Kill Zone by Loren D. Estleman

tiny pieces into a reservoir in the bottom. Then he rose, drew forth a key attached to a reel in the steel container on his belt and unlocked a green metal file cabinet in the corner next to the shaded window. There was a safe in the bottom drawer with a double combination lock whose numbers could be changed at will and soon he had it open and drew out the only item it contained, a new blue Smith & Wesson .38 revolver with a natural rubber grip, smeared with pink cosmoline and sealed in clear plastic. He had purchased it only that day from a private source for three times the list price to make up for the lack of legal paperwork. Coming up, he had known killers who sneered at his costly caution while patting the favorite weapons they had used on half a dozen jobs and given names like Eloise and Baby Blue, but all of them were pushing government time or feeding worms in unhallowed ground, nonstop from the little room where they drop the little cyanide pellet into the bucket of acid. One killing to a gun, and there was no percentage in being greedy.
    Machine guns held no appeal for Macklin. Since the passing of the old Thompsons there was little aesthetically pleasing about the new sausage-shaped rattletraps stamped out of plastic and sheet metal in countries with no culture and muddy unidentifiable languages. And any idiot who could bend his finger and point could vomit a stream of lead over a broad area. It took something special to maneuver within revolver range of a dangerous target and let one well-placed bullet do the work of ninety hastily splattered ones.
    And yet he was not a lover of firearms. He called them all guns regardless of fine definitions, and once he had this one out of its wrapper and had wiped it clean of preservative gelatin and tested the action and loaded it from the box of cartridges he kept in another file drawer, he locked it away again, along with an envelope containing fifty thousand dollars in hundred-dollar bills, hand-delivered by special messenger on Klegg’s orders.
    â€œBig shot executive type,” said a voice behind Macklin. “What’s in the safe, doubloons?”
    He was deliberately slow in turning. He had observed Donna still asleep in the living room on his way upstairs and so had not bothered to lock the study door. Now she was standing in the doorway, still in the quilted bathrobe that needed cleaning, her gray-streaked blond hair sticking out at angles like burrs in a dog’s coat. At 35 she had deep lines at the corners of her mouth and dark thumbprints under her eyes. She was glaring.
    â€œHow long have you been there?” His tone was dead calm.
    â€œWhat’s it matter? You think I don’t know you keep guns in there? You think I don’t know what you do?”
    â€œI’m an efficiency expert.”
    That was what he wrote in the OCCUPATION blank on his income tax form, and it was how he was listed on the payroll at the camera-construction firm where he worked in Taylor. The company was one of the organization’s legitimate enterprises.
    â€œYou’re efficient, all right. You’re always home, and when you’re not and I call you at the office you’re always in a meeting. Have you ever seen your office, Pete? Have you ever met your secretary?”
    â€œYou’re drunk, Donna. You only call me Pete when you’ve been drinking.”
    â€œI drink because I’m married to you.”
    â€œYou drink because you like it.”
    â€œI’m an alcoholic.”
    â€œYou’re a drunk. Alcoholics drink because they have to. You do it for the pure pleasure of getting numb. Don’t romanticize yourself for just me. I’m a lousy audience.”
    â€œOkay, I’m a drunk. But I’m not a killer. Is that what they call you where you work? Killer?”
    He said nothing, waiting her out. Her tirades never lasted long.
    â€œI’ll bet you like it as much as I like getting blasted. How is it pulling