The Last Kind Words

by Tom Piccirilli

  I said, “Hello, Wes. A little early in the day for you all to be doing business, isn’t it?”

  “We’re still up from last night. Terry, you got a few minutes?”

  “Not right now.”

  “Eager to get back to your run?”

  “I’m going to see someone.”

  He shrugged. “She doesn’t live there anymore. She took up with Chub. They got a kid now and live over—”

  Before I realized it, I was off the bench and way up close to Wes. I saw my teeth in his sunglasses.

  “Heya,” I said, “how about if you stay out of my business and I’ll keep out of yours, right?”

  He looked a little embarrassed. “Sure, Terry, sure. Mr. Thompson would like to speak with you.”

  “Junior or Senior?”

  “Senior had a coronary three, four years ago and retired to Arizona. The big one hit him in Phoenix, on a golf course. We don’t call Junior Junior anymore, though. He likes Daniel or Mr. Thompson.”

  My family had been doing business with the Thompsons since before Danny’s grandfather had Americanized the name from Tompansano. Danny and I were the same age and had run around together for a while in our teens.

  “Fine,” I said. “My dog sits in back with your muscle. Don’t give me any shit about him muddying up your Mercedes.”

  “This the beast that snuffed Bernie Wagner?”

  “Yeah.”

  JFK lolled his tongue and let out a belch that smelled like lake silt. I opened the back door and he hopped in and climbed over the thugs as they bitched and cursed, their suits already flecked with wet fur. Wes climbed behind the wheel and said, “Christ.”

  We drove over to the Fifth Amendment, Big Dan Thompson’s bar that fronted all the real action. The name of the place was Big Dan’s way of giving the finger to the feds, who’d been trying to build a RICO case around him for years, and doing it the way he had done almost everything, with a cocky defiance.

  “Leave the dog outside, all right, Terry?” Wes asked.

  “He comes with me,” I said.

  Wes groaned but let it slide. “Well, wait here for a minute, okay? Will you at least do that?”

  “Sure.”

  It gave me time to take in the rhythm of the old place again.

  I glanced at the photos on the walls. Big Dan with various celebrities, politicians, sports heroes. Some of the pictures of the old crews had been changed out, probably because so many wiseguys had flipped over the years. Big Dan once told me he’d never pulled the trigger himself unless he was shooting a rat. He said it the way my mother had said she hated Collie like poison. A thing to be mentioned, understood, held on to, then put away.

  I’d had my first drink of hard liquor, seen my first thousand-dollar bill, and had my first woman here at the Amendment, all on the same day. In the back room they held private card games, where some of the waitresses earned extra cash by taking the major hitters to the private lounge. When I turned fourteen, Big Dan had invited me in and shown me the delights of that back room, all on his ticket, the same way he’d shown Danny a few weeks earlier on his birthday.

  I couldn’t help grinning thinking about it again.

  Now Danny Thompson sat at his father’s station, holding court at the corner table where all the real business got done. He was surrounded by a crew of five. I didn’t recognize any of them. All the old-timers had either kicked off, been sent to the bin, or retired when Danny rose up to take over. I wondered what that said about the way Danny handled the operation now.

  He was giving hell to one of his captains. I picked up a few words here and there. It sounded drug-related. Danny talked loud, much too loud for discussing business. His father had never raised his voice, not even when he was furious.

  Danny hadn’t aged well the last five years. He’d put on thirty pounds and looked uncomfortable as he shifted in his seat, packed into a suit a couple sizes too small for him. I could see the sweat gleaming on his face. His silky blond hair had started to recede and he had a nervous habit of brushing the back of his thumb across his prominent widow’s peak. I could imagine what it must be like for him, sitting in that chair and seeing his father everywhere he looked. He should’ve sold the place and set up shop somewhere else.

  The meeting broke up and a couple of Danny’s boys walked past. The one who’d been under the gun was flushed from the berating he’d received. He had no idea who I was but he couldn’t meet my eyes. He rattled way too easy. If he was in charge of the drug trade, I could see why there were problems.

  Danny looked up from the table and waved me over with two fingers, the way Big Dan used to allow passage to his corner. His son couldn’t even make that his own. I wanted to tell him, Wave someone over with one finger, with three, use your chin, your left hand, anything except the same thing your dad did.

  JFK heeled at my left leg as we crossed the bar. I got to the table, put out my hand, and said, “Hello, Danny.”

  He tightened up. First words out of my mouth and I’d already made a mistake with him. I wondered what it would cost. His eyes clouded and then immediately cleared, and he let his lips hitch into a thin smile.

  He shook my hand. “Terry. You look tan. Sit down.”

  Again with the fucking tan. Like Long Island didn’t have two hundred miles of shoreline beaches.

  I slid into the chair across from him. JFK dropped at my feet. Wes stood nearby, ready to take orders. The rest of Danny’s men headed to the back room. The door was open and I could see the remnants of a big game, a lot of beer bottles, and a woman sleeping on one of the sofas.

  “Sorry to hear about your father.”

  “Thanks for saying so, even if you don’t mean it.”

  Except that I did mean it, and it surprised me that Danny would think I didn’t. I’d always liked Big Dan, even if I didn’t agree with some of his practices. He scooped up a lot of my family’s goods and cut a few side deals along the way, sending me after certain specific items he wanted from rivals and occasionally even associates. He knew I could keep my mouth shut.

  In all the time I knew him, I’d gone up against him only once. Chub had tuned the getaway car for a crew that had taken down a massage parlor that Big Dan fronted. The heisters blew town with fifty large, and Big Dan thought Chub ought to pay back with cash, his garage, or his legs. I asked Dan to let it slide, explaining that Chub had known nothing about the heist beforehand, even though I was certain he had. Big Dan didn’t like my asking and gave me a chance to change my mind. I didn’t. I put my hand on his wrist and asked him to let it go.

  He ordered four of his men to kick the shit out of me in the parking lot. He added that if I fought back, they should break my arms.

  I didn’t fight back.

  But Big Dan had let Chub slide anyway, as a favor to me. It was two weeks before I stopped pissing blood, but I didn’t take any of it personally. He had to save face and had to make sure that back talk didn’t become an everyday occurrence. He knew I was a pro and that I’d understand, and afterward we continued our amiable relationship right up until I left.

  But somehow Danny didn’t realize it. He thought I harbored resentment against his old man. That showed me he was still a piker even though he ran the show now.

  “We’ve got a lot to talk about,” he said.

  “Do we?”

  “Sure, old friends. We’ve got some years to cover.”

  He looked at JFK and beckoned the dog by patting his gut. JFK stood and planted his big head on Danny’s thigh. Danny made good-doggie noises, scratching JFK’s ears and jowls. He kissed the dog and the dog licked him back.

  “Jesus, I think I can still smell Bernie’s cologne on his breath.”

  The death of Bernie Wagner was an open secret, one I didn’t like being reminded of. Bernie had been a two-bit hood turned meth-mouth tweaker who thought it would be a good idea to score a house full of thieves one night. Everyone was asleep except for me and my father. We were out in the garage, putti
ng a new starter in his car. Oddly enough, everything from the car to the parts to the tools had been bought and paid for.

  JFK had never so much as growled at anyone. He didn’t even growl when Bernie sneaked around the side of the house and put a .22 to the back of my father’s head. “Your stash, I want all of—”

  In an instant, JFK lunged and champed his fangs in Bernie’s throat and with a small wag of his head tore out Bernie’s windpipe. My old man made the effort of trying to wrap the spurting wound with his own shirt and he even performed mouth-to-mouth as Bernie’s life ran down his chest. There was nothing that could be done. It was already over. JFK sat there whining, his muzzle soaked with bloody foam.

  My uncles packed Bernie up and drove him to the emergency room and dropped his corpse off at the curb. It was cold but there wasn’t much else that could be done, and no matter how you looked at it Bernie Wagner had called the play.

  Turned out Bernie had told a lot of people that he was going to try to boost the Rand house. Even though Gilmore and a few other cops had come around, no one could make anything stick.

  Danny said, “Wes, go in back and get the prince of Camelot here a couple of burgers.”

  Wes did as he was told but I could see where some of his stress was coming from. He’d been promoted but was still stuck flipping hamburgers. And for a dog.

  “So, Terry,” Danny said, trying to look hurt. “You never said goodbye to me.”

  “I never said goodbye to anyone, Danny.”

  “You needed out that bad?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I suppose I can understand that. After what happened with Kimmy. And Collie. Talk about a one-two punch. Still, I wish you’d stuck around. I could’ve used a good man like you.”

  “I never would’ve fit in as a member of a crew.”

  “What member? You could’ve been my lieutenant.”

  It was empty talk, but I smiled graciously. “Still not my thing. You know that.”

  “I suppose I do. But anyway that’s in the past. Something else isn’t. Listen, Terry, we have a problem.”

  It didn’t surprise me. It was only blind luck that I’d gotten up for an early run. Wes must’ve been on the street in front of our house this morning and shadowed me to the lake. I was angry with myself that I hadn’t spotted the Mercedes behind me. I had too much on my mind.

  Danny tried to nail me down with a glare that was equal parts indignation and disappointment. It was another trick he’d stolen from his father.

  I was committed to playing dumb. “How’s that even possible? I’ve been home one day and you’ve already got a problem with me?”

  “Not with you. Your uncle. He owes me money.”

  “Which one?”

  “Malamute.”

  “You mean he beat the bank at one of your private big-gun card games.”

  “Yeah.”

  “And you let him play for what reason?”

  “Someone thought it would be accommodating to extend a professional courtesy.”

  “Who would that someone be?”

  He pulled his chin in. “Me. So you see the problem.”

  “Not yet. Was he dealing?”

  “What difference does that make?”

  “Was he?”

  “Of course not.”

  “Then he wasn’t cheating.”

  I was talking out my ass. There were a hundred ways to cheat at cards without ever laying a hand on the deck. Mal could have loaded his jacket, palmed high cards out of dead hands and hidden them until they were needed. He could have marked the deck with his thumbnail in ways nobody else ever would have spotted.

  “He doesn’t cheat if he’s not dealing?”

  “Not if he’s alone,” I said.

  “Explain that.”

  “He and my uncle Grey can pull all kinds of grift if they’re partnered. Their cross chatter alone can keep the marks distracted enough that they can slip a full house in. But they need each other. Either one of them alone, without the deck in his hands, isn’t cheating.”

  “I’m out almost forty g’s.”

  “That’s why they call it gambling, Danny.”

  He studied me and I made sure he saw exactly what I wanted him to see. A liar who could lie and never be found out but who, in this particular case, right now, was telling the truth. I was a master of self-composition. No one could read my face, except, of course, my family. And Kimmy.

  “I’m not sure if I believe you.”

  “I really don’t give a shit.”

  “Don’t talk to me that way, Terry.”

  You had to play Danny Thompson with a soft touch but not too soft. I could sense his insecurities still running wild inside him. He owned the shop and had men who would cave if he so much as cast an irate glance in their direction. But for all the old-friend bullshit he’d been tossing around I knew he also had to hate me, at least a little. I remembered when his father used to slap the hell out of him with his ham-hock hands. Senior had worn a diamond pinky ring that would sometimes catch Danny across the cheek and open him up like a razor slash. If I didn’t go hard, Danny would run me to ground.

  “I might have to come by and talk to Mal,” he said.

  “Is that how you run the show now, Danny? You invite old men to play in the game, then you muscle them if they beat you?”

  “If they’re cheating.”

  “You’d better be sure if you come after my family.”

  “If I was sure, we wouldn’t be having this discussion. You’d be at the cemetery saying your goodbyes to Mal.”

  Big Dan never would’ve made such a threat. He might’ve popped somebody in the back but he never showed his hand.

  Danny at least had the good sense to appear sorry for his strong-arm tactics. “Times are tougher than when my old man was chief of this crew.”

  “I doubt that, but you play the game however you like. I’m out.”

  “You’re not out. You’ll never be out. You Rands stick together, don’t you?”

  “Not always.”

  “Seems like it. You even went to visit your brother.”

  News traveled fast on the circuit. I figured JFK’s reputation hadn’t been the only thing holding his men back from bracing Mal this morning. Danny wanted to get a look at me too, see if I might roll over or become a problem.

  “He asked me to visit,” I said.

  “Why do you care what a child-killing prick asks you to do?”

  “Because he’s my brother.”

  “Is that supposed to be an answer?”

  “As much of one as you’re going to get out of me.”

  I stood. From the lounge, Danny’s men kept their attention focused on me until JFK lumbered to his feet. Then they watched the dog. They tried not to appear worried.

  Wes stepped out of the kitchen carrying a plate with six or seven cooked burgers on it. I said, “Come on, Wes. We’re leaving now.”

  With that thin smile still hanging in place, Danny Thompson openly appraised me. He thumbed his widow’s peak. His eyes were hard but bright, his skin ashen as he sweated out last night’s liquor. If nothing else I wanted him to know that I really was sad that Big Dan was gone, but I didn’t know how to make him believe it. A part of me felt sorry for him. I could imagine how shaken I was going to be the day my father died and what kind of lasting effect it would have on me.

  But all I said was, “Don’t hang around at my curb anymore, Danny. You might get picked up for loitering.”

  “See you soon, Terry.”

  “Sure.”

  I turned my back on him. Wes had fed the burgers to JFK and JFK’s nub of a tail was twitching, his muzzle pink from the juice. It was a good enough image to leave behind. I marched out with the dog heeling and Wes trailing behind us, his hands covered in grease.

  I opened the back door of the Mercedes and JFK hopped in. His knees were still holding up but he looked run-down and overfed. He circled once and with a contented snort fit his chin between his
paws and fell asleep.

  Wes put on his wraparound shades, got behind the wheel, and asked, “You want me to take you back to the lake?”

  “No.”

  “You want to go to Kimmy’s place?”

  “Just take me home, all right?”

  “Okay, Terry.”

  We said nothing the rest of the ride. When we pulled up in front of the house, I asked, “Chub still got a garage?”

  “Yeah. A different one from before. This one’s bigger and on the other side of town.”

  “He still helping out heisters?”

  “I don’t think so,” Wes said, shrugging. “But I don’t really know.”

  Chub had won Kimmy’s heart. He had stuck by her. He had fathered a child. He’d stood firm where I’d failed.

  But if he was still plotting getaways he’d eventually be taken down. I pictured Chub on the six o’clock news, dead or in chains, Kimmy alone again, a kid in her arms waiting for a daddy who might never come home. The guy had to have gone straight, I thought, he wouldn’t risk Kimmy and a baby for anything. But I wanted to be certain.

  I stood on the front porch and listened to my family talking over breakfast. They were in a good mood. My father said something that had the quality of an anecdote and the others yapped comebacks. My mother allowed herself a strained but genuine kind of singsong laughter.

  I needed a hot shower and a little more time to brace myself. I slipped off the porch and around the side of the house and in through the back door. I took the stairs three at a time, grabbed some fresh clothes, and hit the upstairs bathroom.

  My head was louder than the steaming water blasting down. I shut my eyes as the past broke against me—snippets of old conversations, whispers in the dark. Flashes of Kimmy’s face seen as dawn muscled through the curtains, sunlight catching the stray downy hair beneath her ear. I thought of Chub on top of her. Imagined her screaming in labor with Chub crouched next to the doctor, waiting for his baby to crown. Collie’s victims turned their eyes on me. I scrubbed until my stomach burned from tasting too much soap and my skin felt raw. I tried to remember anything about life on the ranch and came up empty.