Mourn The Living

by Collins, Max Allan

  “Little shot of heroin?”

  “I said shut up, you son of a bitch!”

  “Where’s Tulip getting his heroin, Dinneck? Is it . . .”

  Dinneck interrupted Nolan by slamming the barrel of the .38 into Nolan’s temple again, then smashing him across the mouth with it.

  Nolan’s body went limp, but he wasn’t out. His mouth, his lips felt like a bloody wad of pulp, but he wasn’t out. His temple ached, his head pounded, but he sat back and waited to make his move. He sat back and waited and watched Dinneck’s eyes.

  Tulip seemed excited, the pain momentarily forgotten. “Let me shoot ’im, Dinneck—let ol’ Tulip put him to sleep forever—”

  Dinneck smiled and shook his head. “Sorry, pal. I got a special grudge against Mr. Webb here.”

  Tulip stood up, clutching his bloodied arm. “You got a grudge! Last night that bastard set me on my ass every time I turned around, he knocked out one of my teeth, and a coupla hours ago he kicked me in the fuckin’ head! Now he half shoots off my fuckin’ arm and you gotta grudge.”

  “Sit down,” Dinneck said, “and shut up.”

  Tulip sat, frowning, caressing the wounded arm again, and Dinneck consoled him with, “Take it easy, man, I’ll see you get your shot, don’t worry, stay cool. Let me handle it.”

  Nolan had been looking past Dinneck’s tacky clothes and into the authority of his face, the competence of his actions, the hardness of eyes that spoke professionalism. Nolan told himself he’d misjudged Dinneck, whose dress and even manner to a degree had been calculated to elicit such misjudgment. Beyond that, Nolan saw a coldness in Dinneck, and a need to inflict pain.

  “I read you wrong, Dinneck,” Nolan said.

  Intrigued by the comment in spite of himself, Dinneck said, “What?” Then remembering his previous commands to Nolan he said, “Just keep your mouth shut while I figure what to do with you.”

  “Who are you, Dinneck?” Nolan asked.

  “I told you to shut your mouth.”

  “Tulip, how long’s Dinneck been working with you? He been in town very long? How long’s he been with Elliot and Franco?”

  “You’re only making it tougher on yourself, Webb,” Dinneck told him evenly.

  Tulip’s face showed the strain of thought, then he said, “He’s only been with us about two, maybe three months. He’s somebody the Boys sent in from upstate somewhere.”

  Nolan looked at Dinneck again. “Who are you?”

  “Just keep trying my patience, Webb, keep going at it. . . .”

  “You some kind of Family inside man, checking up? Just who the hell are . . .”

  Dinneck’s face exploded into a red mask, veins standing out on his forehead like a relief map. He raised the gun up over Nolan’s head and brought it down fast.

  But not fast enough. Nolan sent a splintering left that caught Dinneck below the left eye and followed with a full right swing into his throat. Dinneck rolled on his back, wrapping his hands around his throat, and he tried to scream in pain but that only made it worse. Nolan tromped down on Dinneck’s wrist and the man released his grip on Nolan’s .38—he’d forgotten it anyway.

  Nolan stood over the sprawling figure, leveling the retrieved .38 at Tulip, who had sat back down on the bed.

  “You didn’t have to hit him in the throat, did you?” Tulip’s voice was like a child’s; he wasn’t holding onto his arm anymore and the blood on it was beginning to turn a dry brown. “You didn’t have to hit his throat. It still hurts him from this morning when some broad hit him there. What a hell of a place to hit him. You sure are a mean son of a bitch, Webb.” Tulip shook his head.

  “You and Dinneck came to the wrong man for sympathy,” Nolan told him. “He should’ve got his tonsils out some other day.”

  “What are you gonna do now?”

  Nolan didn’t answer Tulip. He lifted a barely conscious Dinneck by the collar and dragged him to the can, keeping one eye (and the .38) on Tulip all the while. Nolan dumped Dinneck in the tub, turned on the shower full blast, on cold, and pulled the shower curtain down over his head.

  “You sure are a mean s.o.b.,” Tulip repeated.

  “It’ll relax him,” Nolan said.

  Nolan left Dinneck in the tub, shower curtains around him and shower going on full, ice-cold. Dinneck was a mass of whining, hysterical pain, fighting the shower curtain and the cold with what was left of his will. Nolan shut the bathroom door.

  “I bet you could use a shot, couldn’t you, Tulip?”

  “Mean s.o.b., sure are a mean s.o.b. . . .”

  “How long you been riding that horse, Tulip?”

  “. . . mean s.o.b., you sure a . . .”

  Nolan gave up on getting any information out of Tulip; at the moment the big man was practically catatonic and talking to him was a waste of time. Besides, pretty soon Barnes would get worried enough to call the cops, despite Nolan’s advice to the contrary, what with the gunshot and all the violent noises that had been coming from the room. He wondered if Vicki had taken off. She should have.

  He collected his things, picked his suitcase up off the floor and hastily re-packed it, got his clothes-bags too. He rubbed his temple; his head was still pounding like hell, but his balance was okay. A few aspirin would help the head as long as there wasn’t concussion. His mouth was bleeding and hurt like a bastard, but he ran a hand over it and didn’t think he would need stitches.

  Out in the hall, he could hear a muffled Tulip in there saying “Mean s.o.b.” over and over. Nolan lugged his suitcase and clothes-bags thinking he could have been a lot meaner than he’d been. He wouldn’t have lost much sleep over killing that pair.

  The Lincoln was indeed waiting and he walked easily over to it. Vicki was at the wheel, the engine running. He got in the rider’s side, tossed his things in back.

  When she saw him her eyes rolled wide and she gasped. “What happened! Your face, your mouth . . .”

  “Hard day at the office,” he said. “Beat it the hell out of here.”

  5

  SOMETIMES, when insomnia hit him and he spent half the night fighting for sleep, Phil Saunders almost wished his wife were alive.

  This was a night like that. He’d gone to bed at twelve, as soon as the late night talk show had signed off. Now it was two-thirty and he was still awake.

  Yes, too bad, in a way, his wife wasn’t alive any more.

  At least if she were there she could have bitched him to sleep.

  Now there was no one. No one to talk to, have sex with, live with. A little old fashioned nagging never killed anybody. At least you weren’t alone.

  Not that it was bad, living alone here. He had a nice apartment, six rooms, luxury plus. And very nicely furnished, too, in a conservative sort of way. But then, Phil was a conservative sort of person, outwardly upright, honest. But on the inside? Life had grown a sour taste lately.

  A year and a half ago life had been sweet. A year and a half ago when he had been Police Commissioner of Havens, New Jersey, a legit above-board job he’d worked his ass off over the years to get. A year and a half ago his wife had been a drying-up prune he put up with out of habit and for appearance sake. A year and a half ago his affair with Suzie Van Plett, that succulent soft little seventeen-year-old, had been in full bloom.

  Too bad his wife had walked in on him and Suzie that time. There’s nothing like the sight of a naked seventeen- year-old blonde sitting on the lap of a naked forty-nine- year-old balding police commissioner to give a really first rate instantaneous and fatal heart attack to a fully-clothed fifty-two-year-old grey-haired police commissioner’s wife. Then the reporters, the disgrace, the friends deserting him, the question of statutory rape in the air and finally the humiliating midnight escape.

  His name had been different then, but it died with his wife and his reputation in Havens. He turned to his cousin, a longtime con artist going by the name Irwin Elliot. Elliot had a sweet set-up going in Chelsey, Illinois, through the Chicago crime syndic
ate. Cousin Elliot was good at documents and he forged the defrocked Havens police commissioner a good set of references, pulled the proper strings, opened and closed the right mouths, and the newly named Phil Saunders sprang to life, full-grown at birth. He filled the puppet role of Chelsey Police Chief and watched his cousin Elliot control the town as the brains behind another puppet, that fat fool George Franco, who was a brother of some Chicago mob guy.

  It was a rich life, and an easy one.

  But there were no succulent seventeen-year-olds in his Chelsey life, nor would there be, on Cousin Elliot’s orders.

  Just a conservatively furnished six-room apartment that even his dead wife could have brightened with her presence. At least if his wife were around there would be someone not to listen to, not to talk with.

  The door buzzer sounded, startling Saunders. Then, knowing who it would be, he went to the door and opened it.

  He smiled and said, “Hi, buddy,” and then he noticed the .38 in his visitor’s hand.

  The gun went to his temple, the visitor fired and Saunders joined his wife.

  LYN PARKS had been with Broome long enough. He was a lousy bed partner, he smelled bad and his manners were nonexistent.

  They were in the backstage dressing room at the Third Eye, and it was three o’clock in the morning. Broome had been trying desperately to get her to come across since after the band’s last set and his failure was getting him angry, despite the fact that he’d shot up with horse a few minutes before and should have been feeling quite good by now.

  “Get your goddamn hands off me!” She shook her head in disgust with him, with herself. “You’re really a sickening bastard, Broome, and it’s pretty damn revolting to me to think I ever let you touch me.”

  “Come on, babe, you ain’t no cherry. . . .” He groped for her and she was sick of it. After seeing him shoot up with H—he’d never had the poor taste before to shoot up right in front of her—she was almost physically ill with the thought of her few months of close association with the man. She was ready to move on—life with Broome and these sick creeps was worse than life with her father, “One Thumb” Gordon, a gangster who pretended respectability. She hated phonies, like her father, and she hated Broome as well, for his brand of phoniness.

  “You aren’t anything but a pusher, Broome,” she told him bitterly. “Flower power? Some of the kids in this town are on the level with their peace and love, but you . . . you’re a bum, a peddler, a cheap gangster worse than my father ever was.”

  “Your father? Who’s your father?” Broome wasn’t having much luck with trying to speak, everything was coming out slurred.

  It was disgusting to Lyn, this rolling around with a doped-up lowlife on a threadbare sofa in a back-stage people closet with dirty wooden floors and graffitied walls. Broome was no threat, he was already on the verge of incoherence, sliding into dreaminess. She started for the door.

  Then heard the footsteps.

  Somebody banged on the door.

  Fear caught her by the throat and she instinctively ducked in the bathroom, where Broome had so often shot up, his works still on the sink.

  She heard Broome mumble something out there, maybe a greeting. A few more words.

  Then a gun-shot.

  Kneeling tremblingly, she peered through the keyhole and saw a person she recognized pocket a revolver and turn and go. She waited three long minutes before opening the closet wide enough to see Broome, lying on his back like a broken doll, his freaky blond Orphan Annie curls splattered with blood and brains, skull split by a bullet.

  She puked in the sink.

  She wiped the tears from her eyes, found control of her retching stomach, wondered what to do . . .

  Webb.

  That was it, she had to find Webb.

  He could do something about this.

  At least he could take her away from it. . . .

  She ran.

  GEORGE FRANCO was pissed, in several senses of the word.

  He sat by the window and stared down the block at the extended sign of Chelsey Ford Sales, the building he’d seen Nolan enter several times during the day—the last time around midnight with a pretty girl, a girl George thought he recognized.

  It was too late to be drinking, but George was. He sat in his red and white striped nightshirt like a colorful human beach ball and nursed a bottle of Haig and Haig.

  That fucker Nolan. Who did he think he was, pushing George around? And why hadn’t Nolan called? One whole day gone since he and Nolan had made their pact, with Nolan saying he’d check in every now and then. Well, why the hell didn’t he?

  George had decided he wanted a favor from Nolan—in return for keeping quiet about the thief’s presence in Chelsey. It was only fair . . . and it would be a favor that Nolan would get something out of in return. . . .

  George swigged the Scotch, looking out at the blank street, the naked benches by the courthouse cannons. He didn’t see anybody watching him; Nolan said he had three men taking turns watching George, only now George wasn’t so sure. The tower clock read three-fifteen, but George wasn’t tired. He was all worked up. And he was thirsty.

  It had come to him tonight, how he could use Nolan to better his position. To make his brother Charlie reconsider his opinion of George; to have some responsibility again. To get rid of that smug bastard Elliot and have the last laugh. . . .

  If he could only remember that girl’s name! That girl who’d been with Nolan, it was her apartment they’d gone into!

  He’d met her once in the drugstore below. She was a friendly little thing, she said she’d seen him and she guessed they were neighbors and how was he? But that was a long time ago, a year or so, and he couldn’t remember. . . .

  Vicki something.

  More Scotch. It would help him remember, more Scotch . . .

  Trask.

  Vicki Trask.

  He waddled to the phone book, a pregnant hippo in a nightshirt, and thumbed through the pages.

  Sure it was late, and Nolan would be pissed, but that was just too bad. He couldn’t push a Franco! Why, George could have his brother and an army down from Chicago in a few hours, with just a snap of his fingers! He could erase Nolan, have him wiped out like a chalk drawing on a blackboard! It was that easy.

  He dialed. Nolan would talk to him, he knew he would.

  It rang a long while and a female voice answered. He asked to speak to Mr. Webb and she said just a minute.

  He waited for Nolan to come to the phone. The female voice had been pleasant. Like his whore’s, Francie, only more sincere. He’d been mean to Francie today, edgy over the thing with Nolan, and she’d walked out mad. He’d called her twice and asked her to come back and let him try and make it up to her. She’d hung up both times, but he still hoped she’d show. Maybe could patch things up with dollars and Scotch.

  Then Nolan was on the phone.

  “Yes, I know it’s late, Mr. Nolan . . . sorry, Mr. Webb . . . but I have to talk with you . . . I can help you take Elliot down. . . .”

  There was a soft rap at the door.

  George said, “Just a second, Nolan, I mean Webb . . . the door, I think my girl friend might be back, jus’ a second.”

  George stumbled to the door, thinking to himself about how fine it would be to see his Francie at the moment, have a nice drink with her.

  He opened the door and an orange-red blossom exploded in somebody’s hand and burst George’s head and he went down, a sinking barge.

  Four

  1

  NOLAN REACHED out in the darkness and stroked the sleeping girl’s breast. She stirred in her sleep, a smile playing on her lips. He ran his hand under the sheet and over her smooth body, over her thighs to the flat stomach, across the soft rises of breast, nipples now relaxed, the tightness of passion a memory.

  Vicki Trask’s eyes opened slowly; then blinking, yawning, she said, “Are you still awake? It must be after two in the morning—”

  Nolan flipped back the sh
eet. He took a gentle bite out of her stomach, nuzzling her. His lower lip cradled the dip of her navel, his upper lip tickled by the tiny hairs on her flesh.

  “Salty,” he said.

  “Hmm?”

  “You taste salty.”

  “I ought to,” she replied. “You worked me hard enough.”

  “It’s good for you.” He moved up to her breasts and nibbled. The tips, remembering, grew taut again.

  “Ouch! Take it easy!” Then she laughed and looped her arm around his neck.

  He looked into her little girl face and said, “You were good, Vicki.”

  The faint light from a street lamp poured through a circular window into the balcony and gave her skin a glow, an almost mystical look, like a textured photograph. She sat up in bed and propped her knees up and rested her chin on them, locking her hands around her legs. She stared at him, her smile slight.

  “You were wonderful,” she told him. “I . . . I never felt so much a woman before.” She leaned over and brushed her lips across his cheek.

  “You’re a woman all right,” he said. Not entirely true, but she had been a lot less girl than Nolan had expected.

  Boredom from the so far sleepless night mixed with the infrequency of sexual activity in his life of late tempted Nolan to go another round with the girl. She’d admitted she wasn’t a virgin, but she’d been close to one, and he didn’t want to press her unduly.

  But then her lips were on his chest and her fingers had found their way to his back, where they were digging in. She looked at him, resting her head against his chest, her expression one of sweet shame, asking him if . . . ? He reached his arms around her and covered her mouth with his.

  Twenty minutes later Nolan was sitting in the dark smoking, his back against the headboard, his mind adrift. His left arm was around her shoulder, his hand cupping a breast. The other arm rested on the nightstand by the bed, where he’d laid his un-holstered .38. Vicki had floated into sleep a few minutes before, but he remained awake beside her, thinking and smoking, smoking and thinking . . .