“Maybe.”
“Well then let’s go on in,” Sammy said. “That’s a message I’d like to get.”
I took my keys out of my pocket and said, “Okay, let’s go.”
We walked up to the door. I put the key in, turned it, and twisted the knob. Just inside on the wall was a light switch. I hit it and the living room lit up.
Jerry was sitting in my armchair—or, rather, he was duct-taped to it. There was so much silver tape around him he looked like the tin man from The Wizard of Oz. His eyes appeared very calm, though.
There were two other men in the room: one standing, one seated on the sofa. They both held guns in their hands, sort of casually, not really pointed at us. That was all they had in common that I could see. The standing one was fat, with smooth, sweaty cheeks even though it wasn’t that hot in the house. He looked young, like a big baby. The seated one was slender, with hollowed-out cheeks. He could’ve been anywhere from forty to fifty.
“Well, about time you came home,” the seated one said. “And you brought a distinguished guest.”
“That’s Sammy Davis Jr.,” the other man said. “Wow!”
“Thanks, man,” Sammy said. “I’m flattered by the review.”
I hoped neither of them noticed I was holding my left hand tight to my side so the tire iron wouldn’t slide down.
“You okay Jerry?”
The big guy did his best to nod.
“Oh, he’s fine,” the seated man said. “We didn’t hurt him none. We caught him comin’ in the window of your bedroom. We thought maybe he was plannin’ on stealin’ somethin’ so we decided to hold him for you. Maybe you wanna talk to him after we finish our business.”
“And what business do we have?” I asked.
“I think you know,” the man with the hollow cheeks said.
I looked at Sammy, who shrugged, playing it cool.
“I think you’re gonna have to spell it out for us, pal,” I said, “but first, why don’t you two gents put the guns away?”
“These,” Hollow Cheeks said, “are just a precaution. We didn’t want you overreacting when you found us here.”
“I’m a goddamned pit boss,” I said. “How could I overreact? Ban you from the tables?”
Hollow Cheeks laughed, and the Big Baby took that as his cue to laugh as well. I looked beyond them through the kitchen door, wondering if Thomas was moving around in the dark.
“Hey, cats,” Sammy said, “ain’t your business with me?”
Big Baby slapped Hollow Cheeks on the shoulder and, grinning broadly, said, “Sammy Davis Jr.! Geez.”
“Relax,” said Hollow Cheeks, “don’t get so excited over a little nigger.”
I didn’t know how that made Sammy feel, but it sure as hell pissed me off.
“Why don’t you two bums get the hell out of my house?”
“Aw, did I say something to offend you?” Hollow Cheeks asked. “Or your little friend?”
“Just get to it,” I said. “I want to cut my friend outta that tape.”
“Oh, he’s a friend of yours? Then he must’ve been coming through the window to do us some harm.” He pointed the gun at Jerry. “Maybe I should take care of him.”
“And maybe you should put the gun down, sir,” Thomas said from the kitchen doorway.
“Benny?” Hollow Cheeks said.
Benny, the big baby, said, “Guy with a gun, Lee.”
“Pointed at me?” He was looking at us, not the doorway.
“Yep.”
Lee looked at me, keeping his gun pointed at Jerry.
“Looks like we got a Mexican standoff.”
“I don’t speak Spanish,” I said. “You speak Spanish, Sammy?”
“Nada.”
“Thomas?” I asked.
“A little German, but no Spanish, sir.”
“Wise guy,” Lee said.
“Put the gun down, state your business, and get out,” I said.
“We only came to deliver a message,” Lee said. “There’s no reason for all this.”
I knew if this turned into a shoot-out it would be a bloodbath I’d have to explain to the cops. If I came out of it alive.
“Then let’s all put down the guns,” I said.
“Your man first.”
“Oh, no,” I said. “My house, my rules. You and your buddy Benny first.”
Lee seemed to be thinking it over.
“My friend Thomas is an ex–Army Ranger,” I said. “He’ll hardly miss from the doorway.”
“You don’t say,” Lee said.
I looked over at the trussed-up Jerry and noticed that his eyes were just about popping out of their sockets. He was either having a seizure, or trying to tell me something.
“You may have a point,” Lee said, then.
Jerry’s eyes were jerking to the right, toward the front window. I looked over and saw a ripple in the drapes.
“Benny, let’s put our guns down like the man said,” Lee went on.
I drew the tire iron out of my pants—never thought I’d hear myself say or think that—and threw it with all my might at the drapes. It hit the man behind the drapes hard and he fell forward, face down on the floor, an ugly black revolver falling from his hand.
At that moment baby-faced Benny turned his gun on Thomas, who didn’t hesitate. He fired once, and a hole appeared dead center in Benny’s forehead.
Lee catapulted himself off the sofa. He seemed unsure about who to aim his gun at, although I don’t know why. Thomas was the only one with a gun—that is, until Sammy reached down and scooped up the fallen black revolver.
Lee finally decided to turn his attention toward Thomas, who had dropped into a crouch. The shot Lee fired went over his head and into the wall. Sammy swiveled and fired at Lee, who was already moving again, so that Sammy’s shot missed.
I dove across the room and threw myself on Jerry, to shield him from any flying bullets. Thomas took a bead on Lee and fired again. His Luger sent a bullet right into Lee’s chest. Lee coughed, eyes bugging out. He said, “Wha—” and fell to the floor.
“Shit,” I said. “How am I gonna explain this?”
Twenty-four
UNBELIEVABLY, THE MAN I hit with the tire iron was also dead. That meant we couldn’t question any of them about why they were there.
“You hit him right in the head,” Thomas said as he crouched over the body. “Split him open.”
I was still unwinding duct tape from around Jerry. As I freed his mouth he told us what had happened when he returned home.
“I’m sorry, Mr. G.,” he said. “I screwed up.”
“There were three of them, Jerry,” I said. “You should’ve just left.”
He nodded. I knew his ego was battered, but we couldn’t deal with that at the moment. I left him to finish freeing his legs.
Sammy was sitting on the sofa. He had dropped the revolver to the floor.
“I don’t know what just happened here,” he said. “Was this about my problem?”
“I don’t know, Sam,” I said. “We got three dead men who can’t tell us a thing—four, if we count the one in the warehouse.”
“There’s another dead guy?” Thomas asked.
I looked at Sammy, who said, “Hey, he deserves to know something. He saved our asses.”
Briefly, I told Thomas as little as possible while trying to make it seem like we were taking him into our confidence.
“I’m sorry you had to get involved in this,” I ended, “but you probably saved all our lives.”
“Are you planning to call the police?” he asked.
I looked around at Sammy, Jerry, the bodies on the floor, then back at Thomas.
“I don’t know what we’re gonna do,” I said, honestly. “I guess since you’re involved we’ll have to call just to keep you out of trouble. I mean, there shouldn’t be any trouble, since you fired in self-defense, and defense of all of us, but—”
“Since I saved all your lives can I ask a favor?�
�� Thomas asked, cutting me off.
“Sure, go ahead.”
“No cops.”
“You got a reason?”
“Yes.”
I waited then said, “A reason you can’t share?”
“Not can’t,” he said. “Don’t want to.”
“Okay,” I said, “I can respect that.”
“Why isn’t anyone bangin’ on the door?” Sammy asked. “Quiet neighborhood like this?”
“If anybody heard shots, they don’t know where they came from,” Jerry said.
“They might call the cops anyway,” Sammy offered.
We all stood silent for a moment.
“I don’t hear any sirens,” I said. “We’ve got time to talk this over.”
“Man,” Sammy said, “I’d rather not have cops involved, either.”
Jerry was busy picking duct tape off his arms.
“Jerry?”
He looked up at me.
“Your call, Mr. G. I’ll go along with anything you say. I’m uh, gonna go and try to wash this sticky stuff off.”
He left the room. I walked over to the chair he’d been sitting in. The tape hadn’t done it any good. I thought I might have to get rid of it.
I turned and looked at Sammy—still seated on the sofa—and Thomas—still standing over one of the bodies.
“You haven’t called the cops about the first guy yet, have you?” Sammy asked.
“No.”
“Well,” Thomas said, “in for a penny …”
He was saying since I had already broken the law by not reporting that body, what were three more? Except that we were going to have to move these three.
I walked to the sofa—stepping over Lee—and sat next to Sammy. We listened, and there were still no sirens.
“Anybody decide anythin’?” Jerry asked, walking back into the room.
“Yeah,” I said, “I think we need drinks all around, Jerry.”
“Sure,” he said. “I’ll get ’em.”
When we all had drinks in our hands—bourbon all around—I said, “If we don’t report this we’ve got to get rid of the bodies.”
“Coverin’ up three killings, that’s heavy,” Jerry said. “Movin’ the bodies, that’s even heavier.”
“I know, Jerry.”
“I still prefer that to calling the police,” Thomas said. “I’ll help with anything you want to do.”
I took a pull on my drink and sat back on the sofa. Next to me Sammy was sitting forward, one leg bouncing from either nerves or extra energy.
“Does anybody mind if Sammy leaves?” I asked.
“What?” Sammy said.
“I think you should get out of here, back to the Sands,” I said. “Go back to Tahoe in the morning.”
“I plan on going back,” he said, “but I ain’t leavin’ here tonight. That’d be leavin’ the three of you in the lurch.”
“We can handle this, Mr. Davis,” Jerry said.
“They’re right,” Thomas said. “You’ve got too much to lose, sir.”
Sammy looked at the three of us in turn.
“I fired a gun, here,” he said.
“You didn’t hit anybody,” I said.
“We’ll wipe the gun down,” Jerry said. “No prints.”
“Thomas,” I said, “can you drive Mr. Davis to the Sands? We don’t want to involve a cab driver.”
“Sure,” Thomas said, “and then I’ll come back and you fellas can tell me what we’re going to do.”
“Deal,” I said.
Sammy stood up.
“I don’t feel right about this.”
“Sam,” I said, “there’s a possibility that what happened here had nothing to do with your problem.”
“How likely is that?”
“Not likely,” I agreed, “but possible. Why risk the publicity?”
He drained his drink and put the glass down on a nearby table.
“Okay,” he said, “I’ll leave, but—”
“No buts,” I said. “I’ll call you tomorrow. Whatever happened here, we still have your problem to consider.”
“Maybe,” he said, “everyone involved with that is dead right here in this room.”
“These guys were messenger boys,” Jerry said. “Not brains.”
Sammy shrugged.
“I was just hopin’.”
Twenty-five
YEAH, I knew what I was doing could get me into a lot of trouble, but I also had to think about Sammy, and the poor driver, Thomas, who had no idea what he was getting into when he took that Luger out of his glove compartment. I remembered what Jerry said about nothing good coming from telling cops the truth. In this case he might’ve been right on the money.
After Thomas left to take Sammy to the Sands, Jerry and I had another drink.
“Thanks, Mr. G.”
“For what? Gettin’ you into this mess?”
“When the shootin’ started you threw yerself on me,” he said. “You coulda took a bullet for me. I won’t forget that.”
“I plead temporary insanity.”
“I’m also real sorry.”
“For what?”
“For lettin’ those three bums get the jump on me when I thought I had the jump on them.”
“Everybody makes mistakes, Jerry,” I said. “I’ve made some big ones in the last few days, and I’m gettin’ ready to make some more.”
“Mr. G., this is all we can do,” Jerry said. “The cops in this town don’t like you and me. That one guy—Hargrove? He’s bad news.”
Hargrove was the detective Jerry and I had tangled with twice last year. Explaining all of this to him wouldn’t be easy.
“The only way we’re gonna stay out of trouble—and out of jail—is to get rid of these bodies.”
I couldn’t believe I was sitting in my living room with three dead guys on my floor, calmly talking about getting rid of them. I was wondering what was going to happen to me when it all sunk in.
“Okay,” I said, with a heavy sigh, “where do we take them?”
“I don’t know this burg like you do,” he said. “City dump?”
“Too much of a cliché,” I said. “Plus, somebody might stumble across them.”
“Okay, so how about a junkyard?” he asked.
“Same problem.”
“A lake?”
“That’s a possibility, but …”
“Okay, whatayou suggest?”
“I do have an idea,” I said, “but it’s a little bit off the wall.”
“What?”
“That warehouse.”
“The one we found the other guy in?”
“Yeah,” I said. “What if these guys killed him?”
“Then it would be, whatayacallit,” he said, “ironical?”
“Yeah, it would be.”
Jerry thought it over, nodding.
“The place is abandoned, might be a long time before they’re found, and we can stage it so it looks like they all shot each other.”
“That would be ironic,” I said.
“It might not stand up to cops lookin’ into it,” Jerry said, “but by that time maybe we’ll be done. You’ll be back at work and I’ll be back in New York.”
I looked down at the three corpses. They had all bled into my rug. Damn.
“Yeah,” Jerry said, “we’re gonna have to clean your carpet.”
Twenty-six
BY THE TIME Thomas returned—and I wasn’t all that sure he would—we had the bodies wrapped in blankets. It took all the blankets I owned, and the rest of the duct tape, which the three men had brought with them. That made me think they might have been there to do more than just deliver a message.
“What’s the plan?” he asked, as I let him in.
I told him.
“How do we get them there?”
“We’ll need both cars,” I said. “Yours and mine.”
“Okay.”
“You gonna get in trouble with your boss?”
&nb
sp; He grinned and said, “I am my boss.”
“Hey, man,” Jerry said, approaching Thomas with his hand out, “I never said thanks.”
They shook hands and Thomas said, “Don’t mention it.”
“I do got some bad news for you, though,” Jerry added.
“What?”
“The Luger, we’re gonna have ta leave it in the warehouse.”
“Why?”
Jerry explained about setting the bodies up to look like they had all shot each other.
“How are you going to do that when one of them was killed with a tire iron?”
“Shit,” I said. “We’ll have to figure something out. Let’s get ’em over there, first.”
“The Caddy’s got a big trunk,” Jerry said. “I can back it up to the house. We take these bums out the back and drop them in the trunk. It’s dark enough for nobody to see us.”
“Okay,” Thomas said. “After you move the Caddy I’ll back my Chrysler up and we’ll put the third body in there. After that I’ll just follow you.”
“Okay,” I said with a queasy stomach, “let’s do it.”
Loading the bodies into the trunks was nervous work. Luckily I didn’t live on a block with a lot of nighttime traffic. These were mostly people who went to work during the day and then came home at night, had dinner, and vegged out in front of the TV until bedtime.
Unloading them at the warehouse was not a problem. We pulled into the deserted parking lot, made our way to the back door, and then Jerry and I went inside to check if everything was the same. This time we brought a regular-sized flashlight from my house, and Thomas also had one in his trunk.
“Still there,” Jerry said, as we looked down at the dead man. “And he’s gettin’ ripe.”
It wasn’t warm in the warehouse at the moment, but during the day it must have been like an oven. I had noticed the smell as we walked in.
“Let’s get those others in here and scram.”
With the help of Thomas we carried the three dead men in, unwrapped them, and laid them out in a way Jerry and I had worked out while we waited for Thomas at the house. There were certainly enough guns to go around.
And then we had the guy whose skull I had cracked.
“We can leave the tire iron behind,” Jerry said. “Let them figure out how he was killed that way and not with a gun.”
Hey There (You with the Gun in Your Hand) Page 8