The Last Kind Words (21 page)

“Okay, so tell me,” I said.

She twisted a lock of her hair and drew it over her ear. “There is something, I think. I’m not sure.”

I asked, “What?”

“I think someone’s been following me, but I could be wrong. It’s just a feeling.”

“Cops?”

“They’re easy to spot. No. Someone else. Maybe because of Collie.”

“Reporters?”

“I don’t know.”

“When did this start?”

“I’m not certain. Nothing I can put a finger on. It feels like it’s been there for a while but I can’t pinpoint an exact time, you know? It’s just been at the back of my mind and now it’s sort of moved to the front.”

“Someone angry at Collie who wants to take it out on his family? That kind of feeling?”

“I’m not sure.”

“You ever see anyone?”

“No.”

“When’s it happen? At home?”

“Yes, when I’m coming home or leaving for school. And at other times. When I’m shopping at the mall with friends. I get a sense that someone is watching.”

“Could it be someone from Danny Thompson’s crew?”

She froze up for a moment, then seemed to slowly regain the power of movement as she nodded. “So you know about that. About Butch working for Danny.”

“Yes,” I said.

She nearly spit her words. “Of course you do. It’s just small-time stuff.”

“I heard. Has he had a falling-out with Danny?”

“No. Maybe. I’m not sure. He’s … he’s involved with something new. A job. I think Danny might be pressuring him for details. Or for money up front.”

Dale spoke like she couldn’t believe the truth of what she was saying, as if she was having déjà vu and hoping for some different outcome this time.

“And you’re worried that he might be using you as leverage against Butch?” I asked.

“You tell me. You know that prick better than I do.”

“I don’t know him that well anymore.”

She didn’t say she thought it might be nothing. She didn’t say it might just be all in her head and she might just be acting paranoid. She knew enough to trust herself, to be wary and on her toes. It was a part of being born into this bent life of ours.

“You ever spot a black Mercedes tagging around you?” I asked.

“I don’t think so.”

“Keep an eye out for it. Do you carry any kind of weapon, Dale?”

“What, like a gun or a knife?”

“Like pepper spray?”

“No.”

We drove through neighborhood streets that had flooded. Trash spiraled in the gutters, the sewer grates boiling up like there were sharks under the water.

“I’ll get you something,” I said. “Maybe Mace.”

“They don’t sell Mace anymore.”

“I might be able to get it. You carry it with you everywhere you go from now on.”

“I want a knife,” she said.

She laid it out flat and I wondered if she’d been lying to me. She might just want a knife because she was hooked up with Butch and his crew and she knew that if anything ever went down wrong she’d be able to play sweet and get up close and stick the blade in. At least she thought she could.

I felt my neck flush and straightened my collar to hide it. My Christ, what the hell was going on with this family?

“Maybe I’ll get you a knife too,” I said. “Something small. But you aim for the eyes and throat and it’ll be effective. You feel like someone is following you again, you call me, wherever you are, day or night, you let me know. If anyone tries to grab you, you douse his eyes or you stab him in the face. Do you understand?”

“Yes.”

We pulled up in front of the house. She didn’t say,
I know you won’t let me down
. She didn’t say,
I believe in you
.

“Aren’t you coming in?” she asked.

“I have to be somewhere. Take the dog, all right, Blanche?”

“Fucker.”

She almost gave me that gentle empty touch on the arm that she’d trained herself to give the rubes. Instead, she leaned over and kissed my cheek.

Dale called the dog. JFK climbed out the passenger side and let my sister lead him up the walk. He turned back once and gave me a sad stare, like he had plenty of his own secrets to spill that would haunt us all forever.

Wes
used to have a small apartment on the north side of Main Street, above a delicatessen that was one of Big Dan Thompson’s fronts. Now he owned a nice house on the south side, right off the bay. A canal ran behind his patio deck. A twenty-eight-foot sailboat sat at a private dock. The sails hadn’t been tied down properly and they’d become worn and frayed, flapping loose in the wind. The rails hadn’t been polished in years and the deck had banged around so much in storms that I could see cracks worrying up from the keel.

The four-bedroom house was full of expensive, practical furniture. Chandeliers, marble tiling, a fireplace without an ounce of ash in it. A dining room that sat twelve. A living room with lush leather L-shaped couches, thick white carpeting, a huge plasma television and entertainment system. Coaster trays on every end table. The kind of room where you hosted large parties, serving martinis and canapés.

There were two fresh gallons of milk in the fridge but no beer. It told me that Wes either ate a lot of cereal or had ulcers.

No photos on the shelves, no pictures on the walls. No CDs or DVDs. Nothing that said he spent any time here relaxing. No sign of friends or family anywhere. No women’s deodorant or Tampax in the bathroom. No drawer set aside for a girlfriend. No condoms in his nightstand. No spank mags in either of the bathrooms. No recreational drugs. I found the ulcer meds in his medicine cabinet.

Wes had moved up in the world but wasn’t enjoying himself much.

He was out cold in the master bedroom. Like every syndicate guy who did business out of a bar or a titty joint, he didn’t crap out until eight or nine in the morning and didn’t get his day started until maybe five
P.M
.

He slept with a .32 snub under his pillow. I’d never known anyone paranoid or dopey enough to really keep a pistol under their pillow. He could sneeze or have a nightmare and put one in his own ear. Danny really had him knotted up inside. I unloaded the snub and left it on his dresser. In his closet I found a false back with an assortment of guns stashed behind it, including two .357 Magnums, a couple of Desert Eagle 9mms, and one semiauto rifle. They all appeared to be unfired.

There were banded blocks of hundred-dollar bills amounting to around fifty g’s. If I was still a thief I’d be having a very good week. Between Chub’s cache and Wes’s hoard I could’ve set myself up in Miami and lived the righteous life for a year.

He also had five untraceable burner cell phones. I tried one and it worked. I pocketed it. In a small box were a couple of switchblades and a butterfly knife. I snatched the butterfly.

I watched him sleep for a few minutes. His hundred-and-fifty-dollar haircut still looked good after eight hours of tossing and turning. But his face remained scrunched into a harassed expression. I wondered why he put himself through all of this. He wasn’t a born mob mook and he didn’t have the disposition for the serious roughnecking. I couldn’t see him ever killing anyone, but who the hell really knew.

I cleared my throat and said, “Evening, Wes.”

He was a light sleeper. He snapped up out of bed and looked side to side. It took him a second to go for the gun under his pillow. He scrabbled at the mattress and then checked the sheets.

I said, “Relax.”

His eyes cleared and he focused on me. Then he laid back down and rubbed his face. “Terry. Jesus God. You trying to juke me?”

“If I was I would’ve been long gone by now. Besides, Wes, you don’t own a hell of a lot to fence.”

His face fell and flushed so pink that it looked like a kid had dabbed him with a paintbrush. He wouldn’t have minded me robbing him nearly as much as my finding out he was boring as hell. “I’ve been meaning to buy some new stuff.”

“Right.”

“Give me a minute. And get out of my bedroom.”

He bounced away to hit the head and I went and sat on his nice couch in his nice empty living room. He joined me in ten minutes, freshly showered, wearing a clean suit, his eyes as red as if he hadn’t slept at all.

“You’ve got a sweet touch,” he said. “You must if I didn’t wake up.”

“Some skills you never lose.”

He frowned at me. His knitted eyebrows made him look like he was about ten years old. “I don’t appreciate you coming here like this. You could have just called or rung the goddamn doorbell.”

“Don’t get your feelings too bent out of shape or I might remind you that you’ve been parked at my curb, watching my house.”

“I was only doing what the boss told me.”

“I’m only doing what I have to, Wes. Next time I’ll knock, right?”

He sat opposite me. “What do you want, Terry?”

I knew he wanted to get himself some milk. I wanted to tell him that it was okay, but I’d already embarrassed him enough. He wasn’t my friend, but I didn’t have to put him on the defensive like this. I’d been creeping around so much lately after so much time being out of the bent life that I wondered if I could go through a front door anymore.

“It hasn’t been easy for you since Big Dan blew out his heart,” I said.

“I get by.”

“What is Danny into that’s so off course from the way his father played the game?”

“You don’t need to know that, Terry.”

“You really ought to retire.”

It made him laugh and glance around the room like I’d told a complicated joke to a large group of guests and he wanted to see if everyone else was laughing. “And do what? Garden? It’s in my blood. Same as being a second-story man is in yours.”

“I don’t take ulcer medication or have two gallons of milk in my house.”

He leaned in. “You don’t have a house.”

“Good point.”

“So what did you do? Climb on the roof?”

“No,” I said. “Popped out a basement window. It’s easy to creep another criminal’s house. They never have alarm systems hooked up to the police.”

“I’ll remember that.” He held his arms up in a gesture of resignation. “So, you going to tell me what you want, Terry? We haven’t been back to your dad’s place.”

“Let’s table it. Tell me about Butch.”

“Butch?”

“Started hanging around Danny’s not too long ago. Thinks he’s an outlaw. Twenty-one, skinny, busted nose, shaggy hair, pencil beard, smells like acne cream. Sounds like maybe he’s taken down a few small scores.”

“Oh, that kid. Yeah.”

I could tell by the way he said it that he knew my sister was seeing Butch. That it was something they talked about around the Fifth Amendment. Maybe as a joke, maybe as something more.
Look at who the Rands are going to welcome into the fold—this dumbshit poser. What’s that make him? How do we turn that to our advantage?

“What’s Danny got him doing?”

“Why are you asking?”

“You know why I’m asking, Wes.”

He put his hand to his belly as if the acid were about to eat through his shirt. “If you’ve got questions for the kid, you should break in to his place. Not mine.”

I waited. I wanted a cigarette but Wes didn’t even have any ashtrays.

“He doesn’t do much. He’s an errand boy. Chauffeurs some of the guys around. Picks up food. We send him to the bakery. Gets the dry cleaning and like that.”

“What crew does he run with?”

“No real crew so far as I know. But I don’t know much about the kid. He comes in with losers, strings with a lot of third-raters.”

“You know if they’re moving up?”

He answered carefully. “If they are, Mr. Thompson will get a piece of it.”

I nodded. It sounded about right. Danny wasn’t pushing Butch and his crew into anything, but he wanted them to kick up in case they got away with a score.

“And my sister, Dale?” I asked.

“What about her?” Wes said.

I didn’t want to form the words. “Has she been working for Danny?”

“Ask her.”

“Hey, let’s pretend I’m asking you, right?”

It got tense for a moment. We glared at each other. We were both good at holding a malevolent stare. The pause lengthened. It could go on all night. I let my eyes soften. It was a calculated move for an honest purpose.

“It’s my sister, Wes,” I said. “I need to know if she’s in trouble.”

“She’s what, sixteen? Fifteen? Running around with a scumbag amateur punk who thinks he’s up to raiding big scores. Is she in trouble? Is that really even a question, Terry?”

“I suppose not.”

He smiled without any warmth. “Well, there it is then. But for the record, I don’t know if she’s involved with the crew.”

“You don’t know? You’re Danny’s right-hand man. You fucking run the crew.”

He rubbed at his stomach again and grimaced. “Not so much lately. I handle his business and the main crew, but Mr. Thompson’s … been dealing with out-of-towners.”

“You mean he’s having other syndicate guys whacked.”

“There’s some of that. But other things too. He’s a little paranoid. It’s not his fault. It’s just the life. He has a lot of new help. Some of these guys, I barely know their names. He keeps them close. He includes me on most of it, but not all. I don’t think he trusts me with some of the rougher stuff.”