Bring back the Yellow Pages.”

She did it without another word, handing it to me. I opened it up, turned to the listing for Motels.

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