The Old Dick

by L. A. Morse

  * * *

  I went a couple blocks away from headquarters, found a phone, and called the kid’s office. I said it was all set, but he told me to shut up. He asked where I was, then gave me the location of another phone booth that wasn’t too far away, told me to be there in twenty minutes, and hung up. He must’ve had the numbers for pay phones all over the city, so he could always arrange conversations without worrying about a tap. I was starting to realize the kid was more than just a vicious mutant. He had some brains as well. It wasn’t a combination that delighted me.

  I found the new booth at the rear of a parking lot, completely out in the open in case anyone wanted to watch. I wasn’t there long before it rang.

  “What’s the story?” the kid said. From the background noise, it sounded like he’d also gone to a phone booth.

  “Nicholson bought it. It was hard, but I got him to agree. He’s mad to get you.”

  That awful, high-pitched giggle filled my ear. “Go on.”

  “Well, I fixed up with Nicholson that I’d arrange delivery to you in some location. You’re supposed to think that they’ll be staking that out, and we set up to meet someplace else. I tell Nicholson. They stake out the second location and nail you when I deliver.”

  “Go on.”

  “But I never get to the second location. I hand it over to you someplace else, someplace where you can get away, safe and clean.”

  “Like where?”

  “How about using a bridge or an overpass?” My book last night hadn’t helped take my mind off of anything, but the detective hanging by his fingers had given me an idea. “We plan it so I have to cross a bridge on the way to the delivery point. It’ll be over another street, or a freeway, or something. You’ll be waiting down below. I’ll drop the stuff over to you, and you take off. That way, even if I’m followed, you can be far away before they even get down to the lower road.”

  There was a long silence. I held my breath; then I heard that laugh starting again, a nasty, gleeful sound, and I knew he liked it.

  “Old man, that’s nice. The cops think, you’re double-crossing me but you’re really double-crossing them. That bastard Nicholson’ll shit.” Again the giggle. “Now, where’s this gonna happen?”

  “You pick it. You’re the one that has to feel comfortable.”

  “That’s right. And don’t forget it,”

  We talked a bit and decided where all of this—the first drop, the second drop, the real drop —would take place, and worked out a time for that night.

  “If you’re thinking about shitting me,” Tony New said when it was all straight, “just keep Sal Piccolo in mind. If you fuck with me, being burned alive is going to seem like a positive pleasure. Remember.”

  “I’ll remember,” I said, but the phone was dead.

  I hung up, then held onto the receiver as my knees suddenly turned weak with relief. It was all falling into place. If I hadn’t been worried about being watched, I might’ve done a little jig. My hand of twos and threes was starting to seem pretty potent. Pretty damn potent.

  Everything would go just like I told Tony New. The stake-out, the drop from the bridge, everything. Except, besides fifteen kilos of cocaine, the bag would also contain a tiny transmitter. If Tony New didn’t make the pickup himself, the cops’d follow the coke until it got to him. Then that would be that. Nicholson’s problems would be solved. Mine would be solved. And Tony New wouldn’t have to worry about anything for a good long time.

  I wasn’t going to double-cross the cops, but triple-cross Tony New. Ah, Spanner, I thought; Sal Piccolo wasn’t the only devious son of a bitch.

  * * *

  I walked around a bit, trying to see if I was being tailed, but didn’t spot anyone. From another phone booth I called Nicholson and told him everything was perfect.

  “Wonderful,” he said, sounding like he just found out he had gonorrhea. He told me to come back to the station later in the afternoon.

  Except for this last week, I hadn’t been downtown more than a handful of times since I retired. I wandered the streets around Pershing Square, seeing more what had been there than what was there now. Where Henry Gattuso was drowned in a vat of olive oil. Where Stanley Skolnick had been machine-gunned down while carrying the day’s takings in a paper bag, and ten thousand in crumpled ones, fives, and tens went blowing down Hill Street, tying up traffic for blocks. Where Farmboy Murdoch had very nearly made me part of the pavement, with a Ford pickup loaded with cantaloupes. The landmarks were mostly gone, existing only in my memory. Soon they wouldn’t even be there, any more than my first office on Spring Street, which was now a five-story parking structure. I’d gone in and out of that building thousands of times, but I realized, with an uncomfortable feeling, that I could no longer remember what color it had been.

  The people that hung around the Square, though, hadn’t changed. New faces, but that was all. Office workers getting a little sun, old deadbeats with nowhere else to go, small-time crooks waiting to take a bet or hustling up a customer for something stolen or illegal.

  I sat on a bench in the sun, close to a statue of a soldier from the Spanish-American War, whose hat was white with pigeon shit. Hardly tasting it, I ate a red-hot burrito from a nearby stand that was scheduled for demolition soon. I felt better than I had when I woke up, but I tried to keep from thinking about the rest of the day, about the craziness I was in the middle of, just wanting it to be over. There were too goddamn many things to go wrong.

  An old coot wearing better clothes than mine came over to bum a handout. Even though I figured he had more annual income than I did, I gave him a quarter. Maybe I was trying to build up points someplace. “Look, Spanner’s a real good guy; we’ll let him keep his neck on this one.”

  I watched an earnest young Scout try to help a hideous bag lady cross the street. She soundly cursed and beat him. I smiled. That’s what was needed. More nastiness. A few more demented loners swearing to themselves.

  I went back to see Nicholson. He grunted a few times, then brought out a canvas duffle bag. He opened it and I looked in. There were fifteen brick-sized, plastic-wrapped packages of shiny, translucent, white flaky powder that was worth more than three times its weight in gold.

  Cocaine. It had been big in this town almost as long as there’d been a Hollywood. For no reason, I remembered a movie I saw when I was a kid back East. A silent, with Douglas Fairbanks. He played a detective named Coke Ennyday. The movie hadn’t made much sense, something to do with Chinese opium smugglers, but it seemed that everyone in it had had a pretty good time.

  I looked up at Nicholson. He didn’t seem to be enjoying himself especially.

  “If this screws up, Spanner, I’m going to pull the plug on you so fast you’ll lose your dentures.

  My teeth were all mine, but I got the point.

  We went over things a few more times. Nicholson seemed increasingly nervous and depressed, reluctant to let so much dope out of his control. I didn’t bother to try to reassure him. I had a feeling it wouldn’t come out sounding very good.

  I picked up the bag. It was heavy. Hell, it contained my future.

  For a second, I thought about bowing out, running like hell or throwing myself at Nicholson’s feet. Then it passed. I was scared, but I knew I had to go through with it. What surprised me, once it came right down to it, was finding that I wanted to. Crazy old man. I just couldn’t learn.

  Nicholson walked me to my car. I guessed he didn’t want me mugged on the way to the parking lot. I got in.

  “We’ll be close,” he said through the window.

  “Not too close.”

  “Don’t you have enough to worry about? Shit.” He gazed up at the police building, as though expecting to see every window filled with cops looking down at him and laughing.

  After I drove away, I realized he hadn’t wished me luck.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  On the way back home, I kept going over the layout, especially how it looked from Tony New
’s end. I realized there were some spaces, that it was maybe not as tight as it should be, but I figured I had slid over those pretty well. I must have. The kid had bought it without much hesitation.

  Well, if he wasn’t at least a little bit stupid, he wouldn’t be doing what he was doing. Right?

  I didn’t answer myself.

  I parked in the garage, pulled out the bag, went in the back. In the living room the blinds were closed. I discovered that Tony New was not quite as stupid as I’d thought.

  He was sitting quietly on the couch. Shithead was standing close by.

  Holy fucking—

  “Gee, I’m sorry,” I said, trying to sound a lot calmer than I felt. “I keep forgetting to get that extra key made for you.”

  “Don’t need no key.”

  “Shut up, shithead,” the kid said.

  “It’s always a pleasure to see you,” I said. “You know, mi casa es su casa, and all that, but what’s going on? I thought—”

  “I don’t care what you thought. There’s been a change.”

  “But—”

  “Shut up, old man, and sit down.”

  It was my living room, but I accepted the invitation anyway. As I sat in the wing chair, with the bag of dope at my feet, I wished the wings would start to flap and float me out of there.

  Instead, the phone rang. I started to get up, but the kid silently pointed me back down. He went into the kitchen and answered it. After a couple of minutes, he came back.

  “That was Rudy. He said he couldn’t spot any surveillance on you.”

  Mentally, I sighed. “That’s good. Isn’t—”

  “No, it isn’t. It’s strange, is what it is.”

  “But there wasn’t supposed—”

  “Shut up, old man! I’d like to know why they let you walk loose out of there with fifteen keys of coke.”

  Tony nodded and Shithead came over, picked up the bag, and set it on the coffee table. He unzipped it, looked inside, whistled appreciatively.

  “Get on with it,” the kid said.

  Shithead opened a small suitcase that I hadn’t noticed until then and took out a black rectangular box that was about the size of a walkie-talkie unit. He flipped a switch and held it over the bag.

  “It’s hot.”

  Tony New looked at me with a smile that was anything but amused and slowly shook his head. “Find it.”

  One by one, the bruiser took the white bricks out of the bag and held them up to the box. It was obviously one of those gadgets that told you if there was a bug around. It figured Tony New’d have something like that. I wondered why I hadn’t thought about it before. A queasy feeling was spreading through my bowels like a triple dose of a laxative.

  “That Nicholson must really think I’m dumb,” the kid said as he watched Shithead work. “If he let an old croaker like you go without a tight tail, then he either gave you thirty pounds of quinine or something, or he wired the coke.”

  Well, I clearly couldn’t fault his logic. Mine, however, was looking more and more like wishful thinking, if not complete self-delusion.

  With the eighth package Shithead examined, he said, “Got it!” and held it out to his boss. The kid looked disgusted and told him to open it. The bruiser got a large clear plastic bag out of his suitcase and something from his pocket that proved to be a wicked-looking switchblade when it sprang open with a swishing sound. He put the package of cocaine inside the plastic bag, carefully slit the wrapping, and let the lumps of white flakes run out. The package was half-empty when a quarter-sized object dropped out. Shithead picked it up and looked closely at it. “Homing device,” he said, handing it to the kid.

  Tony New held it in his palm. He wet the tip of his index finger and touched it to the film of dust that covered the transmitter. He rubbed the stuff off inside his upper lip, paused briefly, then grunted appreciatively. “Well, it ain’t quinine. Though Nicholson is sure going to wish that it was.” He gave a brief little laugh, then stared coldly at me, holding up the device between two fingers. “Now, suppose you tell me about this.”

  “I don’t know anything about it,” I said, hoping I sounded shaken, surprised, and completely innocent. I didn’t know about the other two, but the first of those qualities came through loud and clear. With good reason.

  “No?”

  “No.”

  “You’re full of shit, old man.” Almost regretfully the kid said, “I guess I’ll just have to get my boy to ask the questions.”

  Shithead yucked a couple of times, then came over and looked down at me speculatively. He still held the open knife. I felt like a Thanksgiving turkey. Now, who wants a wing?

  “Really. I don’t know—” Before I got to repeat my lie, there was a knock on the door.

  “Who’s that?” the kid said, looking hard at me.

  “I don’t know. I can’t see through wood.”

  Shithead brayed a laugh, then quickly swallowed it as he glanced at Tony New. He poked me in the shoulder with his fingertips, hard enough to cause shooting pains down my arm. Why couldn’t I remember not to be so damn wise all the time?

  “Open it,” the kid said. “But stay cool.”

  The bruiser pulled a gun from his pocket, which looked big enough to stop an elephant, and waved it at me. “Yeah. Be cool.”

  “Shut up, shithead.”

  The two of them moved out of the sight line from the door but kept me covered. I wondered who it could be. The way things were going, I figured it could’ve been anyone, from the ghost of Christmas past to a Cuban expeditionary force come to liberate the neighborhood.

  Oh, shit.

  It was Mrs. Bernstein, a ruffled floral apron over a faded floral dress.

  “Mr. Spanner, I haven’t seen you for a while, so I just wanted to make sure you’re still coming for dinner tonight, like you promised. I made your favorite.” She smiled.

  Shit.

  “Gee, Mrs. Bernstein. I’m afraid something’s come up. I was just about to call you and—”

  “Who’s there, Jake?” the kid said, his voice all friendly curiosity.

  “Just a neighbor who—”

  “Why don’t you invite the lady in?”

  “No, I don’t—”

  But Mrs. Bernstein had already walked happily past me into the living room.

  “Are these your sons?” She smiled.

  “Only if I’d had relations with a gila monster,” I muttered.

  By then Mrs. Bernstein had noticed the gun. Her smile wavered, then disappeared altogether.

  “What’s going on, Mr. Spanner? Are you in trouble?”

  “Don’t worry. It’s nothing very serious.”

  “Lady, sit down,” Tony New said, gesturing to a chair.

  “Thank you, but I think I’d better—”

  “Sit down!” the kid hissed.

  “Mrs. Bernstein, you’d better sit down.”

  She looked at me, and then at them, and then bustled her plump body over to the chair.

  “I’m cooking cabbage rolls, and I must get back or else they’ll dry out.”

  “Fuck the cabbage rolls, lady, and shut up!”

  “Young man! I—”

  “Mrs. Bernstein,” I said. “Be quiet. Please!”

  I couldn’t believe it. The nightmare was becoming more and more lunatic.

  Tony New looked from me to Mrs. Bernstein. By the time he got back to me again, he was smiling in a way that made me feel like rats were walking through my intestines.

  “Now,” he said. “I asked you a question before we were interrupted.” He held up the transmitter.

  “I told you. I don’t know anything about it.”

  The kid smiled again. “Then I guess we’ll just have to ask the old lady about it.”

  He nodded to Shithead, who went and hulked over Mrs. Bernstein. One of his giant paws started to finger her flabby upper arm. At the touch a small yelp escaped from her, but she stifled it. Her body was rigid. She looked at me with watery brown eye
s. They looked very large behind the thick lenses of her glasses.

  Shit. Shit. Shit.

  “All right, all right!” I said. “I’ll tell you. Just get him away from her.”

  Tony New motioned with his head and the ape stepped away, kind of disappointed. I was beginning to hate Shithead almost as much as Rudy.

  “Okay. It was a setup. After the drop, the cops were going to stick with the pickup car. If you were in the car, they’d grab you right away. If not, they’d follow it until the dope got to you.”

  He nodded, like it was what he’d expected. “Whose bright idea was this?”

  I didn’t say anything.

  “Whose?” the kid hissed.

  “All right. It was mine.”

  Tony New stared at me for a long time; then his lips drew back, revealing lots of tiny white teeth. I didn’t suppose they were really pointed; they just struck me that way.

  “You must’ve thought you were real smart. Fucking old men.”

  I kept quite. There wasn’t much I could say.

  “Dear Grandfather, that cocksucker, thought he was smart. He wasn’t. What about you? You still think you are?”

  “I guess not,” I said with complete sincerity. “Look. The setup is queered. You’ve got the dope. Why not just take it and go away? Tie us up, leave the transmitter, and walk out free. Hell, by the time they catch on to what’s happened, you can probably have the stuff already distributed.”

  For a minute I thought he was going to go along with it; then he shook his head, with that small sinister grin of his.

  “Why not?”

  “Because that’s what you want me to do. Maybe that’s part of your smart little plan.”

  “Oh, Jesus. I’m not that smart, for Christ sake!”

  “No, you’re not, old man. But maybe Rudy missed something. Maybe cops are waiting around the corner... No. We’ll just play things like they’re scheduled. The drop’ll go down, only there’ll be something else in the bag, and you and I’ll keep the snow and go oft someplace else. And Nicholson’ll be left looking up his ass, wondering what the fuck happened.” He laughed in that pleasant way of his. He sure was a cheerful little son of a bitch.