The Last Quarter (A James Bishop short story) Read online

  But then there was the question of Eric’s pharmaceutical supply business. Granted, he didn’t have anything to do with the medical side of things, but with all his contacts in the industry, how hard would it be to get hold of a certain prescription drug if he really needed it? Probably not too hard, Bishop thought. It might cost a few favours, but when you knew people, all things became possible. And the fact that he wasn’t answering his phone now wasn’t making Bishop happy either.

  He still didn’t trust that whole scenario, though. Notwithstanding his personal feelings for the man, there was also the question of motive. Eric had made a good piece of change out of one night’s work. They all had. Enough to get each of them out of the hole they were in. Bishop simply couldn’t believe that Eric would then kill off his friends one by one just so that he could get his hands on the whole lot. It simply didn’t fit in with his character.

  He didn’t believe it. He couldn’t believe it.

  He turned and saw that Cassandra was trying another number on her cordless phone. As she waited for a response, Bishop looked around and spotted a remote on the coffee table. He picked it up, aimed it at the large TV set against the wall and pressed the green button. Once the set came on, he lowered the sound and then scrolled through the various channels until he found CNN. A female reporter was doing an item on some UN meeting in New York that had been cancelled at the last minute due to a bomb threat. On the news ticker along the bottom of the screen, there was something about a multi-car accident on the US 23 and that there were no major injuries. Nice to know there was some good news in the world.

  ‘Still can’t get hold of him,’ Cassandra said, putting the phone down. ‘I’m getting really scared now.’

  ‘Eric can take care of himself better than anyone I know. I’m sure he’s fine. Besides, whoever killed Spurgeon can’t be in two places at once.’ Bishop only wished he felt as confident as he sounded. ‘By the way, what car does Eric drive?’

  ‘Oh, an old Chevrolet Malibu. He’s had it for ages. Why?’

  Bishop kept his face expressionless. ‘Just curious.’

  They both fell silent. Then Cassandra said, ‘You know what he and the others did to start all this trouble, don’t you?’

  Bishop paused, aware that telling her the whole truth wouldn’t help the situation at all. In fact, it would only make things worse. ‘I have a pretty good idea, yes.’

  ‘What did they do? Was it something very bad?’

  ‘They took some money from a bunch of criminals, that’s all. Some drug dealers.’

  ‘Eric helped steal money from these people? Why?’

  ‘He was in bad financial straits and he simply felt that you and he deserved the money more than they did. Maybe he was right.’

  Cassandra closed her eyes for a moment, and when she opened them again they looked a little moist around the edges. ‘And you think one of these drug dealers may have found out who they are and is now killing them off, one by one?’

  ‘No, I don’t. For one thing, the methods used so far are a little too subtle for the drug trade.’

  ‘So who do you think is—’ She stopped and glanced past Bishop’s shoulder. ‘Hey, look.’

  Bishop turned to the screen to see jerky footage of two firemen hosing down the remains of the house he’d left not thirty minutes before. The fire looked to be almost out. There were flashing red and blue lights everywhere as uniforms tried to keep the large crowd of onlookers away from the scene. The caption underneath read: Explosion levels house in Woodlynne, New Jersey. Male homeowner possibly killed in blast.

  The camera zoomed out and panned to a pretty black reporter talking into a mic. Bishop turned the sound up and heard her say, ‘. . . many details at this time, although a source we spoke to says it seems likely the devastation was caused by a gas leak. Apparently the homeowner, who must remain unnamed for the time being, kept a number of propane tanks in his house, and a tiny spark would have been enough to set them off.’ She glanced briefly at the activity behind her and continued, ‘At this point we don’t know if the homeowner was in the house at the time, but we have to assume . . .’

  ‘My God,’ Cassandra said, biting her lip. ‘Are you sure Gene was still in the house when it happened?’

  Bishop lowered the volume on the TV and said, ‘Pretty sure. I left, and less than a minute later the world exploded.’

  ‘Could it have been accidental, like they’re saying?’

  ‘You already know the answer to that. Also, I didn’t smell any gas when I was there.’

  ‘God, I just can’t believe this is really happening. I mean, I know I had my suspicions, but to actually see it . . . Look, maybe we should call the police.’

  ‘Calling them really wouldn’t improve the situation any, Cassandra. Trust me on that. No, what we need to do now is find Eric. Or at least I need to. What about some of his regular haunts? For instance, when I was at the depot earlier, he mentioned a bar nearby that he liked. Do you know which one he meant?’

  ‘Probably Kierney’s Tavern. There are a couple of other places, but I can’t recall the names at the moment.’ She frowned and stood up. ‘Maybe I’ll recognise them if see them written down. I’ll go get our Yellow Book and check.’

  She disappeared out the door and came back a few seconds later holding a thin directory. As she sat down again and opened it up, Bishop said, ‘Did Eric and the others play poker here often?’

  ‘Pretty often,’ she said, turning pages. ‘Although I had to restrict them to Eric’s office area because of the cigar smoke.’

  ‘Where is this office? Mind if I go look?’

  Cassandra gave him basic directions, and Bishop eventually found a large room at the rear of the house with floor-to-ceiling windows, an oak desk with an old PC on the top, and a small circular conference table at one end with four chairs around it. The table was old and worn, and looked as though it had been picked up in either a thrift shop or a yard sale. Behind it, set against the wall, was a large steel filing cabinet. On top was an empty carafe, some glasses, and three packs of playing cards. All used. All different brands.

  He took a pack, opened it up and sat in one of the seats. Pulling out the deck, he began to shuffle the cards absently as he tried to think through alternatives, but his mind refused to obey. All he could think about was that tan Chevy parked outside the depot, which Cassandra had now confirmed was Eric’s. If somebody were to take a microscope to the front fender, would they find blood residue that matched Michael Padgett’s?

  He wasn’t sure he wanted to know the answer. But he couldn’t exactly ignore it.

  Shit.

  At that moment Cassandra entered the room, still holding the cordless phone. He stopped shuffling and said, ‘Any luck?’

  She shook her head. ‘None. I called Kierney’s and two other places whose names rang a bell, but he’s not in any of them. I don’t know where else to try.’

  Bishop replaced the shuffled deck in the box, then stood up and put the box back on the cabinet with the others. He said, ‘Okay, I need you to think. Eric has to be somewhere, and it’s likely to be a place you both know. Or at least someplace you’re aware of. Does he have any other outside interests? Does he go to a gym, for example? Or play golf or tennis? Any other sport? Does he like going to the movies on his own?’ Cassandra was shaking her head through all this. He went on, ‘If so, does he go to a particular movie theatre? What about his folks? Are they still living? And if they are, do they—’

  She had stopped shaking her head.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘His parents,’ she said. ‘They both died before we met, but I know his father left Eric some property in his will.’

  ‘What kind of property?’

  ‘An old town house or something, I think. I’ve never seen it myself, but Eric said it’s in one of the worst parts of Jersey and covered in graffiti. The windows are all smashed too, so he had to board them up a while back. Apparently the area wasn’t too bad whe
n his folks were alive, and Eric was planning on modernising it and selling it on when he had the time. But with the recession, the whole area’s gone way downhill in recent years. And nobody’s interested in buying it any more, not even the banks. So he just checks every now and then and makes sure it’s still boarded up and there are no squatters, and then forgets about it for another year.’

  ‘Where is this place?’

  ‘Just a few miles away. In Camden.’

  Camden again, Bishop thought. That was interesting. And not in a good way.

  He could see how it could be the perfect place for Eric to hide his share of the money, though. Who’d ever look for it there? And it also seemed logical to assume that Eric would check the place over a little more regularly than before, making doubly sure nobody broke in.

  Possibly at this very moment.

  ‘Have you got the address?’ he asked.

  THIRTEEN

  It was 20.48 when Bishop reached South 6th Street, located about a mile east of the waterfront. With what he’d seen of Camden since coming off the I-676, he could well understand why Eric hadn’t been able to find a buyer for his old man’s property. The town was a grim, worn-out, depressing place that seemed to suck all hope from the air.

  There were very few working street lights to navigate by, and every other building he passed was either abandoned or condemned. Some were nothing but ruins, and there were vacant lots everywhere. The sidewalks were not only cracked, but often had whole slabs of concrete missing. Open bags of trash littered the streets. Even with the windows wound all the way up, the stench of sewage permeated the car interior.

  Here and there he’d seen drug dealers, pimps and working girls openly prowling the streets for customers, and he hadn’t spotted a single police cruiser anywhere. He got the impression people were hoping Camden might simply sink into the Delaware and disappear for ever, thus solving everybody’s problems.

  When he found number 1062, he saw it was a narrow two-storey stucco house with a garage at the side, although the entrance had been concreted over long ago. The front door and all the windows were boarded up with thick graffiti-covered plywood. There was a long, featureless concrete building on the left and a condemned house to the right. The rest of the block on that side was just an empty chunk of land, overgrown with weeds and grass.

  He kept going for another fifty feet until he reached the intersection and turned right into Chestnut. There was very little traffic on the streets. He continued on, noting the few parked vehicles, and slowed when he spotted a light-coloured Chevy on the right. It was a Malibu. And with the same plates as those he’d seen at the depot.

  Eric was here.

  He carried on for another twenty feet and then pulled in and turned off the engine. After locking the vehicle, he walked back to the Chevy and laid a palm on the bonnet. It was still warm.

  He kept walking, passing several derelict buildings on the left, until he reached another vacant lot. The expanse of open space overlooked the rear of the properties he’d passed on South 6th Street. There were no backyards. All three buildings simply stopped at the property line.

  Bishop walked across the empty space towards the centre building, the dried grass crackling under his feet. As he got closer, he spotted two more boarded-up windows on the second floor, while a third on the ground floor was completely bricked up. As he’d suspected, there was also a rear door. When he reached it, he saw that it was made of some kind of heavy wood and that it opened outwards. There was no handle, just a single keyhole. He touched the door and felt it move a little. Clearly unlocked. He knocked it gently against the inner frame and the door rebounded a few millimetres. Enough for him to grab hold of the edge and pull it all the way open.

  There was a faint light coming from inside. Possibly from portable lamps that Eric kept on the premises, since there wouldn’t be any electricity. Bishop also heard faint sounds of movement. Straight ahead was a hallway with three open doorways on the left-hand side. The light was coming from the third room. At the end, the hallway opened out into a large open space, where there was another source of light. Naturally, there were no furnishings of any kind. He stepped inside and gently pulled the door shut behind him. The interior air was stale and smelled mostly of mould and rat shit.

  He began walking down the hallway. There was enough light to see that the floor was wood-panelled and generally filthy. The interior walls also looked to be made of wood. They’d been stripped of paint and wallpaper at some point. Probably by squatters.

  The first room looked to be a kitchen area. He could just about make out a sink against the far wall. The second was a toilet. And the third was a just a windowless, featureless room with an egg-shaped lamp sitting in a corner giving off faint illumination. Otherwise it was empty.

  Bishop halted at the end of the hallway. There was a stairwell and a door on the right. Straight ahead was the front door, bolted on the inside. The light was coming from another egg-shaped lamp placed in the left-hand corner of the room.

  Eric had removed several floorboards to reveal a man-made hole in the earth below. He was crouched next to an old steel footlocker, which he must have only just removed from its hiding place. He was trying to turn a key in the padlock, but it looked stuck. Totally focused on his task, he hadn’t noticed Bishop at all.

  ‘Eric,’ Bishop said.

  The man was a blur. In less than a second, he’d grabbed a concealed gun from the floor and had it aimed at Bishop’s chest.

  Bishop slowly raised his hands. ‘It’s me. Bishop.’

  ‘Bishop?’ Eric frowned in the dim light. He slowly lowered the gun, but still kept it visible and ready. ‘What the hell are you doing here?’

  ‘I could ask you the same thing. You’re not answering your phone, and Spurgeon was blown up in a house explosion a couple of hours ago. I only just made it out in one piece myself.’

  ‘Gene?’ Eric stared. ‘Dead? That’s impossible. You’re lying.’

  ‘Call Cassandra if you don’t believe me. We both watched the aftermath on the news. Looks like you’re the last man standing, Eric.’

  Eric looked down at the strongbox with a puzzled expression. ‘But that means—’

  Bishop didn’t get to hear the rest. There was a faint rustling sound from behind him, and almost immediately he felt a sharp sensation at the base of his neck.

  Then everything went black and he felt nothing at all.

  FOURTEEN

  As Bishop slowly rose towards consciousness, he could hear voices but couldn’t make out any words. It didn’t help that it felt like somebody was continuously striking his head with a baseball bat. Whump . . . whump . . . whump. Every . . . single . . . second.

  The pain was tremendous. And each thump was accompanied by a bright supernova behind his eyelids. He tried to focus his thoughts, but found it almost impossible. He remembered what had happened, though. There’d been a noise from behind, and then somebody must have struck him a good one and wiped him out. And now the same idiot was beating on his skull like it was a national sport. Whump . . . whump . . . whump.

  ‘. . . get it,’ a male voice was saying between strikes, somewhere in the background. ‘I thought we were . . . whump . . . or at least we agreed . . . whump . . .’

  Bishop recognized the voice. It was Eric’s. His old friend, Eric. He tried to open his eyes, but his eyelids refused to obey his will. Finally he managed to get the left one halfway open and saw that the world had tilted ninety degrees to the left. No, that wasn’t right. He was lying on his stomach with his right cheek pressing against the grimy floorboards, hands bound behind his back. He was looking at the blurred figures of Eric and somebody else. He tried to focus on the two shapes, but everything remained fuzzy.

  Severe concussion. He’d been through it before and recognized the symptoms. The pounding headache. The blurred vision. The muddied thinking. The dizziness. The nausea. The loss of balance. The inability to concentrate for more than a few seconds at a ti
me.

  Everything went black.

  Bishop’s eyes snapped open again, and he heard Eric say, ‘. . . gonna kill me?’

  Faded out for a second there, Bishop thought. Have to be careful about that. Can’t afford to pass out again.

  He stared at the two indistinct figures near the light source. The one with his hands raised had to be Eric. The other one, though – the one pointing the gun at his friend – who the hell was that?

  And then it came to him. The pot belly. The goatee. It was the cop.

  Spurgeon.

  The bastard was still alive. It had all been a fake-out. All of it.

  He was also the one doing the talking. Bishop made a concerted effort to tune out his pounding head so he could hear the words. ‘. . . way it’s gotta be, Eric,’ Spurgeon was saying. ‘I been planning this a long time and I can’t have any loose ends lying around.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’ Eric said. ‘Darren came up with the scheme. Not you.’

  ‘That’s what I wanted you and Mike to think, but I had my own contacts on the street. I knew Darren was the one everybody trusted the most, though, and that if the idea came from him you’d all go for it without question. Darren understood and said it was cool with him, so that’s how we played it.’

  ‘And then you killed them both. How the hell could you do it, Gene? And why? We were all friends, for Christ’s sake.’

  Still listening, Bishop slowly rolled on to his side. The movement caused his head to throb even worse. The flashes behind his eyelids became brighter and he felt like vomiting. He forced his eyes wide, refusing to let himself lose consciousness again. At least Eric was doing a good job of keeping Spurgeon talking. Guys like that always needed to justify their actions somehow. So let him talk.

  ‘Hey, nothing lasts for ever, old buddy,’ Spurgeon went on. ‘Especially friendships. As for the “how”, well, it was all pretty straightforward actually. We all knew Mike ran the same route every night, so last week I simply stole a car, waited for the right moment and just did it. I left the car a few blocks away from here, where it was probably stolen again within seconds. I already knew he’d hidden his share in his gym locker, so I cleaned it out that same night. As for Darren, I got hold of some Zelnorm from the evidence room, went round to his place and put him out with chloroform, then replaced his vitamin injection with a large dose of the drug and that was that. Dunno how, but your pal over there, Bishop, managed to figure out that part of it.’