Стивен Хантер - G-Man

He stretched his legs. Vapors occluded his vision, isolating him in a world of fiery fog. He breathed in, feeling the purifying rush of the superheated moisture as it rode the currents into his lungs. A man could fall asleep coddled by such total pleasure.

They had found Baby Face Nelson’s body in some graveyard in Niles Center. He was the last of the big ones on the list, which meant that enterprise could be concluded. It was another triumph. The only loose end was the sheriff, who had gone chicken — who’d have thunk? — and disappeared, but sooner or later he’d turn up. That would have to be dealt with, but it wasn’t a big thing. After all, the guy was a hick.

He felt like a Roman emperor. It was hard not to, given the wealth, the power, the prestige, the future that lay ahead. His towel was like a toga, and he best rode the world like a colossus. A long way from Palermo, that was for sure.

The door opened and D’Abruzzio saw the attendant through the vapors, bringing him a replacement for his iced tea. That was Jackie, good at his trade, knowing exactly what a big-time customer needed in terms of tending.

He mopped his brow with his towel and smiled at Jackie, who leaned toward him in the fog. Except it wasn’t Jackie, it was a well-dressed man, sweating profusely, in a suit and tie.

The man smiled back at him, and D’Abruzzio was struck by how handsome he was — a matinee idol? — and how familiar. Had he seen him on-screen?

Then he realized he’d seen him in the papers. It was John Paul Chase, Nelson’s gofer, who’d gotten away from Barrington unscathed.

Phil wondered if he wanted a touch but instead saw the muzzle of a .38 snub two inches from his nose.

“Baby Face Nelson says hello,” said Chase, and shot him through the eye.

TOWARD LITTLE ROCK, ARKANSAS

The present

The Grumley had their prize rewrapped, their weapons retrieved, their StingRay gizmo stowed in backpack. They were headed back to skip tracing, strip bars, and hitting Negroes in the head and face — their life, in other words.

“You’re not going to shoot up a Piggly Wiggly or a bowling alley with that old Colt rifle, are you?” Swagger asked.

“No sir,” said Braxton, Rawley having retreated into silence again, “it goes on an outward-bound flight to some collector in Uzbekistan, or maybe Colombia, paid for in cash money, most of which will be in our wallets by six p.m. You understand, we can’t disclose the name of our client.”

“You don’t have to,” said Nick. “I made a phone call. If Mr. Kaye thinks he’s out of the soup, he’s got another think coming. I’d stay clear of him after you cash out because a whole lot of federal heat is about to light up his sorry little life. He’s going to learn no Russian mobster can fuck him up as badly as a nasty virgin spinster GS-20 from the IRS.”

“We’re just the help,” said Braxton. “Don’t know nothing, didn’t do nothing. It pays to be stupid sometimes.”

“Don’t it just?” said Bob. “And here’s a little something to bring a smile to his face. It’s the last time he’ll smile in the next thirty years.”

He reached into his jacket pocket, pulled out a compensator in a wadding of material, and tossed it to Rawley, who caught it deftly.

“You just screw it on, right at the muzzle. Completes the outfit,” he said.

“Thankin’ you kindly,” said Braxton, and the two were off.

Now Bob and Nick drove in silence. The Ouachitas were soft green humps thirty miles distant in the rearview. Meanwhile, the remaining weapons were in the trunk and would be delivered to the FBI field office in Little Rock, there to be shipped to D.C. for the collection.

The tires hummed against the pavement, the radio was off, roadside retail slipped by on either side of the road, and it seemed a little numb. The manuscript lay in the backseat.

To nail it shut, Nick had called a friend at the Bureau, and an intern had run a check on Chicago unsolveds from 1934. Indeed, as Chase had claimed, on November 29, a Mob guy named Philip J. D’Abruzzio had been shot to death in a steam bath on the West Side. A Tony Accardo—“Joe Batters,” by trade name — took his place, eventually becoming the head of the Chicago outfit in the ’fifties.

Helen served a year for harboring — really, for being Mrs. Baby Face Nelson — then lived out her life in Chicago, raising her kids. She never gave any interviews or wrote any accounts. She loved Les hard and full until the end. Purvis quit the Bureau in 1935. Clegg became an assistant director.

“But what about Charles?” asked Nick. “How did it end for him? I don’t think you ever told me.”

“In 1942, he was found behind a general store in Mount Ida, halfway between Hot Springs and Blue Eye, bled out from a small-caliber bullet,” Bob explained. “They say he’d been at one of those prayer meetings at Caddo Gap. We never found out why he turned so religious.”

“I hope it helped him,” said Nick.

“I do too,” said Bob. “Anyhow, they think he saw something, stopped to investigate, and caught a .32 in the chest.”

“Such a shame.”

“I don’t buy that last one for a second. Rumors put him tight with Hot Springs people, particularly since the big train robbery in 1940. That was almost the same day his youngest son, Bobbie Lee, hung himself in the barn. So Charles lost everyone he tried to save, Sam and Ed and his youngest son. He’d already lost his oldest son, my father, Earl. I think by ’42, he had become so dissolute that he was unreliable, and the Mob had to get rid of him. If my father knew, he never said, and any knowledge died with him in 1955. But Charles was a drunk by 1942, so he made it easy on his killers.”

“It’s such a shame,” said Nick. “And they went unpunished.”

“Not sure on that one. My father Earl came back from the war in 1946 and somehow he got involved in an anti-Mob campaign in Hot Springs. It was a lot bloodier than the history books say. I have a feeling my father closed out some overdue accounts. He was that kind of man.”

“Good for him. Are you going to write that book about Charles? He deserves it. Nobody braver, nobody tougher, nobody better. I don’t know how you could sit on it. The man who shot Baby Face Nelson, he was the bravest of them all,” said Nick. “It would get the old bastard his due. Finally.”

“Charles Swagger never cared about ‘due,’” said Bob. Then he added, “He was naturally reticent, as if he was hiding some deeper secret. So, no, I don’t think so. In fact, I know exactly what I’m going to do.”

He pulled over, into the lot of a convenience store. Grabbing up the manuscript, he went into the place and came out with a cheap butane lighter.

He walked to a barrel trash receptacle in the parking lot and dumped the pages in. Bending over, he put the lighter beneath the rim to shield it from the light wind. He flicked it to life and pulled some of the pages out, put the flame to them, and stepped back.

In a minute, the manuscript, dry and crackled like old skin, was consumed in a rampage of incandescence, a white, pure burn without tremor or waver. It looked like a welder’s torch.

“He didn’t want it known, and we’ll leave it as he wished. The record will stand. Sam Cowley killed Baby Face Nelson at the cost of his own life. He was a hero, along with Ed Hollis. Charles Swagger never existed except as the drunken, corrupt sheriff of a no’count small town in West Arkansas.”

“Talk about a death wish,” said Nick.

“He had some problems. But when it counted, he stood there and did what had to be done and took the consequences. What did Grumley call it? Hillbilly honor.”