Urge to Kill

Feeling fear that was on the edge of nausea, he moved closer to the doorway so he had a narrow view of the apartment’s interior. He saw a corner of the sofa, part of a lamp table, half of Pearl’s framed museum print of Munch’s The Scream.

He swallowed to make sure his throat wasn’t dry. “Dwayne Avis?”

“I’m here with your lady love,” Avis said in a calm voice. “I ain’t so sure she’s a lady, though. Why don’t you come on into the apartment, Captain Quinn, so we can see each other?”

Quinn took a deep breath and willed his legs to move. He tasted bile at the back of his throat.

There was Avis, standing near the opposite end of the sofa, holding Pearl in front of him with one arm tight around her neck. The other arm was crooked so the .25-caliber Springbok revolver in his right hand pointed straight into Pearl’s right ear. Pearl’s eyes met Quinn’s. She looked afraid but calculating. She hadn’t given up and was trusting him to figure out something. To try, anyway. They both knew that the only way Dwayne Avis was going to leave the building was dead or in custody.

Avis seemed almost unconcerned by his predicament. He was simply using what leverage he had and was prepared to cope with whatever came of it.

Quinn moved away from the doorway, closer to them. Avis watched him, his hooded dark eyes unblinking, the gun steady against Pearl’s ear.

“That’d be near enough,” Avis said.

Quinn stopped and stood still.

“He’s gonna shoot you,” Pearl said. “Then me.”

“Or you and then him,” Avis said.

“What are your demands?” Quinn asked. But he knew Avis didn’t have demands. Pearl had it right. Avis simply wanted Quinn and Pearl, in whatever order, to leave this world before he did. Even if Avis by some wild chance was able to kill Quinn and make his escape, he’d still shoot Pearl.

Quinn tried to figure what he had to work with. Avis was skilled at using Pearl’s body as a shield. He was crouched with his head behind and slightly to the side of Pearl’s so that he was peering over her left shoulder. Only his left eye and the left side of his forehead were exposed. Quinn hadn’t actually shown his revolver to Avis, but he was sure Avis knew it was there in Quinn’s right hand, alongside and slightly behind his right thigh where it couldn’t be seen. If Quinn’s right arm began to rise to point his weapon, the bloodbath would begin.

Then Quinn saw the one possibility Avis had left him. Quinn was more familiar than Avis with the old Springbok revolvers, which had been used probably exclusively by Avis’s son Martin and the Quest and Quarry clients. Most likely the ones at Avis’s farm were simply stored there. The revolver in Avis’s hand wasn’t cocked. The hammer was still forward and would have to be thumbed back before the gun would fire.

The amount of time it would take Avis’s thumb to cock the revolver and for Avis to squeeze the trigger was the amount of time Quinn had to act and make whatever he did work. Seconds.

And the slight exposure of Avis’s eye and tanned forehead was a difficult target, even in these close quarters.

Seconds.

Seconds that might save Pearl’s life or end it. That might be ticking away now in Avis’s head.

Quinn knew that if he did chance it and take the shot, he’d have to move first in order to have time.

He did move first. Instantly and decisively.

As his hand came up with the bulky old .38, Quinn saw Avis’s stubby thumb moving toward the Springbok’s hammer.

Seconds.

Quinn turned off every other part of his mind, took aim, and squeezed the trigger.

The room rocked with the deafening blast of gunfire.

One shot. Before either Avis or Pearl could react.

Quinn saw a red mist appear like a halo around Avis’s head, saw a fragment of skull and hair spin back and away. Avis’s arm fell away from Pearl. They both toppled backward.

Avis lay still on his back. Pearl rolled to the side and scrambled to her feet. She was trembling, and there were flecks of blood and what looked like gray brain matter on her left cheek.

Quinn had moved forward after the shot without realizing it. He and Pearl stared down at Avis’s motionless figure. A large piece of Avis’s skull was missing above his left eye. Without the vitality of life he looked diminutive and harmless.

Quinn and Pearl noticed at the same time how close it had been. Avis had managed to cock the pistol in the second before he’d died.

Instinctively, Quinn kicked the gun away from the dead hand, halfway across the room.

The bullet that had taken off part of Avis’s skull had also broken a window, allowing the breeze to enter through the shattered pane. A curtain blown in the wind momentarily created a shadow on the wall that looked like a huge feathered wing.

For the first time in her life, Pearl fainted.

82

Perhaps it had been the pain that made her lose consciousness. Or maybe Lavern had simply fallen asleep.