The Last Kind Words (32 page)

It was never foremost about the money for them, just the skill of working the cards. They had as good a time fighting me for control of each hand as they would have had scooping in the pot.

About three hours in, the effort started to put a real strain on me. It was exceedingly difficult trying to keep everything as even as possible, to shield Danny from my uncles’ maneuvers. I wasn’t going to be able to hack it for much longer. Grey knew it. He nodded to me, a sign of respect.

I’d done my part. Danny still kept giving Mal the stink eye from
time to time. Maybe he was showing off. It made sense. If he wanted to look hard in front of the Chi syndicate, he would’ve picked the biggest, meanest-looking guy in the room. Every so often he’d try to embarrass us the same way the guard at the prison had, by saying our entire names. “Malamute, you want another celery stick or are you going to step up to carrots now? Greyhound, I like your aftershave, reminds me of a good time I spent in a Parisian whorehouse when I was seventeen.” The Chi boys were used to fucked-up names and didn’t cut a grin. Their current boss was Nicky D’Amico, who’d been nicknamed “No Nose” because he suffered from asthma.

I’d been in the game long enough. If anyone’s luck changed too radically at this point, it would look extremely suspicious. Mal and Grey weren’t going to be able to juke Danny or the mob tonight. I wasn’t sure what I’d accomplished really. I’d screwed my uncles’ score. They weren’t going to like it. They were going to come right back here during the next big game and steal another forty grand, minimum. Maybe more to make up for their loss tonight. I’d bought a little time and pissed them off in the process.

It was after midnight. I cashed out. I’d won an extra two hundred bucks and left it as a tip for the waitresses.

Danny said, “Calling it quits?”

“I know better than to push my luck.”

“I’m not sure about that, Terrier. There’s a lot of things I might say about you. But that you know when to fold probably isn’t one of them.”

“I do tonight.”

I stood. I gave a nod around to the other players. Mal and Grey eyed me and I knew how it would go down. They’d play another hour, maybe win a grand or two each, and then fold up. I was going to get an earful.

“Maybe that’s good then,” Danny said. He thumbed his widow’s peak, took a swig of his drink, and wiped his face down with a cocktail napkin. I got the feeling he was working his way up to saying something that wasn’t going to be nice. I thought I should scram fast.

“Right. Have a good night, Danny.”

“So tell me, Terry. Did you snuff her?”

I froze. I knew he was talking about Cara Clarke. His timing was bad but he was asserting himself again. Mal and Grey both stared at him like they wanted to give him a smack. Everyone had heard the news. It was on everybody’s mind.

Who’s the guy who’d come home after five years and talked to his mass-murderer brother right before one of the victims’ sisters had been snuffed in the same place and pretty much in the same way, hmm?

I wondered if I should answer. I wondered if I might wind up with a little more cachet with these guys if I kept them guessing.

But I suppose I needed to clear the air. “No.”

“Sure about that?”

“Is that the question, Danny? If I’m sure I didn’t ice the girl?”

“Just thought I’d ask.”

“Looking out for the community now, is that it? You’re a real
padrone
, huh? Worried about your neighbors’ daughters?”

“You laughing at me?”

Wes had a lot of guts. He tried to edge between Danny and me. He wasn’t afraid to get in the middle of things and he was smart enough to know when he had time to ease some of the pressure.

He said, “He isn’t laughing, Mr. Thompson. He isn’t even smiling.”

“That’s where you’re wrong, Wes. He is. You don’t know him like I do. He’s laughing. He’s smiling.”

I said, “This the way you want to play it, huh, Danny?”

“When I make a play you’ll know it. You got anything to say to that?”

“Sure. Fuck you.”

He banged his fist down on the table. Cards jumped and chips rattled onto the floor and drinks spattered. “I told you already, Terry! Don’t talk that way to me!”

Mal and Grey cashed out. They stood and pressed their chairs back and moved to me. Grey on my left, Mal on my right. Mal balled his hands into fists and let them rest against his legs. Grey put his hands in his jacket pockets and made it seem like he might pull a nickel-plated .38, something that matched his nice suit.

The tension grew. Danny’s boys moved in. A couple had opened
their jackets to make it easier to draw from their shoulder holsters. They kept looking to him for orders. Danny did nothing. He sipped his drink some more, let the ice click off his teeth. The Chi guys looked worried. They didn’t want to get caught in the middle of a shoot-out.

I started to say something, I’m not even sure what, and Grey put a hand on one of my shoulders and Mal put a ham hock on my other and they easily turned and shoved me along and followed me out the door.

Once we were in the parking lot, Grey let out a humorless laugh. He lit a cigarette and took a deep drag and said, “Been a while since we’ve been backed up to an alley wall like that. I used to think I missed it. I don’t.”

Mal braced me at my car. “You feel like telling me if you were just honing your craft or if there was another reason for that?”

“I was worried that if you juked Danny another forty large that—”

“Thirty-seven.”

“—he might not be so forgiving this time.”

“You see what we have here?” Grey asked. “You see how our nephew looks out for us? This is love. Our boy gets laid last night and suddenly he’s all balls.”

He winked at me and I felt my face flush. “Like I said, I was worried.”

“And that makes it all right?” Mal demanded.

“Say what you want, I did it for you. For us.”

“We’ve been doing this a lot longer than you, kid.”

“Yeah, but Danny doesn’t hold to the same code as his old man.”

Mal frowned, his craggy face falling in on itself like cliffs toppling during an earthquake. “Big Dan once gutted a man because his baked ziti didn’t have enough cheese on it. You’re giving him more credit than he’s due. He had no code. There is no such thing as a code with these people, Terry.”

“All the more reason not to score them.”

“It’s what we do.”

When you got down to it, that was the answer to everything. “I wish
you people would all get off that. You’ve all got enough cash to live large for the rest of your lives. Why don’t you relax a little? Go on vacation. Visit Europe.”

He glared at me. “What would we do in Europe?”

“I don’t know what the fuck you would do in Europe!” I shouted. “Why do you have to do anything in Europe?”

“Why are we talking about Europe?” Grey asked. “You planning some kind of score going on over there?”

“No, Christ, there’s no goddamn score. Forget it. Forget I said anything.”

“Sure.” Grey checked his left cuff, brushed a bit of lint off. “Right after you apologize.”

“Apologize? For what?”

“Did you see all the mooks getting ready to yank their guns or did you miss that?”

“I saw it.”

Grey regarded me like he had something important to say but this wasn’t the proper time to say it. It’s how he used to look at me when I had a big date in junior high. He was still grinning. His eyes were still hot. I knew what was going to happen about a second before it did.

His hands were fast and powerful. He slapped me so hard that my eyes filled with a white glare as if lightning had struck in front of me. My ears rang and my head shook so badly that my nose started to bleed.

Mal handed me his handkerchief. They were probably the only two guys in the world who still carried handkerchiefs.

Still, he gave Grey a disapproving glance.

Grey said, “No matter what your reason was, you never ruin another man’s juke. Especially when we’re talking about family. It’s rude, Terry. It’s disrespectful.”

“I know. I’m sorry.”

“See?” Mal said. “He apologized. I knew we taught him better than that.”

“Of course. He’s our boy.”

Mal squared his shoulders. He drew a fresh cigar from his inside jacket pocket, chewed off the end, and spit it out. He focused on me. “You know anything about who might have offed the sister?”

“Now
you’re
asking me if I did it?”

“Is that what I said?”

My nose kept bleeding. I couldn’t look either of them in the face, because I was so angry I thought I might actually take a swing at them. I shut my eyes and breathed deeply. “No. I don’t know anything. I talked to Gilmore, though.”

“And what’s he say?” Mal asked.

“Nothing. He told me nothing.”

“He never tells anyone anything, that prick.”

“Collie’s girl,” Grey said. He tightened his tie knot. Even after three hours of high-stakes poker and working the cards, he still looked fresh, not a hair out of place. “The wife. The groupie. He could’ve talked her into it.”

“I don’t think so,” I said.

“It’s what they do. It’s a fact. Half of them are copycats in the making.”

I wagged my chin. “I’m pretty sure not her.”

Mal looked puzzled. “What girl? Collie’s got a girl? A wife?”

“He got married in prison,” I said.

“Did you tell me that?” He got agitated, moved in close on me. His massive hands came up in a shaky gesture of distress. “Did I know that?”

“I don’t think you did, Uncle Mal.”

“If you mentioned it, then tell me you did. I need to know when I’m being forgetful.”

“I didn’t mention it,” I told him. “You didn’t know about it.”

I almost brought up the fact that I’d crept the Clarke house, my suspicions about Gilmore, my worries about my old man. But I kept thinking, What can they do to help? What’s the point of explaining? These two popping their vitamins. What was added stress going to do to them?

I thought, This is who I am. I am going to become one of these old men. I’ll have nothing. No wife, no children, no family. I’d lost Kimmy. Worse, I’d given her up. And Chub was going to lose her as well, the fucking fool.

Mal sighed. He placed an enormous hand on the back of my neck and pulled me to him in a half hug. “It’s late, let’s go home.”

“I can’t,” I told him. “I have something I need to do.”

Nothing
had been shifted around in either of Chub’s safes. I sat at his office desk and picked up the phone. “Home” was #1 on his speed dial. I punched the button and wondered if Kimmy would answer. I wasn’t sure what the hell I would say if she did. I realized as the line connected that I hadn’t put much thought into this plan.

Chub gave a very tentative “Hello.”

He saw that he was being called by his own garage, after hours. I thought perhaps I should say my name at least, tell him to meet me. But I didn’t. I felt safer in my anonymity. I was afraid of my own best friend. I was a cowardly fuck. I hung up.

It took him fifteen minutes to tear ass over from his house. He was driving a ’64 Shelby Cobra 289 Roadster, another classic muscle car he must’ve restored himself. Some he sold, some he kept.

He was a disciplined planner when it came to getaways, but he didn’t know what to do when entering his own garage that had mysteriously called him and hung up in his face. I watched him standing out there in the dark, wondering which way he should play it. Whether he should come in the back or through one of the bays or just unlock the front door. He finally decided to try the front. He didn’t even bother calling out a hello. He checked his desk, picked up the phone, listened to the dial tone, kept looking around.

“Chub.”

He spun, his left hand going for his back pocket. There was no bulge of a pistol, so he must’ve been packing a blade.

It was stupid of him to carry anything except an automatic with a hair trigger. The only bastards who were likely to come after him were
the crews he was working with. Some paranoid mook who wanted to take care of all witnesses, anybody in the know. As soon as Chub laid out the plans, the mook would lever up something small, probably a popgun .22, and go for the head shot. Even if Chub saw it coming, what the hell was he going to do to stop it with just a blade in his hand?

I snapped the lights on.

When he saw it was me he cocked his head, drew a deep breath, and took his hand out of his pocket. A sad grin played across his lips but never fully settled there. He wore an expression that said he should’ve known it was me. He’d been waiting for this. I suppose I was predictable. I was the guy who didn’t have whatever it took to face up to people the normal way. I couldn’t knock on a door. I couldn’t stand by my girl. I couldn’t save my brother. He eyed me but didn’t approach.

“Terry.”

All of the jealousy and anger I felt moved through me second by second like a storm on the open water. It bobbed to the surface and then fell away. A thousand good memories all scrambled through my head. I thought we would have to shake hands. We would have to do that much. I put out my hand and he took it. I moved in a little closer and could feel his heart hammer against my own. He took a step away. As I waited for my anger to return, I realized it was already there.