Doug Allyn - Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 137, No. 3 & 4. Whole No. 835 & 836, March/April 2011

Patrick was still watching his mentor blow smoke rings when Eunice walked over to Charlie and started rubbing his shoulders. She was maybe fifteen years younger than Charlie. Patrick had seen pictures of her when she was a young woman, and she was gorgeous back then and she was still a good-looking woman now. Over the years she’d kept herself slender without ever becoming bony. There weren’t many wrinkles on her face and she dyed her thick long hair the same red that it had naturally been twenty years earlier. She was a woman of class. Charlie slid his eyes sideways so he could look at his wife without moving his head. In his raspy, gruff voice he asked her how the steaks were coming.

“Look at the kid,” he growled. “The boy’s famished. We got to feed him soon before he keels over on us.”

Eunice laughed at that. “I think he’ll survive another five minutes.”

“I don’t know. The kid’s all skin and bones. He’s wasting away in front of our eyes.”

That wasn’t exactly true. Patrick carried twenty pounds more than he should thanks to all the junk food he ate on the job, as well as all the booze and good food Charlie and Eunice fed him. Eunice rolled her eyes and told Charlie she’d get them a couple more Buds and that that would tide them over. As she walked away, Charlie reached out to smack her playfully on the rear. She looked over her shoulder at him and smiled wickedly before stepping back into the house.

“Ah, nothin’ like a good woman,” Charlie said in a contented growl. “Kid, you need to get yourself one.”

“I’m working on it.” Patrick looked away and found himself tensing as he asked whether Charlie had had a chance yet to look at the latest draft of his manuscript.

“Yeah, I did. Kid, you’re getting closer. Plot, pacing, structure, characters are all good. This book could be great, but some of the scenes just don’t ring true to me. Especially your bank heist scene. Too over-the-top, not realistic enough.” Charlie paused to blow out another smoke ring. He sat pensively and watched as the smoke dissipated into the air before he continued.

“I don’t know, kid. I think you need to have more experiences in life. Maybe spit in some tough guy’s eye and get yourself in a barroom fight. And go to a damn shooting range so you know what it feels like to fire off a clip. And goddamn it, wake up in a drunk tank some morning!”

Patrick nodded, feeling his disappointment. He had been hoping this latest version would get his mentor’s seal of approval. Somewhat dryly, he said, “Or maybe you could just introduce me to some of your old friends and I could break a few legs for the experience like you once did.”

Charlie gave Patrick a dull-eyed smile. “Don’t know what you’re talking about, kid.”

“Yeah, sure you don’t.”

“Seriously, kid, I don’t. But you’re being kind of bold here, don’cha think?”

“Come on, Charlie. I read Leave Them Screaming. Several times, in fact. There’s no way you could’ve written that if you hadn’t really worked as muscle for the mob.”

“Nah, that was all imagination.” Charlie tapped his skull with a thick, stubby index finger. “All of that came from up here. Sure, I listened to stories that guys in the neighborhood were telling, but no, I never did any of that stuff.”

“Damn, I’d love to meet some of those guys and hear their stories.”

Charlie’s small pale eyes grew wistful. “Yeah, I know you would, kid. The problem is all the guys I knew back then are either dead or missing.”

A cell phone ringing interrupted them. Charlie took from his pocket what looked like a cheap disposable cell phone and listened intently for several minutes as a hardness settled over his features. Then, with the same irritable suddenness that you’d see with an old dog turning surly, he lashed out. “What are you talking about,” he demanded into the phone, his face reddening with anger. “The thirtieth is still a week away! You nuts or something?”

It was the thirtieth. Patrick got Charlie’s attention and signaled to him that it was the thirtieth. Charlie looked at him with a perplexed uncertainty before realizing his mistake. He turned away from Patrick. His voice low and tight, he said into his cell phone, “I was just screwing with you. Of course I know what day it is, so don’t go thinking this is some sort of senior moment.” There was a long pause before Charlie muttered into the phone for the other party not to worry about nothin’. After he ended the call, he stared into space until Patrick brought his attention back by asking whether he had missed a book deadline.

“Yeah, something like that,” Charlie murmured out of the side of his mouth. As he sat staring blankly at Patrick, confusion dulled his eyes and his lips folded downwards into a dour frown.

Eunice came back then with fresh beers. After she reported that the steaks were done, they moved inside. Charlie seemed distracted during dinner and made only a few guttural responses to Eunice’s attempts to engage him in conversation. After dinner, while Eunice was clearing away the dishes, Charlie turned to Patrick and told him he needed his help.

“I’ve got an errand to run,” he said. “A half-hour driving back and forth to Paramus, but we’ll be back in an hour. But kid, I could use your help.”

“Sure.”

Charlie nodded, and lumbered to his feet. He left the room, and when he came back he was carrying a gym bag. He signaled with a tilt of his head for Patrick to follow him. On the way out he stopped in the kitchen to give Eunice a kiss on the cheek.

“I’ll be back soon, doll,” he told her.

“You two be careful out there,” she scolded him. “I don’t want you corrupting our boy here by taking him to a strip club, or anything like that!”

Charlie made a face at the suggestion and left the house with Patrick following behind. Once they got on the road, Charlie pulled into a strip mall parking lot a few miles from his home and parked his Cadillac Escalade before getting into an older model Buick Regal nearby. “Don’t ask,” he told Patrick. “I got to deliver this piece of crap. It’s a long story.”

“I thought that call was over a book deadline?”

“Yeah, it was. This is a different matter.”

During the ride to Paramus, Charlie made small talk about politics and recent TV shows and the Yankees prospects for the upcoming season, but seemed mostly distracted and didn’t appear to pay attention to any of Patrick’s responses. After a while, Patrick found himself drifting asleep, partly from his friend’s ramblings and mostly from the steak dinner and beer. He was jerked awake when they slowed down in front of a small run-down-looking ranch-style house, and with some curiosity noticed that Charlie had turned off the headlights before gliding the car into the driveway. As they left the car, Charlie put a finger to his lips, hushing Patrick. Charlie had taken his gym bag with him, and while they walked to a side door of the house, Charlie removed a couple of objects from the bag, one of which he pressed into Patrick’s hand. It was too dark for Patrick to see what it was, but it had a cold metal feel and it was heavy. It wasn’t until Charlie was rapping his knuckles against the door that Patrick realized he had been handed a gun and that Charlie held one also. He was still trying to make sense of this when the door opened a few inches and Charlie shot the man on the other side of the door in the chest. The man fell backwards into the house. The noise the gunshot made was only a puff. A silencer must’ve been used. Patrick was still trying to understand what was happening when Charlie pushed the door open. The man who had been shot looked dead as he lay on the floor. He was thin and wiry, in his thirties, and wore a wife-beater tank top and khakis with his chest torn open by the bullet. As Charlie moved past him he shot the man one more time in his right eye, then turned and nearly snarled at Patrick as he ordered him to follow him into the house. Patrick obeyed, at this point moving purely on autopilot. Even without Charlie ordering him to do so, he shut the door behind him.