The Old Dick

by L. A. Morse

  “Aren’t you worried about having a record, in case the cops hit you?”

  She waved one of those grotesque little hands. “Nah. Got it programmed so all I have to do is hit one key and the whole memory’s erased. Kind of like a stroke.” She chuckled. “Anyway, who’s going to bust old Babs? Owed too many favors. Too many commendations, promotions, came from little hints I dropped. Besides—” she laughed again, “even if they arrested me, they couldn’t get me out the door. Have to knock down a wall first.”

  That was an exaggeration, but not much of one. Another phone buzzed softly.

  After saying “Yes?” Barbara listened awhile, concentrating, her eyes almost disappearing behind the rolls of her cheeks. “Listen, honey, it’s all bluff. Just sit tight a while. He’ll come around... Yeah, you too.” She hung up, smiling and shaking her head. “That was Teddy Margolin.”

  That name sounded vaguely familiar.

  “Son of Wee Willie Margolin,” Babs said. “You remember?”

  It took a minute, but I did. He’d had a casino out at a ranch in Northridge. Until a competitor got together with one of his croupiers, reversed the house’s fix, and broke the bank and Wee Willie all at the same time. He resurfaced after the war, trying to run a scam with scrap metal or surplus fighter planes or something, but it was halfhearted.

  “Seems like I’m den mother to a whole new generation. It’s nice, but it’s not the same. The old spirit’s gone. You noticed that? Teddy’s nothing like his father. No sense of style. Not even bad style.” She sighed. “Those were the days, weren’t they, Jake? I think about them a lot now.” She shook her head. “Sometimes seem clearer, more real, than stuff that happened yesterday, last month. You find that? Forget where you are, going into the past?”

  “Actually, that’s kind of why I’m here, only the reverse. I’m not slipping into the past, but the past does seem to be poking itself into the present.”

  “Old sins coming back to haunt you?”

  “Something like that. You remember Sal Piccolo?”

  Babs raised her eyebrows and nodded.

  “You knew him?”

  She hesitated, then smiled in a way that indicated what she’d been like when she was Bubbles. “Well enough to know that his nickname was deserved.”

  Oh, yeah? I hadn’t known that. Talk about your odd couples. Then I caught myself. At the time it had occurred, there would have been nothing at all odd about it.

  Barbara’s eyes were closed, a soft smile on her lips. I had to say her name a couple of times.

  “Sorry, Jake. I was drifting again.” She pushed a finger into her doughy forearm and sadly shook her head. It was clear where she’d been. “What do you want to know?”

  “What happened to Sal?”

  “He died in a fire.”

  “No. I meant, after he got out of prison.”

  Barbara paused. “You sent him up, didn’t you?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Clean?”

  I shrugged. “As clean as it ever is. I created a situation...”

  Barbara nodded. “And he hung himself.” She gave a brief laugh. “You know, it’s amazing how some people can always be counted on to respond in a certain way.”

  I smiled. With some difficulty. I knew. At the moment, a little too well, thanks.

  “Look,” I said, “I heard that Sal was pretty well set up when he got out.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “He wasn’t? Hadn’t he made a lot of dough?”

  “Of course. But like all the other big shots he spent it as fast as it came. Figured the tap would just keep running. So when he was nailed, there wasn’t that much. After the law grabbed all they could, his wife took whatever was left.”

  “So he was broke when he got out?”

  “Stony.”

  This was no surprise. After finding out that he had nothing to do with that fancy place in Beverly Hills, and that he’d lived in a crummy rooming house, I’d figured as much. Still, when you were floating around in Cloud Cuckoo Land, every little solid bit helped.

  “What’d he do?”

  Barbara held out her hands, pink palms up. “What’s an old villain to do? He scuffled and hustled, trying to get something going. But he was an old man and he’d been away a long time. It was a different world. For a while he even tried running a three-card-monte swindle in senior- citizen centers. Can you believe it! A guy who’d owned a big piece of this town once, trying to do something like that. Sucker old fogies. And he wasn’t even any good at it. Hands too stiff. Couldn’t make the queen disappear. Hell, Jake, I felt like calling him up and letting him have a few bucks. Then decided that was a loser’s play... Maybe afraid he wouldn’t remember me.” Babs looked at me, curled her lower lip, and gestured at herself and the small world that surrounded her. “Maybe afraid he would.”

  She was silent long enough that I thought she’d drifted again, but she was only trying to get details straight. “Then I heard—and this was only talk, so I don’t know what it’s worth—that he’d managed to set up something. Something serious. Something that’d fix him up big again.”

  “What?”

  “No idea. What’s serious? Sex. Gambling. Dope. Politics. No matter what, those’re the things that never change. But whatever it was, it was too big for him alone, and he needed help. Then I heard he got it. Some youngster who was said to be a fast riser in certain circles. That’s how come there was talk. That strange combo of old tall Sal and this short baby-faced mover.” Barbara screwed up her face, then shook her head. “Whose name I can’t remember. Getting old, Jake. You think it’s all there, then you find gaps. And they get bigger all the time. Soon, someone’s going to punch my erase button. Then where’ll Babs be?”

  “I wouldn’t worry about it for a while yet,” I said, and I meant it. I thought she was miraculous. “This name—it wouldn’t be Anthony Novallo, would it?”

  “That’s it! Tony New!” She gave me a curious look but didn’t say anything. One reason people talked to Barbara was that she never pushed.

  “Then what happened?”

  “Nothing. Sal died.”

  “And Tony New?”

  “Continues to rise. But I don’t inquire too closely. From what I understand, he’s one ugly little character. Now he’s like some of those people who used to be around here. Like that guy who had someone’s ear on his key chain. What was his name?”

  “Eddie Peanuts.”

  “Right.” Barbara looked closely at me for a while. “Jake, what’s going on here? Thought you’d packed it in a long time ago.”

  “I thought so, too.”

  “Not going to tell me, huh? Okay. When you’re ready. Just you be careful. There’re not many of us left.”

  “Not many,” I said, “but right now, maybe one too many.”

  She tilted her head to one side but stayed silent.

  I got up and went over to her. I put my lips on her forehead. Up close I noticed that her wispy hair was getting thin on top.

  Babs smiled up at me. “You always were a sweet man, Jake. Not always real swift, but sweet.”

  Yeah, and apparently I still was. Just moving along like molasses in January. Shit.

  As I went out the door, Barbara was back on the phone. “Now, look, honey,” I heard her say, “you’re real late. I have to see something soon, or I’m afraid you’re going to be seeing my boys, and I don’t think you’ll really enjoy that.”

  In the doorway across the narrow courtyard two huge black men were lounging. They wore beautifully cut pastel silk suits, matching two-tone shoes, and sinister tribal scars on their cheeks. Even in repose they exuded a potential for mayhem, like a hand grenade or a hair-trigger shotgun. I guessed they were Barbara’s boys, and I could see why a welcher would not enjoy a visit from them. I suspected they rarely had to do more than whisper a suggestion that payment would be appreciated, and the wife and kids went up on the auction block. One of them raised a forefinger to his eyebrow in a l
azy salute, and the other flashed a dazzling grin as I walked by. From what I overheard, they appeared to be discussing Sartre. In beautiful French. Hmm. West African existentialist thugs. Babs always did have a certain flair.

  The sky was turning a thick purple brown. My brain felt about the same. Lack of sleep, the unaccustomed exertions of last night—last night! was that all it was? Christ!—and the whole of last week were beginning to settle on me very heavily. It used to be a struggle to find enough stuff to fill up a day. Now it seemed like I’d been running forever. There was lots more I should do, but there was no way I could manage it. I could only hope that I had enough to keep Tony New interested—show him that I really was trying—when he came calling the next day. But even if I hadn’t, it would have to do. All that was now left of the adrenalin I’d been pumping was a sour stomach and a burning sensation behind my eyes. I climbed in my car and pointed it toward home.

  Halfway there I realized I’d forgotten O’Brien. Jesus, I was even more beat than I thought.

  I found a phone booth and called the bar. O’Bee wasn’t there, but there was a message for me to call him at another bar, where I did reach him.

  He told me what he’d picked up, mostly what I’d already heard several times—and didn’t need to be told anyway—that Anthony Novallo was one dangerous little monster, who sometimes scared even his colleagues. He had no friends. None of the normal restraints seemed to apply to him, he disliked being thwarted, and he had a fondness for inflicting pain. In other words, your everyday healthy psycho. Most encouraging.

  He was suspected of a ton of stuff and was probably responsible for another ton the cops didn’t know about, but so far he’d been untouchable. “After all,” O’Brien said, “it’s not that easy to find a witness to go against someone whose career started when he was picked up at age eleven for gutting cats with a razor blade.”

  I grunted acknowledgment. I thought about tomorrow, and that feeling of deep hollowness returned to fill my belly.

  “Oh, yeah,” O’Bee said with a hoarse chuckle. “There’s one more thing.”

  “I can hardly wait.”

  “Our friend Tony’s full name is Thomas Anthony Novallo.”

  “Yeah?”

  “And he’s the son of Robert Novallo.”

  “Okay. Who’s that?”

  “Nobody. A small-time insurance salesman, something like that. Died of a heart attack a few years ago.”

  “So? I assume there’s a point to this.”

  “Oh, yes.” He chuckled again. “Seems Robert married a girl named Diana. Her mother had divorced and remarried, but the girl kept her father’s name.” O’Bee paused. “That name was Piccolo.”

  “You mean—”

  “That’s right. His grandson.”

  The can of worms had turned into snakes, and they were climbing up my legs.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  By the time I’d picked up O’Brien, taken him back to Sunset Grove, and then finally gotten back to my place, it was completely dark. Our trip had been another of those silent rides. O’Bee didn’t seem to be feeling well, pale to the point of greenness. He said he’d drunk too much, but I couldn’t smell it.

  I sure hadn’t felt like talking. The latest bit of information had been too much for my tired brain. It kept running up against the fact that Tony New was Sal’s grandkid—the Tommy who supposedly had been kidnapped—and bouncing back. I couldn’t contend with it. And I sure couldn’t think about the next day. About as much as I could consider was a hot shower, a warm meal, and a cool bed. I thought I could sleep for a week. Maybe if I did, this would all go away.

  Right. Rip Van Spanner.

  I put the car in the garage and went in the back door, turning on lights. When I switched on the floor lamp in the living room, I realized my plans for the evening would most likely be delayed somewhat.

  Sitting in the center of the couch, feet barely touching the floor, hands folded, quiet as a cobra on a rock, was my favorite psychopath, Thomas Anthony Novallo. Standing next to him were his two faithful companions, Unh and Duh.

  “Glad you started without me,” I said.

  “Fucking old men,” Tony whispered.

  That might have been the code word, because one of the gorillas lumbered over and looked down at me. He had more hair sprouting from his nostrils than I had on my head. He breathed through his mouth with a soft sighing sound.

  He wrapped a hand around my upper arm, pressing his fingers through my little bit of flesh and muscle, right to the bone. Then he hurled me into one of the wing chairs. My hip cracked hard on the arm, my neck snapped back, and my head struck the wing of the chair before I came to rest more or less in a sitting position.

  The only sound in the room was the bruiser’s shallow breathing.

  I didn’t like the way this was starting. It looked like I had every reason to be scared. And I was.

  “I thought I had some more time. I’m working on it. Really,” I said, hoping to defuse the situation a little.

  It must’ve been the wrong thing to say, The kid pulled a disgusted face and nodded once. The breather stood over me, then casually walloped me on the side of my head with a giant open paw. I went numb from my jaw to the top of my skull, and a high whistling ring filled my ear.

  “Let’s say this is for—” the kid paused, looking for the right word. He smiled when he found it. “—incentive,” he hissed.

  “Hey, I don’t—”

  Before I got a chance to tell him my motivation was already pretty high, the guy in front of me showed that he was ambidextrous. With his other hand he belted me on the opposite side of my head, nearly knocking me out of the chair. The worst of it was that I knew he was being intentionally gentle. How much longer?

  Even ten years ago I might have tried to do something, but now there was no possibility of that. I was completely helpless, completely in their power. The thought did nothing to diminish my rising fear.

  Through my watering eyes I saw Tony New was talking to me, but my ears felt like they were stuffed with cotton, and I couldn’t hear a thing. I pointed to my ears and made helpless gestures. The kid said something else I couldn’t hear. The other piece of muscle came over and stood behind me. He grabbed my wrists, then yanked my arms behind the chair, where he held them, continuing to pull. It felt like they were going to be ripped out of their sockets. My spine arched out like a bow and my head was pressed into the chair back.

  The guy with the soft touch bent down and jerked off one of my shoes, almost taking half my heel with it. I made a feeble attempt to kick him my other foot, but he easily caught my ankle and gave me a chop just above my knee with the side of his hand, which momentarily paralyzed my leg. Off came the second shoe.

  My arms were pulled harder; my back arched more. The bruiser leaned over me, reached down, and unhooked my belt. I felt a hand go inside my waistband. I tried to squirm away but only managed to further hurt my shoulders. In one quick motion the hands ripped the trousers down the front and pulled them off me. With the absolute irrelevancy that can be caused by mortal terror, I thought about the detective tearing off the blonde’s silk dress in that book I’d been reading at the beginning of all this, about a million years ago.

  I was stretched nearly horizontal in the chair, but by looking down I could see my scrawny, fuzzy legs sticking out of pale-blue boxer shorts that had faded clock faces printed on them.

  Tony New stood up and came over to our little group. He took out a long cigarette. His boy quickly whipped out a gold lighter and held the flame up to it. Tony New puffed on the cigarette, all the while staring at me, unblinking, a smile of anticipatory pleasure on his girlish little mouth.

  He knelt down out of my view, and the bruiser firmly held my legs. I heard a sound like tsst. I hadn’t felt anything yet, but the smell of burning nylon from my sock was enough to set me off.

  I cried “No! Wait! Wait!” I still couldn’t hear very well but it must’ve been loud, because the guy let go of
my legs and clamped a hand over my mouth. It smelled like he’d been peeling oranges.

  Tony New motioned with his head and the guy behind me let go of my arms. I pulled myself upright, rubbed my shoulders, and waited for my head to clear. I couldn’t see how, but I knew I had to do something to slow them down, to break the pattern, before they got so caught up in what they were doing that my death became inevitable, part of a natural progression, even if it hadn’t originally been intended. I’d seen enough of his kind to know that once someone like this kid, someone who liked dealing pain, got started, it was tough to stop him. The situation created its own imperatives. “One thing just led to another,” they’d say, shrugging unconcernedly, giggling.

  “Look,” I said, “do you know I saved you a lot of trouble?” Tony New stared, expressionlessly, his dark bulging eyes unblinking. “I mean, you were all set up to be busted. The cops had you staked out. If I hadn’t come along, you’d’ve been arrested. Just like your supplier.”

  “You think I should say thank you?” The eyes narrowed. A hard edge came into the high-pitched voice, making it sound like a rasp against rusted iron. I didn’t seem to be exactly pacifying him.

  I hastily waved off that idea. “I didn’t say that. All I meant was that there’s more than one way to look at this.”

  The kid blinked slowly, like his eyelids were nictating membranes. He stepped closer to me and stared down. Involuntarily, I tried to push myself further into the back of the chair. Never had I felt so much like a thing, an object. He could do anything to me, because he recognized no connection between us. Scary. Very scary.

  “Listen, old man, there’s only one way for you to look, and that’s into a deep dark hole. Don’t give me that shit about the cops. That’s one thing. What you did to me is something else. And they have nothing to do with each other. Understand?”

  I nodded. So much for trying to deflect his attention. I’d hoped he’d ignore that detail. The kid was crazy, but apparently not entirely stupid.

  “You’ve already caused me more grief,” he went on, “than most people who are still walking around. I’ve been taking heat for two days because of you. Lots of heat. And when that happens, I like to pass it along. Remind those responsible that I don’t like to be made to look like an asshole.”