“It will be ready tomorrow, sir.”
“Good.”
I sat to one side and watched rather numbly while Steve — who introduced himself to the salesman as John Byrne — was measured for his suit, then bought a new pair of shoes, several pair of trousers (one to replace his muddy ones), a Dobbs hat (we were all wearing them that season), an assortment of socks, three sets of cufflinks, a belt and various neckties. Steve turned Hagan loose — “Buy yourself half a dozen shirts” — and, as the store closed around us, settled up with the salesman.
“We’ll be doing more business with your fine firm,” Steve said, “when we pick up my Hickey-Freeman tomorrow.” He had changed trousers and had the rest of his purchases in a big-handled bag. “Shall we say at noon?”
“Noon will be fine, sir.”
Back in the Plymouth, with Hagan again at the wheel, Steve said, “Sometimes I think these people don’t know who they’re dealing with.”
I couldn’t argue with that.
But Steve was coming down off his high. “I want a nice girl, remember. Some nice, sexy doll, Johnny. Go two hundred. Go three if you have to.”
“Okay,” Hagan said. “Sure.”
He’d been confident minutes ago, but now he was all nerves, lighting up a cigarette clumsily. “I don’t think I care to move to the Town House tonight. If it’s a nice place like you say, Johnny, the Coral Court’s better for a rendezvous.”
“Okay,” Hagan said.
“We need to get my luggage up to the room again.”
Outside the Pink House, they dropped me to pick up the Caddy. I followed them to the motor court, our middle two-story building at the rear, then parked in the 50-A garage and walked around where the Plymouth was backed up to the foot of the exterior stairs, trunk lid up. Hugging the black metal suitcase to him as he went up, Steve looked like he might lose his balance and tumble down onto us any moment. We were following, perhaps too close, the green footlocker in a coffin carry again, the cabbie climbing backward.
A car pulled in behind the Plymouth. In the darkness, I couldn’t discern the make or its occupants. Could it be Shoulders and his cops jumping the gun? Gun being the operative word — Steve was still armed, and the cabbie and I were between him and the new arrival. This night could easily go Fourth of July on us, exploding into deadly orange muzzle flashes and the sharp firecracker reports of pistols.
Steve, not surprisingly, panicked — somehow, still clutching the heavy suitcase to himself, he made it up those last few steps and got to the landing and through into the hall. Below, a car door opened and shut, but no one in the vehicle called out. Hagan looked startled and seemed about to panic himself when I said, very quietly, “We’re working with the cops, remember?”
An arguable benefit, but it calmed him.
We finished the last few steps of this latest trip up and rested the footlocker on the landing. We caught our breaths. Then I raised a settling palm and said, “I’ll check,” and went down. I did not withdraw my nine mil, although I unbuttoned my suit-coat and Burberry.
A man in a topcoat and hat stood next to a late-model Ford sedan. In the rider’s seat, looking abashed, was his pretty wife (or possibly “wife”).
“Sorry,” the man said, embarrassed. “We just need to get in our garage here. You’re blocking, I’m afraid.”
We exchanged a few additional friendly words and I moved the Plymouth enough to allow these occupants of a first-floor room to pull into their private garage.
Then I rejoined Hagan atop the exterior stairs on the landing, told him the score, and we carted the footlocker of ransom money back into the building. Hagan knocked with his elbow, said, “It’s us,” and Steve let us in.
He had the .38 revolver in hand, so my instincts were right — if that had been Shoulders down there, the night would have burst into gunfire with Hagan and me right in the middle.
“Just a couple motel guests downstairs,” I assured Steve, “wanting to get in their garage. Put that thing away.”
I meant the .38. He went over and stowed it in the night-stand drawer. We placed the footlocker in its familiar position along the wall by its black metal mate.
“I got the goddamn shakes,” Steve said. “That really fuckin’ spooked me! Man, I am jumpy as a damn cat. I really thought that was... you know, insurance investigators or something.”
“Yeah,” I said.
Hagan looked a bit disheveled despite his new wardrobe. He was still over by the door and Steve joined him. “I’m sorry, Johnny boy. That really threw me. Everything’s gonna be fine. Let’s have a couple of drinks.”
The cabbie shook his head. “No, I need to round that girl up for you. If she has a friend or two, maybe we can have a regular orgy. Nate, you up for that?”
“Sure,” I said. Who wouldn’t want to get naked with Steve and Johnny Boy?
Hagan opened the door and Steve asked him when he’d be back with the girls.
“Oh,” the cabbie said, “maybe half an hour.”
“Okay. Knock twice fast, once slow, and say, ‘Steve, this is Johnny.’ Got it?”
“Twice fast, once slow, ‘Steve, this is Johnny.’ Got it.”
And Hagan was gone.
The air seemed to go out of Steve. He’d come down from the Bennies, then got rattled by that car pulling up, which had him going again; but that was over now and he was looking at me with those familiar dead dull eyes. He went over to the nightstand and poured himself a glass of whiskey from the half-empty bottle. Or maybe he was an optimist and it was half-full.
“You want a snort, Nate?” He was pacing as he drank. A slow pace, but pacing.
“No thanks. Sit down, Carl.”
He caught it quicker than I figured he would.
He stopped in mid-pace and said, “Carl?”
“That’s your name. Your first name. What’s the last?”
He trudged over to the bed and sat on the edge like he’d done so often yesterday and today. Sat hunch-shouldered. Defeat settled on him like heavy humidity.
I dragged a chair over and sat facing him, but he was looking past me into nothing.
“Your last name, Carl. What is it?”
“Hall. How did you know my name is Carl?”
“Bonnie told me.”
Now he looked at me. “Bonnie!”
“You left a newspaper with the apartment marked on it here in this room. When you slipped out this afternoon, I found it. Went over to Arsenal Street and had a little talk with her.”
“What did she tell you?”
“Not much. She was pretty drunk.”
“Big surprise.”
“Here’s the thing. My friends in Chicago don’t like surprises. If you don’t come clean with them, they’ll find you and kill you.”
“Kill me.”
“Right. If they’re going to risk fencing that money, they need to know exactly what happened and what your role was in it. If Tom Marsh killed the boy, they will want Marsh in custody or better still dead, but out of the way. That’s a must before they can do business with you. A must before they wash that dirty goddamn money of yours.”
His laugh was a small thing that happened in his chest and barely got out. A private joke. But then he shared it: “Tom Marsh had nothing to do with this. He wasn’t involved. He’s a guy I met in a bar once, yeah, and we pulled a small job together, but... I haven’t seen him in a couple years. His name just popped in my head when I needed... someone to blame.”
“Is the boy dead?”
“Yeah. Since the first day.”
That made me squint at him, like I was trying to believe he was really sitting there. “What do you mean... the first day?”
“Bonnie picked the kid up at that school. A cab took her and him. Dropped them at a Katz Drug parking lot where I was waiting with our station wagon. I had her dog along with me — Doc. She raises boxers. She’s good with dogs and horses and other dumb animals. We told the kid we were going to get him some ice cream. You know how kids like ice cream. I took Westport Road into Kansas. Into farmland. The kid enjoyed the ride. I drove us into a field and stopped. Bonnie took Doc out for a walk. I was going to strangle the kid, but I didn’t bring enough rope. He fought like a little wildcat.”
...as full of piss and vinegar as any kid I’ve ever seen...
“I shot him in the head. I missed the first time, but the second I did okay. You’d be surprised how much blood there is in a kid.”
The nine millimeter under my left arm was talking to me. I could feel it like some part of me that ached.
Somehow I said, “What did you do then?”
“Well, I had this plastic sheeting I brought. Wrapped him up in that and put him in the back of the station wagon. Covered him with a comforter Doc sleeps on. We stopped for a drink. I had to send Bonnie in because I had too much blood on me. We just sat and drank in the car. I got out once and walked around the station wagon to make sure it wasn’t leaking blood. It got on the floorboard in front, you see. When we finished our whiskey, I drove us home.”
“To St. Joe.”
That surprised him. “Yes. Bonnie has a little house there. We buried him near the back porch. She put flowers in on it and it looked nice. Seemed like the right thing to do.”
The Browning talked to me. Do it. Do it. Was that my father’s voice?
I said, just filling the air, “Must have taken a while to dig that hole.”
“Oh, yeah. I’d dig an hour, then go inside and lie down and rest a while... you know, drink a little... then go out and dig some more. Wasn’t much of a hole, though. Three feet deep, maybe. Five feet long?”
Was he asking me?
I said, burying the sarcasm deeper than the boy, “You must have been beat after such a busy day.”
“Oh, no. I dug the hole in advance.”
I backhanded him.
Then I got the nine millimeter out and his little mouth opened big, trailing blood from one corner but not enough blood to suit me, and the dead eyes got wide and afraid.
A bang followed, but it was a fist on the door — it banged three times, twice fast, once slow, and Hagan’s voice said, “Steve, this is Johnny.”
A key worked in the door and Lt. Lou Shoulders and a young patrolman came in with their guns out and ready. I put mine away. Hagan was out in the hall, glimpsed for a moment, before he slipped away.
Still just sitting there, trickling blood, Carl looked at me in tragic disappointment. “I can’t believe Johnny Boy betrayed me...”
“There are worse sins,” I said.