The Right Wrong Number: An Ed Earl Burch Novel

by Jim Nesbitt

  “Don’t be cute. You know what the cops say.”

  “They say that body in the car ain’t him. That don’t make him alive.”

  “What are you saying — that I killed his sorry ass?”

  “Or somebody else, after he made his cute little getaway.”

  “That’s a novel thought.”

  “Can’t get it out of my mind that he might be dead and all this is just a scramble over what he left behind. So which way is it?”

  “Could be either way. It almost doesn’t matter — people are coming at me, assuming I’m either in on his play or know where to get my hands on what he left behind when he got fried.”

  “Poor baby. Ever’body pickin’ on you.”

  She shot him a glare, green anger on ice.

  “Won’t work, Slick. Seen the act before. So let me ask it again — is your beloved, Jason Willard Crowe, the late great or just late for supper?”

  “You know I hate it when you go redneck on me.”

  “Well this ol’ redneck wants to know what the game is and who all the players are. We know about Mr. Delgado. And I believe we have to contend with some gentlemen from New Orleans. And that wild card, your husband.”

  “I know the sumbitch didn’t die in that car and I think he’s alive now.”

  “What’re we playin’ for, darlin’ — table stakes?”

  “This isn’t a poker game, Big Boy.”

  “I know. It’s what you call your True Life. With all its serious rules and such.”

  “You’re getting philosophical on me and you haven’t even had a drink yet.”

  “We can cure that right quick.”

  The bottle of Maker’s Mark still had some amber nectar. Juice glasses flanked the bottle like battle-weary pawns. He tossed watery remains from one and poured himself a four-finger eye-opener. Neat. No ice.

  “I figure it this way, Slick. You’re either partnered up with hubby and just takin’ the heat for him until his deal is squared up or you’ve got a hand on what he’s got and are squeezin’ away.”

  “You think too much.”

  “Never in my life. But I’m thinkin’ right aren’t I?”

  “What’s your point?”

  “My point is this — you’ve got a new partner.”

  “That would be you.”

  Burch nodded, taking a sip of whiskey.

  “True enough, maybe.”

  Savannah slapped her knee, laughed and said: “It’s a waitin’ game, sugar.”

  “I can wait with the best of `em.”

  “Just make sure there’s somethin’ good to make the wait worth your while.”

  “Feel somethin’ on your hand?”

  She glanced at her right hand, then looked his way with the cocked head of a curious dog.

  “No — what the hell are you talkin’ about?”

  “Your hand. You don’t feel anything on it?”

  “Eddie, your mind must be fried. I don’t feel a damn thing on my hand except my skin.”

  “You should feel somethin’ else there too.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like my hand. Right there in the same pocket you got your hand. Waitin’ on that money to come in. Waitin’ to grab a share so there’s somethin’ good to make all of this worth my while.”

  He said that with swagger in his voice, buoyed by bourbon and smart patter. But that feeling was gone now, shattered by his romp with Savannah and the sure knowledge of his vulnerability and lack of control. Puppet time again. With all strings attached.

  After their morning session, Savannah hopped into the shower. Burch waited until she was through then did the same. When he stepped back into the bedroom, one towel around his belly and another to rub the water out of his hair and beard, she was snapping shut the lid of an IBM ThinkPad and snicking a phone line out of a portable modem.

  She had a look of shock on her face, one that froze out his sharp words and angry scowl.

  “You stupid whore, you just gave us up if you tapped into a data line you regularly use.”

  “It’s gone.”

  “You understand me, Irish?”

  “It’s gone, Big Boy. It was there yesterday. Today it’s gone.”

  “What’re you talkin’ about?”

  His hand was on her shoulder. She was staring at the towel around his belly but not really seeing it.

  “Money.”

  “You’re not making sense.”

  She shot him a sharp look.

  “Quit bein’ as stupid as you look.”

  “Quit bein’ a bitch and tell me what you’re talking about.”

  “That pocket we both had our hands in? It’s empty now. Nothin’ there but your skin and mine.”

  “You can tell that with a computer?”

  “Wonderful technology. Makes a nice little electronic mousetrap with the spring set and the cheese in place.”

  “He’s onto you right? He’s moved the money where you can’t get it.”

  She snorted and shook her head with the weary disgust a smart sixth grader reserves for a classmate bound for Vo Tech.

  “I never could get it. But a friend could. He’s a wizard when it comes to computers. We just had to wait for Jason to move it to a place where we could put our hands on it.”

  “Who’s this computer wizard? Knowing you, he’s a special kind of friend. How many times did you have to fuck him before he’d do what you want?”

  “You shouldn’t be jealous, Big Boy — I’m fucking you now and will again any time John Henry’s ready.”

  Burch ignored the carnal bait and focused on the money.

  “Let me get this straight — you and the computer whiz were set up to grab the money as Crowe moved it from Point A to Point B.”

  “Whenever Jason was ready to move it.”

  “How much did you grab before hubby got wise?”

  “Enough. But I want it all.”

  “Don’t we all, darlin’. Me, you, your husband. And those gentlemen from New Orleans.”

  A knock on the bedroom door. Benito with a cellular phone in his hand. One murmured word: “Jennings.”

  Burch stepped into the hall and matched Benito’s hushed volume with his own murmur.

  “Hombre — we’re moving. La señora has used the phone and somebody could do a trace.”

  Benito nodded.

  “Claro.”

  Burch took the phone in hand.

  “What?”

  “You’re in a good mood. I take it the flesh was weak.”

  “I hate it when your crystal ball is in gear.”

  A pause. The sound of static.

  “Your boy is in town.”

  “Crowe?”

  “The same.”

  “Where?”

  “Some Asian gentlemen I know say he’s doing business with one of their associates.”

  “Old friends?”

  “Comrades-in-arms. From our follies in Southeast Asia.”

  “Why?”

  “Moving product.”

  “Why take the risk?”

  “Good question. He’s a new player to these people. They don’t know him. Haven’t done business with him.”

  “His normal channels are blown.”

  “Be my guess.”

  “A certainty. Wifey broke into his little computer deal. Nice little system of automatic wire transfers to overseas accounts.”

  “Remote control. File and forget. I take it he’s figured out that she’s tapped the system.”

  “You got it. So we’ll be putting fresh sheets on your bed.”

  “Hmmmm. Thoughtful. But risky.”

  “No choice. Wifey’s been tapping databases from here.”

  “The boys know a place. Stash her. Do your hunting.”

  “Bet on it. Your friends give you a name?”

  Jennings gave it to him. Not in the accent of a true Texan, but in the voice of a man who used to speak Vietnamese for a living. It was a voice the bar girls on Tu Do Street
used to hear, full of lust and good humor.

  And it was the last thing a true believer heard before getting hurled from a hovering chopper.

  FIFTEEN

  The bar is long, dark and cool in the early afternoon before the Happy Hour rush, washed in the smell of stale beer, Pine Sol and fresh-brewed coffee.

  Light from the narrow frosted panes of glass flanking both sides of the front door slants down the sharp left-right turn patrons must make to enter the main room. The glare flashes across dozens of framed charcoal sketches of Louie’s favorite regulars — the locally famous and insane, the hard-chargers and fast-laners, the steady boozers and saloon sports, the motel Romeos and Juliets and the railside philosophers.

  Burch’s portrait, drawn by the light of the cigarette machine on the short end of the bar, is the first one on the left, on the bottom row. His likeness looks badly bloated and hungover. Charcoaled in the wake of his first divorce, it is photographic in detail.

  Krukovitch’s sketch, capturing his ironic and angry expression, hangs on the opposite corner of the top row. Drawn in the wake of his third collection of columns — Jangled Mutterings, Confused Complaints — it has the dapper air of a dust jacket photo.

  The hip monarchist himself sits at the end of the bar farthest from the door, the short end where Louie holds court in the choice hours that cut toward midnight and away from the post-work rush. It is Monday. Krukovitch is pounding out his column — a rant against Ross Perot. Little Hutch huffs in from the kitchen, muscling three cases of Old Style in bottles.

  “Hey, Kruk.”

  No answer. The clack of the laptop keyboard. Hutch pitches a damp bar rag at the columnist, hitting him just above his wire-framed glasses. A startled look, a twitch of annoyance, a smile.

  “Now, dammit, I told you to rap sharply on the top of my head when you wanted my attention.”

  “I’m too lazy. Listen — I gotta run some errands. Be gone an hour. Any deliveries — just sign the boss’s name.”

  “Got it.”

  Krukovitch turns back to the laptop, his smile lamping out like a candle flame pinched between two wet fingers. A fast forward of the minutes — ten, maybe twenty. A clacking keyboard. A sip of coffee. A quick hit from a smoldering Carlton. A face so intensely focused on the glowing screen that two men — one from the kitchen, one from the front door — step to within four feet of the columnist and he still isn’t aware of their presence.

  A throat clears. That startled look — one part deer-in-the-headlamps, one part outraged Lutheran uncle caught cheating at cards.

  “Good Christ! You scared the shit out of me!”

  No response.

  “The bar’s closed right now if you’re looking for a drink. If you’ve got some business that needs taking care of, Hutch said he’ll be right back.”

  The one closest to Krukovitch, the one who walked in the front door, smiles. He is a squat, olive-skinned man with the trunk and arms of a wrestler, the belly of a lifelong beer-and-shot artist and a head that is pinched like a worn-out pillow and too small for his torso. His wiry hair is frosted with grey and hangs over eyes that are wet and brown and docile, like a rabbit or a deer. His voice is nicotine spilling over a cold bar of lead.

  “That’s nice. But we’d like a beer now.”

  Krukovitch glances from the wrestler to the other man — tall, thin and black, wearing a blue windbreaker, baggy jeans and a Detroit Tigers baseball cap. He wears octagonal-shaped wire frames over amber eyes that flash in the low saloon light.

  “Like I said, the bar’s closed right now.”

  “Tha’ right? You in here. You somebody special?”

  Krukovitch tries to laugh. It sounds like someone gargling with cotton and gravel. He shakes his head.

  “No — nobody special. Just somebody who puts half his paycheck into this place every week. Some folks call me a regular.”

  No smiles now. Dull, flat stares — Bunny Eyes’ not so wet and friendly. Closer to him. Crowding in. Well inside his always jangled comfort zone.

  “Guys. Look. I’m just babysitting until the bartender gets back.”

  “You too good to get us a beer?”

  “It’s not that. I don’t work here and the place isn’t open for business.”

  The black man leans forward. The soft rasp of his voice heightens Krukovitch’s fear.

  “Open. Not open. Doesn’t matter to us. We’re here for business an’ you’re the only one here, so I guess you’ll have to do.”

  Krukovitch slides his stool back and stands again, hands up and palms outward, edging backward to give himself some room. A huge hard hand stops him, gripping the back of his neck. Another hand grabs his left arm, levering it down and pinning it against his back, quick and brutal, causing his breath to blow from his lungs in a sharp protest of pain.

  Face slams into the rolled edge of the bar. Red gushes from a shattered nose. Glasses star with shattering lines. The wire frame twists. The left temple pops, falling to the floor, the left lens sticking to a bloody cheek, the right lens digging into the source of the flow, a new ridge of bone and cartilage riding just below ripped skin.

  “Damn, he howls like a baby.”

  “Must not like your gentle ways.”

  “You got a beef with the way I treat you?”

  Knee to the groin. Body knifing over the knee. New and far sharper pain, causing his guts to freefall like an elevator with a severed cable and his bile to rocket upward in the opposite direction, a coffee-colored spray on the grimy floor.

  “Watch my shoes, man! You little shit, you puked on my shoes!”

  Head slap. Sparks, pain and blurred colors.

  “Fuck your shoes, man. Take care of business.”

  The thin black man takes Krukovitch’s face in his hands, peering at the damage. A sympathetic cluck of the tongue. A sad look. A touch of sugar on the sandpaper. A good act.

  “We got to clean this man up.”

  A bar rag to the face.

  “Got to get this blood and this puke off the man so he can talk to us.”

  Face blurry, black and close. Then nothing, vision closes with pain and tears.

  “You wanna talk to us, don’t you? `Course you do. You see? Man wants to talk. Gonna tell us what we want to know, right? Not gonna just tell us what we want to hear.”

  “Man can’t talk. Somethin’ happened to his face.”

  “You should know. But you’re wrong about this guy, man. He’ll talk now. He likes us. He wants to be cooperative.”

  “Ask him a question.”

  “Now?”

  “He’s not getting any prettier standing here.”

  “Him? He’s not standin’ at all. He’s leanin’ on you.”

  “Ask him.”

  Hands cup the face. A black blur through tears.

  “We hear you’re a computer wiz, man. We hear you know everythin’ there is to know about them boxes. Make `em dance and sing. That right?”

  “He’s not listenin’.”

  Head slap. Stars and strobes.

  “He hears, man. He just can’t talk.”

  “Ask him again.”

  “Man — I need you to listen or my boy here will keep hurtin’ you. You the computer wizard, right? You know what to do and how to do, right? Nod for me, man. Nod. It’s important.”

  Hands cup the face. A nod from Krukovitch.

  “There you go, now. See? I told you. We’ve got one cooperative muthafuckah on our hands.”

  “Get on with it.”

  “Gettin’ there, my man. Gettin’ there.”

  Hands cup the face. The black blur gets closer. Krukovitch can make out a nose, ears and eyes, haloed by bar light.

  “You know a guy we know, right? Comes in here all the time. Guy name Burch. You and him are tight, right?”

  A strangling noise. A moan through snot and blood. A nod.

  “Good man. See that? Man’s really cooperatin’ now. Talkin’ to us.”

  “Quit clownin�
�.”

  “No clown in this bar `cept you. We gave him the stick, now we got to give him some sweet, show him we not all badass. Now pay attention to this next question, my man. Since you know this fella Burch, since you so tight with him, you know his lady friends, right?”

  A nod.

  “Good. You remember Savannah Crowe, right? Savannah? You know her real good, right?”

  A single shake of the head.

  “Now don’t be jerkin’ me around. If you tight with Burch, you know his ladies and you know this particular lady.”

  Another shake. A mumbling string of words.

  “What? What you tryin’ to say?”

  A hack. A string of spit and blood.

  “Not well.”

  “What? You gonna sick up again?”

  “No.”

  A pause for the pain. A series of short breaths.

  “Know her but not well. Don’t like her.”

  “Why not — she a looker. Very fly. Very fine.”

  “Fucked over my buddy. She’s a cunt.”

  A laugh from the wrestler: “Man, they’re all cunts, even a man’s mother.”

  A frown from the thin black: “Not my mama.” The black turns back to Krukovitch.

  “If she’s such a shit — if she jobbed your buddy so bad — why he work for her again?”

  “Burch’s a stupid shit. He needs money.”

  “So it’s okay by him if she’s a cunt and fucks him over as long as the money is right.”

  “Guess so.”

  “We talkin’ about a shared value system here? Buddies who see things the same way when it comes to women and money?”

  A shake. Several more. A tighter grip around the neck. A blurry orb of white moves into Krukovitch’s field of vision.

  “I think my man here’s exactly right. I think shared values are exactly what we’re talkin’ about. Your buddy jumps to her tune again because the money’s right and the pussy’s wet and tight. Only natural for you to do the same. Work a little of that computer magic for her in return for some long green and a touch of Mister Fun in the joy box. We communicatin’ here?”

  “Wrong. Hate the bitch. Wouldn’t fuck her with your dick. Warned Burch off. Wouldn’t listen.”

  “Buddies help buddies, right? And a guy who wrote the book on how to break into computers would do a favor for a buddy, right? Or a buddy’s client. Right?”