Deadman

by Jon A. Jackson

  “My brother was killed by a man in your employ,” Echeverria pointed out, sniffing and raising his chin pointedly.

  “Technically,” Humphrey conceded, his fat hand tipping back and forth. “This man, Lande, was crazy. He had lost his wife to cancer. These killings he undertook in the madness of his grief. They had nothing to do with us. Many others, our own people, were slain. Your brother was unfortunately caught in the crossfire. I am deeply sorry for this, and I hope it doesn't strain our friendship. Ray Echeverria was avenged by one of our people, as you know.”

  Echeverria wasn't buying this. “This man who killed the cur Lande—where is he? Joe Service is his name? He was actually commissioned to kill this, this loco?”

  “Yes, it was Joe Service. No, he wasn't commissioned to kill Lande. We wanted Lande alive,” Humphrey conceded, “but the man was crazy, as I say, and wouldn't have it any other way. Joe was forced to kill him.”

  Echeverria looked angry. He drank his whiskey too fast, almost choked and then said, “Do you mind if I smoke?”

  “Have one of these excellent cigars,” Humphrey said. He leaned forward with an effort and flipped open the lid of a silver humidor.

  Both the young men took a cigar and busied themselves with clipping and lighting them. When the puffing had settled and the drinks were replenished, young Ghittes said, mildly, “We have heard that the policeman, this Mulheisen—they call him Sergeant Fang"—he laughed—"was the one who actually killed Señor Lande, although the police called it suicide, of course. No?”

  Humphrey shook his head. “It was Joe Service. Mulheisen was the one who found Lande's body. They called it suicide, but nobody believes that.”

  “And did he also find our money?” Echeverria asked.

  “Your money?” Humphrey raised his thick eyebrows comically. “I didn't hear that you lost any money, Vetch. Anyway, the police didn't find any money.”

  “Not me personally,” Echeverria said. “And I'm not concerned with the money that Señor Sedlacek and Señor Lande and their friends stole from you. But did you know that Señor Lande was also handling money for Señor Ghittes? Yes, it is true. My brother Ray was impressed with Señor Lande's ability to—how shall we say?—recycle money. He had given him . . .” He delved in the pocket of his splendidly tailored blue silk suit coat and withdrew a piece of paper that he extended toward Humphrey. “This.”

  Humphrey lunged forward and took the paper, unfolded it and read, “To Eugene Lande—$5,342,265.00.” It was dated and signed by Ray Echeverria and countersigned by Eugene Lande. Humphrey flipped it back onto the coffee table. “So what? He gave some money to Lande . . . I guess,” he added pointedly. “He didn't give any money to Carmine, or me.”

  “Señor Lande's operation was, shall we say, sanctioned by Carmine. We received only one million of these dollars in our account in Panama, in Colombian pesos,” Echeverria said. “Four million—and change, as you say—is still owing to us. We like to be fair. We will ignore the ‘change.’ “

  Humphrey laughed, a thick, gurgly laugh. “That's good of you, Vetch, but I don't know anything about your money. You made a deal with Lande. If Carmine okayed it, I never heard anything about it. And now Carmine is dead. We aren't in business with you. Maybe in the future, who knows?” The eyebrows bobbled.

  “The police did not recover this money,” Echeverria said severely. “Your man, Joe Service, got this money.”

  “Don't know a damn thing about it,” Humphrey said.

  A long silence settled on the room. The wind buffeted the French doors, the fire crackled. Echeverria stared intently at Humphrey, who stared blandly back. Finally, Humphrey said, “Maybe you should talk to Joe about this.”

  “Where is he?”

  Humphrey thought about the woman Heather. Rossamani had talked to Smokey Stover a few days earlier. Smokey had said that Heather was making progress, but there was no indication of when the job would be done. At the time, of course, Humphrey had known nothing about any money that Lande had taken from Ghittes. Carmine had led him to believe that Big Sid had accomplished his skim, and the money had been shifted to the Cayman Islands. They had made inquiries but had concluded that the money had simply gone. For a while they had tried to recover it, or Joe had tried to recover it, but nothing had come of that. Personally, he had supposed that Joe might have found some of it, but how would they ever know how much it was? He had concluded that the task at hand was to find Joe, try to recover whatever he had absconded with, and close the case with Joe's death. He still had hopes in this direction, but lately his focus had been on little Helen. Now she might have the money, but he was damned if he wanted a bunch of Colombians poking around in the bushes while he dealt with her. He had never heard anything about Lande washing money for the Colombians, but he supposed it was so.

  “We've got someone on Joe's trail,” he said, “and it looks promising, but . . .”

  “Where is he?” Echeverria demanded.

  “I can't tell you, right now. We've got a good lead on him.”

  “Who is on the job? What is his name?”

  Somehow, Humphrey couldn't bring himself to say it was a woman. These awful macho Colombians—well, Echeverria was a Basque, but that was worse, perhaps—would be incredulous, horribly mocking. He wished he had never heard of Heather. This is what happened when the empire failed, he thought. He wished he had Rossie here, to kick in the ass for hiring Heather.

  “I'll tell you what,” he said. “Things are in a delicate state. I'm not gonna fuck it up just for your lousy four million—which I never heard of till this minute, and which it ain't my responsibility anyway—but I can see that you got a stake in finding Joe.” Humphrey was thinking fast. He didn't give a rat fuck about the Colombians, but who knew when he might have to do business with them? It wouldn't do to simply ignore their claims, and they might prove useful, yet. “How ‘bout I get back to you in a coupla days?”

  This was hardly agreeable to Echeverria, but there was nothing he could do. At least the mob hadn't simply thumbed their noses at him. He put up a lot of bluster and heaped some more contumely on Humphrey's head—"Diablo” he persisted in calling him—but ultimately he backed off . . . for a week. The two men left under outwardly amicable terms.

  These discussions were very much in Humphrey's mind when Helen Sedlacek called two nights later.

  “Unca Umby!” she squealed, and he couldn't suppress a flood of joy in his heart.

  “You little scamp,” he said, laughing, “where have you been? You're driving your mama—and me!—crazy.”

  “Oh, Unca Umby, I'm so sorry. I am crazy. It's been a crazy, crazy time. But I'm so sorry. I want to make it up to you.”

  “Then come home,” he said, promptly. “Come home right now. Your mama needs you. She isn't well.”

  “What's wrong? Is she sick? What's wrong with her? Is she in the hospital?”

  “Noooo, no, no, no. She's not that ill. She's not in the hospital. I shouldn't have said such a thing.” He waved at Marco and gestured toward his glass. He was sitting on the couch in the same room where he had entertained Echeverria and Ghittes. Marco poured more Perrier into Humphrey's glass. “Her health is not good, but she gets around. Roman tells me she spends too much time in bed, though. You've got to come home, get her up and cooking. Come for Thanksgiving. We'll have a big feast. You come to my house.”

  “Mama will never come to your house,” Helen said. Her voice was very calm now, more businesslike. “But maybe I will come home for Thanksgiving . . . if things work out.”

  “What's to work out? Tell me, sweetie, and your Unca Umby will see that it's done. What's the problem? It's Joe, isn't it? What's that crazy bum up to? I should of known he'd steal you away from me. Hey? What's Joe doing?”

  “Oh, Joe? Joe's all right,” she said. “You know Joe. He's got a million scams. He's off somewhere right now.”

  “He's off? This crazy guy steals our Helen and now he's off? Where?”

  “You
know Joe, Unca Umby, he doesn't tell anybody anything. I don't know if he even tells himself. But he's fine, he's fine. He's just off, somewhere, taking care of business.”

  Humphrey's voice took on a mock sternness as he said, “Is that bum treating my little Helen all right? C'mon, sweetie, tell Unca Umby. Is he treating you all right?”

  Helen laughed. It sounded genuine over the line. “We're fine. Honest, we're fine.”

  “Tell me something, sweetie. Did you guys get married?”

  There was a pause. “Uh, no. Did Joe say something about getting married?” For a moment, lying on a huge bed in a hotel in New Orleans, Helen found herself speculating about marriage with Joe, just as if nothing had happened. It was amazing. In the course of just a few minutes of conversation, all of it profoundly fictional in text, she and Humphrey had conjured up an elaborate edifice in which they could both participate, and pleasurably. She was reluctant to abandon it.

  “Where are you calling from?” Humphrey asked casually.

  “Seattle. It's great! Have you ever been there?”

  Humphrey smiled, noting the “there” instead of the “here.” “No,” he lied, “but I have some friends there, old friends. You should call them. Your papa knew them, too. Connie and Al Munsch. Remember them? They both worked for your papa at one time.” This was a fond memory, in a way: Connie had been one of Big Sid's girlfriends, and Al was her husband, a pimp. Great-looking girl, Connie. And Al was a gambler, a guy who would bet on anything from one minute to the next—whether that bus up ahead would make the light, whether there would be a man on the next block who was bald-headed and not wearing a hat—bets of a dollar, or a hundred dollars. Humphrey missed Al, and Connie.

  “So you'll be home for Thanksgiving, that's great,” he said. “I'm so glad you called, sweetie. Was there anything special, or did you just wanta say hi to Unca Umby?”

  “Well, I wanted to talk to you. It's about money.”

  “You're short of money? What's the matter with that bum, Joe? Listen, honey, if you need money I can—”

  “No, no, Unca Umby,” she interrupted, “I've got money, plenty of money, but my situation is, well, you know . . . changed. I don't feel very good about banks and the I.R.S. and investing. You know what I mean?”

  Humphrey understood immediately. “You're a little too liquid, maybe?”

  “I'm not sure I understand.”

  “Too much cash,” Humphrey said. “It makes you vulnerable. You need a return on your money and you need security.”

  “Yes, that's it,” Helen said, pleased.

  “And Joe isn't helping you?”

  “Well, he's not around. I don't think I can count on Joe for much . . . at the present, anyway.”

  “Ah, I see,” Humphrey said. “You need to take care of this on your own. Hmmm.” He thought for a moment. “Of course I'll help, sweetie, but it's not something that we should discuss on the telephone. Can we meet?”

  “Couldn't we just handle it on the phone?”

  “If it's just a few bucks, sure,” Humphrey said. He waited.

  “I'll have to think. I'll have to call you back.”

  “That's fine, sweetie. You call me back. Unca Umby'll be here. Otherwise, maybe I'll see you at Thanksgiving, eh?”

  After she hung up, he called in Rossamani and discussed the situation.

  “She must of took off with Joe's stash,” Rossamani opined. “How much do you think it could be?”

  “Lande had plenty, that was Carmine's theory,” Humphrey said, “but who knows how much? He was washing it, getting it out of the country, so him and Big Sid could use it when they bolted. That's why we put Joe on it. But then him and the broad bumped Carmine. Who would of figured it? To me, Joe was always straight. I could count on him. If I hadda guess, I'd say Lande had maybe a coupla million set aside, but it could be more. Lande was never anything but a small timer. The deal he was in with Big Sid, though, that was a pretty big deal. They put a lot of it into a legitimate deal in the Caymans, on a resort, but they wouldn't of put it all in. And then there's these Colombians, Vetch and his pals.” He had told Rossamani about this, not that Rossamani hadn't already heard all about it from Marco. “Maybe there was more to Lande than I thought. Carmine always believed the take was in the ten mil neighborhood.”

  “Sounds like she's got Vetch's four bucks, anyway,” Rossamani said. “What do you want to do when she calls back? She'll want to meet somewhere neutral.”

  “Helen don't know from neutral,” Humphrey said. “To her, Disneyland is neutral. The thing is to find out where she put the money she took from Joe. That's the whole thing. ‘Cause it ain't with Joe anymore, you can bet on it. So I go talk to her, in some place where she feels safe, and you go where she has stashed the money, once I find out.”

  Rossamani nodded. He thought this was just like Humphrey, and it was what he saw as Humphrey's weakness. Carmine, he thought, would simply have snatched the woman and then pounded her until she told him where the money was. That was what they had done with Big Sid's girlfriend—he couldn't remember her name now. He had been one of the guys who worked on her. They had done a good job of it, took their time, three days of it. He'd liked her a lot. In the end she didn't tell them anything—she didn't have Big Sid's money—and they had to let her go. Humphrey's orders. They should have zipped her, Rossamani thought. Big Sid was dead, he couldn't complain. But, as it turned out, she kept her mouth shut. Still, you never know. She knew too much, and ail they had on her was fear, fear of the fist and fear of being fucked to death. That isn't always enough. Now Humphrey wanted to go talk to this broad, this bitch who had actually crawled into Carmine's fucking limo and blasted him! Rossamani couldn't see it. You don't talk to a cunt. She don't have no say in this. Grab her and pound her and let the boys have a little fun, and she'll tell you what you need to know. And then get rid of her, for chrissake!

  Helen called back less than an hour later. She was willing to meet with Humphrey. A neutral place. Butte, Montana.

  Helen didn't know why she had said Butte. She had considered Salt Lake City, but that was where the money was. Then she thought of L.A., but she didn't know L.A. Humphrey would have plenty of people he could count on in L.A. It would be the same anywhere, probably. And then she had thought of Butte. She couldn't imagine that the mob had anyone in Butte, and Joe was there. He wasn't in good shape, but she reckoned he was getting better. Hell, he might even be in good enough shape to get her out of this.

  She realized with that thought that she had made a mess of things. She hadn't handled the money right, and now she was simply going back to square one. Well, at least the money was safe in Salt Lake City. No problem there. She would go out tomorrow and smurf a few more thousands and then head on over to Butte to meet with Humphrey. She had warned him to come by himself, no bodyguards. At Butte she would see him walking from the plane—there was no skyramp, or whatever they called it—and if he wasn't alone, she wouldn't be waiting for him. She'd be long gone and that would be the end of it.

  Humphrey had protested mildly. “I thought you wanted my help,” he pouted, “but now you sound like you're afraid of me.”

  “It's a delicate situation, Unca Umby,” she said. “Joe doesn't know and I don't want him to know. This is just between you and me. Let's face it, some, uh, difficult things have gone down. I can't be sure of anything, anymore. I made some mistakes, but I want everything to be straight between us from now on. Okay?”

  “Honey, you took the words right out of my mouth,” he assured her. “Listen, we're family. A family is gonna have disagreements, but a family works it out. You can count on me, sweetie.”

  As soon as she was off the line, he said to Rossamani, “Get the plane ready and get onto Stover, in Butte. I want him to meet me at the airport there before noon tomorrow.”

  Smokey Stover was not thrilled. He never liked to see the bosses in town and, to be sure, he almost never did, unless they took it into their head to do something weird, l
ike go elk hunting, or fishing. But they weren't fishing for trout now, he was sure. “Mr. Rossamani, our gal Heather seems to have everything well in hand. Is there a problem?”

  “Yeah, there's a problem,” Rossamani told him. “You get hold of her, now. Tonight. Not tomorrow, but now. Tell her everything's on hold. This is very important, Smoke. She don't make a move. I'll talk to her when we get to Butte.”

  17

  Philosophy 101

  It occurred to Joe Service that now there were two parts to his life. This could be called “Service II,” perhaps, like one of those endless Rambo or Rocky movies. Maybe, like the Super Bowl, he should aspire to Xs and Vs. Anyway, in Part Two, he thought, Joe Service comes back to life and astounds everyone with his incredible exploits. Is he different? Is he truly “born again"? Is he really a new man? The New Man? An inquiring public wants to know. Hell, he wanted to know.

  It could never be said by anyone who knew him that Joe Service was a contemplative man. Still, he was a man who was fascinated with everything about him, wildly curious, and naturally given to speculation. No human being, after all, is not thoughtful; it is a defining characteristic of the species. In his present circumstances, of course, he was bound to be contemplative. Although he was doing well in physical therapy, almost back on his feet and even making a few intelligible noises, he still had a long way to go. He spent long hours doing little more than sitting and looking. He couldn't read yet, it was too confusing—he could never get beyond the first few words before all the possibilities of meaning assaulted him, tying him up in knots. He didn't watch television; for some reason it seemed alien and irrelevant, so he ignored it. When Cateyo was around he enjoyed listening to her talk, particularly her rambling discourse on the nature of the new man. He understood, by now, that she half-believed that he was the new man, himself, the one who was coming to straighten everything out that had gone so wrong in the world. Joe encouraged her in this belief, although he couldn't really believe it himself. But anything to keep her bound to him. He felt exposed and fearful when she was gone.