Lawrence Block - The Specialists

When somebody got one of yours, you didn’t call cops, you didn’t phone the newspapers. You put him away privately before the body was cold.

He shook his head, remembering. The stupid kid couldn’t have done it, there was no way. The punk swore Buddy knocked him out, which didn’t make sense, but anyway there was no knife around and somebody sure as hell did it with a knife and knives don’t walk away.

But what a goddamned mess. First putting the two broads in a car and sending them the hell home, which was why he had had to throw it to bitch Marlene when he’d been planning on taking those blondes both at once, since Kohler wasn’t up to that scene anymore. Kohler was too busy dying to take an interest, he only wanted the tail around for decorative purposes. And Kohler almost died ahead of schedule, shaken by the sight of Buddy, and he had had to send Kohler home in another car and then call still another car with a couple of strong boys in it to get Buddy the hell home and under the ground before some idiot cop stuck his nose in.

He took a cigar from his pocket, unwrapped it, tucked the cellophane back in the pocket, flicked his lighter, and got the thing going. You could barely see the seams where they cut the sod. Once you were done, you were gone forever, gone all the way, and you couldn’t ask to be remembered. Buddy was with him how long? Say ten years at the inside, and as soon as the last chunk of sod was stamped down, one of the boys was at Platt’s side with hopes in his eyes.

Saying, “Mr. Platt, Buddy was a friend of mine, but you’re gonna need somebody to do your driving and all, well, say the word.”

“You a good driver?”

“And a mechanic, Mr. Platt. I fixed the Lincoln before we shot out here, it didn’t take me three minutes.”

“You’re Gleason, aren’t you?”

“Lester Gleason, Mr. Platt.”

“You got anybody? Wife, kids, steady pussy?”

“No, sir.”

“Mother, father, aunt you gotta see every third Wednesday?”

“Nobody.”

“Buddy Gleason.”

“Lester, Mr. Platt. Or Les, or—”

“Buddy Gleason. Right?”

“Yes, sir, Mr. Platt.”

“Buddy.”

“Yes, sir.”

“A room on the first floor. Buddy’s things, you keep what you want, the rest you get rid of. You sleep there tonight.”

“Yes, sir, Mr. Platt.”

Ten years minimum, and that was how long it took to replace Buddy Rice. This Gleason, this Buddy Gleason, he could be good or he could be not so good. He’d find out soon enough. He might drive too fast like so many of them did. They tried to show how good they were and they drove you faster than you wanted to go. Or he might not be good with a gun, or he might not know how to keep his mouth shut in front of broads or business people. That was one thing that was good about Buddy, the other Buddy. He knew when to shut up and he looked almost human in a suit. This new Buddy, well, he’d do until something better turned up.

But who killed him? Platt didn’t know, didn’t especially care. Gleason, maybe; he was horny enough for the job. If that was so, then he’d probably be good. Whoever did it, it was somebody in the organization, probably somebody in Platt’s own part of the organization. It was very goddamned professional — gaffing the car to set Buddy up, then taking Buddy out with a knife. Buddy himself had been good with a knife and it would take somebody very good to do him that way.

Woman trouble, he guessed. Something like that. One way or another Buddy stepped on somebody’s toes, and the somebody did the job himself or more likely hired it done, and the hit was carried out in such a way that there was no mess with cops. It was, all in all, a very clean kill to straighten up after. Platt decided he ought to be grateful.

The sky was light by the time he got back into the house. No sleep at all, and he wouldn’t be able to sleep now, and Saturday night was always big. The things you went through.

He went to the downstairs lavatory, chased two Dexamils with a glass of water. Then he woke up the colored woman and told her to make him some eggs and a pot of coffee.

He was still reading the paper when one of the boys called from the front gate. Something about the tree surgeons, the same ones who had driven up yesterday.

All he needed. Rice dead, and the aggravation with Marlene, and not getting to those two quiffy blondes, and now his trees were dying. Five hundred a month for gardening and his trees were dying.

“Yeah,” he said, “send ’em up to the house.”

The house was a two-story semidetached on Curline Avenue in Passaic. Kenneth Hoskins lived on the second floor. Heavy Victorian furniture framed a contemporary Oriental rug. Every horizontal surface held things — china dogs, woodcarvings, souvenir ashtrays. Mrs. Hoskins, a plump, bright-eyed grandmother type, had obviously decided what would go where. Mr. Hoskins, a sixtyish Dagwood Bumstead, had obviously never objected to anything, and never would.

Now he said, “I’ve told this story so many times, you see. Over and over and over. Of course I felt terrible about Fred, that was Fred Youngwood, the guard that was shot? I felt just awful, we all did, and Alice, but at least they say she’ll be all right, and there’s the medical coverage, and I think other damages she’s entitled to. I mean Alice Fullmer, the teller, she was shot also?”

Dehn wondered why some people turned statements into questions, and what they expected you to do about it. He nodded, which seemed to be what Hoskins wanted.

“I’ve been with the police, oh, I don’t know how many times. The police here and also the state troopers, and there was the FBI.”

“They came to the house,” Mrs. Hoskins put in, “and several times Arnold had to go to them. That didn’t seem right. Arnold works long hours.”

“I had to look at pictures,” Hoskins said. “So many pictures.” He thought for a moment. “Books and books of them? Of criminals?”

Dehn nodded twice. “I certainly hate to take up your time,” he said. “Especially on a beautiful day like today.”

“It’s their garden,” Mrs. Hoskins said.

“Pardon?”

“Downstairs. They own it, it’s their garden. Where we used to live we’d spend a day like today working in the yard, but it was too big a place with the children grown and moved away, and here we just rent and it’s their garden.”

Her husband said, “The people downstairs? The owners?”

“Yes.” Dehn drew a breath. “But my editors like a fresh approach, you understand. Going straight to the actual eyewitnesses. This seems like an interesting case, no suspects identified to date—”

“You told me the magazine, but I forgot.”

“ Factual Detective ,” Dehn said.

“I think I know that one.”

“One of the leaders in the field. Now I have some sketches here, and—”

Mrs. Hoskins said, “You work for this magazine?”

“That’s right.”

“I mean you get so much a week or what?”

“Well, I’m a freelance writer, actually.” She was a peach, Dehn thought. If he’d hit her on his encyclopedia route, he wouldn’t even have tried to make a sale. He’d have excused himself and gone away at once. “I write pieces for them on assignment,” he went on.

“So you get paid for what you write.”

He nodded.

“How much?”

An old schoolmate of Dehn’s covered crime news for a paper in Kansas City and did occasional freelance pieces for the fact crime magazines, so Dehn happened to know a little about his cover. The magazines paid around a hundred dollars for run-of-the-mill coverage, more if there were good photos. But if he told her that, she wouldn’t believe it anyway.