Big Man

by Ed McBain

  “He’s probably taking a leak,” he said. “He’ll be around.” But he didn’t sound so sure any more. I was thinking of the first watchman laying tied up downstairs, and I was wondering what would happen if our boy ran across him. I was wondering that and listening to the big silence and the steady tick of Weasel’s watch, and I almost didn’t hear the footsteps until Andy nudged me with his elbow.

  He didn’t say a word. He just nudged me, and I started listening, and then I heard the regular beat of heavy shoes on the concrete. I wiped my hand across my mouth, drying it, and then I wet my lips again with my tongue. The .45 was very heavy. I could feel my hand sweating against the checked stock. I listened to the footsteps coming closer and closer, and then Andy nudged me again, and when I looked at him he just made a sort of pulling gesture with his hand, telling me I should take the watchman.

  I waited until the watchman passed the open landing door, and then I stepped out onto the floor behind him. He was an old man, and he walked with his head bent, his keys dangling from his right hand. He had a gun strapped to his waist, but the holster hung on his right side, and I knew his right hand was occupied with the keys. I stepped up behind him and threw my left arm around his neck, thinking I’d pull him off balance and then hit him with the butt of the .45.

  But maybe the old guy had seen better days, or maybe he’d been conked from behind before. Whatever the story, I didn’t get a chance to yank him back toward me because he slipped his head out of my elbow lock and dropped to the floor like a tiger waiting to jump. At the same time, he dropped the keys, and his right hand went to his holster, and before I knew what was happening, there was a gun looking up at my face.

  I could see the watchman’s eyes, and those eyes were pale blue and slitted, hanging like narrow oysters on either side of his thin nose. His mouth was just a razor slash under that nose, and the face was altogether a mean sonovabitching face, and I knew he’d as soon shoot me as spit at me. I thought of the car waiting downstairs, and I kept looking from his gun to his face, and all of a sudden it was like just the two of us were left in the whole world, just the watchman and me, both of us waiting for something to happen, both of us maybe a little scared by what we knew was going to happen, but waiting for it anyway, and tensing for it, and sweating because of it.

  “What are you doing here?” the watchman said, and I fired.

  The bullet took him smack between the eyes. There were just the pale blue oyster slits, and then a hole popped up between the slits, like a blob of ketchup, and the old man pitched forward on his face. The sound of the explosion echoed around the high room, and then Andy was standing next to me on one side, and Weasel was on the other side, and they both started to talk at once, but all I heard was Andy saying like a hysterical woman, “What the frig’d you do? What the frig’d you do?”

  “I … I shot him,” I said.

  “You dumb bastard,” Weasel said.

  “Let’s get out of here,” I said. “Come on, let’s get out of here.”

  “Stay where you are,” Andy said. “Don’t move a friggin’ muscle.”

  We stayed where we were. I could see the old man’s blood spreading in a circle on the floor under his head. I watched the blood spread, and when it almost touched my sneaker, I moved back. We didn’t say a word to each other. We just stood there and listened and after a long while, Andy whispered, “All right, let’s load the furs.”

  “You mean …”

  “We came after the furs,” Andy said. “I don’t think the shot was heard. Let’s load them.”

  We walked over to the nearest rack, and Andy loaded Weasel’s arms, and Weasel started downstairs. When it came time to load my arms, Andy said, “Put that friggin’ cannon away. You done enough damage with it already.”

  I tucked the gun in my waistband and then held my arms out while Andy piled on the furs. The furs felt very warm and very soft. I carried them down to the loading ramp on the first floor. Weasel had the doors open, and the Buick was backed to the doors, with the trunk gaping open. I tossed the furs inside and then followed Weasel upstairs for another load. I wasn’t scared so much now. I wasn’t even sweating any more.

  We worked quiet and fast. We packed the trunk solid, and then we closed it and started packing the back seat and floor of the car. We left room for one guy to sit back there, and when we filled the back, we covered the stuff with a blanket and then took off. We didn’t bother closing the platform doors, and we didn’t close the gate in the cyclone fence.

  I sat in the back with the furs, and my hand under the blanket rested on one of the minks, and the touch was like some kind of a charge. I kept thinking of minks and Caddys, and I wondered how Celia would look in a mink, and when we drove up onto the parkway, I looked over to Palisades and wondered if Celia had ever been on a roller coaster. The idea of her screaming on a roller coaster, hanging onto me, her blond hair blowing over her shoulders, was exciting. I didn’t think about the dead watchman at all. Until Weasel started chewing me out.

  “You’re a little trigger-happy, you know, man?” he said.

  “Who, me?” I said.

  “No, the man in the moon. Who the hell you think I mean? Who shot the watchman, if not you?”

  “He had a gun,” I said. “He would’ve shot me.”

  “You’re lucky we didn’t get the whole damn police force down around our ears.”

  “I heard the shot downstairs,” the driver said. “I figured the job was through when I heard that.”

  “He was going to shoot me,” I said. “You didn’t see that bastard’s eyes. I bet he’s shot more guys than I got toes.”

  “Yeah, that’s your story,” Weasel said.

  “You saw he had a gun, didn’t you?”

  “That don’t mean he was going to shoot.”

  “No? What was he gonna do with it, then? Pick his nose?”

  “Mr. Carfon ain’t gonna like this,” Weasel said. “He don’t like sloppy jobs.”

  “What was sloppy about it?” I said. “We got the furs, didn’t we?”

  “We also left a dead man.”

  “What the hell, he was going to shoot me! Am I supposed to stand around and just get shot?”

  “You’re trigger-happy,” Weasel said.

  “Look, I already been shot once, thanks, and I don’t want no more holes in me. If a guy’s ready to plug me, am I supposed to stand around and sing ‘The Star-Spangled Banner’? That’s for the birds, man.”

  “The watchman was scared crapless,” Weasel said. “He wasn’t going to shoot.”

  “That’s what you say. You was safe on the landing. How the hell do you know what he would or wouldn’t have done? I’d have been the one got shot, not you. What the hell do you care how I bleed?”

  “Don’t get snotty with me, punk,” Weasel said. “I pick my teeth with punks like you.”

  “That’s what the watchman thought, too,” I said, and all at once the car was very quiet. I listened to the silence, and I wondered if they were scared of me, and just wondering it made me feel a little like a big shot.

  “Well,” Weasel said, backing off, “don’t be so trigger-happy. Mr. Carfon don’t like it.”

  “If he don’t like it,” I said, “he can tell me so himself.” And that was the end of that.

  We dumped the furs where we were supposed to, and then we split up, and I didn’t get word from Mr. Carfon until the next day. It was Andy who called me.

  “Hello, Frankie,” he said. “What are you doing?”

  “I was sleeping.”

  “Well, get some clothes on. I’ll be over in about ten minutes.”

  “What’s the scoop?”

  “Mr. Carfon wants to see you.”

  “Oh?”

  “Yeah, make it snappy.”

  I got dressed and waited for Andy, who came by in about a half-hour and not the ten minutes he promised. When I went down to the car, I was disappointed Celia wasn’t with him, but then I realized she wouldn’t be alo
ng with him every place he went. He didn’t say a word on the drive downtown. We sat side by side like two dummies.

  It was Turk Fenton who opened the door to Mr. Carfon’s place. He was wearing a blue gab that made my mouth water. He smiled his dopey kind of grin and then said, “Come in, boys. Mr. Carfon’s tied up on a long-distance call, but he shouldn’t be too long.” He took us into the living room, and then left us and went into Mr. Carfon’s office.

  “What’s his story?” I asked.

  “No story,” Andy said.

  “How come Celia didn’t know him?”

  “He’s from Chicago,” Andy said. “Him and Mr. Carfon used to be in business together a long time ago. Mr. Carfon felt he could use him in our operation, and so he sent for him. He’s only been with us maybe three months.”

  “He’s a pretty big man, ain’t he?”

  “Sure.”

  “I thought there was room at the top,” I said. “If Mr. Carfon needed somebody, how come he had to go outside the organization?”

  “There is room at the top,” Andy said. “And you ask too many questions.”

  “How else you going to learn?” I said.

  “Okay, then let me spell something simple. Mr. Carfon took Turk in because he needed help in Chicago. Turk is a really big man there. So if we get Turk, we also get what we need in the windy city. Clear?”

  “Very clear. And do we have what we need now?”

  “We have it.”

  “Then why does he still hang on to Turk?”

  “Turk’s a good man.”

  “He seems like he’s in a fog.”

  “Don’t let him fool you. He’s a shrewd operator.”

  “I’m from Missouri,” I told him, and just then the door to Mr. Carfon’s office opened and he came out smiling.

  “Hello, boys,” he said, and then he came over and shook hands with both of us, the gold tooth showing in his mouth, just off center. “You don’t mind if we sit here in the living room, do you? I’ve been on the telephone all morning, and a change is as good as a rest, they tell me.” He chuckled and then took a cigarette from a box on the coffee table. Andy started to light it for him, but Mr. Carfon sort of pooh-poohed him aside and lit his own cigarette.

  “Now then, Frankie,” he said, and he turned to me and smiled for just a second, and then the smile dropped from his mouth, the gold tooth turned off like a busted neon sign. “Tell me about last night.”

  “We got the furs,” I said.

  “That’s not what I want to know.”

  “Well, what do you want to know?”

  “I should have thought you’d learned by now that a person who fences with me is liable to get cut. Surely, Frankie, we can have a conversation without this senseless parry and thrust.”

  “All right,” I said. “I shot the watchman.”

  “Yes. Why?”

  “He was going to shoot me.”

  “How do you know?”

  “He had a gun in his hand, and the gun was pointed at me. I don’t think people point guns unless they plan to shoot.”

  “Dubious reasoning,” Mr. Carfon said. “Did you stop to consider what far-reaching consequences your impetuous act might have brought?”

  “I don’t know what you mean,” I said. I really didn’t.

  “Do you realize,” Mr. Carfon said slowly, “that cooling the watchman could have brought the police down on our asses?”

  “No.”

  “Well, start using that frigging head of yours,” Mr. Carfon said. “I told you I don’t go for unnecessary bloodshed. I also seem to recall a certain displeasure on your part concerning the entire subject of wanton killing. Your stand seems to have reversed itself. If you are now intent on using that gun of yours, we’ll see that you get plenty of opportunity. But not on a simple caper like the one last night. Is that clear?”

  “It was self-defense,” I said.

  “Is that clear?” Mr. Carfon said.

  “It was self-defense,” I repeated.

  Mr. Carfon moved over to me with that quick, light motion, reaching down for my lapels and pulling me off the couch. He held me right close to his face and he said, “I asked you a question, Frankie. I asked if you understood what I was telling you. I asked if it was entirely clear in your mind. I expect an answer.”

  “What was the question?” I said.

  Mr. Carfon suddenly slapped me. He kept holding my lapels in one hand, and the other hand lashed out and caught me on the right cheek.

  “Hey …”

  “Go ahead, reach for your gun,” Mr. Carfon said.

  “I wasn’t going to reach for no gun.”

  “That’s smart,” Mr. Carfon said. “Now just remember that you’re not to reach for a gun ever, unless you’re told to. Or unless it’s perfectly clear that your life or the welfare of any particular caper is at stake. Is that clear?”

  “Yes, that’s clear.”

  “If you want to use a gun, we’ve got a lot of little jobs that require one. Isn’t that so, Turk?”

  “A lot of little jobs,” Turk said, nodding stupidly.

  “Why don’t you let go my coat?” I said to Mr. Carfon.

  For a minute, I thought he was going to slap me again. He looked as if he was trying to decide. Finally, he let go of my lapels and smiled. I’ll tell you the truth, it’s a good thing he did. Because I was pretty pissed off by this time, and if he’d have slapped me one more time, I’d have slugged him and then mopped up the floor with every son of a bitch in the room. I don’t like being pushed around, and bigger guys than Mr. Carfon have tried it and found out Frankie Taglio don’t take nothing from nobody.

  “You’ve got spirit,” he said dryly. “I think it might be a mistake to break that spirit.”

  “It might be a big mistake,” I said, because I was still pissed off and I was just about getting ready to walk out on Mr. Carfon and his big-shot organization that took care of the man on the bottom by slapping him around.

  “You’re new in this business,” Mr. Carfon said.

  “That’s right,” I told him. I was real sore now, and he could see it.

  “You’re not stupid, Frankie. I know you’ll understand me when I say it doesn’t pay to have trouble over a few thousand dollars. Last night’s caper was a very simple thing, and it shouldn’t have involved a killing. When corpses are necessary, you’ll know about it. But they are not necessary on a penny-ante deal. Would you like a cigarette?”

  “All right,” I said, but I said it nasty so he’d know I was still sore and wasn’t going to be taken in by all this buddy-buddy crap. He handed me the cigarette box, and I took one, and then he lit it for me.

  “And do we understand each other, Frankie?”

  “We understand each other real fine,” I said.

  “If you like to use your gun—”

  “I didn’t say I like to—”

  “If you like to use your gun,” he said over my voice, “we’ll see that you use it. But let us decide when and where it’s to be used.”

  I didn’t say anything.

  “Please,” Mr. Carfon added, and he smiled politely.

  “Okay,” I said.

  “We are agreed?”

  I shrugged, and then I smiled back. “We are agreed,” I said.

  “Good. On the whole, you did very well last night. I think you’re going to work out fine. Now then, Andy?”

  “Yes, Mr. Carfon?”

  “I’ve got a little errand for you. I hope you don’t mind.”

  “Not at all, Mr. Carfon.”

  “There’s a drop on Lenox and 133rd. A man named Keller runs it. I suspect Mr. Keller has been dipping into the till. I’d like you to talk to Mr. Keller and advise him that such petty horse manure can very well lead to a fractured skull. Would you do that for me, Andy?”

  “Certainly,” Andy said.

  “I’d send Frankie along with you, just to watch, but I’d like him to get some new clothes. You do look rather shabby, Frankie, if
you don’t mind my saying so.” He chuckled. “Not exactly Madison Avenue.” He chuckled again. “Turk?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Give Frankie some money from petty cash, won’t you? Several hundred should cover it. Frankie, need I send someone with you, or can I rely on your inherent good taste?”

  “I think I can manage,” I said, smiling.

  “Fine.” He turned to Andy. “How long do you suppose you’ll be with Mr. Keller?”

  “Hour or two. I don’t know.”

  “No rough stuff, Andy. Just a friendly chat. Will you call me when you’re through?”

  “Sure.”

  “Use the private number, will you?”

  “All right. Just one thing, Mr. Carfon.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Well, after I talk to Keller. Was there anything else? I was planning on maybe going to a ball game this afternoon.”

  “Go right ahead.”

  “Thanks,” Andy said. “I’ll go straight from Keller’s place.”

  “I won’t need you at all today, Frankie,” Mr. Carfon said. “Get your clothes. I’ll keep in touch with you.”

  Turk handed me some loot, and I thanked him and stuck it in my pocket. I shook hands with Mr. Carfon, and then me and Andy left.

  Downstairs, Andy said, “You want to meet me later, come along to the game?”

  “No, I don’t think so.”

  “Gonna be a good game.”

  “No. Thanks, anyway.”

  “Well, what’re you gonna do with your time?”

  “Knock around. I’ll find something to do.”

  “Don’t get in no trouble,” Andy said. “You going uptown, I’ll give you a lift.”

  “No, I think I’ll head for the men’s stores downtown.”

  “Don’t buy nothing loud,” Andy said. “Mr. Carfon don’t like nothing loud. I’ll see you.”

  He walked to his car, and I watched him drive off, thinking about what he’d said. He’d kill an hour or two with Keller, and then he was going to the ball game. I could do all the shopping I had to do later. That would wait. For now, there was something else that had to be done.

  I caught a cab and headed up to see Celia.