The Running Kind: A Hector Lassiter novel

by Craig McDonald

  Both men pointed their guns toward Hector and Jimmy. Hector turned to make himself a narrower target, then kicked the one standing closest in the crotch. The man doubled over and Hector grabbed the man’s overcoat lapels and tossed him behind for Jimmy to finish with.

  The second man was shifting his aim, preparing to point his gun at Hector’s chest. Hector kicked that man’s hand and the gun went off, blasting a hole in the restroom ceiling. Hector grabbed the brim of the man’s fedora and jerked it down over the stranger’s eyes. The gunman was pointing wild now, as likely to hit the old shoe-shiner or the little girl cowering in the stall as to put a slug in his attacker.

  Hector got hold of the man’s elbow while he was still blinded by his own hat. Hector put the man’s arm against the jamb of a vacant toilet stall and then slammed the stall door against the man’s wrist several times until bone crunched.

  The man’s hand went limp and the gun smacked the tile floor, chipping marble. Hector scooped up the rod, a taped, skeleton-grip .38, and tossed it to Jimmy. The Irish cop’s man was out cold on the floor.

  Hector’s man groaned again, tugging at his hat with his one good hand. Tsking, the author hauled the man up and then flung him headfirst into the toilet bowl. The man was still moving, so Hector did that a second time and then pulled the flush chain on the overhead basin.

  Jimmy opened the stall door and picked up the little girl. “Everything’s fine now, puddin’,” he said. “You’re safe and so is your mother, darlin’ Shannon.”

  One of the women, blond and blue-eyed like the little girl, fell to her knees and hugged the child close. “Oh, thank God,” she said. The woman wore an expensively tailored skirt with matching jacket and a long fur coat that looked real enough to Hector. The blonde’s hat sported a dangling fringe of black mesh that nearly reached her bottom lip. She was quite the looker, that was evident even through that mesh veil.

  The other woman was prettier still and platinum blond. She was expensively appointed, too, but not in quite so business-like a fashion as her companion. There was more va-va-voom in the second woman’s slinky dress and half-stoll. The sexier one stroked the little girl’s hair and then squeezed her friend’s arm and said, “Katy, we have to go, right now. We have to do that before Joe gets back!”

  Joe? Hector said, “Now what’s up with these toughs? What are they to you two, ladies?”

  “There’s no time for that,” the slinky blonde said. She hauled her friend up from her knees. “Katy, come on! We have to fly!”

  This loud click. No mistaking that sound, and particularly not amplified as it was off all that tile and porcelain in the men’s john: the sound of a gun cocking.

  Hector cursed and said softly, “Howdy-do Joe!” Raising his hands, Hector turned slowly to face the gun.

  Joe shook his automatic once at Jimmy, directing the cop to drop the revolver they’d taken off the other thug.

  Jimmy lowered the hammer on the gun. He slung it in a sink basin, scowling. The Irishman evidently seemed to think it good strategy to rile the man. Jimmy said, “So, ya sorry pup, ya, you’re clearly a Dago thug. Which family do you work for? No denials now, ’cause you’re clearly of that oily ilk if ya get my drift. And you’re no Joe, you’re a Giuseppe at best.”

  Joe sneered. “Who the hell are you two? I only ask so we’ll know whose funerals to send flowers to.”

  Laying his accent on thicker, Jimmy said, “We’re just passers-by. Ya know the old Celtic saying, don’tcha boyo? Is this a private fight, or can anyone join in? In that spirit, we helped ourselves to a dab o’ bedlam, going in assured of the happy outcome on our end.”

  “Ain’t you the tough, Joey,” Hector said, smiling. “But you better rethink this bad business, old pal. Jimmy here is plainclothes heat. Shooting Jimbo would be sowing the wind in wicked ways you don’t want to contemplate too hard. You know how cops are about police-killers. Hell, even the Feds would pile up on you for a bloody stupidity like that.”

  Joe pointed his gun at Hector. “Okay, mouth, and who are you?”

  “Smith’s my name,” Hector said. “John Smith.”

  Joe sneered. “Yeah. So you’re another cop?”

  Hector just shrugged.

  Joe sneered and jerked his head a little to one side, cracking his neck. “What are doing with these two? Kefauver send you to protect them? If so, that woodchuck’s sure going on the cheap, ’cause you two mugs ain’t all that much.”

  Hearing Jimmy was police put some spine into the old shoe-shiner. The elderly bootblack lashed out with his hand towel, striking Joe’s gun hand and resulting in a second bullet hole, this one in the men’s room’s floor. Hector grabbed hold of Joe’s lowered gun hand, forcing a finger behind the trigger before Joe could get off another wild shot.

  In the mirror, Hector saw the slinky woman put a gloved hand over the child’s eyes. He thought, Good for her, gal must sense what’s coming.

  Jimmy snarled and grabbed Joe by both ears and wrenched him back toward the sink.

  There was an array of bottled colognes between the sink basins. Jimmy sprayed mist in Joe’s eyes and then turned on the hot water tap. He shoved Joe’s face under the scalding spray, then got him back up on his feet and rammed his head into the wall twice.

  Hector nodded at the shoeshine man. “Thanks, brother. You carried the day. That said, if I was you, I’d surely be missing when these three come back around.”

  Jimmy scooped up discarded guns, then took “Katy” by the arm. She was carrying the little girl now. Hector grabbed the sexy, still-unnamed blonde by her arm and they legged it up the stairs.

  “Best we get distance on this joint,” Hector said, taking point across the lavish lobby. “These rats rarely travel in trios, more like battalions. And Jimmy’s right: they’re all mobbed up. They stink of Mafia.” Narrowing his eyes he asked the women, “So what are you two to them?”

  Silence. Hardly any expression at all there on their pretty faces.

  Jimmy said, “One of the boyos mentioned Kefauver. That’d be Estes Kefauver, I guess. You know, the toothsome Tennessee senator who’s conducting all these inquiries into organized crime. Am I right? Yes?”

  More silence as they hustled the women across the lobby and out into the December cold. The icy wind lashed their faces and made their eyes tear up.

  The sidewalks and gutters were still mounded high with the snow and slush of the freak Thanksgiving blizzard that had swept over the Appalachians, spawning out-of-season tornadoes, knocking out power to an estimated million and killing more than three hundred people.

  The thaw was just setting in south of Cleveland. Consequently, flooding from the melting snowdrifts, some more than twenty feet deep, posed a new threat throughout the Ohio River Valley.

  “Car’s just around the corner,” Hector told Jimmy.

  The Irishman nodded. “Always the Chevy man, you. Is this sled fast, Hector?”

  “It’s a Chevy, dark blue. And yes, it’s very fast.” Hector’s wheels were brand new, a 1950 DeLuxe Styleline Sport Sedan with rear fender guards and chrome stone guards. Hector had also sprung for the optional sun visor because he lived in the desert—not that he got home to New Mexico so terribly much in recent days.

  Jimmy nodded and squeezed Katy’s arm. “I asked a question back there, missy. Well, several questions were posed, but as I’m the one with a badge, I get priority on answers. That man said something about Kefauver and a protection detail. Are you a witness for the senate committee? Are you two tied in some way to one of the crime families who’ve been targeted by Kefauver’s hearings?”

  Katy looked at her friend; the other woman shrugged.

  “Honey, after what we did back there, you owe us. What are you called, doll face?”

  “Megan Dalton.”

  “Hokey-doke, Meg,” Hector said, brushing some strands of yellow-white hair back from her eyes. Her hair was soft and maybe even her real shade. Surely didn’t look or feel like a peroxide job. She mov
ed her head away from his hand. Hector smiled at that. Some spirit behind that tarted up face.

  The women exchanged a last long look. Jimmy frowned and flashed his badge, just enough to show it was real, but he kept a big thumb over the name of the city emblazoned on the tin.

  Katy nodded and hugged her daughter closer. “My name is Katharine Scartelli. My husband is—”

  “Vito Scartelli,” Jimmy said, raw-voiced. “Hec, this woman is married to a monster.”

  “I read the newspapers, too,” Hector said, cold all over now. “The boss of all bosses in the Great Lakes region.” He tossed Jimmy they car keys. “We’re dealt in, like it or not, Jimbo.” Hector added, “Or don’t you think?”

  “Oh, I figure we’re already in deeper than we can conceive,” Jimmy said. “Always the way, it seems, when our paths cross for any time at all.” Jimmy stroked the little girl’s hair. Hector figured his friend was remembering another city, one a continent away, many years ago. Remembering another little girl in desperate danger. Lyon, France, and the last big war: all of that was certainly on Hector’s mind presently.

  “Then pull around back of the hotel and wait for me, Jim,” Hector said. “I’ll exit through the service doors.”

  It was starting to snow as Hector turned to head back into the hotel. A tiny voice, “Thanks, mister. Thank-you for saving my mommy and Megan.”

  Hector almost said, “We’re nowhere near having done that yet.” Instead he smiled over his shoulder at the little girl and said, “You sure are cute, darlin’.”

  Meg called to Hector, “Joe asked you what you do. Are you police? Perhaps a private detective?”

  “Don’t insult me.” Pausing, Hector said. “I’m just a writer, sugar. But a careful one.”

  Meg frowned. “Your name does seem familiar. Are you a journalist?”

  “Not so much that either,” Hector said. He trotted across the parking lot in the snow.

  Hector ducked back into the cozy hotel, straight into the barrel of a gun.

  2

  It was Joe, unsteady on his feet, but still dangerous enough. Joe’s face was livid and blistered from his scalding. His nose looked more than a little like Jimmy’s pushed-around beak now.

  Hector had to give the thug points for durability. Joe had stayed smart through all that pain, too: he was standing several feet away from Hector, safely away from reach of fists or being kicked at with feet.

  “Back through that door, you son of a bitch,” Joe said.

  There was some motion behind Joe. It was the shoe-shiner. The old man raised his wooden box and slammed it against the back of Joe’s head. Hector dove right, just in case the gunman got off a shot on his way to the tiled floor. But Joe just groaned, dropped his gun and collapsed. The old man smiled at Hector. “Tough one, ain’t he?”

  “Very much so,” Hector said. He stooped down for Joe’s forty-five and slipped it into his pocket. He looked down the hallway to the lobby. Nobody could see them, presently. He said, “Thanks again, Pops. Can you do me one last favor and get the door?”

  The old man looked uncertain but complied. Hector grabbed Joe by the ankles and hauled him out into the snow. He propped Joe up against the wall of the hotel and angled his hat to obscure the man’s blistered face.

  A Styrofoam cup lay on the ground near Joe’s feet. Hector picked that up. He put it in Joe’s hand, and then reached into his jacket’s breast pocket and pulled out a couple of the number-two pencils he favored for writing; he dropped them in the cup. Joe would either freeze to death or eventually be busted for panhandling for pencils, he reckoned.

  Hector fished out his roll and skidded off two fives. He passed them to the shoe-shiner. “For your trouble, pal. I think you’d best look for another hotel to work out of, at least for a few days. Best expect he’s gonna be vengeful.”

  “My thought, too,” the old man said. He looked at Hector’s feet and said, “Wish you’d kill him now. Nice snakeskin boots you got there, sir. That accent of yours, is it Texan?”

  “That’s right,” Hector said.

  The shoeshine man smiled and nodded. He said, “Civil War sides aside, I’ve always liked that state. Thanks, cowpoke.” The old bootblack then walked briskly away.

  ***

  Jimmy was waiting out back with the trunk of the Chevy open. It was snowing harder and the flakes were stoking fresh accumulation. Hector slung his suitcase and portable typewriter in the trunk. Jimmy tossed Hector the car keys. The writer dropped his fedora on top of his suitcase, slipped off his overcoat, folded it, and placed it in the trunk, too. The Chevy had a good heater, so he figured he’d soon be plenty warm.

  “You could drive,” Hector said to Jimmy.

  “No way,” Jimmy said. “I know how you are about your cars. Honest to God, I think you care more about your wheels than your women. Certainly, the cars tend to linger longer.”

  “Not true,” Hector said. “It just that they can’t drive themselves away.” He nodded at the backseat. “What about the ladies? Do I need to make another run upstairs for their luggage? I hope not, because I had to take another shot at one of those bastards. The guy you scalded was up and about. He’s one tough hombre.”

  Jimmy smiled. “Yet you didn’t even muss your hair.” He jerked his head at the back seat. “No, no luggage with them, presently. The sleek cooze, the one I suspect you have your eye on, this Meg, she’s a resident in there. Hotel’s a mix, that way, she says. The woman and the child were hiding with Meg overnight.”

  “How does Megan tie into this?”

  “Seems Miss Meg is Vito Scartelli’s mistress,” Jimmy said. “Every cheating man’s nightmare, wouldn’t you concede? I mean, the missus and the mistress throwing in together? No conceivable good can come of that.”

  “Not an ideal scenario under these, or hell, under any conditions,” Hector agreed.

  “Particularly not if hubby knows you’re chummy and you’re the wife who is legging it,” Jimmy said. “Meg’s was the first place he looked, I’d wager. I know it’s the first place I would search if it was me.”

  “Where are they headed?”

  Jimmy closed the trunk. “Damned if I know. You didn’t give me that much time alone with them. But reluctant as I am to admit it, the better angels of my nature say we need to step in here, Hector. We need to get ’em someplace closer to safe. They’ll not last the night on their own. That’s obvious.”

  Hector felt something whiz close by his cheek; an instant later he heard the shot.

  A man was running at them, firing at them through the snow flurries.

  It was the thug Hector had dropped face-first in the toilet.

  Jesus, Hector thought, I really must be losing my touch. Both of his men had come back around. Only Jimmy’s man seemed to stay down for the long-count. But then Hector decided he had used bad logic on that last one dropping him in the toilet bowl. Hector had aimed to drown his man, but instead likely just brought the man back around with the gush of all that cold toilet water.

  All that went through Hector’s head in a flash. The thug was getting ready to shoot again.

  Hector drew; Jimmy too. The other man fired again.

  Hector couldn’t say for certain how many shots were fired by the three of them, though he knew he’d cocked and pulled the trigger on his Colt twice.

  A red spray obscured the thug’s chest and face.

  Hector winced, remembering little Shannon was in his Chevy’s backseat. God willing, she hadn’t seen those bullet strikes. He hoped one of those dishy molls found the presence of mind to cover the child’s face again or, better still, to push the kid to the floorboards when the shooting started. Hector had seen more than once what a stray bullet could do; he knew far too well what a single errant shot could cost a man.

  Jimmy hefted his own gun. “Not my service weapon, so I’m not too worried about anything being traced back to me.”

  Holstering his Colt, Hector nodded at the dead man and said, “You figure that wa
s you or me who put that son of a bitch down?”

  Jimmy waved a hand. “Figure it was me. At least with the first one. There’s only one hole I see. Straight through the pump.”

  “See, I figured you for a between-the-eyes man,” Hector said. He could hear the nervousness in his own voice under all the callous, macho bluster. Hector could hear it in Jimmy’s usually smooth brogue, too. Adrenaline and cordite so easily made men blood simple, even men of their years. Hector clapped his friend’s beefy arm, said, “We rolling now, or are you flashing your badge again, Jimbo?”

  Jimmy opened the passenger side door. “We flee with all dispatch, Hector. For all I know, the entire Youngstown police department is on this godless Scartelli’s damned dole.”

  As they rolled by the hotel, Hector pointed at Joe, still propped up against the wall in the falling snow. But someone had stolen Joe’s hi-tone shoes.

  Hector figured with the bitter cold his shoes’ theft would probably cost Joe his toes.

  Two blocks later, they spotted the shoeshine man wearing Joe’s shoes. Jimmy elbowed Hector’s arm, gesturing at the shoe-shiner leaning into a garbage pail to root around.

  Jimmy said, “Boyo wears ’em much better’n Joe, don’tca think?”

  Hector never got to answer. He was stopped by the burn of cold metal at the back of his neck.

  Hector turned just enough to see another gun was pressed to the base of Jimmy’s skull. “Okay, you lugs,” Meg said. “We really do appreciate all you’ve done. We do. So now you just let us off up here and we’ll let you two handsome bruisers go about your business as reward.”

  Hector balked. Sexy Meg pulled back the hammer on the gun against his neck. She said, “I mean business, Mr. Lassiter.”

  3

  Hector sighed; it sounded like it came up from his heels. “I am not pullin’ over, Meg,” he drawled. “Abandon that thought now, sweetheart. You haven’t thought this through. If you shoot me, you’ll find yourself in the worst kind of car wreck. So let’s stop fritterin’ away time and instead figure out what our best and shared next move might be.”