Mackie made a show of brandishing the .22, except it wasn't the kind of gun you could really brandish. A snub .22 wasn't worth shit beyond a couple feet. Crappy aim, hardly any kick. It wasn't any good at all unless you held it right up to a man's temple when you pulled the trigger, the way Jonah did it.
Chase stepped back, not all that worried, still coughing and having a hard time swallowing.
“Well?” Mackie said. “What's your con? You're good enough to figure out our grift, but you don't mind us knowing you're trying to beat us with a lot of the same moves. Using my own planted cards against me, you prick? You've even managed to hold your own against Boze. Almost nobody can do that. If you were just after the money, you would've tried to walk out by now.”
“I'm new in town,” Chase said, his voice gruff and weak. “I'm looking to hook up with a new string, pull in a couple of scores.”
“Why should we believe that?”
Asking about Dex wouldn't get him anywhere at the moment. If they did know him, they'd deny it until they got Chase into focus. It was going to take time and at least a modicum of trust. Chase stood there, trying to keep himself from thinking about a dead boy in a lagoon.
“I'm a driver.”
“You're giving us back our two grand.”
“Like hell.”
“Like hell you will, you—”
Then, staring over Chase's shoulder, Mackie's expression shifted to one of surprise and he shook his head hard.
Too late, Chase heard Tons rushing up behind him. Had it really taken the guy this long to get to his feet? Jesus Christ, the dude really was slow. No time to do anything now except begin to turn, try to roll the fat guy over his hip, but no, it wasn't going to work. Tons behind him, a punk with a gun out front, a hot chick playing all the angles and waiting for the fallout, he'd lost control pretty damn quick.
Jonah told him to get out the switchblade.
Tony Tons didn't even try to throw a punch, just hurled himself across Chase's back, driving him forward. It hurt like a son of a bitch and Chase tried to let out a shout, but the sound was tight and hardly a squeak.
Covering up as best he could, Chase fell into Mackie and the two of them smashed into a night-stand, destroying it. The popgun went off.
Chase didn't feel any pain, but a hot splash jetted across his hands. He hoped it wasn't his own blood.
Howling like a wounded water buffalo, Tons rolled around on the floor, only half a pinkie now on his left hand. Chase and Mackie wrestled for the gun, and Jonah said it again, louder than if he'd been behind Chase and saying it directly into his ear, The knife, forget the goddamn popper, use the knife.
Chase chopped at Mackie's throat and enjoyed the abbreviated squawk of pain that it brought up from the guy. Good, see how you like it, fucker. Mackie's grip loosened and Chase snagged the pistol and rolled to his feet.
If Hildy had wanted to, she could've shot him in the back, but he hoped she was swinging to his side now. He turned to look at her and she smirked at him. The sudden thought struck him, There it is, that smirk is what's going to get me in to see Dex.
Still wailing, Tons clambered off the floor and came straight at him once more.
Chase said, “Hey, quit it,” but didn't point the .22
at the guy for fear it might go off again and do more damage this time. Tons didn't notice one way or the other. He spun in circles, lifting his knees pretty high for a tubby guy, doing a rain dance in place, blood squirting all over.
Chase had been wrong. Tony Tons wasn't the muscle. He was just the stupid younger brother, the stupid- ass boyhood buddy that the others dragged around. The loyal dumb dog. Tons kept hiking his knees, his heart hammering, the blood pumping worse because of it.
“Cool it,” Chase said. He looked at Hildy and Mackie, who remained motionless, and thought, Well, they sure don't give a fuck about the guy. Chase let out a small groan thinking he was going to have to tie off the chopped- sausage pinkie before Tons bled out. “Quit moving around. Settle down.”
Boze had been in the doorway for the last minute or two, just watching. Now he entered the room, walked to Tony Tons, and said, “Stop jumping around, you're painting the room!” Tons quit hopping about and Boze sighed, tied the finger stump off with a sock he got from the dresser drawer, and glanced around the place. “Everybody check around, we have to find the fucking finger, see if they can stitch it back on.”
Tons found it himself, hanging from the broken lampshade on the floor. Boze told Tons to stick it in a bag and then stick the bag in ice. He said it twice, and took the time to explain himself. “If you just stick it in ice, you'll freeze the nerve endings and they won't be able to do anything with it.”
Mackie said, “If we take him to the hospital, the gunshot wound will be reported.”
“A .22 in the pinkie isn't going to look like a gunshot wound. We'll tell them he was messing around with firecrackers and blew it off with an M-80.”
Chase thought, This is definitely not going the way I expected.
He pocketed the .22 and, once the pistol was out of sight, Mackie started to puff his chest out again. “That's mine. I want it back.”
“Quit it,” Boze said. “Enough with the rough-necking. He's bent like us. First we'll talk. Who knows, maybe we can use him.”
“What? Why? We don't know anything about this character. And shit, you could've helped me out in here, you know. Where the hell were you?”
“You're the one set him off by laying hands on the girl.”
“So what!”
“We're out of ice!” Tons shouted.
“So, we know plenty,” Boze said. “He's smart. He's tough but not too nasty a character. While you had your thumb up your ass he was actually trying to help Tons. He's got something else going on and needs us in order to get into position. Until then, we own him. If he's any good, we can use him.” He turned to Chase. “You want in with us, you start by kicking back the money.”
“That's just not done,” Chase said.
“You weren't here to score cash anyway. You were here to take a look at us and see if we can give you what you want, right? Since you're still here, we obviously can. You want to try to run a play on us, that's fine. It's the world we live in.”
Chase was impressed with the little speech, and found himself a little worried by how sharp Boze was. The four- card lift had already alerted him that Boze was a very focused, patient man.
“We're out of ice!” Tons shouted.
Boze said to Hildy, “You brought him here. He caught you fleecing him?”
“Yeah, he caught me but let it ride. He followed me to the mall, boosted everything in the Mercury, then grabbed my purse.”
“How much did you take off him?”
“Fifty.”
“What'd he get off you?”
“Thirteen, fourteen hundred. And like I said, what was in the car.”
It got Boze smiling again, made him wag his chin at Chase. “All of that you return. You keep your fifty. We start square or we don't start at all.”
Chase said, “The clock never resets to zero.” He emptied the .22 onto the floor, kicked the bullets aside, and tossed the gun on the bed. He took out the thirty- four hundred and peeled off half the cash and tossed it next to the .22. “You can take back half the paper and everything that was in the Merc.”
“For a guy who's new in town, looking to make friends, you sure like to push buttons.”
“We're the same breed. I'm a thief. I worked my play against three of you tonight and I won. Respect the experience.”
“You still at the hotel where she put the touch on you?”
“Yeah.”
“We're out of ice!” Tons shouted.
“Stay there, we'll contact you. But first, let me get this guy's fucking finger reattached.”
Chase called Georgie Murphy, gave him the names of Hildy's crew, and asked for them to be checked out. Georgie was distracted by a lady trying to return a Mazda Miata t
hat she said rattled whenever her daughter drove it over 40 mph. The daughter was there in the office, speaking very little despite her mother's constant attempts to get her to explain the situation. It was clear to both Georgie and Chase that the girl had fucked up the Mazda and couldn't manage to tell her mother the truth.
Georgie, who was usually a little remote, kept putting the phone down to try to talk sense to the woman, who was becoming more and more shrill. Chase heard stuff hitting the floor. The lady was getting wild. Her daughter started to cry. Georgie spoke gently to the girl trying to make her 'fess up. Mom banged her fist on the desk or the wall or something.
Chase hung up and called the Deuce. Deuce jotted down the names but said very little. Chase asked about Deuce's wife and felt his scalp prickle when Deucie let go with a small hiccup of a sob. He thought the wife must have died until Deuce let loose with a giggle and Chase realized the guy was a little drunk.
The Deuce said, “She had to go back into the hospital a couple days ago, but they finally fixed whatever was wrong. She's like an ox, that woman. Looks like one too. She rototilled the whole goddamn backyard, wants to start raising her own vegetables. To be healthy, right? We can't take vitamins, gotta eat asparagus and string beans. Can't buy them from the store, she's gotta go be Mrs. Farmer Brown, and you know what that makes me. She's just like her mother. At death's door for six minutes, then she's ready to run a marathon.”
“I'm glad she's doing better.”
“She's doing great, and I'm going to be puking asparagus for the next six months. Still it's a miracle. We're a blessed breed.”
Chase waited a five beat and said, “Who?”
“Us. Thieves. You know why?”
Another fiver. “Why, Deuce?”
“Because the last kind words spoken to Christ were by a thief, up there on their crosses.”
Chase thought, He's really been pouring it down.
“Any news about the Langans?”
“They buried Lenny, now everybody's in mourning. Their pie's already being divvied up. The other families are working deals left and right with the Koreans, the Russians, the Thais. You know they got Thai gangs now? Who the fuck ever heard of such a thing? Anyway, last I heard, they're mostly packed up for their move to Chi, but they're keeping a couple of local places, bought a mansion out on Long Island. And they're fighting back here and there, got some good hitters. A lot of blood is running, but it's mostly contained.”
“Jackie still alive?”
“Why wouldn't he be?”
“His sister's going to cap him.”
“Yeah? Well, probably not the worst thing that can happen to the Langans or the world at large.”
“Just keep sharp.”
“Me?” He broke with a burping sob, chuckled low and a bit wildly. “Hell, I'm a razor.”
Deuce called back the next afternoon. As Chase suspected, there was nothing on Hildy's crew. They were too low- class, off the map. Deuce told him that neither Dex nor Jonah had resurfaced yet. They were either working a score or they were on the run because of the fallout from the murder.
Chase said, “Jonah doesn't run.”
A half hour later Georgie phoned. He told Chase that he'd heard back from a few folks that somebody was making inquiries into Chase's and Jonah's whereabouts.
“Who is it?”
“I don't know yet. I can't track it back. Guys I know pass it on to me, but they get it from friends of friends, pick up word in a bar, hear something when they're dragged in by the cops for a few hours, and it meanders back to people I have no idea about.”
Chase took a shot. “Feebs?”
“No, I don't think so. Seems to me this guy's in the life. Just runs with a different string. I've been trying to lock it down but these people, they don't act like they should. They don't do things the old way.”
“Nobody does.”
“Except us and the people who taught us.”
Chase asked, “Whatever happened with that lady and her daughter from yesterday?”
Talking about the dealership, they didn't need a code. Georgie could let it all out. “Goddamn nasty witch started to pull out the wires on my computer. The daughter was terrified of the bitch, and I can't blame her. I was scared too, almost called in Dunkirk from the garage, guy's six-foot-four, can bench press three- fifty. But I was worried she might hurt him and send him out on workman's comp. I finally just let her trade the Miata in. The daughter must've been letting her boyfriend plow her down at the beach. The undercarriage was dinged to shit and there was sand and salt trails covering the crankshaft. If that lady shows up again then I don't give a shit, I'm sending Dunkirk after her. With a sap. From behind.”
Hildy showed up at Chase's door two days later. She came in, sat on his bed, and said, “Man, I've never seen a flash entrance like yours before. I've seen a lot of different kinds, but nothing like that one. You just bulled your way right into our lives, toughing it out.” She looked in his face, saw the slight bruises around his eyes. “You don't seem too worse for wear either. Mackie usually does more damage.”
Chase didn't know what to say to that, so he let it pass.
Sunlight poured across her knees. ”Well, despite all the shit you started, Boze still likes you. It's your brazen attitude, he says. Slick, but gutsy, and you're good at cards. That works in your favor so far as he's concerned. He respects anybody who can steal a pot from him.”
Chase leaned against the dresser and crossed his arms. “One-on-one he would've crushed me. The others actually held him back during the game. He'd be better off without them.”
“They're foster brothers. All three of them were orphaned early and taken in by an elderly couple of Bible- beaters. They ran some kind of boys’ home, did charity work at a halfway house for ex- cons. That's where the three of them picked up a lot of grift sense. Well, Boze and Mackie did. Tons just does whatever they tell him to do.”
“He's not even good for muscle.”
“No, not much. He's stupid. But Boze is loyal to him. He's like that. He latches on to people. He thought it was funny how you picked up on the loaded jacket and started using his own planted aces against him. He waited and watched but you still managed to pull them when he wasn't expecting it. You've got good hands, he says. Mackie and Tons wanted to break in here and kick the shit out of you, but Boze talked them out of it.”
“Mackie gave nearly as well as he got, and it was his fault that the other guy lost his pinkie anyway.”
“They don't see it that way,” Hildy said, shrugging, her breasts giving a little bounce, “and they're still pissed about the money, but it doesn't really matter. We've got a job, and we need a driver. You interested?”
“Sure.”
“Good.”
She lay back on the bed and went through a rapid variety of provocative poses. Lifting her knees so he could see the tanned muscular thighs, the powerful contours of her legs, dipping her toes out in the air as if it was a cool lake. She flapped the hem of her blouse so her midriff was exposed. Pierced belly button with two blue stones on show.
For a moment Hildy studied him, then shook her head. “Aren't you going to ask me?”
“Ask you what?”
“If I'm sleeping with Mackie. Or any of them.”
Chase said, “No.”
“There's something about you—”
“It's my lonely eyes.”
“They're not lonely. They're mean.”
“I was told they were lonely.”
“Whoever told you that was lying.”
Now she'd get to the real reason why she was here. To dig up whatever she could on him. He had no doubt that they'd already riffled his car, but unless they took it apart, they weren't going to find the cash and there was nothing else worthwhile in the Goat. The gym bag with his burglar tools and the extra ID and cash was hidden in the air vent. It was a good spot, hardly anybody ever checked there even though all you needed was to take out two screws. She'd try to seduce him
and when he fell asleep or took a shower she'd go through the room. Until then, she'd keep him talking and try to get him to give something away.
“Why us?” she asked. “Why'd you home in on me?”
“I didn't. You homed in on me.”
“Only because you had a bull's- eye on your back.”
“Yeah, and you just happened to be the first one to give it a go.”
“What kind of talk is that, give it a go? That the real reason?”
“Yes,” he admitted.
“So you haven't been in town long.”
Shit, she'd played him on that one. “Have you?” he asked.
“Born and raised.”
“So what are you doing on the grift? You could do a lot better for yourself. You've got the looks and the sharpness to keep out of the life. Shouldn't you be a beach bunny, sitting on the sand in a bikini, out dating surfer dudes?”
“Is that what you think I want?” she asked.
“I suppose the answer is no.”
“You almost sound sad.”
It did bother him a touch. She was just a kid, and running lowball scams was only going to get her picked up by the cops or run down by the bigger crews. The bruises on her arm looked painful. He did wonder if she was shacked with Mackie or one of the others, or all three. It worried him imagining her picking the wrong guy's pocket and getting beaten or raped or worse for it. She was smart and sexy and already on borrowed time. Looking at her he thought about Kylie. In sixteen years this would be Kylie if she stayed with Jonah. Living in shit motels, on the run, hip but uneducated, sophisticated but cultured only in the bent life. He thought, This is really why I'm here, to save Kylie from this.
“Do you have anything to drink around here?” Hildy asked.
“Sorry, no.”
It made her smile and twist her hair aside, showing off the throat again, the hint of freckles. “You're a different one, all right.”
“Because I don't drink?”
“Because you're after something and you won't let yourself be distracted from it, not by anything.”
He had a good poker face for the boys but not for the girls. He had to work on that. He cocked his head at her, started to ask something, but she shifted her legs again, showing off the dimpled knees.
The Coldest Mile Page 14