Tom Piccirilli - The Last Kind Words

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 ch. 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 wonder#x2Once wee desbeied 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.