by Otto Penzler
—
Skig opened his eyes next morning and wondered where the hell he was. Found he was stretched flat out in his recliner. Last night after taking three of the big fat free samples, he had tumbled into Never-Never Land as if someone had batted him with a jack handle. He yanked the chair lever, sat up, and explored his side with his stubby fingers.
Not too bad this morning. The pain was still there, but it was biding its time. Sometimes it did that. Went away to a seminar on how to really rip a guy’s innards apart, then came back and practiced on him. The respite would be short.
He showered, ran his razor over his face, and went out the door without bothering to eat. He stopped at a drive-through for a coffee, double milk, no sugar, which he drank in the Vic at the edge of the lot. There was a contest on. Win a TV. Coffee cups had the good news hidden on them. A kid rooting through the trash can by the doors for a winning cup glanced up as Skig held his out the window. He edged over suspiciously and took it from him. “Jeez, mister. Don’t you want to win a plasma TV?” Skig started up the Vic. “I already got a TV. I could prob’ly use the plasma, though.”
—
Skig drove to the recycling depot out past Lakeside. A big Loadmaster trash truck was grunting up to the dock, spewing diesel fumes, and a bunch of cars stood around, engines idling while people hauled out bags filled with beer cans, newspapers—bags filled with bags, for crying out loud—to get their four or five bucks. Save the ozone layer. He found Solly Sweetmore in his upstairs office under the corrugated sheet-metal roof.
Skig was overweight. He needed to drop forty pounds. But Solly had such a colossal gut on him he had to straighten his arms to reach his desk. His face, tracked with broken blood vessels, showed alarm when he saw who his visitor was. He set down the can of Coke he was nursing.
“You were supposed to drop by yesterday,” Skig said, wincing. The pain was back. The steep stairs killed him.
“I know, Leo, I know.” The trashman leaned away from his desk, moving his hands around. “I just got busy. This place is a nuthouse. You can see—”
“Fine with me, Solly,” Skig said, “you want to pay another day’s juice. Go for it. Only next time tell me, okay? That’s what the phone is for.”
“About that, Skig, listen—”
“No, you listen. This is how things get outta hand. You keep taking more time, more time, you run outta time pretty fast. Then I got to lean on you. I don’t like that, Solly.”
“I know. I should’ve phoned you, Skig, but listen—”
A gaunt man in a knit cap interrupted, thrusting his small balding head in the door. “That compactor crapped out again, boss, the old green one, so maybe—”
Solly surged up and screamed at him. “Will you get outta my face?” He threw his pop at the man, the half filled can smashing into the doorframe, cola fizzing and splattering over a calendar and running down the cheap paneling in streams. The head withdrew.
“Lots of people throwing drinks these days,” Skig said, shaking his head. “People need to relax.” He tapped the book in his breast pocket. “Six-five, Solly, plus another half a point for today. Pay me now an’ that’s an end to it.”
“But I got other bills.”
“Not like mine you don’t.”
Solly threw his head back and let out an anguished moan. Then he jerked open a cashbox. Counted the six-five out right there on the desk.
“An’ the half a point, don’t forget,” Skig said. Then he held up his hand. “Or maybe this’ll work.” He leaned in. “You know a guy named Caesar DeLuca? Drives a car like a birthday cake?” Warily, Solly nodded. Skig said, “Tell me about him.”
Solly looked even more stressed out, if that was possible.
“What’s to tell? I see him on Argyle there, Hollis Street, sometimes down at the casino. He’s trouble.”
“What kind of trouble?”
—
When Skig drove away fifteen minutes later, he had his money, and more information on Caesar DeLuca than he needed. The kid was also in the car business. He and Happy Dan had that in common. He did custom work, prime merchandise only, a certain kind of car, a special customer. He got an order, shopped around till he filled it. Then—this part Solly was shaky on—he delivered the wheels out in Sackville, a guy with a long-haul business there. It got loaded on a semi, other stuff packed around it, and a day later it was in New York or Montreal, on its way to the special client.
Skig had said to Solly, “Rat boy. Where does he live?”
“I dunno. Nobody knows. He keeps that to himself.”
“This merchandise. Always a special order?”
“Prob’ly not. He wouldn’t walk away from something.”
Skig thought a minute. “Get a message to him. There’s an old Vette, one a them Sting Rays, been parking on the street all night behind the Armories. You don’t know why. But you seen it there, an’ you want a spotting fee.”
Solly had shaken his fleshy face. “Jeez, I dunno, Leo.”
“Just do it.” Skig shifted his weight. “Do it an’ we’ll call it square on the point.”
“Fine. But I don’t like it,” Solly said. “I’m telling you that guy is a crazy man.”
—
Back home, Skig dialed Saul Getz. “They pick her up? Eva Kohl?”
“No, of course not. What case have they got? But they’re thinking about it.”
“Why?”
“Something about her being a suicide risk.”
“They’re full of it.”
“I’m with you. She doesn’t look the type. A little bewildered maybe, but who wouldn’t be?”
“Whatever happened to a free country?”
“Things are relative, Leo.”
“Things are crap. Listen, do what you can for her. They pull her in, I want you there with her.”
“Leo, this is costing you. It’s adding up fast.”
“Just do it. An’ don’t bring me into it. She thinks she owes me, that’s bad for a friendship. It changes things.”
“Yeah, well, she is starting to wonder.”
“Just be there for her. Say you’re court appointed or something. Make somethin’ up, you’re a lawyer, for cryin’ out loud.”
“Fine, but I’ve got to bill you.”
“So cheer up.” Skig winced. The pain was back. “One more thing. I need to borrow your Vette.”
There was dead silence. Then Saul started breathing again.
“You what?”
“I know it’s your toy, you only drive it to church on Sunday, but tonight I want you to park it behind the Armories, take a cab home, an’ forget about it.”
“You’re not serious.”
“Anything happens to it, I’ll pay the shot. You know I’m good for it.”
There was a short pause. Then Saul said, “You’re up to something.”
“Go see Mrs. Kohl.”
—
Skig spent the rest of the day at the clinic. The lousy tests all over again. When he got home that evening he felt as if he was a sample of something himself. He ate beans, cold out of the can, and washed them down with scotch, both food items totally forbidden to him. To hell with it. Then he set his alarm clock—the blender plugged into the timed outlet on the stove—and fell into his recliner. He dreamed Fatty and Skinny, dressed like surgeons, were stooping over him, making a large incision in his belly and smiling about it.
The alarm was howling in the kitchen, the empty blender dancing around on the metal stovetop like it was going to explode. Midnight.
He limped out the door.
He parked one street over from the Armories where through the gap of a vacant lot he could eyeball Saul’s money-pit Vette—a ’65 fastback, Nassau Blue. Tilted the Vic’s power seat back until only his eyes showed above the dash.
He dozed a few times, and then something woke him. The clock read one fifteen. A tow truck was backing toward Saul’s ride. It stopped and rat boy got out, gold chains flashing under the sodium streetlamp. He he
ld something down low at his side that looked for a second like a long-barreled handgun. It was a cordless drill with a foot-long bit in it. Rat boy put the bit to the fiberglass fender and sank a hole into the Vette’s engine compartment. An old trick. Drain the battery. That way the alarm wouldn’t sound unless there was a backup.
There wasn’t. Something to mention to Saul. The guy hooked up the Vette and dragged it away. Elapsed time, three minutes. Skig readjusted his seat and took off after him.
Rat boy would have places to store his cars, places where he could keep them out of sight for a while. Rented garages here and there, probably. After a ten minute drive out to Spryfield, the tow truck halted before an old swayback shed. The kid was good with the boom and the winch, and the Vette was tucked out of sight in no time.
The rat dropped off the truck—another darkened house a few blocks south—hopped in the Audi, and beat it out of town along Purcell’s Cove Road, stereo thumping all the way, a good night’s work behind him. Skig gave him room, not wanting to spook him. Maybe too much room. He came over a hill near Herring Cove, overshot the place, and had to double back. Good thing he’d been watching the drives on either side, and caught a flash of brake lights and yellow paint.
The rat appeared to be doing all right for himself. It was a modern chalet in bleached cedar, overlooking the ocean. In need of some TLC but pretty fine all the same. Skig took the Vic back up the hill to a market gardener’s he’d spotted, parked in the darkened lot by the greenhouse, got out, and walked back. A short stroll, no more than two hundred yards or so, but on a steep incline. His gut wasn’t happy about it.
Partway up the drive to the house, Skig stopped. There were two cars here. The Audi and, in front of it, the car he had followed from the cop-shop the previous night. He grunted. It was the car of the extremely pretty young woman.
“No boyfriend, huh?” Skig said.
He heard voices.
The house stood on a brutally unaccommodating chunk of granite, cantilevered over the cliff face to provide a picture-perfect view of the sea. A wide deck embraced it. In the quiet gaps when the surf wasn’t pounding, voices drifted from the seaward side.
Skig climbed three broad steps to the deck. Against the house were some sturdy-looking loungers, a plastic cooler filled with ice and beer. Skig helped himself to a beer and sat down on a bench. He pressed the cold can to his side. From here he could make out the voices better.
“…I brought the beer like you told me, but I didn’t think you’d be here this soon,” the girl’s voice said.
“I told you two, two thirty.”
“Yes, but you’re never early.”
“What’s the late-breaking news, it couldn’t wait till tomorrow?”
A wave heaved in. “A man came to see me.”
“What man?”
“The man I told the cops about—you know who I mean.”
“The guy who threatened your boss?”
“Yes.”
“So what did he want?”
“He accused me of killing Dwight.”
Another pause in the conversation. The guy deliberating. Down below the house a big wave thundered in. Skig could smell the salt.
“Lemme guess. He thinks he can blackmail you.”
“No. That’s the funny thing. He just made these crazy accusations, then left. I thought about it all day and finally decided I’d better tell you about it.”
“This happened yesterday?”
“Yeah. In the evening. Just after you left.” She hesitated. “I think…” Her voice trailed off.
“You think what?”
“I think he knows something about you. I mean, he asked me where he could find you, and—Stop that! You’re hurting me!”
“You waited all this time to tell me?”
“Let go of me!”
There was a scuffle, a muffled slap.
Skig swished his beer around, took another swallow. Then he got up. He walked around to the front of the house and saw him there, rat boy, staring down at the girl. She was crouched on the deck against the railing, one hand to the side of her face.
The guy must have seen her eyes move. He spun around in surprise.
“Name’s Leo Skorzeny,” Skig said. “You heard of me?”
“Where the hell’d you come from?”
“You heard of me?”
“Yeah, I hearda you. Some kinda shy. You heard of me?”
“Yeah. Some kinda rat.” Skig looked at the girl. There was a red welt blossoming along one side of her face. Her nose was bleeding. His eyes moved back to the rat, and he shook his head. “What’s the matter with you?”
The dead eyes narrowed, and Skig followed their quick shift to a pile of split wood near the door. A weapon on this guy’s mind. A hatchet, maybe.
“Don’t even think it,” Skig said, “ ’less you want to wear the thing. Walk around with it stickin’ outta you, some kinda new body piercing.”
“You talk tough.”
“It’s the mileage,” Skig said. “Want to hear what I got?” He finished the beer and set the can down carefully on the railing. “One part of Happy’s business, he had that detailing place out back of the lot. The way I figure it, somebody goes through the records there, they can find out who owns what in town. All the good stuff. The best rides. Cars you don’t see on the street too much. Practically a catalogue to a guy like you.”
“So what.”
“You come onto Ms. Russell here so you can get your nose in those records.” The girl was getting to her feet. Dawning realization on her face, eyes jumping from Skig to rat boy. “Pretty soon, Happy Dan’s customers lose a car or two. Maybe a string of them. Happy Dan is scratching his head. Then one day he finds you goin’ through his records, your rat’s nose twitching, an’ he calls you on it. Or no, more likely the girl’s doin’ it. He threatens to call the cops. You can’t have that.”
The dead eyes didn’t waver.
“There’s some shouting. Some more threats. He has to step out to start processing the old lady’s trade, an’ the girl calls you up, panicking. You panic too. She tells you where the gun is, or she told you about it before. You’re back in a minute, an’ you use it to make those big holes in the guy.”
The rat edged closer to the woodpile. A car started out back of the house. Skig looked for the girl again, but she was gone. He shrugged.
“What you gonna do? I think the girl figures it out. She remembers me sorting out her boss, an’ she’s thinking—some nutty idea in her head—that she can put the jacket on me. It’s a long shot, but it’s all you got. An’ it turns out I got an alibi. Then there’s the gun. You screwed that up too. Not likely I’d pop somebody with their own gun. Not my style. An’ bein’ a thief it’s really tough for you to give up a perfectly good Smith. I bet you still got it. The gun ties you to it.”
By this time DeLuca had sidled halfway across the deck, and now he dived for the open door. Skig moved to block him. He saw what DeLuca was reaching for—not the woodpile but something else, his hand thrusting into the room and coming out with the gun. It must have been on the kitchen counter.
Skig brought the heel of his fist down on the rat’s arm so hard he heard something pop and rat boy screamed. The gun clattered over the boards. The rat’s bony knee came up, and a huge pain shot through Skig’s belly. Skig reeled backward, left hand clenched in the rat’s shirt, pulling the rat with him as the knee came up again. A wave of nausea. Skig was going down. He grabbed handfuls of the rat’s baggy pants with both fists and heaved, putting his shoulders into it. The jolt hammered all the way up his spine when his butt struck the deck, and he sat there a moment, dazed, chunky legs splayed out, hand pressed to his side. There was one good thing though. Rat boy was gone. A flying header over the railing, sixty feet down to rocks and pounding surf.
Boom.
After a bit, Skig got up and put the gun back on the kitchen counter, careful how he touched it.
—
“You
gonna be all right?” Skig asked Mrs. Kohl.
“I’ll be just fine, Mr. Skorzeny. Go ahead to your doctor’s appointment.”
“He can wait. I’m more worried about you. Somethin’ happens, who’s gonna cut my hair?”
Skig helped her settle into her glider rocker. She smiled up at him.
“That Mr. Getz is an awfully nice man. He’s helped me a lot. I was relieved when he told me the police figured out who killed Mr. Duchek. He was a nice man too.” Then she frowned. “Mr. Getz isn’t very happy with you, though. Something about a car?”
“Could be.”
“Cars are an awful lot of trouble.”
“They are for some people.”
“I’m going out again tomorrow to see if I can lease one.”
Skig was silent a moment, then said, “You want some company this time?”
A bright laugh. “You’re afraid I’ll get cheated. Men have an easier time of it at car lots than women do, is that it?”
“Lemme think about that one,” Skig said.
Rogue/Villain: John Keller
Keller on the Spot
LAWRENCE BLOCK
OKAY, KELLER IS A PROFESSIONAL HIT MAN, killing people that he’s paid to eliminate, which leads one to think he’s a black-hearted sociopath. His stock doesn’t rise when we watch him get to know many of his targets, become friendly with them, and still coldly pull the trigger. On the other hand, he seems otherwise fairly normal, a man with a hobby (stamp collecting) who is easygoing, laid back, and friendly. He does not torture anyone, nor does he take any particular pleasure in killing his victims, though he does allow that “some people need killing.”
Keller’s creator, Lawrence Block (1938– ) has produced such series characters as Matthew Scudder, an alcoholic ex-cop who accidentally shot and killed a little girl and now functions as an unofficial private eye, doing favors for friends; Bernie Rhodenbarr, a professional burglar and bookseller; Evan Tanner, a spy with a disorder that prevents him from sleeping—ever; Martin Ehrengraf, an amoral lawyer who charges a fortune but wins every case, no matter what it takes; and Chip Harrison, a teenager who thinks of little besides sex but works for Leo Haig, a private detective modeled after Nero Wolfe.
