The Good Killer Read online

  It’s there, as he knew it would be: a small bundle wrapped in a white plastic trash bag. He opens it, and inside there’s a cigar box with an image of a stag on the lid.

  The weight of it feels right. Sean lifts the lid and sees the ziplock freezer bag, just the way he left it. Within the bag are fourteen white cotton handkerchiefs rolled up like napkins.

  He draws one out and unwraps it. At the center is a cylindrical stone about the size of his thumb.

  The stone is amethyst and there’s an intricate image carved into its surface: a hunting scene. If you rolled it over a clay tablet, the image would be pressed into the clay. You’d see men with spears tracking wild goats.

  It’s more than four thousand years old, and there are thirteen others in the bag. Each one carved with a different scene. There are fourteen more buried near the shore of a lake in Kentucky and sixteen in upstate New York.

  They’re called cylinder seals, and if Sean had a clear legal title to them they might sell at auction for six million dollars. They might go as high as twelve.

  Even without legal title, he might be able to get a million for them, if he could find the right buyer.

  “You could pay for a kid with that,” Cole says.

  It’s true. A million dollars would make things easier. Sean wouldn’t need to worry as much about finding rich people who want to buy custom-made furniture.

  Standing in the woods with the cigar box at his feet, he considers it. It’s tempting: to gather them up and try to sell them. But he knows it’s only a fantasy. It’s too dangerous.

  Sean used to be reckless, but he lives differently now. Because something happened that divided his life in two. It divided both their lives, his and Molly’s. They follow new rules now.

  They joke about the rules sometimes, but the rules are necessary.

  One: They’ve left the people they used to know behind. They don’t see them or talk to them, ever.

  Two: They stay clear of where they used to live. The state of Michigan is off-limits. Living in Texas puts them at a nice safe distance. But they’re allowed to travel—which is why it’s all right for Molly to take her trip to Montana.

  Those are the two main rules, and they’ve kept Sean and Molly safe for years. The third rule is one they rarely talk about, but it’s still important: They leave the cylinder seals hidden. They don’t try to sell them.

  Sean takes a final look at the seal he’s holding, then wraps it in the handkerchief and returns it to the bag. The bag goes into the cigar box, and the box gets swaddled in plastic again and goes into the ground. Covering it over with dirt takes only a few seconds. Sean puts the flat rock back in place and sweeps the leaves over it with his feet, and everything looks the way it did before.

  The walk back to his car takes less than an hour, and in that time he doesn’t hear Cole’s voice or any footsteps but his own. As he catches sight of the trailhead he feels a prick of pain in his right foot, as if a pebble has gotten into his boot. On a bench near the trailhead, he sits and takes the boot off. Turns it over and shakes it. Nothing comes out.

  When Sean looks closer at the sole, he finds a split running between two of the treads. There’s a small stone wedged in there, something he must have picked up on the trail. He pries it out with his pocketknife and drops it on the ground. Then slips his foot back into the boot.

  Later on, he’ll think about chance and fate, about what might have happened if not for that stone. But right now, he ties his laces and makes up his mind. If his boots were in better shape, he might have them resoled. But they’re old and worn out. He needs to replace them.

  There are plenty of places to shop for boots in Houston. He considers his options as he walks to his car, then starts it up and drives to the Galleria.

  3

  Henry Keen

  He’s been living with the idea for weeks.

  He tried to snuff it out. He pictured it very clearly, the caterpillar in the jar. But he imagined the jar with a lid this time. A metal lid that you could twist into place. No air holes. No way for the thing to breathe.

  It didn’t work. The thing kept squirming in there. It wouldn’t die.

  He decided he would give in to it.

  He drove out to the spot he had in mind and climbed the hill. He took the gun from the pocket of his black wool coat and held it to his head. It was a hot day, too hot for the coat, and there was barely any wind. And he couldn’t go through with it.

  Not because of the heat or the wind. Let’s not be silly.

  He wrote a note, and he had it with him up there beneath the tree. He made the mistake of unfolding it and reading it over. It sounded awful. Poor pitiful Henry. A lot of talk about how he never got a fair chance.

  Which is debatable.

  He had a good job once, and he lost it. The job that came after paid half as well, but he could still get by. His mother died and then his father. His sister is still around. She has a family of her own. She invites him to visit on holidays. She worries that he’s alone.

  And that’s the thing, being alone.

  It doesn’t seem right.

  He hasn’t always been alone. There have been women over the years. There was one, when he was young, who wanted to have children. But he wasn’t ready.

  Katy. That was her name.

  She was sweet. But she’s not the one he was thinking of that day up on the hill.

  He was thinking of the last one: Rose Dillon.

  Early thirties. Auburn hair. Pretty smile. Tall but not too tall.

  Henry met her seven weeks ago when he was shopping. She sold him the black wool coat. She said it looked good on him.

  He asked for her number, thinking she would turn him down. She didn’t. She met him for coffee on a Saturday afternoon. He spent two hours with her, and he found things to say. A week later they went out to dinner, and afterward he kissed her impulsively on the street.

  She returned the kiss. She was happy with the kiss. He’s almost certain of that.

  Another week and they made plans to go to a concert. A few hours before they were supposed to meet, she sent him a text saying she wasn’t feeling well. Nothing serious, but she wouldn’t be able to make it. He went to the concert on his own. Since then, nothing. She doesn’t answer his calls or his texts.

  He would like to understand what happened. He would like the world to make sense.

  He’s not naive. He’s not surprised that Rose doesn’t want to talk to him. The puzzling thing is why she agreed to go out with him at all.

  He’s too old for her. His hair is too thin. It’s been too long since he saw the inside of a gym.

  She should never have given him her number. But she did.

  He would like to understand her, and he would like to be understood. He would like her to know that she meant something to him.

  Which is why he couldn’t do it on the hill. Why he tore the note in half and put the gun back in his pocket.

  That was when his idea started to evolve. He wanted Rose to be there. He wanted her to see. He didn’t want to blame her for anything. He just wanted her to know: This is what I’ve come to.

  He would like to see her face when it happens. This is the new idea.

  The plan will have to change. He can’t expect her to go with him to the hill. He’ll have to go to her. But he knows where to find her. He knows where she works.

  At the mall. At Brooks Brothers.

  4

  Sean Tennant and Henry Keen

  The Houston Galleria is the biggest shopping mall in Texas. It has an ice-skating rink and two hotels and close to four hundred stores and restaurants.

  Sean finds what he’s looking for at Macy’s: a pair of waterproof Timberlands that fit him well. He pays for them in cash and wears them out of the store, leaving the box behind and dropping his old boots in the first trash can he comes to.

  He eats a Cuban sandwich at the Kona Grill and then wanders along the concourse. The shops don’t tempt him, but there’s
something compelling about the place. It’s the bright light and the sound. The mall is full of people on a Friday evening. Sean finds a cluster of armchairs—put there for shoppers who want a break. It’s not far from the lobby of the Westin Galleria hotel. He sinks into one of the chairs and lets the mix of sounds wash over him:

  Voices young and old. Footsteps clipping over the hard floor. Occasional laughter.

  The whirr of a plastic propeller: a twentysomething guy at a kiosk, demonstrating a toy helicopter.

  The mechanical tread of an escalator rising.

  Henry Keen is listening to the same sounds. He’s sitting in another armchair, less than a dozen feet away.

  He has already walked past Brooks Brothers and confirmed that Rose Dillon is there. He’s taking a few minutes to work up his nerve.

  Sean sees him sitting there: a man in a black wool coat. But Sean’s attention is elsewhere. He’s sifting through the noise around him and picking out bits of conversation:

  A mother and son coming out of the Gap. The boy says, “I want pizza.”

  “You’re not hungry,” his mother says.

  “Yes I am.”

  “We’re not getting pizza.”

  “You said we could.”

  “When?”

  “Yesterday.”

  “I didn’t see you yesterday. Your father had you yesterday.”

  “The day before.”

  “You should get your story straight.”

  They move off together, and Sean shifts his attention to the guy selling toy helicopters. He’s trying to flirt with a girl.

  “You want one. I can tell,” he says to her.

  “I don’t know.”

  “At least one. Maybe more. One for each of your boyfriends.”

  She laughs. “Just one then, I guess.”

  “Oh, I don’t believe that. I don’t believe that for a second.”

  There’s a little more back-and-forth but no sale. The girl walks away, carrying a bag from Abercrombie and Fitch. She passes Sean. Her bag almost brushes his knee.

  Sean takes out his phone. He’s expecting to hear from Molly. Her plane should have landed by now.

  As he’s looking at the screen, a feeling passes through him like a flush of heat. There’s a smell of cement and smoke. And Cole Harper’s voice, right beside him: “Why are you here?”

  Sean doesn’t turn. He can see Cole out of the corner of his eye. Sprawled in the next chair, dressed in camouflage and heavy boots, a clean white bandage taped to his throat.

  The bandage is always there. It shimmers at the edges.

  Cole asks his question again: “Why are you here?”

  Sean puts his phone away and says, “Where should I be?”

  “Anywhere you like,” says Cole. “But not at the mall.”

  People are walking by. They’re paying no attention.

  “I needed boots,” Sean says.

  “Sure you did. And you had to get them here. There’s nowhere else to buy a pair of boots.”

  Sean lets some time tick by. He doesn’t respond.

  “I know why you’re here,” Cole says. “Practice.”

  Sean sighs. “I don’t need practice.”

  “Yes you do. Being around all these people. It would be enough to put anyone on edge. You have to remind yourself what it’s like. What are you carrying?”

  “Why do you assume I’m carrying?”

  “Christ, what a question. Is it the Beretta?”

  “No.”

  “You always liked the Beretta.”

  “I don’t have it anymore,” Sean says. “I’ve got a Glock.”

  He almost forgot about it, but it’s still there. In the shoulder rig, under his gray windbreaker.

  “That’s good,” says Cole. “What else?”

  “Nothing else.”

  “No helmet. I can see that. No gloves?”

  “No gloves.”

  “No gear?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Not even a tourniquet?”

  Everyone carried a tourniquet back then, over there. In Baghdad. Sean carried two. Even after he came back home, he felt safer if he kept one in his pocket.

  “I don’t do that anymore,” he says.

  Cole nods. “You’ll probably be all right. These people, look at them. They’re sheep anyway.”

  Sean looks around. There’s another mom with another son, not the ones from before. The mom is digging for something in her purse. The boy grins and makes a gun with his thumb and index finger. Points it at Sean. Sean makes his own, and the two of them have a standoff.

  Across the way, the man in the black coat is leaning forward in his chair with his face in his hands.

  “Watch out for that one,” Cole says. “He doesn’t look right. He’s been talking to himself.”

  Down along the concourse, at the Starbucks, someone knocks over a stool. It hits the floor with a metal clang. The man in the black coat jumps in his seat at the sound. Sean does too.

  Cole chuckles beside him. “It’s like a damn war zone.”

  Just then, Sean’s phone rings in his pocket. He’s slow to answer. He’s still scanning the concourse to be sure that a falling stool is just a stool.

  “Relax,” Cole says. “Talk to her.”

  Sean brings the phone out and raises it to his ear.

  “You got there,” he says.

  “I got here,” Molly agrees. “I’m on the road now. Driving from Bozeman to Clyde Park. Should take another twenty minutes, if I don’t stop to look at the mountains.”

  “Have you been stopping to look at the mountains?”

  “Possibly.”

  “I bet they’re something.”

  “They are,” Molly says. “I’ll send you a picture. But I’m trying not to take too many pictures. I want to see things, you know—”

  “I know.”

  “With my eyes, not through a camera. I’m turning my phone off as soon as you and I are done talking. They’ll take it anyway when I get there. Did I tell you?”

  “You told me.” Sean says.

  “They take everybody’s phone. I think they tie them in a sack and throw them down a well. These people are serious. The whole point is to unplug.”

  “I know.”

  “And look at the mountains. And ride horses.”

  “And breathe,” Sean says.

  “Yes! You’re making fun of me. But that’s the point. To breathe.”

  “I’m not making fun of you.”

  Molly is quiet on the line. Skeptical.

  “All right,” she says. “It’s five days. Nothing’s gonna happen in five days.”

  “No.”

  “Except I’ll miss you.”

  “Except that.”

  “So tell me you’re wild about me and hang up the phone.”

  Sean pictures her cruising along in a rental car on a highway in Montana. Windows down. Dark hair loose in the wind.

  “I’m wild about you,” he says.

  “Same here.”

  He slips the phone back in his pocket and waits for Cole to make some sly comment. But the chair beside him is empty. Cole is gone.

  The man in the black coat is gone too.

  Sean thinks about getting up, going home. He watches as the guy at the kiosk puts the toy helicopter through some basic maneuvers: vertical climbs and descents, straight-and-level flight. The chopper comes in low and skims across the floor, then zooms up, up to the mall’s second level. It banks left, and the propeller clips a railing and stalls out. The chopper crashes down, breaking apart into plastic pieces.

  The guy at the kiosk says, “Shit.”

  Sean gives him a sympathetic look. Rises from the chair.

  That’s when he hears the shot.

  5

  Rose Dillon

  In the men’s apparel section of Brooks Brothers, Rose is helping a customer in his fifties who wants to buy a suit. He’s trying on a jacket: 44 regular in navy blue. He’s not happy. He asks her t
o find him a 44 long.

  She’s looking—and then there’s Henry Keen, walking toward her. His face is strange. Rose can read sadness in it but eagerness too. She believes she knows why he’s here. She should have resolved things with him instead of going silent. She thinks she’s in for an awkward conversation.

  The man she’s helping clears his throat impatiently. She turns to him, and there’s a crazy loud noise that she can feel in her bones. The man’s head snaps back and his left eye isn’t there anymore. There’s just a void. His knees give and he drops over sideways. There’s blood running over the bridge of his nose.

  Rose looks at Henry and sees the gun—a black shape in his hand—and she’s slow to put things together. When she does, there’s only shock. She doesn’t scream. She can’t even speak.

  Henry Keen

  The expression on her face is everything he wanted.

  He was worried, but he knows now that he got it right.

  His old idea was wrong. The truth came to him earlier today, as he played the scenario out in his mind. He saw himself putting the gun to his temple and pulling the trigger. In front of Rose, so they could see each other in that moment. And he realized his mistake.

  He realized that when he pulled the trigger, that would be the end. He wouldn’t see anything. He wouldn’t see her reaction.

  He almost decided to forget the whole thing. But then the idea evolved.

  To this.

  He watches her mouth drop open. Her eyes are big, and they’re riveted on him. She can see him, finally, and he can see her, and what he sees is awe.

  This is just the beginning. She doesn’t know yet, but she will. The pockets of Henry’s coat are filled with extra clips for his gun. He’s glad he brought them. Because the feeling he’s having right now, looking at Rose’s face, is good. He wants more of it.

  He grabs her by the wrist and goes looking for more.

  Sean Tennant

  There’s a delay after the first shot, and Sean has time to doubt that he heard what he thought he heard. Then come three more shots in quick succession and there’s no mistake.