Max Collins - Ask Not

“Sorry to interrupt,” I whispered. “Just tell Mr. Nicoletti that a satisfied customer is waiting in his office to thank him.”

She nodded, managed a smile, then went back to her important conversation, which seemed to be about selecting a discotheque.

Inside the glorified cubbyhole of Nicoletti’s office, leaving the door slightly ajar, I checked the desk — there was no filing cabinet, just walls with a few sales awards and framed color photos of current model cars — and found a Browning .22 automatic among the paperclips in the center drawer. Despite the seemingly small caliber, a .22 was typical for a hard-core hit man, being a weapon that silenced effectively. I removed the clip, thumbed each shell into the wastebasket, replaced the now-empty clip, and returned the gun to its drawer.

Sitting in one of two customer chairs across from the desk, I unbuttoned the jacket of my suit coat to give me access to my shoulder-holstered nine-millimeter Browning — which did not silence well at all. I scooted the chair into a sideways position to see Nicoletti as he entered.

It was possible that he might be armed, but I doubted it. Similarly, he might be escorting that couple into his office to write up a deal, but I doubted that, too. Those kids were window-shopping or whatever the car lot equivalent was. This late in the evening, a deal would not likely go down.

I sat for maybe fifteen minutes, about ten minutes into which the lights dimmed in the showroom, followed by the sound of the secretary and various sales personnel gathering their things, saying good nights and going. If the secretary told Nicoletti about my presence, I didn’t hear her do it.

He would return to this office, though, because a hat and raincoat were waiting on a metal tree in the corner. No weapon in any raincoat pocket, by the way.

When he came in, Nicoletti was already friendly and saying, “Susie said you were wanting to—”

And then Chuckie’s smile froze and his words stopped.

Even pushing fifty, Chuckie Nicoletti cut an intimidating figure — broad-shouldered, six two, big hands with frying-pan palms and fingers like swollen sausages. His handsome features had a vaguely swollen look, too, and the white infiltrating his ridge of dark, carefully cut-and-combed hair stood out starkly against his Miami tan. His suit was charcoal black and tailored, his tie white and black and silk, wider than current fashion and with a knot like a fist.

“Hi Chuckie,” I said as he stood in the doorway, the dark showroom behind him, neon signage giving him a halo of color. “Why don’t you shut that?”

I wasn’t holding a gun on him. Nothing so melodramatic. But my suit coat was open enough to make the butt of the nine millimeter apparent in its rig. So just melodramatic enough.

“Heller,” he said with a smile that hid its uneasiness. “I thought you drove Jags. Decide to try a good old-fashioned American ride like Ford for a change?”

“Sit down, Chuck. I just need a couple of minutes. Not to talk cars, though.”

He moved slowly behind the desk and eased down as if fearing I’d rigged the seat of his swivel chair to explode. “What subject?”

I moved my chair around to face him directly.

“I’m going to kind of build up to that.” My words were calm but I couldn’t keep the edge out of my voice. Since hearing about Flo earlier today, I had not been myself. Or maybe I was too much myself. “You were part of Mongoose, right?”

His dark eyes flared. He placed his hands on the edge of the metal desk, thick fingers on artificial-wood top, giving himself easy access to that .22.

“It’s okay to say so,” I said with a smile. “You can check with Rosselli about that. Didn’t John ever mention my role? He can confirm I set up the first meet between him, Mooney, and Santo.”

“Okay,” he said, with the expression of a man adjusting his shower temperature. “I was part of that. Not that we never got nowhere with it. That prick Castro is still smoking Havanas.”

“Yeah, and the poisoned ones never worked out, right? There was one plan I heard about, though, that might’ve come in handy — something about hitting Castro on his way to the airport from a high building. Using highly trained snipers. That’s plural, because triangulation was involved.”

Traffic on West Cermak was providing a discordant muffled soundtrack, an occasional horn honk stabbing the night.

His dark eyes were hooded now. “We’re all CIA assets, Heller. You and me and John and... plenty of other people. If you’re just trying to figure out who’s on what side, that would put us on the same side. Same team.”

“Okay.” He didn’t seem to be lying. On the other hand, he was a car salesman. “Chuckie, did John mention to you that earlier this month a Cuban tried to run me down? And that my son was almost a hit-and-run victim, too?”

“He did not mention that, no.”

“I spoke to John, and he assured me that if somebody was out there tying off loose ends, he was not involved.”

“I’m sure he isn’t. He likes you, Nate.”

Now I was Nate. Well, that was only fair. I was calling him Chuckie.

I said, “But the question is, are you involved?”

“In... tyin’ off loose ends? Hell, no.”

“You’ve tied off your share, Chuckie.”

“I suppose I have.”

“The estimate around town is twenty hits.”

“That sounds about right.”

“That’s about half the Japs I killed in the Pacific, but not bad for local work.”

Big white smiling teeth, caps or choppers, collided with his dark tan. “You done all right yourself, back in the States, ain’t you, Nate?”

“I don’t like to brag. Have we established that neither of us scares easy?”

He went for the gun and then I was just sitting there with him aiming its long snout at my chest. A head shot would have been messy here at the office. I waited to see if he’d fire or was just one-upping me.

“Why don’t you tell me what this is about, Nate?”

“Does that feel a little light, Chuckie? It might.”

He frowned.

“Because I removed all the bullets.”

Then I got out the nine-millimeter and he clicked on an empty chamber, twice, then sighed. Set the gun down with a little clunk.

“Okay,” he said. “So you’re right. Neither of us assholes scares easy.”

I kept the gun in my hand, but draped casually in my lap. As casually as a nine millimeter can be draped, anyway.

“I just got back from Dallas,” I said conversationally. “A little bodyguard work for a reporter who was looking into the aftermath of the assassination.”

“JFK.”

“Not Lincoln. I could have said McKinley, but at a Ford dealership, Lincoln seems more politic.”

“You are a fucking laugh riot, Heller.”

“Coming from a guy as uneasily amused as you, Chuckie, I take that as a compliment. So when Billy McCarthy’s eyeball popped out, did you even miss a beat scarfing down that spaghetti?”

“That story you heard is inaccurate.”

“Oh?”

“It was ziti.”

We smiled at each other. We were both laugh riots who were not easily scared. And yet we were both good and goddamned scared, and I was fine with that.

I said, “The reporter was Flo Kilgore.”

He frowned a little; it made white lines in his tan. “That skinny dame from TV? I heard on the radio she died. Accidental overdose, they said.”

I ignored that. “We were interviewing witnesses to the assassination, plus some peripheral figures.”

“What does that mean? Per what?”

“Fringe. Sidelines, but still in the game. They’re dropping like flies, Chuckie. Accidental deaths like Flo. Sudden suicides. Car accidents. Some people are just getting threatened or maimed, but one way or the other, they’re getting shut up.”