Two for the Money

by Max Allan Collins

  “I used to hit guys,” Greer said.

  “Yeah, you told me before. You were a real scary guy.”

  “I used to do hits for Tony Action.”

  “Sure, Tony Action. Mr. Machismo. They say he tied his wife to a chair in the kitchen and poured gas on her and gave her a light. That’s one way to duck divorce. Now me, my wife ties me up in the kitchen and feeds me her food and I get gas.” Angello thought that was pretty funny. This time he devoted all his attention to laughing, no swallowing at all.

  “Tony Action was really something,” Greer said. “You can laugh, but man, I mean to tell you. Really something.”

  “Well, Tony is dead now, and I for one am never sorry to see one of those flashy tough asses get their ass shot off, they attract attention and give the rest of us a bad name, and you ought to be glad you had a reputation for being good help. Most of Tony’s guys got stepped down. You’re the only one who got fucking promoted.”

  “I was lucky,” Greer said. “Don’t get me wrong. Working for Felix is good. It’s a good job. It’s just . . .”

  “It’s just what?”

  “I feel I’m getting soft in this job,” Greer said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean it’s like you say . . . we wear pink coats and follow a lawyer around, that’s what I mean.”

  “You rather lay your balls on the chopping block every day? You’re a fucking nut.”

  “No, no . . . it’s just that even though we’re following a lawyer around, we’re carrying guns, and that means we’re here because there’s some chance something might happen. And when it happens, I don’t want to be out of shape, you know?”

  “Hey, Greer, tell you what . . . let’s go sit in the bar and wait till some fruits pick us up and bring them back here and you can beat the fuck out of ’em. How does that sound?” Angello laughed-swallowed. He couldn’t have been having a better time at a party.

  “You got a warped sense of humor, Ange. You really do.”

  “What is it? You think maybe something’s going to happen on that overnight hike you’re going on tonight? Don’t worry, that guy Nolan will be along to protect you. Or is that it? Is that who you’re nervous about?”

  “Bullshit.”

  “Say, Felix isn’t going to try and cross this guy Nolan, is he? Is that why you’re nervous, baby?”

  “Why don’t you just finish your beer, Angello.”

  “They tell stories about Nolan. He never burned up any women in the kitchen, but they tell stories about him.”

  “Look,” Greer said, “all Felix said was I’d be going along. My understanding is that the guy has some money stashed somewhere, and that I’m supposed to escort him and the cash to one of our Chicago banks. If I’m worried about anything, it’s that money. All that money’s a big responsibility.”

  “How much is it, anyway?”

  “Felix wasn’t specific. I’d guess a couple hundred thousand, at least.”

  “That’s probably right,” Angello nodded. “You know I heard Felix say Nolan was behind that bank heist in Iowa a year or two back. The one that came close to eight hundred thousand. There were three or four men in on the job, I think. So he ought to have a couple hundred thousand at least is right.”

  “Should,” Greer said. He sipped the beer. “Uh, what kind of stories you heard about him?”

  “You ever hear how the thing between him and Charlie got going?”

  “That’s before my time.”

  “Mine, too. But my older brother Vinnie . . . you know Vinnie?”

  “Yeah.”

  “That’s in his era. Told me all about it. Charlie had a brother name of Gordon, an asshole from way back, and Charlie set this asshole Gordon up with part of the Chicago action. A bigger part than Gordon could handle, according to Vinnie. Anyway, Nolan is managing nightclubs and making quite a rep. He takes over a loser on Rush Street and turns it into a moneymaker in two months. And he does his own bouncing, I might add. So this Gordon, not content to leave ride a good thing, tries to move Nolan out of the club racket into strongarm, of all things. Nolan doesn’t want no part of enforcer stuff, and tells Gordon so. Now Gordon was a lot like Charlie, see, only less brains. All the pride, but lots less brains. And so Gordon tells Nolan, look, he doesn’t care, if he says crap, Nolan is supposed to ask how high, and that line of garbage. He tells Nolan to kill a guy, some guy who’s a friend of Nolan’s who works in his club. Nolan says no way. A few days go by and this guy, this friend of Nolan’s, turns up in Lake Michigan and he isn’t swimming. Nolan gets mad. He goes to Gordon and shoots the asshole and splits with twenty grand of the Family’s money.”

  Greer smiled. He put his gun in his shoulder holster. “So that’s why Charlie hated Nolan so much. Nolan killed his brother.”

  Angello smirked, batted a hand at the air, “Oh, hell, Gordon was no loss to anybody. Not even Charlie. It was pride. Keep in mind Charlie’s pride, Greer. That was one puffed-up son of a bitch. Nolan’s play made a fool out of Charlie. He killed Charlie’s brother, right? And he stole Charlie’s money. And he got away clean. Worst of all, he got away clean. For years Charlie had an open contract out on Nolan. Nobody collected. Made Charlie look bad. Real bad. When all this happened, nearly twenty years ago, Charlie was underboss in Chicago. The day Charlie died he was still the same damn thing.”

  Greer nodded. “And he probably died blaming that on Nolan.”

  “Probably,” Angello agreed. He sighed. “I could use another beer.”

  “Me, too.”

  “But we’re on call, better not. And besides, I’m not about to go walking into that bar again. A guy practically whistled at me last time.” Angello grinned, tried to drain one last drop out of the Pabst.

  The phone on the nightstand rang. Angello reached over and answered it. He said, “Yes, sir . . . yes, sir . . . right away, sir.” He hung up.

  Greer said, “Felix?”

  “Felix,” Angello said. “I think we’re about to get a nice close look at this guy Nolan. Come on.”

  Greer put on his coat.

  3

  After brunch, Nolan called the bar and had them send over some beer in a cooler to Felix’s room. A few bottles each of Schlitz, Heineken, and one can of Point Special. Nolan didn’t know if Felix drank beer but it seemed early in the day for anything else, and if Felix did drink beer, it’d have to be something imported, like Heineken. The Point Special, a Wisconsin brew, was for Nolan.

  He pushed the tray of dishes aside, got up from the edge of the bed where he’d been sitting and eating, and went to the bureau where he took out a dark yellow short-sleeve Banlon and pulled it on. He got a brown sports jacket out of the closet and put it on.

  “Doesn’t go with your slacks,” Sherry said.

  His slacks were black.

  Nolan nodded, took off the coat, and hung it back in the closet. He found a charcoal gray sports jacket and climbed into it. He turned to Sherry, who was still eating her eggs, for approval.

  “That’s better,” she said.

  “One thing,” he said, “I can’t figure out.”

  “Oh, yeah?”

  “What are you, my mother, sister, or daughter?”

  She grinned, cheeks puffed with food. “Whichever’s dirtiest,” she said, not too distinctly.

  He grinned at her, feeling affection for her against his best judgment. “See you later,” he said.

  “How long you going to be?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “I’ll be at the pool.”

  “I kind of figured that.”

  “Oh, yeah?”

  “Your bikini.”

  “Oh, yeah. Well, I’m not going to swim, just going to sun.”

  “You get much more sun you’re going to have to ride in the back of the bus.”

  “I will? Why?”

  “That was a joke.”

  “Really? Must’ve been before my time or something.”

  He sighed. “Everythin
g’s before your time.”

  “Don’t belittle me, Logan. I wasn’t born yesterday, you know.”

  “Yes you were. Yesterday. Just yesterday.”

  “Give us a kiss.”

  He went over and pecked her forehead.

  “A kiss, dammit.”

  “You got egg on your mouth.”

  “I’ll wipe it off.”

  She did, and he kissed her, but it still tasted like eggs. Maybe it was just his imagination. He kissed her again. No, he thought, eggs, all right.

  “Sorry I didn’t get your joke,” she said.

  “It wasn’t much of a joke,” he said.

  “Well, you can’t expect me to be looking for jokes from you. You don’t make jokes that often. Next time tell me first.”

  “Are you saying I don’t have a sense of humor?”

  “Let’s just say it wasn’t what attracted me to you.”

  “I must have a sense of humor.”

  “Why?”

  “I put up with you, don’t I?”

  She made a mock-angry face and said, “Happy birthday, you S.O.B.”

  “How’d you know it was my birthday?”

  “You told me last night, or I mean this morning. You were pretty drunk. You sang yourself the ‘Happy Birthday’ song.”

  “Told you I had a sense of humor. Did I really do that? After a certain point things get a little hazy. Did I do it in front of anybody, for Christ’s sake?”

  “Just me. We were back in the room by then, with the champagne.”

  “I don’t remember any of that.”

  She pointed toward the corner by her side of the bed and sure enough, there was an empty bottle of champagne, lying on its side like a casualty of war. Two water glasses had in them each a quarter of an inch or so of by now very flat champagne. It was, unfortunately, all coming back to him.

  “Do me a favor,” he said.

  “Sure.”

  “Don’t ever tell me what else I did. I got a certain self-image to maintain.”

  “Yeah, I know. You’re a tough guy. You told me that, too.”

  “Please,” he said. “You’re twisting the knife.”

  “Okay, okay. Logan?”

  “What?”

  “Are you?”

  “Are I what?”

  “A tough guy?”

  “Sure. I eat babies.”

  “I hope that’s another joke.”

  “Well, it is. Sort of.”

  “I been wanting to ask you something for a long time.”

  “Ask.”

  “Where’d you get all the funny scars?”

  “Don’t ask.”

  She accepted that graciously, taking a swallow of milk and smiling at him with a milk mustache. “See you later, Logan. I’ll be sunning.”

  “At the pool.”

  “Right.”

  They said good-bye to each other.

  When Nolan knocked at Felix’s door, somebody else answered. It was a balding, babyface guy in a light green coat with a dark green tie. There was a dull hardness to the guy’s matching light green eyes, and he was packing a gun under his left arm, though the coat was cut to hide it. The guy looked familiar but Nolan couldn’t place him.

  “Come in, come in,” Felix’s silky voice said, from somewhere behind the gunman.

  Nolan came in and found Felix sitting on the edge of the big double bed, at its foot. Felix was wearing a lemon sports coat and lemonade tie. His trousers were tan. His face wasn’t gray this time, but brown, as brown as Sherry’s. Felix had evidently been to Miami recently. His graying hair was styled, covering one fourth of his ears, and he looked overall very with it. Beside him on the bed was an ashtray and a pack of Gauloises Disque Bleu and the ashtray had half a dozen of the cigarettes stubbed out in it. Though Felix wasn’t smoking at the moment, chainsmoking probably explained the flaw in Felix’s well-groomed looks: his teeth were as yellow as his sports coat.

  To Felix’s left, sitting on a straightback chair, was another bodyguard, a tall guy with a round face that didn’t quite go with the rest of him. The tall gunman was wearing a pink coat and red tie, which made him look like a fag or something. Felix’s idea of class, probably.

  “Shut the door and sit down, Greer,” Felix told the babyface. Greer did as he was told. “Nolan, my friend, make yourself comfortable. Angello, give Mr. Nolan your chair.”

  Angello did so.

  “And thank you, Nolan,” Felix continued, “for being kind enough to send over some refreshment. Very thoughtful. Would you like something to cool yourself off, Nolan?”

  Nolan said, “The Point Special’s mine,” to Angello.

  Felix said, “Heineken, Angello.”

  “And,” Nolan said, “crack open a couple Schlitz for you and what’s-his-name, Angello.”

  Angello looked to Felix for approval. He got it.

  “Thanks,” Angello said to Nolan. He had a gruff voice that didn’t fit the red coat and tie, as his head didn’t fit his body.

  Nolan waited till everybody had beers and then figured all the bullshit preliminaries were over and said, “What’s the word, Felix?”

  Felix smiled, turned to Angello and said, “Bring me a glass,” and Angello brought him a bathroom glass still wrapped in paper. Felix waited for Angello to tear off the wrapping and hand him the glass. Then Felix poured the golden liquid out of the green bottle and sipped it and said, “Have you heard from your friend in Iowa?”

  “I’m having trouble getting through to him.”

  “Trouble?”

  “I’ve tried twice. Nothing to worry about. He may try to call me. I told the switchboard girl to route the call to me here in this room if he does.”

  “Do you think there could be a problem on his end?”

  “No. It’s nothing. You got to understand he’s an eccentric old guy with a mind of his own. He feels like stepping out for a while, he steps out for a while.”

  “I see. I hope everything is all right.”

  “Everything’s cool. The money’s safe where it is, like it has been for almost a year now. Nothing’s going to happen.”

  “I wish I could share your confidence,” Felix said, wagging his head gravely. “I won’t feel safe until the money is in that bank of ours.”

  “Me, too, but no sweat. I can’t see how anybody could know where the cash is. Do you know where it is?”

  “No,” Felix said.

  “Maybe you’re telling the truth,” Nolan said, “I don’t know.” He took a gulp of his beer, giving Felix a chance to say something, then went on. “You know enough to find out, that’s for sure. You know about the bank job, and I went so far as to tell you the money’s stashed in Iowa someplace. Send some boys snooping to find out about me, you could figure where the stuff is, easy enough. Charlie could’ve figured it out, if he wasn’t dead.”

  Felix smiled meaninglessly, like a sphinx.

  “But nobody else could,” Nolan said. “Unless you leaked what you know about me. Or unless you talked as loose as I am now in front of bodyguard clowns like these two.” Nolan caught out of the corner of his eye Greer narrowing his. “Nobody in my field knows I’m the one who pulled that particular job, and if they did, they sure wouldn’t figure I’d leave the money sit where I did. For this long especially.”

  “What you’re saying,” Felix said, taking a genteel sip from his glass of beer, “is this hiding place is so stupid it’s smart.”

  Nolan shrugged, took another gulp of beer. They’d been over all of this before, a lot of times. Nolan had resisted handing the money over to the Family immediately because he didn’t trust them, he wanted to fully understand their intentions before making any final steps. Now, after these months at the Tropical, he felt assured that the offer Felix had made in that other room in the motel at the LaSalle-Peru exit on Interstate 80 was legitimate. Of course, even by Family standards the amount of money involved was a sizable one, but it didn’t seem logical that they’d try to get at it through so
elaborate a double cross. And why should they double-cross him? Nolan was convinced that the Chicago Family was grateful to him, glad to be rid of Charlie. After all, they had entrusted Nolan with the reins of the Tropical, an expensive bauble for even the Family to be tossing casually around, and had been paying him well for this “trial run.” But still he’d waited until recently to tell Felix he was ready to transfer the money, and it was only yesterday that he’d mentioned to the lawyer that Iowa was where he had to go to get it.

  Felix said, “What I had in mind was this . . . you will leave here this evening, around eight or nine, and arrive in Iowa, wherever in Iowa it is, sometime after midnight, depending on how far you’re going. We have a car for you with a specially rigged trunk compartment, so that you can get stopped by the police, for God knows what reason, and still get by even a fairly thorough search. You will deliver the money to our bank in Riverside an hour and a half before opening . . . that’s seven-thirty, Daylight Savings Time . . . and the bank president, a Mr. Shepler, will be waiting for you.”

  “Fine. What’s the name of the bank in Riverside and how do I get there?”

  “Just leave that to Greer.”

  “To who?”

  “Greer,” he said, nodding toward the babyface gunman.

  “Why should I leave it to him, Felix?”

  “He’ll be accompanying you, Nolan. You wouldn’t want all that money to go unguarded.”

  Nolan sighed. He took two long swallows from the Point Special, set the half-empty can on the floor beside his chair and got up. Felix was starting to get on his nerves. Felix was starting to be a pompous ass. Nolan paced for a moment, till the urge to tell Felix those things went away. Then he said, “I don’t like muscle, Felix.”

  “Nolan . . .”

  “What do I need muscle for? I can take care of myself.”

  “It’s a big responsibility for one man.”

  “I’ll pick up somebody else when I get there.”

  “Who?”

  “Never mind who. The other guy who has a say in where this money is going, that’s who.”

  “A partner of yours? Is he capable?”

  “All my partners are capable,” he said, but that wasn’t quite true. It was Jon he was talking about, and Jon was just a kid, hardly a seasoned veteran. But Jon was who he wanted, not some mindless strongarm. And he didn’t want any Family accompaniment at all.