Scratch Fever

by Collins, Max Allan

  This downtown, for instance.

  He was seated on a slatted wood bench. A few years ago, if he’d been sitting here, he’d have been run over: he’d have been sitting in the middle of a street. Since then, the street had been closed off so these college children could wander among wooden benches and planters and abstract sculptures, like the one nearby, a tangle of black steel pipe on a pedestal, an ode to plumbing, Nolan guessed. Some grade-schoolers were climbing on a wooden structure that was apparently supposed to be a sort of jungle gym; very “natural,” organic as shit, he supposed, but the tykes seemed as confused by it as he was. A movie theater was playing something from Australia given four stars by a New York critic; people were lined up as if it was Star Wars 12. A boy and girl in identical U of I warm-up jackets strolled into a deep-pan pizza place; another couple, dressed strictly army surplus, followed soon after and would no doubt opt for “whole wheat” crust. Nolan hadn’t seen so much khaki since he was in the service. One kid in khaki was playing the guitar and singing something folksy, as though he hadn’t heard about Vietnam ending. Like Nolan, he was seated on a wood bench, and people huddled around and listened, applauding now and then, perhaps to keep warm. Nolan burrowed into his corduroy jacket, waiting for Wagner, feeling old.

  That was it. Sudden realization: these kids made him feel old. Jon hadn’t had that effect on him. Jon had, admittedly, looked up to him, in a way. But it hadn’t made him feel old. Not this kind of old, anyway.

  He glanced over at the bank. The time/temperature sign said it was 3:35. Wagner had been in there an hour-and-a-half already. Nolan had been in there, too, but only long enough to sign the necessary papers. He didn’t feel comfortable in a bank unless he was casing or robbing it.

  For nearly twenty years, Nolan had been a professional thief. His specialty was the institutional robbery: banks, jewelry stores, armored cars, mail trucks. He had gone into that line more or less as a matter of survival. He had been employed in Chicago, by the Family, in a noncriminal capacity, specifically managing a Rush Street nightclub; but a falling out with his bosses (which included killing one of them) had sent him into the underground world of armed robbery.

  Not that he’d been a cheap stick-up man. No, he was a pro—big jobs, well planned, smoothly carried out. Nobody gets hurt. Nobody goes to jail.

  It took almost the full twenty years for those Family difficulties to cool off—then, largely due to a change of regime—and it was during those last difficult days of his Family feud that Nolan teamed up with Jon. An unlikely pairing: a bank robber pushing fifty and a comic-collecting kid barely twenty. But Jon was the nephew of Planner, the old goat who pretended to be in the antique business when what he really was was the guy who sought out and engineered jobs for men like Nolan. It had been at Planner’s request that Nolan took the kid on.

  And the kid had come through, these past couple of years—the two Port City jobs; the Family trouble that included Planner being murdered; the heisting of old Sam Comfort And more.

  But Jon just wasn’t cut out for crime. Oh, he was a tough little character, and no coward. He’d saved Nolan’s life once. Nolan hadn’t forgotten. But the kid had a conscience, and a little of that went a long way in Nolan’s racket.

  Fortunately, he and Jon had made enough good scores to retire, about a year ago. Or anyway, Nolan considered himself retired, knowing that his was a business you never got out of, not entirely; there were too many ties to the past for that.

  Wagner was one of those ties: a boxman, a safecracker, who retired a few years ago and started up a restaurant in Iowa City, called the Pier. He’d made a real go of it but his health failed, and he invited Nolan to buy him out and Nolan had.

  Only now Nolan was in the final stages of reversing that process: letting Wagner buy him out and take the Pier back over.

  And there Wagner was—knifing through the crowd of window-shopping kids, moving way too fast for a guy in his fifties with a heart condition. But then, that was always Wagner’s problem: he moved too fast, was too goddamn intense, a thin little nervous tic of a man with short white hair, a prison-grey complexion, and a flat, featureless face made memorable only by a contagious smile.

  And then he was sitting next to Nolan, pumping Nolan’s hand and saying, “You’re a pal, Nolan, you’re really a pal.”

  “I made money on the deal,” Nolan said noncommittally.

  “Not that much. Not that goddamn much. It was nice of him wasn’t it?”

  “Nice of who?”

  “The banker!”

  “Bankers aren’t nice. Bankers are just bankers.”

  “It was nice of him, Nolan. To come down after hours to sign papers. That just isn’t done, you know.”

  “Banks have been known to open at odd hours.”

  “Huh? Oh, yeah. I get it Ha! Lemme buy you lunch.”

  “It’s past lunch.”

  “Why, did you eat already?”

  “No.”

  “Then let’s have lunch. It’ll make a great prelim to dinner. It’s on me, Nolan.”

  “Okay,” he said.

  They walked across the bricked former street to a place called Bushnell’s Turtle; it was a sandwich place specializing in submarines (its name derived from the fact that a guy named Bushnell invented the “turtle,” the first submersible) and was in a beautiful old restored building with lots of oak and stained glass and plants. They stood and looked at the menu, which was on a blackboard, and a guy in a ponytail and apron came and wrote their order down. Then they were in line a while; the kid in front of Nolan was long-haired and in overalls with a leather thong around his neck and was reading, while he waited, a book called Make Your Own Shoes. Soon they picked their food up at the old-fashioned soda-fountainlike bar, where the nostalgic spirit was slightly disrupted when a computer cash register totaled their order.

  “The hippies did it right for once,” Wagner said, referring to the restaurant. He was about to bite into a sub the size of one of the shoes the kid in line was planning to make.

  “I agree with you,” Nolan managed, between bites of a hot bratwurst sandwich, dripping with mozzarella cheese and sauerkraut.

  “I love this town. Love it. Makes me feel young.”

  “Yeah, well, it makes me feel old, and you be careful or you’ll have another heart attack before the ink is dry.”

  “Don’t worry about me,” he said, his mouth full of sub, “this pacemaker’s made a new man out of me.”

  “You should’ve stayed in Florida. There’s nothing wrong with being retired.”

  “Florida stinks! Nothing but old people and Cubans.”

  “And sunshine and girls in bikinis.”

  “Don’t believe everything the Chamber of Commerce tells you. How’s the Quad Cities thing working out?”

  “Okay,” Nolan said. “It’s early yet.”

  “It’s smaller than the Pier, I take it”

  “Much. I can loaf with this place.”

  “You opened yet?”

  “In a couple weeks. Still getting the inventory together. Still working with the staff.”

  “I’m sure you’re working with the staff. Particularly the female staff.”

  “Just one.” He smiled.

  “Special, this one?”

  “Just a girl. I knew her from before.”

  “Oh. What’s it called?”

  “Sherry.”

  “Not the girl, the joint.”

  “Nolan’s.”

  “No kidding? What was it called before that?”

  “I don’t know. I think it was always called Nolan’s. It’s been around for years. That’s why I had to shut it down, for remodeling and such.”

  “Whaddya know. It must’ve been meant to be. So are you using the Nolan name there, then?”

  “Yeah. I decided to. The coincidence of it was just too good to pass up. I still pay taxes and sign legal stuff with the Logan name. That’s one good thing I got out of the Family—a legal name.”

/>   Wagner started on the second half of the massive sub. “You know,” he said through the food, “I feel guilty about not giving you more money for the Pier. You’re giving me a better operation than I sold you.”

  “I know. I didn’t sell out entirely, remember. I still got half interest.”

  “Which you split with that kid, Jon, right?”

  “Right. And the money you’re going to be paying me monthly is sent in two checks, one for me, one for him.”

  “You see much of him lately?”

  “No.”

  “So what’s he doing? Where is he?”

  “Playing with a rock ’n’ roll band, of all things.”

  Wagner shook his head. “A nice kid, messed up in a business like that.”

  Nolan smiled, sipped his beer. “Yeah. When he could’ve stayed in heisting.”

  They finished their meal and walked out onto the street. “We still got work to do,” Wagner said, hands in pockets, rocking back and forth on his feet. “The accountant’ll be down at the Pier by now.”

  “Let’s get it over with,” Nolan said.

  “You in a hurry or something?”

  “Look who’s talking.”

  “Then you’ll stay the evening? The Al Pierson Dance Band’s playing.”

  “Sure. Why not.” He hadn’t given Sherry a definite time he’d be back. There was no rush.

  They drove down in Nolan’s dark blue LTD.

  The Pier was a former Elks Lodge, on the banks of the Iowa River, converted into a seafood restaurant. The bottom floor was the Steamboat Lounge; the main floor was the Mark Twain Dining Room; and the upper floor was the Captain’s Ballroom. But Nolan and Wagner were headed for the Accountant’s Den, which was to say, the office that had been Nolan’s and was now Wagner’s, where an accountant was waiting to go over the books, before the final changeover in management.

  That took several hours, and by that time Nolan and Wagner were ready to eat again, in the dining room, where an illuminated aquarium built into the length of one wall gave a deep-sea effect. Nolan had the house specialty—pond-raised catfish—the one thing about Iowa City he missed.

  Then they went upstairs to the ballroom, where the Al Pierson Band was playing. An eight-piece group in powder-blue tuxes, the Pierson Band had a good, solid sound; Nolan was amazed how full so small a brass section could sound.

  About eight months ago, it had occurred to Nolan that in a town full of country-rock discos and live rock ’n’ roll clubs, there was nothing for people of his generation—the sort of people who flocked to Iowa City for football and basketball weekends. He began providing Saturday night entertainment and soon added Friday, with groups like the Pierson Band. And it went over big—big enough to hire some top names; even the current Glenn Miller configuration had played at the Pier.

  “How can you stand that shit?” Jon had demanded.

  “What shit?”

  “That . . . that Muzak!”

  “You don’t know what you’re talking about, kid.”

  “It’s worse than fucking disco!’

  “I considered a disco, but that fad seems pretty dead to me. Besides, I’m not after the college crowd.”

  “Nolan, I got a piece of this place. What if I want to book a rock act in the ballroom?”

  “No way in hell. You want the Ramones playing upstairs, while my businessmen and professors eat surf-and-turf downstairs? Sure.”

  “Well that music sucks, and that’s all there is to it. I knew you were old, but I didn’t know you were Lawrence Welk.”

  And the kid had stalked out.

  It was probably the most hostile exchange they’d ever had. Soon Jon was gone, working out of Des Moines with his rock band.

  He’d wanted to explain it to Jon. He’d wanted to explain that there were few things in this life that could bring a tear to his eyes, but one of them was Bob Eberley (or a good facsimile) singing “Tangerine.” No kid brought up on the Beatles could understand that.

  He sat at a side table and had a few drinks and listened to the music and watched the couples dance. The floor was crowded, and most of the people were in their forties, fifties, sixties. Lots of blazers and blue hair. It made him feel old.

  He looked at his watch: almost one.

  He went to Wagner’s office and used the phone to call Sherry. She answered on the fourth ring.

  “Hello,” her voice said.

  “Hi, Sherry. Glad you didn’t have the damn answer phone on. I’m sorry I’m so late.”

  “That’s okay.”

  “I’ll be back in a few hours.”

  “Fine.”

  “Bye, doll.”

  “Bye, Logan.”

  He hung up.

  He went back and sat at a table. He ordered another drink. Pierson was playing a Donna Sommer song, and Wagner was out there shaking his bootie with some faded homecoming queen. Then the band began “Just the Way You Are,” and Wagner came over, sweating, smiling, and sat with Nolan.

  “Still determined to kill yourself, Wag?”

  “I guess,” Wagner grinned.

  “Fuck!” Nolan said.

  “What?”

  He stood. “Logan she called me.”

  “Huh?”

  “She called me Logan.”

  “What are you . . .”

  “Someone’s there with her. The girl’s in trouble.”

  Wagner was saying something, asking him something, but he didn’t stop to answer.

  7

  THE FIRST THING Sherry thought about when she got back to the house was putting out the dog. She’d been gone all day—shopping at both North and South Park with Sara, then sharing a pizza and a movie with her new friend (Sara worked at Nolan’s, too, as a waitress). But she knew the dog wouldn’t have made a mess. It was completely housebroken. Any dog that dared live with Nolan would have to be housebroken.

  She pulled her little Datsun into the drive, parked it off to the side, leaving the way clear to the garage for Nolan when he got back. It was a chilly night, and she felt it: she was wearing the London Fog raincoat Nolan had bought her (it had looked overcast when she left the house that morning) and had as yet to hit him up for a winter coat.

  She smiled to herself. Hours of shopping, and all she’d bought was one thing (some designer jeans, the ones Debbie Harry pushed on TV). Being a kept woman of a guy as tight as Nolan did have its drawbacks. Oh, he always came around, eventually; but being a Depression kid, he seemed to have trouble spending the kind of money it took to live in an inflated economy. But she wasn’t complaining.

  She went in the front door, opened the closet, and turned off the burglar alarm. The alarm was not connected to the local police station (Nolan was respectable these days, but not that respectable); it was just something that made enough noise to presumably scare burglars away and perhaps rouse some neighbors.

  Actually, Nolan’s house was about as isolated as a home in the midst of a housing development could be. Of course, it was a small, exclusive development, of $150,000-and-up homes, of which Nolan’s was easily the nicest and most secluded. The rest of the development took up one short street, which turned circular at its dead end and led back out again. Nolan’s private drive was just to the right as you entered the street, and the sprawling, ranch-style home was surrounded by trees, the backyard dipping down to expose the lower story, which led out to a patio surrounded by more trees—two acres of them—with just enough yard showing to put a pool. Have to work on that, Sherry thought.

  It was a four-bedroom house, two up, two down, with a spacious living room with a wall of picture windows looking out on the trees in back of the house. There were no paintings or other wall decorations to speak of, giving the place a blank look. There was one paneled wall, with fireplace, adjacent to the picture windows. The ceiling was slanted, open-beamed. It was a room of creams and soft browns, like the comfy brown modular couch that faced the TV and stereo area, the TV a 26-inch Sony, the stereo a component number on a r
ack, with records below—hers on one shelf (running to Barbra Streisand) and his on another (running to Harry James).

  She hung up her raincoat and stretched. She was wearing a cream silk blouse and tailored brown wool slacks, very chic, but she’d been wearing them all day, and they were on the verge of rank. She’d kill for a shower.

  But first, the dog.

  It had not greeted her at the door. Had Nolan been there, and had she come in the door, the dog would have been yapping hysterically, jumping up on her, pushing at her thighs, then nipping her heels. Had she been a stranger, it would have attacked. But she’d come to know that the dog recognized her, by sound, smell, whatever, and when she came in without Nolan, the dog kept its place by the glass doors on the lower, basement floor.

  That was because Nolan always entered that way. He never came in through the garage, even though he parked his car there and that would be the easiest way. He never came in through the front door. He always walked past the house down the stone steps into the backyard and unlocked the glass patio doors and came in that way. Because even at this “respectable” time of his life, Sherry had come to learn, Nolan retained an outlaw’s paranoia. And entering his home the least expected way (actually, coming down the chimney or through a window would be even less expected, but . . .) seemed par for Nolan’s course.

  And there the dog was, curled near the glass doors on its circular rug, where it had been sleeping, looking up at her with bright eyes, tail wagging, a white-spotted black terrier about the size of a healthy rabbit.

  She leaned down and petted it—got licked for her trouble—and unlocked the glass door and slid it open for the dog to go out. No need to chain it up: it wouldn’t go far from where Nolan lived. It wouldn’t go out of the yard, in fact.

  The dog, like Clint Eastwood in an Italian western, had no name. Nolan referred to it only as “the dog” or “the mutt.” It still seemed odd to her that Nolan would have a pet at all. She seldom saw him give the animal affection or attention, but it was clear the dog lived for Nolan’s occasional pat.