We drew straws to see who got
to do the job. As usual, I got the short one. It had been
years since I’d been home on Thanksgiving, so I wasn’t too
jazzed about the whole deal. Rhino Cancavas offered to go
in my place—said he wasn’t doing anything special, and he
really never liked Phil Dunhill anyway.
Dunhill knew things—too many
things—the kind of things that could have my boss, Harry
Roznowski, spending his next seventy years peeking out the
mailbox sized window of a nine-by-five cell. Harry decided
weeks ago that Philip K. Dunhill, distinguished businessman,
CPA and turncoat snitch, had been on Earth long enough. When
Harry Roznowski decided something, it got done. Pronto. In
Harry’s eyes, Dunhill was already dead, he just needed someone
to squeeze the trigger.
The drive from Chicago to Wakarusa
was a cold one. Frozen lake breezes whistled through every
crack and crevice the Detroit auto workers forgot to seal
when they slapped my late model Chevy sedan together and
rolled it off the assembly line. I was an icicle from nose
to toes. I made the most of the trip to Indiana by sipping
coffee from a thermos I had filled at a greasy spoon outside
of Gary. I hadn’t dipped into the ham and Swiss sandwich
I ordered with it, but if it was half as bad as the java,
I wasn’t missing much.
Philip Dunhill had cooked the
books for Harry’s organization for nearly twenty years. He
knew where every rotting fish and yellow elephant was buried,
and how deep you’d have to go to dig them back up. In a business
like Harry Roznowski’s there were a lot of yellow elephants.
Now Dunhill was talking to the Chicago P.D and everyone was
reaching for a shovel.
Dunhill had a quiet little
cottage in Wakarusa, just outside of South Bend. He often
went there to do payroll accounts, tax returns, or the odd
mistress. It was the secret getaway that everyone in Harry’s
organization knew about—secluded, quiet—the ideal place to
put Philip Dunhill out of Harry’s misery. I cruised the area
around the cottage for two, maybe three hours before settling
on an outcropping of limestone about two hundred yards from
the driveway. It was elevated and I could see eight of the
ten windows, the front door, and most of the back yard. A
thick stand of evergreens kept the wind off my back, but
it was still colder than a witch’s thorax. Dunhill’s white
Caddie was in the garage. I could see it through my scope,
freshly washed and detailed, his Illinois vanity license
plate in a gold frame on the back bumper. CPA 4 U. Cute.
I got set up as quick as possible
and settled in with the last of my coffee. I peeled the ham
and Swiss out of a thick layer of wax paper and took a bite.
Mystery meat covered in a thick layer of over- processed
white cheese, not aged, not Swiss. The wax paper had more
flavor.
Dunhill was in the cottage.
I could see that peanut head of his flash by the living room
window every time he needed to freshen his martini or sharpen
his pencil. Poor bastard. He should have skipped the pencil
sharpener and doubled up on the gin and vermouth. I decided
to wait till he sunk back into his over-stuffed leather chair
behind his big oak desk before I popped him. It was the best
spot—no chance of a ricochet, no glare from window glass
or lamps, the perfect angle for a head shot.
I could hear jazz music, maybe
Coltrane, or Miles Davis, coming from a radio in the kitchen.
It reminded me of the stuff I used to listen to in the car,
back when I drove Harry around Chicago to his ‘business meetings’.
It kept me loose and took my mind off the job I knew Harry
and his bag man were doing on the pigeons at every business
we stopped at. Those were the old days. The days when Harry
used his own muscles and made his own visits to the clients.
Now he had people to do that sort of thing. People like Rhino
Cancavas. People like me.
Dunhill had just finished his
third martini and settled back into my cross-hairs when a
late model Ford sedan pulled into the driveway in a cloud
of Indiana dust. I eased my finger off the trigger, but kept
the scope to my eye. From the looks of the thigh and calf
exiting the sedan, I knew Dunhill wasn’t planning a poker
game with some of his pals from the local country club.
She was a real head-turner.
A lava flow of fiery red hair spilled out the collar of her
black winter coat and danced down her back in tauntingly
tight curls. I wondered where she’d been all my life.
Before I had time to indulge
myself, a lump of a man rolled out of the Ford on the passenger
side. His head filled my scope like an Ebonite Gyro in a
black felt hat. He pulled a .38 from his waistband and followed
the redhead to the front door. This wasn’t a social call.
I decided to hang tight and watch the show. If I was lucky,
somebody else would take care of Harry Roznowski’s problem
for me. Dunhill would be just as dead, Harry would be just
as happy, and all I would have to worry about was the long
drive home and the heartburn from a lousy ham and Swiss and
ten cups of day old coffee. I waited to see if there was
a down side.
Dunhill didn’t answer the door
right away. He finished his drink, shoved one stack of papers
into his desk drawer and shredded two others. Then he took
the long strips of confetti out of the shredder tub and torched
them in the fireplace. He was a model of efficiency.
The ogre with the .38 was growing
impatient. He muscled in front of the redhead and rapped
on the door with the butt of the pistol. Through the scope,
I could see the glass in the front windows rattle in their
frames. Dunhill rolled down his shirt sleeves and ran to
the front door. He answered it just in time to catch a face-full
of fist and a slow drag to the couch. The redhead waltzed
through the door, draped her coat over a nearby chair and
turned around slowly, as if she were doing it just for me.
I tried to imagine what she looked like face to face—up close—lips
to my cheek close. Just the thought of it fogged the lens
in my scope.
While the ogre put a kink in
Dunhill’s colon with a little knee and knuckle action, the
redhead helped herself to a drink from Dunhill’s liquor cabinet.
Johnnie Walker Red. Straight and neat. She had good taste.
I watched her finish the first, then pour another and return
to the living room. The ogre held Dunhill at gun point while
she inspected the contents of the oak desk. If she was looking
for something in particular, she didn’t find it. I figured
her for an Elizabeth Arden lady, something powdery and floral,
White Shoulders maybe. A gold necklace glistened on the pale
skin of her freckled chest and disappeared in her cleavage.
Lucky necklace. Somewhere over my left shoulder, a squirrel
was making a chittering noise like roofing nails scraping
on sheet steel. It brought stinging tears to my eyes. I tossed
him the half-eaten ham and Swiss, hoping it would shut him
up. He pulled it behind a pile of pine needles, gave it a
sniff, then scattered like I’d tossed a grenade.
When I returned to the scope,
Dunhill was on the floor, the ogre with the .38 was on top
of him, and the redhead had a .45 trained on both of them.
I could tell by the way she was holding it, this wasn’t the
first time those delicate hands had gripped a pistol. I focused
the scope, pulling it in tight enough to get a clear view
of the ogre and Dunhill. The ogre was okay, but he’d added
the weight of his enormous frame and two lead slugs to Dunhill’s
body. He was doing a Fred and Ginger routine, kicking his
arms and legs in wide circles in a lame attempt to get off
Dunhill. Dunhill wasn’t moving at all.
Meanwhile, the redhead was
shouting something. I couldn’t read her lips, but the expression
on her face told me she wasn’t singing ‘Happy Birthday’.
The ogre dropped the .38 and gave it a shove, sending it
into a Sonia Henie spin in the center of the hardwood floor
before it disappeared under an easy chair in the corner.
They argued for five, maybe ten minutes, then she motioned
for him to get up. She pointed to the smoldering ashes in
the fireplace. The ogre hunched his meaty shoulders into
a shrug, pointed to Dunhill, then to the desk, then shrugged
again.
I’d seen enough turncoats over
the years that I could pick one out of a sell-out crowd at
Wrigley Field. I could smell a double cross a mile away,
and I was smelling one now. The redhead smelled it, too.
She gave the ogre one last chance to plead his case before
she racked the slide and put the muzzle in his blubbery face.
Through the scope, I caught a flash of his meaty fist headed
for the redhead’s jaw. She cut loose with the .45 the same
instant the ogre did a leg sweep on her. The shot went wide
and she hit the floor, losing the .45 on her way down. The
ogre scooped it up and backhanded her across the face. I
waited. He slapped her again. My jaw tightened. What a yob.
The spreading halo of blood
around Dunhill’s head told me he was no longer a target,
so I kept the cross-hairs on the ogre. He was on his feet
and pacing enough to give me a workout, but I loved the challenge
of a moving target. After watching him use the redhead for
a punching bag, I decided I wouldn’t lose any sleep if I
had to pop him. If he made another move more aggressive than
scratching his ass, I’d put him down.
The redhead was a different
story. Sure she was in it up to her eyeballs, whatever it was,
but I had no beef with her so it was no real concern of mine.
Besides, her business with Dunhill was just that, her business.
The fact that it also involved punching Dunhill’s clock for
me was an unexpected bonus.
Twenty minutes of the ogre
pacing and waving the .45 around was grating on me worse
than the squirrel. Since I didn’t have a spare ham and Swiss
to chuck at him, I could either wait for things to play out
on their own or speed things up a bit so I could be on my
way. The ogre made my decision for me. He snatched the redhead
by the hair, flung her on the couch like an old mop, and
pressed the .45 to her lovely chest. The view through the
scope was enough for me to catch his finger tightening on
the trigger. My finger didn’t tighten at all, it squeezed.
One to the head, one to the heart. I was in my car and turning
the key before the redhead figured out the ogre was no longer
a problem. In a way she had done me a favor, I was just returning
it. Dunhill was dead and her muscle-bound doofus was dead.
No harm, no foul. I wasn’t about to stick around long enough
for things to get complicated.
I’d like to say the ride back
to Chicago went off without a hitch. It didn’t. I was starting
to feel the ill effects of raw stomach acid churning to digest
a chunk of mystery meat sandwich doing the backstroke through
a sea of coffee. Twenty miles from Dunhill’s cottage, I pulled
into a Pick-n-Save for some antacid and a cold drink. I had
barely popped the tab on the can of cola, downed a fist-full
of Rolaids and pulled back onto I-90 when I saw her. It was
the redhead—on the side of the road—hood up—arms crossed
over that beautiful chest—staring at the engine like it was
the Holy Grail. I was pulled over behind her and out of my
car before the antacid hit my stomach.
She’d been lovely through my
scope. Up close she was nothing short of a stunner. I could
have spent a month running my fingers through that beautiful
head of hair. I joined her in front of the sedan and stared
down at the engine, hoping I’d find something major and complicated
wrong so we could spend more time together. A puddle of lime
green liquid trailing down the pavement told me I had. “Looks
like a coolant leak.”
She jumped, setting here tight
red curls dancing. “Oh jeez, I didn’t even see you pull up.”
“I’m sorry. Didn’t mean to
scare you. Been here long?” I already knew the answer.
She shook her head. “About
an hour I guess. What would cause a coolant leak? I mean,
it was running just fine this morning.”
I let the aroma of lilacs and
jasmine fill my nose before it had time to mingle with the
stench of boiling antifreeze. Definitely White Shoulders. “Best
case? You got a loose hose clamp, maybe a bad hose or fitting.”
She put her hands on those
lovely hips and blew the hair from her eyes. The slightest
hint of a wrinkle broke out on her forehead. “And worse case?”
I rubbed my chin to show concern. “If
you’re lucky, it’s a thermostat. That’s an easy fix. Could
be a water pump. That’s a day or two. It might be a head
gasket or a cracked block. That will cost you three or four
days and a lot of bucks.”
Those beautiful lips curved
into a dark red frown. “Sounds like you know your way around
a car.”
“Yeah well…” I lied. I had
no idea. I read Popular Mechanics and Auto Week to
keep me from getting bored on the job. Apart from that, I
was a mechanical misfit—a total novice with a wrench. If
she asked for more details, I was bound to have my dumbass
showing.
She hugged the black winter
coat around her and let out a groan. It was the kind of groan
that had me thinking things I shouldn’t. “Listen,” she said. “I
hate to ask…I mean, we don’t know each other, but I’ve got
a good feeling I can trust you. Could you possibly give me
a lift to a phone?”
“It would be my pleasure.” I
was already picturing her sharing my front seat. She was
right, too, I was Mr. Trustworthy. Unless, of course, Harry
Roznowski put the finger on you, in which case you were dead
as an Easter ham. I should have taken her back to the Pick-n-Save
and let her use the phone. It was only twenty miles behind
us. That would have been the logical thing to do. I could
have made sure she was safe, then got back on the road. Shoulda,
woulda, coulda.
We headed north, her filling
the front seat with those mile-long legs, flowing red hair
and the smell of lilac, and me struggling not to notice.
Once the heater got going, she unbuttoned her coat and there
under all that heavy black winter fabric was that beautiful
golden necklace dancing over a sea of freckles. My trip back
home was becoming anything but boring.
“Tough luck about the car,
huh?”
She pulled a compact from her
coat pocket, opened it, and checked her lipstick. Perfect. “If
it weren’t for bad luck, I wouldn’t have any at all.”
For a minute, I thought she
might cry. I wondered how a woman that handled a .45 like
a surgeon using a scalpel could get that emotional over a
car with a coolant leak. I tried to lighten the mood. “I
wouldn’t worry about it. It’s probably something simple,
ya know? Twenty minutes in a good auto shop and you’re good
to go.”
She dabbed at those magical
green eyes with the back of her hand and bit her lip. “You
really think so?”
“Absolutely,” I lied.
The closest phone turned out
to be fifteen miles north, a little mom-and-pop gas station
with a fleabag motor lodge in back. I tried not to listen
in on her conversation, even though it was mostly yes’s,
no’s and I don’t know’s, with a few uh-huh’s thrown in here
and there. At one point she cupped her hand over the phone
and said, “Yep. I got him.” I wasn’t sure if she was talking
about Dunhill or the ogre, but I was sure it was one or the
other. Maybe both.
She hung up the phone and I
pretended to be deep in thought between the pages of some
gossip rag I’d snatched off a nearby magazine rack.
“Everything okay?”
“They’re sending a tow truck,
but it’ll be awhile. The worst part is, they won’t even be
able to get it in the shop for a day or two. Till then, I’m
stuck.” She ran those perfectly polished fingernails through
her hair and lifted it off her shoulders before letting it
drop back over her collar like a crimson waterfall. “What
a day this has been. I could use a stiff drink and a shoulder
to lean on.”
I eyeballed the lounge across
the road from the gas station, ignoring that little voice
in my head that was blasting ‘Don’t do it!’ louder than a
fog horn in a choir loft. “We could try the place across
the road.”
She pursed her lips and headed
for the door. “I’m game.”
The place was called The Double
Shot. I tried not to relate it to the two slugs I’d put in
the ogre a few hours ago. It was a quaint little bar the
size of a matchbox and it reeked of sweating drunks and stale
cigarette smoke. The juke box was blasting out some cry-in-your-beer
tune, the kind that makes you want to step out in front of
a speeding semi. We made our way to a booth and ordered drinks.
I stuck with beer, she asked for Johnnie Walker Red, but
settled for the only thing they had—Wild Turkey.
I was half way through my first
beer before I realized I had no idea who she was. After seeing
what I’d seen at Dunhill’s, I doubted she’d tell me much,
but I had to ask. Before I could open my mouth she beat me
to the punch.
“So, who is this handsome young
stranger who rescued me from the side of the road?”
She was being generous. I was
neither handsome, nor young. Those green eyes of hers were
doing a real job on me, not to mention those full red lips
framing the whitest set of teeth I’d seen in years. “I’m
a businessman.” It wasn’t a lie, I was in business, albeit
a strange one. “Just on my way back to Chicago.”
“I meant your name, silly.” She
let out a snicker that made all the right parts jiggle.
I always hated giving names,
even false ones, but I decided to make an exception. The
fog horn in the choir loft let out another blast. “The name’s
Maxwell Sweet.”
She threw her head back and
took a long sip from her whiskey. I caught a glimpse of the
necklace peaking out of her blouse. It was a derringer, tiny
and solid gold. “Well Mr. Sweet, I’m Ellen Bertrand, and
I appreciate your help.”
If I didn’t know better, I’d
swear she was talking about the ogre, not the ride. “No problem.
What kind of schmuck would leave a lady stranded and helpless?” Knowing
she was packing a .45, I wondered why I’d said such a stupid
thing.
A second round of drinks arrived.
While she sipped her whiskey, I stared at those lips, their
fullness magnified by her cocktail glass. I had the feeling
those lips could tell a lifetime of stories and I wanted
to hear every one of them. “So, Ellen Bertrand, mind if I
ask you a question?”
She pushed that long red hair
off her shoulders and fanned herself with her other hand. “Shoot.”
Interesting choice of words.
I almost laughed, but put a choker on it before it came out. “What’s
a knockout like you doing out all alone on a night like this?” The
minute I said it, I realized how much it sounded like one
of those cheap pick-up lines.
She took a long pull from her
glass and shrugged. “I’ve been asking myself the same question.”
She was good, and she wasn’t
about to spill the beans about her little visit with Philip
Dunhill or her cross-up with the ogre. Trade secrets, I suppose.
I couldn’t blame her. I wasn’t exactly chomping at the bit
to tell her I’d pulled the plug on the ogre for her and was
suppose to do the same to Dunhill before the ogre stepped
in.
“Actually, I was taking care
of some family business. It took a little longer than I anticipated.
I should have been home hours ago.” She studied the wet rings
her empty glass made on the table top and locked those stunning
green eyes on me again. “Max, you’ve been so nice to me already…I
just…well, it’s…”
I waited for her to finish.
She didn’t. “What is it? Are you in some kind of trouble?”
She ran her tongue over her
upper lip in one slow, smooth motion. “To be honest, I didn’t
want to drag you into this. It’s personal. Kind of a family
issue. You know how family things can be.” She batted those
thick dark eyelashes, signaling me in for a landing.
I shook my head in agreement.
At that point, I would probably have agreed to unmedicated
oral surgery.
She stared off into space for
what seemed like an hour, then continued. “I have a very
important package to deliver to Chicago. If I don’t get it
there by tomorrow, there’ll be hell to pay. My Uncle’s expecting
it and I promised I would get it to him on time.”
“Surely a day one way or the
other won’t make a difference.”
She twisted a cocktail napkin
between her fingers till it looked like a soggy dish rag.
A dish rag should be so lucky. “Normally it wouldn’t, but
this is very important. My Uncle’s life may depend on it.”
I looked at that flawless face—saw
the concern in those moist green eyes—watched her lip start
to quiver and her chin begin to buckle. “Call your Uncle.
Tell him the package is on the way.”
The drive back to Chicago was
uneventful—her going on about how happy her uncle would be
and me admiring her figure in the glow of the dashboard lights.
Those dainty red fingernails with the French tips drummed
away on her thigh from Portage to the Chicago Skyway. We
pulled in the driveway to 1844 Elmwood at 5 a.m. The house
was a nondescript little Tudor with a front yard as big as
a phone booth. I followed Ellen down the walkway to the back
door, her long legs singing ‘follow me’ each time the nylon
of her black stockings rubbed together. She knocked once,
but entered before anyone answered.
A mousy looking guy in his
mid-fifties rose from the kitchen table, dabbing at his mouth
with a cloth napkin. He was barely five foot tall and wouldn’t
weigh one-o-five if his pockets were stuffed with rocks.
A real pipsqueak. Ellen gave him a big hug and a kiss on
the cheek that left a lovely set of scarlet lip prints behind.
I prayed none of his ugly rubbed off.
“Uncle, this is Maxwell Sweet,
but he’ll insist you call him Max.” She turned to me. “Max,
this is my Uncle Paul.”
He extended his hand and met
mine coming up with a .38. Uncle my eye. The first
shot dropped him like a gutted mackerel. There was no need
for a second.
Uncle Paul was Paul Duberek,
the bastard mutt of the late Eli Duberek. He was a sneak
thief and a rat. Where his father had been a stand-up guy
with a stellar reputation for loyalty, Paulie had become
just another hungry worm in Chicago’s rotting apple. Most
of all, he was a huge pain in Harry Roznowski’s neck. He
probably thought he could get to Harry by getting to me.
He was wrong. Dead wrong.
Four years ago ,Uncle Paul
had muscled in on Harry’s turf. Harry didn’t mind the muscle,
he’d seen more strong-arm tactics than a wrestling match
at Hera Arena. With Harry, it was about one thing and one
thing only. The Jack. Nothing got Harry’s attention faster
than a heaping stack of greenbacks. Especially when that
heaping stack was his and a louse like Paul Duberek was helping
himself to it. After all, business was business.
Ellen gazed up at me through
the cordite, those bottomless green eyes searching for answers.
Her emotions ran the gamut—surprise, confusion, panic, joy
and desperation. She opened her mouth to speak, but all that
came out was a low clicking noise. It was the last sound
she ever made. Ellen had picked the wrong package to deliver.
In a way, I hated killing her. She had real class, but I
needed her to get to Paul Duberek, my second target. He was
the one paying Dunhill to squeal and Harry Roznowski knew
it. If Harry knew it, I knew it. Once I knew it, there wasn’t
much left to do but call the undertaker and order the headstone.
The gunshots hadn’t aroused
anyone’s curiosity. No big surprise. After all, it was South
Chicago, where gun fire was easily masked by a goulash of
fossil fueled white noise from trucks and buses, airliners
on final approach to O’Hare, neighborhood hoopties blaring
the same three bass notes through oversized woofers, and
an endless barrage of “L” Trains. I piled into the Chevy
and headed for the North Shore. Harry would want a full account,
including the post-mortem photos of Uncle Paul and Ellen
I’d snapped with the cheap Polaroid in my trunk. Ellen would
take a little explaining. Everything else was Jake. As usual,
I’d meet Harry at Nantandillo’s for a drink. We’d chew the
fat a little, share enough details to massage the kink out
of Harry’s neck, then I’d be on my way home to my traditional
Swanson frozen turkey dinner and a couple cold bottles of
beer. Ah, the holidays.
I was rounding the corner at
79th Street when I felt the cold steel muzzle of a snub .38
press into the back of my neck. Rhino Cancavas’s face appeared
in the rear view mirror. He must have drawn the second shortest
straw. Had I let him take my place when he offered to do
the Dunhill job, I’d be holding the gun right now
and he’d be wetting his pants. Harry Roznowski
didn’t like loose ends. As long as I’d worked for him, I
should have remembered that. Nobody’s bullet proof. I should’ve
remembered that, too. I didn’t ask Rhino to make it quick,
I already knew he would. It was Thanksgiving and he probably
wanted to get home to his family.
