$200 and a Cadillac

by Fingers Murphy

  “Thanks, son, that’ll do just fine. I just need a phone number where the state inspector can call you to confirm we did the inspection. I doubt they will. They pull random records now and then and require us to have contact info. You know how it is, always breathing down our got-damned necks.”

  “Sure.” The kid nodded again. Smiling. Relaxed as he told Victor his phone number. Then the kid threw it into gear and started pulling away.

  He crossed the parking lot slow and steady, like he didn’t have any reason to try to get away, like there was nothing at all to be worried about. Like he hadn’t just given his phone number to the guy who was trying to catch him.

  Victor watched him cross the lot, pause at the intersection, and then make a slow turn and disappear down the street. Victor started formulating plans for how to catch them red-handed. He could feel himself slipping back into the old mindset. Special Agent Victor Jones. Playing it cool. Staying one step ahead. Putting things in place for the big take down.

  A voice inside his head kept whispering the mantra that he’d stolen from a book by Eric Berne when he was a young psychology student at Rutgers. It was the same confident voice he used to hear in the old days, whenever he knew he’d finally found someone’s weakness and was going to exploit it, to crush the life out of the bad guys and prove he could get it done. The voice repeated, over and over: Now I’ve got you, you son of a bitch.

  XVIII

  Walking was bullshit.

  Hank had to get out and get a look at the houses in the file Janie gave him and he had to have a car to get it done. He went over to the mini-market again and came back with coffee and a doughnut and sat at the little table in his room, skimming the want ads for cars. There were only six for sale. He first choice was a newer Toyota, figuring it would be the most likely to run well. But he called and got no answer. The 1988 Honda Accord had already sold last month and the woman on the phone asked him why they’d run the ad a second time. Hank told her he didn’t know.

  Two of the ads were for older trucks, and the final ad was this:

  1984 IROC Z-28, runs good but needs work, bucket seats, T-top, killer tunes, bitchin wheels, $3k obo.

  When he called, the guy on the other end sounded like a stoned teenager who was shocked that his phone had rung that early in the morning. “What kind of work does it need?” Hank asked him.

  “Work?” The kid said it like it was a dirty word.

  “It says it runs good but needs work. What does that mean?”

  “Ah, shit man, you know, it ain’t perfect, but it’ll roast ’em halfway down the block. You know what I’m sayin? I just wouldn’t try to drive to Florida in it, that’s all.”

  Hank arranged for the kid to bring it by the Golden Dragon at noon and figured he had to buy it no matter what, it was the only car in town he could get his hands on that fast. Then he thought about how to pay for it. He still had most of the ten grand he’d brought with him in his bag, but he wasn’t sure pulling three thousand dollars out of his pocket was a good idea. In a small town, with people out of work, that kind of thing might draw attention. He could always have the kid drop him at the bank where he could run inside, just to make it look good.

  The one bank in town was a small Wells Fargo office. He’d noticed it when he was walking around the day before. Hank kept accounts at four of the nation’s largest banks to make sure he had access to an account nearly everywhere he went. The problem was that they were his accounts. While he had all the fake ID he needed, that didn’t help him because the bank accounts weren’t in the name on the fake ID. In large cities, that was never an issue, no one would ever put two and two together, but in a hole-in-the-wall like Nickelback with only a single bank, he might as well put up a sign pointing the FBI in the right direction.

  And it would be the FBI too. The pattern of dead witnesses would be too clear once they found Lugano. Which meant the best thing to do was ensure they never found him. If Lugano simply disappeared, it might take months before any officials ever noticed, if they ever noticed. People in the witness protection program were free to simply walk away from their protection. Hank was sure it happened on occasion. People just walked off, hit the road, and were never heard from again.

  Most people never realized how easy it was to disappear in America. What with work and family and credit histories and debts and obligations, it seemed there was information about people everywhere they turned. But all of that assumed that a person was participating in society, was playing along. But if a guy simply woke up one day and walked off into the desert without notifying anyone, would anyone really notice? Oh, sure, the family—if there was family—would be upset. What happened to so-and-so? they’d ask each other. And the finance company and Citibank would send bills that would never get paid, or that would start getting returned by the post office. Eventually a collection agency would make a few calls. When the police were finally notified they would say, but is there any evidence of foul play? People are free to do what they want. We can’t keep track of everyone who splits on their family. And then, after seven years, the law would presume they were dead. No fanfare. No funeral. Just a presumption and nothing more.

  It was easy.

  Hank sat in the lounge of the Golden Dragon, thinking about it, waiting for the kid with the car. The lounge was completely empty except for Hank and the bartender, who gave Hank a smile of recognition when he walked in. Hank sat at the bar, eating a plate of black pepper chicken and drinking a beer. He decided to skip the bank, figuring either way he would end up handing the kid a wad of hundreds. He could just tell the kid he went to the bank, what difference would it make?

  Although there were no windows, the lounge seemed brighter during the day, everything aglow in a stark, revealing light. The nicks in the edges of the tables jumped out at the casual observer. The stains contrasted against the gestalt of the carpet. There were no dim corners to sit in. The air was neither smoky nor filled with music of any kind. Hank watched the bartender rearrange the bottles of liquor and polish the mirror behind the bar and go around from table to table, setting each of them with a rigid cardboard sign listing the special bar menu of deep fried snacks.

  Hank turned his attention back to his plate and idly moved the salt and pepper shakers so they were in the exact center of the space between the top of his plate and the edge of the bar. And then he thought of Janie, who remarked about his obsessive nature the previous evening as he sat on the very same stool. Although he certainly noticed waking up alone, it wasn’t something he thought much about at the time. And he hadn’t had time to think about Janie much that morning.

  Instead he went to work. He had to get a car. He had to get the job done and get out of town. When he awoke alone, his only feeling of surprise was the realization that she managed to slip out without waking him. His usual alertness dulled by the beer and the banter and the exhausted feelings that came over him whenever he thought about his brother—how had that come up? He couldn’t remember now. He only hoped that slipping out was all she had done. It was unlikely she’d gone through his things, and, in fact, nothing seemed disturbed when he awoke. It was foolish to bring her back to the room. He knew it at the time. He told himself he shouldn’t, and yet he did.

  He had no good explanation for why and he wasn’t too interested in finding a reason. Hank had been killing people for a living for twenty-five years and long-winded reflection about the meaning and importance of human relationships was not something he engaged in lightly, and certainly not when on a job. Janie was attractive, smart, and she fell into his lap. Why not? That was the only question to ask. Why the hell not?

  But the answer came clear and simple: because it’s sloppy, because it’s dangerous, because that’s not the way the job is done. Get in. Get out. Nothing messy. In twenty-five years it had only happened twice before and each time the job went bad. Not because of the girl—not necessarily, anyway—but because he was distracted.

  There was Miami, 1980. It shou
ld have been simple. But he spent a late night throwing it to a Cuban cocktail waitress in his suite at the Intercontinental and just wasn’t paying attention the next day. An assignment to kill two skimming drug couriers erupted into a firefight in broad daylight. People were barricaded in opposite buildings and police helicopters circled overhead as bursts of automatic gunfire ricocheted off the buildings. It was only the utter chaos of the scene that permitted him to slip away.

  Then there was St. Louis, 1986. A runaway accountant with a suitcase full of Fazioli’s cash and a thousand dollar a day coke habit. He was easy to find and should have been easier to kill. But then there was the nineteen-year-old airline stewardess who wanted to be a porn star. Hank could still remember her snorting lines off his erection, smiling up at him, glassy eyed, wide-grinned, half-conscious, and willing to do anything. But two days later, when he found the accountant, his reactions were slow and he took a bullet in the shoulder before turning the accountant’s head inside-out. Hank remembered the long drive to Chicago with a hole in his shoulder, trying to hang on long enough to get to the family’s safe house, where a doctor could quietly be arranged. He’d managed to separate women and work for sixteen straight years since then. It was the only way to go. The only way to avoid trouble.

  It was the same reason he quit doing jobs in New York City. Doing jobs in his home town was distracting. Sure, he knew the streets better, knew his way around better, but that was a problem because he would try to go on memory. When the job was somewhere he’d never been before it made him extra cautious. It made him check all the angles, all the doors and windows, study the maps, notice the details. Besides, the last thing he wanted was to have the streets and alleys of the neighborhood he lived in littered with the memories of the dead. He was haunted enough as it was.

  So why had he done it? Hank stared at himself in the mirror behind the bar and knew the answer, but tried to suppress it, to push it from his mind. But it came nonetheless. He focused on the salt and pepper shakers, moving them apart slightly, then back together, looking for perfect balance. The bartender came over and took his plate and Hank ordered another beer. But the lounge was too sterile, too empty for good distraction.

  The moment returned to him again and again and he finally let it sweep him up. He was sitting in the old kitchen in Brooklyn, watching his mother answer the door at the end of the hallway. The knock had interrupted her frying chicken, and the sound of popping grease filled the air like static. He could see the brief flash of silver from the captain’s bars, the blue of the uniform and the white hat in the sunlight. He knew the message without hearing it. A hot feeling ran through him as he watched his mother crumble inward on herself, collapsing to the floor, framed in the doorway with the officer trying to comfort her as he had no doubt tried to comfort many others. The entire memory was silent but for the white noise of the cast iron skillet sizzling away behind him on the stove.

  And then there was another noise behind him, a shuffling of feet and a hesitancy of motion, and then a voice to go with it. “Hey man, you Hank Norton?”

  Hank turned to see a young man in torn jeans and a black concert T-shirt: a Camaro driver, without a doubt. Hank stood and shook his hand. “I’m Justin Banner,” he offered, although Hank hadn’t asked.

  Justin Banner reeked of pot and patchouli and Hank followed him out the back door to the parking lot. The Camaro was black with a red stripe running along the bottom of each side. It had seen some miles, but Hank didn’t care as long as it moved and could get him out of town when it mattered.

  “This is it man. Like I said, it runs pretty well.”

  “I’d like to see for myself.”

  Hank climbed into the driver’s seat while Justin stood watching for a second before getting in the other side. The door was heavy and closed with a lot of loose rattling. The dash was cracked, the interior smelled of smoke and stale beer and lost bits of food wasting away beneath the seats, but the engine came to life with a guttural roar. The kid directed him out of town toward Monarch and Hank had it up to eighty in no time.

  Justin tried to make small talk over the highway noise. “So, are you from around here?”

  But Hank wasn’t interested. Instead, he motioned to a side road up ahead. “Where’s that road go?”

  “Oh it goes out toward the monument.”

  “You got your seatbelt on?” Hank asked.

  “What?”

  “Put your seatbelt on.” The kid obliged and the instant Hank heard the clasp snap into place he stood on the brakes. Their bodies lurched hard against the belts and the car seemed to nose into the road as the tires locked and slid along the pavement, dropping from eighty to forty before Hank stomped on the gas and cranked the wheel, sending the car sideways through the ninety degree turn, before it shot straight again, down the side road, accelerating back up to eighty within seconds.

  “Jesus fucking Christ!” Justin screamed, grabbing anything he could hold on to.

  “That’s nothing,” Hank offered, and then grinned at the kid—who looked like he was about to shit himself—“watch this.”

  Hank slammed on the brakes again, only this time he turned the wheels hard to the left and pulled up on the emergency brake. The scenery spiraled and the Camaro pivoted on its rear tires, sliding around in a perfect one-eighty and skidding backward forty feet until it stopped in the other lane, facing the opposite direction. “Just like in the movies,” Hank offered, matter-of-fact, and then added, “The key is the emergency brake. Most people would never guess that that’s how you get the car to spin around backward.”

  Justin didn’t have much to say. He stared at Hank as if debating whether to jump out and run. All he could muster was, “Dude, what the fuck?”

  “Test drive, man. I had to check it out.” Hank put it in gear and headed back the way they came. “Drives just fine. I’ll take it.”

  The driving had loosened him up, cleared his head, and he was feeling better by the time they made it to Justin’s house where Hank dropped him off and they closed the deal. Hank stood in the kitchen while Justin dug around for the title. He made a mental inventory of the contents of the counter and the table. It was a house where there were a lot of late nights, that much was clear from the ashtrays and empty glasses. Hank noticed a large bong on the window sill in the next room, and then a smaller pipe on top of the CD player on the shelves in the living room.

  Hank wasn’t sure why he did it, but when the kid returned and signed the title, he tossed the envelope full of hundreds on the counter and said, “You’re right, I’m not from around here. You know where a guy can get any smoke in this town?”

  Justin laughed a little and gave him the look that Hank had seen on countless other faces. The look of a fellow traveler, a co-conspirator who understood his needs. Then the kid reached into a drawer and pulled out a Ziplock sandwich bag with an inch of pot in the bottom. He tossed it to Hank as he flipped through the cash in the envelope.

  “On the house, man. Maybe it’ll mellow out your driving.”

  XIX

  Tom stood in the yard, listening to her yell from inside the house.

  She screamed, “What do you mean you don’t know when you’ll be back?”

  “It’ll only be a couple days,” Victor protested. “You know how it is.”

  Tom tried not to listen, but the more he tried the more he heard. He looked around the yard and up and down the street at the other houses. He was surprised at the size of the housing development. It stretched for miles in every direction, a labyrinth of cul-de-sacs, red tiled roofs, and anemic palm trees no older than the houses themselves. The homogeneity was depressing, and there was little about it to distract him from the conversation in the background.

  “You’re not in the goddamned Bureau anymore, Vic.” Tom could hear Victor’s muffled voice responding, straining to sound calm and reasonable. The whole scene made Tom glad he wasn’t the kind of guy who would ever get married. He wouldn’t trade his condo on the bea
ch and his lifestyle there for anything resembling Victor’s life. He nearly leaned against the car to wait but caught himself. He didn’t want to crease his pants, or get them dirty. Then he heard a small voice behind him.

  “Are you a friend of my dad?”

  Tom turned to see a little boy with a small bicycle, wearing a helmet and elbow pads. “I work with your dad,” he answered. Kids made him nervous, they always had. A silence fell between them.

  Then the kid asked, “What’s your name?”

  “Tom. What’s yours?”

  “I’m Daniel. I’m six. My mom makes me wear this helmet when I ride my bike, but my dad thinks the helmet is stupid.”

  “Oh yeah? What do you think?”

  The kid shrugged. “I dunno.”

  Finally, the front door opened and Victor came out of the house, carrying a gym bag and a long, hard plastic case. He handed the bag to Tom and fished in his pocket for the keys to unlock the trunk. Daniel asked, “Hey, Dad, can I go with you?”

  “Sorry, buddy, not this time, I need you to stay here and look after things.” The kid looked deflated. Victor grinned at Tom as he placed the plastic case in the trunk. “Toss that bag in here too.”

  Tom set the bag next to the Geiger counter and heard the headphones begin to roar with white noise. “Is that thing on?” Victor asked.

  “Yeah, what the hell is in this bag?”

  Victor grinned. His eyes lit up. He reached inside the bag and pulled out a large canvas case. He unsnapped the case and withdrew a set of lenses that looked like a pair of binoculars on steroids. “Night vision goggles. I guess the crap inside them is a little radioactive.”

  “Christ, man, what do we need those for?”