‘Why’s that?’
‘I don’t think he’s going back and I want them to keep an eye on someone else for a little while.’
Captain Ellis nods. ‘You got it.’
3
They step out of Captain Ellis’s office. Carl pulls the door closed behind them, puts his back against the wall, closes his eyes. He feels a bit sick. It took all the concentration he had to carry out that conversation, to keep focused, to keep his mind from wandering. He feels sweaty and cold. He wants to lie down somewhere and sleep.
His partner puts a hand on his shoulder. ‘You okay?’
‘Let’s go for a drive. I need some fresh air.’
FORTY-SIX
1
Fingers steps through his front door and squints at the bright morning. His head throbs with pain. He took some aspirin after he got off the phone with Eugene, but it hasn’t done any good. At least not yet. This is some bad shit he’s got himself stuck in, and he has no idea how to pull himself out of it.
Well, that’s not entirely true. He knows one way, but he doesn’t want to do it. He doesn’t want to push his friend’s head under as he climbs out. He has to give the police something, they made that clear, and while he could give them Eugene, he knows only a coward would do so. The man is his friend, and he’s ashamed of himself already for what he’s done to him, ashamed of the cowardice he’s displayed. He twice betrayed the man. Eugene would never do to a friend what’s been done to him.
And he doesn’t even know the extent of it.
Fingers hoped he wouldn’t hear from Eugene. If he didn’t hear from him he’d have nothing to tell the cops, no decision to make. They might then go about dismantling his life, probably would, cops being cops, but if he really had no information there’d be nothing he could do about it.
He could take some small comfort in that knowledge. It was done to him; he didn’t do it to himself.
But he did hear from Eugene. The man called him and asked for his help. So now he’s got to figure out what he’s going to do. The police will be back asking questions soon, and he has to know how he’ll deal with that. He has to learn as little as possible about what Eugene is up to while still helping him as much as he can. He’d like to know nothing, the less he knows the less the police can get out of him, but he owes Eugene his help. He got his friend into this by talking to Louis Lynch, and he made it worse by talking to the cops. He’ll be damned if he leaves him to dangle.
Then stop thinking about talking to the police at all. What you need to think about is this. Do you have it in you to do what’s right even if it means the cops tear your life apart? If you do, then don’t worry about anything else. Go help your friend and when the cops come back around with question marks on their faces you tell them to go fuck themselves. If that means they destroy your life, so be it. You’ll be a man, and a man can build a new life. You’ve done it before. What the cops want is for you to be their boy. You fetch water for them once, they’ll never stop coming around with their empty pails.
So, again, the question. Do you have it in you to do what’s right even if it means the cops dismantle your life?
After some time he nods to himself.
Yes, I do.
He walks to his car and slips in behind the wheel. He sits there a moment, staring at the dials on his dashboard. He starts the engine. The radio comes on, playing a Cole Porter tune. He turns it up, turns it up loud.
Yes, I do.
He grabs the transmission handle on the right side of the steering column and yanks it down to drive. He pulls his foot off the brake pedal.
2
Eugene gets to his feet when he hears a car pull into the motel parking lot, its front bumper scraping against the driveway. He walks to the window, pushes the curtain aside, looks out. A cream-colored Chevrolet Bel Air convertible with whitewall tires pulls to a stop beside his motorcycle, Fingers behind the wheel. He swings open the driver’s-side door and steps out. He puts his face momentarily to the sun, his eyes closed, then turns and walks toward the motel room from which Eugene stands watching him.
Eugene lets the curtain fall and turns to Evelyn. She sits silent on the edge of the bed with a sullen expression on her face. Her ankles and wrists are once more taped together. He let her eat breakfast before he did it, but watched her closely, and when she was finished he bound her. She let him do it without a fight, but he knows she’s not beat. A woman like her can’t be beat; she can only be killed.
Stop thinking that way, Eugene. You’re going to figure a way out of that part of it. It won’t come to that.
A knock at the door.
‘I’ll be right back.’
Eugene steps outside to greet his friend, shutting the door behind him.
‘Thanks for coming.’
Fingers nods.
‘Did you find a warehouse we can use?’
‘My guy’s gonna meet us there to hand over the keys.’
He nods his thanks. ‘Now about why I need your car. I didn’t want to tell you over the phone, but-’
Fingers raises a hand and shakes his head.
‘Hold up,’ he says. ‘I need to talk to you about some things before we get into any of that. Need to be straight with you about exactly why you’re in this situation.’
‘What do you mean?’
He looks away from Eugene, rubs his face with both palms.
‘What?’ Eugene takes a step back and squints at his friend.
‘The police stopped by my apartment couple days ago, about an hour after I gave you that pistol. They were asking questions about you.’
‘What did you tell them?’
‘You know what? That’s not the right place to begin. A guy who works for James Manning named Louis Lynch called me last Wednesday asking questions about you. I answered. I didn’t know what Manning had in mind, didn’t know he was gonna frame you for them murders, but Lou asked questions and I answered. So I helped get you into this situation. I’m sorry for that. I wouldn’t do it again. But before I let you tell me anything, I need you to know my part in what happened.’
Eugene nods but says nothing. Then turns and walks away, running his fingers through his hair. He leans against the trunk of a car, does a push up against it, exhales heavily. His one ally in all this turns out to have helped cause the trouble in the first place. Son of a bitch.
It wasn’t on purpose, Eugene.
That’s what he says.
He didn’t have to tell you at all.
He pivots and walks back toward his friend. He stops a couple feet from him, looks him in the eye, searches his face for answers that words can’t provide.
‘What did you tell the police?’
‘Nothing. But they pushed hard and they’ll be back.’
Eugene nods again. He pinches his lower lip and pulls on it.
‘Okay,’ he says, thinking this through. ‘Okay. This might be okay. Next time the cops come around asking you questions, I want you to talk to them. I want you to tell them a story, a mostly true story. Will you do that?’
Fingers swallows, but doesn’t respond.
‘I need you. I’ve already begun something, and I don’t know how to finish it without your help.’
‘What did you do, Eugene?’
‘I’ll explain everything, but let’s take care of this warehouse business first. Back your car up to the door and pop the trunk.’
He pulls his gloves from his back pocket and slips his hands into them.
Fingers watches him put the gloves on, then looks up, looks him in the eye, and says, ‘What for?’
3
Eugene walks toward Evelyn with a damp pair of panties in his hand. She backs away from him, pushing herself across the mattress with her bound legs, telling him don’t you put those in my mouth, Eugene, don’t do that. Please. I’ll be quiet. I’ll be quiet.
‘I’m sorry, Evelyn,’ Eugene says. ‘I can’t trust you.’
He shoves them into her mouth, stuffing t
hem down with a thumb.
4
Fingers stands outside. He wants to help Eugene out of the mess he helped get him into, but feels sick about it. He’s a professional middleman, and that means staying disinterested. It means not getting involved. But that’s ridiculous, isn’t it? He’s been involved since his telephone rang last Wednesday, and on the wrong side as well. All he’s doing now is regaining some of his self-respect.
He makes his own decisions, goddamn it. He doesn’t let fear drive him.
The motel-room door swings open. Eugene drags a tall redheaded woman from the depths of the interior. She fights him as well as she can, but her hands and legs are bound. He picks her up as she thrashes and carries her through the door. It’s what threshold crossings would look like if they were done after divorces as well as weddings. He drops her into the waiting jaw of the trunk and slams the lid down. She thrashes about inside the car, kicks at the trunk lid — and after a while stops.
‘Who was that?’
‘Evelyn Manning.’
For a moment Fingers cannot speak. Then: ‘Jesus Christ, man.’
‘What?’
‘The Man is gonna kill us.’
‘He was gonna kill me anyway.’
‘Well, motherfucker, now he’s gonna kill me, too.’
Eugene shakes his head.
‘Not if this works.’
‘Not if what works?’
Eugene tells him.
5
Eugene follows the Chevrolet Bel Air south through Hollywood and downtown Los Angeles to a small industrial city called Vernon, a place where children do not play on the streets, where wives do not garden in their front yards while flirting with door-to-door salesmen, and where husbands do not come home with loosened ties hanging from their necks after working comfortably in air-conditioned office buildings.
This isn’t a city for living.
Foul black pillars of smoke hold up the sky. Tractor trailers backed up to docks are loaded and unloaded by sweaty-gloved men with pallet trucks. Farmers from the surrounding areas haul dead livestock toward the rendering plant. And everywhere the sounds of people getting hard, stinking work done; the kind of necessary but ugly work the rest of society would rather not know about.
Eventually they arrive at an empty warehouse.
The previous tenant’s sign has been removed, but the words can still be read in relief against the filth covering the rest of the crumbling stucco facade.
B amp; K Lumber Co.
Construction Supplies
They drive around the corner and pull into the back lot. A few disintegrating tractor trailers sit in front of the closed and padlocked dock doors. Dead weeds jut from cracks in the asphalt. Weathered gray two-by-fours and four-by-fours are stacked willy-nilly in the parking lot like pyres awaiting sacrifices.
Near one of those piles of wood a thin blond man in a white linen suit and sunglasses leans against his Cadillac smoking a cigarette, a reddish mustache resting uncomfortably on his lip, like a rash. He raises his hand in greeting, shows his white horse teeth, and watches them park.
Eugene lights a cigarette and watches Fingers step from his vehicle.
‘Wait here. I’ll take care of it.’
Eugene nods, then watches as his friend struts toward the man in the white suit. The two talk a moment and make an exchange before the man in the white suit shows his horse teeth once more, gets into his Cadillac, and starts the engine. He drives out to the street and makes a left without even glancing toward Eugene.
Then he’s gone.
Like that: it’s finished.
Fingers walks back toward Eugene, puts a key ring into his hand.
‘The square key is for the front and back doors. Round keys are for the padlocks on the roll-ups.’
Eugene nods.
6
Evelyn hears the key slide into the lock and the lock tumble.
She’s covered in sweat and can smell her own stink filling the confined space in which she’s trapped. She can only breathe through her nostrils — her mouth gagged, the itch of the fabric at the back of her throat making her want to cough — and doesn’t think she’s getting enough oxygen. She feels dizzy. She feels sick.
She can’t believe she let herself go soft. Daddy would never find himself in a situation like this. Daddy doesn’t let his heart tell him anything; doesn’t let his heart lead him anywhere. Only a fool would do such a thing.
The trunk lid swings open.
First thing she sees is bright blue sky. It’s blinding after the darkness of the trunk. Water streams from her eyes. Then a man-shaped silhouette fills the blue, darkness surrounded by a halo of light. It reaches for her.
She pulls back her legs and kicks. Her feet slam into the silhouette’s chest and it stumbles backwards several steps. She slides her way out of the trunk and falls to the hard gray asphalt. She rolls onto her back and pulls herself into a sitting position. She tries to get to her feet but has no leverage with her ankles bound and her hands taped behind her back, no way to pull herself up.
She groans through the gag in her mouth.
Then Eugene reaches for her and picks her up. He drags her, struggling, toward the back door of a warehouse, up five concrete steps, through a blue door. He sets her on hard concrete.
The warehouse is hot, the sun beating down on the corrugated tin roof overhead, a few beams of light shooting through rusted-out holes, illuminating the dust floating through the air. There’s a pile of wood in the far left corner, end-pieces of four to six inches in length. A table saw beside the pile. Shelves line the wall to the right, mostly empty but for a few boxes containing wood screws, finishing nails, and so on. A few pallets are scattered across the floor, and a few rusty pallet trucks.
The concrete floor is cool despite how hot the air is in here.
It feels good on her skin.
She looks at Eugene and he looks back. Neither of them makes a sound for a very long time.
Then he turns and walks away.
7
Eugene walks out to the car and collects Evelyn’s purse and a roll of duct tape from the back seat, thanks Fingers for his help, he really came through, and says I’ll see you later.
‘I hope so,’ Fingers says, and gets into his car.
He pulls his door shut.
Eugene hopes so too, but like his friend, he has his doubts. Still, he’s got to do everything he can to get through this.
He has no other choice.
8
Fingers grips the steering wheel. He stares at the gray cinderblock wall in front of him for a long time. He starts the engine, backs out of the parking spot, pulls out into the street. His headache is only getting worse. The left temple throbs, feeling like someone’s going at it with a tack hammer.
Eugene will be dead by the end of the day tomorrow. He’s sure of it. There’s simply no way he lives through what he’s trying to do. A matador attempting to get two bulls to charge him from opposite directions by waving red, then stepping aside so they’ll crack skulls, instead he’ll end up gored. Twice.
And the worst part is, Eugene’s asked Fingers to sharpen their horns.
He’ll do it. He’ll do what his friend has asked of him. He put the man into this situation and can’t deny him his request.
But there’s no way it doesn’t end badly.
FORTY-SEVEN
1
Carl and Friedman sit parked at the curb in front of a pink stucco apartment building. They watch the building, but nothing happens. Carl wishes he were somewhere else. This sitting and waiting is giving him too much time to think and too little to think about. It means his mind is turning inward again, the last thing he wants or needs.
His arms itch, he’s beginning to feel sweaty, he’s very tired. How long has it been since he’s eaten a proper meal? A couple days at least. How long has it been since he took a shit? That was only yesterday morning, and while there was no blood in his stool, he wishes there had been. That mi
ght mean he’d get to see Naomi soon. If he doesn’t have the courage to tell her goodbye he might as well be with her. Living in-between as he has been isn’t living at all.
‘Here he comes.’ Carl looks up the street.
A cream-colored Chevrolet Bel Air rolls toward them. Thank Christ — something outside himself to focus on.
2
Fingers knew the detectives would return at some point, and probably soon, but wasn’t expecting them in front of his apartment building as he turned onto his street. He was hoping for peace, some time to relax after the stress of what he’s just done and what he’s agreed to do.
His mouth goes dry and his palms get sweaty.
Be cool. You deal with dangerous people all the time. Do your thing, tell your lies when you need to tell them, and be careful not to light up the tilt sign. It’s that simple.
He drives his car slowly past the cops, holding a hand up at them as he does, then makes a u-turn and parks behind them.
It’s true. He does deal with dangerous men all the time, but they’re men he understands. He understands their motives and he knows how to handle them. He doesn’t understand cops, doesn’t understand what gets them out of bed. And the fact that so many of them are easily as crooked as any criminal he’s dealt with makes him fear them as well. They’re crooked but have the law behind them.
What’s not to be afraid of?
He steps from his car and walks toward the detectives in theirs.
‘How you guys doin?’
‘Get in the car.’
‘Is this gonna take a while? If it is I should water my plants.’
‘Get in the goddamn car.’
He nods his understanding, pulls open the back door, slides into the seat.
If anybody else did this it would be kidnapping.
So what’s not to be afraid of?
The cop behind the wheel, the older of the two, starts the engine.
‘Where we goin?’
‘Somewhere we can talk.’
‘We can talk at my place.’
The Last Tomorrow Page 31
