The Coldest Mile

by Tom Piccirilli

  His mouth filled again and he spit more blood. The tooth hurt. He embraced the pain. He walked down the block, opened the front door of the club, and walked in.

  Sherry Langan sat at a table with Kylie on her lap, a glass of what was probably Glenlivet in front of her, the little girl playing with one of Sherry's diamond earrings.

  The Langans didn't kill kids.

  They sold them.

  Jonah was having a beer with Bishop.

  Bishop was laughing, holding his .44 loosely in one hand. The wrist where Chase had stabbed him had healed up with hardly a trace of a scar. Two knee breakers were nearby, flanking the old man. Jonah was grinning, doing a bad job of acting normal but much better than Chase had been expecting. He held the beer to his chest with his right hand, not drinking. His left was cupped to his leg, hiding the pop .22. They hadn't frisked him. Jonah wouldn't have allowed that, which was why Bishop was right on top of him.

  Arno and his entourage weren't around. Moe Irvine wasn't around either. Chase wondered if that meant Moe was dead too. That once Sherry Langan and Bishop started down their road together, they couldn't stop punching tickets.

  Chase recognized Elkins, the thug he'd fought in Jackie's office. The one who'd paid the hitters on the street. So he was number two under Bishop. Chase had worked grease into the guy's eyes and yanked his .357. Good. When things went bad, he'd stick close to Elkins. The goon carried heavy hardware.

  Bishop looked over at Chase and called, “Hey there!”

  No need to be rude. Chase waved. Bishop was having a good time, trying to have a little fun with the old man before pulling the trigger.

  As Chase stood there, Elkins came over and searched him for guns.

  The other knee breaker doing nothing but wearing mirror shades and trying to look suave in a newly bought Hawaiian shirt.

  “Miss Langan would like to talk to you,” Elkins said.

  “Did she ice Moe?” Chase asked, curious for some reason.

  “Moe saw the writing on the wall and split for Israel.”

  “You should've too.”

  Chase moved to the table and sat across from Sherry. Elkins and the other thug covered both him and Jonah. Kylie was enraptured by Sherry's earring and didn't look up at Chase. He wanted her attention, wanted her to smile at him, but he had to fight to hold steady, to keep focused on Sherry Langan, who was watching him with her cruel, hot, amused eyes, one hand stroking Kylie's hair.

  “You're not surprised to see me,” Sherry said.

  “No.”

  “Not even interested in knowing why I'm sitting here with your … aunt… isn't it?”

  Still brushing through Kylie's hair, the thin wisps of veins in Sherry's hands hidden now beneath sunburn. She'd been here a day or two already, out on the beach.

  “I already know why.”

  “It's not the money you stole,” she said.

  “I never thought it would be.”

  “It's not even because of the disrespectful way you treated me.”

  Yes, it was, assuming she meant the fact that he hadn't fucked her.

  Chase waited.

  “It's because you chose to warn my brother.”

  No, it wasn't, but let her tell her lies, it was all she had to live with. “Jackie was a moron. You ought to be ashamed of yourself for acing him. He was no challenge to you.”

  “He was becoming a liability. Even my mother knew that. She didn't warn him. She understood. We've lost enough respect over the years. I can't afford to waste any more. I already have to deal with many of my father's former business associates, so many of them stealing from our pockets and playing golf during working hours, the ones you mentioned back in Jersey, who were causing so much more trouble. It's now time for the Langan name to regain its esteem.”

  Jesus Christ, she said it like she meant it. Chase caught a glimpse of his watch. He figured, maybe three or four minutes left. Maybe not that many.

  “So you're through wowing the politicians’ wives with your insights on Ibsen?”

  “Your grandfather gave you up,” Sherry said. “He's turning his back on you.”

  “I know.”

  “All he wants is his daughter.”

  “I know.”

  “And I believe him. I don't think he's simply fooling us in order to save you at the last minute.”

  “No, that wouldn't be his style. But if you hurt her, he'll kill everyone in this place.”

  “He said we wouldn't have to come looking for you. He said you wouldn't run, that you'd walk right inside even though we had nothing over you.”

  “You do,” Chase told her.

  “Because you care about children. And poor innocent women new to our shores. That's why you involved yourself with my merchandise. I found Ivanka working with a competitor and persuaded her to tell me the truth.”

  Chase nodded. Not much else to do.

  She lifted her chin and gestured at his pulped mouth. “Did your grandfather do that to you?”

  “Yeah.”

  “He offered to kill you for us. He doesn't like you much.”

  “He doesn't like anybody. Did you offer him a job?”

  “Yes, as a matter of fact.”

  “And he turned you down. He only works for himself.”

  Lila in his head telling him, Oh sweetness, she's so precious, this Kylie girl.

  “Did you change her?” Chase asked.

  Sherry bounced Kylie a touch. “She's not wearing a diaper.”

  “Right, I forgot, she's toilet trained. Looks like Clarke did a pretty good job of babysitting.”

  “He's a foolish boy. I offered him money for helping to set you up, but he refused. He seemed to think he was getting revenge for a lost love.”

  So Ellie Raymond had wrapped Clarke around her finger and promised him the world, the same way she'd promised a couple other guys in her crew. Clarke, kidnapping a kid and murdering Little Walt, all for a woman who would've eventually gotten him killed.

  Sherry reached for her Glenlivet, took a sip, and held the glass against her bottom lip, the same way she had in the back of the limo. She was furious but also entertained. The heavily electrified atmosphere between them nearly crackled with blue flame. She wanted to stretch this out as far as she could. He was the safest guy in the room because she hated him the most.

  “So what should I do with you?” Sherry asked.

  “You want my opinion? You should give the girl back to the old man. You should let me leave, and you should go take over the Chicago rackets.”

  “You think I can't?”

  “I think you can, if you keep your eye on the prize. Taking the time out to snuff Jackie and come all the way down here just so you could toy with me shows me that you're pretty easily distracted. But I can understand it. I've been distracted lately too.”

  A laugh started low in Sherry's throat and kind of just hung there, never really leaving. Sophisticated, but with a slight taint of debauchery. He wondered if she could hear it.

  She drew away from the table and crossed her legs. Still giving him a show of her best feature, still hoping for a reaction. What, he was going to flop on the floor, crawl to her ankle, kiss her calf? Maybe he should give it a go.

  “When I say the word these gentlemen are going to beat you to death.”

  “Bringing back the old- school charm to the Langan outfit, huh? Figured you might want to do me yourself. Take Bishop's .44 and put my lights out.”

  “Slower and more amusing the other way.”

  “Like I said, you're too distracted, Sherry.”

  Elkins slapped Chase in the back of the head. Just a little eye- opener, nothing too mean. Sort of ridiculous, really, when you considered the situation, but these people were all about the drama.

  “Still got your pistol on you?” he asked.

  Sherry Langan, almost sweet in her own strange way, gave a lovely smile. Seeing her again, he felt the same way he had the first time. You couldn't call her beautiful, or
even pretty really, but there was something about her that made you look twice. “Always.”

  “Good,” he said. “You ever find yourself a real driver?”

  “No, but Elkins makes for a passable chauffeur.”

  Chase turned to the mook. “Yeah? You wear the hat and gloves?”

  Elkins, abashed.

  “You poor bastard.” The edges of Chase's ears started to twitch, hearing what he'd been listening for. He looked back at Sherry Langan and told her, “He's probably not good enough behind the wheel to get you out of here unless you leave now.” Sirens broke in the distance. “See, I called the cops.”

  His grandfather looked over at him like he was insane. Bishop quit grinning. Everyone spooked because they hadn't gotten a chance to say their big speeches yet, run out their plans, get all that they wanted. Chase shrugged. His mouth was still leaking and he spit on the floor. “Never follow someone else's rules.”

  Elkins went, “Fuck.” The other strongarm immediately panicked and moved out of position. He locked the front door.

  Jonah, not exactly trigger- happy but still always the first on the trigger, raised the .22 toward Bishop's face. Just covering himself, making sure nobody got the drop on him in a time of frenzy. But Bishop hurled his beer glass at the old man and whipped his .44 around to fire. Both of them moved away from each other on the run, ducking behind empty tables, aiming but neither one shooting. Jonah crouched, dipped and came up holding a 9mm in each hand.

  Elkins flexed his knees like a kid doing a gotta-piss dance, looking at Sherry for orders. Kylie finally glanced up at the sound of the sirens and stared directly into Chase's face. She held her hand out to him, offering the diamond earring. He felt something inside himself shatter. He couldn't help himself and reached for her.

  Sherry tugged the girl back, the black- hearted bitch.

  She said to Chase, “What did you tell the police?”

  “That someone was being murdered.”

  The diamond earring caught enough light that sparkles moved across Kylie's face and glittered in her eyes. She held it out to him again and cooed and spoke baby jabber.

  Elkins and the other leg breaker wanted to cheese it. They sighted down on Jonah and Chase halfheartedly, but nobody wanted to pull a trigger with two cruisers pulling up out front. It was kind of ludicrous, but then again everything felt that way lately.

  Sherry nodded to Elkins and said, “Go start the limo. Be smart and stay relaxed. If you run, you know there's nowhere on earth you can hide from me.”

  Elkins rushed out the back door, probably wondering if he could crew up with Moe in Israel.

  “This has nothing to do with me,” Jonah said. “Give me my girl.”

  Bishop, eyeing Chase with some real disgust for calling in the police instead of handling things on his own, said, “Let's go, Sherry.”

  “No, not yet.”

  “He's a snuff case, he doesn't care if he lives or dies. It's time.”

  “Not just yet.”

  Jonah slid forward as the cops started moving up the sidewalk. The police started hammering at the door. They paused and then banged some more. Maybe they thought it was a put- on, some teenager making a fake 911 call. Chase thought maybe he should've phoned the fire department instead. Better response time, more sirens and vehicles, and they would've just smashed the door in with an ax.

  Sherry pointed the .38 at Chase and he almost burst out laughing, suddenly filled with the need for action, as far away from the cold spot as he could get.

  He rose and dodged into Bishop's arms, like they were about to do some serious ballroom dancing. They whirled around, Chase getting a tight hold on the slippery bastard, knowing Sherry and the other thug weren't going to be able to get a bead on him now. Hoping that Jonah wouldn't cut loose for the hell of it despite his baby being here. Hoping Sherry wasn't going to hurt the girl either.

  His voice almost agitated now, Jonah said, “My kid. Give her to me.” He sighted both 9mms on Sherry's face, maybe two inches above Kylie's head.

  The knee breaker sighted on Jonah and figured he had to earn his pay somehow, took some initiative in a tense situation and let loose with a shot. Sherry shouted something, but she was way too late as Jonah spun, didn't even seem to aim with his left hand, and blew out the guy's throat.

  The gunshot got the cops cranking. They'd be going around back now for sure.

  Jonah looked over at Kylie once, saw that Sherry Langan had her .38 trained on the girl, and the old man ran for the back door, leaving his daughter and his grandson to fend for themselves. Then there was plenty of gunfire out in the sun.

  Chase figured, two cruisers, four cops, a couple probably already wounded or dead, the others hunkered down, calling for backup. Response time was shit, but it would perk up now. Bishop had to know it too. He looked into Chase's eyes as they struggled and said, “You've got no class.”

  This from a torpedo who walked around with a blood- speckled shirt.

  “Tell me,” Chase said, burning time, squeezing Bishop's wrist hard and willing it to break, “when you're parked on Broadway, her face pressed to the window, you ever worry the tinted glass might not be dark enough and you'll scare the tourists?”

  “I should've taken you out in Jersey.”

  “You tried and couldn't.”

  Chase glanced over to make sure Kylie was okay. It opened him up and Bishop shrugged loose and started to raise the .44. Chase dug into his pocket, fast, he had to be faster. They got in tight again, both of them with their lips moving as if they were trying out some cute witty repartee in their heads first, but nothing was good enough to actually speak aloud.

  The barrel was almost level with Chase's chest. Bishop was going for a center shot, put a nice cannonball- sized hole right through the middle. Chase had the switchblade opened already in his right first, swept his left hand out to almost daintily push the .44 aside, like he was being proffered flowers he refused to accept, the speed back again so that Bishop could only stare in and grunt, knowing what was about to happen as Chase drove the point of the knife into Bishop's left eye.

  He dug it in deep, trying to sink it to the hilt in Bishop's brain. Sherry gasped. It was a sexy sound full of appetite. Bishop didn't shriek, just gave a short, gruff groan, his free hand already up and grabbing Chase's fingers, fighting to hold him in place. The gun angled toward Chase's groin this time.

  Chase snapped his left arm down and batted the gun aside a couple inches. Bishop's eye oozed across the blade, along his hand and down the handle and into Chase's fist. The gun went off and Chase felt an insane burning along his hip. His blood leaped from him.

  Bishop's legs gave out and he tumbled backward off the knife to land at Sherry's feet.

  “I told you that you wouldn't always be so strong and gritty,” Sherry Langan said, holding on to Kylie, almost nuzzling her like a new mother. The little girl silent, watching. The terror eating Chase now as he realized he'd failed again. He hadn't saved her. Hadn't gotten her away from the old man. He'd only delivered her into the hands of his own enemies. “That there'd be a time when your guts were gone. When you were dying and feeling every inch of it. You remember what else I told you?”

  “Yeah. That you wanted to be there to see it.”

  She smiled. “And I am.”

  “So, do you remember what I—” Chase said, but didn't get to finish before she shot him in the head.

  He dreamed.

  He dreamed he was alive and dreamed he was dead.

  Someone called his name and he moved toward it through the house he'd lived in as a child.

  You'd think with Lila dead, with Angie dead, with Ellie and Earl Raymond murdered by his hand, he might not always be drawn here. He might be in the Newark motel. The homes he'd shared with Lila in Mississippi and on Long Island.

  But always here, back with his dead parents, the unborn sibling.

  He opened his mouth to speak and heard his voice. He flinched at the sound of it, the harsh
inflection that was barely more than a hiss.

  “This is it, my last time.”

  The dead were packed tightly together in the garage. They milled in front of his father's sedan.

  He thought, They ought to be in the car. That's a better symbol. I get in the car and back it out and I nudge the gas, the car lifts off, we go flying into the sky.

  But no, they're all just here in the garage. No body moving anywhere. No speed or horsepower.

  The garage door shut, the sedan running. If he was going to suicide he wouldn't do it this way. Or were they telling him to get a move on, book out of there?

  No one spoke. He said nothing, even though now he finally could.

  I'm still alive, he thought, knowing he was lying.

  Here it is, he thought. Here I am.

  His unborn sibling wasn't among the others.

  He broke through their ranks and searched inside the car. He shut it down, grabbed the keys, and opened the trunk.

  The kid in there. The kid unfurled, got up close, put its arms around his neck and kissed him.

  He asked, What's it all mean? and the kid said with an even greater need, You're not done yet.

  Chase came out of it with his head wrapped in bandages and a nun sitting beside him. She was young and pretty and didn't have the whole big penguin with the huge hat deal going. But still, you see a nun in a hospital room and it's bound to be a bad sign.

  She asked if he was thirsty and fed him some ice chips. Doctors and nurses came in and out throughout the day, asking him a lot of questions to check his memory, telling him to do tests like touching his nose, following a penlight, tossing a tennis ball back and forth. He got the feeling they were just screwing with him.

  Turned out he had a fracture and a severe concussion, what they called a mild traumatic brain injury. The bullet had grazed his temple, taken out a thick furrow of hair and skin, and given him a hairline crack in his skull. He'd been out for almost a week with a subdural hematoma of the brain. The wound to the hip was stapled shut and baby pink.