Hector hoisted my glass. “Thank you for your service, son.”
They toasted each other. That’s when Hector saw the stranger—a swarthy, husky man in a tight-fitting wool overcoat and gray fedora. He was seated at the end of the bar where he could keep Hector in line of sight.
Hector guessed he had gotten so engrossed in talking to Rod he hadn’t seen this new bastard drift in. The goon was hired muscle, there was no question of that.
Hector poured Rod and himself a little more beer. He looked around and saw there was a back door opening onto to a dimly lit beer patio, currently closed for the season. The door looked like a still-working exit. Hector said, “Rod, that business I told you about?”
Rod smiled, knowingly taking his measure. “You mean that favor that keeps growing in scope?”
“That’s just the one,” Hector said, smiling. “You mentioned those Kefauver probes…”
“They are the talk of the nation,” Rod said. “They’re selling beaucoup televisions, I hear.” Rod blew some smoke up into the light above them, considering Hector. “Why do you raise ’em?”
“Because I’m trying to get a couple of women to Dayton, to the Kefauver counsel,” Hector said. “They’re going to testify against some northeastern Ohio mob types.”
Rod smiled, incredulous. “God, how in the hell did you draw that duty?”
Hector shrugged. “Like I said, a favor kind of went crosswise on me.”
“Where are you going with this, Hector?”
“We’ve been pursued these past few days, chased hard and by some pretty rough trade,” Hector said. “Now, please don’t turn around, Rod. Let me just say since you and I started talking, one of them wandered in and took up a seat at the bar. I’d dearly love to know how they found me here. I thought we’d shaken all our tails.”
Rod nodded. He looked tense, but maybe game. “You figure together we can take this guy?”
“Not precisely the direction I was heading, buddy,” Hector said. “I was merely going to ask you to leave with me. We’d stand up, put on our coats and hats and exit through that back door. Once we got out there, you and I would swap coats and hats. You’d trudge on through the snow a ways, letting him follow. I’d follow him, then take him down, pronto.”
Rod didn’t hesitate, bless him: “Sure. I’ll do it.”
Bravado there in his voice… and a little fear.
But Rod was game for it.
Hector had a knack for inspiring that kind of impulsive loyalty and intrepidity in a certain kind of man—usually younger men who foolishly admired his writing.
Hem had the same flavor of dark gift.
“I can’t lie to you, kiddo,” Hector said. “Bastard is almost certainly armed. I can’t deny there’d be some real risk to you in doing this favor for me, buddy.”
Rod nodded. “I’ve read a lot about you, Hector. I trust you to see nothing happens to me. Just tell me you are armed.” A jagged smile: “Really, you are, right?”
“Very.” Hector pulled back his sports jacket to reveal his holster and Colt.
Rod drained his beer. “Then let’s do this before I lose my reckless buzz,” he said.
Hector smiled and said, “I’m going to owe you, and I mean deep, my friend.”
Rod shook his hand and said, “Then just don’t lose my address. Remember to send some of that precious script work my way. That’s how we even this out.”
“Swear, kid.”
The younger writer moved across the room to fetch his coat and hat. They both dressed to go outside, taking their time so the torpedo at the bar could get a good look at Hector’s hat and coat. Rod wasn’t near enough Hector’s height, but the older writer figured out there in the snow with the bare trees and twilight and no familiar reference points Rod would pass well enough.
The two writers slid out the back door, snow squalling in through the crack. Outside, they quickly swapped coats and hats. Rod set off alone across rear lot. Hector crouched behind a big old pin oak and waited.
He closely watched Rod: the aspiring screenwriter walked with a pronounced limp. That gimpy tread was the vestige of a war injury Hector guessed.
If Rod still had the insomnia, he must have seen some pretty nasty action.
The back door of the pub opened and a shaft of light slid across the iced-over lot.
That crunching sound of heavy, determined steps on the crisp snow.
Hector didn’t want to take any chances of getting Rod hurt and there would be no sneaking up on the bastard, not on that damned, hard-packed snow. He slid out his old Colt and raised the Peacemaker over his head.
As the man passed by the tree where the novelist had taken shelter, Hector brought his gun down. He heard bone crunch and teeth fracture. Hector swung the butt of his Colt down again against the back of the stranger’s head and the man went down, hard.
Hector had fleetingly hoped to question the son of a bitch. He turned the man over and the low light from the moon didn’t reassure him. Hector felt for a pulse.
Nada.
Uh-oh.
It must have been that second blow to the base of his skull, Hector figured. It always looked so easy in the B-movies, always seemed so straight-forward and reliable in the lesser pulp novels to knock some son of a bitch out cold with a blow to the base of the skull.
Rod crunched back through the snow toward Hector, favoring his injured leg. “That went well, yes?”
“Very well,” Hector said, trying to act nonchalant. Hector slipped the man’s gun into his own waistband and rolled him over onto his face so Rod wouldn’t get a good look. “Let’s switch back,” Hector said, standing and shrugging off Rod’s too-small coat. Rod pulled off Hector’s coat and hat and passed them back. Hector put them on and said, “Thanks a million, Rod. You’ve really done me the hell of a favor, buddy.”
Rod said, “Let me help you get him. Where are we taking him?”
“Uh, nowhere. I’m just going to sit here with him after I duck inside and call my contact with the Kefauver committee. They’ll send someone to pick him up. They will, you know, process him.”
“Must be real nice to have friends in high places,” Rod said, rubbing his arms.
Hector smiled. “Friends? That’s quite overstating it.”
“You better phone those men then,” Rod said. “Otherwise he might freeze to death.”
“And we surely can’t have that. Let’s get back in there, and I’ll make that call.” Hector paused and squeezed Rod’s arm. “Oh, and one other thing, Rod, you earn yourself major points with me for not saying something like, ‘God, this is just like one of your books.’”
Rod smiled. “Never even crossed my mind to say that.” Definitely Hector’s kind of writer. He said his good-byes to Rod and then borrowed the phone behind the bar and placed a collect call to D.C.
Agent Tilly answered his desk phone. “Jesus,” Hector said, “what lousy hours you keep.”
“Doing a little OT,” Tilly said. “Trying to get some money scraped together to help lighten the damage of the holidays. My wife spoils the kids rotten at Christmas.”
“Let’s cut to the holiday chase: I just killed another mobster,” Hector said. “I’m in Yellow Springs, Ohio. The body is behind a pub—the only pub—on the town’s main drag. It’s some old stagecoach stop. The bastard was seen following me and another fella out. You do not want the local cops poking around this mess and maybe pinching me.”
“And why is that, Hector?”
“’Cause I’ll work my mouth to save my sorry ass. I’ll do that enthusiastically, Ed.”
“No threats needed, Hector. Can you secret the body away somewhere, Lass?”
“It’s snowy here. Tell your guys to look alongside a big old oak for a fresh drift.”
Hector hung up and went out back again to toss snow over the dead man.
Of course, calling Tilly insured they’d probably recover their FBI tails.
At least this next crew, if tied to Til
ly, would likely be straight arrows.
Fucking J. Edgar Hoover.
One day, Hector swore to himself, there’ll be a reckoning with that toad-faced monster.
21
Before he left the bar a last time, Hector talked the bartender into selling him a few bottles of spirits: Jameson, Dewars, Gordons and Bacardi. Sounded like a heady, hi-tone law firm to Hector as he rattled off his booze wish list to the tired-eyed keep.
His arms full, Hector kicked at the door of his friend’s room.
Jimmy unhooked the chain, holstered his forty-five and took the bag from Hector’s arms. The big cop set it on a bed and rooted around inside the poke. After a low whistle, Jimmy said, “Jesus, Hec, what have you done this bloody night that needs this much forgetting? I’m all atremble awaiting word.”
Hector told Jimmy and Eliot what had happened with his now-deceased shadow.
Eliot said, “Katy wouldn’t tip anyone to come and find us. Meg wouldn’t have reason to tip them either, would she?”
In some ways, Hector could almost believe that of increasingly desperate Meg—except for the threat that kind of move would pose to Shannon.
Hector shook his head; Jimmy just watched, chewing his lip.
“It’s possible we could have been tailed,” Hector said to Jimmy. “There’s a lot of holiday traffic now. People on the way to visit granny and gramps or distant parents. Kids returning from college for the holidays. We were always in pretty heavy traffic coming down here.”
“True enough,” Jimmy said. “So I choose to believe we were tailed from this morning’s gunfight and just failed to spot ’em.”
“Me too,” Eliot said. “Let’s go to your room, Hec. The door there opens to the women’s hotel room. We can’t drink all this stuff alone. And we should all stay close now in these last hours. Tactically, it’d be better to barricade and defend a single space. I mean, if that man you took out isn’t alone in town.” Sound enough strategy from an alcoholic. Hector wrapped a hand around the back of Eliot’s neck, squeezed fondly and said, “Let’s go do that.”
***
Katy and Meg sat and drank with them for a while before retiring to get Shannon ready for bed. Meg soon enough drifted back their way. She stretched out on Hector’s bed, crossing her legs at the ankles, nursing a rum and cola. She’d been reading his Key West book, The Last Key. That particular novel was cured in rum, passion and loss. Hector wondered if his writing gave Meg her sudden taste for Cuba Libres.
Eliot said, “After this other, we’re going to go over to the Veteran’s Administration Center and visit our old friend there.”
Their old friend: Jimmy and Eliot’s prime Mad Butcher of Kingsbury Run suspect.
Jimmy said, “You’d be welcome to come, Hec. Your company would even be appreciated. Case is so stale, it could use a fresh perspective. Some… well, friendly dark imagination.”
Hector glanced at Meg. She shrugged.
He said, “We’ll see, Jimmy. God only knows how tomorrow will sort itself out, brothers. Hell, given what we’ve been through, you and Eliot and I may find ourselves subpoenaed. Forced to testify about all these killing runs made at us these past few days.”
“It’s a real possibility,” Eliot said. “I checked my car,” he said suddenly. “I was pleasantly surprised to find fewer bullet holes than expected.”
“Mine came through okay, too,” Hector said. Hell, his car was unscathed.
Eliot said, “It was good luck for us those hoodlums took a shot at those Feds this morning.”
Hector was finally himself a little drunk. He confessed, “Actually, I shot at those FBI agents to invest them in our fight. Figured they’d never know where the pivotal shot came from.” Meg bit her lip, considering that and assessing Hector in some new way.
Jimmy roared and slapped his thigh. “Isn’t that grand! Almost makes the whole bloody hurly-burly worth it.” Jimmy suddenly put a hand to his belly and made a pained face. “All this boozing on a near empty stomach, it’s sorry strategy. Time to call it a night, lads. And lassie.” He held his glass up and winked at Meg.
She raised her glass and said, “I’ve heard an Irishman is never drunk so long as he can grasp a single blade of grass and keep from falling off the face of the earth.”
Jimmy laughed again and struggled to his feet. “Come Eliot, last call has come and gone.” Ness stood and they all tapped glasses. “To tomorrow and all the vile things it may bring,” Jimmy said. He shot-gunned his dregs.
Hector passed him his overcoat for the short walk back to their room. Eliot said, “I’m to call Gibson at nine. We’ll work out last details then. I’ve committed to nothing at this point. That results in less time for any plans to leak to the opposition.”
“I like that thinking,” Hector said. “Very shrewd.” For a juicer, Eliot was proving eerily effective now that the chips were down. Ness was what they called a “high-functioning alcoholic,” Hector guessed. Or maybe it was a kind of muscle memory. And this was Eliot’s former métier after all, the sacred calling Ness never should have abandoned for the sorry business world.
Hector closed the door behind them and slipped on the security chain. Through the door Hector could hear Jimmy laughing and singing in the snow:
The minstrel boy to the wars has gone
In the ranks of death you will find him…
“I love that man,” Meg said. “He’s wonderful.”
“Jimmy?” Hector smiled. “Me too. He may well be my best friend in the world.” Well, the best of Hector’s still-talking friends at any rate.
“Eliot’s okay, too. I bet he was something in his prime.”
“Yeah… sober.” Hector wanted to kick himself for that too easy, too mean joke. Christ but you can be a mean, cynical son of a bitch, Hector thought. Especially when you’re drunk yourself. How do people put up with you? Why on earth do they do that?
Meg ducked her head into the next room and then softly closed the door. She left the lock off. “All is quiet.” She began fiddling with the buttons of her dress. “It’s okay if I spend the night here, isn’t it? I mean, most of the night? Need to be back there in the morning when Shannon wakes up.”
“It’s fine,” Hector said. “I’ll be up at four to write. I can wake you then.” He stepped up closer to her and cupped her chin in big hand. “You holding up fine?”
“Don’t know about fine, but I’m doing okay.”
“You’re sure?”
“Just finish taking off my damn clothes, Hector ’cause my fingers aren’t working so good presently. Get me naked and love me hard. Make me tired enough to sleep without dreams. You can do that, can’t you?”
***
Meg rolled off Hector and onto her side. She propped her head on one hand. Panting, she said, “This place you live in New Mexico, what’s it really like?”
“Rambling, white stucco and a covered second floor porch that wraps all the way around the house,” Hector said, his voice hoarse. “Far too big a place for one man. It sits up against the Rio Grande. I dug an irrigation trench a couple years back. I just lift a board and flood my front yard with run-off from the river to water the grounds.”
“Sounds like you don’t spend much time there.”
“But what time I’m there, I do really love.” That was a mild lie. Place held bittersweet memories…
She rested her head on his chest, raking her fingers through his graying chest hair “I’ve been counting the men you’ve killed for us since Shannon found you in that hotel bar. I’m so sorry for making you do that.”
Hector closed his eyes. “I’ve been to a few wars, Meg. These recent ones I’ve put down, they’re far from my first. And these recent men needed killing long before they crossed my path. They’re far from my conscience, in that sense. So there’s no real sense of guilt. After all, this hasn’t been first blood.” Hector bit his lip. He sighed, deeply. “First blood is a terrible thing, sweetheart. A fierce burden. That’s the killing you spend real t
ime getting over, or maybe being taken down by, slow and hard. Your first kill is a thing you can’t outrun and so you have to conquer.”
“But you were killing for the state, Hector. Soldiers like you were, back in the day, they killed under orders, right? That has to take a toll, too, of course. But I wonder if maybe it’s different if one kills for revenge. Maybe it’s different if one kills for oneself and kills for righteous reasons.”
“Maybe it could be,” Hector said, though he thought he knew better.
“I talked to Jim some more while you were out writing,” Meg said. “I’ve been trying to reconcile things he told me against articles I’ve read about you. Profiles. This novel of yours I’ve been reading, The Last Key, how much of that isn’t made up? The woman in there, was she real?”
The Last Key… a.k.a. Never Send ’Em To the River in some countries, in the UK, for instance. It was Forever’s Just Pretend, elsewhere: some book titles simply didn’t “travel.”
“I don’t care for talking about my writing that way. Don’t much like wagging a finger at what’s invented and what’s drawn from all this.” Hector waved a hand in the dark at the bad old world. “It’s not fair to expect a writer to conduct tours for readers through the country of his own work, you know. It really isn’t fair at all.”
“The woman in that book, though, Brinke, was she real? I mean, I can kind of tell she might have been.”
“Have you finished reading that novel?”
“A few hours ago.”
“Yes, Brinke’s real. She was my first real love. My first wife.”
“And the ending of that novel? Did that really happen as you describe it, too?”
“Sure.” Hector combed her yellow-white hair with his fingers. It happened just like that, he thought. No invention needed, terrible as that was to face.
“My God.” She kissed his throat softly and stroked the comma of hair back from his forehead. “I’m so sorry, darling.”
“All that happened same as your lifetime ago,” Hector said. “Time does help with the loss.” He paused, revised, “Helps with the pain, anyway.”
“I’m still so sorry. And sorry to have dragged you into this bloody mess.” She kissed his chest again. She tried to make a joke. “Maybe you will at least get another sad, sexy book out of all this.”
The Running Kind: A Hector Lassiter novel Page 13
