He smoked cigarette number one off the first pack of the evening, second of the day. He was pleased when the drizzle didn’t put it out. Just as he was getting number two going, he spotted Werner’s man.
The watchdog came around from the back, walking slowly around the house, probing the thick shrubbery on both sides of it with a long-shafted yellow-beam flash. He was slow and methodical with his search, and after the shrubs had been checked, he headed for the paved driveway to the left of the house. He stood at the far end of the drive and let the flash run down over it, then walked toward the back of the house again.
Probably a garage back there, Nolan thought, the drive leading around to it.
Three minutes later the watchdog reappeared at the right of the house and began to move slowly over the sprawling lawn, crisscrossing it half a dozen times before angling down on the highway’s edge. He stood there for a moment in the light of a streetlamp, and Nolan got a look at him.
Not overly big, just a medium-sized guy, wearing a hiplength black brushed leather coat, open in front to reveal a dark conservative suit, complete with thick-knotted striped tie. The man didn’t look particularly menacing, but Nolan knew he’d probably been chosen for just that reason.
Subtle muscle. Typical Werner.
Nolan’s hand in his jacket pocket squeezed down around the rough handle of the .38. He put on a smile and stood up from the bench. Stepping out into the stream of traffic, sidestepping cars, Nolan called out to the watchdog.
“Hey! Hey buddy . . .”
The watchdog had turned to walk away, and Nolan met him about a third of the way up the sloping lawn.
“Say, I think I’ve gotten myself lost. You couldn’t give me some directions, could you?”
The watchdog had a bored, bland face that didn’t register much change between glad, sad, and indifferent, although Nolan could read it well enough to rule out glad. The hand with the flash came up and filled Nolan’s face with yellow light.
Nolan squirmed and held his free hand up defensively to shield his eyes, but he kept the smile plastered on. “Look, friend, I don’t want to bother you or anything, I’m just a stranger here and got my bearings fouled up and thought maybe you could . . .”
“This isn’t an information bureau,” the watchdog said. “What this is is private property. So just turn your ass around and go back across the street and take off. Any direction’ll do.”
The flash blinked off, and Nolan could tell he’d been dismissed.
Nolan gave him a bewildered-tourist grin, shrugged his shoulders and began to turn away. Before the turn was complete, Nolan swung the gun in hand out of his pocket and smacked the .38 flat across the watchdog’s left temple. The watchdog’s eyes did a slot-machine roll and Nolan caught him before he went down. Nolan drunk-walked the limp figure up the remainder of the lawn, carefully avoiding the glare of the spotlights, and took him over to the left side of the house, dumping him between two clumps of hedge. He checked the man’s pockets for keys but found none. He did find a 9mm in a shoulder sling, and tossed the gun into the darkness.
Subtle moves were fine for Werner and company, but right now Nolan hadn’t the time or energy for them. The watchdog would be out for half an hour or more; plenty of time. He glanced out toward the highway, which by now seemed far away, and decided that there wouldn’t be any threat from some public-spirited motorist stopping to question his handling of the watchdog situation. Thank God for mist and apathy.
He walked around the house in search of an unlocked window, trying not to let his out-in-the-open sloppiness with the watchdog bother him. He just didn’t seem to have the patience to work things out smoothly these days. Making a mental promise to tighten himself up again, he tried the last of the windows.
Locked.
Well, there might be one open on the second floor, and a drainpipe was handy, but Nolan ruled that approach out: his side, while improved, was not yet in that kind of shape, and he was beginning to think it might never be.
He broke the glass in a window around the back of the house, seeing no need for caution since the neighboring houses on both sides were blocked by stone walls, and a large three-car garage obstructed the view from behind. A light was on in a window over the garage door, probably the watchdog’s quarters, explaining the absence of house keys in the man’s pockets. Nolan slipped his hand in through the glass-toothed opening in the window and unlocked it. Then he pushed it up and hauled himself slowly over and into the house.
He caught his breath. The room he found himself in was dark; after stumbling into a few things, he decided it was a dining room. A trail of light beckoned him to the hall, where he followed the light to its source, the hairline opening of a door.
Nolan looked through the crack and saw a small, compact study, walled by books. Werner was sitting at his desk, reading.
Several years had passed since Nolan had last seen the man, but their passing had done little to Werner: he’d been in his early twenties for twenty-some years now. The only mark of tough years past apparent in his youthful face was a tight mouth, crow-footed at its corners. The almost girlish turned-up nose and short-cut hair, like a butch but lying down, overshadowed the firm-set mouth. His hair’s still jetblack color might or might not have come out of a bottle, though Nolan felt fairly certain that the dark tan was honest, probably acquired in Miami.
A rush of air hit the back of Nolan’s neck, and he started to turn, but an arm looped in under his chin and flexed tight against his Adam’s apple, choking off all sound. He felt the iron finger of a revolver prod his spine as he was dragged backward, away from the cracked door.
A whisper said, “Not one peep.”
The watchdog.
Shit.
“That gun in your hand,” the whisper said. “Take it by two fingers and let it drop nice and gentle into your lefthand coat pocket.”
Nolan followed instructions.
“Now,” the whisper continued, “let’s you and me turn around and walk back into the dining room, okay? Okay.”
The watchdog kept his hold on Nolan’s throat and walked him along, each step measured. Once they were out of the hall and into the dining room, the grip on Nolan’s neck was lessened slightly, though the pressure of the gun was still insistent.
“Keep it quiet and you’ll get out of here with your ass,” the watchdog whispered. “I’m only going easy on you because I don’t want my boss in there finding out I let somebody slip by me. A window with some busted glass I can explain, you in the house I can’t. So just keep it down.”
They approached the broken window through which Nolan had entered, and the watchdog released him, shoving him against the wall by the window. Enough light came in the window for the two men to make their first good appraisal of each other.
Nolan had been right about the guy being tougher than he looked. The whole upper left side of his face was showing a dark blue bruise, and a still-flowing trickle of red crossed down from his temple over his cheek, but the man’s expression remained one of boredom, only now it was as though he were bored and maybe had a slight headache. He’d shed the leather topcoat, and his suit was a bit rumpled, although the striped tie was still firmly knotted and in place.
“Sonofabitch,” the watchdog said, “an old man. I got taken down by an old man. Will you look at the gray hair. Sonofabitch.”
Nolan said nothing.
The watchdog’s upper lip curled ever so slightly; Nolan took this to be a smile. “Let’s get back outside, and a younger man’ll show you how it’s done. . . . Come on, out the window.”
The hand with the revolver gestured toward the open window, and Nolan grabbed for the wrist and slammed the hand down against the wooden sill, once, then again, and on the third time the fingers sprang open and the gun dropped out the window. Nolan smashed his fist into the man’s blackened temple, a blow with his whole body behind it. The hard little man crumpled and was out again.
Nolan leaned on the wall and gasped
for breath. Half a minute went by and he was all right; his side was nagging him again, but he was all right.
He undid the watchdog’s shirt collar and untied the tie, then used it to lash the man’s slack wrists behind him and picked him up like a sack of grain and tossed him out the open window, where he landed in the hedge. Nolan figured he’d stay there a while longer this time around.
When he returned to the door of the study, Nolan peered in through the crack and saw Werner, undisturbed, still at his desk, reading. With the .38 in hand, Nolan drew back his foot and kicked the door open.
Werner dropped his book and sucked in air like a man going down for the third time. “Nolan . . .”
Nolan waved hello with the .38.
Werner shoved the book off to the side of his desk. “Uh . . . shut the door, will you, Nolan?”
Nolan did. He walked over to a chair in front of the desk, turned it backward, and sat down, looking straight at Werner and leveling the .38 at him.
“It’s good to see you, Nolan.”
Nolan smiled. “Good to see you.” He laid the gun down on the desk and stretched out his arm.
The two men shook hands.
2
“You didn’t exactly make it easy for me,” Nolan said.
“Oh, but I did.” Werner smiled. “I usually have two men on watch here, one in, another out. I gave the guy who covers inside the house a night off. You only had Calder to contend with.”
“Your boy Calder didn’t seem to want you to find out I got past him.”
The smile settled in one corner of Werner’s mouth. “That’s the way Calder’s mind works, all right. He’s a thinker. Thinks too much, really. As long as he doesn’t ever stub his toe too bad, he’s got a chance to make it in the business. Have much trouble with him, Nolan?”
“Some. Wouldn’t have a few years back.”
“Calder’s a hard-headed little bastard.”
“You’re telling me.”
Werner spread his hands. “I’m sorry to put you through this breaking-and-entering routine, but it’s best to maintain certain appearances, don’t you think, Nolan? If, uh, interested parties found out you and I still have connections after all this time, things could turn sour for me in a hurry.”
Nolan nodded and said, “I know there’s risk involved, for both of us. I didn’t think I’d ever have to contact you again, till this came along.” He patted his side.
“It has been a few years, hasn’t it?”
“Five. That was when you said things had cooled down. You said, don’t worry.”
Werner shrugged. “I thought things had cooled down. Eleven years should be time enough to cool anything down. But it obviously wasn’t. Even after that eleven years has gone to sixteen, it’s like it started yesterday. Who’d ever think one of Charlie’s dimwits would be able to recognize that ugly face of yours, after all those years?”
“He didn’t seem to have much trouble.”
“How’re you feeling, anyway? How long’d it keep you down?”
“Just over a month. Feel weak. Never was much for getting shot.”
“Hell, you don’t look so bad. The bus trip okay?”
Nolan got out the pack of cigarettes and offered a smoke to Werner, who shook his head no. Nolan lit one up. “Trip was short, few hours is all. I slept all the way. I sleep a lot these days.”
“Meaning what?”
“Meaning I’m getting old. Like everybody gets old, but sooner. Like you’re getting old, but worse.”
“Forty-four isn’t old, Nolan.”
“When you live the way I do it is, and for me it’s forty-eight.”
“Nobody forced you into being what you are. You could’ve had what I’ve got if you’d played it just a little bit different. Do you see this place, Nolan? Not bad. My life’s a breeze, old buddy. Only time I ever work up a sweat is when I go down to the local gym for a workout.”
“Yeah. Life’s a regular Disneyland when you don’t fall from good standing with the . . . what are you boys calling the Family now these days? Cosa Nostra? Too ethnic. The Outfit? Too vague. Better Business Bureau, maybe?”
Werner’s smile twisted. “The term Family is back in fashion, among the insiders. We’re back to calling it the Family again.”
“Cozy.”
Werner got up and went to the door and flipped the lock. In his blue Banlon shirt and gray slacks he looked like something that had walked off the front of a country club brochure. He strolled over to a line of bottles sandwiched between two quarter-rows of books on a shelf halfway down the wall behind the desk. He poured two glasses of Scotch, handed one to Nolan, and kept the other.
“You know, Nolan, killing Charlie’s brother that time was a mistake.”
Nolan lifted his shoulders, then set them back down. “Today it’s a mistake. Sixteen years ago it wasn’t.”
“No, you’re wrong.” Werner’s smile was gone now. “Even then it was a mistake. Maybe less of one, since you were young and had a chance and could live a running life without much sweat. But, now, the inevitable is starting to catch up with you, and it gets closer by the day.”
Nolan nodded. “I’m old.”
“You’re not old . . . but you sure as hell aren’t young anymore. Look, I got to admit that when you quit Charlie, you had no choice but to turn to what you did. I mean, a murder rap hanging over your head on one side, your ex-friends gunning for you on the other. And I’ll give you credit . . . you turned out to be the most successful grand larceny artist I ever ran across. Racked up how much in those sixteen years? Near half a million?”
“Just over that.”
Werner waved his hands. “More or less, what’s the difference? It’s gone now. All that’s left for you is to decide what happens next. The money is gone, or as good as.”
That was right.
Gone.
Nolan looked into his drink. When he’d called Werner from the girl’s apartment the day before, he’d found little need to tell his old friend about what had happened: Werner’d already gotten most of it through the Family grapevine.
For sixteen years now, Nolan had made his way as a specialist in engineering institutional robberies. Through a number of sources, Nolan lined up other professionals, with their own specialties (drivers, strongmen, climbers, safemen, electricians, et cetera) and molded them into compact units of three to six, hitting banks, armored cars, jew- elry stores, and firms on cash payroll. Occasionally, a well-moneyed individual would also feel the squeeze of Nolan’s particular talents. He’d stayed away from places owned or controlled by what was now calling itself the Family, and he avoided Chicago and the surrounding area, where the local Family operation was helmed by his ex-employer, Charlie.
Over the years Nolan had kept in touch, off and on, with Werner, his lone Family friend who remained as such, though then only secretly. Eleven years after the incident that had enraged Charlie over Nolan, Werner told Nolan that Charlie’s grudge had cooled. Cooled enough, at least, for Nolan to quit looking over his shoulder.
A month-and-a-half ago, considering the matter with Charlie past history, Nolan had consented to use the Chicago area as the planning base for a bank job three other pros had in mind for a little town some thirty miles out of the city. Nolan and the three others used an old hotel in Cicero while they hassled out the details of the job. A week before the score was to be made, Nolan was spotted in Cicero by one of Charlie’s men, who recognized him and got off the shot that had caught Nolan in the side.
The other three pros he’d been working with split (and Nolan could hardly blame them: he’d likely have done the same in such a case), but he managed to get to the apartment of a girl he’d picked up just the night before, and she stayed by him and didn’t ask questions. The only problem he had with the girl was convincing her a doctor wasn’t necessary, since Nolan felt that as long as the bullet wasn’t in him, had passed through clean, there wasn’t anything to worry about.
The tragic part, as
far as he was concerned, was that his cover was blown.
When he’d sent the girl to his hotel for his personal belongings, she had found that somebody (Charlie’s man, Nolan assumed) had traced him there and had taken all his things. One of the things missing was a suitcase, and in it was a billfold and papers belonging to one “Earl Webb.”
The Webb name was one Nolan had built for many years, a costly name, a name that had documents to prove its existence as a living being, a name that owned three restaurants and a miniature golf course and laundromat and a couple of drive-in movies, losing businesses purchased to keep on losing so that juggled books would keep the name’s federal income tax returns looking legitimate.
A name that held over half a million dollars in banks around the U.S.
“If Charlie leaks the Earl Webb cover to any of the authorities,” Nolan said, “all I got to do is try and touch a cent of my money and local cops and state cops and FBI’ll swoop down on me like hungry birds. I got to find out whether or not Charlie’s leaked it yet.”
Werner shook his head from side to side. “The answer to that one I don’t know. But I do know Charlie, and my guess is he hasn’t let out a word . . . up to now. He’s got this Earl Webb lead on you, and he’ll try to find a way to use it himself before he gives up and lets it go to anybody else.”
Nolan stubbed out his cigarette. “He won’t be able to use it himself. Oh, he might track down a place or two I rented under the Webb name, places I stayed at between jobs sometimes, and maybe he’ll get to some of the guys who run fronts for me. But there isn’t anything or anybody connected with the Webb name that I’m about to touch or go near now. The only possible good he’ll get out of the name is to expose it and screw me out of my cover . . . and my money.”
“You’re probably right, Nolan. And Charlie’s had just about enough time to find this out for himself.”
Two for the Money Page 2