Scratch Fever

by Collins, Max Allan

  “You wouldn’t think people running a classy place like that would stick a friend in a dump like this.”

  The man, Harold, sat on the bed. “Infante, this is only temporary. . . .”

  “Put me up in the Holiday Inn across the river, then, back in Burlington. I’m allergic to cockroaches.”

  Julie touched his arm, and he batted it away.

  “Excuse me,” she said, searching his face. “You see, we need to have you close at hand. We need you here.”

  “Yeah, well, we’ll see.”

  “I think we have mutual interests. Sit down, won’t you?” She gestured toward the space on the double bed, next to Harold. Infante sat down.

  “Harold said your partner was killed,” the woman said.

  “Yeah. Yeah he was killed. Goddammit.”

  “This man Logan . . .”

  “His name is Nolan.”

  “Nolan, then. He did it.”

  “Yeah he did it.”

  “And you want even.”

  “Of course I want even. What kind of guy do you think I am?”

  She seemed to think about that for a moment, then said, “We’re going to pay you what we promised, even though you and your partner didn’t exactly . . . succeed.”

  Infante sighed. “Look. I gotta admit something. Sally handled the business end. I don’t even know what you promised us. Sally was the brains, I have to say.”

  The woman walked back and forth, slowly, thinking, smiling. “Then why don’t we just start over? Why don’t we pick a new figure? How’s ten thousand dollars?”

  “Ten . . .”

  “That’s a lot of money, isn’t it?”

  “It sure . . .”

  “Enough for you to disappear for a while?”

  “Sure.”

  “Then you’ll do it?”

  “Do what?”

  “Kill Nolan.”

  “Try and stop me!”

  “Oh,” she smiled, not pacing, stopping in front of him, “I’m not about to do that.”

  Next to him, the big guy seemed glum. Sensitive face, Infante thought.

  “Now,” she was saying, “when can we expect him to arrive?”

  “Nolan? I’d say . . . couple days. Late tomorrow at the soonest.”

  Harold said, “How do you figure that?”

  “He’s got Family friends. He’ll want to check with ’em about who sent us. They’ll be able to find out too, pretty easy.”

  “Couldn’t he do that with just a phone call?” Julie asked. “Couldn’t he be on his way here right now?”

  “I don’t see how,” Infante said. “All he knows is two Family boys tried to kill him. He’s going to figure, at first, that he’s on the shit list for some reason. Which’ll send him off in the wrong direction. He’ll go to Chicago and hit on a few people in person till he finds out what’s going on.”

  Julie was nodding. “You’re right” she said. “I know this man; that’s what he’d do.”

  Harold said to Infante, “How long will it take him?”

  Infante shrugged. “Once he knows the Family didn’t send us, he’ll find you. No question. He’s in tight with some pretty high-up people. A few phone calls, and they’ll have you cold.”

  “Julie,” Harold said, “you’ve got Chicago connections. That’s how we got hold of Infante and his partner. Couldn’t you . . .”

  “Sorry,” Infante interrupted, “but any connections you got are much smaller shots than the people Nolan’s tight with. The guy I work for, Mr. Hines, who is in the Bahamas at the moment, didn’t like it when this Nolan came to the Quad Cities, opening up a club. He complained and pretty soon there was a phone call. From a guy named Felix. He’s nobody you ever heard of, but what Sally told me is he’s like the corporate lawyer for the Family. And he told Mr. Hines that Nolan was a personal friend. So Nolan’s well connected, all right.”

  “Shit,” Julie said. She wasn’t smiling now.

  Harold said to her, “That means you can’t turn to your Chicago friends for help.”

  “I don’t dare to, no, dammit,” she said. She had a hand on one hip and rubbed her forehead with her other hand.

  “If Nolan’s connected,” Harold continued, “killing . . . killing him might cause you trouble. Family trouble.”

  She shot the man a look that said he was saying too much in front of a relative outsider like Infante.

  But Harold pressed on. “You could leave,” he suggested.

  “Don’t be silly.”

  “He’s right,” Infante said. “Just take off. Your boyfriend and me can handle Nolan.” Infante patted Harold’s shoulder. “We’ll let you know when the smoke clears.”

  She laughed. “I told you I know this man, Logan, Nolan, whatever. He’s not easily handled. But he does have a weakness.”

  “What’s that?” Infante said.

  “Harold,” Julie said, “I’m kind of parched. Get us some Cokes from the machine, would you?”

  Harold shrugged, rose; Infante watched the man walk to the door. Graceful for a big guy. He went out.

  She sat on the bed next to Infante. She didn’t touch him, but kept her distance.

  “Harold’s a bit squeamish,” she said.

  “A lot of big guys are soft at the center,” Infante said.

  “Harold has his strong points.”

  “I bet he does.”

  “I just don’t want him hearing what I’m going to tell you.”

  “Okay.”

  “Nolan’s got this friend. This close friend.”

  “Yeah, so?”

  “It’s this kid, about twenty. Muscular, curly haired little guy. Cute.”

  “Yeah?”

  “And they’re close friends. You catch my drift yet?”

  “You mean . . . Nolan and this kid? . . .”

  “Right.”

  “He’s living with a broad, for Christ’s sake.”

  “So what?”

  Infante thought about that, said, “Yeah, right. So he’s double-gaited, so what about it?”

  “So I got the kid.”

  Infante grinned. “No shit?”

  “None at all. I’m keeping him at a place just a few miles from here.”

  “He’s your guest, only it wasn’t his idea, you mean.”

  “Right. A friend of mine’s sitting on him.”

  “I’m liking the sound of this. Go on.”

  “I’m not leaving. Or hiding, or anything. I’m waiting for Nolan to show up, and then I’m going to use the kid on him.”

  “How?”

  “I’ll make Nolan an offer. He figures I owe him, from a past thing. And he won’t be thrilled I sent you and your partner after him. But he likes money. He can be bought. And he likes this kid.”

  “So, you’ll settle up with him?”

  “I’ll offer him money and give the kid back; all he has to do is just go away.”

  “Will he buy that?”

  “He’ll do what he has to to get the kid. And the money won’t hurt.”

  “I take it he doesn’t know yet that you have this kid?”

  Julie smiled. “We grabbed him before he had a chance to get a message out.”

  “Where do I come in?”

  “When I hand the kid over to him, you’ll kill them both. Any problem with that?”

  “No. How’s it going to work, exactly?”

  The door opened.

  Harold was back with the Cokes. He passed the cans around, and everybody sipped at them. Julie took two slow drinks of hers, then put it on the dresser.

  “I’ll be back in touch,” she said.

  Harold looked a little confused.

  She headed for the door, and Harold, looking back at Infante suspiciously, followed.

  “Get some sleep,” she told Infante, and they were gone.

  He sat on the bed. The gun nudged his belly again, and he took it out of his waistband and laid it on the bed, next to him, gently. Ten thousand dollars. He smiled.


  He took his shower. Hot, steaming shower. He was starting to feel better. Every few minutes, though, he had a grief pang; he came out of the bathroom, towel wrapped around him, and saw the empty double bed and couldn’t hold back the tears.

  He sat on the edge of the bed and cried, his body trembling. Now and then rage would flood through him and he’d say, “Kill the fucker.”

  He was doing this when another knock came at the door.

  He rubbed his hand across his face.

  So the woman was back. She ditched the hunk and was going to fill him in on the details. Fine.

  He took the gun with him, just in case it wasn’t Julie, and went to the door and cracked it open, and it wasn’t Julie.

  It was Nolan.

  14

  IT WAS well after four in the morning when Nolan let Bob Hale and his dog go back to sleep, and headed out for Sherry’s Datsun in the Barn parking lot. The girl, Toni, followed him. He opened the door on the driver’s side, and the girl grabbed his forearm.

  “I’m going with you,” she said.

  He didn’t say anything.

  “I’m not going to argue with you. I’m going. And that’s the end of it.”

  He didn’t say anything.

  “You need me. I been to Gulf Port before—know my way around the bars. I know how to find Darlene. That’s the little cunt that tricked Jon into going out to the van for a quickie. She had to be in on it, or at least see what happened, see who grabbed him.”

  He didn’t say anything.

  “I can find her. I know she hangs around the bars in Gulf Port. Seems to me she might even live there; if not, across the river in Burlington. I can find her. And if you find her, you find Jon. So I’m going. You need me, and I’m not going to argue with you.”

  “Get in,” Nolan said.

  “What?”

  “Get in. We’re wasting time standing here yakking.”

  “I’m going?”

  “Of course you’re going. I wouldn’t have it any other way.” He smiled at her, just a little. “Get in.”

  She got in.

  It was only ten minutes to Burlington, a city on rolling hills overlooking the Mississippi, an industrial town of thirty-some thousand, whose various facelifts did not conceal its age. A freeway, lined with shelves of ivy-covered shale, cut through the old river town, and after paying the thirty cents round-trip toll, they were rumbling over the steel bridge, to Illinois and Gulf Port.

  The sign just beyond the bridge directed them to the left, but the road curved around to the right, finally depositing them in a pocket below the busy interstate, where Gulf Port rested like a wound that hadn’t healed properly.

  On first impression, Gulf Port was nothing but bars. Bars with big parking lots full of cars and trucks. Even just driving by, it was clear just how rowdy these places were, drunks and loud music constantly tumbling out the doors. In the background, among trees that hid the river, he could make out the towers of a grain elevator, which seemed to be the only business of any consequence in Gulf Port that didn’t serve beer. He drove through the narrow, unpaved streets and found that this was little more than a trailer court, with an occasional sagging house thrown in for variety. No grocery store; no business section at all. He hadn’t even seen a gas station yet, though there probably was one among the bars.

  “Shitty place to visit, and I wouldn’t want to live here,” the girl commented. It was the first thing she’d said since they left the Barn.

  Nolan nodded. “Welfare ghetto, looks like.”

  He drove back toward the bars.

  “According to Hale,” he said, “these bars’ll be open till five. That doesn’t give you much time to spot this Darlene.”

  “It should be enough. There’s a bar on the farthest end of town, about the nicest one. It’s called Upper’s. Turn here.”

  He did.

  “It’s down there. See the sign?”

  He saw it: a standing metal sign that in blue neon said “UPPER’S” at the front of a large parking lot. He pulled in. The lot was eighty percent full. A few well- plastered customers, men in their twenties in jeans and western-style jackets, with the long hair that once would have branded them hippies but now probably meant young blue-collar worker, were pushing each other around and laughing, just outside the front door. The building itself was a low-slung brick building, brown, with a tile roof; a big place, despite being only one story. The front door was closed at the moment, but it didn’t entirely muffle the country-rock music within.

  “She’ll be in there if she’s anywhere,” the girl said.

  “If she isn’t?”

  “If she isn’t, she’s in the sack with some low-life. That’s my guess, anyway.”

  “Hooker?”

  “I think a few beers is all she costs. But it’s possible she’s hooking.”

  “How sure are you she lives here?”

  “If she doesn’t, she lives back in Burlington. She and that dyke I told you about were at the Burlington gigs the Nodes played.”

  “Okay. I want you to go in and see if she’s in there.”

  “And?”

  “And then we’re going to wait and follow her home.”

  “Why don’t I just corner her in the ladies’ can or something?”

  “Once we’ve talked to her, we’ll have to shut her up.”

  The girl winced. “You don’t mean . . .”

  “No, I don’t mean that. But we got to tie her up and gag her. Which if she’s hooking is probably part of her scene anyway.”

  She smiled. “You’re funny.”

  “A riot.”

  “We’re going to get Jon, aren’t we? He’s going to be all right, right?”

  “I don’t know. I’m not promising you anything.”

  “He’ll be all right. I know he will.”

  “Listen. Toni, isn’t it? You got to face something: he may be dead right now.”

  She swallowed hard; her eyes looked wide and wet. Pretty little thing, Nolan thought.

  “That’s the kind of people we’re dealing with,” he said. “I’m sorry it’s the case, but it is the case. Now. Go in there and see if that bitch is getting beers bought for her.”

  She nodded, got out. She had a nice rear end on her, Nolan noted clinically.

  He sat and waited. He was tired. He rolled the window down, and the cold air felt good. He’d trade his left nut for an hour’s sleep. But the stream of drunks and near-drunks coming in and out of the place, plus the country-rock music in the background, served to keep him from dropping off, and then the girl was back.

  “She’s in there,” she said. Smiling like a conspirator.

  “Fine.”

  “What now?”

  “We wait.”

  “And follow her home.”

  “Right.”

  They sat there for ten minutes.

  “Are you okay?” she said.

  “I’m fine. Why?”

  “You look like you’re ready to fall asleep.”

  “That’s because I’m fifty years old and been up a like number of hours.”

  “Well, I can watch for her. You sleep.”

  “Thanks, no thanks.”

  She patted his arm. “Jon’s going to be all right.”

  He said nothing.

  Five minutes later, a rather tall, heavily made-up girl with shaggy brunette hair, wearing a black down-filled jacket over a Marshall Tucker T-shirt and tight jeans, walked out arm in arm with a big, somewhat drunk guy in a cowboy hat, padded cowhide vest, and jeans.

  “That’s her,” Toni said.

  The couple swayed to a red truck, one of those hotrod pickups on the other side of the lot and the big guy stumbled behind the wheel as she got in on the rider’s side and they pulled out. Nolan followed.

  It wasn’t far; in a “town” the size of Gulf Port, it couldn’t be. The trailer was one of half a dozen others on a desolate, somewhat shaded block two blocks from Upper’s. This apparently allowed Darlen
e to do her local bar-crawling without taking her car, because a several-year-old green Maverick was parked in front; rust was eating it. She guided the cowboy out of his pickup, up the couple of steps and inside.

  “Well?” Toni said as they drove past.

  “Let’s wait till the pickup leaves,” Nolan said.

  “Shouldn’t we . . . ?”

  “We’ll talk to her by herself. We don’t need to involve any civilians. This is complicated enough as is. We know where she lives. We’ll come back later.”

  “That guy’ll be there all night!”

  “Right.”

  He pulled over. “I’m getting in back,” he told her. “I’ll keep down. I want you to drive to that motel down from Upper’s and get a room. It’s the only motel in town, and they may be watching for me for Julie. So you get the room.”

  She nodded, and they got out, and he got in back and she got behind the wheel.

  Soon they were in the motel room, a dingy little yellow room with a double bed and a picture of a ship at sea over the bed. Toni appraised the latter and said, “At least it isn’t on black velvet.”

  “What?” Nolan said.

  “Nothing. What are we doing here?”

  “I’m getting some sleep. You can do what you want.”

  “But what about Jon? Shouldn’t we be . . .”

  “If they’ve killed him, it won’t matter. If he’s alive, they’ll probably keep him that way. But if I don’t get a couple hours sleep, I’m liable to fuck up. Okay?”

  “Don’t pretend to be such a cold fucker, Nolan. You aren’t fooling anybody.”

  “Then I’m not fooling anybody.” He lay on the bed and closed his eyes.

  “When should I wake you up?” she said.

  “I’ll wake up in a few hours. Why don’t you sleep, too?”

  “How can you sleep at a time like this?”

  “It’s hard with you talking.”

  “What about Darlene?”

  “The cowboy’ll be out of there by noon, probably. We’ll call on her then.”

  “What if she gets up before then? What if she leaves?”

  “Where would she go? Church?”

  “She could go somewhere in the afternoon. Shopping in Burlington.”

  “She’ll be back, then. Are the bars open here on Sunday?”

  “Yeah.”