The Night and the Music - Lawrence Block [75]
“An accident,” Mahaffey said. “You said he was joking, and that’s what it was, a joke that went bad. Do you know what this is?”
“Something to do with the gun?”
“It’s the clip, ma’am. Or the magazine, they call it that as well. It holds the cartridges.”
“The bullets?”
“The bullets, yes. And do you know where I found it?”
“In the gun?”
“That’s where I would have expected to find it,” he said, “and that’s where I looked for it, but it wasn’t there. And then I patted his pants pockets, and there it was.” And, still using the handkerchief to hold it, he tucked the cartridge clip into the man’s right-hand pocket.
“You don’t understand,” he told the woman. “How about you, Matt? You see what happened?”
“I think so.”
“He was playing a joke on you, ma’am. He took the clip out of the gun and put it in his pocket. Then he was going to hold the unloaded gun to his head and give you a scare. He’d give the trigger a squeeze, and there’d be that instant before the hammer clicked on an empty chamber, that instant where you’d think he’d really shot himself, and he’d get to see your reaction.”
“But he did shoot himself,” she said.
“Because the gun still had a round in the chamber. Once you’ve chambered a round, removing the clip won’t unload the gun. He forgot about the round in the chamber, he thought he had an unloaded weapon in his hand, and when he squeezed the trigger he didn’t even have time to be surprised.”
“Christ have mercy,” she said.
“Amen to that,” Mahaffey said. “It’s a horrible thing, ma’am, but it’s not suicide. Your husband never meant to kill himself. It’s a tragedy, a terrible tragedy, but it was an accident.” He drew a breath. “It might cost him a bit of time in purgatory, playing a joke like that, but he’s spared hellfire, and that’s something, isn’t it? And now I’ll want to use your phone, ma’am, and call this in.”
“That’s why you wanted to know if it was a revolver or an automatic,” Elaine said. “One has a clip and one doesn’t.”
“An automatic has a clip. A revolver has a cylinder.”
“If he’d had a revolver he could have played Russian roulette. That’s when you spin the cylinder, isn’t it?”
“So I understand.”
“How does it work? All but one chamber is empty? Or all but one chamber has a bullet in it?”
“I guess it depends what kind of odds you like.”
She thought about it, shrugged. “These poor people in Brooklyn,” she said. “What made Mahaffey think of looking for the clip?”
“Something felt off about the whole thing,” I said, “and he remembered a case of a man who’d shot a friend with what he was sure was an unloaded gun, because he’d removed the clip. That was the defense at trial, he told me, and it hadn’t gotten the guy anywhere, but it stayed in Mahaffey’s mind. And as soon as he took a close look at the gun he saw the clip was missing, so it was just a matter of finding it.”
“In the dead man’s pocket.”
“Right.”
“Thus saving James Conway from an eternity in hell,” she said. “Except he’d be off the hook with or without Mahaffey, wouldn’t he? I mean, wouldn’t God know where to send him without having some cop hold up a cartridge clip?”
“Don’t ask me, honey. I’m not even Catholic.”
“Goyim is goyim,” she said. “You’re supposed to know these things. Never mind, I get the point. It may not make a difference to God or to Conway, but it makes a real difference to Mary Frances. She can bury her husband in holy ground and know he’ll be waiting for her when she gets to heaven her own self.”
“Right.”
“It’s a terrible story, isn’t it? I mean, it’s a good story as a story, but it’s terrible, the idea of a man killing himself that way. And his wife and kids witnessing it, and having to live with it.”
“Terrible,” I agreed.
“But there’s more to it. Isn’t there?”
“More?”
“Come on,” she said. “You left something out.”
“You know me too well.”
“Damn right I do.”
“So what’s the part I didn’t get to?”
She thought about it. “Drinking a glass of water,” she said.
“How’s that?”
“He sent you both out of the room,” she said,