Mourn The Living

by Collins, Max Allan

  “But it’s tough to hold rein on narcotics traffic,” Nolan said. “The difference is that now, if you’re a non-Commission sanctioned narcotics dealer and they find you out, you get leaned on.”

  “Leaned on hard?”

  Nolan’s look was that of a father dealing with a backward child. “The Commission of Families doesn’t know how to lean soft.”

  “So this Commission has to authorize narcotics trafficking, or it’s no go. And the Chelsey operation is an extension of the Chicago Outfit, which is a Commission member. Are you suggesting the Commission doesn’t know about the narcotics trade in Chelsey?”

  Nolan nodded. “And the Chicago Boys don’t know it, either.”

  “Now I am lost.”

  “That’s because you don’t understand what the Chelsey operation was for. George Franco, brother of one of the Boys or not, was a big nothing. The Chelsey set-up was supposed to be a minor deal, just to give worthless George something to do, make him look good, save a little face for the Francos. But this operation is obviously making money. A lot of it. Money the Commission in New York doesn’t know about. Money the Boys in Chicago don’t know about. And when they find out, both the Boys and the Commission are going to be pissed. But good.”

  “Who’s behind it? Who’s getting the money?”

  “Not George Franco, that’s for sure.”

  “Then who?”

  “Who brought your late police chief to town?”

  Mitchell thought for a moment. “That real estate big shot. Supposed to be Saunder’s cousin or something. Elliot.”

  Nolan nodded. “Him.”

  “You can’t mean it,” Mitchell said. “Elliot’s as legit as can be. . . .”

  “No. He’s the one. Elliot. He’s your boy.”

  Mitchell rose. “I’ll be damned if I don’t believe you.” His face twisted with a big grin. He shrugged and said, “Well, Nolan, since you told me all this, I guess there isn’t much left for you to do. I’ll go out and arrest Elliot. . . .”

  “Go out to Elliot’s place without hard proof, Mitchell, and you’re fucked. Wait around while you collect evidence, and you won’t see Elliot again. Except maybe in a travelogue of Brazil.”

  “I can’t let you go out and . . .”

  “You were willing to five minutes ago. How about those murders tonight? Elliot pulled ’em, you know. Any idea what those murders were for?”

  Mitchell shook his head.

  Nolan grinned, his first full-out grin for a long time. “He was house-cleaning,” he said. “Taking care of anyone who could spill anything that could lead Boys, Commission, cops or feds to him. And five will get you five hundred he’ll be out of the country by tomorrow morning.”

  Nolan got up and called for Vicki. He asked her to get the rest of his clothes and she did. He sat on the sofa and checked his .38, which he stuffed into the shoulder holster under his arm. Then he slipped into the blue plaid parka and walked to the door. Mitchell stood there and didn’t say a word.

  “Do I have to tie you up, Mitchell?”

  “No.”

  “Stay away from Elliot tonight.”

  “You going to take him?”

  “Yes.”

  “Alive?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “I’m going with you.”

  “Forget it.”

  Mitchell fought himself, finally accepted it, saying, “If it has to be that way, all right. I guess I suggested it myself, didn’t I?”

  “That’s right. Stay here and watch Miss Trask. She’s been seen with me and could be in danger. If I need you, I’ll call.”

  Mitchell nodded reluctant agreement and Nolan said goodbye to Vicki and went out the apartment, down the steps and to street level. He walked to the Lincoln and got in.

  He heard the heavy breathing in the back seat instantly and his hand was over the butt of his .38 when he heard a voice say, “Take me with you, Webb! Let’s get the hell out of this hick town.”

  3

  “WHAT the hell do you want?”

  Lyn Parks crawled up off the floor in back and sat on the seat. She leaned forward, shook her head of blond hair and stroked Nolan’s temple. She said, “I think you know what I want, Mr. Webb, but I don’t want it in Chelsey.”

  Nolan said, “Get in front,” his jaw firm.

  She crawled over the seat and sat beside him. She was wearing a man’s white shirt and tight tan jeans. She wore no shoes and her blond hair was tousled. Coppery nipples were visible beneath the white shirt and Nolan had an urge to take her up on it, to drive straight out of town with her and forget the whole goddamn fucking thing. But it passed.

  He said, “Why do you want out of Chelsey?”

  Her eyes were wild saucers. “Elliot!” she scream-whispered. “I’m scared of that bastard!”

  “Why?”

  “I . . . I saw him shoot Broome tonight.”

  “And he let you go?”

  “He didn’t see me. I was in the john, hiding.”

  “What were you doing with Broome? How do you know Elliot?”

  Her eyes lowered. “This morning . . . this morning I didn’t level with you. This morning . . . I guess that’s yesterday by now, isn’t it?”

  “Skip it. Tell me where you fit into this.”

  “Well, when you came up to my apartment asking questions about Irene Tisor, I knew you’d be coming. Or might come, at least. Elliot paid me fifty bucks to find out who you were, what you wanted. See I used to be Broome’s girl, in a way. And Elliot was Broome’s boss. Elliot, the son-of-a-bitch, he even had me over to his place a few times, but he never even touched me. Is he a faggot or something?”

  “I don’t know. Get back to it.”

  “Okay. Anyway, Elliot thought you might be around because this guy named Dinneck, know him?”

  “We met.”

  “Well, this Dinneck found my name in a notebook in your motel room or something. And he told Elliot about it and so Elliot told me to find out who you were when you came around. . . .”

  “All right,” Nolan said, making the proper connections.

  She swallowed. “I shouldn’t tell you this, but . . . but Dinneck was in the can, listening, all that time you were in my apartment at the Arms.”

  Nolan smiled flatly. “You didn’t by any chance hit him in the throat after I left?”

  “Why, yes . . . yes I did. Hit him right smack in the adam’s apple. The bastard made a pass at me. Why?”

  “Never mind,” Nolan said, turning the key in the ignition. “I got to find Elliot’s house. I know it’s on Fairport Drive. You want to tell me where it is exactly, or do I go looking?”

  “You won’t find it looking.”

  “Tell me where it is, then.”

  “You gonna take me along?”

  “Why should I?”

  “Because you might need some friendly companionship when this is all over.”

  “Maybe I got that already.”

  “Not this friendly, you don’t. Besides, I know where Elliot lives.”

  “All right,” Nolan said, “we’ll see. Now let’s find Elliot’s house before he finds us.”

  “Fairport Drive’s in the ritzy section across the river. By Chelsey Park.”

  Nolan nodded and she directed him there, over the bridge and into the upper class residential district ringing the park.

  “That one,” she told him, pointing out an imitation Southern Plantation, pillars and all. The whole Gone With the Wind route.

  Nolan drove past it, parking half a block away.

  “Which bedroom is Elliot’s?”

  “Second story, farthest window to the left.”

  “He got a den, anything like that?”

  “Right under the bedroom on the first floor.”

  “Good girl.” He patted her thigh and lifted her chin until her eyes were level with his. “Sit here and keep your mouth shut. Take this, it’s cold.” He gave her his parka. “I’m going to leave the car here. If
things look bad, call Vicki Trask’s apartment and ask for Mitchell.”

  “Mitchell? Hey, are you a cop?”

  “Hell no.”

  “I didn’t think you were. I had an idea you were a gangster or something. Like my daddy.”

  “Your daddy?”

  “Yeah, didn’t I mention that? My daddy’s name is Gordon, Mr. Webb. One-Thumb Gordon, as his business associates would call him.”

  “Christ.” That was all he needed. Gordon was Charlie’s left hand, missing thumb or not.

  “Something wrong?”

  “You and your father close?”

  “Oh, yeah,” she said, “just like this.” She crossed her first and middle finger. “This is me,” first finger, “and this is him,” middle finger. She laughed. “Daddy’s a bastard, too, just like Elliot.”

  Nolan patted her thigh again. “We’re going to get along fine, Lyn.”

  She smiled and bobbed her head. Her eyes went wide as he withdrew the .38 from under his arm. “Ditch the car here if you have to go for help,” he said. “I saw a phone booth on the other side of the park.”

  She nodded again and he left her there.

  He walked along the sidewalk at a normal rate, passing two other homes, a red brick two-story and a grey stucco, before he reached the would-be Tara, which sat way back in a huge lawn, back at least fifty yards from the street and bordered on both sides by eight-foot hedges. Elliot’s place was isolated, a virtual island. The Navy Band could play in the living room and the neighbors wouldn’t hear a thing.

  Nolan crept along the edge of the high shrubbery. He reached the house and eased along the white walls, looking into each darkened window and finding no signs of life in the house. Past two pillars, past the porch, past two more pillars and on to another row of blackened windows. Finally, when he reached the last window he found that it had been covered with black drapes so that the room would appear dark from the street.

  Elliot’s den.

  The grass rustled behind him; Nolan whirled and swung his .38 like a battle-axe and clipped the guy on the side of the head. He went down like wet cement. He was dressed in a chauffeur’s cap and get-up but he looked like a gone-to-seed hood, which upon closer examination was what he proved to be. A major league gunman Nolan had known long ago in Chicago, a gun grown soft and sent out to the minors. Nolan found a house key in the jacket of the chauffeur’s uniform.

  He walked to the big brass-knockered door, slipped the key in the lock and turned it. He pushed gently and the door yawned open.

  He was in a vestibule, a fancy one, for though it was dark, when he leaned against the wall he felt the rich texture of brocade wallpaper. Ahead a few steps he could see light pouring out from under a door. Silently Nolan went to it and ran a hand over the surface. Plywood with a nice veneer, but plywood. Something a man could put his foot through.

  He slammed his heel into it and it sprang open like a berserk jack-in-the-box and Nolan dove in, clutching the .38. Immediately he saw a black leather chair and went for cover. But there was no gunfire to greet him, or even an exclamation of surprise.

  When Nolan looked out from behind the chair he saw a thin, very pale man in horn-rimmed glasses. The man was standing over a suitcase on a table by the wall, transferring stacks of money from a safe into the suitcase. There was a .38 Smith & Wesson, a twin to Nolan’s, on the floor next to the man. The man eyed the gun, his trembling hand extended in mid-air wondering whether or not to try for it.

  “No,” said Nolan. “Don’t even think about it.”

  The man heaved a defiant sigh and straightened out his blue double-breasted sportscoat from under which peeked an apple-red turtleneck, brushed off his lighter blue slacks. He appeared to be a usually cool-headed type who’d recently lost his cool head. And he was trying to get it back, without much luck.

  “Elliot,” Nolan said.

  “Mr. Webb,” he replied. The voice was nervous, even cracking into higher pitch once, but it was the voice of a man determined to regain his dignity.

  “I’m not much for talking,” Nolan said. “Suppose you just keep packing that suitcase with your money and then hand it over to me.”

  “And after that you’ll kill me?”

  Nolan shrugged.

  “You don’t have a chance, Webb. Webb! That’s a laugh. You’re Nolan, I know you’re Nolan, you think the Boys haven’t circulated your picture?”

  “Pack the fucking suitcase and maybe later we’ll have time for an autograph.”

  Elliot managed a smile, a smile that seemed surprisingly confident. The pieces of his composure were gradually falling back into place. “Your chances of survival, Mr. Nolan, are somewhat limited. You see, it dawned on me this afternoon just who you really were. I wasn’t positive, of course, not having seen you, but I didn’t want to take any chances. I called Charlie Franco personally. At this very moment—”

  Nolan’s harsh laugh cut him off like an unpaid light bill. “Who did you call after Charlie? J. Edgar Hoover?”

  Elliot’s face twitched.

  “I got you figured down the line, Elliot. The double-cross you been working on the Boys is going to put you on their shit list, too—right next to me.”

  “I don’t have any idea what you’re talking about.”

  “Okay, Elliot, cut the talk. Back to the money.” Nolan gestured with the .38.

  Elliot returned to the safe and kept on piling stack after stack of bills into the suitcase. Nolan lit a smoke and sat in the black leather chair.

  A few minutes had passed when Elliot looked up from his money stacking and said, “Want to tell me how you got it figured?”

  Nolan lifted his shoulders. “The way I see it, you took on this piddling operation for the Boys because at the time you had nothing better to do. If you were already working for the Boys, you might not’ve had a choice. The job was meant to make George Franco look and feel like a part of the organization. To help save face for the Franco name. And as time went on, you got bored with it, figured a way to make some easy money and retire to a life of luxury.”

  Nolan leaned forward in the chair, casually keeping the .38 leveled at Elliot. “The Chelsey operation was pulling in pretty good money, for what it was. Money made mostly off college kid pleasures, booze and pep pills and some LSD for the supposed hippies. Bagmen from Chicago came in every six weeks and picked up the profits. Around thirty G, I suppose, for each six week period.”

  “More like twenty G,” Elliot corrected.

  “Okay.” Nolan’s information on that point had come from the initial talk with Sid Tisor, so it figured the take was only twenty G per six weeks. That damn Sid always did exaggerate.

  “The thing is,” Nolan continued, “you had a prime connection. A musical junkie named Broome who could get the stuff for you. So you decided to break in an extra source of personal revenue—hard narcotics—without telling the Boys about it.”

  Elliot had the suitcase full now and he closed the lid. “All right, Nolan. I’ve been directing a little traffic in drugs. You blame me? I was getting table scraps off this set-up. They paid my bills, sure set me up good with this house and everything. But my cut of the ‘piddling’ action was puny.”

  “No wonder you got greedy. You make good money from the Chelsey narcotics trade?”

  “What do you think? I’ve been supplying dealers from cities in three states. There’s enough profit to go around, Nolan. You could have a nice cut, too.”

  Nolan nodded. “One hundred percent is a nice cut.”

  “Don’t be a glutton about it. This isn’t the Boys’ money, it’s mine! Your grievance is with the Boys, not with Irwin Elliot! I’m like you, Nolan, out to take the Boys for a ride.”

  Nolan shook his head no. “Forget it. You’re part of the Boys. Maybe you’re worse.”

  “We could be partners . . .”

  “Hey, I put nothing past you, not after you wasted your three partners tonight.”

  “No. Dinneck and Tulip did that
—”

  “Dinneck and Tulip got banged up earlier tonight. They didn’t kill Saunders, Broome and George. You did. Three murders in one night, a gentleman like you. And just to clean house. What’s the world coming to?”

  Elliot’s laugh was almost a cackle. “You’re amusing, Nolan, you really are. Yes, I murdered those morons tonight. When the Boys find out three of their Chelsey men were murdered with a .38 and that Nolan was in town, they’ll blame you, not Irwin Elliot. And when they find out I’ve vacated the premises, they’ll assume I was just frightened of what you’d do to me. By the time they figure out what was really going on in Chelsey, I’ll be in South America.”

  “I don’t think so,” Nolan said. “Hand me the suitcase. And no fun and games.”

  Elliot scowled, tossed the suitcase at Nolan’s feet.

  “How much is there, Elliot?”

  “Near a quarter million dollars.”

  “Not bad. How long you been planning this?”

  “Long enough. I knew all along I’d have to get out sooner or later, because once the Commission got wind of narcotics action they hadn’t sanctioned, I’d be a marked man. I wanted to wait near the end of a six week period so I’d have the Boys’ twenty thousand take, too. And it took me a while to liquidate my stocks and bonds . . . I don’t keep this much in cash on hand all the time, you know.”

  “You’re not stupid, Elliot,” Nolan said, “just not smart. You got the Boys who’ll be after you. New York’ll want your hide. And the feds will want a piece, too. You’re going to be a popular boy. I’m considering not killing you. It might be fun to tie you up and leave you here and let everybody fight over you.”

  A voice from behind them boomed, “Drop the gun, Webb, will ya drop it now?”

  Nolan turned and saw a very battered Tulip standing in the doorway of the den, holding a .45 with an incredibly steady hand.

  “Now, Webb.”

  Nolan let the gun plop to the soft carpet.

  “All right, you fucker . . . I got a score to settle with you.”

  Tulip’s six foot frame lumbered over to him, the arm Nolan had wounded earlier hanging limp as a dead tree limb, brown with dried blood. Nolan couldn’t tell if Tulip had ever gotten that shot of H he’d needed so badly hours before; all Nolan knew was that Tulip seemed in full control as he raised his good arm and aimed the .45 at Nolan’s head.