Макс Коллинз - True Crime

But we’d been through all that when I picked her up, around 1:00 P.M., at the Pine Grove apartment. She’d taken a look at the Auburn coupe I’d arrived in and made a face like a displeased five-year-old.

“You bought a two-seater!” she said, standing on the sidewalk, a bag in either hand, romance and movie magazines stuffed under one arm, oversize purse under the other. “I wanted a touring sedan!”

I was standing alongside the car, leaning against the fender; it was as supple as a pretty girl’s hip. Shrugging, I said, “You said a twelve-cylinder Auburn. With a radio, which this has. I had to call all over town to find a used one, and had to pitch an extra hundred bucks in at that.”

She frowned at me, then frowned at the Auburn. “We got a big family. We need more than two seats.”

“You also need more than one car. Look, I was just trying to get what you asked me to get, Ma.”

She shook her head vigorously. “And I like black. That’s blue.”

She was right: it was as blue as Sally Rand’s eyes.

I said, “I can’t take it back — it’s a used car: ‘All Sales Final.’”

“Well... it is an Auburn V-Twelve. I do like my Auburn V-Twelves.”

“With a radio, don’t forget. I was lucky to find one that way.”

“Well, all right.”

I put her suitcases in the trunk. “Could I have that extra hundred I had to give?”

“You’ll get it,” she snapped, and went around to the rider’s side and waited for me to open the door for her. I did.

Once we’d got outside of Chicago a ways, into the farm country, her spirits perked up, even if she couldn’t find any hillbilly music on the radio.

“Goodie goodie!” she said, clapping her fat little hands together, a romance magazine open on her lap.

“What?” I said. I was concentrating on my driving; despite being a two-seater, the Auburn was a big car, much bigger than my Chevy coupe, and it drove a little like a barge. On the other hand, it was fast. I had to work to keep it down at fifty. My Chevy shimmied like your sister Kate when I went a mile over fifty.

She was saying, “He had the ring...”

“What?”

“He had the flat...”

“Huh?”

“But she felt his chin...”

“You okay?”

“And that was that!” She turned her face toward me and that ungodly flabby pan split in a smile. “Burma Shave!”

“Oh,” I said, and went back to my driving.

From then on she was on the lookout. There must’ve been an industrious Burma Shave advance man working this territory, because the little signs, spaced a hundred feet or so apart, seemed to pop up every few miles, like wooden weeds.

And it kept Ma busy.

“Your beauty boys... is just skin deep... what skin you got... you ought to keep. Haw haw! Burma Shave!”

She did have a faint mustache on her upper lip; maybe she was a potential customer...

I was still wearing the window-glass wire-rim spectacles and straw hat, but today I had on a brown suit, as well as my automatic in a shoulder holster. I hadn’t carried the gun in a while, and it felt heavy under my arm; made me uncomfortable. For one thing, if I got stopped by a state cop for speeding (and with this Auburn under me, with a mind of its own toward how fast it wanted to go, that was possible) I would have some embarrassing questions to answer — like why I was carrying a driver’s license under James Lawrence’s name, when this gun was registered to somebody called Nathan Heller. And for another thing, I just plain didn’t like carrying guns.

Barney had noticed the gun this morning; I hadn’t been wearing the straw hat and eyeglasses, but I was in the brown suit and the gun in the shoulder sling bulged a little. Like Little New York said, I couldn’t afford a tailor as good as his.

“Is that what I think it is?” he said, frowning, nodding toward my left arm. He was waiting for his turn, shooting pool with a couple of his sparring partners. I’d gone looking for Barney in the small gym in the traveler’s lounge at the Morrison Hotel, and when I hadn’t found him, had gone next door to Mussey’s, and had.

Mussey’s was a pool, billards and bowling hall next door to the Morrison and was a major meeting place for the sporting fraternity. Theatrical celebrities mingled with those of the boxing, baseball and racing world, as well as a certain number of con men and racketeers. The second floor was where billiards and pool ruled the day, and that was where I’d found Barney.

I admitted to him that I was heeled.

He shook his head, taking his turn; missed his shot. His sparring partners chuckled — they had to grab the occasional victory over Barney here, because in the ring they didn’t have a prayer.

“I don’t like it when you pack that thing,” he said, uneasily, nodding toward the bulge under my arm. “Pallbearin’ ain’t my idea of a good time, you know.”

“If you feel that way about it,” I said, smiling gently, “don’t come to my goddamn funeral.”

“Jesus, Nate, can’t you find a better business to get in?”

“I hate it when Jews say ‘Jesus.’ It confuses me.”

“Nobody likes a wise guy,” he said, grinning in spite of himself, and took his turn. Made the first shot, missed the second. One of the sparring partners elbowed the other one and they traded sideways grins.

“Seriously,” he said, “why don’t you find some other business? I could probably use you on my staff—”

“Christ, you and Sally! Nobody likes my trade, everybody wants to put me to work as their fuckin’ maid or something.”

Barney put an arm around me. “I hate it when half-Jews say ‘Christ.’ It confuses me. But you can say ‘fuck’ all you want. That don’t confuse me in the least.”

“Is that what I am, half a Jew?”

“Yeah, and half a Mick, and full of shit. That’s Nate Heller. Now, get outa here while I try to catch up with these guys.”

“Before you blow your next shot, let me tell you why I looked you up this morning.”

“Tell.”

“I’m going to be out of town awhile, and you’re going to have to cover for me, where my night watchman duty’s concerned. Okay?”

“Sure,” he nodded. “How long you be gone?”

“Not sure,” I said.

“What’s up, exactly?”

“Looking for a girl,” I said.

One of the sparring partners said, “Who ain’t?”

Barney said, “Don’t get killed or anything, okay, shmuck?”

“Okay, pal. Don’t you have a fight in a few weeks?”

“More like a month,” he said, bending to shoot.

“That’s a unique way of training you got there,” I said, and he missed his shot.

“The game laws ought... to let you shoot... the bird that hands you... a substitute! Haw haw!” Ma Barker grinned at me. “Burma Shave!”

There wasn’t much to say to that; I just kept driving. We were well into the afternoon, now, and Wisconsin. Taking Highway 89, which had just turned from nice spanking-new pavement into gravel. I kept the Auburn at forty-five. Somehow, even though this wasn’t my car (except for a hundred bucks’ worth of it, anyway), I hated to think of those shapely blue fenders getting nicked by those wicked little rocks.

I hadn’t done much cross-country driving, and, on these two-lane highways, each oncoming car we encountered made for a nerve-racking experience. The Auburn was wide enough, and the roads narrow enough, to make meeting the occasional road hog border on meeting your Maker. This was heightened by Kate Barker’s humming hymns, something she did whenever she couldn’t find hillbilly music on the radio or a Burma Shave sign to read.

“On a hill far away,” she bellowed suddenly, “stood an old rugged cross...”

“Burma Shave,” I said.