Kwan’s duffel was on the bed. Picking it up, he said to them, “You know, for one moment, we touched the conscience of the world.”
“Is that right?” the man said, uncaring. Looking around the bare little room, he said, “Got all your stuff?”
“But the truth is,” Kwan said, “the world doesn’t have very much conscience.” And he went with them.
Ananayel
What is it about Susan Carrigan? I don’t need her any more, but here I am with her. I’ve studied my actions, my motivations, my reasons for continuing to see Susan after her task was finished, and I’ve come to a conclusion. It seems to me that the quality in her that attracts me is that she does no harm.
I’m mostly aware, of course, of the others, the ones who snarl and bite, the ones whose messy miserable struggles led finally to my present assignment. My awareness of them is so complete that Susan is becoming more and more of an amazement to me. I’ve been seeing for myself why He has grown weary of these creatures, but it wasn’t until I got closer to Susan over time that I began to sense why He had made them in the first place.
This means nothing, of course. His Will be done. It only seems to me that I ought to get a clearer picture of the humans while they still exist, that I should see them both at their worst and at their best. I knew them so little, understood so litde, when I started. Susan shows me the parts I hadn’t suspected.
We see each other three or four times a week. We go to movies, or to stage plays, or to dinner. A few times, I have spent an evening in her apartment to watch some special program on television. She is easy enough in her mind about me by now that I could move the relationship onto a sexual plane, but I have not. (I don’t precisely read her mind, but I can make myself aware of levels of her emotions and the general flow of her thoughts, and I’m rather sure an overture from me would not be unacceptable.) My only personal sexual experience was with Pami: nasty and brutish, though not particularly short. With humans, sex is where reality and belief touch, where the physical and the emotional rationalize one another; it might be better for me not to know any more than I already do.
As for Susan, I do enjoy her company Her reactions to the world she sees, her opinions, are so close to my own that there are moments when I find her uncannily angelic. She isn’t, of course. She is human, so my time with her will be extremely limited. (Even more than under normal circumstances.) I’m glad of the opportunity, though, no matter how brief it must be.
In the meantime, what’s this? Out in Illinois, what is Frank Hillfen up to?
Getting into trouble all on his own, without any help from me.
20
There’s nothing to worry about,” Joey said.
Frank knew better than that. There was always something to worry about. That’s what life added up to: worry. “Just tell me the scheme,” he said.
Joey was a big heavy slob who always smelled of tomato sauce. He had some kind of teamster job out at Scott Field, the huge air force base just a few miles out of East St. Louis, but what he mainly did was muscle for some of the heavy guys around the area. He wasn’t a mob soldier, not a made guy, just another bulked-up goon they called on sometimes when bones had to be broken or a litde demonstration of power had to be made on the street. Between times, Joey got along as a smalltime break-and-enter guy, a lot like Frank himself, except not as fastidious about avoiding violence.
Normally, Frank would keep away from a guy like Joey. People who saw violence as just one more tool of the trade always scared Frank a little, because he didn’t believe violence could be contained with absolute control; it tended to slop over, like a drunk’s soup.
But Frank had been stuck here in this nothing town for
weeks now, never scoring any more than just enough to keep himself fed and housed, and the time had come to accomplish something. Joey was a guy Frank knew from Mindle’s, the bar a block and a half from the shitty litde furnished room he was staying in. A couple of times, Joey had hinted over beers that he might have a score he’d like to count Frank in on, but Frank had always played it stupid, not getting the hints. But enough was enough; he’d been stuck in this town too long. East St. Louis! Jesus!
“Tell me the scheme,” Frank said.
They were at a side booth in Mindle’s, three in the afternoon, Ralph on the stick, a few loners at the bar, traffic going by past the dusty windows out front. Joey had bought a round of beers, that’s how much he wanted to do this thing, whatever it was. And now he leaned forward over the table, holding the beer in both his scarred fat hands, fat lips barely moving, tomato sauce-scented breath floating the words like little ghosts across the black Formica: “It’s a courier.”
Frank couldn’t quite do that ghost-speech trick; he leaned his cheek against his left hand, to hide his mouth and direct his words toward Joey and away from the people at the bar: “What courier?”
Joey’s lips twitched. “Ganolese,” floated the name, into Frank’s ear.
Frank dropped his hand and stared at Joey. “Are you crazy?”
Leo Ganolese was one of the capos around this part of the country, maybe the capo. He’d let everybody else go drive themselves crazy dealing drugs, dealing women, while he stayed with what he knew. Leo Ganolese was in the gambling business, had been in the gambling business for forty years, and would stay in the gambling business forever. Over on the Missouri side, and here in southwestern Illinois, he was the man in charge, in so solid the Federals never even bothered to try to make a case against him.
And nobody ever was stupid or loco enough to try to take Leo Ganolese’s money away from him. “Forget it,” Frank said. “I gotta be outta my own mind to even sit here with you.”
“Wait for it,” Joey advised. He was still doing the silent-voice thing. “I got it figured. Lemme splain.”
Frank was drinking Joey's beer; until it was gone, he’d let Joey splain. Then he’d walk out and have nothing more to do with this idiot. “Go ahead.”
“The courier’s an old guy,” came the little word-puffs. “It’s like his retirement job. Every morning he goes around in a car, he picks up cash from the action the night before. All by himself. By lunchtime, he’s got it all, he takes it to the Evanston Social Club. It’s usually around eighty grand, every day, sometimes more.”
“No,” Frank said, his hand up to his cheek again. “Doesn’t make sense. One old guy in a car! Eighty grand every day?”
“He’s some kinda cousin of Leo Ganolese,” Joey explained. “Safest courier there is. Everybody knows don’t touch him.”
“Including you and me, Joey,” Frank said.
“You know why that’s a no?” Joey was getting excited, the words stronger, turning almost into solid speech in the air. “That’s a no, because over in St. Louis, right now, they got a big horse show going on.”
“And?”
“And the city’s full of punks from all over the country,” Joey said. “They follow the horses. They don’t have the kinda respect for the local situation that the local guys do. We take down the courier, we don’t let him see our faces, everybody’s got to know it can’t be anyone from around here did it. Leo Ganolese is gonna be sure it has to be some out-of-town punk just came to St. Louis.”
“I just came to St. Louis. East St. Louis.”
“Nah,” Joey said. “You been around a while now, you’re like a native citizen, Frank, believe me.”
Frank believed him. On that much, he believed him. He, Frank Hillfen, was becoming a local. Here. The knowledge of that reality is what made him say, “I’ll look at this guy. I don’t promise anything.”
“Sure, Frank! We’ll follow him around, and—”
“No!” Frank couldn’t believe he was contemplating a partnership with a guy this simple. “Somebody sees us driving around behind your man, they’ll remember it later on. You tell me a couple of his pickup places, that’s what we’ll take a look at.”
“Sure, Frank. Whatever you say.” Joey’s excitement made him bounce around on the
bench, fat fingers clutching at the beer glass. “I’ll pick a couple spots, but I won’t follow him around. Okay, Frank?”
He admires me, Frank thought. He looks up to me, this asshole, he respects me. This is what Fm reduced to, getting a score from a dirtbag that shouldn’t even have the right to speak to me. I gotta get out of this town. I gotta get someplace where the scores make sense and the dirtbags don’t know me and Fm not like a native citizen. We’ll look at it, Joey,” he said, judicious, like an elder statesman.
* * *
Of course, it wasn’t as simple as Joey thought; it couldn’t be. The old guy was there, all right, and he made his collections every day, and he drove his car alone around his route, but he wasn’t without security, not at all. There was always another car trailing around behind him, with two bulky guys inside. Different cars on different days, different guys taking the duty, but always there, hanging a block or so back on the road, parking nearby when the old man made his stops.
The old man himself was—what? seventy? eighty?—old, but spry. Skinny old guy, always wearing a gray topcoat and a nicely blocked gray fedora hat, no matter what the weather. He drove at a normal pace, maybe a little cautious, and he always moved in a dignified way, like he was the messenger of the king; which in a way he was. His stops were bowling alleys, delicatessens, bars, private homes; anywhere that one of Leo Ganolese’s books or numbers drops or tables operated. At every stop, the old man would get out of the car (that other car discreetly stopped just up or down the street), enter the place with a calm and measured tread, and come out a few minutes later with usually two or three other guys. (More security, that.) One of the guys would carry a package of some kind, a paper bag or a shoe box or something else equally nondescript. The guys would stand looking this way and that while the old man opened the trunk and the package was put in there with all the other packages. Then the old man would shake hands with one or two of the other guys, get into his car, and drive away. The people from the establishment would wait on the sidewalk until he was a couple blocks off and the other car had moved after him.
“Not easy,” Frank said, back at the table in Mindle’s. He was feeling cold in the pit of his stomach. There were things you did, and things you were foolish to do. This was beginning to look foolish.
Joey, of course, didn’t get it. “All we gotta do is take out that backup car,” he said. “Look, Frank, between Belleville and Millstadt there’s a long run, maybe ten minutes, lotsa places where we could get rid of that other car. Then it’s easy.”
“What do you mean, get rid of that other car?”
‘Take it out,” Joey said, shrugging the whole problem away. “Listen, I know a guy down in Missouri, down in Branson, we can get hand grenades, no fooling. We drive by, we flip one in the car, we—”
“Goodbye,” Frank said, and got to his feet, and walked out of the bar.
He was half a block toward the furnished room when Joey caught up with him, looking bewildered, maybe even a litde put out. “Whad I do? Whad I do?”
Frank kept walking, Joey sweaty beside him. “I don’t ever go near violence,” he said. “Never. You start throwing hand grenades around—”
“So we just shoot the driver,” Joey said, shrugging, making what he must have thought was a decent compromise.
“No.”
Then Joey grabbed Frank’s arm and stopped him on the street. Joey was a fat slob, but he was also a muscleman fat slob; those fingers holding Frank’s arm hurt. And Joey had something else in his voice now, when he said, “Hold it a minute, Frank.” Something meaner, more dangerous.
Frank stopped, because he had to, and looked at Joey’s angry litde eyes. “What now, Joey?”
“What now, Mr. Big Man,” Joey said, “is this. I look around this neighborhood, I don’t see a whole lot of people working on being saints and angels, and that includes you. Don’t give me bullshit, Frank. I brought you a job, we looked it over, it could be nice. All of a sudden, you’re too good for me. You don’t do violence” Joey was still holding Frank’s arm, and now he squeezed a little, bearing down. “Well, I do” he said. “I’m not afraid of violence, Frank. You wanna be, that’s okay. You get my meaning?”
This scumbag is turning mean, Frank thought. I made a mistake dealing with him in the first place, and now he’s getting resentful, his litde piggy mind’s gonna decide I’m his enemy. I got to cut away from this shit. He said, “Joey, you knock over one day of one of Leo Ganolese’s operations, it won’t hurt him that much. He’ll look for the people did it, naturally, because nobody’s supposed to get away with crap like that. But you’re right, he’ll probably figure it’s some punk hanging around over at the horse show.”
“Just like I said,” Joey agreed, and gave Frank’s arm a litde shake.
Frank ignored that. “But,” he said, “you start killing his people, you start acting like Leo Ganolese doesn’t deserve any respect, he’s gonna find you. So you can squeeze my arm all you want, I’d still rather face you than Leo Ganolese.”
Joey thought about that. Finally, reluctandy, he let Frank’s arm go, and Frank resisted the impulse to rub it where it ached. Don’t give the slob the satisfaction.
Meantime, Joey was saying, “Okay. We’re partners, we respect each other. You wanna come up with another way, fine by me.”
“So let me think about it,” Frank said, telling himself, maybe I’ll just leave this town tonight, score something along the way, just enough to take me maybe to Indianapolis, someplace like that.”
But Joey said, “Frank, the horse show’s now. My way, I can get this hand grenade tomorrow, we can do it.”
There’s no way out, Frank thought. But somewhere, at some point, I’ve got to protect myself. Joey’s a nasty piece of shit. I shouldn’t be here with him at all, but here I am. ccWe’ll have to drive the route,” he said. “See what looks good.”
“Okay, Frank,” Joey said. “And I’ll get the hand grenade, too. Just in case.”
* * *
As it turned out, they did use the hand grenade, but not in the way Joey had in mind. A hand grenade, yes, but nonviolent.
The situation was, out around Smithton and Floraville, another area where the old man had a long empty ride between pickups, at an intersection in farm country, there was a stop sign. That was where they took him over, running out from both sides of the road as he halted, pulling the ski masks down over their faces, Frank pulling open the driver’s door as Joey hurled himself into the car on the passenger side, put his hands on the old man, and yanked him out from behind the wheel. The old man screamed, and Frank got his hands on the wheel, his right foot on the accelerator, and they shot out into the intersection, swinging around hard to the right.
The old man was yelling—what are you doing, are you crazy, do you know whose car this is, all this shit—and Joey cuffed him across the head to shut him up, the three of them wedged together in the front seat. Frank didn’t look in the rearview mirror, not wanting to know how close that other car was; it would be on their asses, he knew that much, coming along at top speed.
The narrow farm road was another right turn. Frank was so keyed up, so nervous about this part of it, that he almost took the turn too hard and rammed them into a tree. But he recovered, the tires digging into the oiled-gravel surface, spraying stones everywhere as they jolted on down the empty road, and when now he did dare look in the mirror that other car, a gray Toyota, was way the hell and gone behind them, a lot farther than he would have thought. Perfect.
The little bridge was a mile down this road, over a fastrunning shallow boulder-strewn stream; Frank slammed on the brakes and they shuddered to a stop on the bridge, the terrified old man pressing his palms against the dashboard to keep from going out the windshield. Frank glared past him at Joey, screwing around with the hand grenade: “Drop the fucking thing, Joey!”
“Bight! Bight!” Joey dropped the grenade out the window, throwing the pin after it. Frank accelerated, and in the mirror he s
aw the roadway back there suddenly produce a red and yellow bouquet of flame, with black leaves of smoke. The chasing Toyota spun and shuddered and squealed to a stop, short of the explosion. The road gaped open over the stream. Nobody would be driving down this way any more today.
The beat-up old pickup truck Frank had stolen this morning was still there behind the burned-out shell of an old farmhouse. Frank steered in next to it, pulled the key from the ignition, and jumped from the car. Fie hadn’t taken anything today, not even a beer, but he was all hopped-up, adrenaline pumping through him. Fie almost felt as though, if he were to speak, his voice would come out all high-pitched and weird, like somebody who’s been sniffing helium. Fie couldn’t keep still, but had to go over and touch the pickup, then bounce back to the car, where Joey was still backing out, looking in at the old man. “Shit,” Joey said.
Frank paid no attention. The hard fast driving is what had keyed him up like this. If he held a light bulb it would glow, he knew it would. “He can stay in there,” he said, talking over the top of the car at Joey. “He can stay in there till we’re gone.”
“Oh, yeah, he’ll stay in there,” Joey said. “You’re fucking right he will.”
Something in Joey’s voice finally caught Frank’s attention, and he bent to look through the open driver’s door at the old man, who had gone on sitting in there, tilted slighdy to the left now, staring out the windshield as though they were still doing eighty-five down the farm road. “Aw, Christ,” Frank said, seeing the old guy stare, seeing how his mouth hung open, how his hands were curled in his lap, how he didn’t move. Straightening, feeling like shit, he again looked across the top of the car at Joey. ccWe gave him a heart attack or something.”
Joey’s response was to reach up and pull the ski mask off and throw it on the ground, revealing his heavy face covered with gleaming sweat. “One less problem,” he said. “Open the trunk, Frank.”
Westlake, Donald E - Novel 51 Page 17
