The Last Whisper in the Dark: A Novel
Page 18
I’d been sloppy. Danny knew I’d picked his pocket. I’d been too edgy, I’d dropped my cool. I should’ve kept the wallet and kept him guessing. I’d underestimated him again. It was the kind of mistake that got you killed. I had to stop making it.
He’d figured out one other thing too. He knew I’d gotten Endicott’s name from Wes. There was no other way for him to add up the info.
Endicott would be watching and waiting. If he wanted me dead I’d already have a needle in my ear. So we were going to be friends, at least for a while.
I stepped away and phoned Wes.
He answered by saying, “Not the best time.”
“I think Danny figured out that you gave me Endicott’s name. Will that cause trouble for you?”
“The fact that Mr. Thompson’s hired Endicott isn’t a secret. He’s proud of the fact. He spreads the news around himself. If he’s got a problem with me telling you specifically, he hasn’t shown it yet. He seems to be in a really good mood.”
“That’s because he knows I’m here at Chez Hilliker’s about to meet with Endicott.”
Wes took a three count and said, very slowly, enunciating very carefully, “Why in the fuck are you doing that?”
“I’ll tell you at your place later tonight.”
“Unless you get a syringe of poison stabbed into your heart.”
“I’m going to try to avoid it.”
“Jesus Christ, get the hell out of there. Stay away from him. Run.”
I disconnected and returned to the hostess, who continued to eye me like bad news. I said, “Sorry about that. A little mix-up. Alzheimer’s runs in my family. I forgot who I was for a minute. I’m Terrier Rand.”
“Follow me, Mr. Rand.”
She led me to the back area I suspected Endicott would be seated at. Eyes averted, she found the table, laid a menu across an empty plate, tried to smile and failed, and muttered, “Enjoy.”
Walton Endicott glanced up at me, smiled, and said, “Hi.”
He looked like the lead in every sixties surfer movie from The Endless Summer on. Blond, tan, handsome, pleased, with the world in his hip pocket. He had high cheekbones and cheerful blue eyes.
He sat at the far side of a large half-moon table with his back to the wall, facing a large window that offered a view of the deck and the bay beyond, eating filet mignon loudly, rapturously.
It was hard to get a read on his height since he was sitting, but I could tell he was lean, tall, trim, fit, maybe six feet one. He wore a charcoal suit, gray shirt, and bright yellow power tie. I checked for a tiepin, thinking maybe that was his needle the back doortp, but there wasn’t one. The wrists that broke from his cuffs were abnormally thick, knotted with veins.
I didn’t see any hardware on him. His jacket was open. He didn’t wear a holster on his belt or his shoulder. There were no blade sheaths anywhere on his person. My gaze skittered over him.
He looked me up and down and took me in entirely. He said, “Please, join me, grab a seat.” There was a hint of laughter in his voice, but no derision. It was genuine amusement, interest. He took a sip of red wine. He glanced back down at his meal and took another bite with the same eagerness and enjoyment.
Endicott continued with his meal even as my shadow fell across him. He swallowed, hummed enthusiastically, laid his silverware in an X across his plate, and looked up again.
I stood before him and said, “You know who I am.”
“Yes, I do,” he said. “I know who you are and just why you’re here, Mr. Rand. And you know my name as well. Please, sit. Relax.”
I sat. I didn’t relax.
“Would you like something to drink? Or may I order you some dinner? The late menu is first-rate. Don’t be shy. For a restaurant known for its seafood their steaks are out of sight.”
So much for introductions. “No, thank you,” I said.
“Do you mind if I finish while we talk?”
“Not at all.”
“I appreciate that.”
A young and oblivious waitress came to take my order. I declined. Endicott asked for a second bottle of wine. She brought it and poured a small amount into a clean glass. He tasted it, grinned, and found it acceptable. He thanked her and kept on with his meal.
I used the time to study him more carefully. He either shaved very closely, perhaps twice a day, or he could only grow peach fuzz and rarely had to shave at all. His cheeks, chin, and upper lip were smooth, unlined without stubble.
He’d never been a brawler. His face and hands were unscarred and unmarked, nails perfectly manicured.
When he finished his food he wiped his mouth with the linen napkin, pushed his plate away from him with both hands, and sighed contentedly. He appraised me and smiled beatifically.
“That was perfect,” he said.
Endicott laid his left hand on the table, palm up. It was a gesture with a touch of romance to it. It’s what you did when you reached over on a date in an effort to hold hands with your girl. It’s what I’d done when asking Kimmy to marry me. He waited. I thought, Holy shit. I still didn’t want to make him mad. I also didn’t want to give him any peculiar ideas. He waited. He didn’t insist but we apparently weren’t going to get anywhere unless I placed my hand in his. I wondered if this was the beginning of the thing that hit the switch.
I cocked my head and met his intense gaze and tried to prepare for the worst, even though there wasn’t much I could do. I reached forward and took his hand.
There was nothing homoerotic about it. Or maybe there was. He was a pretty man. I wondered if he was purposefully trying to unsettle me, if this was a tactic he used on his hits. But his touch was warm, gentle, accessible. Nothing sexual or particularly sensual about it. It was simply the touch of a friend sh have to think about it. at the Qowing concern.
He beamed like a child.
“You’ve come to argue on your friend’s behalf,” he said. “That’s admirable. Really. You don’t see that much. You’ve got guts. You’re loyal. There’s a great deal of value in that.” He searched my eyes. “But you’ve got to realize there’s no point in it. It’s already done. You can’t do a damn thing about it. Like everybody, Chub Wright made his own choices. He called the tune, he brought the consequences to his own door. We’re all in charge of our own fate. He and his colleagues adopted this one for themselves. We can’t deny them that.”
“Deny them?”
“That’s right. We can’t deny them. It wouldn’t be fair. It wouldn’t be just. And I believe in justice, Mr. Rand. It’s the only abstraction I do believe in.”
“You’re hunting him because you were paid to do it. Not because you believe it’s justified.”
He tightened his grip somewhat. There was a fire and a violence to it, a strength and passion, like he really cared what I thought. As though making contact with me, physically and emotionally, mattered greatly to him. “Wrong. In this case, I was paid but I do believe that he took his course in order to meet me.”
“Meet you?”
“That’s right. Otherwise, why would I be here? I’d be looking for someone else.”
I had nothing to say to that and so we sat there, clenching hands, feeling the depths of our own beliefs. His eyes were still gleeful, but they blazed.
“I took a contract and can’t break it. This is what I do. This is all I do. I find virtue and worth in it.”
I watched his other hand. It didn’t stray toward any of his pockets. If it did, I wondered if I’d have the time and fortitude to grab his steak knife and stuff it between his ribs.
“Chub is only an addendum to the contract,” I said. “I’m guessing you were hired to chase down the crew who knocked over the bank and killed the guards. Chub didn’t. He made bad choices, but he wasn’t there.”
“How do you know?”
“I know him. He helps plan. He sells cars. He doesn’t go on the jobs. The choices made on that day had nothing to do with him.”
“He helped to found those deci
sions,” Endicott said. “He offered advice, guidance, direction, and aid. More practically, he has as much to lose as any of the members of this particular crew. He has as much to gain in turning over evidence if the FBI capture him. He is equally guilty. My employer and many others will be betrayed and proffered for leniency. More and more men will be drawn into this fiasco. I’m stanching the flow of blood. I’m saving lives. Can you see that? Do you understand that, Terrier? Pardon me. May I call you Terrier?”
He still held my hand firmly in the center of the table. I supposed we were well beyond the point of using first names. But he waited for me to respond. His handsome face was filled with the question.
“Sure,” I said.
“Thank you. And I am Walton.”
“All right, Walton.”
“Why not?”tp">The rain whipped against the glass like it wanted at us. Endicott took his time formulating his next thought. It clearly meant a great deal to him. He looked at me deeply. A lot of people had gone deep within me, seeking out answers, responses, truth, love, even hate. But nobody had gone quite as deep as this, in this way.
Number eight. The expression on the face of the beautiful man who is holding your hand.
“Do you know what the downfall of society is due to primarily, Terrier?”
It seemed a big jump from what we’d been talking about, but maybe my perspective was skewed. Endicott tightened his grip just a hint. Twenty minutes ago I would’ve laughed at the question. But twenty minutes ago wasn’t now.
I took the question seriously. I set my soul against it.
“The dissolution of the nuclear family?” I said.
His eyes flared with joy. “Oh, very good. That’s most certainly a part of it. I’m glad you took the question seriously. Some men I talk to, they don’t think it’s worth answering. But you, you had, in fact, an answer already prepared, because you dwell on these types of matters too. Because these issues, they have significance. They’re not merely rhetoric. They hold weight for us and have meaning. These beliefs give us purpose.”
My family included killers of children and women. Our dissolution had begun long before I was born.
“We’re getting off point.”
“No, Terrier, we’re not,” he said, and finally he released my hand. I’d been so overtaken by his odd vehemence that I was almost upset when he broke contact. I drew my hand back and rubbed it. The waitress appeared again. Endicott ordered tiramisu for dessert and asked if I wanted anything. She mentioned the cheesecake was yummy. I shook my head.
Endicott flashed teeth too perfect to be real. They didn’t look like crowns or bridges, but a full set of dentures. I suspected he changed his teeth as a way of accessorizing. Not only couldn’t he be identified by them, but certain teeth might be betterI said it agai
The storm roared on. The bay crested the canals. I had trouble seeing and crawled through flooded roads and highways. Headlights splintered in the burning white raindrops. I kept looking at the hand that Endicott had held as if it had betrayed me. I rubbed my fingers as if my circulation the only one I had leftedor had gone bad.
Washed-out cars lined the Sagtikos Parkway down to the Southern State as I headed to Wes’s place. I jockeyed around them like they were traffic cones without slowing. The Challenger handled the desperate conditions perfectly. I kept pushing the pedal. Small whitecaps crossed three lanes and washed into the woods bordering the parkway. The wind reared. I turned the radio on and spun the volume until the speakers were pulsing.
I pulled up outside of Wes’s house as the storm reached its peak. The rain slammed down so hard that there was no way to even reach his front door. The waves burst over the pylons and swept across his lawn.
I made a dash for his door. The water was mid-calf deep. We could’ve talked on the phone but I felt the need to speak to him directly when discussing Walton Endicott. I slid on the walk and nearly went down. There was a very good chance that if I fell I’d skid right into the bay.
Em opened the front door as I hit the first stair of the stoop. She asked, “Are you all right, Terry?”
“Yeah.”
“Who were you talking to?”
“I wasn’t talking to anybody.”
“I thought I heard your voice.”
“How could you hear anything over this storm?” I asked.
“You were really loud.”
“It was the wind. Or that creaking dock. It sounds like a crying woman.”
“No, it was you—”
I was dripping on the floor. Wes stepped out of the bathroom with three fluffy fancy guest towels. I knew I was breaking social convention again. You never use the nice fluffy fancy guest towels. My mother would have a fit if any of us ever tried. I was hesitant to take them at first as Wes thrust them at me. They were pink. I did my best to wipe myself down.
He said, “You look half-past dead. You starting to pick up on the fact that you’re taking too many risks?”
“What else am I going to do? Work on my stamp collection?”
Em asked, “Coffee or hot chocolate?”
“Hot chocolate, baby,” Wes answered.
“Mini marshmallows?”
Wes looked at her like it was an insane question. “Of course.”
I folded one of the towels up and laid it on the leather couch and sat on it so I wouldn’t ruin the furniture. Wes sat across from me. I realized just how much I’d come to rely on him for friendship, guidance, advice, loyalty, all the things that he was supposed to be giving the Thompson syndicate boss.
“I met Endicott,” I told him.
Wes flung his arms up. “Jesus, I told you to stay away from that psycho. You met him? Really met him, face-to-face? Or met him, like you crept around behind him from a very safe distance?”
“We sat together at Hilliker’s. He held my hand.”
“Held your …? What do you mean?”
“I mean he held my hand.”
Wes couldn’t get his head around it. “Like … like …”
“Yeah.”
“Like couples do? Romantic couples do?”
“Yeah.”
“Wait.” Wes made a stop motion. “He held your hand in the restaurant?”
“Yeah.”
Wes drew his chin in. He looked over his shoulder for Em so he could share his disbelief, but she wasn’t there. “Why the fuck did he hold your hand?”
“I don’t really know. I think he likes me.”
“He likes you?”
“I think so.”
“He’s a mechanic. A total machine. He doesn’t like anybody.”
“And you were wrong. He talks. He talks plenty.”
“You talked to him and held his hand?”
“I didn’t think I had much choice in the matter.”
“Fuck no, you didn’t, not if it’s what he wanted. Why did you go after him? I told you to let it go.”
“I couldn’t. Kimmy asked me to save Chub. I promised her I would. I promised her.”
“You shouldn’t have,” Wes said.
Em entered with the cocoa and a dish of cookies on a tray. She put it down in front of me. She sat beside me and handed me a cup and helped me to raise it to my mouth to take a sip. I hadn’t realized I was trembling so badly from the cold.
I leaned forward over the table in case I spilled. She took one of the towels and dried my hair with it. Then she combed through my curls with her fingernails to make me presentable again.
She put a hand to my back and rubbed in semicircles, shushing me gently. “It’s okay, Terry. It’s all right. You’re fine now.”
I sipped and began to loosen.
“You’re safe now,” she said.
“I know.”
“He put the shits up you,” Wes said.
“I guess he did,” I admitted. “Not so much at the time, at the table, but the more I think of the guy, the more weirded out I feel.”
“You’ve never met anyone like that before. A real iceman.”
“What?”
“He makes you want to like him.”
“That’s bad, Terry. That’s really bad.”
“I know.”
“But you knew,” Em said. “You knew all the while he could kill you whenever he wanted. And there was nothing you could do about it.”
“Yes.”
I drank my cocoa. There were a ton of tiny marshmallows. She’d overloaded the cup the way my mother used to when I was a kid.
“And what did he say when you asked him not to kill Chub?” Wes asked. this many times beforeit himself
“We discussed the downfall of society.”
“Uh-huh,” Wes said. “That’s what you talked about?”
“Among other things.”
“You’d rather take fifty goombahs on than a nut like that.”
“You’re right,” I admitted.
“How did it leave off?”
“He gave me his phone number. He asked me to call him anytime. He hopes we meet again under more pleasant circumstances.”
It got a bark of incredulous laughter from Wes. “Like what? Going to the fucking circus? Taking a Caribbean cruise? You guys going to take in a ball game? For the love of Christ stay away from him.”
“I intend to.”
Wes went to the kitchen, came back with a bottle of Dewar’s, and poured a little into both of our cups.
“He’s not the only hitter out there, Terry. It’s getting sort of crazy. The feds are flipping out chasing their own tails, all the snitches are ratting each other out hoping to turn up something on the crew, and the cops are running everybody ragged.”
“Anybody got anything on them yet?”
“Feds got their names. It was only a matter of time before the dead driver led the feebs back to accomplices.”
It was bound to happen. “Do you remember what they are?”
“I didn’t recognize any of them. Driver was McCann. The three others were … Dunbar, Edwardson, and Wagstaff. No records. They’re old school, been off the grid their whole careers.”