Макс Коллинз - Hush Money

“Have fun, I guess. That’s a nice looking piece of ass you lined yourself up with. Maybe it’ll have been worth it.”

“Okay, so I fucked up. I admit it. But how was I to know? You bring me along and don’t tell me a damn thing...”

Nolan slapped the toilet lid down and sat. His tone softened. “I know. It is my fault. If I’m going to bring you into these things, if I’m going to trust you to be capable of helping me out, I shouldn’t keep you in the dark all the time. It’s my fault. But Christ, kid, think with your head, not your dick. A grade-school kid could put two and two together and come up with four, right? You should have put me and that girl’s father together and come up with hands-off-the-daughter.”

Jon nodded. “I was an asshole.”

“You and me both. We’re doing our talking in the right room.”

Jon grinned. “They say all the assholes hang out here.”

Nolan grinned back, said, “Go out and have something to eat with your girl friend. Take her back to the room soon as possible and make sure none of the help sees you going in.”

“I shouldn’t take her home, huh? And I shouldn’t mention knowing who she is and all?”

“What do you think?”

“I think I shouldn’t mention knowing who she is.”

“Look, lad, she probably doesn’t even know who she is herself. She probably figures Daddy is in the motel business and leaves it go at that.”

“What’s going on, anyway?”

“I can’t tell you.”

“Bullshit! You just got through saying how—”

“I know, but it’s complicated and there isn’t time. But listen. If somebody should come looking for me, which I doubt, because I don’t see anybody in Des Moines linking the Ryan name to me, but if somebody does, just play it straight. Just say you’re a friend of mine and I’m out handling some personal business. Got that?”

“Nolan, what the hell else could I tell anybody? You haven’t told me shit about what’s coming off around here.”

“That’s so when your girl friend’s father starts pulling out your toenails with pliers to make you talk, you won’t have a thing to say. Now get going.”

Nolan didn’t expect anybody to be home. He’d gotten the credit card out of his wallet to open the door, looked around the apartment-house hall to make sure no one was watching him, and then, as he was about to slide the card between door and jamb, decided maybe he’d better ring the bell, just to be sure. And now he was looking into the very pretty, very blue eyes of Steve McCracken’s sister, Diane.

“Yes?” she said.

She was wearing a white floor-length terry robe, and her platinum hair was tousled; she’d obviously been sleeping, her face a little puffy, her eyes half-lidded, but she was still a good-looking young woman. Not alert at the moment, but good-looking.

“Diane?” Nolan said, palming the credit card, slipping it into his suitcoat pocket.

She had opened the door all the way initially, but now, her grogginess receding, her lack of recognition apparent, she stepped back inside and closed the door to a crack and peeked out at Nolan, giving him a properly wary look, saying “Yes?” like, who the hell are you and what the hell do you want?

“I’m Nolan. Remember me?”

The wary look remained, but seemed to soften.

“Chicago,” he said. “A long time ago.”

The door opened wider, just a shade.

He smiled. “Make believe the mustache isn’t there.”

And she smiled, too, suddenly.

“Nolan?” she said.

“Nolan.”

“Good God, Nolan... it is you, isn’t it? I haven’t seen you since I was a kid, haven’t even thought of you in years. Nolan.” She hugged him. She had a musky, bedroom smell about her, which jarred him, as his memories of her were of a child, and a homely one at that.

“Come in, come in,” she was saying.

He did.

It was a nice enough apartment, as the new assembly-line types go: pastel-yellow plaster-pebbled walls; fluffy dark-blue carpeting; kitchenette off to the left. There was a light blue couch upholstered in velvetlike material, and matching armchairs, only bright yellow, across the way. Over the couch was a big abstract painting (squares of dark blue and squares of light yellow) picked to complement the colors in the room, he supposed, but succeeding only in overkill. He didn’t know why exactly, but the room seemed kind of chilly. Maybe it was the emotionless, meaningless abstract painting. Maybe it was nothing. He didn’t know.

“Excuse the way I look.” she said, sitting on the couch, nodding for him to join her. “But I stayed home from work today. Not really sick, just felt a little punk, little tired. Nothing contagious, I’m sure, so you don’t have to worry.”

Nolan didn’t have to be told she’d stayed home from work: he’d known she would — or rather should — be at work, and had hoped to avoid an old-home-week confrontation with McCracken’s sister by simply searching her apartment when she wasn’t there. But here she was, in the way of his reason for being here, which was to locate her brother’s address or phone number or some other damn thing that might lead Nolan to him.

“What brings you to Des Moines, Nolan? God, I can’t get over it. All these years.”

“I was in town on business,” Nolan said, “and it occurred to me I should look you up and say how sorry I am about you losing your folks. We were good friends, your father and mother and I. I was real close with your dad especially, as you know.”

She didn’t say anything right away. Her face tightened. Her eyes got kind of glazed. She seemed to tense up all over. Then she said, “It’s been over a year since he died. He and mother. They were getting back together, you know.”

“I didn’t know,” Nolan said. “I didn’t even know they’d broken up.” Which was untrue, but might prompt an interesting response.

“They were divorced ten years ago, shortly after we moved to Des Moines, in fact. I never really knew the reason why. It didn’t make sense to me as a kid and it doesn’t now. Mom had been unhappy in Chicago, didn’t like what Daddy was doing there, with that nightclub and everything, and she seemed so happy when he said we’d be going to Des Moines, that he’d be getting out of the nightclub business and was going to manage a motel in Des Moines. But then we got here and a few months later, poof. Funny, isn’t it? They both loved each other. They saw each other all the time, were welcome in each other’s homes. But for some reason Mother refused to remarry and live with him again.”

“And your mother never said why?”

“No. And I don’t know why she relented toward the end there, either.”

“They were sure in love when I knew them.”

“You were out of touch a long time, Nolan. How come?”

“Didn’t your father ever tell you?”

“No.”

“I had a falling-out with the people who employed your father and me.”

Years ago, in Chicago, Jack McCracken had run a club across from Nolan’s on Rush Street; both clubs belonged to the Family. Nolan and McCracken were best of friends but had parted company out of necessity when Nolan made his abrupt, violent departure from the Family circle. It would have been dangerous to the point of stupidity for Nolan to associate with anyone linked with the Family, and vice versa, so he hadn’t talked to McCracken for more than a decade and a half, hadn’t even heard of his old friend’s death until last night, when Felix told him.

“But you didn’t have a falling out with Daddy, did you? Just the people you two worked for.”

“That’s right.”

“I don’t understand, Nolan. Just became you didn’t get along with your employers, yours and Daddy’s, doesn’t mean the two of you couldn’t still be friends.”