Backup Men

by Ross Thomas

  “Numbered?”

  “Of course.”

  “That would give us about two days,” Kragstein said.

  Scales looked up at him again. “To do what?”

  “To withdraw the money.”

  “You’re going through with it, aren’t you?” Padillo said.

  Kragstein gave him a brief glance. “Of course. There’s going to be a slight change, however.”

  “What change?” Scales asked.

  “Your share will now be one million instead of four and a half million. Agreed?”

  Scales hesitated only for a moment. “Agreed,” he said.

  “How about your buddy over there?” Gitner said.

  “Ask him,” Scales said.

  “How about you, king?” Gitner said.

  The king raised his head and looked at Gitner. “I no longer care,” he said. “I should never have listened to him. Never.”

  “You should have also researched your role a little better,” Padillo said.

  “What did he do wrong?” Kragstein asked. He sounded quite interested.

  “Prayers and fish,” Padillo said. “He was supposed to be a devout Catholic. Anyone who’d spend five years in a monastery would be. I saw him pray once. He didn’t cross himself. I don’t think he knows how. In New York we had veal on Friday. He ate it. I don’t care what the Vatican says, a really hard-nosed Catholic wouldn’t and that’s what he was supposed to be.”

  “That’s thin, Padillo,” Kragstein said.

  “That just started me wondering,” Padillo said. “When they ran out on us I became sure. If he’d been for real, he would have run to the police regardless of what he thought of them. When he didn’t, he had to have something to hide. I was fairly sure I knew what it was.”

  “It sounds good now anyway,” Gitner said.

  “I don’t think it matters a damn how it sounds,” Padillo said. “What matters now is what happens next.”

  “To you,” Kragstein said.

  “That’s right. To me.”

  “We’ll have to think of something, won’t we?”

  24

  THEY MADE the king and Scales help Wanda walk down eight flights of stairs to the basement of the building. She threw up twice on the way. We stopped before a small room in the basement, not much more than eight by ten, that contained a desk and three chairs which looked as if they’d been salvaged from one of the abandoned offices upstairs.

  The door to the room was made of steel and it had a metal bar with a hole in its end that could be swung down and padlocked into place so that nobody could get in. If somebody was inside and the bar was down, it wouldn’t matter about the padlock. They couldn’t get out.

  The king and Scales helped Wanda into the room. They turned her around, pushed her into one of the chairs, and then backed off quickly, as if glad to be done with a distasteful chore. She was bent over from the waist, her hands clasped hard against her middle, her head almost touching her knees. She made no sound.

  The room was lit with a weak bulb in a ceiling fixture. The king and Scales came out of the room and stood near Gitner. They looked uneasy, frightened, and—I thought—a little embarrassed. Kragstein moved into the room and over to Wanda. He shifted his revolver to his left hand and with his right grasped her pale blond hair and jerked her head up. She still made no sound. She simply stared at him with those cold blue eyes. If there were no tears in them, I thought I could see plenty of hate.

  “What arrangements have you made?” Kragstein said.

  She ran her tongue over her lips. “It’s a full-dress affair. The boards of directors, their chairmen, the presidents of the companies. There’ll also be assorted guests. Wives, I think. Other company officials.”

  “Reporters? TV?”

  “No. But they’ll have sound cameras. They’re going to make a film on what the transaction will mean to Llaquah. The signing of the agreement will be part of it. I specified no press, but they may send out film clips later.”

  “When will they sign?”

  “At ten tomorrow morning. Or this morning. On the twenty-ninth floor of the headquarters on Bush Street. They’re to be there by nine thirty.”

  “Whom should they ask for?”

  “Arnold Briggs. He’s head of public relations.”

  “What security arrangements did you request?”

  “I told them to make it tight. They’ll probably use private detectives from one of the larger firms.”

  “That means Gitner and I can’t get in.”

  “Scales could get you in.”

  Kragstein abruptly let go of her head and she dropped it back down near her knees and started to make small retching sounds.

  Kragstein turned toward the door and motioned with his revolver. “Bring them in,” he said to Gitner.

  I moved before Gitner could prod me with his revolver again. Padillo followed and when we were in the room he looked around and selected a worn swivel chair to sit in. I took what was left—a golden oak thing that had one of its arms missing. Padillo tilted back in his chair and looked first at Gitner, then at Kragstein.

  “When do you do it?” he said.

  “Not now and not here,” Kragstein said. “We don’t want you to be found for a while.”

  Padillo nodded as if he considered Kragstein’s reasoning sound. “It’s a big bay,” he said.

  “That’s what you would use, wouldn’t you?”

  “That’s what I would use,” Padillo said.

  “Before or after it’s signed?”

  Padillo seemed to think about it. “Before.”

  Kragstein looked at his watch. “It’s almost two now. We’ll be coming for you around seven.” He stood there as if waiting for Padillo to say something else. When he didn’t, Kragstein backed from the room, preceded by Gitner. The king and Scales were murmuring to each other and shifting uneasily from one foot to another. When Gitner and Kragstein had backed from the room, one of them told the king and Scales to close the door. The king closed it slowly, staring at us as if trying to memorize what we looked like. Scales didn’t look at us at all.

  We heard the metal bar clang into place. I thought there was a curiously final note about its sound. Padillo swiveled his chair around to look at Wanda. She was still bent over, still clutching her stomach. She had stopped retching.

  “How bad is it, Wanda?” Padillo said.

  “Quite bad,” she said without looking up. “Bending over like this seems to help.”

  “Did he rupture anything?”

  “No,” she said. “I don’t think so.”

  “Can you listen?”

  “I can listen.”

  And that’s what we did for nearly half an hour while Padillo outlined one of his getaway plans that sounded like a sure thing if one or two of us didn’t mind getting shot.

  It took almost an hour to work the nail out of the desk. Padillo found it driven into one of the lower drawers. It had been used by someone who had grown tired of having the drawer come apart. Glue would have been better—more craftsmanlike—or even a small screw, but whoever had owned the desk hadn’t wanted to bother with either so he had nailed the drawer together with the first one he could find—a three-inch finishing nail.

  When we finally got it out, Padillo lit a match and held it to the nail. “Do you think this really does any good?” he asked me.

  “I don’t know, but everybody seems to do it.”

  “Here,” he said, handing it to me. He bent down and rolled up his left trouser leg. I handed him back the nail and then Wanda Gothar and I watched as he drove it into the calf of his left leg.

  He drove it for almost half an inch, biting hard on his lip, the rest of his face screwed up into pain that mingled with determination. I couldn’t have done it. He withdrew the nail and watched the wound bleed. For a puncture, it bled freely.

  “All right, Wanda,” he said.

  Wanda Gothar lay down on the desk. I went around to the other side of it. Padillo
swung his left leg up over Wanda so that his calf was just below her throat. I held his foot. The blood dripped on to Wanda’s dress. We moved it around so that it dripped all over her front. She watched it for a while and then closed her eyes. When the puncture seemed to be coagulating, Padillo poked at it with the nail and it started to bleed again. After ten minutes or so he decided that there was enough blood.

  He swung his leg back down, took out a handkerchief, and bound the puncture tightly. Wanda Gothar sat up and stared down at her bloodied dress. She shook her head and looked up and said, “Have either of you a cigarette?”

  I handed her one and lit it. Then I offered one to Padillo, took one myself, and we sat there smoking silently until Wanda said, “What time is it?”

  I looked at my watch. “Six thirty-five.”

  “How do you feel?” Padillo asked her.

  “Better. Much better.”

  We had gone over it enough so that there was no reason to talk about it anymore. We sat there in silence, not looking at each other, not looking at anything, until we heard the metal bar being drawn. Wanda lay down on the desk. One arm dangled over its edge. Her head lolled back. She turned herself slightly on one side so that her blood-soaked front faced the door. She looked as if someone had dumped her dead on the desk which is just how we wanted her to look.

  The door opened and Kragstein stood there with his revolver drawn. Gitner was at his side. Kragstein looked at Wanda, then at us, then back at Wanda.

  “What’s wrong with her?” he said.

  “You hit her too hard,” I said. “She started hemorrhaging about two hours ago. We couldn’t stop it. She’s dead.”

  Kragstein didn’t seem to care. “You’ll have to carry her out,” he said.

  Padillo and I rose and went to opposite sides of the desk. Each of us put an arm under Wanda’s knees and our other arm around her back. We picked her up. She made herself dead weight and let her head roll back. She was a good actress.

  We carried her through the door. Kragstein was on our left pointing his revolver at Padillo. Gitner was on our right. Padillo murmured, “Now,” and we hurled Wanda at Gitner. She landed on him kicking and clawing. I dived at his legs, slamming into them with my shoulder, bowling him over. Wanda was still on top of him when I came up in a roll. Gitner tried to slam her head with his revolver. I kicked his hand and the gun sailed across the room. I grabbed Wanda’s arm and jerked her off Gitner. “Go,” I yelled and shoved her toward the stairs. She stumbled, recovered, and darted toward them. I aimed another kick at Gitner, but he rolled away. I spotted a door that looked at if it led somewhere and ran toward it. I looked back once. Padillo was locked with Kragstein. I couldn’t tell who was winning.

  I went through the door, saw a narrow flight of stairs, and ran for them. I was halfway up when Gitner lunged for my left ankle, caught it, and gave it a hard yank. I fell forward and kicked back with my right leg. I hit something and my left ankle came free. I scrambled on up the stairs, puffing a bit now. Gitner was a few feet behind me. I doubt that he was puffing at all.

  At the top of the stairs there was another door, a heavy, metal one. I pulled it open and went through. In front of me, across a wide expanse of wooden flooring, a sea of black and white faces stared up at me. There was a podium with a man standing behind it, his back to me. He turned quickly when a few members of his audience pointed in my direction. When he raised his arms in benediction and called, “Welcome, Brother,” I realized that I was onstage in the old Criterion Theater at the early morning session of Crists Own Home Gospil Misson.

  I ran toward the man’s welcoming arms. But he was looking past me now. “You, too, Brother!” he called. “Jesus bids you welcome!”

  I looked back. Gitner was racing across the stage at me. Some of the audience, those who were sober enough to see, gave a faint cheer. Gitner was grinning, as if he looked forward to what he was about to do.

  Gitner was too good for me, Padillo had said. Too fast, too tricky. I backed into the man who had welcomed me. “Go away,” I said and he said, “Right you are, Brother,” and started moving stage left. Gitner wasn’t running anymore. He moved toward me slowly, his arms and hands almost chest high, all ready to maim or kill, whichever seemed more promising. He grinned as he came. Then he stopped grinning and said, “This is gonna be fun.”

  I had backed into the podium. I moved to my left. I risked a glance at the podium, hoping there would be a heavy pitcher of water. There wasn’t. It contained only a large Bible. I snatched it up and threw it at Gitner and then dived in low after it, praying a little as I went.

  His hands flew up to protect his face from the Bible and my head hit him hard just below the breastbone. It knocked him off balance, but not before he had brought his clenched hands down on my left shoulder. If he had hit my neck, he might have broken it. We fell and I landed on top of him and it was like landing on three wildcats. His left thumb found my right eye and he was digging into it and chopping at me with his right hand when I brought my knee up into his crotch. He screamed and I jumped up. He got up faster than he should, faster than anyone should, so I kicked him in the pit of the stomach. I kicked him hard and the audience yelled its approval. One man screamed, “Kill the son of a bitch!”

  Gitner must have had a cast-iron stomach. He kept on coming. He even grinned a little. I aimed a left at his heart. It was a good left and I put everything I had into it. Gitner moved back half a step, turned sideways, caught my fist, pulled me over and down, and broke my arm.

  I was on the floor looking up at him, looking up at death really, when Padillo landed on his back. There was nothing sportsmanlike about it. Padillo got his left forearm around Gitner’s neck, dug a knee into his back, and with the heel of his palm under Gitner’s nose forced his head back until the neck snapped. Gitner died on his way to the floor. The audience roared its delight.

  Padillo looked down at Gitner and then over at me. “You were out of your class.”

  “I wasn’t doing too bad until he broke my arm.”

  Padillo shook his head. “You should have stuck to your original plan,” he said as he helped me up.

  “What?”

  “You should have sat on him and squashed him flat.”

  25

  WHEN THE intern with the blond goatee at Emergency Hospital Central over on Polk Street asked, “What happened to you?” I thought a moment and then said, “I fell out of a tree.”

  Padillo and I had left the Criterion Theater stage hurriedly, going back down the stairs to the basement, past the sprawled body of Kragstein, and up another flight of stairs that led to an alley. As we had moved past Kragstein, I said, “He almost died rich.”

  “He died poor in a back alley hole in San Francisco. That’s what happens when you stay in it too long.”

  “The smart ones get out?”

  “The smart ones never get in.”

  We had caught a cab just as two squad cars spilled a load of uniformed and plainclothes police under the Criterion’s marquee.

  “Some wino got his,” the cabdriver said wisely. “He probably got stabbed over a quarter.”

  “I heard it was a little more than that,” I said.

  Padillo had dropped me off at the hospital at 7:45. I only yelled once when the intern set my arm which he said had a “nice clean little fracture.”

  “It hurts like hell,” I said.

  “I’ll give you some pills for the pain.”

  After he had enveloped my forearm with a cast, he gave me a small white envelope that said, “One every four hours if pain persists.” I looked inside. There were four white pills. I swallowed them all, but the pain persisted.

  At 9:15 Padillo returned to the hospital carrying a large oblong cardboard box under his arm. “How bad is it?” he said.

  “They took X rays. It didn’t splinter, but it still hurts.”

  He opened the box and took out a gray gabardine topcoat. “You can drape this around you and they won’t notice that yo
u’re dressed like a bum.”

  I looked down at my stained and wrinkled suit. “A little seedy,” I agreed. “Who are we going to impress?”

  “The oil crowd,” he said. “I also bought one for myself.”

  “What about a razor?”

  “I picked up an electric one.”

  “You think of everything.”

  “Somebody has to,” he said.

  After I shaved, I put on the topcoat, wearing it like a cape. Padillo had buttoned his up to the neck. Outside the hospital, we caught another cab and Padillo gave the driver the Bush Street address.

  “What about Wanda?” I said.

  “Wanda can take care of herself.”

  “Like a cat.”

  “That’s right,” he said. “Like a cat.”

  I wasn’t old enough to remember it, but there had been a time when the oil company building on Bush Street had been the tallest in the city with its twenty-two stories. It had been built in 1923. Seven years later its principal rival built its own headquarters just down the street. It rose twenty-nine stories—out of spite, some said.

  “What do you plan to do?” I said, as we got out of the cab in front of the twenty-nine-story building. “Wait till the last moment and then rise from the audience and say, ‘Mr. Chairman, I think there is something you should know about the King of Llaquah’?”

  “You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”

  “I always did have a keen sense of drama.”

  “Let’s wait and see what happens,” Padillo said.

  “You think the king and Scales will really go through with it?”

  “They’ll try. Wouldn’t you?”

  “I don’t know,” I said.

  The twenty-ninth floor was nicely paneled in oak and there was a rich carpet on the floor of the corridor which was peopled by half a dozen competent-looking men who wore dark suits and dubious expressions and who wanted to know who we were and why we thought we should be there.

  “Your public relations man, Mr. Briggs, should have cleared us,” Padillo said. One of the men who had questioned us ran his eyes down a list that he carried on a clipboard. He made a couple of checks with a pencil and nodded at the other man. “They’re cleared,” he said.