The Devil His Due. Chapter One: Entrances and Exits.

There was a girl on her back on a yellow towel a short distance from the pool. She had sunglasses on, big black things like Kennedy’s widow wore. As he crossed the lawn he tried to gauge from her breathing if she was asleep. He guessed not, but money said she had her eyes shut. Nobody watched an empty sky. If there were clouds he might have thought different. But if there were clouds she wouldn’t get much sunning done, would she?

And so what if she had her eyes open? She’d be curious about him, unsure at the very least. He’d still get close. If she was stupid and tried to scream, there was still a moment when the brain put that thought into action, still a moment when the lungs got ready for noise. He’d learned to do a lot in those moments.

But she had her eyes shut. And the grass softened his approach to the last. His shadow fell across her and he looked at it and thought of photos he’d seen of Central Park from the air. A big slab of one thing in the middle of something altogether different. Her skin goose-bumped where the sun was hidden. He waited for her to work it out.

*

She felt it, opened one eye. She knew he saw it. Bikinis might hide some things, she thought, but not this. He would have seen the second’s worth of tension, lines in the muscles, ligaments tightening, breath held for an instant too long. Any coolness after this would be for show. But she made with it anyway.
“Yes?”
“I’m here to see the man of the house.”
“If you mean Jerry he’s in his theatre. Watching movies.”

He stood over her a bit longer. He let her work out his story while he did the same number back.

Accent wasn’t Angeles. Nor the complexion. Bit too pink and plump for the cameras but she hadn’t found that out till she got here. Yeah. Probably taught at a nursery in Grand Forks, North Dakota somewhere hokey like that. Don't even do postcards of the place because all anyone ever does is leave. She got taught a lesson out West and rather than drag herself back where she belonged she fell into all this. It’s neither a landing or a crash.

*

His tune had to be something like ex-cop. Jerry had enough of them stop by the house on one payroll or another. Harrys or Hanks. At least one Buzz. They called guns ‘Roscoes’ or ‘heaters’ or ‘pieces’ and were muscle that had turned to fat. Not much fat on this guy, though. Suit was somewhere between old and new. That set him aside as well. Ex-cops just wore old. Old hats and old shoes.

He waited. He wanted to see if she’d break sweat. She didn’t. She knew she would soon enough so she spoke.

“You shouldn’t come round the back like that. You’re lucky the dogs didn’t come at you.”
“Your dogs are dead.”

*

Jerry liked the Dutch girl best. He had cut the reel so that she came in as the third tease. The two before would be ok. But just when the fellas might switch off he would drop her like a bomb. Then they all watch the rest hoping there’d be another as good as her. There wasn’t. Not in this bunch anyway. But there’d be that hope and that’d be good for business. He would need to find out from Heshie who she was and get her to do more. He’d ask if Heshie could make her look a bit more willing next time.

The door broke at the lock, broke at the hinges. It came with a noise that hurt. The projector lit up cyclones of dust and splinters. Jerry tried to look past the patterns suspended in the air but found he couldn’t. His brain wouldn’t change up a gear. That’s why his hand was reaching under his jacket still for a gun he knew wasn’t there. It just pumped away, opening and closing on nothing.

Detached from his body, unable to get any kind of sensible response from it, Jerry watched his execution as a spectator.The man. Jerry knew him as Wheeler, but not if that was Wheeler Something, or Something Wheeler. He’d never thought to ask before.

Wheeler drew a long-barrelled revolver from a shoulder holster, and without fully extending his arm, shot once; level with Jerry’s gut.

Jerry was astonished. He swore he felt the round come out, but not go in. Fancy that. He was well past stopping this. Dying was going to be like a science for him. His hands went to his middle just to find where he’d opened. Under the ribs. It had torn his tie.

The next one he felt all the way through. He felt bones break. He felt stuff tear. He felt like he’d had enough. Might have been an idea to fall down at this point, but his legs weren’t listening.

Last one had purpose. Wheeler put it where he wanted to. Jerry stopped processing events. He’d got stuck on fear. That’s all he could feel now as one final, unwelcome question got answered. The Dutch girl kept dancing.

*

Wheeler reloaded. He knew there’d be trouble. He went back outside to wait for it.