Max Collins - Fly Paper

The guy came around just as Jon was finishing.

He said, “Who... who the hell are you?”

“You asked that before,” Jon said. “Suppose you tell me who the hell you are, and we’ll see about who I am afterwards.”

“Where’s Planner?”

Jon’s suspicions were confirmed: this was an associate of his late uncle, someone who’d run into trouble on a heist or something and had come here for help. That had been Jon’s first guess, and as he’d been in a similar boat that time with Nolan, his instinct had been to help this man.

“I said, where’s Planner, kid? You do know who I’m talking about?”

“I know who you’re talking about,” Jon said. Then, after a moment, “Planner was my uncle.”

“Was?”

“He’s dead. Few months now.”

“Jesus.” The guy propped himself up on his elbows and spoke, almost to himself. “Jesus Christ, these days everybody good’s either dead or in jail, seems like... Jesus H. Christ. How’d it happen, anyway?”

Jon started to hesitate again, but those last comments from the guy sounded right, so he said, “My uncle was keeping money in his safe for some people. Two men came in and took the money and killed him.”

“Shit! Is that right? Shit. Somebody ought to find those guys and...”

“Somebody did. You feeling okay? You look kind of pale. You better lay back and take it easy.”

“I feel okay.”

“Yeah, well, I don’t think your wounds are too serious, but you better lay back and take it easy just the same.”

“I appreciate this, kid, you taking me in, patching me up like this.”

“If you appreciate it so damn much, you might tell me who you are and what’s going on.”

“Well, I’m in the business your uncle was in. You know what sort of business your uncle was in, don’t you, kid?”

“I do. I’m in that line of work myself.”

“Antiques, you mean? Like all this old comic book bullshit you got in here?”

“You know what I mean.”

“Okay, then. So who have you worked with, if that’s the line of work you’re in.”

“Nolan. He’s the only one so far. Him and some people you wouldn’t know.”

“I thought Nolan had Family troubles.”

“Not anymore.”

“You worked with Nolan? What, on your first job? What’d he want to screw around with a goddamn kid like you for? No offense.”

“Because big-deal pros like you wouldn’t come near him. No offense. That Family trouble, remember?”

The guy was convinced. He said, “My name is Breen,” and held out his hand, which Jon shook; for a guy just shot, Breen had a hell of a grip. “An old whoremonger named Sam Comfort and his pothead kid Billy just pulled a double-cross, with me on the shitty end of the stick. I wouldn’t be talking about it right now if the senile old fart hadn’t been half crocked when he started shooting.”

Jon had never heard of the Comforts. He said so.

“Well, you’re lucky. They aren’t a family, they’re a social disease.” He sat up again, quickly. “Hell! Listen, you better move my car. I left it outside, and the Comforts know about Planner and might figure I came here. You got a gun? I don’t carry one, goddamn it, or I might’ve stayed there and shot it out with the fuckheads. But you better get a gun and go out there and move that goddamn car of mine, the windshield’s shot to shit, and if nothing else, you don’t want some cop spotting it and asking questions.”

“Okay,” Jon said.

“ Do you have a gun, kid?”

“I got a couple.”

“Maybe I ought to back you up. Maybe you ought to help me out of this bed, and I’ll stand at the window or something and back you up...”

“Look. Lean back and shut up. For a guy just got shot, you’re sure lively. If you don’t talk yourself to death, you’ll do it to me.”

“Say,” Breen said. “You do know Nolan, don’t you?”

Jon grinned, told the guy to shut up and rest, and left him.

Back upstairs, Jon stuck one of his uncle’s .32 automatics in his waistband, threw on a wind-breaker, and went down to move the car. First he drove his own car, an old Chevy II he’d had for some time, out of the garage in the rear and re-placed it with Breen’s Mustang. Then he shut the garage door and pulled the nose of the Chevy II up just close to touching. The door had no windows, and the way the garage was built into the shop’s back end, it had windows on the left side only, and those were opaque and grilled, with no way for anyone to see whether or not the Mustang was in there, short of breaking in. Not that breaking in didn’t sound like something the Comforts were easily capable of.

He was just inside the door when light came shooting through one of the side windows in the shop, the lights from the front beams of a car pulling in. The Comforts had come calling. He took the windbreaker off and stuck the .32 in his belt behind his back, leaving right hand on hip for easy access.

The knock came soon enough, and Jon sucked in wind. He told himself to be calm, damn it, calm, and wondered if once, just once, he could pull off something without Nolan holding his hand. There was a night latch on the door, which Jon left bolted, cracking open the door to stare into a gray-eyed, wrinkled old face that had to belong to Sam Comfort. It was the sort of face that looked kind, superficially, but actually was full of the smile-lines that come from a sadistic sense of humor. Sixty-some years ago, you would’ve found this man a child, pulling the wings off butterflies.

“Who the hell are you?” Sam Comfort asked.

Jon was getting tired of that question. On top of his case of nerves, it was especially irritating, and he moved his right hand further back on his hip, closer to the .32, rubbing the sweat off his palm as he did. He said, “It’s after midnight, mister. We’re closed.”

Comfort’s boozy breath was overpowering, but the gray eyes were not unclear; he was the type of man who could drink you under the table and not feel it himself.

He said, “I’m not a customer.”

‘That makes us even,” Jon said, “because I’m not selling anything.”

“I’m an old friend of Planner’s.”

“I don’t care what you are,” Jon said, and started to close the door.

Thick, strong fingers curled around the door’s edge and held it open. “I said I’m a friend of Planner’s. Tell him an old friend’s here to see him.”

“Let go of the door.”

Comfort did, tentatively.

Jon said, “My uncle — Planner — is dead.”

“Oh, I’m sorry. Sorry. I hadn’t heard. How did it happen, boy?”

“Heart attack.” Which was what the death certificate had said, anyway, and an expensive damn piece of paper that was, too.

“And you’re his nephew, then? Taking over the business, are you?”

“No. I got no interest in antiques, and I’m going to sell all the stock at once, soon as a good buyer turns up, and will you please get out of here and let me get some sleep?”

The gray eyes narrowed, then eased up. “Well, I’m sorry to see you so hostile to an old friend of your uncle’s, and I’m sorry to hear the news about his untimely end. Please accept my condolences.”

“Sure. Sorry if I was short.”

“Understandable. Say, what you keep in that garage of yours?”

“If it was a garage, I’d keep my car in it. But it isn’t, it’s a storeroom. Good night.”

And he pushed the door shut and locked it, and stepped to one side in case any bullets should come flying through. Several heartbeats later, he crept to the side window and looked out to see the old man join a long-haired kid, leaning up against their Buick Electra. They shared a few moments of heated conversation, most of the heat coming from the old man, as the kid was a spacey type. Then both men shrugged. The old man got behind the wheel, the kid next to him, and they drove away.