The Last Whisper in the Dark: A Novel (2 page)

JFK slept the entire ride to the vet’s. I found myself hoping he would die before we arrived. I wanted him to go naturally without losing a minute of his allotted time. I didn’t want him to struggle to his very last breath. I didn’t want him to have to get the hot shot like Collie had.

When we arrived at the vet’s office JFK’s eyes were open and he was peering at me. His tail thumped twice, tongue hanging. My father led the way inside the place. He looked like he was about to knock over a bank.

I carried JFK in, hugging him to me, his face turned against my chest and bloody urine leaking over my shirt. I didn’t sign anything or talk to anyone at the front counter, I just lugged him directly into the examining room and told the lady vet tech that it was time to put him down. Her name tag read
Missy
. She asked questions about his age, eating habits, stool density, vomiting, and pet insurance. I wondered why any of that shit mattered now. My father said nothing. Missy started to slowly back out of the room with a patronizing smile smeared across her face. I finally managed to explain the situation.

Missy repeated her questions and I answered as best I could. She said the vet would be in to see us soon. JFK weakened further while we waited.

I patted his side and wished him an easier death. I said, “It’s okay, boy, it’s all right.” My father knew what I really meant and covered my hand with his, forcing me to stop.

The vet had an even bigger name tag the size of a sheriff’s badge. Dr. George Augustyn. It was authoritative, a name to impress. I’d met him before but hadn’t seen him in over five years. Dr. George had the beefcake good looks of a B actor who’d made it in the biz on the strength of his smile and chin dimple.

He kept calling JFK “Johnny” and tried to get him to sit up. JFK
was always eager to please and made a hell of an effort, whining as he attempted to clamber to his feet on the slippery metal counter surface. He couldn’t make it. Dr. George made notations and listened to the dog’s chest and belly. I kept a hand on JFK’s front paw, rubbing my thumb back and forth across the pad of his sole. It felt like I stood there doing that for hours. I couldn’t stop.

George had a code of ethics to follow. He refused to give JFK the shot without giving him a full examination first.

I noticed that on the paperwork in JFK’s folder they had his breed down as “pit bull.” I almost corrected them by explaining that he was an American Staffordshire terrier. I realized how stupid it was to care about something like that right now and kept my mouth shPerhaps as much as a quarter millionre couple of ut. But a moment later it seemed like the most important thing in the world.

I squawked, “You’ve got it wrong. He’s an American Staffordshire.” I wagged my chin as if to clear my head, but it wasn’t helping. Luckily, everyone ignored me anyway.

My thumb kept sliding back and forth across JFK’s paw. Dr. George told Missy that they needed to do X-rays. The two of them, wearing scrubs covered in dancing kittens, managed to heft JFK into their arms. My father and I began to file out and follow them. The vet said “Stay here” with a commanding note.

We hovered in the doorway shoulder to shoulder. I felt closer to my father now than I had in weeks. I had secrets he’d want to hear and many he wouldn’t. I wanted to talk and had no idea what to say.

In twenty minutes Missy returned. She said they’d found a blockage. It wasn’t anything serious. The operation would last a half hour. The girl asked us if it was all right to proceed. My old man sputtered for a second. I said, “Of course, yes.” He and I finally looked each other in the face.

It took closer to an hour, and then another hour until the anesthesia wore off. We sat in the waiting area like expectant fathers. Folks brought their pets in and out. An old sheepdog lumbered past and
nosed at my crotch. A pair of beagle puppies ran up and down the length of the room, wrestling and rolling on top of one another. They barked playfully at us. I stuck my foot out and they both came over and gnawed at my toe for a while.

A door opened and Missy told us, “You can see him now.”

JFK was in a kennel cage with the gate raised, just waking up. The front paw I’d been rubbing was shaved and had an IV drip in it. His belly was bandaged. His eyes cleared and when he saw us his tail started to go whump. He tried twice to get to his feet before he managed it. He stood shakily on his legs and yawned, then made a noise like he was clearing his throat for a profound soliloquy.

My old man was unable to contain his smile, which kept breaking through and animating his face. He put his nose up to JFK’s and the dog gave him a savage kiss.

Dr. George chilled us with the angle of his chiseled chin dimple. His voice ran thick with irritation. He told us what kind of a diet JFK would be allowed for the next few weeks. Bland wet dog food high in protein so he could recover quicker.

I waited for what was coming next. So did my father. Our heads were lowered as we prepared for the lash.

Dr. George let us have it. “As soon as your pets start exhibiting signs of illness,” he said, pausing. The pause lengthened. The pause stretched like razor wire. “
As soon
as they exhibit signs of
any
kind of trauma or disease you should bring them immediately into the office. Right?
Immediately
. Why did you wait so long?”

“That’s my fault,” my father said. “I didn’t want him put to sleep.”

“Getting a checkup isn’t the equivalent of being put down.”

A hard, mean diamond glint entered my old man’s gaze. How could you explain what a hot shot might mean to us? He wet his lips. “I realize that now.”

“John F. Kennedy could have died.”

“Yes.”

“And you could">“No,” I saidplas have saved him a great deal of suffering.”

“Yes.”

George shook his handsome head. “And when the time comes, it’s more humane to put him down than to let him endure such agony.”

“I see that now.”

“
Good
. You can stay here with him until he’s awake enough to walk out on his own.”

Two days later I filled in the hole under the apple tree while JFK sat beside me, thumping his tail against the frosty morning earth.

We were about a hundred yards away from my uncle Grey’s unmarked grave in the woods, a man I had loved, admired, and eventually been forced to kill.

JFK made that throat-clearing sound again and I turnon/xhtml+xml;

I’d been watching my former best friend Chub
Wright’s garage almost every night for two months, keeping an eye on him as he met with various crews and helped them plan their getaway routes. Chub sold souped-up muscle cars and offered information on radar traps, state trooper activity, police routes, the best way out of town, and potential hole-up spots.

Chub had conferred with three different strings since I’d started eyeing the garage. I didn’t recognize any of them. All of them paid him off the way he required. A certain amount of cash before the boost and a small percentage of the total take after the heat died down. So far, one of the crews had returned to give him his cut. Nobody in the bent life would rip him off. Chub had a name for himself and still threw weight, partly because he knew the right people but mostly because he’d run with my family for so many years.

There was no reason at all why he should continue to take these kinds of risks. He had a legitimate business making good money. I knew all about his aboveboard finances. I’d crept his office and found both sets of books. They were both way in the black.

My dreams were getting worse. In them, Kimmy begged me to watch over her husband. I woke with her taste on my lips. I woke with Chub’s blood on my hands. I showered for hours and still imagined I saw them red.

I checked the time. It was nudging past ten. The garage remained dark. Chub was at home with his wife and daughter, watching television or snacking on chips or making love to Kimmy. The freezing wind shaved my throat.

Chub showed up at ten-fifteen. His luck would eventually play
out. It had to happen. He’d keep pushing the odds until one of the crews turned on him or the cops pulled a sting operation. There was no place for him to go except into the bin or the grave.

I watched him park and head inside, flip on the lights in the bays, and step into his this many times before to be Q office. I thought about crossing the lot, saying hello, and trying to shake his hand. I’d made the attempt before but it had ended badly.

I sat back and lit a cigarette and smoked in the dark staring through the windows of the garage.

Headlights flashed across the lot. I threw down the butt and edged back into shadow.

This latest crew was a tight-knit four-guy unit. The wheelman drove a blue-black GTO with extra muscle under the hood. They carried a lot of hardware. They dressed the same, in black clothing with black jackets, black shoes, wearing black wool hats, with hair dyed the same shade of black. It was something crews sometimes did during heists to confuse witnesses and keep the onlookers from getting a good description. I’d never heard of a string doing it before a job. It proved they were keeping Chub on the outside. They didn’t entirely trust him. That might be natural wariness on their part or they might seriously be leery of him. It made me a little nervous.

They talked quietly in clipped, terse voices. Three of them went inside with Chub while the fourth kept a lookout, patrolling the area.

He never stopped moving, never ducked back inside for a few minutes to warm up. The frigid temperature didn’t seem to bother him. He wove an impressive pattern all around the junkers and restored classic cars Chub kept on the lot. He glanced through windshields and checked backseats. He doubled back along his own path. He kept his hands close to his sides, a compact .32 hidden against his right leg. I knew how to use the dark but still had trouble keeping ahead of him as we worked our way around. Twice he came within
arm’s length. If I wasn’t a burglar with a practiced step he would’ve nabbed me for certain.

They were a sharp and professional crew, but I didn’t like all the iron. Even the driver packed. So far as I knew, drivers never carried weapons. Their sole function was to stay steely and wait for their string to finish the heist and then get everyone out of there. All a gun did was add five years to the bill if you got caught at the scene. A driver needed horsepower, not firepower.

The fourth guy and I continued to play tag. The others were inside with Chub for half an hour. He would have a well-planned escape route already mapped out, along with contingencies. They’d run the route at least a half-dozen times before pulling the holdup to grind off any edges and make sure it went smooth as ice.

Chub stepped outside and led the others to a dark green ’69 Mustang fastback pulled into the corner by the far fence. It was parked beside a second option, a 1970 Challenger. Both muscle cars were unseen from the street, hidden by a number of wrecks. The vehicles would be clean, one hundred percent legal with all the correct paperwork. It was one of the reasons why the strings came to Chub. He never dealt with hot items. The cops had no reason to keep an eye on him because everything in his garage was legit.

The driver checked under the hood of the Mustang and seemed impressed with what he found. The breeze carried their voices to me. They talked engine torque, shift points, speed climbs, and maximum acceleration. They slid in and out of the two-door car with the tight rear bench. It seemed an odd choice for four guys pulling a job. I thought they would have gone for the roomier Dodge. But even that seemed strange to me. I figured you’d want a four-door so everyone could have his own entrance and exit point. But I wasn’t a heist man.

The fourth guy kept his .32 in his hand. Chub didn’t appear worried. I knew he would be. He didn’t like guns any more than I">“Is it?”tp did. He
had a wrench in his back pocket. He could cave in somebody’s head with it. He kept his body half turned so that the fourth guy was always in front of him. The driver chuckled about something and stuck out his hand to shake. Chub only grinned and nodded. He was being smart. He wasn’t going to compromise his hands.

The crew climbed into the Mustang. The car they came in was probably stolen and Chub would have it driven off his lot by an associate for a small cash fee.

The driver couldn’t help but goose the Mustang’s engine a couple of times before he threw it into drive. But when he got it into the street he drove the speed limit.

When they hit their first turn I hopped in my car and followed.

On the grift it was occasionally important to tail a mark. I gave the crew a significant lead and kept changing lanes. We headed west toward the city. There was still traffic on the Long Island Expressway. There was always traffic on the LIE. I’d forgotten that during the years I hid out in big sky country. When I got back to New York it took a little getting used to. Eating exhaust again, bumper to bumper no matter what time of day you hit the road.

The driver took the Wantagh Parkway exit and then played around on some side streets and access roads.

I did everything right but the driver still lost me. It was slippery and perfectly done. He was there one second and gone the next. He shook me easily. I didn’t even think he knew he was being followed. He just pulled the intermittent maneuver to drop a tail in case he ever picked one up. Some guys were just paranoid enough.

If they were on to me I’d know it soon. They wouldn’t run. They’d either brace me hard to find out who I was or they’d try to turn the tables and follow me home.

I stood on the gas and got back onto the parkway, heading south. The LIE would have more traffic, but I burned toward Sunrise Highway. There were more exit ramps that bled into strip malls and suburban
neighborhoods. It would be easier to spot anyone on my ass and I’d have a better chance of giving them the slip.

Traffic eased up. I didn’t spot the driver in my rearview, but I doubled back and figure-eighted myself into minor whiplash. I decided not to head home.

Instead I cruised over to the Elbow Room. It’s where Collie went before doing what he did, and it’s where he returned to relax after he’d finished. He’d been drawn down into what my family called the underneath. It was that place of panic and despair that made you do stupid things when you were breaking the law. It’s what made a punk knocking over a liquor store take hostages and start icing innocent folks.