Couldn’t hold back a little grin. “That was my first time out.”
“But why leave me alive?”
“I don’t know. The nice tits?”
She’d been sipping coffee and her laugh turned into a snort. She put a napkin to her face, her nose, and when she could talk again, she said, “You might have died yesterday, y’know, if it hadn’t been for the way this job went down.”
“Oh?”
Hazel came over and filled Lu’s coffee and disappeared back behind the counter.
Lu sipped and said, “Our broker, Simmons and mine? We call him the Envoy. Corny as shit I know. Anyway, the Envoy said this job might look routine, but it was dangerous as hell, really, and he was doubling our rate.”
“What did you make of that?”
“Well, nothing, till I started my surveillance and saw who our mark was.” The wide mouth made a wide smile. “You haven’t changed much, Jack. You’re still a nice-lookin’ boy. Clean-cut. Take-you-home-to-meet-mom-and-dad kinda guy.”
“Stop. I’ll blush.”
“The Envoy brought us both in, Simmons and me, and talked to us. That was unusual in itself, because usually he just met with Simmons, who filled me in after. Not this time. The Envoy warned us both that this time we would be dealing with a very dangerous subject, although, at first glance, the mark…you… might not seem like all that much. Don’t be fooled, he said. But what he said next was the real eye-opener.”
“Yeah?”
“He said, ‘The client on this job is yours truly.’ The Envoy himself was the fucking client!”
“Why?”
She flipped a hand. “I can only guess. Possibly you’ve cost him and others in the game a lot of money over the last ten years. So a revenge motive could be part of it.”
“Too emotional.”
She nodded, smirked. “My feeling exactly. I think it’s strictly business. You’re a liability out there causing trouble. I mean, you haven’t stopped, have you, Jack? You’re still working the Broker’s list, aren’t you?”
I just shrugged.
“Well, I have a list, too,” she said lightly.
“Do you now?”
“With just one name. One address.”
“Not much of a list.”
“Sure it is. It has the Envoy on it.”
EIGHT
Lu and I sat within the kitchenette at the counter with my Rand McNally road atlas open before us, like a menu we were studying.
“Wilmette,” she said. “Easy trip. What, an hour fifteen?”
“Hour fifteen,” I agreed, adding, “That’s one rich suburb. Your Envoy is doing all right for himself.”
She smirked. “Wait till you see his digs. Mansion going back to the thirties—not a lot of those got built in Depression days.”
“Are you sure,” I said, “you can’t just show up at his front door and get let in? Loyal employee that you are?”
She shook her head. “Bruce was the contact. My coming around unannounced might signal something went wrong, or at least wasn’t right. Put his security on red alert.”
“How much security is there?”
“No alarm system—anything that would bring the cops around in a crisis is out. But two armed watchdogs are on duty at all times. Four total.”
“How’d you come by that morsel?”
With a shrug, she said, “I asked, in passing, on my recent visit. You know, just wondering. Far as the Envoy was concerned.”
“He married? Any kids at home?”
“No. Wife dead. Beautiful young thing, but she drowned in a boating accident, on the lake. Lake Michigan.”
“Real accident?”
“Oh, hell no. This is not a man who would put up with alimony. Also, word is she cheated on him.”
I let out a laugh. “And he’s not the kind of man who puts up with cheating.”
“Sure he does. His own.”
“Describe him.”
She looked out toward the lake view, not really seeing it, and thought for a while. “About your height. Five ten?”
“Five ten,” I said.
“About fifty, fifty-five. Bald on top, gray on the sides. Narrow face. Friendly features except for the dead eyes. Slim. Dresses well, even at home. Golfer. Country club all the way.”
“You know the latter how? More ‘just wondering’?”
She shook her head. “I was ushered into his home office when Bruce and I got the assignment. You know—the one to kill you?”
“Oh, that assignment.”
“He had pictures on the wall, some with local and state politicians, most on the golf course. Various award plaques and framed certificates, including one citing him as country-club president, five years ago. His straight business is real estate.”
“Nice eye for detail, lady. He dangerous?”
Lu shook her head. “Not physically. The security guys are. Referrals from Chicago associates. Badass ex-military types.”
“Ever more than two on duty at a time, you think?”
“Can’t be sure, but probably just two.”
“We handle them how?”
She shrugged. “We fucking kill them. And when we’re done with the Envoy—whose name is Charles Vanhorn, by the way—we won’t leave him breathing, either. Does all this carnage disturb your delicate sensibilities?”
I shook my head. “No, but three dead in a rich suburb. Including a mobbed-up homeowner? Lots of different kinds of people will be looking for us.”
She nodded slowly. “Other alternatives?”
I placed a hand on her sleeve. “Only one. You in shape for a disappearing act? Got enough put away for that? Willing to walk off from that antiques business in St. Paul? Ready to retire, maybe, with the kind of nice boy you could take home to mom and dad, as long as first he washed the blood and brains off his face?”
She didn’t say anything for a while.
“We both aren’t getting any younger,” she noted.
“Nobody is.” I was too genteel to point out she was a good five years older than me.
“And I’m not sure,” she said, “we can just walk away and take on new lives, new identities, no matter how well we’re fixed.” She squinted at me appraisingly. “You could afford to quit?”
I opened a hand. “Yes, but do I have a choice? I haven’t filled a contract in ten years. And my cottage industry, working off the Broker’s list, seems to be common knowledge now, in certain circles.”
She nodded. “Good point. But we don’t know yet whether Vanhorn has talked about you or not, and what you’ve been up to, to others like him. Which is to say, middlemen in the murder business.”
Now I was nodding. “We’d have to find that out. Which is probably reason enough for a Wilmette trek.”
“Probably is,” she said. “And if it turns out you’re on the radar of every murder broker in the country—and, through them, the mob families they’re linked with—you may need a desert island, plastic surgery and a prayer.”
“Not a wonderful option.”
She let out a big sigh. “Only other one I can think of is Witness Protection. You might know enough about organized crime to worm your way into WITSEC.”
I didn’t love that alternative, and anyway my knowledge was fairly limited on that score. Working with an agent of sorts was designed to keep information about clients at a minimum. And, anyway, I’d only done a handful of gigs that were outright mob hits.
“If,” I said, “Vanhorn has kept what he knows to himself, I might be able to contain this thing. Will he talk, with a gun in his face?”
The almond eyes narrowed. “I’d say so. He thinks he’s a bad man, but he’s soft. Like the Broker was soft, and all of these businessmen who traffic in crime and murder are soft, all tucked away in their secure little respectable lives.”
I frowned. “I’m not into torture. I saw too much of that overseas. Distasteful shit.”
“I can handle that,” she said with a shrug. “I’ll just
clip his toenails.”
“That’ll make him talk?”
“If I start at the toe knuckle it will.”
That was worth a chuckle. “Okay. After dark?”
“Way after dark. Before we leave, I can phone in and tell Vanhorn you’ve been taken care of, which’ll let us know if he’s home.”
I squinted at her. “Won’t he be expecting to hear from your partner, not you?”
She shrugged. “I’ll just say Bruce is busy getting rid of…you know.”
“My earthly remains. Yeah. Still…that is an opportunity to arrange a meet. To get in the front door.”
“Not our best option. You can’t exactly show up with me…”
“Being dead and all.”
“…and his security boys would be on their toes, making it tricky to sneak you in. I think we’re better off throwing a surprise party.”
“And me without a party hat.”
“Your noisemaker will do.”
I smiled, then frowned. “You were only in that house the once?”
“Like I said, Bruce usually took the meets.”
“Did you pay attention?”
She made a face. “No, I just sat there and let my mind wander. Of course I paid attention. Get me a sheet of paper and a pencil or something, and I’ll sketch the layout.”
I frowned. “How much did you see of the place on your one visit?”
“Everything.” Another shrug. “I excused myself to use the restroom and had a quick look around, upstairs and down. Even saw the security boys in their little quarters. They were watching a soap opera. Kinda sweet, isn’t it?”
“Sweet as shit. Why such foresight, Lu?”
“Jack, how did you stay alive so long?” She yawned, stretched. “I always check the exits, wherever I am. Not everybody in this business is as nice as we are.”
* * *
Lu drew the layout of the Vanhorn manse, both floors, and also a crude but useful little map of the streets of the suburban subdivision, with the house in question at the end of a cul-de-sac. I was pleased to learn that no homes were close on either side.
We studied her handiwork and discussed different approaches of entry. The biggest problem, it seemed to her, was the security guards, and she wasn’t wrong. One or both guards might be expected to make rounds outside, and she had no idea what that schedule might be.
Around one PM we drove back over to Twin Lakes and returned to Marv’s diner—this time of year our options were limited—and had cheeseburgers and fries and even shared a malt. I played the jukebox, which had some ’50s tunes on it.
When I returned to our table in the corner, she was sitting there in her lemon jumpsuit sipping on her straw on her half of the malt. She looked up at me with those gold-flecked blue eyes and said, “Look at us. Couple of kids down at Pop’s soda shop, listening to the devil’s music.”
“Where’s your poodle skirt?”
She smiled and her gums showed. “I did have one, you know. Did you ever have a pompadour?”
I shook my head. “Just missed that era. I had a soup bowl haircut I thought made me look like John Lennon. My mother said more like Moe Howard. My father said I reminded him of Ish Kabibble. I never knew who that was till Turner started showing old movies.”
She squinted at me, maybe imagining the haircut. “He was a cornet player, wasn’t he? With Kay Kyser’s Kollege of Musical Knowledge?”
“You are older than me.”
She slapped my hand. “Be nice.” She sipped more malt. “Or we could just disappear.”
“What?”
“You round up your money, I’ll round up mine, and we just go south of the border.” She sang softly, “Meh-hi-co way.”
Marty Robbins was singing “El Paso.” Not quite down Mexico way, but close.
“That body will turn up,” I said. “The Chicago glee club will see your partner dead and me gone and you nowhere, and put two and two together, or maybe three and three, and…”
“Come looking.” She nodded over her straw. “I know. How did we get here?”
She wasn’t talking about geography.
I said, “I don’t know.”
“I had a normal life. Regular childhood.”
“Me, too.”
“But events conspired.”
“They’ll do that.”
Those almond eyes looked moist.
“You okay?” I asked.
She leaned in. “We should’ve stopped this shit ten years ago. We could have, you know. If we’d just disappeared then, who would have cared?”
“But we didn’t.” I shrugged. “Maybe this is a second chance.”
“Maybe. But we’re going to have to kill some people.”
I shrugged again. “I’m okay with that.”
She shrugged. Sipped. “So am I. You’ll have to excuse me, Jack. I’m just a sentimental slob sometimes.”
Elvis was singing.
It’s Now Or Never.
* * *
I had it in my head she was some kind of superwoman. She certainly had rolled with the punches better than I had, over these past less-than-twenty-four hours of madness.
But she was human, too, and she stripped out of her pantsuit and left on the pop-arty orange bra and panties beneath and climbed into my bed and was asleep faster than I could get out of the bomber jacket.
So I left it on. I wrote a note and set it on the kitchenette counter, in case she woke up before I got back. Didn’t think she would, because she was snoring, really sawing logs.
Made me smile. I liked that she was human. Kind of a nice side benefit.
I got in the Impala and drove over to Wilma’s and pulled in at a pump. Filled the tank, then parked in the small front lot before walking around to the side of the building and up the steps and inside.
The register was unattended—Brenda wasn’t on just yet—but the bar was open. No customers right now, just Charley sitting on a stool behind the counter reading the Lake Geneva News. On the puss of the old hard-ass, that neutral expression seemed like a glare.
He lowered the paper. “Diet Coke, Jack?”
“Please.”
When he delivered the soda, I said, “I’ll be away for a while.”
“One of your lengthy sojourns?”
“Probably not. But at least one night. Maybe longer.”
“Why do you bother with it? Your sideline.”
“Huh?”
His shrug was elaborate. “We make decent money here, Jack. Why fuck with them veterinary drugs, anyhow? You ain’t out and about enough to make much offa that.”
“I told you before. I have people working for me, but now and then a client wants to talk to the boss. That so hard for you to imagine, Charley, somebody who wants to talk to his boss?”
He shrugged. “To each his own.”
“Look, if, uh…you still have that envelope salted away, right?”
“Sure.”
Though no one was around, I kept my voice down. “If I’m not back in a week, or you haven’t heard from me by phone? You know where to get that envelope to. Right?”
He nodded. “Sure. Do I look like an idiot?”
Was that a trick question?
“I just need to know,” I said, “you’ll take care of it. If necessary.”
“Jesus, we go through this every time, Jack! You drop off the edge of the earth, I’m to open the envelope. There’s an address in it and a, what-do-you-call-it.”
“A document.”
He nodded a bunch of times. “Document, right.”
“Go back to your paper, Charley.”
“You pissed at me or something?”
“No. I just remember when a bartender was like a friendly priest you could go to. Or a marriage counselor.”
The rumpled face formed a smirk. “You ain’t married or Catholic.”
I worked on the Diet Coke.
The document was my will. It wasn’t detailed, and I hadn’t used a lawyer. It merely stated th
at my worldly goods, including Wilma’s Welcome Inn, were to go to my father in Ohio. He was my only living relative, and we hadn’t spoken for years. Far as he was concerned, most likely, I was already dead.
It’s just that if I died without a will—intestate they called it—the authorities would start in snooping.
And for some fucking reason I couldn’t explain to you, the idea that my life would be poked around in after my death, in a way that exposed all the killing, well…I just didn’t like the idea. The media would get hold of it and make me into a monster. I’d be Charles Manson or Ted Bundy or something, and that wouldn’t be fair.
I don’t mean fair to me—when you’re dead, fairness isn’t an issue.
But it wouldn’t be fair to my father, or the occasional decent people I’d encountered in my lifetime. Including some women I’d loved or very nearly so.
Which is why, if you’re wondering, I have written these accounts. I understand they don’t always present me in the best light. But they are honest. They’re the truth. And it’s a way to let you know that I wasn’t just some psycho killer.
I was heading out and almost bumped into Brenda, coming in. She was in her work togs—white blouse and black skirt—and her big feathered brown hair framed her pretty features nicely, the bruised red mouth jumping at me.
“Well, Jack,” she said, blocking the way. “Where’s your hooker gone to?”
“She’s not a hooker, Brenda. She’s an old friend.”
“Old is right.” She brushed by me and got behind the counter and took her position at the register. “Sometimes I think you’re too dumb to know when you already have a good thing going.”
I leaned on the counter. “That would be you, right? The good thing?”
Her head cocked, her mouth tightened. She let some words out. “You really want to risk our relationship over some dried-up prune?”
I laughed. “Relationship? Really?”
“I could go to a lawyer, you know. Sexual harassment, it’s called.”
“Right. Brenda, I’m going to be gone for a day or two, maybe a little longer. I need you to keep an eye on things.”
“Going off with your ancient hooker, are you?”
“Never mind where I’m going. Just do your job. If I’m not back for payday, Charley will take care of you.”
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