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Fiction. © Copyright 2002, Jim Loy
"Don't move, or you're a dead man."
"Hey man, I wasn't doing anything wrong. Your house looked empty; I just wanted a place to spend the night."
"I don't really care what you weren't doing, or how my house looked, or what you wanted to do."
"Then I'll be on my way. Good evening to you, sir."
"I said don't move. You're not going anywhere, at least not for a while."
"Then what do you want with me, man?"
"I want you to kill me."
"What? You gotta be crazy, man."
"No . . . man . . . I'm not crazy, unfortunately. Come on up the stairs, slowly please, and sit down. There's a little story that I must tell you." The pistol (it was a big pistol) remained pointed at the thin black man. He sat down on a chair, on the porch. "Comfortable?"
"Yeah man, I'm about as comfortable as I've ever been, except that I'm about to die of a heart attack. Put the gun down and tell me your story."
"I can't put the gun down; you might run away and never hear the story. I'm dying of cancer."
"Well, you certainly know how to get my sympathy. That was a good story. I'll be going on my way, nice talking to you."
"Shut up!" The somewhat elderly white man showed some anger for the first time. "The doctors tell me that I have a year to live, three years at the most. It's inoperable. It is likely to be very painful, and very expensive. I don't want to have to go through all that. I considered suicide. But then my daughter would not benefit from my life insurance. Would you like some lemonade?" He poured a glass from the pitcher on the table at his elbow. He set the glass on the table, and motioned with the pistol for the black man to stand up and take the glass. "My life insurance does not pay off for suicide. So, if I kill myself, it must not look like suicide. That's where you come in. I would like you to kill me."
"Well first off, I'm not going to kill you . . ."
"Then I will kill you."
"You can't kill me, man."
"And why not? I found you prowling on my property. You put up a fight. I'm sure I will suffer a few cuts and bruises. Maybe the gun went off in the struggle. And you won't be rich."
"Rich?"
"Well, not rich really. I have here five-thousand dollars in nonsequential, unmarked hundred dollar bills."
"Just happened to have that sitting around, huh?"
"I've been waiting for you for a month now."
"Waiting for me?"
"Or someone like you. You see, I never turn on the lights at night, and I never sweep the leaves from the sidewalks, I never use the fireplace, and I never repair the broken window; perhaps you've seen the broken window? No? Too bad, it has caused me much discomfort on cold nights. I have been trying to attract a man very much like yourself, a man who might break in and kill me in the night. And, as I said, if you don't kill me, then I will kill you."
"But I won't get away with it. What good will five-thousand, you did say five-thousand? What good will five-thousand do me in jail?"
"Of course you're going to get away with it. I've got it all planned. Would you like to hear my plan?" The black man nodded. "First of all, no one ever comes around here, except the mail man. He'll just leave any letters in that mailbox; I haven't had a letter in, oh, seven or eight weeks. Nobody ever calls either. And if they call, they'll just think that I'm out walking, or that I turned down the volume of the bell, or I'm in the shower, or something. I have an appointment with my lawyer in two weeks, in town, something about my will. People should start getting concerned about that time. So my body shouldn't get too rank before I'm discovered."
He continued, "After killing me, you will go northward. Near the edge of my property you will find an abandoned well; throw the gun into the well. Climb through the barbed wire fence; you should have no trouble doing that. Turn north-east and walk into the mountains. You will come to a stream. Follow it upstream to an abandoned cabin. There you will find an old car. Here are the keys." He handed across the keys. "There is a road out of the mountains. The car is registered to a John Farley of Philadelphia. Here is a letter from Mr. Farley, asking you to deliver his car to him in Philadelphia. There are three John Farleys in Philadelphia, one of them will be unavailable if anyone tries to check out your story. You may or may not want to go to Philadelphia. You can probably get lost from there, without my help. Any questions?"
"This is worth more than five thousand."
"Then you will be dead without five thousand. Kill me, and you will be alive with five thousand."
"You don't understand, I will not kill anyone. I would rather die."
"Oh dear! I'm going to die anyway, you know. It would be an act of mercy on your part. Do you want more money?"
"No, the money would just make it worse. I think I'll just walk out of here. Shoot me if you think you can live with that on your conscience."
"Wait, before I kill you, I just happen to have fifty-thousand dollars here in this backpack. I'm afraid most of the bills are in four different sequences, but that should be no problem, as the money has not been involved in any crime except for my death in just a few minutes. Fifty-thousand? Or die."
"Just happened to have fifty-thousand, too, huh?" He began counting the money.
"Well, I was hoping you would do it for five-thousand."
"I suppose you don't have a half a million around here?"
"No, sorry, fifty-thousand is my limit. You drive a hard bargain. Is it a deal?"
"I'm thinking. It's tempting."
"Well, don't think too long, because one of us is going to die very soon."
"How am I going to kill you?"
"Ah, here's a gun." He produced a second gun, and handed it across. "As you can see it is loaded. It will do you no good to threaten me with it. You will have to kill me, or I will kill you. Here, let me take your lemonade." He wiped the glass with his handkerchief, and then took a drink of the lemonade. "You have touched nothing here except that railing, and the arm rest of your chair. After you have killed me, you should probably wipe the entire railing and the arm rests of your chair. This distance should be just right. Go ahead, shoot. You can hit me from this distance, can't you?"
"Yeah, I guess so."
"Then shoot." He didn't shoot. "OK, I will count to ten. If you don't shoot me, and kill me, before I get to ten, I will shoot you. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. . ." There was a very loud bang. A flock of crows were startled out a nearby tree. And the white man fell to the floor. A great deal of blood flowed onto the floor."
"Damn." The black man grabbed the backpack with all that money. And he wiped his finger prints off the railing and the chair. He wondered if he was maybe forgetting something, some clue that would hang him. He couldn't think of anything. And he fled, north, to the well. He eventually fled to California.
"Don't move, or you're a dead man."
"Up yours."
"Ah, it's you again."
"And you're not dead. And you didn't die of cancer either."
"So how'd you figure it out?"
"The murder was never in the newspapers."
"Maybe they never came and found my body."
"It's been three months, man. They had to find you by now."
"So you read all the newspapers for three months?"
"Yeah, they got a computer search. No murder, no funeral, no obituary. I figured out your name and phone number. And you don't have a cracked windshield."
"Hm, that was you?" He chuckled. He had received a phone call asking if he had a cracked windshield. "So, we're both alive. And you've bravely come back here for what reason?"
"I have some questions."
"And I have some answers. Ask away."
"The gun had blanks in it?"
"One blank. I spilled some chicken blood."
"And you were just messing with me for your own enjoyment, is that it?"
"No, I had a very practical reason for messing with you, as you call it."
"What reason?"
"This may take a while. Why don't you sit down, in your chair, and I will tell you the true story." The thin black man sat down. "Would you like a lemonade?" The white man poured a lemonade, and handed it to him. "A while back, about four months ago, A man just down the road from here was murdered. His name was Jan Iverson. He pronounced his first name Yohn, by the way. Jan Iverson was murdered with that gun you threw into the well. You did throw it into the well, didn't you. Yes, I thought you would remember to do that. The police never solved that crime. I guess my plan worked too well. I reported the fifty-thousand dollars which you stole from me at gun point. You see, I'm an eccentric old man who keeps that kind of money around instead of putting it in a bank. I expected to get my money back after they hanged you. But they never did catch you. They set up a road block. How did you get through the road block?"
"I would have told them about your plan, about you threatening me, about . . . about . . ."
"Yes, and of course, they wouldn't have believed you. How'd you avoid the road block? You must not have gone into the mountains, you didn't like my plan?"
"I went south to the Interstate and hitched a ride. I didn't exactly trust you."
"Ah, I didn't know you were so untrusting. I suppose you don't plan to return my fifty thousand dollars? You haven't spent it already, have you? If I turn you in to the police, I probably won't get my money back, will I. Don't worry, I don't think I'd better turn you in. I think you will probably go free."
"I think I should turn you in to the police, old man."
"Yes and then you will probably hang for Jan's murder, instead of me. I'm sure that the police don't suspect that I did it. No, I think we both get away with that. You are a murderer, you know. You did shoot me. How does it feel to be a murderer?"
"It wasn't murder; it was humane; you had cancer. You forced me."
"Yes, and you pulled the trigger, and you fled. How did it feel?"
"It was like the end of my life, man. I was like in a daze, for a week, for a month. I didn't know what I was doing. I hated you for doing that to me."
"And yet you avoided the police."
"I was probably lucky. I didn't know what to do, but I just went. I left the state."
"You were lucky. I thought I had you trapped."
"Why'd you kill that other man, Mr. Iverson?"
"I don't think I'd better tell you that."
"Why not? Like you said, I can't go to the police."
"Well, I can't give you too much amunition against me. You still might go to the police, even though that would be foolish. And I have not admitted killing Jan, you know."
"But it was your gun."
"The gun in the well, that's not my gun. That's Jan's gun."
"How were you going to explain all that chicken blood to the police?"
"I killed a chicken. I collected the blood in a jar 'cause I didn't want to spill chicken blood on the ground, it would attract all kinds of vermin, and I was going to pour it down the sink, but I spilled it here on the porch. There's still a stain here, you see."
"I suppose Mr. Iverson deserved to die?"
"Yeah, he deserved what he got."
"Owed you money? You owed him money? He cheated you?"
"No he was a monster, worse than you or me, if you can believe that."
"He did something terrible, something to your daughter? Ah, he did something to your daughter."
"Well, it certainly has been a pleasure talking to you again, Mr. . . . I guess I never knew your name."
"I don't think I should tell you my name. I think I should probably disappear again. I still have some questions."
"And I have no more answers. Sorry, but I have lost interest in this conversation. But it has been a pleasure to meet you again, Mr. X."
"Howdy, what brings you out this way, Sheriff?"
"Oh, I met a friend of yours, said something about you faking your own death and framing him for the murder of Jan Iverson."
He snorted, and said, "And you believed him? It's not true you know."
"Well, we have you on tape. I think we can believe him."
"You have me on tape?"
"Yeah, we sent your friend out here to get some information about Jan's murder. That was the second time your friend visited you. We were just down the road a ways. We heard everything you said. You were our number one suspect all along, you know."
"But I didn't ever say that I killed Jan."
"You implied it."
"That won't stand up in court."
"I think we can get a conviction. We talked to your daughter. . . She says that you knew that Jan raped her. I think we can reduce the charge to voluntary manslaughter. That's a felony. And you filed a false police report. That's a misdemeanor. You probably won't serve more than a couple of years . . . as long as you plead guilty. Interested?"
"May I think about it for a while?"
"A little while. We'll be charging you in a couple of days. Let me know by then. Your friend says that he won't be filing any complaints against you. He says he has profited from his friendship with you."