The Best American Mystery Stories 2017

by John Sandford

  He has told her it isn’t what she thinks. Isn’t his family that keeps him from loving her all he could love her but his life he’d never told anyone about in the war, in the infantry, in France. What crept like paralysis through him.

  Things that had happened to him, and things that he’d witnessed, and (a few) things that he’d perpetrated himself with his own hands. And if they’d been drinking this look would come into his face of sorrow, horror. A sickness of regret she did not want to understand. And she’d taken his hands that had killed (she supposed) (but only in wartime) and kissed them, and brought them against her breasts that were aching like the breasts of a young mother ravenous to give suck, and sustenance.

  And she said, No. That is your old life.

  I am your new life.

  He has entered the foyer. At last!

  It is eleven a.m.—he is not late after all. His heart is pounding in his chest.

  Waves of adrenaline as he has not felt since the war.

  On Ninth Avenue he purchased a bottle of whisky, and from a street vendor he purchased a bouquet of one dozen blood-red roses.

  For the woman in the window. Kill or be killed.

  Soon as he unlocks the door, soon as he sees her, he will know what it is he will do to her.

  Eleven a.m. In the plush blue chair in the window the woman is waiting nude, except for her high-heeled shoes. Another time she checks the shears hidden beneath the cushion, which feel strangely warm to her touch, even damp.

  Stares out the window at a narrow patch of sky. Almost she is at peace. She is prepared. She waits.

  STEVEN POPKES

  The Sweet Warm Earth

  FROM Fantasy and Science Fiction

  In the summer of 1961, I was working for Bernie McLaughlin and the Charlestown mob up in Boston. I wasn’t important, you understand. I was an enforcer. I made sure debts got paid.

  That Labor Day, when Georgie McLaughlin felt up Bobo Petricone’s girlfriend and was beaten half to death by the Winter Hill Gang, I got nervous. When Bernie couldn’t get satisfaction and was caught trying to put a bomb in Buddy McLean’s car, I knew the time had come to move on.

  I called my cousin Joey in Santa Monica and he said, Larry, come on out here. I’ll take care of you.

  So I loaded up my car and drove west before the gang war started. I made it to Los Angeles by the beginning of October. Just as well. McLean shot Bernie full of holes by the end of the month.

  I didn’t care. California was like in the movies.

  First thing I noticed was the light, a golden syrup poured over everything. People glowed. The colors of the buildings, the trees, the cars—everything looked lit from inside, shining through like the way flame shines through the wax of a candle. I never knew until then how dull and ugly it was back east.

  It was warm—I mean, even the dirt was warm. Even in the dead heat of a Boston summer you could still feel winter underneath. Heck, in the middle of every August there always came a day or a week when you could feel October rolling toward you. Summer was something temporary. Something chancy. Maybe it would come this year. Maybe it wouldn’t. No one was going to tell you.

  But here there was no hunching your shoulders against the cold, no ice on the trees, no hiding from the snow. Here the air smelled like summer all the time and winter was something that happened somewhere else.

  And the women. I mean, it’s not like they were naked, but you needed no special instructions to know what was underneath. They were all tall, beautiful, and walking like they knew exactly who they were, what they could do, and who was in charge.

  I decided then and there: I was never going to leave.

  Joey got me a job with the DeSimone outfit watching the Los Ala­mitos track.

  It was my job to keep an eye on the horses and the bettors to make sure that everything we didn’t control was on the up-and-up. Los Alamitos was a fairly honest track. Our outfit didn’t fix it. I was there to make sure nobody else did either. I didn’t work for De­Simone directly, of course. Joey and I both worked for a soldier named Alfredo Paretti.

  Mind you, this was back in the days of the Mickey Mouse Mafia. Mickey Cohen was already in jail. Simone Scozzari was losing his deportation appeal. Frank DeSimone didn’t have good control of things. He was just a whipping boy for Chicago and New York. DeSimone’s weakness didn’t make my job any easier. There were always two-bit attempts to drug this horse or hobble that one. Not what you would call a glamorous job. Even so, it was better than waiting for the shoe to drop up in Boston. And as November rolled around and I remembered the miserable rains that always settled in by Thanksgiving, I felt like kissing the warm Los Angeles earth.

  Sure, I’d seen horses. In the circus or driving past farms where they were standing in a field staring at nothing in particular. The Boston cops even had a horse patrol.

  None of that prepared me for the horses of Los Alamitos.

  They were big—their shoulders were as high as my head. Their bodies were marked by muscles defined as carefully and precisely as if they were professional bodybuilders. They watched you.

  I’d played the dogs in Boston for years, so I thought I was knowledgeable about racing animals. But these were thousand-pound beasts ridden by humans no bigger than monkeys. The first time they roared past me at the fence, I cheered.

  So: it was a beautiful day in early 1962 and I was sitting just outside the barn entrance, reading a week-old Boston Herald, smoking a Chesterfield. Big Teamsters strike up in Boston and it looked like the old Winter Hill Gang was in the thick of it. Just marking time until Buddy McLean got out of jail. Again, I was ready to kiss the sweet earth.

  This tiny old guy strolled in and showed me his pass. I’m not the biggest man in the world but I sure towered over him. I mean, he barely came up to my chest—I’ve seen bigger jockeys. I nodded like I’d checked him out and went back to my paper, but I kept an eye on him. He went up to I’m a Nobody—a big black mare, seven to one in the third race—and started talking to her. Nothing important, just asking her how she was feeling and was she going to win or place?

  That made me watch him even more closely. I marked that big nose and deep grooves in his face—like the old Italians I used to know. I thought, If he’s connected, I’ll have to be careful. Those guys back east weren’t always polite.

  Then he reached out and scratched behind the horse’s ears and I was up and over to him.

  “Sorry,” I said. “Can’t touch the horses.”

  He started. Then looked guilty. “Just scratching an itch. She asked.”

  “Yeah. Right. No touching.”

  He nodded and bowed slightly to me in that old-world way I hadn’t seen since I left Boston. I got to say, it charmed me.

  “Antonio Bernardi,” he said. “Sorry to break the rules.”

  “Larry Mulcahey. It’s all right.” I felt a rare need to explain. “We have to protect the animals. Some folks might do something to rig the race.”

  Antonio nodded. “I understand completely.” He walked around, continuing to talk to the horses. I leaned against the door and let him, but watching. Then he tipped his hat to me and left. I went back to the Herald.

  Come the third race, I stood and watched from the fence. I’m a Nobody tore up the outside, cut to center, and placed third. Four-to-one payout. I went to the windows and waited. Sure enough, old Antonio picked up his winnings from the window and caught a bus. I cut in line past the dirty looks and asked the clerk what Antonio took home.

  “Forty bucks,” he said.

  “Thanks.” I wandered back to the stables, thinking. Forty bucks isn’t a lot of money, but it’s more than dinner and a cup of coffee. I’m a Nobody was back in her stall and the jockey was there.

  I came up beside him. “You had a good run?”

  “You bet!” The jockey grinned, real excited. “Who knew the nag had it in her?”

  I reached up and scratched behind her ear like I’d seen Antonio do. She pulled her head back a
nd glared at me.

  “She don’t like that sort of thing,” said the jockey. “She’s real particular about her ears.”

  “Yeah.” I didn’t feel anything like a needle mark, but I’m not a vet. The horse wasn’t shaking or anything. Antonio hadn’t slipped her a goofball.

  “Particular,” I said. “Some girls, eh?”

  The jockey laughed.

  I asked the window guard about Antonio. “The old guy?” he told me. “He’s been coming here for years. Likes horses.”

  The next day I planted myself in front of the barn like it was my favorite place to be. Antonio arrived in the morning. This time I made a show of checking his pass, to see if he got irritated or tried to get something past me. But he just played the innocent old man. Maybe that’s exactly what he was.

  “Your horse came in yesterday,” I said.

  “Sometimes they do me a favor. Keeps me in vino.”

  “Where are you from?”

  He picked up immediately on the question. “Siena. Greatest town for horses in all of Italy. I came over after the war. Ever been?”

  “No.”

  “You should have gone before the war. Beautiful. Now, not so good.”

  “Pretty rough over there?”

  “Terrible. You would not believe.”

  I nodded, dropped my cigarette, and ground it out. “You know, Antonio, I have to watch the horses.”

  “Yes. It is an important job.”

  “I suppose. If somebody were to slip them a needle, I’d have to hurt them.”

  His face went stern. “Absolutely.”

  I let him go and he walked around talking to the horses again. Sure enough, he took home sixty bucks. I lit another Chesterfield, thinking.

  Watching the track wasn’t my only responsibility. Sometimes I had to look out for DeSimone’s or Paretti’s interests. Say somebody wanted to take home more than they could from the windows. Say somebody made a bet on credit to somebody in the organization. It was my job to keep everybody honest—not that much different from Boston. It didn’t happen often. Most people were smart enough not to cross us or were able to offer up something else in trade.

  But not everybody’s that smart. The day after I talked to Bernardi I got a call from Joey that I needed to visit a Harry Cohen—no relation to Mickey. I checked that first thing. Big guy. Used to be a boxer. I visited him at a gym down on Figueroa where he worked out to keep his hand in.

  Harry was no stranger to debt collection. He used to work for Paretti but got out of the business to become a long-distance trucker. My visit to the gym was a sort of professional courtesy. I wanted him to get the message that I was serious but not a fanatic or anything. I wanted repayment of the debt without trouble.

  Harry figured out who I was soon as I came through the door. This was not brilliant detective work; I was the only one in a suit in the middle of a bunch of guys wearing boxing trunks and sweatshirts.

  He stood up, a head taller than me. I kept my hands in my pockets; I had a blackjack ready and my piece shouldered and loose. I wasn’t about to give up home-court advantage without equalizers. I’m peaceful, not stupid.

  “Paretti sent you?”

  I nodded. “Got twelve hundred?”

  He laughed. “Do I look like I’m good for that kind of money?”

  “You got paid from Hamm Trucking this morning,” I said. “A couple of hundred from that would be a gesture of good faith.”

  He laughed again, ugly. I figured I was about thirty seconds from having to prove my point.

  He sneered at me. “How about I send you out of here in pieces as a gesture of my own?”

  I whipped around, blackjack in my left hand, and caught some mug across the temple. I kept turning, pulling out my piece with my other hand, and it was in Harry’s face as he started to move toward me.

  “Not a good plan, Harry.” My piece was an old army .45 from the thirties: so big it hypnotized people. Harry stared down the muzzle, cross-eyed. I heard movement behind me and pulled the hammer back. “Not good at all.”

  Harry waved someone off I couldn’t see. “That could have gone better.”

  “You get paid every week,” I said. “Two hundred now isn’t going to break you. Then we figure out a payment plan. It’s a good deal and leaves your parts intact. Otherwise it’ll be messy. Of course, I’m from Boston. We’re used to messy up there.”

  “Okay,” he said sullenly.

  I slipped around him so I was covering his back. Then I pushed him away. We were the center of attention. “Get it.”

  He walked off slowly. The other boxers were watching me. Two of them were in the ring, hot and full of red meat. They’d have taken me on if they thought they had half a chance.

  I sat in a chair, my back to the wall. These guys were small change. Dinner fighters. Not good enough to do more than entertain half-drunk Mexicans on a Saturday night. They thought they were tough. I sighed a little, thinking of Buddy taking down Bernie in broad daylight. I hoped Harry was smarter than he looked.

  Harry came back and my estimation of him went up a couple of points. He handed me a crisp set of bills: two hundred bucks plus an extra twenty.

  I held the bills for a moment. Why didn’t people do what they were told? “That’s more than I said.”

  “It’s a gesture of good faith.”

  It was an excuse. An opportunity to be insulted. A chance grab at control. I handed him back the twenty. “I appreciate the gesture, but I said two. You give me a hundred a week through June and we’re square. You miss a payment and I take a piece of your right hand or maybe an ear. You miss a second payment and I’ll have to justify taking a loss. Understand?”

  “I understand.”

  Maybe he understood.

  I started to get up and with a roar he took a swing at me.

  Maybe not.

  I caught his fist in my hand and bent the wrist until it was just short of breaking. He gasped and dropped to his knees: that or lose the wrist. I leaned down and spoke slowly and clearly, as if he were three. “I don’t bluff and I don’t argue. If you don’t like the deal I can always burn down your house, slaughter your wife, and fuck your sweet little daughter, all in front of you. Then gouge out your eyes with a grapefruit spoon so it’s the last thing you ever see. Your call.”

  He gasped from the pain. “Sorry, man. Don’t break it. I can’t drive with a broken hand. I can’t work the shift lever.”

  I let him go. “Next week.”

  I walked out into the sunshine. Next to my car, I lit a cigarette and took a deep breath. Stupid people pissed me off. Guys pounding their chests and pretending they’re chewing the thighbone of an ox—none of it meant a thing. Of course, dealing with stupid people was part of the job. If they weren’t stupid, they wouldn’t borrow money from a shark like Paretti. What level of stupidity is it to welsh on the payback and then threaten someone like me? Paretti wanted the money. He didn’t want broken bones and dead boxers. But if broken bones and dead boxers were the price required to keep the status quo, he was willing to pay it. Stupid not to see that.

  Back at the track I watched Bernardi for a week or so. He never bet enough to shift the odds, but he always won something.

  It put me in a funny position. By now I was pretty sure he wasn’t connected; just an old Italian guy going to the track on his own. Although a string of luck like this was suspicious. I could have asked Joey about him, or Paretti. But that would have made him something to be dealt with. As long as he wasn’t officially a problem I could ignore him. Then again, if it turned out later he was a problem I had already known about and didn’t act on, I could be out of a job. Or worse.

  I was waiting when he showed up.

  “Mr. Mulcahey,” he said.

  “Mr. Bernardi,” I responded. “I’m thinking I may have to keep you out of the barn.”

  He looked startled. “Why?”

  I took a drag on my cigarette. “You’ve been winning—”

 
“Only small amounts!”

  I nodded. “You’re doing something to the horses. It’s fixing the races. I can’t have that.”

  He spread his hands. “I fix nothing. I merely encourage them as you would encourage a friend to do his best. Besides, I only work the small races. The tryouts and jockey starters. Nothing important to Mr. DeSimone.”

  I noticed he mentioned DeSimone. “Yeah. There were no needles or pills. I would have had to hurt you for that.”

  “Of course!”

  “What are you doing, Mr. Bernardi?”

  He hesitated for a minute.

  I sighed. I don’t like hurting old people. Leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

  “I talk to them,” he said finally.

  “Yeah. Right.”

  “No. Truly. When I was a boy, I lived in Dormelletto, near the mountains. My father worked for the great Federico Tesio. I was born in the stables. I learned the smell of horses before I learned to nurse. I myself helped train Nearco, the greatest thoroughbred champion that ever lived!”

  “Who is Federico Tesio?”

  He gave me a withering glare, and then his expression softened like a mother who’s lost her temper with her idiot son and thought better of it.

  It made me laugh out loud. “Okay. You talk to the horses.”

  He held up his finger. “Only if they’re willing to listen. I find out which horse is most excited for the day. I talk to them. They pass the time with me—I admit that sometimes a horse might take such pleasure in the conversation he runs more strongly. But I have done nothing to him.”

  “No drugs. No touching.”

  He drew himself up to his full height—maybe five feet. “Never,” he pronounced.

  I thought about it for a minute. “Okay. But if you touch the horses—”

  He shook his head violently. “Never!” He watched me for a moment. “You should meet them.”

  “The horses? They’re just horses.”

  “Not so.” He pointed to a brown gelding in the far stall. “Consider Fraidy Cat. He has a terrible crush on one particular jockey named Phillip. Loves the man. Would take him as a mare if only he could but instead must satisfy himself by running his heart out for him. Or consider Island Queen. She is the sworn enemy of Pale Pauline.”