Hey There (You with the Gun in Your Hand) rp-3

by Robert J. Randisi

  “I don’t know where he is, I swear,” he said, quickly, “but I got a phone number.”

  If I gave the phone number to Joe Kennedy he could probably have it traced, but if Tony was right and his brother was getting ready to release the photo something had to be done right away.

  “Okay,” I said, “let’s get you a phone.”

  Sixty-three

  We put Caitlin back in with Tony and took the money out into the hall. When I picked the three envelopes up from the table Tony looked like he was going to cry.

  Out in the hall we were joined by Larry Bigbee.

  “What’s up?” he asked. “Did you get what you want?”

  “Not yet,” I said. “Can we keep them in there a little longer?”

  “Hey,” Larry said, “be my guest. It’s a slow night for cheaters and drunks.”

  He turned and walked off down the hall.

  “What do we got?” Jerry asked.

  “Caitlin was wrong. Tony doesn’t know where his brother is. Apparently, they’re not that close. But he does have a phone number.”

  “Will he call ’im?”

  “He’s the little brother,” I said. “He’s got a lot of resentment. Plus he wants the money and the girl all for himself.”

  “That dame’ll eat him alive.”

  “I know,” I said. “And she’d end up with the money.”

  “So what do we do? Pay ’im?”

  “String him along,” I said. “Get him to call his brother and either find out where he is or arrange a meet.”

  “Then what?”

  “I’d make a phone call,” I said, “but I have a feeling we need quicker action than that.”

  “You got action pretty quick last time.”

  “Somebody just had to go to the bank,” I said. “This needs something more personal.”

  “I’m with you, Mr. G.,” he said. “Whatever you wanna do.”

  “Ordinarily, I’d call the cops and hand this over to them.”

  “But the cops are lookin’ for us.”

  “I know,” I said. “Hargrove would be in too much of a hurry to bury us to listen to what we have to say.”

  “So it’s you and me?”

  “I guess so,” I said, again aware of the weight of the gun in my pocket-the gun I had not yet had a reason to use.

  “How do you want to play it?” Jerry asked.

  “I’d like to set it up someplace familiar,” I said, “but somehow I don’t think Walter’s as dumb as his brother, Tony.”

  He nodded.

  “We’ll have to give him something to say that his brother will buy.”

  “Like what?”

  I started pacing the hall. “Gimme a minute or two …”

  When we went back inside, I explained to Tony what I had come up with.

  “If I do this I get the money?” he asked.

  “Yes.”

  “And what do I get?” Caitlin asked. “This isn’t fair, Eddie.”

  “Relax, baby,” Tony said, putting his hand on her arm. “You get me.”

  I saw her arm jerk, as if her first instinct was to pull away, but she caught herself, leaned into him and smiled.

  “You’re my man, baby,” she cooed to him.

  Tony puffed out his sallow chest, looking inordinately proud of himself.

  “Get me a phone,” he said to me.

  Tony made the call while I listened on an extension. I asked him if his brother would hear in his voice that he was lying.

  “Shit, man, I been lying for a living for years,” he assured me.

  The phone rang four times before a man answered….

  “What?”

  “Hey, bro.”

  “Tony? What the fuck you want, man? Where are you? With that crazy bitch?”

  “Hey,” Tony said, “don’t talk about my lady like that.”

  Walter snorted into the phone.

  “Don’t make me laugh, Tony. That bitch is bad news.”

  “Yer just jealous.”

  “Oh yeah, about you and that little girl? I’m busy, Tony. Why’d you call?”

  “We made our buy.”

  “What? You mean the Sammy Dav-You sonofabitch! I told you-”

  “I know what you told me, but we got our price. Seventy-five grand.”

  “Seventy-five! That’s chickenfeed compared to what we’re gonna get.”

  “Yeah, well, you get nothin’ without a buyer.” Tony looked at me, smiled slyly, and nodded.

  “And you’ve got one?”

  “Yah, big brother, I do. That go-between the nigger picked.”

  “Listen, he’s got your money. He wants to meet and he wants the pictures plus the negatives.”

  There was silence on the other end, and except for the fact that I didn’t hear a click I thought he might have hung up.

  “Little brother, if you’re fuckin’ with me-”

  More silence.

  “Okay, set up a meet.”

  “I want a piece.”

  I started toward him. Tony waved me away.

  “I want a piece, Walter. Yer gettin’ a lot of money.”

  “You’ll get a piece, Tony,” Walter said. “I promise.”

  “Okay,” Tony said, “write this down….”

  Sixty-four

  When Tony hung up I said, “You added to the script, trying to clip your brother for more money.”

  “He can afford it,” he said. “Yer gonna give him a bundle.” I couldn’t believe he actually thought I wanted to meet with Walter to pay him.

  “Tell me, Tony, what will Walter do now?”

  “Whataya mean?”

  “When I show up with the money is he gonna give me the photos?”

  “He’ll have Denny and Paul with him.”

  “And they’ll all be armed?”

  “Oh yeah.”

  “So he’ll try to kill me.”

  “Yup,” Tony said. “He don’t want nobody to be able to ID him.”

  “And that includes you and Caitlin, right?”

  “Yeah,” Tony said.

  “It doesn’t matter that you’re his brother?”

  “We’re half brothers, and he don’t care about that. He never did. He always treated me like shit. Well, now it’s my turn.”

  I signaled Jerry to step outside with me.

  “Hey,” Tony said, as we went out the door. “What about my money?”

  Before I closed the door I heard Caitlin say bitterly, “You asshole …”

  We found Larry and I said, “Look, I need to hold them until I get back.”

  “Do I need to okay this with Mr. Entratter?” he asked.

  “You can if you want to.”

  Bigbee took a deep breath and blew it out.

  “Naw, okay, how long?”

  “With any luck,” I said, “there’ll be some cops here in a few hours to pick them up.”

  “Cops would be a welcome sight,” Larry said. “I’d like these two off my hands.”

  “This is on the up and up, Larry,” I said. “I promise you.”

  “Okay, Eddie.”

  Larry walked over to the door and locked it.

  “Okay,” I said, turning to Jerry, “we’ve got about three hours to get ready.”

  “I think,” he said, looking beyond me, “it might take us a little bit longer.”

  I turned and saw Detective Hargrove and several uniformed cops coming down the hall toward us.

  “Larry-” I said.

  Larry came back to us, shrugged and said, “Sorry, Eddie. I didn’t have a choice. They came in lookin’ for you and said we had to call if we saw you.”

  “So while we were questioning Caitlin and Tony you called them?”

  “It’s a question of keeping our license,” he said.

  “Or your job.”

  I reached for him but he backed away and bounced off of Jerry, who pushed him back toward me.

  “Eddie-” Larry said, warningly.

  “That’
s enough,” Hargrove snapped. “Officers, cuff both of these men.”

  “Hargrove,” I said, turning to face the detective, “you don’t understand-”

  “I understand that I finally caught you dirty, Gianelli,” Hargrove said as his officers put the bracelets on me and Jerry. He moved close enough for me to smell what he had for lunch or dinner. “Haulin’ you downtown is a pleasure I’ve been waitin’ for since last year. You don’t have your Rat Pack buddies to get you out, this time.”

  “Hargrove-”

  He backed away from me and snapped, “Take ’em downtown!”

  Sixty-five

  They put us in separate rooms. I had a nice big clock on the wall staring down at me so I could see that we were going to miss our meet. And if that happened there was going to be an embarrassing photo-or worse-of JFK in the papers the next morning.

  Hargrove came in, closing the door gently behind him. The irony of the situation wasn’t lost on me. Half an hour ago I was in his place, Tony and Caitlin were in mine.

  “What happened to the two people we were holding?” I asked.

  “You were holding?” he said. “You’ve got no right to hold anybody, Gianelli.”

  “What happened to them?”

  “You got enough to worry about, Eddie,” he said. “You and your buddy are in deep shit.”

  “We didn’t do anything.”

  “I’ve got you for flight,” he said, “at least.”

  “We didn’t know you were lookin’ for us.”

  “Like hell. I’ve also got a bullet in your wall that matches a gun that killed one of four dead men we found in an abandoned warehouse on Industrial Road.”

  “I haven’t been home in a while.”

  “Staying away until your rug dries?” he asked. “What’d you do, shampoo out the bloodstains?”

  “Did you have a warrant to go into my house?”

  “You asked me that last time,” Hargrove said, “and this time I did.”

  “Hargrove, you don’t understand. You have to let me out of here. In two hours I have to-”

  “You’re gonna be here longer than that, Eddie,” he said. “If you’ve got a date she’s gonna get stood up.”

  “I’ve got a date all right,” I said, “but it’s not with a woman.”

  “Woman, guy, it doesn’t matter,” he said, “you’re gonna miss it-but I didn’t think you went that way.”

  “Goddammit, you don’t understand,” I said, “let me explain somethin’ to you-”

  “Why don’t you start by tellin’ me what happened in your house?” he asked. “And what you have to do with four dead guys?”

  “I didn’t-”

  “And a set-up to make it look like they killed each other,” he went on. “That sounds like somethin’ your buddy Jerry brought with him from New York.”

  I was getting frustrated, but there was no way I could admit to any involvement with the dead men. That would put Jerry in the shitter, and I couldn’t do that to him.

  I sat forward and looked him in the eye.

  “Hargrove,” I said, “somethin’ is gonna happen tonight that will impact-” I stopped short. Impact what? What could I tell him? The Presidency? I was supposed to be keeping that information to myself.

  “Impact what?” he asked. “World peace?”

  I was stuck for a reply.

  “Sit tight,” he said, moving toward the door. “I’m gonna go talk to your buddy. Maybe he’ll give you up.”

  “Hargrove wait-” I said, but he was out the door, and he didn’t return for almost an hour.

  I knew Jerry wouldn’t give me up, but time was ticking away. We had to get out of there and make that meet, but how? Hargrove was right. Frank, or Dean, or Sammy couldn’t help me. It would take Jack Entratter a while to get a lawyer for us.

  By the time Hargrove returned I had an idea.

  “Am I under arrest?” I asked. “Are Jerry and I under arrest?”

  “As a matter of fact,” he said, “you are. Your only chance is to come clean-”

  “I get a phone call,” I said. “I want my phone call.”

  “A lawyer’s not gonna help you-”

  “I’m not talkin’ to you until after my phone call,” I told him.

  He glared at me. If he wanted to he could keep me away from a phone long enough to ruin everything, but I was counting on him being the letter-of-the-law kind of guy he was.

  “Hargrove, I’ll talk to you,” I said, “but after my phone call.”

  He frowned, then backed up and opened the door.

  “Find me a room with a phone,” he told the cop just outside the door.

  Hargrove took me into a room with a phone. I stared at him until he got the message and headed for the door.

  “I’ll be right outside,” he said. “You’ve three minutes.”

  As soon as the door closed I took a piece of paper out of my pocket and dialed the number on it.

  A half hour later we were back in the other room and I was still trying to string Hargrove along. He was getting pissed.

  “You haven’t told me a thing, Eddie,” he said. “You’re doin’ somethin’ for another high roller that you can’t talk about, and you don’t know anythin’ about bodies in a warehouse, or a bullet hole in your wall.”

  “That’s it.”

  “You’re wastin’ my time,” he said. “I think it’s time we put you and your friend in a cell-separate cells-and let you sweat it out overnight.”

  I looked at the clock on the wall and he noticed.

  “Yeah, you’re gonna miss your date, pal,” he said. “Let’s have your wallet, belt and shoes.” He’d already taken the envelopes of money.

  If he put me in a cell that’d be the end of it. And if he went through my pockets thoroughly he’d find the photo, the one Sammy didn’t want anyone to see. Would Hargrove recognize the person in it, I wondered?

  I was fishing my wallet out when there was a knock on the door and a cop stuck his head in.

  “Detective? You better come out here.”

  When he came back in he gave me an evil look.

  “You think you’re pretty smart, Eddie.”

  “Do I?”

  “You really did it this time,” he said. “You went straight to the top to cover your ass. I wonder who and what you’re gonna have to pay for this?”

  “I don’t get you.”

  “You’re out.” He looked at my wallet and belt, which were on the table. He dug into his pocket, tossed the envelopes of money down reluctantly. “Put those away.”

  “Look, Detective,” I said, “I didn’t have a choice, here …”

  I looked at the clock. We had fifty minutes.

  “This must be some pretty hot date,” he said. “You better enjoy it, because if I have anything to say about it, it’ll be your last.”

  I put my wallet and the money away and slipped my belt back on.

  “Can I go?”

  “Yeah,” he said. “Your friend’s waitin’ outside.”

  I started past him, but he grabbed my arm in a grip like a vice.

  “How high do your friends go, Eddie?”

  I didn’t answer.

  “Pretty high, I think,” he went on. “You know, when you get that high there’s a heavy price to pay.”

  “I should be able to explain this to you later….” I offered.

  “Save it for your defense,” he said. “You’re gonna need it.”

  He let go of my arm and I went out the door.

  Sixty-six

  I found Jerry outside.

  “Did you see anybody?” I asked. “Talk to anybody?”

  “Nope,” he said. “They just let me go. What happened?”

  “I made a phone call.”

  “That number?” he asked.

  “Yeah, that number,” I said. “Come on, we gotta get a cab.”

  In the Sands parking lot minutes later, in my car, Jerry said, “We could call the cops and have them picked up.
”

  “Hargrove would never go for it.”

  “There are other cops.”

  “Picked up for what?” I asked. “The most they’d get them for would be carrying guns.”

  “If we do this,” he said, “you’re gonna have to use that gun.”

  “Unless we can talk them out of it.” Jerry shook his head.

  “These bozos are tryin’ ta hold up the government,” he said. “You ain’t gonna talk them outta nothin’.”

  “You’re probably right.”

  “You ever killed anybody with a gun before, Mr. G.?” he asked.

  “In the army.”

  “Up close?”

  “No.”

  “I got your back, Mr. G.,” Jerry said. “I gotta know that you got mine.”

  I looked at him.

  “You can ask me that after what happened in my house?”

  “You didn’t have ta shoot nobody,” he said, “and you killed that guy by a fluke. Tonight ain’t gonna be no fluke.”

  I took the gun out of my pocket and held it in my hand.

  “Don’t worry, big guy,” I said, “I’ve got your back.”

  We pulled into the same parking lot behind the same warehouse. It was the only place we could think of that would be away from people. At first we thought about having them meet us on our ground, in a casino, but with them being armed there was a possibility that innocent people could be hurt.

  We got out of the car and walked to the same door we’d used to enter the warehouse the other two times. There was yellow crime scene tape across the door, but it had been broken. Either someone had gone inside previously, or they were in there now.

  We looked around the lot. There was no light other than the headlights from my car.

  “Let’s cut the car lights, Jerry,” I said. We both had flashlights this time.

  He went to the car and turned off the lights. When he came back he had a flashlight in his left hand, and a gun in his right.

  I took the gun out of my pocket, adopted the same position.

  “Mr. G., you’re gonna do the talkin’, but you gotta let me have the lead on the action, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  “It would’ve been better if we coulda arranged for some backup,” he said. “Gettin’ picked up really fucked any chance for a plan.”