Max Collins - Mourn The Living

Clamping one hand tightly in one of the grating openings, Nolan withdrew his .38 from the under-arm holster and slipped one leg up and over the side of the balcony. He fought for balance, shifted his weight and landed on the balcony cat-silent.

Nolan faced the four-windowed French doors and watched the shifting shadows on the curtains. He peered through the crack between the doors and saw Dinneck sitting in a chair with his back to Nolan, tossing things from a suitcase over his shoulders, angry because he wasn’t finding anything. Tulip had stripped the bed and was in the process of gutting the mattress with a stiletto.

Dumb bastards, Nolan thought. The room hadn’t told them anything the night before and tonight wouldn’t be any different. Well, a little different maybe.

Nolan slammed his shoulder into the French doors and they snapped open. He kicked Dinneck’s chair in the seat, turning it over on him. Nolan leapt on the chair, heard bones and wood crack simultaneously, and sat on it, pinning Dinneck beneath. He leveled the .38 at Tulip, who stopped frozen, knife over mattress, with the bug-eyed expression of a punk caught stealing hub-caps.

“Raise them, Tulip,” Nolan ordered. “Slow and easy and no games with the knife.”

If Nolan hadn’t mentioned the stiletto, Tulip probably wouldn’t have remembered it, but Nolan had and Tulip did. Like a reflex Tulip whipped the knife behind his ear and let it fly. Nolan ducked, losing control of the overturned chair, and hit the floor. Behind him the stiletto quivered in the wood paneling. Nolan fired the .38 at a fleeing Tulip, caught him in the arm with the shot, which spun him around and sat him down.

That put Dinneck out of Nolan’s mind just long enough for the man to crawl out from under the smashed chair and step up behind Nolan.

And when Nolan remembered Dinneck, it was too late to matter. He turned and saw the toe coming at his face and when he tried to turn away it caught him in the temple and things went black.

He woke thirty-some seconds later and stared into the barrel of his .38, which was now in Dinneck’s hand. Tulip was sitting a few feet away on the partially gutted bed, whimpering, mumbling. “Need it, Dinneck, I tell ya I need it bad... let’s just finish him and get out, huh? What d’ya say?”

Nolan looked past the gun barrel and into Dinneck’s cold, uncompromising eyes.

Nolan said, “What’s Tulip need, Dinneck?”

“Shut up.”

Tulip was rubbing his mutilated arm. The bullet had caught him in the lower shoulder and he was stroking below the wound. The blood from his shoulder was all over his hands and partially on his tear-streaked face, where he’d tried to wipe the moisture from his eyes. He was moaning, “I need some, gotta shoot up, need it bad, real bad...”

“He need a fix, Dinneck?” Nolan asked.

“Shut your goddamn mouth, Webb.”

“Little shot of heroin?”

“I said shut up, you son of a bitch!”

“Where’s Tulip getting his heroin, Dinneck? Is it...”

Dinneck interrupted Nolan by slamming the barrel of the .38 into Nolan’s temple again, then smashing him across the mouth with it.

Nolan’s body went limp, but he wasn’t out. His mouth, his lips felt like a bloody wad of pulp, but he wasn’t out. His temple ached, his head pounded, but he sat back and waited to make his move. He sat back and waited and watched Dinneck’s eyes.

Tulip seemed excited, the pain momentarily forgotten. “Let me shoot ’im, Dinneck — let ol’ Tulip put him to sleep forever—”

Dinneck smiled and shook his head. “Sorry, pal. I got a special grudge against Mr. Webb here.”

Tulip stood up, clutching his bloodied arm. “ You got a grudge! Last night that bastard set me on my ass every time I turned around, he knocked out one of my teeth, and a coupla hours ago he kicked me in the fuckin’ head! Now he half shoots off my fuckin’ arm and you gotta grudge.”

“Sit down,” Dinneck said, “and shut up.”

Tulip sat, frowning, caressing the wounded arm again, and Dinneck consoled him with, “Take it easy, man, I’ll see you get your shot, don’t worry, stay cool. Let me handle it.”

Nolan had been looking past Dinneck’s tacky clothes and into the authority of his face, the competence of his actions, the hardness of eyes that spoke professionalism. Nolan told himself he’d misjudged Dinneck, whose dress and even manner to a degree had been calculated to elicit such misjudgment. Beyond that, Nolan saw a coldness in Dinneck, and a need to inflict pain.

“I read you wrong, Dinneck,” Nolan said.

Intrigued by the comment in spite of himself, Dinneck said, “What?” Then remembering his previous commands to Nolan he said, “Just keep your mouth shut while I figure what to do with you.”

“Who are you, Dinneck?” Nolan asked.

“I told you to shut your mouth.”

“Tulip, how long’s Dinneck been working with you? He been in town very long? How long’s he been with Elliot and Franco?”

“You’re only making it tougher on yourself, Webb,” Dinneck told him evenly.

Tulip’s face showed the strain of thought, then he said, “He’s only been with us about two, maybe three months. He’s somebody the Boys sent in from upstate somewhere.”

Nolan looked at Dinneck again. “Who are you?”

“Just keep trying my patience, Webb, keep going at it...”

“You some kind of Family inside man, checking up? Just who the hell are...”

Dinneck’s face exploded into a red mask, veins standing out on his forehead like a relief map. He raised the gun up over Nolan’s head and brought it down fast.

But not fast enough. Nolan sent a splintering left that caught Dinneck below the left eye and followed with a full right swing into his throat. Dinneck rolled on his back, wrapping his hands around his throat, and he tried to scream in pain but that only made it worse. Nolan tromped down on Dinneck’s wrist and the man released his grip on Nolan’s .38 — he’d forgotten it anyway.

Nolan stood over the sprawling figure, leveling the retrieved .38 at Tulip, who had sat back down on the bed.

“You didn’t have to hit him in the throat, did you?” Tulip’s voice was like a child’s; he wasn’t holding onto his arm anymore and the blood on it was beginning to turn a dry brown. “You didn’t have to hit his throat. It still hurts him from this morning when some broad hit him there. What a hell of a place to hit him. You sure are a mean son of a bitch, Webb.” Tulip shook his head.

“You and Dinneck came to the wrong man for sympathy,” Nolan told him. “He should’ve got his tonsils out some other day.”

“What are you gonna do now?”

Nolan didn’t answer Tulip. He lifted a barely conscious Dinneck by the collar and dragged him to the can, keeping one eye (and the .38) on Tulip all the while. Nolan dumped Dinneck in the tub, turned on the shower full blast, on cold, and pulled the shower curtain down over his head.

“You sure are a mean s.o.b.,” Tulip repeated.

“It’ll relax him,” Nolan said.

Nolan left Dinneck in the tub, shower curtains around him and shower going on full, ice-cold. Dinneck was a mass of whining, hysterical pain, fighting the shower curtain and the cold with what was left of his will. Nolan shut the bathroom door.

“I bet you could use a shot, couldn’t you, Tulip?”

“Mean s.o.b., sure are a mean s.o.b...”

“How long you been riding that horse, Tulip?”

“... mean s.o.b., you sure a...”

Nolan gave up on getting any information out of Tulip; at the moment the big man was practically catatonic and talking to him was a waste of time. Besides, pretty soon Barnes would get worried enough to call the cops, despite Nolan’s advice to the contrary, what with the gunshot and all the violent noises that had been coming from the room. He wondered if Vicki had taken off. She should have.