Butcher's Moon p-16

by Richard Stark

  “You want to see somebody?”

  “Not you,” Parker said, and headed for the living room. When they made a move at him he showed a gun. “Go in ahead of me,” he said.

  They glared at the gun and frowned at one another. Slowly they started to raise their hands.

  “I didn’t tell you to put your hands up,” Parker said. “I told you to go into the living room.”

  They were reluctant to do it, to walk into their employer’s presence at the end of somebody else’s gun, but there just wasn’t any choice. Looking twice as tough as usual, hunching their shoulders so they looked as though they were wearing football equipment, they turned and went through the archway into the living room.

  The four men in conversation over by the far window glanced casually, and then with curiosity and surprise, toward the new arrivals. Only one of them had a face Parker didn’t know, so that one must be Dulare. Talking to Dulare, Parker said, “Are these yours?”

  Dulare, a tall tanned man with an autocratic manner, frowned deeply, saying, “What’s the problem?”

  Frank Faran was suddenly grinning. “Mr. Dulare,” he said, “meet Mr. Parker. Mr. Parker, Mr. Dulare.”

  “I know who it is,” Dulare said. “I want to know what he thinks he’s doing.”

  One of the tough boys said, “We didn’t know who he was, Mr. Dulare.”

  Faran, still grinning, said, “They braced him, Ernie, that’s what happened.”

  It was clear that Dulare didn’t like any of this. He was mad at his bodyguards and mad at Parker, but he obviously realized he couldn’t say anything to either of them without somehow making a fool of himself, so he turned on Faran, saying, “I don’t need your help, Frank.”

  Faran, offended, stopped grinning. After a second he shrugged and turned away and ostentatiously sipped from his drink.

  Parker said to Dulare, “Send these two home.”

  “They stay with me,” Dulare said. “And put that gun away, nobody’s showing guns around here.”

  A pair of imitation Victorian chairs flanked an imitation Sheraton drop-leaf table on the opposite side of the room. Parker pointed the pistol toward them, saying, “Tell them to sit over there. I’m here to talk, not waste time.”

  Frowning again, Dulare said, “Who called this meeting, you or Lozini?”

  “I’m doing Lozini’s talking for him.”

  Walters said to Dulare, “When I got here, Harold told me we were supposed to wait for either Al or Parker.”

  Dulare hesitated, then made an angry sweeping gesture with his arm, telling his two men, “Go on over there, take a seat.”

  They hulked away, aggravated and upset, and Parker put his pistol back out of sight. He said to Dulare, “How much do you know about what’s going on?”

  “I know about you,” Dulare said. “You’re causing trouble. Where’s Al Lozini?”

  Parker said, “Have you heard from Buenadella?”

  “Dutch? What about?”

  Parker looked at Faran, then Simms, then Walters. He said to Walters, “Doesn’t anybody tell this man anything?”

  Walters spread pudgy hands. “We didn’t know, of course, if he, uh . . .” He gestured helplessly; it was intended to be a delicate motion, a subtle one, but with Walters’ ungainliness it came out as a kind of lumpish dance movement.

  Still, Parker got the idea; Lozini hadn’t known whether he was being attacked by Buenadella or Dulare, so he’d kept them both in the dark.

  Dulare had turned on Walters. “What’s going on. Jack?”

  “Dutch is trying to take over,” Walters said.

  “From Al?” Dulare sounded unconvinced.

  “It’s true, Ernie,” Faran said. He seemed to take a vindictive pleasure in giving Dulare bad news. “Dutch has been setting it up for a couple years.”

  Dulare frowned around at everybody, then said to Walters, “Tell me about it.”

  “Let Parker tell you,” Walters said. “I think he knows more about it than I do.”

  Dulare gave Parker a suspicious look. “All right,” he said. “What is it?”

  Parker said, “The reform candidate, Farrell, is Buenadella’s man. The finish of the scheme is Farrell taking over as mayor from Wain. Buenadella already talked to some of the other people around the country that he needs okays from. I figured maybe he talked to you, too.”

  Dulare’s attention had been caught; he was no longer irritable because of the defusing of his bodyguards. He said, “Who says Farrell belongs to Buenadella?”

  “He does. I asked him.”

  “And he just told you?”

  “I had a gun in my hand.”

  “Christ Almighty.” Dulare looked around at the other three. “What the hell is going on around here?”

  Walters said, “We wouldn’t have known anything about it until it was too late, except for Parker and his friend stirring things up.”

  Parker said to Dulare, “You’re sure Buenadella didn’t talk to you?”

  “No,” Dulare said. Then he said, “I see what you’re driving at. No, he wouldn’t come to me in front. Dutch and I aren’t that close, and he knows I’m a good friend with Al. He’d come around afterwards, when Al was out and he was in and everything was set. Then I’d go along with him, because it would be stupid to start a war after the game’s over.”

  “All right.” Parker turned to Simms. “How much has Buenadella got?”

  Simms blinked at him, terror hiding behind confusion. “What?”

  “He’s been skimming from Lozini’s take,” Parker said. “Plus my seventy-three thousand. He’s had expenses, with Farrell’s campaign and some of Lozini’s people he’s bought, so how much does he have left?”

  “How should I know?” Simms jittered inside his dudish clothing like a dressed-up turkey.

  “Because you went over to him,” Parker said. “He couldn’t have skimmed from Lozini without you.”

  “That’s a lie!”

  The others all looked at Simms, and Parker said, “Don’t waste time, Simms. How much does he have left?”

  Faran suddenly said, wonderingly, “It’s that honey blonde of yours.”

  Simms, as though grateful at the chance to concentrate on anyone but Parker, turned his head toward Faran, saying, “What? What, Frank?”

  “What’s her name? Donna. You brought her around to the club a few times, Nate, you were happy as a nun with a new habit.”

  “Frank, I didn’t—”

  Dulare said, “Nate, if you tell another lie, I’ll have my two boys over there redeem themselves by walking on your head.”

  “Ernie, you don’t think I’d—”

  Simms stopped talking when Dulare pointedly turned toward the two burly men over on the Victorian chairs. There was a little silence while Simms worked it out in his head. Parker was impatient and angry, but this was a moment when it was better to hang back, let the group find its own pace, work things out for itself.

  Simms said, in a small voice, “Ernie, I never would have—”

  “For God’s sake,” Dulare said, “don’t give me excuses.”

  “Reasons, Ernie. Not excuses, reasons.”

  Parker said, “How much is left, Simms? What does Dutch have in the war fund?”

  “Ernie,” Simms said, pleadingly, “just let me ex—”

  “Answer the man,” Dulare said.

  Simms hung fire, driven by the need to explain himself yet held by the requirement to obey. Finally, his voice barely above a whisper, he looked away from Dulare and said, “About forty-five thousand.”

  “Not enough,” Parker said. “I came here for seventy-three thousand.”

  “That’s not the problem,” Dulare said. His attention was still on Simms.

  “Yes, it is,” Parker told him. “And it’s your problem, because Lozini’s dead, and now it’s a tug of war between you and Buenadella.”

  They all stared at him. Dulare said, “Al’s dead? Since when?”

  “He wasn’t
sure,” Parker said, “if the guy climbing up his back was Buenadella or you. He went to Harold Calesian to find out, and Calesian killed him.”

  “That cop?”

  “The body is in Calesian’s living room,” Parker said. “Calesian and Buenadella are going to say that I did it.”

  Dulare watched him carefully. “Where are you headed?” he said. “What’s on your mind?”

  “My partner and I,” Parker said, “went to make a deal with Buenadella. When we were coming out, my partner got shot. I was sent a message that he was still alive and I could come get him. They’ll send me a finger a day to prove he isn’t dead.”

  “Buenadella?” Dulare shook his head. “Dutch wouldn’t do anything like that. He wouldn’t even think of it.”

  “Calesian,” Parker said. “Once things got rough, Buenadella folded. Calesian is running things.”

  “Calesian can’t run anything except hookers,” Dulare said.

  Faran said, “But by God, that sounds like his style, Ernie. A finger a day, that does sound like our Harold.”

  “All right,” Dulare said. Back to Parker, he said, “So what do you want?”

  “Seventy-three thousand dollars and my partner. You peopie have the manpower. I want you to send people with me to Buenadella’s. I’ll get my partner out, I’ll get my money, I’ll leave.”

  Dulare shook his head. “No way.”

  “Why not? You and Buenadella are in a war now anyway.”

  “No, we’re not. I’ll call Dutch right now and tell him we’ll stay equal, him in his area, me in mine.” Dulare gave a thin smile, saying, “He won’t try anything with me. I’m not as old as Al, or as trusting.”

  Parker said, “You’re not going to leave my partner there, and you’re not going to hold back my seventy-three thousand.”

  “I’m not going to move a muscle,” Dulare said. “If Al’s dead, there’s no problem any more. I don’t give a damn about Wain, I’m just glad as hell to hear that Farrell’s already been bought. All you bring me is good news.”

  “You’re making a mistake,” Parker said.

  Faran, looking worried, said, “Ernie, maybe we ought to—”

  “We do nothing,” Dulare said. Looking at Parker, his expression flat, he said, “Your problems are your own. And if you’ll take my advice, you’ll leave Tyler on the next plane. No matter where it’s going.”

  “You’ve just lost a home,” Parker said, and left.

  Thirty-four

  Calesian was up. He couldn’t remember when he’d felt so alive, so self-confident, so expectant, so in control of things— not with women, not with the job, not anywhere. It wouldn’t have surprised him if little bolts of lightning were to shoot from his fingers and eyes.

  Standing in the main front hallway of Dutch Buenadella’s house, watching Dr. Beiny come slowly down the stairs, Calesian smiled to himself as he contemplated his own suddenly expanded future. Dutch was up on the second floor, hustling his family to greater speed in their packing; acting like an old woman, he was sending his family out of town for fear of some nameless horror he felt descending on them all. “We’re going to the mattresses, Hal,” he’d said a little while ago, and it had taken Calesian a minute to figure out what he was talking about. Then it came back to him: a phrase from the movie The Godfather, meaning a gang war. Tyler had never in its history had a gang war.

  And it wouldn’t now. Who was going to dispute? Al Lozini was dead. Frank Schroder was too old, and anyway, content with his piece of the action in the narcotics trade. Ernie Dulare was also content with what he had, and in any event was too smart to go to war on a problem that could very easily be worked out through negotiations; Dutch didn’t intend to take anything away from Ernie, so why should Ernie care one way or the other? And who else was there to go to these famous mattresses? Nobody.

  Dr. Beiny reached the bottom of the stairs and gave Calesian a sour nod. “I’ll look in again this evening,” he said. A tall stoop-shouldered saturnine man in his late forties, Dr. Beiny had made just about every mistake a respectable middle-class doctor could make. He had performed illegal abortions and had a girl die in his office. He had vacationed in Las Vegas and lost far more than he could pay. He had involved himself with women who were guaranteed to bleed him as much as they could. Although not a drunk, he had been drinking the night he’d been involved in an automobile accident, during which he could have been found guilty of criminal negligence both as a driver and as a doctor, had either case ever gone to court. He had mishandled controlled narcotics, misdiagnosed fatal illnesses, and even managed to get caught out by the Internal Revenue Service for nondeclaration of patients’ fees that he’d received in cash. The Lozini organization maintained him as a kind of house doctor, and he managed just barely not to be more trouble than he was worth. He was apparently willing to do absolutely anything that was asked of him, and to find pleasure in nothing on earth.

  Calesian, nodding toward the second floor, said, “Is our patient sleeping comfortably?”

  “He’s alive,” Dr. Beiny said. “I don’t say he’ll stay that way for very long.”

  “Nobody wants him to live forever,” Calesian said, grinning. “Just long enough to kill his partner.”

  “Taking fingers off him won’t help,” the doctor said. “No matter how careful I am, it shocks the heart.”

  “Just one a day,” Calesian said cheerfully. “We’ll give him plenty of chance to rest up in between.”

  “But what if it kills him?”

  Calesian gave him a suggestive smile. “Then we’ll just have to take fingers off somebody else, won’t we?”

  The doctor’s sour expression turned even more sour. “I’ll stop back this evening,” he said.

  “You do that.”

  Calesian watched the doctor leave the house, then glanced up the stairs, thinking about Dutch Buenadella again. He wasn’t in sight up there, so Calesian strolled away through the house to the den and sat down at Dutch’s desk, swiveling the chair so he could see the rear lawn.

  With all those bushes and trees out there, it wasn’t possible to see very far, but Calesian knew there wasn’t any chance of Parker’s sneaking up to this doorway as Calesian himself had done earlier today. The second-floor windows were now occupied by armed men, watching every approach to the house. After dark the floodlights would be turned on. Parker could come here any time, but his arrival would be announced.

  It was pleasant to sit here by the open French doors, looking out at greenery in the light of the late afternoon sun. Things were organized, things were under control. Two of Dutch’s men were dealing with Al Lozini’s body right now, Parker had been contained, his partner Green was being kept alive long enough to be useful, and Calesian himself was on the threshold of a life for himself that he had never dreamed possible. Dutch Buenadella, a businessman as smart and as cold and as nerveless as they come, had collapsed completely when the guns came out. He had made himself dependent on Calesian now, and he would stay dependent from here on. Dutch Buenadella would be the figurehead running Tyler after the death of Al Lozini, but Harold Calesian would be the power behind the throne. The true power.

  Until just today Calesian had been content with the power he already possessed, the power implicit in his job with the police force and the power that came as a side effect of his association with Adolf Lozini. But when this new door had opened, this sudden unexpected chance to leap up to a completely different level of life, he hadn’t hesitated for a second.

  The repaired phone rang, on the desk. Calesian swiveled away from the lawn view to look at it, surprised, and almost reached out to answer it. Then it occurred to him that it wouldn’t be for him and that there were other extensions in the house also ringing. Let someone else answer it.

  Someone else did, in the middle of the second ring. It was almost as though that, too, was part of Calesian’s new range of power; he had reached out with his thoughts in a command to someone to answer the phone, and it had
been answered. Which wasn’t what had happened, of course, but it felt that way, and the feeling of power he was relishing operated at the same level. Smiling to himself, he turned back and gazed out at the lawn again.

  Two minutes later Dutch Buenadella came into the den, and Calesian was taken aback by just how bad the man looked. His flesh seemed too big for his skeleton all at once, as though he’d shriveled somehow inside there. Calesian stared at him, not wanting to ask what was wrong, and Buenadella said, “Ted Shevelly was just found shot to death in the street. Over on Baxter Street. Shot dead.”

  Thirty five

  Parker drove a dozen blocks before he was certain Dulare hadn’t sent anybody to follow him and see what he did next. Good; a man who underestimates you is already half beaten.

  There were still three hours or so of daylight left. Parker needed a new base of operations, and he wanted to be set before nightfall. He needed someplace he could use for the next few days without drawing any attention to himself, and where he could arrange for other people to meet him.

  Usually the simplest way to make that sort of arrangement was to rent a local whore for a few days, pay her for her body and use her apartment. But this time he couldn’t take a chance on that, not when the people he was going up against were the ones who ran the local whores. If he rented one’s apartment and let her go out, she might talk too much to the wrong person. If he made the rental and didn’t let her out, she might be missed by the wrong person, who might come looking for her.

  So the simplest way was out. And any hotel or motel was also out, partly because a determined effort to find him would get him caught at any hotel, and partly because of the phone calls he intended to make.

  This was July, midsummer, and a lot of people would be away on vacation, so a possible alternative was to find an empty house or apartment and move in there. But there were problems with that; it would have to be a location where nosy neighbors wouldn’t be a likely annoyance, for one thing. For another, this was Sunday, which meant that late tonight some vacationers would be coming home, due to go back to their jobs tomorrow morning. He would have to make sure any place he holed up was occupied by people who had just left, and not people who were just about to come back.