Beauty Queen

it.
    "I should turn you in for conspiracy to commit Murder One," she said.
    Armando went right on looking her in the eye and talking in his low level voice, so he was not taken in by her joke.
    "I'd do it myself," he said. "But I'm an incompetent when it comes to stuff like this. I'd probably shoot myself in the foot. And I'd probably get arrested before I could pull it off. But you're a cop, right? You know all the angles. And you're a dead shot. Danny told me how the whole NYPD used to talk about what a terror you were on the pistol range."
    "You're wrong about the angles," she said. "I know all about cops who thought they could commit the perfect crime. Shake people down, deal confiscated dope, whatever. They're all in the slammer now."
    "The point is, you know better than me," he said. He shrugged. "Maybe you'd rather use your own gun."
    "No," she said quickly. "That'd be stupid. The last gun I should use is one I used on the force."
    The minute she said the words, she knew that she was seriously considering this thing.
    "Now here's my next idea," said Armando. "You do it, and say I did it. I mean, I don't care what happens to me now. The best thing I could do with the rest of my life is go to jail because of Danny."
    The idea of Armando deliberately going to jail horrified Mary Ellen. All her education in life was built around the idea that going to jail was an awful thing. She sat back down at the table. She picked up the gun, checking to see if it was loaded. It wasn't. She examined the silencer,
    which was a fancy new European type she had never seen.
    "Armando, didn't you ever read any police novels?" she said. "Supposing they find my prints on the gun?"
    "They won't," said Armando. "After you do it, you'll come straight to me and we'll wipe your prints off, and put my prints on it, and the gun will be at my place. They know Danny is gay now, right? So the first thing they'll do is look for Danny's lover, right? I've got the motive, right? So they'll come looking for me, and they'll find the gun at my place. And of course I won't mention your name. So . . ."
    Mary Ellen hefted the gun gently, aimed it at the wall, pulled the trigger. The Beretta was Italian-made, a nice elegant precision-tooled weapon. Not your cheap American-made Saturday Night Special. The mob didn't fool around, did they? She checked to see if the serial number had been taken off. It had. But in this case it wouldn't have mattered if the number had been there in blinking neon lights.
    "Armando," she said, "have you ever been in jail?"
    "Yes, as a matter of fact," he said. "I did six months for soliciting in California. I lived in L.A. then. Made the mistake of making advances to an undercover guy."
    "So you know that jail is not a nice place," she said.
    "It's better than being free, when Danny is locked in the grave," he said. "And there's plenty of action in jail, anyway."
    "But Armando, you're religious. And Danny was religious. Don't you think it's wrong to kill? You know I'm religious. Don't you think I might not want to kill?"
    He shook his head. "Danny and you and I are religious as far as our own thing goes. But for the rest . . ."
    She shook her head, knowing he had described her own religion exactly.
    "Armando," she said, "you are the most masochistic masochist I ever met."
    He grinned.
    After Armando left, Mary Ellen sat fondling the gun.
    She had to admit that it was a pretty good plan Armando had thought up. But then not every person who conspired to commit a homicide was willing to take the rap, the way Armando was. She was still horrified at the idea of his sacrificing himself but part of her mind said that this had to be accepted, that she had to respect Armando's point of view.
    She had told Armando that she would make her plans by herself, and that for her own protection she would not inform him of the details, but that he would be told when to rendezvous with her and the smoking gun.
    She had another cup of coffee, sat with her bare feet up on the table, played with the gun, and thought.
    It wouldn't be too easy. Colter had already been harassed and threatened so much that she probably had a lot of security people around her. The best way to learn the holes in the security net would be to watch Colter a lot. But Colter was out of town half the time, traveling around the state. And how could Mary Ellen travel around after her without Liv suspecting something? If Liv knew the truth, she would be horrified.
    And of course