“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.
Chapter Eight
Lt. Shoulders kept his revolver trained on a dazed Carl Hall as the young uniformed officer shuttled me into my room next door. Oddly, the patrolman might have been a junior version of Shoulders: dark hair, high forehead, dark bushy eyebrows, prominent nose over a small but full mouth. The difference was Shoulders’ fleshy face, which had seen considerable wear and tear, while this crossing guard of a cop seemed like his had barely been used yet.
The young cop followed me inside, shut the door behind him, and gestured with a traffic-cop palm, as if I’d been charging toward him and not just facing him with folded arms.
His voice was high and reedy. “Now, you just stay put, buddy, till Lt. Shoulders tells you otherwise.”
“Name’s Heller. What’s yours, officer?”
He was already halfway out the door; his slim frame didn’t resemble Shoulders — his superior had a hulking physique. “Dolan. Patrolman Elmer Dolan.”
I gestured to the wall separating 50-A from 49-A. “That creep put a gun in the nightstand drawer. You’ll want to collect it.”
“Okay. Thanks, Mr. Heller.”
I stopped him with one last question before he closed the door on me: “You’re a rookie, aren’t you?”
“I am, yes, sir.”
“Well, keep your wits about you. That dope is on dope, boozed-up out of his gourd, and capable of just about any evil shit.”
He swallowed, nodded thanks and closed me in.
I looked at the phone by the bed and wondered if I should call Bob Greenlease. But all I had was Carl’s confession. And while I believed what that greasy-faced monster had told me, it was just the latest of several versions of the kidnap tale.
On the other hand, it had been chillingly credible, and the one thing I accepted as a certainty was that Bobby Greenlease was dead.
So I stared at the phone and it stared back at me. Was what I’d got out of Carl something appropriately shared long-distance with the father who’d been hoping against hope that $600,000 would bring his boy home alive and well?
A knock was followed by an announcement: “Lou Shoulders, Heller.”
I let the big baggy cop in. He had a raincoat on over his black suit, his tie black, too, and a shapeless gray fedora tugged on his skull indifferently — he had a circuit preacher look about him, right down to hard eyes in a soft face.
“He says his name is John Byrne,” Shoulders said, in his low, rumbly way. “Insurance agent from Elgin, Illinois. No driver’s license, though some other I.D. backs that up. But this is Steve Strand, aka Carl Something, right?”
“Oh yeah. His last name is Hall. Middle initial A, if his hatband is to be believed. From St. Joseph, Missouri, if he’s to be believed.”
“You smack him? He’s bleeding a bit.”
“Just once and not hard enough. And it was after he talked. I told him if he wanted the Chicago Outfit to wash his ransom money, he had to be straight with me about his role in the kidnapping. He copped to everything.”
I gave Shoulders a quick recap. I won’t lie to you: my voice caught a couple times.
The circuit preacher’s look turned mournful. “Yeah. I got kids, too. I wouldn’t mind shooting him trying to escape.”
He didn’t know how close I’d come to doing that without an excuse.
“So,” I said, “how can I help?”
“You can’t. You already done plenty, Heller — tied a red ribbon around this slimy cocksucker. We’ll take it from here.”
I reached for my wallet and got him out a card. “I should be back in Chicago in a day or so, unless you advise otherwise. You need me for a court appearance or anything, I’ll be there with bells on.”
He took the card but shook his head. “That’s doubtful, Heller. Y’see, you was never here.”
“Is that right?”
“Carl is scared as shit of you and the Outfit. And my pal Johnny Hagan and his favorite whore Sandy, they’ll stay mum, too.”
“Like I said, I’m willing to testify.”
He shook the big bucket head. “It’d just open up a whole can of worms. See, we’re taking Carl for a ride... no, not the Chicago kind. We’re hauling him over to the Town House where Johnny Hagan rented him a suite. That’s where the arrest’ll be made.”
“Why not here?”
Shoulders lit up a cigarette and it bobbled as he talked. “Matter of jurisdiction. Marlborough is well outside the St. Louis city limits. Need to make the bust on home soil, so to speak.”
“Ah. You probably want me to clear out of this room and make myself scarce. I’ll check out right away.”
“You’re already checked out. Manager, Jack Carr, is an old pal. He’s helping us keep things on the q.t. This isn’t the kind of publicity a, uh, respectable little Mom-and-Pop shop like the Coral Court needs.”