Филип Керр - A Five Year Plan

‘No,’ he said slowly. ‘I just don’t buy your story, Willy.’

‘Look, you’ve got to believe me—’

‘Why would Tony want to grease me?’

‘I didn’t say that. I said hurt not grease.’

‘After five years, the one thing Tony knows about me is that I can be trusted not to spill my guts to anyone.’

‘Look, I’m just the button. You know that. I ain’t the man’s psychoanalyst. I ain’t privy to the workings of his mind. I owe him a favor. That’s the way it works, you know that. He tells me to do somethin’, I do it and I don’t look for no fuckin’ mission statement. I get paid to do what I’m fuckin’ told.’

‘You know what I think? I think the Russian sent you over here to whack me.’

‘What Russian? There’s no Russian involved here.’

‘That’s what I think. I think it was Einstein Gergiev who set this up. Isn’t that right, Willy?’

‘No, man.’

‘Now that makes a lot more sense. The Russian. Be quite natural for you to be more afraid of him than you are of me, even with a bunch of matchbooks stuck between your toes. He’s a terrifying character, that Russian. I should know. I shared a cell with him for four years. No, you’ve got to be lying, Moose.’ Dave snapped on the cigarette lighter for extra emphasis.

Desperate now, Willy struggled underneath Dave, his neck and ears reddening with the exertion.

‘Look man, I don’t know about any fucking Russian. I never met anyone called Einstein whosits face. It was Tony Nudelli, I swear. Sweet mother of Jesus, I swear it’s true.’

‘Oooh, are you a Catholic, Moose?’

‘Yeah, I’m a Catholic’

‘Tell ya what I’m gonna do, Moose.’ Dave stood up and went to the bedside drawer where he found a Gideon Bible. ‘I’m gonna get you to swear an oath, on the Bible.’

‘Sure, anything. Just so long as you believe me.’

Dave sat down on Willy’s back and tucked the Gideon Bible underneath his large jaw.

‘Now repeat after me, Moose. As I have hope for the resurrection of the body...’

‘As I hope for the resurrection of the body.’

‘And life everlasting in Jesus Christ...’

‘And life everlasting in Jesus Christ.’

‘What I have said here is the truth, so help me God.’

‘What I’ve said here is the truth, so help me God.’

‘Now kiss the Bible with that sucker of yours.’

Willy kissed the Bible until it was wet with saliva.

‘You’re not brought up by Jesuits, I hope,’ said Dave. ‘Only those guys were so tricky they could swear one thing, think another, kiss a bible and get away with it thanks to the doctrine of equivocation.’

‘No man, no—’

‘OK, I believe you.’ Dave stood up again and took another sip of his drink. ‘All right. I’m gonna untie you now. Just remember though. I’ve got that little Phoenix Arms twenty-two in my pocket. You try anything ungrateful Moose and I’ll take some of the pressure off that brain of yours. Give you an extra fuckin’ blowhole. You clear on that?’

‘Yeah, clear.’

Dave untied Willy and stood back as slowly, painfully, the big man sat up on the floor. Willy checked his balls and then pressed the heel of his hand gingerly against his injured eye. Through his one good eye Willy looked across the suite at the man now sitting down on a large cream-colored sofa. Laid out on the floor in front of Delano, like the Jerry Seinfeld American Express ad, were the results of what looked to have been a fairly major shopping expedition: several pairs of shoes, piles of shirts, sports shirts, sweaters and pants, and a brand new Apple laptop. There was nothing cheap on view. Even the suite, with a wrap-around balcony and a sea view looked like three or four hundred a night.

‘How’s your eye?’ Dave asked.

‘Hurts.’

‘Sorry ’bout that, Moose. Take a hand towel from the bathroom if you like and some ice from the refrigerator. Make yourself a cold compress. Should keep some of the swelling down.’

‘Thanks, man.’ Moose fetched the ice. He was regretting the passing of his ice business with cousin Tommy. But for that he wouldn’t be sitting there with the risk of losing an eye. And maybe he wasn’t quite cut out for the tough stuff after all. There had to be something easier.

Watching Willy fix his cold compress Dave felt sorry for the big lunk, even though he was sure that Willy would have broken his fingers like he’d said, and without any remorse.

‘You can tell Tony how disappointed I am about this,’ said Dave. Cruelly, he added: ‘When you see him.’

‘If I see him,’ Willy said bitterly. ‘My fuckin’ eye. I think you blinded me.’

‘Disappointed but not resentful. Tell him that despite this little misunderstanding, we’re still friends. Tell him that. Maybe even future business associates. Yeah, tell Tony I’ve got a business proposition for him. Chance to make a big score. That ought to help reassure him... Tell him, I’ll be in touch through Jimmy Figaro.’

Willy picked up the Magnum and slid it into the clip inside his pants. He glanced around for the .22 then remembered that Delano had it in his pocket. Dave guessed what he was looking for, took it out and hefted it in his hand.

‘I’ll just hang onto this a while,’ he said. ‘First rule of self-defense. Have a gun.’

‘Can I leave now?’ Willy sounded contrite. Contrite and concerned. ‘I’d like to get to a hospital.’

‘Sure, but aren’t you forgetting something?’ Dave nodded at Willy’s bare feet and the matchbooks between his toes. ‘Your dogs, guy.’

Willy started to pick them out.

‘I never figured you for no Dennis Hopper, man,’ said Willy, shaking his head. ‘In those clothes, you don’t look so tough. More like a fuckin’ college boy.’

‘The apparel does oft proclaim the man,’ said Dave. ‘But you should have seen me at eight o’clock this morning.’

Willy pocketed one of the matchbooks.

‘Souvenir,’ he said. ‘I collect them.’

‘That should be one to remember,’ suggested Dave.

‘Would you really have done that? Set my toes on fire?’

Dave shrugged.

‘Moose? I’ve been asking myself that same question.’

Special Agent Kate Furey stared out of the window of a third-floor conference room in FBI headquarters and stifled a deep yawn as her boss, Assistant Special Agent in Charge Kent Bowen, began to tell the story. It was one of those unpleasant, cruel stories that her male colleagues seemed to relish. Most of them were already grinning since everyone knew that the subject of the story was how Bolivar Suarez, a cousin of the Colombian Ambassador, and one of Miami’s major cocaine traffickers, had met his untimely death the night before last.

‘So you wanna see where this asshole lives, on Delray Beach. Jesus. Two acres of ocean-front estate. And the house is like something out of James Bond. Battleship gray, 10,000 square feet, looks like the Guggenheim Museum in New York. But inside it’s a goddamn palace. Marble floors, mahogany doors and windows, art deco fixtures and lights from Paris. You get the idea. Florida living in the lap to the tune of $10 million.

‘Anyway, here’s the set-up. Asshole liked art, in a big fucking way. Pictures all over. He must have kept some of those New York salerooms going single-handed. Modern, but not shit, y’know? I mean I know nuthin’ about art but even I could see that some of these artists had real talent. Lot of Scottish stuff, from Glasgow, which I liked of course. Asshole probably thought Glasgow was a double-glazing company. Lot of South American stuff too. I guess that he did know. Frida Kahlo. Diego Rivera. You name it. Asshole had it in a frame with a little light on. I mean, very particular. Like he couldn’t just hammer a fucking nail in the wall. These pictures were positioned like he was a fucking surveyor. Story goes he once beat up his kid’s nanny when she accidentally brushed against one of these canvases. And when I say beat up, I mean beat up. Apparently, he used one of those Romitron cosh things — you know, kind of a plastic ball and chain? — on her fucking hands. Damn near crippled her. No one touches those paintings except asshole himself.’