by P. N. Elrod
Coker didn’t answer immediately. I wanted to see his face. He could be raising the gun right then.
“It did and it didn’t,” he muttered instead.
“Come on and spill.” Nevis sounded more like an understanding big brother than a man seated six feet away from a bullet.
“I figured if the cops put you away for her, then I might as well be here to take over. Just makes sense to make another try when the odds favor.”
“Yeah, that does make sense,” agreed Nevis. “I might have done the same thing myself. But they’re not going to put me away. Not enough evidence.”
That’s when Coker woke out of Nevis’s spell and laughed. “You don’t know everything. Boss.”
“Fill me in. I’m not going anywhere.”
“No, you’re not. For one thing, your sweet little twist Lena was stealing from you.”
“Tell me what I don’t know.”
“Good, Nevis. I didn’t think you were that dumb. Why’d you let her get away with it? Were you in love?”
Nevis kept his temper against the inherent contempt. “It didn’t bother me is all. Anything else?”
“Oh, yeah. Plenty. Lena kept a record of every bet she made. I think it was some kind of insurance for her in case you decided to fall out of love.”
Great. One cat out of the bag. One can of worms opened wide. One pot of beans spilled to hell and gone all over the floor. I suppose I could edit Nevis’s memory later. What’s a splitting headache or two between friends?
“A record?”
“She had a little book. The only thing in it was your name and a lot of numbers and dates of all the work you had for her with the bookies. Very incriminating. It wouldn’t take the cops very long to—”
“You’re lying.”
I could almost see Coker’s shrug. “Doesn’t matter. I was going to give it to them to nail you to the wall, but then they’d close this place down for good. Or make it too expensive for me to pay them off.”
“So you forget the book and kill me instead? And who do you think they’d pick as the most likely suspect?”
“Me, of course. Only I’ll have plenty of alibi. Same as the other time.” He didn’t have to add that last bit. It was his way of informing Nevis his end was definitely nigh, just as it’d been for Welsh Lennet.
“The other time it went bust on you.”
“Not my fault. I got things better prepared now.”
“Sure you have. You think I wouldn’t know? Or allowed for it? You bump me, and you won’t see one thin dime off this place. I made a will.”
“Oh, yeah?”
“Something happens to me, and it all goes to my uncle in San Francisco. I figure it might make up for some bad blood between us.”
“Well, you said it yourself, don’t kid a kidder.”
“You’ll find out the truth of it soon enough.”
“Maybe so,” Coker said after a minute. “But even if it does go to him, he’ll need someone local to run things. I still get the club. Why you shaking your head?”
“Because my uncle is anything but stupid, except when it comes to women—which runs in the family if I’m any judge of myself. He may not like me, but he’d get over it once I’m dead. He’s funny that way about relatives. He can hit them, but no one else can. He will turn this town inside out, call in every favor to get my killer. You, my old buddy, would lose, because you don’t have that many friends willing to keep their yaps shut once he starts waving the cash around. Then, when he closes on you . . .”
“Yeah, what?”
“You’ll end up wishing your ma and pa never made eyes at each other. I’ve seen Uncle Grim at work.” Nevis drew a breath between his teeth to make a hissing sound. “It’s ugly. You have to have a strong stomach to watch, but he’s kind of an artist about it. The results are impressive. It’s amazing how long he can keep them alive, too. You wouldn’t think—”
“That’s good, Nevis. I almost believe you, but if any of that were true, you’d have said something about it a long time back. You like to talk too much, but you’ve never mentioned any of this before.”
“I’ve never had a man holding a gun on me for this long before. It’s downright inspiring to the memory.”
“You’re boring me.”
“I’m just getting to the good part, though, the part where we both come up smelling like roses.”
This was something I wanted to hear as well.
“The part where I make you a real deal—one we can both live with.”
A pause. “Okay, go ahead. Surprise me.”
“I just might. Lena had a practical streak in her. Maybe that’s why she didn’t want to hook up with me permanent. If she’d ever wanted out and I said no, she’d have had that book to convince me to back off. Something simple and easy. You can use it the same way.”
“Which is... ?”
“I run the club, you pull the strings. You get ten percent of the weekly take after it’s cleaned up. You’ve got the book to keep me from killing you, and you don’t kill me because I’m doing the work.”
“Keep talking.”
“All you have to do is fix up a dead man’s switch with the book. If you’re ever killed or you disappear, the book is delivered to the cops with an appropriate note about me. You can find a lawyer somewhere who’ll do it for you. You will always be safe from me. Actually, I’ll have a vested interest in keeping you safe and healthy for years to come.”
“What keeps me from killing you? I forget.”
“My business sense. You don’t really want to run the club, you just want to be boss. This way you get to be boss but without the responsibilities.”
“And what do you get out of it?”
“I get to live. Which I want more than this club. I could sign the place over to you, but it wouldn’t be the same. You wouldn’t trust me not to sneak up on you someday, dead man switch or no, and you’d have to bump me. But this way we both win. We both get something.”
Coker fell silent. I couldn’t tell if he was fuming or thinking. “I want fifty percent.”
“Fifteen is as high as I can go. Ten’s pushing it as it is. The people I report to will notice a drop in the profits. Fifteen I can blame on hard times; any more, and you risk getting noticed.”
I couldn’t laugh in this form but wanted to; I should have been taking notes.
“What’s to keep you from bumping me until I get this lawyer thing set up?”
“Nothing, but you’re a smart boy, Shivvey, and there’s the phone. You can find someone to sit with me until you’re squared away.”
“Sure, so you talk to them like you did with Tony? Turn them against me?”
“Then tie and gag me for the duration. I’d prefer that to a grenade or bullet.”
“You got all the angles figured, don’t you?”
“It’s what I’m good at. Is it too early to start calling you boss?”
Coker took a long time thinking, probably thinking very hard, then he laughed once. “Hell, why not?”
Something banged and thumped—a door opening violently—and a woman’s shrill voice cut in on what might have been their pending handshake.
“You goddamn bastards!”
“Rita?”
Couldn’t tell which of them said it; I was too busy hauling ass.
I got to her a fraction too late, a gun went off just as I materialized in the hall next to her.
She gave a loud, full-throated screech of pure outrage as I pummeled against her big body, pushing her out of the doorway. She staggered and fell, cursing. Good. If she could do that, then she’d not been shot.
“Let me go!” she bellowed, struggling to rise. I’d planted a foot square between her shoulders and bent to take her gun. Awkward, but I managed to pull it clear without breaking her fingers or having it fire.
The muzzle was hot. I left her. Looked inside the office.
Nevis was on the floor in front of the couch, having apparently ducked. He didn’t seem to be injur
ed and was staring at Coker, who stood next to the desk. He had his gun on Nevis but swung it toward me. Slack-jawed shock rocked him on his heels.
“Fleming? How the hell . . . ?”
Another fast move for me, risking a bullet to melt the few steps between us. I expected Coker to be surprised just long enough for me to turn things in my favor, but he didn’t try to shoot. I took his gun without even token resistance.
“You’re dead,” he whispered, all astonishment as I backed off, covering him. “Dead . . . oh. Oh, shit.”
Then Coker settled unsteadily into the chair behind the desk. He’d gone abruptly gray-faced.
“You lemme finish!” shouted Rita, surging in like the marines. I put an arm out and kept her from hitting him.
“Never mind, honey, that’s enough for now,” I said, for by then I’d caught the whiff of bloodsmell.
Coker put a hand to his chest. The hole there wasn’t big but was colorful. Red pumped down his white shirtfront. “Damn,” he said. “That hurts like hell. That—”
He bowed his head and kept bowing until he slipped untidily from the chair. His body struggled with a long ugly spasm and made ugly sounds as it fought against inevitability.
I watched without pity, without any emotion at all, remembering what he and his men had done to me and what he’d done to his men. Maybe now I’d be able to forget about that one mug and his burned-down cigarette.
NEVIS was the first to wake out of the spell. He went to Coker and checked him over, slowly straightening. He looked at me, then Rita, who’d gone quiet. He shrugged and sat on the couch. He pulled out a cigarette. His hands were steady.
“Gimme,” said Rita. This time I let her push past. She dropped heavily next to Nevis, who gave her one from his pack and a light. I had to turn away. I wasn’t beyond feeling after all, but this one was of nausea for a memory, not for what lay on the floor.
“What did you think you were doing?” Nevis asked her. “Were you gonna get me next?”
“No—yes—I don’t know. You two were—oh, jeez, Booth, after what he did to Lena how could you hop into bed with him like that?” She got up and came to stand on my right. I put the guns in my coat pockets. Quite a collection I had, including Upshaw’s.
“He was making a deal to stay alive,” I explained. “He had no intention of turning the club over to Shivvey. He was buying time.”
Nevis snorted. “Hell, yes. You stop to ask directions or something? I was running out of ideas.”
That’d be the day, I thought.
She looked up at me. “Really? He was just shooting bull?”
“Yeah, really. I was in the next room over, heard the whole thing.”
“But I was going to—”
“The less said the better, honey.”
She frowned fiercely at the body. “What do I do?”
“Nothing,” said Nevis. “It’s over. You go home.”
“Then what?”
“You go home, you forget about it.”
“Can you?” There was no reproach in her question; she wanted to know what he intended toward her.
He smiled. It was a death’s-head kind of grin on his gaunt face. “You did me a favor. I don’t forget favors. Maybe you were gonna plug me, too, but it didn’t happen, so get out. Me and Fleming got work to do.”
“Work?”
“Cleanup,” I said, nodding down at Coker’s mortal and quite solid remains. They wouldn’t be going anywhere without help.
“Oh.”
“You’ll be all right?”
She took a heavy draw on her cigarette, and my gaze slipped elsewhere for a second, then returned. “I donno. What’s gonna happen to me?”
“Nothing. You go home and have a drink for Lena. You did the right thing for her.”
She had to know that, to believe it. Maybe I could help her out with a mental push and nudge later on if it was necessary, but for now she needed to be sure of the rightness of her action. It would make the nights to come easier.
That’s what I always told myself when I thought about the people I’d killed.
THIS time I made sure that Rita actually boarded the El, then went back to help Nevis. He had a plan, the first part requiring we back Upshaw’s car into the alley. We parked it close to the door, then hauled Coker’s body out, tucking it into the trunk.
Next I drove us to a diner, where Nevis bought a couple cups of coffee and some sandwiches. All of it was for him, and he did not enjoy the coffee to judge by his expression as he drank. He gave me terse directions between bites as he wolfed the sandwiches.
We ended up at a small airport. It seemed closed for the night, but no one challenged us as we went through the gates and up to a cluster of small buildings where lights still shone. They were surmounted by a tower that vaguely reminded me of a lighthouse. I waited in the car while Nevis bolted out and did whatever business was required. I didn’t ask, as it would have made a delay. When you have a body in your trunk, you don’t want things like delays.
It took him just under ten minutes.
“Goddamn cops,” he grumbled, climbing into the passenger seat. He now wore a fleece-lined leather jacket over his suit and had pulled on another pair of pants made of heavy wool. It looked bulky but warm.
“Cops?”
“They were here earlier. Told the guy running this place that he should make sure I didn’t try to skip off to Canada in my plane. Told him to put it out of commission and call them if I showed up.”
“Did he?”
“Of course not.” He sounded pained. “We go back a long ways. Besides, the cops don’t pay him, I do. Take us over to that hangar that’s opening up.”
I took us. The hangar was massive, holding several different small planes. The man who had opened the wide doors turned the lights on, gave us a friendly wave, and walked unconcernedly off toward the tall tower. Whether it was on purpose or not, he never once looked back.
Nevis had me park next to one of the planes. I didn’t know much about them, only that they were heavier than air. Given that important fact, I knew I would stick to trains, cars, or my own feet when it came to travel. Nevis concentrated on checking his machine over top to bottom. He made a thorough job of it, his engrossment such that even I could see he was probably a very good pilot. I stayed quiet and out of his way until, satisfied, he motioned for me to open the trunk.
The hangar lights recklessly on, we loaded Coker into the passenger seat of the plane. It was a good-size craft, with space for two more seats in the rear; only those had been removed to make room for a small cargo. I wondered if Nevis missed his days as a rumrunner of select, expensive booze.
We belted Coker in. He kept bowing forward until Nevis found a strap to tie him in place.
“That’ll hold long enough,” he said. “Just until I can get rid of him.”
“You’ll want some weights so he doesn’t float.”
“What? I’m not dumping him in the lake. No need.” He picked Coker’s pockets clean of wallet, keys, and other items—including the little records book.
“Where then?”
“Not sure exactly. They got some good thick woods up in Wisconsin. They’ll do fine.”
“You’re burying him in the woods?”
“No, I’m dropping him.”
I wasn’t sure that I’d heard him right and said as much. He closed the passenger door and ducked under it to come up the other side. I followed.
“I just keep flying north,” he said. “It’s easy at night. You can see where the lights give out. When I find a big enough patch of black below, I just push our friend here out. From that height, the body pretty much goes to pieces when it hits the ground. The bears and other animals take care of the rest.”
Not a picture I wanted in my head, but I had worse things there. This one at least explained something about that fragment of a phone conversation I’d overheard the other night.
He shot me another grin like death, then opened the book. He flip
ped through the pages, giving them the same concentration he’d afforded his plane. “That’s her writing,” he concluded, sounding resigned. “I remember this bet—it was a hell of a payoff, and on my birthday, too. Made me wish I’d placed some real money on that nag. Lena took a fifty from that one.”
“You sure you’re not sore at her?”
“I’m sure. She wasn’t obvious about it, and she never acted guilty. I’ve had other girls who tried to steal off the top, and they did both. Annoyed the hell outta me. Lena . . . well . . .” He released a short breath and shut the book. “I don’t like to think of her dying like she did. If that’s how it happened, then he got off too easy, too quick.” He looked toward the plane.
Coker’s body was in shadow, but you could tell it was a man sitting there. Sitting a lot too still to be right.
“Maybe . . . maybe her heart gave out. I mean she’d have been scared and bad off, but that’s better than—”
“It happened a long time ago, Nevis. She’s not hurting now.”
A small kind of shift took place in him. “Okay, you’re right. I better get in the air before the coffee wears off. Thanks for the help.”
“You’re welcome. You mean that about Rita? You going to leave her alone?”
“Like I said, she did me a favor. You don’t need to worry about her. We’ll get together tomorrow sometime and have that drink to Lena, huh?”
“Sure.”
“You seeing Rita tonight?”
“I got a mess of my own to clear up.” I nodded at the car, where Upshaw sprawled out of sight in the back.
“Heh, when you sock ’em, they stay socked. Looks like some of the stuff I’ve heard about you is true.”
“Maybe.” I would have liked to have found out what he’d heard, but this wasn’t the time.
I hung around long enough to watch him take off, following the retreating shape of his sleek silver plane against what to me was a pale gray sky. The haze of distance soon blended the silver with the gray until it was quite invisible. After that I returned to the city, satisfied that most of my problems were over or could be shoved aside for later consideration.
There was one left to me I felt would never be resolved, though. Nevis and Rita thought that Lena’s murderer was dead.
