Max Collins: Mourn The Living

“Okay,” Sid admitted, “it’s no big set-up. It’s a small operation that Charlie gave George to give him something to do.”

Nolan got up from the couch. “Be seeing you, Sid.”

“Wait, Nolan, will you wait just a minute!”

“Having George Franco on hand makes this too close to home where the Boys are concerned, and at the same time makes any possible score small potatoes. Be seeing you.”

“Listen to me, will you just listen? It’s better than you think. George doesn’t have full charge, he’s more or less a figurehead. There’s a financial secretary, of sorts, who really runs the show. I don’t know the guy’s name, but he’s no dummy.”

“Where do you get your information?”

“George is my brother-in-law, remember?”

“Does he know Irene’s related?”

“He might have met her when she was a kid, but he doesn’t know I have... had a girl who went to Chelsey. At least as far as I know he doesn’t. That dumb asshole doesn’t know much of anything.”

“I’ll grant you that, Sid.”

“Look, George talked to me on the phone last week, social call, you know? I pumped him a little. They’re pulling in at least six grand a week.”

“Sid, it’s my life you’re trading bubblegum cards against.”

“Don’t forget you owe me, Nolan, remember that! And there’s going to be close to forty thousand in it for you, I swear.”

“At six grand a week, how do you figure? The Boys send in a bagman every Wednesday and take the last week’s earnings back to Chicago. That’s s.o.p. with the Family. I know these set-ups, Sid.”

“But they don’t come in weekly! Chelsey is so close to Chicago they don’t bother sending a man every week.”

“How often do they pick it up?”

“Every six weeks. But I don’t know where they keep it till then.”

“How about the local bank?”

“Nope, I checked it. They must keep it on ice somewhere.”

“So there ought to be around forty thousand in this for me, Sid, that right?”

“I think so, Nolan. Maybe more.”

Nolan thought for a moment. Then: “What makes you think this operation in Chelsey has anything to do with your daughter’s death?”

“Damn it, Nolan, I figure if they didn’t do anything outside of sell that cube of LSD she’s supposed to have swallowed, then they killed her, didn’t they? Besides, because she was my kid she knew things about the Boys and the connection they had to Chelsey. If she let any of that slip to the wrong person, it could have got her killed. And...” Tisor’s eyes were filmed over and he looked down at his hands, folded tightly in his lap.

“And what?”

“Nolan, I have to know why she died. I have to know.”

“It’s enough she’s dead, Sid.”

“No, it isn’t! She was the only thing I had to show for my entire life, she was the only thing I had left to care about! I’m not like you, Nolan... I can’t let go of something that important with a shrug.”

There were a few moments of silence, while Tisor regained a modicum of control. Nolan sat and seemed to be studying the thin ropes of smoke coiling off his cigarette.

“If I find out Irene was murdered,” Nolan said, his voice a low, soft monotone, “and I find the one who did it, what am I supposed to do?”

“That’s up to you, Nolan.”

“You expect me to kill somebody?”

“I know you, Nolan. I expect if anyone needs killing, you’ll take care of it.”

“I’m not making any promises, you understand.”

“I understand, Nolan.”

“All right, then. Get some paper and write down every speck of information you got on Irene and Chelsey. The college, her friends, the Boys’ operation, George, everything you know about it. And put in a recent snap of Irene.”

“Right.” Tisor got a notebook and a pen and Nolan smoked two cigarettes while Tisor filled up three pages for him. Tisor gave Nolan the notebook, then went to a drawer to find a picture of his daughter.

“Here she is,” he said, holding a smudged Polaroid shot.

“That’s old, Sid — nothing newer? This is what she looked like when I knew her.”

“She got prettier in the last couple years since you saw her. I had her nose fixed, did you know that?”

“No.” She’d been a dark-haired girl, beautiful but for a nose that could have opened bottles, and it was nice that Sid had got it bobbed for her, but Nolan hardly saw it worth talking about when she was dead.

Tisor’s eyes were cloudy. “They... they told me on the phone that... she... she fell ten stories... it was awful. They sent her body back on a train for the... funeral. I had to have them keep the casket closed...”

“Don’t waste your tears on the dead, Sid,” Nolan told him. “You got to mourn somebody, mourn the living — they got it tougher.”

“You... you don’t understand how it is...”

Hell, Nolan thought, dust doesn’t give a damn. But he said, “Sure, Sid, sure.”

“Let me tell you about her, Nolan...”

“I got to be going now, Sid.”

“Yeah... yeah, that’s right. I can’t tell you how much I... I appreciate this... Nolan, thanks.”

“Sure.” He headed for the door. “See you around.”

“Yeah... uh... so long, Nolan... you going by bus?”

Nolan looked at him and said, “You ask too many questions, Sid,” and closed the door.

Tisor watched through the picture window and saw Nolan board a city bus routed for downtown Peoria.

There Nolan found a Hertz office and rented a midnight- blue Lincoln in Tisor’s name. He drove it back to his motel, packed and cleaned up, then checked out.

He could make Chelsey by noon if he kicked it.

George Franco was a satisfied man.

He was not happy, but there was satisfaction, a certain contentment in his life.

He realized this as he lay on the soft double bed in his penthouse apartment, watching his woman get dressed. She was a leggy whore, with good firm breasts, and she was taking her time about fastening the garter snaps as she replaced her black hose. Her tousled black hair fell to her shoulders, and her once-pretty face wore a tight red line for a mouth. George liked the look of her hard, well-built body, but he didn’t like her equally hard face which spoke of something other than love.

But she was his woman, hired or not, and he was lucky to have her and knew it. Especially when you were a repulsive glob of fat, as George resignedly recognized himself to be.

She was dressed now, as dressed as possible considering the black sheath hit mid-thigh. She did her imitation of a smile for him and said, “Tomorrow, same time, Georgie?”

“Yeah, Francie. Tomorrow. Sure was good today.”

The whore smiled some more and said, “Yeah, sure was,” because that was her job. Her fingers rippled a little wave at her employer and she left.

George sat up on the bed, poured the last shot out of the bottle of Scotch he and the woman had emptied during the day — the courthouse clock across the way was bonging four — and he drank it down. He held his liquor well, he knew he did; it was the one thing he could do well. Then he settled back with a good cigar and thought about his life.

Satisfied, content. Not happy, but you can’t have everything.

After all, he had fifty cent cigars when he wanted them, and a fifty dollar woman when he wanted her. He lived in a five hundred buck a month secret penthouse (over a drugstore) with five rooms and two color TV’s and two cans and two big double beds and three bars and lots of soft red carpet. His bars were well-stocked with all the liquor he could possibly drink; and he had all the food he could eat, as prepared by his personal chef, who came in twice a day. The chef lived down the street in an apartment shared with George’s maid.