Макс Коллинз - Hush Money

“Nolan.”

“Yeah?”

“I... I don’t know how to react to all this. It’s just too... too much to digest at once, too overwhelming.”

“Give yourself some time.”

“You know, Nolan, my... my emotions have been all dammed up inside me for a real long time... you know, ever since the folks died. For better or worse, you’ve changed that, coming to Des Moines today, coming out of my past, a memory walking in the goddamn door. I guess I have something in common with that awful Frank DiPreta... It’s going to take a while to see what person I turn out to be, who I am now. I’ll be different, too, after today, and you’re the cause of it, or part of the cause, at least. And you know what the hell of it is?”

“No. What.”

“I don’t know whether to thank you for it or kick you in the ass.”

Nolan grinned. “I’ll bend over if you want.”

“No, that’s okay.”

“Come here a minute.”

“You’re... you’re going to kiss me good-bye now, aren’t you, Nolan?”

“I think so.”

“But that’s all.”

“Yeah. I think you’ve had enough emotional nonsense for one day. We can do more next time, if you want.”

“I think that’s a good idea. Nolan?”

“Yeah?”

“You can go ahead and kiss me now.”

Nolan got back in the car and Jon said, “That took long enough. We must be on an expense account or you wouldn’t let me sit out here with the car running all this time.”

“Well, it was kind of a sensitive thing, you know. People who get kidnapped require sensitive treatment.”

“You want me to drive?”

“Yeah, go ahead.”

Jon backed out of the parking stall, drove out of the apartment house lot and got back onto East 14th. He said, “How about when your old archenemy Charlie kidnapped me, not so long ago? I don’t recall you treating me sensitive.”

“You’re not six years old, either.”

“That mother’s not six years old. That mother’s older than I am. You give her sensitive treatment, too?”

“Damn right I did. Wouldn’t you?”

Jon guessed he would. “Where do I turn?”

“Not for a while yet. I’ll tell you when.”

They drove.

Pretty soon Nolan pointed and said, “Second side street down. Walnut.”

A Cadillac pulled out in front of them.

“Hey, Nolan, did you see who that was?”

“See who what was?”

“That guy in the Caddy. I’d swear it was that guy what’s-his-name.”

“You don’t say.”

“No, really, that guy Cotter, Nolan, don’t you remember?”

“Felix’s bodyguard, you mean?”

“Yeah, the guy I gave the bloody nose to.”

“Couldn’t be. Here, turn here. You’re going to miss it.”

Jon cornered fast and the big car lumbered onto Walnut. Nolan checked his watch: quarter to nine.

He’d said he’d be back by nine-thirty and had made it easy, despite the DiPreta diversion.

“Hey, what’s that?” Jon said, slowing. “Is that guy sick?”

A green Sunbird was parked in front of Steve’s apartment. The trunk lid was open, and a figure was slumped inside, sprawled, sort of.

“Stop the car,” Nolan said, and hopped out.

Nolan walked toward the Sunbird. The quiet residential street was unlit, with no one in sight but the figure bent over in half inside the trunk of the car.

He drew his .38.

And recognized the figure.

“Steve?” he said.

He ran the rest of the way.

When he touched Steve’s shoulder, he knew.

He gently lifted the body, looked at the dime-size hole in Steve’s temple, where the bullet had gone in. The boy’s eyes were open. There was an expression frozen onto the boy’s face, which seemed to Nolan an expression of disappointment.

Steve’s last thought, apparently, had been that Nolan betrayed him.

He lowered Steve back into the trunk, which was filled with luggage and other personal belongings. Steve had been loading up the trunk, evidently when it happened. Since there was no milling crowd, it was apparent a silenced gun had been used. Nolan noticed an envelope in Steve’s breast pocket, when he lowered the boy; he looked inside the envelope, pocketed it.

He put the .38 away. He knew who’d killed Steve, and why, and knew also that the killer was no longer around.

He walked back to the Cadillac.

Before he got in, he struck the side of the car with his fist, leaving a dent.

Nolan broke the egg on the side of the skillet.

Jon, yawning, came into the kitchen. “Oh, Nolan... are you up already?”

“No.” He broke a second egg. A third.

“No?”

“Haven’t been to bed yet.”

“Oh. I never saw you cook before. I didn’t know you could cook.”

“I’m fifty years old and a bachelor. I can cook. You want some eggs?”

“Sure. Sunny side up.”

“Scrambled.”

“Yeah, well, scrambled, then. What are you cooking for, Nolan?”

“Practice. I’m out of shape scrambling eggs and want to make sure I haven’t lost my touch.”

Jon yawned. “Why didn’t you sleep?”

“I had some thinking to do.”

“What kind of thinking?”

“Figuring some things out.”

“Such as?”

“Such as whether or not to kill some people.”

“Oh. What did you decide?”

“I’m still thinking.”

“You want me to fix some toast?”

“Why don’t you.”

It was seven o’clock in the morning. Nolan didn’t have to ask Jon why he was up. The kid always got up at seven on Saturday to watch old Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck cartoons; Nolan had learned that the time he was healing up from some bullet wounds here at Planner’s.

Nolan stirred the eggs. Added a touch of milk. He was coming down now, coming down from an anger that had swelled in him all the way home from Des Moines, building through the night as he sat in the front room in the living quarters above the antique shop. The anger was beginning to taper off now, after peaking half an hour ago or so; he was beginning to see the way all the pieces fit and that a single piece remained, a piece that was in his control.

Jon got out some bread and put it in the toaster and came over to Nolan and said, “What’s on your mind? You want to talk now? It has something to do with that young guy that was shot in Des Moines before we left, doesn’t it?”

They hadn’t talked about it yet, any of it. The drive back to Iowa City had been a silent one. Nolan hadn’t been in a mood to discuss anything.

“Yeah,” Nolan said, stirring the eggs. “It does. I’m the one who killed that boy.”

“What?”

“The Family used me to set him up.”

“Oh. I see.”

“I fingered him. I didn’t do it knowingly, but that doesn’t make him any less dead.”

“What are you going to do?”

“I’m thinking about it.”

“Deciding whether or not to kill some people.”

“That’s one option.”

“That other time, years ago, you killed a guy in the Family over something like this. Isn’t that kind of, well, inconsistent? You don’t want to kill people, so as a protest you kill somebody?”

Nolan shrugged. “It was the principle of the thing.”

“I see. Are you going to handle it the same way now?”

“I don’t know. I’m older than I was then. Young guys do... crazy things sometimes. Maybe I’m smart enough now to find something better to do than go around shooting people, some better way to... settle a score.”

“I thought things were different in Chicago now.”

“So did I.” He’d thought the change of regime meant something. That times had changed, that the businessmen had taken over, public relations men and computers taking the place of strong-arms and Tommy guns. Which was true, he supposed, to a point. Past that point, however, underneath the glossy corporate image, the Family was the same bunch of ruthless bastards they’d always been, always would be. Faces might change with the style of the clothes, and the polish on the front men, like Felix, just got smoother all the time. But adding in computers and P.R. men didn’t change the nature of the Family. Fact was it made the killing all the more cold-blooded impersonal. He stirred the eggs. “I’ll be going to the Tropical this afternoon. You can come along and help me move out if you want, kid.”