Walter Mosley - The Long Fall

LouBob and the woman settled at the bar and ordered drinks.

They were on their third round when Hush said, “Come up on the other side of him after the girl leaves.”

He got to his feet and walked toward the bar.

Once again I had the picture with no sound. Hush walked up behind LouBob. For a moment I was afraid that he was going to come out with his pistol and shoot the guy behind the ear. It was an irrational panic that subsided after he tapped the big man’s shoulder.

The fright moved from me to LouBob when he saw Hush standing there in his medium-black suit and thin green tie. My would-be killer’s spine seemed to freeze, and the brunette became curious.

LouBob said something to the woman and she reacted angrily. Hush didn’t seem to notice and LouBob turned away. A moment later the woman stormed out of the bar. Hush gave her the briefest glance as she left. It struck me that the ex-assassin got some sort of sadistic pleasure out of humiliating the big man in front of his woman. I filed that little bit of information away and then went over to flank LouBob Georgias.

“Hey, Hush, LouBob,” I said when I rolled up on the other side of my would-be killer.

Georgias gawped at me openmouthed but didn’t say anything.

“This is my friend Leonid McGill,” Hush said and the fear in LouBob’s eyes deepened.

The big man was still looking at me while he addressed Hush. “I didn’t know he was your friend, man.”

“Sit down,” Hush said and we all three perched on gilt-and-red-vinyl barstools.

“Can I get you guys something?” the bartender asked from somewhere off to my right. He’d come up from the other end of the bar when he noticed our approach.

“Three black Russians,” Hush told him. I think he meant that as some kind of joke about my name.

The bartender, a white man who was maybe sixty and had spent some time in the sun earlier in life, moved back a bit when he observed the deadness in Hush’s eyes.

“You got it,” he said.

“What’s Timothy Moore’s real name?” I asked LouBob.

“Far as I know that is his real name.”

“Tell us about him,” Hush said.

“He, he did a nickel in Attica for bein’ stupió€or bein’d, and since then he’s worked for this rich guy now and then, doin’ odd jobs. He’s got a straight job somewhere too, in an office, I think.”

“What’s the rich guy’s name?” I asked.

“I dunno. He never said. We met over this union beef his boss had. It was a strike gonna come down with the hotels before a big convention. We was supposed to talk this guy into puttin’ it off. I never knew who hired him. He just said he did work for a rich guy. A rich guy. I don’t know his name.”

LouBob was sweating but I didn’t feel any contempt for him—Hush’s stare would open the pores of anyone who had sense.

The bartender came up and put the three drinks down and left without a word.

When he was gone I asked, “How much?”

“For what?” LouBob stammered.

“How much they pay for you to kill me?”

“Six, sixty-five hundred.”

“Dollars? Not even euros? You’d end a man’s life for pocket change?”

LouBob swallowed hard but stayed silent.

“Where does Tim live?” Hush asked then.

LouBob rattled off an address about a hundred and fifty blocks to the north.

“You got a house on the beach north of Miami, don’t you, Lou?” the assassin said.

“Yeah?”

“You look pale. I think you should fly down there—tonight. And listen, don’t make any phone calls. None. You hear me?”

“Yeah. I hear ya, Hush.”

Ê€„

46

It was very quiet up in Washington Heights at that time of night. We drove past the address that LouBob had given us, then parked a few blocks away. We sat there for some time, waiting for the night to deepen.

At half past one we sauntered down the street like strollers on a Sunday afternoon. We were both armed, but that was okay. Even if the cops stopped us we had licenses for our guns.

The only sound on Moore’s street was somebody laughing in a park down near the water.

No cars passed by.

Tim had a pied-à-terre on Loquat Street, on the third floor of a turquoise monolith that stood over the Hudson.

People like Moore were chameleons: they hid in plain sight. He didn’t have extra locks on his door or go under a pseudonym. He was the one that sought you out, put a black mark on your mailbox or gave you a suitcase full of cash, and then had someone else shoot you when you walked into the room. He lived so close to the line of respectability that he made the mistake of thinking that he was a civilian: safe in his own home, under his own name.

I PRESSED HIS BUZZER, 3A, and waited. Hush stood away from the front of the building just in case there was an electric eye that we hadn’t seen.

“Who is it?” Timothy asked a minute or so later.

“McGill.”

“Do you know what time it is?”

“I got a problem, Mr. Moore.”

“Can’t it wait?”

“No. I been mugged.”

“How’d you get my address?”

“Cop I know let me use his official browser. They had it because of your prison sentence.”

“You went to the police?” Tim Moore said.

“I got mugged, man. They stole all the money. Don’t worry about it, though. The cops just think I was doing a business deal for you.”

“What do you want?” he asked again.

“Let me up.”

There was a hesitation. I had given him a lot of information. I’d lost his seed money and talked to the cops, mentioning his name. I already knew where he lived and so had a way of getting to him.

While he was thinking over his options I saw a small wooden wedge on the concrete outside the outer door of the double-doored entrance. People must have used that little hardwood triangle from time to time when they were moving in their furniture and large appliances.

I picked it up.

“Okay,” Tim said. “Come on, then.”

He buzzed the outer and inner doors only long enough for me to go through one and race the eight feet to grab the other. Hush stayed outside so as not to be seen. He couldn’t make it to the outer door in time but that was okay. I just walked halfway down the hall toward the elevator and doubled back to prop the inner door open with the mover’s wedge, and then opened the outer door for Hush.

We took the stairs at a quick pace. At the third floor, I made my way down toward 3A while Hush stood just insiû€tood jusde the stairwell.

I knocked on the door and it opened immediately. Now there were only four inches of chain separating me from my killer.

“What do you want?” he asked.

“Open up, Tim,” I said. “I need some answers.”

“Answers about what?”

“Who did you tell about the money?”

“No one. Why?” The wiry little guy wore an emerald-green robe over purple pajamas. He was nervous, and also confused, trying desperately to work out what my being at his door meant. I noticed that his right hand was hidden from view.

“Somebody knew. He came up behind me on my way to the meet, slammed me in the back of the head, and stole the briefcase.”

While I spoke Hush moved in accordance with his name. When he was a foot to my right I slammed my shoulder against that door. The chain broke and the door swung open—fast. Moore didn’t have time to yelp. He was knocked senseless, sprawled out on the floor while Hush and I rushed in, me retrieving the pistol the point man had dropped and Hush securing the door.

I picked Tim up by his shoulders and threw him into a big yellow chair. Hush moved through a doorway to our right and I checked out the space we were in.

The sofa chair was the only seat in the room. It was placed in front of a seventy-two-inch plasma TV with a small table on the side. The floor was made from wide, dark slats of wood and was heavily sealed.