Robert B. Parker’s the Hangman’s Sonnet

He drove slowly along the roads leading to Paradise and kept under the speed limit once he’d gotten into town. He didn’t know Paradise. He’d been to town only once, and it wasn’t like that had gone according to plan. He figured that if he got collared for the old lady’s death he could probably plead it down to manslaughter and save the commonwealth the expense of a trial, but if he got pulled over by a cop and had to use his gun, he was screwed. There was no pleading down killing a cop. Do that and they hunt your ass down no matter what, and they might even find a way to kill you before you ever got to see the inside of a cell.

King slowed to a stop and turned left onto the road that led into the wooded area of town north of the Bluffs that ran along Sawtooth Creek. From what he could tell downtown, Paradise wasn’t a hive of activity, but it was Times Square compared to the road he was on now. The trees were so thick that the canopy nearly blotted out the moonlight. When he spotted the metal gate for the access road, he stopped and got out of the Subaru. The gate was unlocked, as he was told it would be. He swung it open, got back into the car, drove up the road to the utility shed, and parked.

As he’d done at the meet at the supermarket, King had come early to make sure this wasn’t a trap, not that he thought his employer capable of such a thing. He’d known guys like him all his life, inside and out of the joint — street-savvy users, tough in their way, but not hard. Setting a trap of the kind where someone winds up dead took more sand than people thought. King hadn’t ever killed a man, though he’d been mad enough at the gas-station attendant to crack his skull. Whether the guy had the stuff to set a trap or not, King did his due diligence.

Turning the car in a slow circle, using its headlights, he looked for cars hidden in the darkness or for a silhouette that didn’t belong. All he saw were some tiny pairs of glistening eyes, eyes that were there one second and then gone the next.

Out of the car, he had a look inside the utility shed, a flimsy old wooden structure that held nothing more than a broken rake handle and a million spiderwebs. He looked for tire tracks that didn’t belong to the Subaru. And he listened. It was a waste of time. All he could hear was the faint sound of flowing water and the chittering of insects. About ten minutes later he heard the distinctive sound of tires spitting out rocks on the dirt road and he caught the sweep of headlights coming his way.

King poked his head back into the car, checked the dashboard clock, and clapped his hands together. “Right on time.”

But even before the car came to a stop, King felt something wasn’t right. The car wasn’t right. The man who’d hired him wasn’t the four-door-sedan type, and when he saw the stranger get out of the car, King knew there might be trouble. So when King got out of the Subaru, he came out with his nine-millimeter pointed right at the man’s midsection.

“Relax, tough guy,” the stranger said, raising his empty hands to the sky.

“Who are you?” King asked.

“I’m the guy with your money.” And then, as if anticipating King’s next question, he said, “You didn’t think our mutual friend was really going to drive around with nearly a million in cash in his front seat, did you? He strike you as the kind of man to do that?”

“Let’s see it. And, mister, if you know what’s good for you, reach back into the car slow, very slow.”

The man did as King demanded and pulled a big leather satchel out of the sedan. He swung it, tossing it so that it landed about ten feet in front of King’s car. “It’s all there, but go ahead and check.”

King, keeping the nine-millimeter raised, took slow, measured steps toward the bag. “Stay right where you are.”

“It’s all there.”

“So you said.”

“You don’t recognize me, do you?” the money man asked. “How do you think the shithead who hired you found you?”

King waved his gun dismissively. “I got no time for this. Don’t matter to me who you are.”

Then, finally, with the money tugging him to his knees like a magnet, King lowered his gun and unzipped the satchel. “Hey, what the f—? Newspapers! Goddamned newspapers. You mother—”

King swung the nine-millimeter back up, but it was already too late. When he looked up from the leather bag, he saw something that confused him into inaction. It looked like an orange oil filter. Then he noticed it was attached to the end of a gun. Just as he made sense of it, there was a flash. He was already dead by the time the soft bark of the shot reached his ears. Good thing he was dead, too. As hard as his head hit the rock in the dirt beneath him, it would have really hurt.

35

For the first time in Jesse’s recent memory, Nita Thompson and the mayor seemed pleased to breathe the same air he did. He knew better. It wouldn’t last. In fact, the mayor was trying her darnedest to poke holes in their détente, even as Nita Thompson was working the phones with the Boston media.