The Last Kind Words: A Novel

by Tom Piccirilli

  The rain hissed like water in a pan simmering on a stove. I was tired of the noise.

  Grey’s hand trembled so badly that when he walked past the grave and threw in his rose it fell short. His knees started to buckle and he nearly went headfirst into the hole. My father and I both rushed to him and kept him on his feet. Victoria wrapped an arm around his waist and he clopped back and laid his head against her shoulder.

  Large puddles had formed at the edge of the grave. Grey’s rose swirled around twice before a stream carried it to the lip, where it hung and quivered before finally dropping away.

  The image had an impact on me. The deep-red flower disappearing into the black pit. I knew I would have sporadic dreams about it for the rest of my life. Because it looked to me as if, at the last instant, the rose had been snatched into the grave.

  The line of mourners continued to snake away. I waited until everyone else had walked off toward their cars, then I reached into my pocket and pulled out a fresh deck of cards and tossed it in. It was a stupid gesture, but I was a man full of stupid gestures. I was about to make another one.

  When the priest turned to go, I reached out and grabbed him by the wrist.

  “The last kind words ever spoken to Jesus were spoken by a thief.”

  “Excuse me?” He tried to pull away but I held on. “You’re—you’re—”

  “We were the first let into heaven. Thieves are pardoned.”

  I tugged him toward me and enjoyed the pained expression on his face. Then I released him and left him there with his certain knowledge of God and hell. I walked away in my own bitter confusion.

  Most of the mourners came to the house and ate. Gilmore begged off and said he had to get back to work. He shook my hand and I held on an instant too long. He frowned at me in puzzlement and misread my intention. He gave me a quick, awkward hug and left.

  My mother and Dale kept presenting hors d’oeuvres and platters of cold cuts. A few folks spoke to me. Some I recognized. Most I didn’t. I think I responded, but I had no idea what I might’ve said. I searched for Lin. She hadn’t shown. I realized it was important to introduce her to the rest of the family. She was my brother’s wife. I wasn’t thinking clearly and knew it.

  My father began to get hold of himself. He started to take charge, passing out drinks, his voice growing louder. He and the heisters told anecdotes. There were even a few chuckles as they ate and drank together. I kept thinking about Mal and me crashing backyard birthday parties, him taking over the grill and cooking hamburgers, the two of us singing happy birthday to Timmy or Holly or Bob when nobody knew who the hell we were. It almost got me smiling.

  I stuck close to my grandfather’s corner. I sat beside Old Shep, and his glassy eyes remained fixed on the television for a minute. He still had the hat on. I liked seeing it on him. It was a throwback to the good old days when he was nearly as stylish as Grey.

  He slowly inched his head toward me. I didn’t know what it meant. He was almost looking into my eyes. He was freshly shaven and the suit looked good on him. I knew he was in there somewhere. Maybe he wanted to talk. I said, “Gramp, if you—” and he slowly turned back to the TV. I put my hand on his knee. I hoped he would snatch my wallet again. I stood and turned my hip toward him, praying he would reach for me. He didn’t.

  Grey was still devastated but reeling himself in. He looked like he was half dead himself, drained of color and energy. It was the only time I’d ever seen his hair mussed. He hugged Vicky to him, but I thought I could see in her eyes that she knew this was it, the end of the line for her.

  Eve stepped to me and said, “There’s only one question a person can ask after a funeral. It’s a foolish one but it’s the only one. How are you holding up?”

  I hadn’t spoken all day long except for what I’d told the priest. It was difficult forming words.

  “I suppose there’s only one answer to give,” I said. “I’m doing the best that I can.”

  She put a hand to my chest. “Terry, whatever you’re thinking about doing, don’t.”

  “I’m not thinking of doing anything.”

  “Yes, you are. I can tell. You’ve got blood in your eye.”

  Her fingers massaged me through my shirt. I shut my eyes and lost myself for a moment in the human contact. Then I took a breath and turned aside. “Eve, you showed me a very nice night, and I should thank you for it. It’s been a long time since I had a chance to hold a beautiful woman close and fall asleep in her arms. But how about if you don’t pretend as if you really know me.”

  “All right. But I meant what I said the other night. I do believe you’re a good man, at heart.”

  “But you keep qualifying it as ‘at heart.’ ”

  “Only because I realize you’re under an incredible strain.”

  She was being thoughtful and kind but I felt the way I’d felt during the times I’d been arrested and kept in the county cage. I wanted to shrug my shoulders and hurl the world from off my back. “I won’t do anything rash and I’m not going to get hurt.”

  Eve saw something in my eyes that must have felt like an invitation. “You can talk to me if you like, Terry. About anything, at any time. This has nothing to do with my job. Please know that. Please believe that.”

  “I do.”

  I knew I would never see her again unless it was on the day of Collie’s execution.

  Grey tried to tell a story about Mal but it fell apart about halfway through. My old man picked up the slack and finished the tale, and the old grifters all laughed appropriately. Grey eventually went to his room. Vicky must have thought he was coming back, but after a half hour she thanked my mother and Dale for the food and said goodbye.

  There was still a lot of meaningless chatter, but somehow the emptiness and quiet of the house deepened. All the many secret rooms carried with them a brooding silence across the decades and generations of Rands.

  My parents broke from the others and found me with Gramp. My father said, “I’m worried about Grey. He has no one now.”

  “He has us,” my mother said. “He has his girlfriends. They help keep him happy.”

  “No, we have each other, but he’s alone. Despite all the women, he’s alone. His health, it’ll get worse now.”

  “We’ll make sure he goes to the doctor more often.”

  “He won’t go.”

  My dad looked out the screen door. There was no sun, but he turned away with a hand shielding his eyes as if he’d seen something he couldn’t take. Maybe Mal out there demanding action.

  “Who?” he said, his voice firm. “Who the hell could have done this? And why?” My father looked at the floor, and then his gaze settled on me. “Do you have any idea?”

  “No.”

  He nodded, because that’s all any of us could really do. Nod as if we were in complete agreement with some larger force that would do whatever it wanted with us whether we consented or not. Then he and my mother walked back to the dining area and became proper hosts again for their guests.

  Dale gravitated toward us. She said, “Gramp needs to be changed. Ma usually handles it, but I thought I’d give her a rest and do it myself.”

  “That’s very considerate.”

  “Can you help me get him to his room? On the bed?”

  I wheeled him there, eased him out of his chair, and got him onto the bed. Dale got out a set of pajamas and an adult diaper. We turned him over on his belly and she cleaned him like a newborn. It was loving and illuminating. It was possibly the worst thing I’d ever witnessed, because all the time I was watching Old Shep I was seeing myself down the road.

  My sister finished up and got Gramp back into his chair. I made sure we put his hat back on him. He deserved a little cool. Back in front of the TV, he perked up a little.

  Dale glanced at me and said, “You’re going to do something, aren’t you, Terry?”

  “Yes,” I admitted. “Tomorrow.”

  “Good,” she said, and slipped off.

  I
went up to my room, changed out of Grey’s suit, and put on my own clothes. I didn’t remember crying but my face was covered with salt tracks. I washed up. JFK stood in the door and growled. I looked in the mirror and made the same sound.

  Wes had tried to reinforce his basement window so that I couldn’t pop it again, but I easily finagled past his lackluster efforts. I hit the stairs and tried his closet again. He’d moved his stash. It took me five minutes to find it in the central-air conduit in his living room. He’d chipped some paint around one of the vent screws. It was as clear to me as a beacon in the dark.

  I snatched up both of the Desert Eagles and extra clips. I counted out forty thousand from his cache and stuffed it in my jacket. I drove over to the Fifth Amendment, walked in, and approached Danny’s table with my hands in my pockets. He and Wes and a couple of his soldiers were eating dinner and drinking wine. I could smell the veal Marsala, spicy garlic tomato sauce, and the fried calamari.

  One of his boys—the same mook who’d stopped me during the poker game—lazily moved up in front of me and said, “Hold on, you can’t just—”

  I drew the Desert Eagle and shot him in the thickest part of his thigh. He shrieked and fell down, clutching the wound. There was less blood than I’d imagined. I’d never fired a gun before. It was easier than I’d expected.

  The rest of his crew started going for their hardware and I rushed up and jammed the pistol under Danny’s left ear.

  “Let’s converse,” I said.

  Fear twisted in his eyes but he held himself together. “Don’t you think this is a bit much, Terry? You Rands don’t use guns.”

  “I’ve had a change of heart.”

  He tried to turn but couldn’t do it with the barrel wedged into that ganglia of nerves. “Sorry to hear about your uncle.”

  “I came to pay off,” I said. I drew the stacks of money out of my pocket with my left hand and tossed them, one after the other, onto the table. They bounced and fell into his veal, then into his lap. “Here’s the thirty-seven g’s my uncle owed you.”

  “But Mal—”

  “Plus a little interest. Count it, Danny. And count it slow. Make it last as long as you can.”

  Wes very quietly said, “Terry, listen to me now. Don’t do anything crazy. Just think this through.”

  “I have.”

  “No, no you haven’t, Terry. No, you haven’t at all.”

  “You really think this is the best time to argue with me, Wes?”

  Danny tried to scoot out of the way of the splashing Marsala sauce but he had nowhere to go. “Wait, just wait,” he said. I finished emptying the cash onto his plate. “You’re smarter than this. You’re much sharper than this.”

  “Who was the hitter?” I eyed everyone sitting with him. They all looked like your average mook. None of them stood out from another. None of them had any style or hipness or grace. Any one of them could have been the knife man. I looked for shoulder-holster bulges. It didn’t prove anything. Plenty of hitters carried guns and then made examples of their victims with blades. “You think your father would approve? Hiring a knife fighter to ice an old man? Two in the head is too clean for you now? My mother and father found him dying in his own shit. You brought my mother into this.”

  My vision started to light up with red. I moved the barrel of the gun and pressed it hard into Danny’s left eye.

  “That hurts! For Christ’s sake! Stop acting so nuts!”

  “Who’s acting?” I said.

  “I didn’t do it, Terry! I didn’t order it done! Listen to me. I didn’t do this. Grief has made you stupid. I know something about that.”

  “I want the name. If he’s sitting here, tell me now.”

  “I have no name to give you. Nobody here does that kind of work. You need to start listening to me.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “Because we’re friends.”

  “We haven’t been friends since the eighth grade, Danny. You’re not counting your money. I wouldn’t want you to think I cheated you. Mal said it was only thirty-seven, but there’s forty. You keep the change, right?”

  The guy I’d shot was still rolling around on the floor in agony. The crew started getting antsy. Someone was going to make a move soon. I grinned at them. I pulled the other Desert Eagle out of my waistband and held it on them. I knew at least a couple of these pricks wouldn’t mind seeing Danny go down just so they could skip to another syndicate outfit, head off to Chi or L.A.

  One mook really knew how to give a death glare. He was drilling it hard into my forehead.

  I let out a chuckle and whispered, “Come on, you.”

  Danny knew the scene was a second away from detonating. He held his hands up in front of him and tapped the air, trying to get us all to simmer. Half of his crew looked at him like they hated his guts. I wondered if he noticed.

  “If you take me out, you’re doing it for nothing. I didn’t cap your uncle. I didn’t give the word. Whoever did it will still be out there.”

  “Your father would be ashamed of you,” I said. “You’ve got no cool, Danny. Your dad wouldn’t have given much more than an asskicking for snatching thirty-seven g’s during a dirty game. Not to someone who deserved as much respect as Mal did.”

  “I thought it might come to this. I thought you might think it was me, but you’re usually more levelheaded. I didn’t expect you to take it so far.”

  “You’ve got to work on your presentation,” I told him. “You’re not very convincing.”

  “I don’t know what else you want me to say.”

  Big Dan had done some rotten things in his time but he never crewed up with a psycho hitter who used a blade like that. Mal had thrashed around in his own guts for five minutes before he finally gave in.

  And I had heard him talking to someone. I had turned over and gone back to Kimmy instead of looking out the window. All I’d had to do was go to the window and maybe he’d still be alive.

  I backed up a step. I checked Danny’s eyes one last time. So far as I could see, he was telling the truth. It didn’t mean anything. He was nearly as adept a liar as I was. I said, “We’re done now, Danny, for good.”

  I backed up farther. I kept the guns trained on everyone. The mooks looked a little disappointed that I hadn’t pulled the trigger.

  “Take your money, Terry,” Danny said. “I don’t want it.”

  “It’s not mine. It belongs to Wes.”

  Wes sucked down the rest of his wine and poured himself another glass. “I knew you were going to juke me,” he said. “Did you go in through the same window? I don’t care if it does look bad, I’m getting a fucking security system put in.”

  I backed out all the way to the front door. Nobody got to their feet. Most of them went back to their food. No one was going to come after me right now. Danny might decide later on that he couldn’t let so brazen a move go without some kind of answer. He had to save face in front of his men and the other outfits. But I thought that maybe this was the breaking point. His men were already jumping ship, and this might make the rest of them go. He wasn’t cut out to be a boss. He couldn’t handle this kind of stress.

  I cleaned the guns down and threw them both into the backseat of Wes’s car. I hadn’t accomplished a thing. Just as I was leaving, I saw Butch pull in. I thought, Fuck him, let him drop, I don’t give a shit. He hadn’t even shown at the funeral to help support Dale, the prick.

  But I wasn’t going to let my little sister go down with him. She was an actress. I imagined her with a plastic mask over her face, her hair styled short, more boyishly, a padded shirt filling her out with a male physique. I saw her carrying a gun Butch gave her that still had the serial numbers intact. I saw her lying in the backyard with her hands clutched to her belly.

  I had to make sure she was safe from coming anywhere near the underneath. I couldn’t let what happened to me and Collie and Mal happen to her.

  I drove around town for a while. I turned on the radio. I listened to
the news. Cara Clarke’s death had officially been listed as a suicide.

  In the morning I drove over to Stan Herbert’s pawnshop. He’d bought out the stores on either side of him and had upped his game. He had a lot of old flea-market type crap but he’d expanded into the real deal. Old TVs, DVD players, DVDs, CDs, iPods, laptops, cell phones, BlackBerrys, digital cameras, and other computer equipment. He still wasn’t going to be able to give Butch’s crew what they were expecting for the ice. Maybe he’d lied to them and planned on making excuses when it was time to pay up.

  There were a handful of people in the place, some customers wandering around and a couple of young employees who were rearranging stock. Stan was in back, in his office, sitting in front of his computer and going through ledger sheets.

  “Hello, Stan,” I said.

  He looked up and the screen continued to glow in the reflection in his glasses. He’d lost the rest of his hair, but he’d picked up a few pounds and looked healthier and happier than I remembered. He wheeled his seat back and looked me up and down.

  “Well, you’re a Rand, I know that much,” he said. “Not sure of the breed, though.”

  “Terrier.”

  He nodded. “Okay, I think we’ve met before.”

  “A couple times when I was a kid, helping my father unload laptops and stereo systems.”

  “Not so loud. The boys up front don’t know I was ever a part of the bent life.” He got up and closed the door, sat again and steepled his fingers. “Heard about Malamute. Saw it on the TV. Hell of a waste, him going out like that. Hell of a card player. Hell of a finger man.”

  “Right. Can we talk?”

  “I don’t move your kind of product anymore,” he said.