Mysterical-E

He Said, She Says

Death or Taxes
by Robert Mangeot

Gullett peeked through the barred windows first, not sure what he expected to find. Toppled chairs, his partner Carl Plunk shot up, blood splattered over the returns. But the strip mall office of Gullett and Plunk, Certified Public Accountants looked as it always did in March, their desks and credenzas jumbled with accordion files and workpapers. Not a speck of blood stained the clutter. Certainly no balding tax guru lay sprawled on the floor.

Plunk’s old gray Toyota was parked in its usual slot, two down from Gullett’s Lexus, the only cars in the lot. Damn it all, finding the corpse had fallen to Gullett. For as much as the job cost, it ought to have included disposal.

Gullett hefted his keys, debating whether to head back to the Batter Hut, claim he forgot something or other and linger over coffee until a walk-in customer stumbled onto the body.

A muscle car growled past on Murfreesboro Pike. Hell, all rush hour watched him frozen there in the doorway. Already the cops would have him downtown pronto, a business partner below only the widow as a likely suspect, and it had been Delores who warned something needed to be done about Plunk. Better to find the dead accountant than be spotted rushing from the scene.

Gullett slipped inside, the door rattling shut behind him. He peered into dark corners, around the plastic ficus, under their desks, each time his bile catching a little higher at the impending gore. Except there was no gore, no bullet holes or casings, no Plunk ruining a patch of carpet. Nothing to suggest the outer office as where Plunk had his number crunched.

His gaze drifted past the coat hanger, past the copier, past the water cooler to land on the file room door.

Someone was moving around in there.

Out from the back sauntered an older guy in a blazer and cheap slacks. He was mid-fifties, weathered but fit, a measured calm about him as he had stared down the whole catalogue of trouble.

“Morning to you,” the guy said.

Gullett coughed his throat clear. “Morning,” he said, thinking: I’ve just met a hit man.

The guy eased into Plunk’s guest chair. At his feet sat a banker’s box stuffed with invoices and bank records.

Montenegro flashed through Gullett’s mind, his bags packed and escape route pre-planned in case the job went sideways. Such as Abraham’s hit man maybe not through disposing of problem accountants. That started Gullett thinking about the Smith and Wesson tucked in his bottom drawer.

“Can I help you?”

The guy introduced himself as Pete Holden, said Carl had done his returns a while now. “That time of year again.”

Tax return. Rich farmer, a load of expenses and subsidy payments to sort out. Small businessman all the way. Gullett breathed out and said,“You’ve been here a while?”

“An hour, maybe? Not too bad.”

Gullett wiped his palms and laid an all-smiles handshake on thick. It was a true pleasure to meet the witness who sealed up his alibi. “Just got here myself,” he said. “What were you doing back there?”

“Seeing about old Carl.” Holden tapped a loafer to the banker’s box. “He and I had just got started when in comes this other customer. Long and short of it, last I saw of Carl, he was heading back through there with a young lady.”

So that was how the pros did it. Hit ladies. “Is he...is he back there?”

“Carl? Honestly, I got no idea where he is.”

Gullett excused himself to go check on his partner. The storeroom was corpse-free, if anything cleaner than he remembered. Someone had removed the video disk from the security system and rifled through the rolling shelves for the Armstrong files. All part of the deal.

He shuffled back to the outer office and plopped behind his desk before his knees buckled. “Strange. Probably they stepped out for a cigarette.”

“He needs one, much as anybody needs those things. That boy is jittery.”

More like squirrelly. Plunk had taken to moaning about Abraham’s piles of fake invoices and front company ledgers, about how it all had to come crashing down. Fraud always blew up on somebody. Get out first, Plunk had sworn, be dumb but not stupid. Well, Plunk had been stupid enough to confide that to Delores. Now Gullett could enjoy the tax-free gravy train to himself. Unfortunately now Gullett also got Delores to himself.

“Sorry again,” Gullett said. “Quite a box you have there. Looks like a problem.”

“On a grand scale,” Holden said. “Love to walk you through it.”

“Absolutely. Let’s call up your info.”

The client records bore not one trace of a Pete Holden. Gullett searched the database again, keying in different spellings. Nothing. Across the office Holden picked phantom lint off his blazer.

“Pete,” Gullett said, “think maybe you’re under another name?”

“I’d imagine Carl doesn’t have me in there at all. Deal was two hundred cash, no paid preparer signature, if you’re tracking me.”

Ah. One of Abraham’s crew.

“Gotcha,” Gullett said, grinning. “What line of work are you in?”

“Matter of fact, United States Marshal. The A-USA for Middle Tennessee wants somebody brought in, I get a call.”

Gullett nodded and kept nodding. Luck didn’t come this bad. Or maybe it did. Maybe Plunk had thought much the same about his first client of the day, a hit lady there gunning for him.

“Tell you what,” Gullett said. “Looks like this other client has Plunk tied up a while. Leave us your stuff, and if he can’t get to it today, I will.”

“Today? You have that kind of time?”

“You’re top of the list, I promise. And we’ll knock half off for Plunk getting called away.”

“That’s mighty kind.” Holden checked his watch. “You know much about the Marshals, son? What we do for witnesses, I mean.”

The thing about Marshals that loomed large then was Gullett had one in his office. A Marshal who had seen the hit lady.

“It must keep you all hopping,” Gullett said. “Just leave us your box there, and we’ll get right on it.”

Holden glanced down at the banker’s box. “That? Carl was packing that up. He tells me my return is pretty straightforward. Ten-forty A or B or like that. There’s a reason the government keeps me well clear of the books.”

A man could get to like Montenegro, Gullett thought. Keep up the Abraham work from a mountain village, learn to stomach all that garlic and squid. Plus, should they go on the lam, Delores believed they would meet up in Jakarta.

“Old Carl,” Holden said. “First year I came in, I asked him to take stock of his life. Not blaming, you understand. Just putting the facts out there.”

“Facts.”

“His signature on returns a U.S. Attorney found of interest. But his best work, he doesn’t sign. Old Carl has this entire paper economy working, goosed-up invoices, ledgers and round-tripping between front companies. Has the green eyeshade folks in D.C. scratching their heads over what’s legit and what’s not.”

Gullett rushed on the fake concern rehearsed in the Batter Hut mirror. “Plunk. You’re talking about Carl Plunk?”

“A Plunk return stands up. Gets me one sweet refund, too.”

“Too much of the real money wound up with clients of yours, family members and cronies of this Abraham fellow. That’s who the A-USA has me chasing after.”

Abraham. Coming from a Marshal, the name sounded like coffin nails driven home. “Never heard of him.”

“That’s what old Carl said, first year.” Holden checked his watch. “But he kept doing my taxes anyhow. Smart man, kept an escape hatch open. Here’s a comforting statistic. Not one person who does what we tell them to the letter has come to grief. Don’t take a drive down memory lane, don’t talk about your past. Follow the rules, and you get through it.”

Gullett shifted in his seat, wishing it were an ejector chair that launched a man as far as Montenegro.

“Old Carl,” Holden said, “he’s not comforted either at first. I figured it’s March again, time for another run at him. That refund he finds me, I may just splash out on a boat.”

Boats. Montenegro had marinas full of boats. Journeys were supposed to start with a single step, not a mad sprint past a U.S. Marshal. “Can’t help you.”

“I believe you can,” Holden said. “See, this morning you went and tried to have Carl shot. I was sitting right here when this slack-eyed character slinks inside sporting a Glock. I won’t get us ankle-deep in details on how I dissuaded him.”

“Someone tried to hurt Plunk?”

“Carl is not a happy man, as you might expect. Can’t rat you out fast enough. Says to relo him anywhere long as it’s a thousand miles from his wife.”

“What will it take?” Gullett heard himself say. “A boat? I’ll buy it. Biggest damn yacht on Percy Priest. Whatever you want.”

Holden thought that over. “You know what I’d like? Abraham.”

Gullett reeled back in his chair and fumbled through the desk drawer. When the dizzy spell broke he was standing with the revolver pointed at Holden. “I’m leaving, Marshal. You keep still while I pack.”

Holden sighed. “Son, it’s nine in the morning, and you’re the second person who’s drawn on me already. I’d like to say that was unusual.”

“Shut up a minute.”

“For sure, don’t go barging outside with that smoke wagon. Best you keep away from the door altogether.”

By degrees Gullett cranked his head toward the barred window. The same two cars sat out in the parking lot, his and Plunk’s. “Marshal, how’d you get here?”

“Was wondering if you’d come around to that.”

“The lady. She was with you?”

“Ever seen a team of Marshals come busting in?” Holden said. “It is a thing to behold. Me, I’ll be covered up and shouting ‘Federal Officer!’ loud enough they hear me in Gallatin. Keep over there somewhere, will you? I’d be much obliged.”

Gullett willed up the saliva to speak. “I want Plunk’s deal.”

“No doubt you would. Understand, given what all you’ve done, that does limit what the A-USA will offer. This whole racket here gets put on somebody, and it won’t be old Carl. His kind of talent, I bet Treasury hires him on.”

So luck did come this terrible. Not for Plunk, though. He woke up lucky the morning somebody was supposed to put a bullet in him. Dead or alive, Plunk had worked his ticket out of there.

***

Bio

Robert Mangeot writes fiction ranging from crime to Southern to humor. He lives in Nashville, Tennessee with his wife, a neurotic Pomeranian, and a pair of incompatible cats. His fiction appears in literary journals around the web, including Lowestoft Chronicle, The Oddville Press and Swamp Biscuits and Tea, and in the 2014 Mystery Writers of America anthology Ice Cold: Tales of Intrigue from the Cold War. His work has won contests sponsored by the Chattanooga Writers' Guild, On The Premises, and Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers.