The Good Killer Read online

  He expects chaos, but the people around him are calm at first. They’re confused. Some of them stop and listen. They can’t see where the noise is coming from. They don’t want to overreact.

  The kiosk guy looks puzzled, kneeling by the pieces of the toy helicopter. Sean grabs his arm and pulls him up.

  “Did you hear that?” the guy says.

  “I heard.”

  “Could have been balloons. You know. Popping.”

  There’s another shot. The fifth. And a scream.

  “It’s not balloons,” Sean says.

  “You sure?”

  “Call nine-one-one,” Sean says. “Tell them shots fired.”

  The kiosk guy squints at him.

  “Gunshots,” Sean says. “Are you listening to me?”

  “Yeah.”

  Sean gives him a push, away from the sound of the gunfire. Toward the entrance of the Westin Galleria hotel.

  “Go. Get out of here. And make the call.”

  He goes. Sean moves in the direction of the gunfire. It’s coming from somewhere on the other side of the Starbucks.

  There are three more shots: six, seven, eight. There’s shouting.

  People are starting to catch on. There’s a rush of them along the concourse. Sean weaves through them.

  Shot number nine. Number ten.

  A pair of teenagers are standing still. Trying to gawk. A short one and a tall one. The tall one is holding up his cell phone, shooting video.

  Sean grabs the phone and throws it as far as he can.

  “Run away, you idiots,” he says.

  On the other side of Starbucks there’s a gray-haired man dressed in white linen sitting on the floor. A barista kneels beside him. She’s patting at his pockets. Sean looks for a wound, for blood. But there’s nothing.

  “He’s having an asthma attack,” the barista says.

  She finds the man’s inhaler. There’s another shot. Louder than the others. A pair of older ladies run out of the Brooks Brothers store in their stocking feet. One of them is holding her shoes.

  There’s a whip-crack sound and the woman with the shoes pitches forward. Her companion cries out and drops to the floor with her.

  Then two more people tumble out of Brooks Brothers. One is the gunman—the man in the black coat. The other is a thirtysomething woman with auburn hair. She’s weeping. The gunman holds her tight by the wrist.

  He raises his pistol in the air and squeezes off three shots. At first Sean thinks the gunman is firing at nothing, but there are people up there, gathered at the railing on the second level, looking down.

  Three shots and the pistol locks in the open position. The clip is empty.

  The gunman works a button on the pistol with his thumb. The empty clip falls to the floor. He lets loose the woman’s wrist, pushes her down. His hand dips into a pocket of his black coat and comes out with a fresh clip.

  The woman is retreating from him, scrambling with her head down, locks of hair obscuring her face.

  “Don’t do that,” the gunman says to her. “Don’t look away from me.”

  He jams the clip into the pistol and works the slide to put a round in the chamber.

  His attention is on the woman. He never looks up. He never sees Sean coming.

  Sean listens to his own footsteps. Counts them off: one, two, three … His breathing is relaxed. His pulse doesn’t race. He reaches inside his coat. Feels the Glock slip free of the holster.

  Sean’s arm extends, and the sights line up along the barrel. The first shot goes into the gunman’s chest and stops his heart. The second goes through his temple and into his brain.

  6

  Sean Tennant

  It was quiet when he fired the shots. That’s how he remembers it in the car driving away. Then the sound rushed back in. People screaming.

  He comes to the on-ramp for the 610 and accelerates, heading south. He’s alone in the car. And then he’s not.

  “That was brave,” Cole says.

  Sean keeps his eyes on the road. “I don’t need you right now.”

  “It’s like Hemingway said: Courage is grace under pressure. Or grace is courage under pressure. Or something. Of course, he was kind of a blowhard. But still.”

  “Don’t need you.”

  “You did good. That’s all I’m saying. But it’s starting to hit you now, starting to sink in. So settle down. Watch your speed.”

  Sean glances at the needle. It’s edging toward ninety. He eases up on the pedal.

  “That’s better,” Cole says. “There’s blood on your knuckles. I’m not criticizing. You’ll want to think about wiping it off.”

  *

  After the gunman was down, Sean went to the pair of women—the ones who ran out of Brooks Brothers in their stocking feet. One of them wore glasses with cat’s-eye frames. She was yelling for help. Her friend was lying prone on the floor, shot in the back.

  Sean crouched down beside them.

  “Is she breathing?” he asked the woman with the glasses.

  “I think so … Yes.”

  “Good. Don’t try to move her.”

  He heard a gasp. Not from the wounded woman. From the other. She stared at his right hand, which still held the Glock.

  He slipped it back into the holster. Showed her his palms.

  “It’s okay,” he said.

  Her eyes stayed wide. The wounded woman had a green silk scarf around her neck. Sean drew it off carefully and folded it into a small square. He laid it on the wound and put the other woman’s hand over it.

  “Press down,” he said. “And keep pressing. All right?”

  She nodded. Sean lifted his head and took things in. The barista had the asthma man on his feet. The woman with auburn hair was sitting cross-legged, wiping tears from her face. She had put some distance between herself and the dead gunman.

  A boy stood near the gunman’s feet. He had vacant eyes. Slumped shoulders. Red hands. Sean walked toward him. He recognized him. He was the kid who wanted pizza.

  “Where’s your mom?” Sean said.

  The boy’s mouth opened but nothing came out.

  “Where is she? Show me.”

  She was inside Brooks Brothers, lying on the floor between two racks of women’s jackets. Pale. Unconscious. Barely breathing. Blood darkened the carpet between her legs. She wore a black skirt and black leggings, so it took Sean a moment to find the wound: it was on her right thigh, midway between hip and knee.

  He wanted to believe that the bullet had missed the femoral artery. He couldn’t quite convince himself.

  The woman’s handbag was lying by her elbow. Sean drew his knife from his pocket and sliced through the leather strap.

  The boy was standing over him, watching. The woman with auburn hair had come in too. She spoke to the boy softly, tried to lead him away.

  “Wait,” Sean said. “I need you.”

  He tied the strap around the wounded woman’s thigh. Dumped the contents of the handbag and sifted through them. Found a hairbrush.

  He tucked the handle of the brush underneath the leather strap and used it as a lever to twist the strap tight.

  “You need to hold this,” he said to the woman with auburn hair.

  She knelt down but didn’t reach for the brush.

  “You should do it,” she said.

  “I can’t stay,” he said. “It’s got to be you.”

  She frowned, but her hands took the place of his. One gripping the head of the brush, the other the handle.

  “Twist it tight,” he said. “It has to be tight to close off the artery. Or she’ll bleed out.”

  She bit her lip. Twisted the brush.

  “More,” he said. “That’s good. You’re gonna save her life.”

  *

  In the car, Cole Harper has one booted foot braced against the dash.

  “That was inspirational,” he says.

  “Fuck you,” says Sean.

  “That line: You’re gonna save her life. Y
ou know how to rally the troops. How much blood do you think that woman lost?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Never rains but it pours. You think the EMTs are there yet?”

  “Yes.”

  “Yeah, they probably are. Maybe they’ll save her. Maybe you got that tourniquet on in time. Maybe her brain didn’t get too fried.”

  Sean says nothing.

  “Maybe that kid still has a mom. Maybe it’ll turn out all right for him. He looked a little iffy though, don’t you think? Like he checked out.”

  Sean watches the taillights of the car ahead of him.

  “Reminded me of someone,” Cole says. “Another kid who lost his mom.”

  “Go fuck yourself.”

  Cole laughs. “There you are. I thought you’d left me.” His boot comes down from the dash. “What’s the plan here?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  “Because you’re a hero now. Have you thought about that?”

  Sean’s grip tightens on the steering wheel.

  “A mass shooting at a mall, that’ll make the news,” Cole says. “The guy who stopped it, people will wonder about him. ‘Why didn’t he stick around?’ they’ll say. They’ll want to know his name. They’ll want to hear his story.”

  “Maybe they won’t get what they want,” Sean says.

  “They’ll get it. Your picture will be on television. And when that happens—”

  “Maybe it won’t.”

  Cole’s voice turns impatient. “All those people, you think none of them were taking pictures?”

  Sean focuses on the road. A dot of rain appears on the windshield. Then another.

  “Your face will be on television,” Cole says. “And on the internet. Everyone will see it. Everyone.”

  The dots of rain come faster.

  “Which means he’ll see it,” Cole says. “That’s bad. Unless he’s forgotten you. Do you suppose he’s forgotten you?”

  The question isn’t real. Sean doesn’t answer.

  “No,” Cole says. “He hasn’t. How long has it been?”

  Sean turns a switch and the wipers clear away the rain.

  “Five years,” he says. “Almost six.”

  “It’s not long enough,” Cole says. “You know him. He’s still the same. He hasn’t mellowed. He doesn’t forgive. He’ll see your face, and that’ll be enough. If he hasn’t been looking for you, it’s because he hasn’t had a place to look. Now he will. You know what he’ll do. He’ll come for you.”

  Sean listens to the rhythm of the wipers.

  “I know,” he says.

  “Good. So what’s the plan?”

  7

  Nick Ensen

  Jimmy Harper told him to sit and wait, so Nick Ensen sits and waits.

  He’s in the customer lounge at Jimmy’s repair shop on Michigan Avenue in Detroit. There’s a stale coffee smell in the air and a big flat-screen TV on the wall, tuned to one of those syndicated talk shows. Not the bright, upbeat kind where they chat with celebrities—this is one of the dark ones, where they bring on lowlifes and hope that a fight breaks out. So you got drunk and slept with your best friend’s wife and now she’s pregnant. Well, the results of the paternity test are in …

  Perfect, really, because it’s a show about people screwing up. It’s about mistakes. And right now, Nick is thinking about all his mistakes.

  It’s hard to know how far back he should go. Nick is pretty sure it was a mistake when he was born, but that one’s not on him. It’s on his mother. So let it go. Jump ahead to high school, to smoking too much weed, to crashing and burning when he tried to take the SATs. Then laughing at the guidance counselor who said he should enroll in community college and learn a trade. Then painting houses for a summer, and tearing off roofs, and ending up at one of those quick oil change places: sweating under cars all day and making no money.

  Then getting mixed up with Kelly Harper—Kelly who has a chip on his shoulder because he stands about five foot four and has a girl’s name.

  Kelly’s the one who convinced Nick to quit the oil change place and come work here, at Harper Auto Repair. Kelly is Jimmy Harper’s cousin.

  At first it seemed like a good move. The pay was better, and Nick was learning things: how to replace shocks and brake pads and mufflers, how to swap out a carburetor.

  But there’s more to the job than meets the eye. That’s what Nick has discovered.

  It’s not as if he had no warning. He heard things about Jimmy Harper long before he took the job. Rumors.

  Like this:

  If you stole a car—if you stole just about anything—you could go to Jimmy and unload it.

  If someone owed you money and wouldn’t pay, Jimmy could help you collect.

  If some asshole was giving you trouble, Jimmy could have a talk with him and set things straight. If talking didn’t work, Jimmy had other ways of sending a message.

  All these things Nick knew. But what he discovered was: If you took a job from Jimmy fixing cars, it might not end there. He might find other work for you to do.

  He might send you to have a conversation with a guy who was running an illegal poker game—a guy who bragged that he was under Jimmy Harper’s protection to keep the players in line when they lost, but never paid Jimmy a dime.

  That was Nick’s first non-car-related assignment: going to see this guy, last night. Not alone. Kelly Harper went with him.

  The two of them on a mission. It didn’t go as planned.

  Now, Friday evening, Nick sits and waits. There’s one other person in the lounge, an old lady waiting for her car. Her attention is fixed on the TV, eager for the results of the paternity test. The smarmy host builds things up, teases the audience, then cuts to a commercial. The old lady frowns and goes looking for the remote.

  She finds it and flips through channels: AMC, USA, HGTV, ESPN, CNN.

  She stops there. Split screen: There’s the anchor in the studio on one side, a reporter in the field on the other. There’s a banner at the bottom that says: BREAKING NEWS. The anchor looks stiff in his suit. His voice drones, but you can tell he’s excited. There’s been a series of shootings at a shopping mall in Houston. Details are still coming in. The number of victims is unknown. Police are on the scene.

  The old lady nudges up the volume. She has forgotten about the paternity test. This is a much better show. Nick watches it half-heartedly. It feels familiar, like he’s seen it before.

  His mind is elsewhere. There’s another scene he’s watching.

  Jimmy’s office is adjacent to the lounge. The door is closed, but the walls are mostly glass and the blinds are up. Nick can see in: Jimmy behind his desk, Kelly in a chair with his bruised face. His nose is twice as big as it should be.

  Nick can’t hear what they’re saying. But he can guess.

  Ten minutes drag by, and Jimmy stands up and comes around the desk. He puts a hand on Kelly’s shoulder, a fatherly gesture, and ushers him toward the door. Sees him out through the lounge—Kelly gives Nick a dark look as he passes—and along the hall to the front of the shop.

  Nick is on his feet when Jimmy returns. He expects to be ordered into the office, but Jimmy ignores him and goes to the coffeemaker instead. Pours a mug and doses it with sugar and cream. Finally turns and notices Nick.

  Stares at him with eyes that Nick can’t begin to read.

  Jimmy steps into the office and waits. Nick passes in and moves toward the chair where Kelly was sitting. He hears the office door close and has the wild thought that Jimmy Harper is going to kill him.

  It could happen. Jimmy is older by twenty years, but he’s also three inches taller and twenty pounds heavier, and those twenty pounds are muscle. Jimmy could close the blinds on the windows and slip an arm around Nick’s throat and slowly choke him to death, and the old lady in the lounge would be none the wiser.

  Nick feels a pressure on his neck, but it’s a phantom. The blinds are open. Jimmy is watching him from behind the desk, feet up on the
blotter.

  “Sit,” Jimmy says.

  It should be easy, sitting, but Nick takes it slow, like he might mess it up. The chair has wheels. It threatens to roll away beneath him. He plants his feet to steady it.

  “Tell me about Metzger,” Jimmy says.

  His tone is flat and his eyes look lifeless. Nick hears the name, but it doesn’t register. He’s wondering who the hell Metzger is. But there’s another part of him that knows. Get a grip, he tells himself. Alvin Metzger is the guy with the card game. The one he and Kelly went to see last night.

  “We went around two in the morning, to his place on Grand River Ave. We parked a block away and watched. The game broke up a little before three. People started coming out.”

  Nick’s voice is sluggish, and he hates the sound of it. Still, there’s nothing to do but keep going.

  “Metzger came out last and locked up. We approached him, cut him off before he could get to his car. I think he knew what it was about when he saw us. He recognized Kelly.”

  “What did you say to him?” Jimmy asks.

  “We gave him your message. No more free ride. If he wants protection, he’ll have to start paying.”

  “What did he say?”

  “He tried to get slick about it, like you said he would. He would pay, but he didn’t have the money right now. He’d have it next week.”

  Jimmy breathes out through his nose. “What happened then?”

  Nick hesitates. He’d like to get a sense of Jimmy’s mood, but the man’s eyes are still unreadable. There’s a hint of impatience in his questions, but this whole interrogation strikes Nick as an empty exercise.

  “I’m sure Kelly told you what happened,” he says.

  “I want to hear your version,” says Jimmy.

  There’s a silence that stretches out for a few seconds. Maybe it’s a battle of wills. If it is, Nick surrenders.

  “Metzger tried to get in his car,” he says. “Kelly grabbed his arm. Spun him around. Punched him.”

  It was more a slap than a punch. Didn’t do any damage.

  In fact, it made Metzger laugh. “Jesus, Kelly,” he said. “You hit like a girl.”