AHMM, July-August 2008

by Dell Magazine Authors

  "Through the hat."

  "Through the whatever."

  At the top of the stairs they found a long narrow room running the length of the house under the eaves. It was lined with dust bunnies and discarded fast-food containers. The walls rose waist high, then sloped in to meet a narrow ceiling with a couple of dangling bulbs to light the place. Four-Foot hadn't gone in much for furniture. There was a mattress on the floor with a rumpled blanket, and a lot of empty bottles arranged in an orderly row along the wall. One nearly full jug of Glen Breton whisky stood by within easy reaching distance.

  "Man knows his Scotch,” Benny said.

  "Single malt. It's only Scotch if it's from Scotland.” Beemer leaned against the doorframe wheezing, a big hand spread out and pressed to his side. “An’ it's prob'ly mine anyway,” he added.

  "How can your customers afford Glen Breton?"

  "Guys like you, you mean? You can't. It's my private stash."

  The only other furnishings were a new ergonomic office chair, a small desk and a side table. The desk and table had a frayed, spotted dustcloth thrown over them. Benny yanked the cloth away. His face lit up. “Jackpot."

  They were looking at a computer. Beside it, set up on the table, was a sophisticated-looking printer, another gadget that was clearly some sort of press, and, spilling from a Wal-Mart bag, a small mound of shiny blank credit cards, all the big names and logos printed on them.

  "You were right,” Beemer said. “The guy was going for it."

  In a drawer they found more cards.

  "These could be worth something,” Beemer said, holding one up for a closer look. “And the machine too. We could get a good buck for that."

  "Not the best idea under the circumstances,” Benny advised. “And don't get your prints on anything. Are you forgetting what Steinbesser told you?” He had scrutinized each bare wall, and was now pacing the room, peering at the floor.

  "What're you up to?” Beemer asked. He cleaned the card on his shirt, and dropped it.

  "Just looking."

  Finally, Benny shoved the mattress aside and went down on his knees. He began prying at the floor with his pocketknife. One board came up. Then another. He rolled back on his heels. “How about that?” Between the floor joists, neatly stacked, were bundles of notes cinched with thick, red rubber bands.

  "Man,” Beemer breathed. “How'd you cotton on to that?"

  "What else would Four-Foot want tools for? Not to do repairs for the cat lady, I don't think."

  "You got to hand it to him,” Beemer said. “He was a digger. Why let Death's Head make all the serious dough when he could rake it in himself, cut out the middleman."

  "One reason might be to keep from ending up in a beer fridge with a bullet in him."

  "Yeah, well, you got to expect setbacks in business. How much you got there?"

  Benny was hauling the bundles out of the cavity, buzzing through the notes with a practiced thumb. There were twenties and fifties, but mostly hundreds. His lips moved. Finally he said, “Looks like, I dunno, maybe thirty-eight, forty big ones."

  "Say again?"

  "You heard me."

  Beemer dumped out the Wal-Mart bag. “Shove it all in here."

  "You sure?"

  "You can't rob a robber. Fill your boots."

  Heading home through a thick fog, they took Cunard Street past the Halifax Common, rolling down toward the harbor and the smoky lights of the Rob Roy. Despite the fog, traffic was heavy. A motorcycle shot by, snarling, and was swallowed up in the mist.

  "Four-Foot's pals won't be happy when they get to Robie Street and find the cupboard bare,” Benny said.

  "They don't have the address."

  "They'll bang heads till they get it."

  Beemer thought about that.

  "You put the boards back in place?"

  "I thought you did."

  "Jeez,” Beemer said through his teeth. The silence lasted a block. Finally he added, “They'll be hot when they see that."

  "No kidding. They'll probably think of you."

  "Line forms on the right."

  * * * *

  There was a lot of TV noise in the house, and Steinbesser had to ring the bell a third time, leaning on it to make sure he was heard. Fog slowly twisted around the houses on either side. Finally, a lady opened the door, almost a midget, some wrinkled old doll who had to tilt her head back practically horizontal to look up at Steinbesser's face. The smell of cats almost knocked him out.

  "Police,” Steinbesser said, showing his badge.

  "Yes?"

  "There were two men just here. We need to talk about that."

  She was already shaking her head. “They weren't nobody I ever met."

  "Mind telling me what they were doing here then?"

  "I don't mind. They were friends of one of my tenants. They waited for him, but he didn't come, so they went away. That's all I know about it."

  She made as if to close the door. The TV woofing away in there. He counted three, four, five cats gliding around. Cats gave him the creeping fantods.

  "What's your tenant's name?"

  "Mr. Argus."

  "Where did those visitors wait?"

  "In his room upstairs."

  "By themselves?"

  "Yes."

  "You mind if I take a look?"

  She hesitated. He could see she wanted to ask him about a warrant but couldn't summon up the nerve. “Not one visitor in all this time, and now this.” Talking to the cats. “I just don't know, my dears, I just don't know.” She shrugged and finally stood back. “Right up at the top,” she said. “Mr. Argus has the attic room all to himself. It has a distant view of the harbor if you put your head out the window and you know where to look."

  * * * *

  Beemer found a place for the bulging Wal-Mart bag in the bottom of the Rob Roy's freezer, walled in and roofed over with frozen chicken fingers and bags of curly fries. They thought about the doofus, and Benny offered the opinion that, whatever happened, they ought to take good care of it. They might need it for Beemer's defense. “Like you said, Four-Foot's buddies are gonna want that thing. And they must have his key to the Rob Roy if the cops didn't find it on him."

  "Another surprise. How'd you know about that?"

  "I listened through the wall."

  "Nothing is sacred,” Beemer said. He pursed his lips, gloom suddenly descending, “You ask me, it only makes things worse. Now I got an obvious reason for knocking off the guy. At this rate, we'll find the murder weapon, and my fingerprints will be all over it. I'll need a miracle."

  He relieved Windmill, who went reluctantly back to his table. “Nothing broken here,” Beemer said, after a quick inspection. “See,” Benny told him, “miracles do happen.” Beemer stepped along to take a customer's order, returned and poured out a double Canadian Club, water on the side, and took it to the guy. Then he came back, served Benny a Scotch-rocks, and swept a few loose shards of melting ice into the sink.

  "You never asked me what I wanted,” Benny said. “I wouldn't of minded trying some of that Glen Breton. Your private stash."

  "I told you, you couldn't afford it.” Beemer puffed out his cheeks. He let out a big sigh. “Well, the body's gone. Cops are gone. Everything here is cool. They'll come for the doofus tonight."

  "And the cash. They'll want that. They'll ask the landlady to draw them a picture of who was up there in that room."

  "I guess we should've killed her."

  "There you go again. Didn't I tell you not to talk like that?"

  "The whole thing's a mess,” Beemer said.

  "Oh, I don't know. There's a certain kind of order to it.” Benny tipped his Scotch-rocks at a slight angle, making little wet blobs on the bar with it. “Four-Foot was running a charge card scam here, but he got into trouble. Scamming his own partners. Suddenly he gets religion. Decides to warn you about what's going on. It won't do him no good, but it'll screw up the other guys. They drag him back here, try to make him co
ugh up the doofus. The cash, too, maybe. But things don't work out.” Benny swirled his drink. “It hangs together. You could take everything we got so far, call the number on that card, and make a gift of it to Steinbesser. Don't mention the cash, of course. I know it don't exactly clear you, but it'll look good, the fact you did it, and the court might go easier on you."

  "That makes me feel better."

  "It's more than what you had going for you before."

  "I had nothing going for me before."

  "You need to start thinking positive."

  "I'm positive I'm goin’ to jail unless I get an arm around this thing."

  Some guy, rough with his pool cue, sent a ball flying off the table and rolling across the floor. “You rip that felt,” Beemer bellowed at him, “I'll come over there an’ rip your arms off!"

  "You're edgy,” Benny said.

  "It's all this stuff goin’ on."

  "So what are you gonna to do about it?"

  Beemer pondered that. “Camp out here the night. See what happens. I done it before—crashed here, I mean. Those long booth seats at the back aren't half bad if you don't roll around a lot. About the same width as a cot in the slammer. Good practice for me, where I'm going."

  "And if Death's Head shows up? And the furry guy?"

  "They better show up. That's the whole idea."

  Benny sniffed. He rolled his ice round. “I got a hunch we might be prying you out of your beer cooler in the morning."

  "Not a chance. I wouldn't fit."

  "You would if they broke enough bones."

  "Now who's not thinking positive?"

  Eyeing the back booths with misgiving, Benny said, “It's against my better judgment, but how about this. How about if I bunk down here with you tonight?"

  * * * *

  They got everybody out of the place a few minutes early. While Beemer swept up, Benny went to make the night drop. Glancing over his shoulder every two minutes. Expecting something. He didn't know what exactly. When he got back to the Rob Roy, he took a good long look up and down the street. Nothing out of order. Swirling fog. Smudges of color where the shop signs were. A ghostly cab rolling past a block down with a customer inside and the roof light still lit—everybody on the take. He banged at the door until Beemer let him in.

  "I don't see your car out there,” Benny said.

  "I moved it up the hill, make it look like I went home. I'll be lucky if it's not in a chop shop by the time morning rolls around."

  Stretched out in a booth under an ancient khaki wool army blanket Beemer had dragged down off a shelf, Benny said, “Man, this thing stinks. Camphor, or something. Mothballs."

  "Pardon me for not fluffing your pillow."

  "You really believe those guys are gonna show?"

  "I think we're gonna find that out,” Beemer said. In a matter of seconds he was snoring loud enough to rattle the wineglasses behind the bar. The noise kept Benny awake a long time. When sleep finally arrived, it came in hazy patches, interrupted each time Beemer let out an especially loud, explosive snort.

  Eventually he stayed under. He didn't know how long. When he came awake again, he knew something wasn't right. A flicker of light on the ceiling. Shadows bunched against the front window like somebody out there trying to see in. When a key scraped at the lock, he hissed at Beemer, rolled off the seat, and crouched under the table.

  The front door popped open, letting the orange glow of the fogged-in streetlights spill through. From where he crouched, Benny saw one, two, three guys move inside, their shadows falling along the length of the bar. The last one in eased the door shut with his butt, and a flashlight winked on.

  "Back room,” said a heavy voice.

  They came along the bar, single file, the old floorboards creaking under them. Turned at the end and shuffled into the storage room.

  Benny crawled out on his hands and knees and peered into the next booth. No Beemer. Only his blanket there, a rumpled heap on the floor.

  "Jeez,” Benny said.

  Beemer's plan had a glaring deficiency, which he was just now beginning to realize. The deficiency was that there was no plan. Like what they were actually going to do if Four-Foot's pals really did show up. They weren't gentle guys. Four-Foot had found that out. And they were most likely packing. Benny, silent in his stocking feet, moved out between the tables and slipped behind the bar. He groped for the Al Capone bat, but found empty air. Nothing seemed to be making sense.

  He needed to know what the loogans were up to, and he eased the pass-through slider open a crack. There was some light back there. They had switched on the desk lamp in Beemer's cramped little office. He made out Death's Head and Bongo, no mistaking those two. The third man had his back to the slider. They were all staring at the ceiling.

  "How we gonna get up there?” Bongo was saying. His bulk loomed large in the back-lit room. “Maybe we shoulda brought a ladder."

  "Right. That would've looked great,” Death's Head said, “carrying it down Agricola Street, dead of the night. We'd of blended right in with all those other guys carrying ladders."

  "Well..."

  "Use some brain power, if you got any. Prop open that door.” He pronounced it doah. “Drag one of those tables in here from the other room. Put a chair on it or something."

  Benny squeezed down under the till as the big man came past the bar. The guy grabbed the nearest table, one of the square ones, and muscled it back into the storage room. He returned for a bar stool and dragged that in too.

  "Right,” Death's Head told him. “See the thumbprints on the ceiling there? Somebody's moved that panel, wouldn't you say?"

  The table was rocked into position, the stool hoisted up and placed on top of it. A second chair served as a step.

  "Well,” Death's Head said. “Get up there."

  Bongo studied the teetering structure.

  "Not me."

  The third man didn't volunteer either, a guy who appeared to be almost as hefty. Death's Head said, “I guess I got to do all the hard jobs around here!” and holding the back of the chair to steady himself, stepped up onto it. From there he clambered onto the table, then slowly and carefully mounted the stool. Crouching there, his feet pressed together, he pushed the panel aside, and reached down for the flashlight. He beamed the light around inside the cavity, then dragged the doofus out.

  "Like I thought,” he said, dangling it over the heads of the other two like it was a rat, punching its thin tail of wire. “That runt was running his own machine. I knew he was up to something. I'd like to shoot him all over again.” He tossed it to the third man. “Now I want that cash."

  "You think there is any cash?” Bongo said. He had a dull, languid voice.

  "Got to be. I already told you. What else would he have kept in that secret hidey-hole cut into the floor at that house?"

  "Maybe the cards?"

  "I don't think so. The cards were right there on the table, more of ‘em in the desk drawer. And the press wouldn't fit down there. It had to be cash, and that goddamn barkeeper took it. We're gonna search this dump. Tear it apart. He'll think Hurricane Juan paid him a second visit when he comes in here tomorrow morning. Start with the freezer. People hide things in freezers."

  Beemer came out of the shadows with his Al Capone bat swinging. He landed one on Bongo's skull with a sound like an ax-handle rapping a coconut. Bongo said “Ungh!” and folded. Death's Head lost his balance and fell off the table, the wind whooshing out of him when he hit the floor. Somehow he managed to drag a gun out. He loosed one off into a stack of Heineken, with a bang and a muffled, hissing, shattering sound, then he got the barrel trained on Beemer. Beemer froze. Benny, moving up behind by then, laid a six-pack heavily across the guy. Death's Head fell back again, beer suds sputtering and foaming down his face and shirt, the gun still tight in his hand. Benny had to kick three times before the piece finally flew into the corner.

  "You had to pick the Lowenbrau?” Beemer asked. “What is it lately with the
imported stuff?"

  "Don't thank me or anything,” Benny replied.

  "I wasn't going to.” Beemer was gripping the bat like he was ready to knock one out of the park. “Where'd that other bum get to?"

  The steel-clad rear exit door stood open a foot. As they studied it, it suddenly swung wide, and Will Beech eased himself into the room.

  "Don't worry about him,” he said in his usual unruffled voice. “He's cuffed and in the back of my car. We've been watching him for a while. Is everybody all right in here?"

  * * * *

  "Steinbesser,” Beemer said for at least the eighth time. “Who would've thought?"

  "Why not?” Benny said. “If Four-Foot could get into the big money, why not Steinbesser?"

  "This is why we get cynical in our old age,” Beemer said.

  "Because he's the law?"

  "Well, who do you trust?"

  "When I looked in the booth,” Benny said, “and you weren't there, I figured I was gonna have to take on all three of them by myself."

  "I woke up worrying about my car,” Beemer explained, “decided to go out and move it under a lamppost or something. Took my bat with me in case of trouble. Coming back, taking a shortcut through the alley, I seen a light on in my office an’ I knew somethin's goin’ on in there. I opened the back door so quiet the old landlady's cats wouldn't even of heard me. Beech must've been right behind me."

  "They're saying now what we figured before. Four-Foot must've tried to hide in the cooler. They popped him there and his knees broke when the big guy forced the door shut on him. They matched the bullet to the piece Death's Head was carrying. Still had the murder weapon. How dumb is that?"

  "Dumb like a fox. He figured the card thing out."

  Beemer pushed away from the wall, picked up the cloth, and swept a faded ring mark off the bar. He rinsed the cloth, wrung it out, and hung it over the edge of the sink.

  "Maybe we've lived too long."

  "How do you figure?” Benny swirled his Scotch-rocks around

  "The way things are today. Use any strong-arm stuff, you're some kinda dinosaur. These high-tech scams are miles ahead. Guys in India, in Nigeria—in Buffalo Narrows, Saskatchewan, for cryin’ out loud—they take millions without raisin’ a sweat. The banks make good on it, an’ it's like their safes got blown open and robbed."