Tom Piccirilli - The Last Kind Words

“No. I don’t want in. I don’t want to know anything about it. I already know too much. Because Butch talked out of turn. He approached me thinking I’d jump on board. It was a mistake. Not an unforgivable one, but bad enough. He also wrote Stan Herbert’s name on a pizza box and left it out in the open for anybody to see.”

“And you know Stan.”

I nodded. “And I know Stan. Whatever he promised you, you won’t get more than ten percent of the ice’s worth in cash.”

“He said twenty-five.”

“It’ll never happen.”

Harsh started running other schemes in his head. His eyes flashed with possibilities, trying to find a way to squeeze more money out of the deal. I could see he already had other scores in the works as he started mentally shuffling through them, wondering about other fences, other people he could talk with.

“Why were you working Butch’s place?” he asked.

“Finding out what I could. Is it your heist? You put it together?”

“Yeah.”

“How’d you wind up with Butch on your string?”

Harsh wasn’t sure how much he should tell me. I drank my coffee. I looked out the window onto Commack Road. He would e201ဆither trust me a little further or not. There was nothing I could do to force his hand.

Finally he decided he didn’t have much to lose by discussing things with me. “I asked Mr. Thompson for a man who might be willing to help out on a job here and there.”

“And he actually suggested Butch?”

“Yeah.”

Danny should’ve either stepped up and offered one of his own men or kept out of the score altogether. But he wanted to have a thumb in every pie without putting in any time or effort, even if it only ruined the pie. “You should have known better right off.”

“I did, but I didn’t know how plugged in Butch might be with the Thompson crew.”

“He picks them up from the airport.”

“I know that now. I wasn’t comfortable kicking him off the job. He’s good enough to do what I need him to do.”

“You hope. What’s Danny’s cut of the action?”

Harsh looked away, a little bothered having to talk numbers. “Mr. Thompson gets fifteen percent of our net.”

“His father used to take ten.”

“His father is dead. And there’s no time to find another man.”

“You’ve still got a couple days,” I said. “I can even provide you with some names if you like. Either way, you’ve got no choice.”

“I don’t like being braced.”

“Nobody does.”

He put his shades back on and ran a hand over his buzz cut. “You’re not going to ice Butch?”

“No,” I admitted.

“Just hurt him a little.”

“Less than a little, but it’ll be enough.”

“Right. How do I know you’re telling the truth?”

“What would I gain by lying? Like you said, you know who I am.”

He squared his shoulders. I didn’t need to see his eyes to know he was thinking about it. “Okay, you’re paying me a wad of cash. You’ve got to have a reason.”

“I do.”

“Your sister.”

“That’s right. I want her unconnected.”

“She’s as connected as they come. She’s from a family of thieves. One’s on death row and due for the needle, and another just bought the farm.” He pushed away from the table and stood. “You people are bad news. You think you’re doing her a favor? You’re doing me one.”

Butch’s door was open again. He was inside, smoking a joint, listening to his iPod with his earplugs in. His eyes were closed and he was singing loudly and badly along with music I couldn’t hear.

I still had Higgins’s blackjack. I stepped up behind Butch and caught him on the sweet spot. He slumped over without a sound. I took off his right shoe and tapped his ankle once. He made a little no9;rp. He c doise in his sleep like a colicky newborn. His foot began to swell.

There was nothing in his freezer except a half tray of ice. There were no dish towels in the kitchen. I walked the apartment. There were no towels on the rack in the bathroom. Butch certainly led the life. I found a dirty T-shirt on the floor of the bedroom and wrapped the ice cubes in it, then pressed it to his ankle. He’d be off his feet with a minor fracture for two weeks. The score would go down without him. If it went bad and Harsh and his crew wound up in the bin, Butch would be in the clear, and so would Dale.

I searched the place again. I looked for signs of my sister. I found nothing. Before I left, I dumped the melting ice cubes in his sink and threw the dirty shirt back on the floor.

When I got home, my parents were sitting at the kitchen table, dressed in black again. They’d just gotten back from the cemetery. I put my chin to my chest. The funeral had been yesterday and already they were visiting the wet grave again. My mother looked at me like she knew it was too much but she had to do it for my father’s sake.

He grinned at me without any humor and said, “You okay?”

“Sure.”

“That’s good.”

I wondered if he was going to ask me again if I knew who had killed Mal. He got up and walked out the door, headed to the garage, still in his suit.

I followed him. I thought I should stick close.

He said, “Four months until the stone is ready, can you believe it?”

“Guess there’s a backlog.”

“We got a nice one, did your ma tell you?”

“No.”

“Not sure how to describe it. Big. Square but rounded at the top. Has a kind of silhouette of his face on it. The profile. Not really his face, just sort of his face. Who the hell would want that face on marble? Not him. Nobody. And no angels, nothing like that. But… well, anyway, it’s nice.”

“Right.”

My father stood before his treasured figurines. He seemed to be showcasing a couple of new ones. A Japanese boy pulling a wagon. And a rooster just standing there. I looked at the rooster and tried to figure out why any artist skilled in making porcelain figures would make a rooster just standing there and why anyone would want it.

I wanted to tell him I’d heard voices that night, but I didn’t know how it might help. I sat in the garage, watching him at his hobby, cleaning the pieces and rearranging them, and I could feel the waves of fury coming off him. I thought, One of these days he’s going to pick up a hammer and smash the shit out of each one of those pieces. In a week, in a month. He’ll destroy the display case and it still won’t be enough. He’ll cut himself. He’ll be slashed and bleeding and won’t even notice. There will be a thousand pounds of glass on the ground and he’ll stamp on it. He’ll take the hammer to the walls, to the windows, and he’ll keep at it until he’s too tired to hold it anymore. It’ll fall from his sweaty, bloody, trembling hand and he’ll drop to his knees but he won’t weep.

My mother will find him like that and go to him and hold him, and they’ll both continue to carry their burdens separately and together. They’ll bandage his wounds and clean up the shards and continue on with their day. She won’lig񀆛;t cry either, not in front of him, but when she’s in the laundry room, a week or a month later, she’ll drop and sob into a dirty towel for maybe twenty or thirty seconds tops, and she’ll finish throwing in the fabric softener and then go make lunch.

“Should I show up?” my dad asked. He was moving the rooster around. He tried it on one shelf, then another.

“Show up?” I said. “To what?”

He dipped his chin, shuffled more pieces about. “You know. The execution.”

“Jesus Christ,” I said. “No. Don’t do that.”

“Collie shouldn’t be alone.”

“I’m going.” I hadn’t realized that I’d been planning to attend, but there it was, and it was the truth.