The Running Kind: A Hector Lassiter novel

by Craig McDonald

  The gun was still at his neck. “Put the damned iron the hell down, Meg.” Hector hesitated, then said, “And drop the hammer with the gun pointed out the window, okay?”

  The way his luck was lately running, Hector could too vividly envision himself slain by an accidental discharge.

  “First red light, we’re getting out of here, mister,” Meg said.

  “Sorry, but no.” Jimmy slowly held up his left hand. Two slender pieces of chrome rolled back and forth between his big thumb and forefinger. “These are the stems from the backdoor locks,” Jimmy said. “I unscrewed them when you two were fussing with loading young Shannon.” Jimmy opened his hand and the stems fell to the floorboards. “And now, in my clumsiness, I’ve lost them.” He turned around more in his seat as Meg tried her door. “Am I not the devious Irishman?”

  Meg threw herself against the door a last time.

  “Locked the doors before I unscrewed the stems,” Jimmy said. He held out his hand, palm up. “Give me the guns, lassies. As has been recently pointed out, you don’t hold a firearm on a cop, regardless of your trouble. I can run you in now for that and something close enough to kidnapping to ensure you’ll both miss Shannon’s college graduation and her first child’s christening. Give me the rods right now, or Hector here is headed to the station house where we’ll turn you in to just any old probably bought-off cop we see. For all any of us know, I’m the only badge-carrier in this town who isn’t living fat off Vito’s roll.”

  The guns were still at their necks.

  Jimmy said, “Left at the next crossroads, Hector. At least if they shoot us in the precinct parking lot they won’t get any distance at all before they’re caught. Whatever happens to us, this only ends one way for you skirts.”

  That did it—the two guns were passed into Jimmy’s hands. He emptied each of bullets. The ammo he put in his overcoat pocket; the guns went in the glove compartment with the thugs’ guns they’d taken.

  “Wise choice,” Hector said, stealing glances at Meg in the rearview mirror. “We’re truly your best bet.” He said that to her reflection. He studied Meg’s face; savored that flush in her cheeks and neck. Spirited, that was the word for that one, he thought.

  “You don’t even know what’s going on,” Katy said.

  “Oh, I think Jimmy called it correctly enough,” Hector said. He nudged the car heater up a notch as he saw Shannon shiver. “For whatever reasons, you two are turning witnesses for Senator Kefauver. The whole breathless world is awaiting those hearings like they’re a poor man’s Gone With the Wind. Any bar or pub with one of those television sets is packed to bustin’ with elbow-benders fixing to gawk at the big crazy show unfolding. So I figure for two pretty women who could hand up Vito Scartelli and his crew, old bucktoothed Estes would pull out all the stops. New identities, maybe a little house in a quaint and remote corner of Canada or down in coastal Mexico. Maybe even one-way tickets to Europe and some seed money to put down roots in some forgotten corner of the Old World. Close enough to actual facts?” Hector smiled in the rearview mirror. “Will it stand?”

  Hector searched Meg’s blue eyes with his. As he watched her in the rearview mirror, he saw Meg and Katy exchange nods. “Close enough,” Meg said. “But we have to get to Kefauver, first. That’s looking to be even harder than we expected, based on what just happened.”

  Jimmy lit a cigarette and shrugged. “That hoodlum, Joe, he wondered whether Hec and I might be Kefauver-sent sentries. Begs the question, why don’t you two have some official escort? Why didn’t Estes detail a crew to bring you ladies safely in?”

  “He was supposed to,” Katy said. “They were to pick us up at noon. They didn’t. Instead, Joe and his crew turned up in the lobby.”

  Jimmy said, “You in touch with Kefauver directly?”

  “Never,” Katy said. “We were working through an FBI man in Cleveland,” Meg said. “He was in charge of bringing us in. We should call him.”

  “Or maybe you shouldn’t,” Hector said. “I mean, he hasn’t exactly distinguished himself today, and this was only step number one. You’re both still relatively low-profile. Messing this earliest phase up doesn’t bode well for the tougher future. So I think we write that FBI fella off. At best he’s incompetent. At worst he’s in Vito’s hip pocket. Hell, he may well have set you up back there by tipping your husband’s muscle.”

  Meg said, “So now you’re making all our decisions, is that it? A writer and a plainclothes cop against the northern Ohio Mafia and crooked G-men? I fear we’re doomed.”

  “Haven’t said yet we’re taking on your problem as our own,” Jimmy said. “But if we do, you’ll be lucky to have us.”

  Hector glanced over at Jimmy. “Thought you had unfinished business here in Youngstown.”

  “Looks to be another dead-end already,” Jimmy said. “It’s kept this many decades, Hec. And Cleveland? Well, you know…”

  Cleveland was Jimmy’s home, his inevitable next destination. Cleveland was Jimmy’s city.

  He said, “What about you, Hec? You know, the two of us together might stand something like a dim chance.” This silly grin on his face. Hector owed Jim this one. Similar circumstances in Europe during World War II had found Hector pleading to Jimmy for help with the plight of a young Jewish orphan.

  Jimmy had stepped up under circumstances more circumspect men would have bolted from. Hector had asked Jimmy in nearly the same words to ride shotgun across occupied France, pursued by the might of the Nazi army.

  Hector smiled and shook his head. “I am sorely at ends, Jimmy. Signed another two-book contract in New York and handed over two complete manuscripts on the spot. Got a backlog of works, presently. So I’ve certainly got some time to spare.”

  Jimmy put a hand on Hector’s shoulder and patted. “Badge doesn’t leave me much choice, Hec. But you’ve got options. You do know what you’d be throwing in against? You do this with open eyes?”

  What was the Mob compared to the goddamned Nazis? Hector’s waved a dismissive hand. “It’s no great thing. So, we go to Cleveland?”

  Jimmy squeezed Hector’s shoulder. “Yes, boyo, we go to Cleveland. By the time we get there through all this snow and probable detours for closed roads along the way, I figure we’ll have had the time to formulate some plan as to what to do next.”

  Rubbing his jaw, Hector checked the rearview mirror again. Meg and Katy were taking it all in. Katy said, “We were supposed to be taken to Cleveland and questioned there. Then we were to be sent on by train to Washington and Mr. Hoover and his men, prior to seeing the senator.”

  Hector whistled. “J. Edgar himself, eh? No joking?”

  “So they promised,” Meg said.

  “Funny thought—I mean old John Edgar now racing to get out in front of this mob stuff,” Jimmy said. “For years, for decades, really, Hoover has denied the existence of a Mafia. But now with the Kefauver hearings, he’s got himself in a public relations bind, one supposes.”

  The little girl said, “I’m hungry.”

  Katy said, “She can wait.” In the mirror, Hector saw Meg give Katy another look. Anger there. Irritation, sure, but something else he couldn’t yet define. He asked, “When was the last time the child had food?”

  Meg searched Hector’s eyes in the mirror; hard to read her expression. “Yesterday afternoon. These past several hours, well, there’s never been a chance.”

  Christ. “She must really be starving then,” Hector said. “We need to remedy that, pronto. We’ll hit a drive-in. Stay warm in the car.”

  “And keep us prisoners in the bargain,” Katy said, an edge in her voice.

  “There is that,” Hector said. “But we have to deal with a tail, too. Need to shake him.”

  Meg said, “She desperately needs to eat.” Then Hector’s last statement sunk in. Her eyes widened. She said, “Wait, there’s someone following us?”

  “Pretty sure, and right from the hotel parking lot,” Hector said.

  Jimmy grunted
and said, “The gray Olds, three cars back?”

  “I do think so,” Hector said.

  “Had my eye on him, too,” Jimmy said. “There’s little doubt it’s so if we both seized on him.”

  “More of Vito’s men,” Katy said, sounding defeated.

  “Doubtful,” Hector said.

  Katy said, “Why not? Why doubtful?”

  Jimmy turned around in his seat. He pushed his hat back on his head with two thick fingers. “Because no guinea hoodlum would be caught dead in such a drab car. Not the Ohio flavor of hoodlum, anyway. They get a little gelt and in a jiffy they get notions of grandeur. Get above their raisings. They pour it all into their wheels and threads. At least their shoes…”

  Katy said, “Who is following us, then?”

  “Time will tell,” Hector said. He thought, And all of us will surely not like the answer. Hector chewed his lip. Hell, probably certainly that’ll be so, he concluded.

  4

  They found a Don Juan’s drive-in between Youngstown and Boardman. The comely carhops wore puffy coats with fur-lined hoods and big boots. Their usual roller-skates and saucy short shorts had been swept away with the November blizzard. Once again, Hector rued the wicked weather.

  He ordered up several hamburgers, baskets of wavy fries and Coca Colas. While they waited, Jimmy and Hector parked their backsides on the warm hood of the idling Chevy and lit up a couple of cigarettes. The gray Olds was parked in a service station across the street.

  “Sitting here like this,” Jimmy said, “we could just be giving them time to gather resources or forces, Hec.”

  “If they’re official, we might be doing that,” Hector said. “If they’ve got a radio in that car. But like you, I already figure they are official. But they’ve got no antenna on that car that would support any kind of radio to worry us, right?”

  “Those are also rental tags,” Jimmy said, spewing smoke. “So I suppose I concur.”

  Hector nodded. “So you also figure we sit and eat?”

  “Figure one of us does that,” Jimmy said. “Figure the other one of us sneaks up on them. But then what?”

  “Figure I’ll figure that out when I do it,” Hector said. “Try and keep my burger warm. I’ll wolf it down on the lam. But first, a distraction of some kind would serve the cause.”

  “Done,” Jimmy said. He began to whistle “The Parting Glass” as Hector drifted away.

  ***

  First Hector walked toward the drive-in’s interior, like he was maybe headed to the can. He slipped around back and then jogged a block through snow flurries. Hector crossed the street and made his way around to the back of the service station.

  Hiding behind an air pump, Hector looked over the Olds and its occupants. The two men inside looked husky and Federal enough. Hector surely wouldn’t want to tangle with them individually, let alone in tandem.

  A tow truck was parked about ten feet off the Olds’ rear fender. Hector cast a look around the scene. Jimmy was out in front of the Chevy with the hood up, pretending to futz around while chewing his lip. The Feds seemed to focus their attention on Jimmy.

  The service station attendant was busy with an elderly female customer. That exchange looked heated, fingers in faces and spittle spraying.

  Hector bit his lip and took another look at that tow truck, then made up his mind. He released the brake on the towline and tugged loose about fifteen feet of metal cord.

  Ducking down, he made his way to the back of the Olds and rolled onto his back, sliding under the car on the icy pavement. Quietly as he could, Hector wrapped a couple turns of towline around the Olds’ rear axle and secured it with the big rusty hook. He wriggled back out from under the Olds and crouched his way back to the truck.

  Hector re-engaged the towline brake and crept back around behind the station, brushing snow off his back and ass. He shoved his hands into his pants pockets and trotted back around the block to the drive-in. As he crossed the street, Hector stole a look back at the gray Olds. He hoped for taxpayers’ sake the Feds had forked over for rental insurance.

  ***

  “Ho-ho, probably bent their axle,” Jimmy said, looking back over his shoulder in delight at the disabled Oldsmobile. “Particularly with you fleeing the scene with such gratuitous speed and forcing those hapless lads to do likewise. So puckish, you can be. Were they Feds, Hector?”

  “Quite probably,” he said.

  Jimmy winced. “Then fond as you are of this fine car, Hec, I suggest we change wheels.”

  “No,” Hector said. “I don’t think they could do much with that information that they haven’t already done by now. Not standing back as they’ve been. Suspect by now they have my identity off the hotel desk clerk. They saw what almost happened with that thug back in the hotel lot and didn’t raise a finger to help us or to arrest us for putting down that torpedo. As Federals go, these fellas seem rather passive to me, even when bullets are flying with terminal intent.”

  “Righty, then,” Jimmy said. “I suppose I concur again. At least so far as your logic goes.”

  Hector checked the rearview mirror. The women were silent. Shannon suddenly said, “Mister!”

  “Hector,” Hector said.

  Shannon said, “Mister Hector! I need to go to the bathroom real bad!”

  “Ah, that’s grand, isn’t it?” Jimmy shook his head, grinning crookedly. More déjà vu.

  “Just let me find a filling station,” Hector said. Two-tenths of a mile later, he palmed into the lot of a Sinclair station. A big green Brontosaurus statue loomed on the station’s rooftop. Hector unlocked the passenger-side rear door from the outside. He said to Meg, “You take her. We’ll wait.”

  Katy leaned down where she could see Hector’s face. Her eyes were blazing. “I’m her mother.”

  “Precisely why you’re staying here,” Hector said. He was distracted a bit by the expression on Meg’s face. Anger? Confusion?

  Either way, Hector couldn’t yet read it. So he pressed on with Katy: “You and Shannon together? I figure that pairing for more of a real flight risk. Meg and Shannon together? Not nearly so much. Sorry, Kate, but it’s the way things are going to be, at least presently. Once we feel you’ve all lost the impulse to rabbit, things could change.” Hector let his voice trail off on what he intended to sound like a hopeful note.

  He held out a hand and Meg took it. He drew her up out of the backseat. “Good to stretch, huh, Meg?”

  She shrugged and put out her other hand to the little girl. “Come on, Shannon,” she said.

  “Please, try to be fast,” Hector said softly to Meg. “There’s only one real road out of this town on the way to Cleveland and those boys in the Olds are going to rightly figure we’re on it. Afraid that seconds count, now.”

  Meg nodded. Standing next to her he saw how tall she was. How tall she stood with the heels on, anyway. Her sexy shoes raised her up to about five-ten, maybe five-eleven.

  She said, “Thank you, Hector, really. Clearly we’re in over our heads.” Meg hesitated, then said, “Even with you two helping us, frankly, I’m not very hopeful.”

  “That’s okay,” Hector said. He admired her hard-eyed honesty. He said rather dopily, and very falsely, “I’ve got hope to spare, darlin’.”

  She smiled—one filled with doubt. Maybe even a bit rueful. Meg said, “I don’t know about that, but you’ve certainly got confidence to burn. You’re a cocky, fool-hearty man.”

  “That’s me all over,” Hector said. “Get a move on now. Hustle, won’t you two? It’s a hundred miles to Cleveland, give or take, and we’re in the snow-belt. Hell, roads out this way may never have been cleared after that wind-driven pile that fell around these parts on Turkey Day. Given all that, I’d rather make Cleveland before nightfall.”

  He watched the dishy moll, swaying on her stiletto heels, carefully crossing the slick lot to ask the attendant for the restroom key. Shannon kept looking up and pointing at the big dinosaur model atop the station. Watching t
hem from behind, Hector was stuck by how pale the little girl’s hair was, nearly as yellow-white as that of the gangster’s mistress.

  Sliding back behind the wheel, Hector rubbed his hands together and blew into them to warm fingers.

  “We have some time alone now, Katy,” Jimmy said. “Now would be the time for frank talk, away from the child’s innocent ears. For starters, what did you tell this FBI man that you were prepared to give the Kefauver committee?”

  Katy stared at her gloved hands. No hesitation: “Everything. Names of his lieutenants, phony fronts for my husband’s various so-called enterprises.” A long pause ensued while she considered her hands. Then, “And a ledger.”

  Jimmy sighed. “Any of that would be more than plenty for your husband to sign your death warrants. And what’s in that ledger, Katy dear?”

  “Names. Account numbers. All the kinds of things you’d probably expect. My husband’s memory has never been particularly good, and now it’s only getting worse. Dementia runs in his family, and it seems he’s reaching that age. He repeats himself constantly. He gets furious when he’s called on it, but in more lucid moments he grudgingly registers it’s a problem. So he writes things down these days. He writes down everything. He does that all the time.”

  A low whistle. “That would make him an exceptionally rare and dangerous duck in his sordid line of work,” Jimmy said. “It makes him a real risk to this heathen brethren. How’d you wrest such a dangerous document from hubby’s blood-stained hands?”

  “I hired a man,” Katy said. “We made it look like a robbery, like a break-in at our house. I sacrificed some money and some of my jewelry to further the illusion. My hired man got me the ledger, and, essentially, all the contents of the safe in our bedroom.”

  Hector said, “But your ruse didn’t fool Vito?”

  “Not for long, it seems,” Katy said, bitterly. “What are we going to do in Cleveland?”