The Porkchoppers (29 page)

“Let's go, Fred.”

“Oh, God, I don't want to live!” Fred moaned and then visibly brightened at the thought. He looked slyly at Kelly, darted across the room, down a short hall, and into the bathroom. As Kelly followed he heard the click of the lock on the bathroom door.

Kelly waited. After a moment, Fred Mure called: “You won't have to worry about me no more, Kelly. Nobody will. I'm gonna shoot myself.”

Kelly waited some more.

“Tell Sadie. Tell Sadie I still love her.”

Kelly kept on waiting.

“I'm no fuckin good!” Mure screamed.

Kelly waited.

“I'm gonna do it now, Kelly.”

Kelly said nothing. He only waited.

“I hate this fuckin world!” Fred Mure yelled through the door.

Kelly waited another full minute before the door opened and Mure slowly came out, his eyes downcast, a sheepish, embarrassed look on his face. “I just couldn't do it, Kelly.”

“That's what I was afraid of.”

29

On October 26, a Saturday, the gray-haired man who sometimes called himself Just Bill came out of his apartment building on West Fifty-seventh and turned left. In his right hand he held a leash that was attached to an aged English pit bull that waddled as it walked and wheezed as it breathed. In his left hand, Just Bill carried a brown, oblong, stamped and addressed manila envelope.

“Come on, Dum-Dum,” Just Bill said to the dog and strolled slowly down the block toward the mailbox. Half way there he stopped and bought a New York
Daily News
because its screamer headline had caught his eye:

CUBBIN'S ‘REAL'

KILLER SQUEALS

Just Bill raised his eyebrows as he read the story while waiting at a lamppost for Dum-Dum to relieve himself. As he walked on toward the mailbox, Just Bill ran the facts of the story through his mind to determine whether any of them might implicate him. When he was satisfied that there was no possible way that they could, he smiled slightly, and checked the envelope again to make sure its address was correct:

Mr. Karl Syftestad

Room 518

Benser Building

Minneapolis, Minnesota 55401

Just Bill read the address twice to make sure it was right, nodded to himself in a satisfied way, and dropped the envelope into the mailbox.

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Text copyright © 1972 by Ross Thomas

cover design by Jason Gabbert

This edition published in 2011 by
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/Open Road Integrated Media
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