“That’s it, Nolan. But I don’t think you’ll find anybody there today, let alone Grossman.”
“Where’s his apartment?”
“Three doors down, on the right.”
“That white double-story with the busted porch swing?”
“That’s the one, the real crummy-looking one. Top floor, number two.”
“Okay. You go on back to the farmhouse and watch television or something. I’ll be back later tonight.”
“Okay.”
Nolan sat back and waited for Jon to drive away. He lit a cigarette.
Today was Sunday, but it hadn’t been much of a day of rest for Nolan and Jon, even though they had slept till noon. After a Sunday spread of frozen chicken dinners and Schlitz, Nolan had taken Jon out behind the farmhouse and let him take potshots at a tree with one of the Smith and Wesson .38s, to get him familiar with a handgun and create a few sounds to satisfy anybody who might wonder why the father and son duck-hunting team wasn’t making any noise. Then Nolan took Jon inside and made him study the map of townships that fell between the farmhouse and the Illinois half of the Quad Cities. Nolan had gotten the map at the Port City Farm Extension office the same day he’d gone to see the real estate agent about the farmhouse, and it included all the county and country roads in the area, which a regular roadmap would lack. Even each and every farm between there and the Quad Cities was marked, including the one they were on. When the boy appeared to have memorized the entire route Nolan had drawn on the map, Nolan took him out to the car and let him have a try at driving the newly memorized route, for practice. Besides, Nolan was due at Irish’s warehouse in Davenport at six to pick up the station wagon.
“Why are we going to the Quad Cities?” Jon had asked.
“To pick up the station wagon.”
“No, I mean, why are we going there after the robbery? I figure that’s what you’re going to have us do, if you want me to memorize a route there.”
“Once we’ve headed into Illinois, no one will expect us to cross back into Iowa, which is what we’ll do at the Quad Cities. Nobody’ll be looking for us in Iowa. Not hard, anyway. You’ll drop me off at a place in Davenport, then you’ll take Interstate 80 home to Iowa City. Planner will help you with the money.”
On the trip up Nolan and Jon didn’t speak much, because Nolan was still very occupied with working out details and Jon was struggling with his memory to decipher the maze of country roads. Nolan knew Jon was wondering about the plan, which hadn’t been completely revealed to any of the three, a fact which had pissed off Grossman the night before. But then, what didn’t piss Grossman off?
As they entered the Cities, it had occurred to Nolan to ask Jon where exactly Grossman was staying in Davenport, and the answer surprised him.
“Up by the head shop,” Jon had told him.
“The what?”
“The head shop. It’s up on the hill, in sort of a black section. Couple of colleges are up there close by, and a lot of the college kids, the freaky ones especially, go over there and hang around.”
“You said head shop? Like in dope?”
“Yeah, they been busted a few times, but all that was before Gross moved in. The guys who run the place got picked up for possession, too, but the charges were dropped. This was months ago. It was in the papers.”
“Christ. What does that goddamn Grossman use for brains.”
“He won’t be hanging around there anymore, Nolan, not after the lecture you laid on him last night.”
Nolan got out of the station wagon and crossed the street, which was almost devoid of traffic, a mere two cars passing by during his five-minute think in the car. The neighborhood was nearly soundless, too, except for the squealings of a handful of little black kids playing with a beat-up three-wheeled red wagon on the sidewalk, and the muffled blaring of a TV set down the block a house or two.
Nolan walked behind the bookstore and found a storm door, locked, and behind its glass windows was a wood door with a “No Nukes” bumper sticker on it at a slant.
He knocked.
He knocked some more.
The wood door eased part-way open and half a face with one heavy-lidded eye stared through the glass at Nolan. “Who are you, man?” His voice coming from behind the glass had a sort of underwater sound.
“Friend of Gross.”
“You look a little straight for that.”
“Maybe I’m his parole officer.”
“Gross is kind of busy right now.”
“Let me in and I’ll wait. I’ll find something to do. I could buy a book or something.” Nolan got out a twenty and held it up for the guy to see.
“Well. Okay, man, I guess you can come in.”
“Thanks.”
“But you stay in the doorway, till I get Gross roused up so he can take a look at you and see if he knows you or not.”
The guy let Nolan in. He was no kid, thirty if a day, short, pock-marked, greasy shoulder-length hair thinning on top. His tee-shirt commemorated the 10th anniversary of Woodstock.
The room was dark. The air hung with the smell of pot. Nolan put the twenty back in his pocket; he unbuttoned his coat. Somebody pulled the string on the overhead hanging light and Nolan took in the whole room in a glance. Half a dozen young bodies were squeezed into the cubby hole, sitting, crouching, reclining on the blanket-spread floor. A couple of rock group posters peeked out from behind boxes lining the walls.
“You know this guy, Gross?” the aging, balding hippie asked.
Before an answer came from Grossman, who wasn’t yet in sight, Nolan opened his coat and let everybody look at the .38 bolstered under his left arm.
There were no screams or outbursts, not even an “Oh, shit!” Mainly just a caught-with-their-pants-down-and-don’t-give-a-damn look on all the faces. Nolan couldn’t help but let out a short laugh: either they were so stoned they didn’t care about being busted, or they were just good and used to it.
The balding guy said, to the others in the room, “He didn’t have a warrant, so don’t sweat it.” To Nolan he said: “If this is a rip, you might as well know we got nothing harder than pot here, and not much of that.”
Nolan said nothing, glancing around, looking for Grossman.
Four guys in tee-shirts and jeans were sharing two joints and a like number of girls, one of whom had bleached blonde hair and a “Save the Whales” tee-shirt, the other a dark-haired girl wearing an old black sportcoat and a striped tee-shirt. Not bad-looking girls, but sort of skinny and not particularly clean, looking a bit tired from being passed around like another joint.
Finally Grossman stood up in the corner, where he’d been obscured by two stacks of book boxes. A third girl appeared with him, a black girl with dreadlocks and Bo Derek breasts distorting the face of Bob Marley on her sweatshirt.
“He’s no pig,” Grossman said, his face a mix of insolence and fear, “at least not the cop kind. Are you, old man? Of course he does steal things, but I don’t think pot interests him.”
“You people can go on with what you’re doing,” Nolan said. “Just don’t get so high you’re letting anybody in who asks.”
A boy with a yellow caterpillar for a mustache looked up from the floor and said, “If you’re looking to score some coke, I can help.”
“Shut-up,” said the over-age kid who’d let Nolan in, obviously not anxious to discuss a dope deal with somebody who might be there to rip them off. “Grossman, I don’t know who this guy is, but I for sure don’t want him in here. Or you either.”
Nolan said, “Coming, Grossman?”
“Okay, old man, okay, I’m coming.” He turned to the black girl and said, “See you, Naomi.”
She shrugged.
Grossman came over and Nolan took him by the arm, reaching over and tugging the string on the hanging bulb, then walked out.
Nolan guided the boy away from the door and pushed him up against the side of the building.
“Grossman,” Nolan said.
Grossman sa
id, “What’s the idea of cutting my runtime, old man? Don’t I get Sundays off?”
“Shut up.”
“Look, you won’t let me see Shelly, what the hell you expect me to do with my time?”
“Try jacking off,” Nolan said. “You can’t get busted for that.”
“You never know in Iowa,” Grossman said, letting out a giggle that let Nolan know he was at least a little high. “And aw shit, man, don’t you know I’m going nuts by myself up here without my old lady, what d’you expect out of me? Don’t you think I’d rather be with Shelly than some fuckin’, tokin’ black chick?” He laughed at his own joke. “But you wouldn’t understand about that, ’cause you’re so goddamn old.”
Nolan shoved him against the building with the heel of his hand and held him there.
“Now listen to me, clown,” he said. “You been pushing my patience and I’m not patient to begin with. I told you yesterday what I’d do if I caught you doing dope, and I see you didn’t take me too seriously.”
“Hey, old man, tell you what, how about you eat me?”
Nolan sighed, shook his head. This kid just didn’t seem to get it, but what the hell, a person had to try. He swung a sharp left into Grossman’s stomach and the air emptied out of the boy like water from a gushing hydrant; he slid down from under Nolan’s hand and sat on the ground.
“What you do that for?” Grossman said after a while, rubbing his stomach like a child with too many green apples under his belt.
Nolan kicked him in the side and said, “Same reason I did that.”
“Goddamn you!”
“Logic fails with you, Grossman. What choice do you leave me? There’s more than just money riding on this job, Grossman, it’s not a goddamn game. Now get up.”
He held his hand out for Grossman to take and pulled the boy to his feet. Just as Grossman seemed to regain his balance, he clutched Nolan’s arm and yelled, “Shit, look out!”
Two hands from behind Nolan latched onto his shoulders and spun him to the ground. A sharp kick dug into the soreness of his side and he saw some flashes of light and sank into darkness for a while.
When his eyes opened, Nolan found himself leaned against the side of the building with Grossman next to him. The figure in front of him came gradually into focus, and even then he couldn’t remember who it was, who it was behind the familiar face. Then a moment later he finally knew.
The watchdog from Werner’s. The bored son of a bitch who couldn’t stay knocked out.
Calder.
He was trying to get a grip on what in the hell was going on when Calder said, “Hello, Nolan,” and kicked him in the side again. The flashes of light returned, and the darkness.
7
Calder kept his .38 trained on the longhaired kid, but swung his gun now and then over toward Nolan, who was still out. Calder caught himself rubbing his left temple with his free hand; stroking the bruised area of his face had gotten to be a nervous habit with him these past several days. And now he felt a pat satisfaction in having the party responsible on the downhill end of a .38.
Calder waited for Nolan’s eyes to open and said, “I’ll take your gun.”
Nolan handed it over.
“Who’s your rock star friend, Nolan?” he said, jerking a thumb at the kid.
“Who says my name’s Nolan?”
“It’s Nolan. What’s your name, rock star?”
The kid glanced at Nolan and got a shrug of permission. He screwed his face around sullenly and muttered, “Grossman.”
“Okay, Grossman. You and your buddy Nolan get your asses up off the ground and come with me. You’re taking a little walk over to my car.”
The kid named Grossman turned to Nolan and asked, “He taking us for one of those one-way rides like in the movies?”
Nolan said, “Everything this guy does is like in the movies.”
“Clint Eastwood, huh?”
“More Charles Bronson, I’d say.”
Calder laughed softly. “Spare me, boys,” he said. “Get up and get going.”
Nolan pushed to his feet and Grossman followed suit. Nolan looked at the boy and said, “Watch this guy, Grossman. Study and learn. Nothing can shake him. Everything bores him.”
“I’m bored with you two, all right,” Calder said. He chopped the air with the .38. “Move.”
Calder waited until they had walked around front of him, then motioned them to the right. He marched them carefully down the block to his car, a late-model Dodge Charger, light blue.
“Nice wheels,” Grossman said.
“Don’t bother buttering him up,” Nolan said. “He’s bored, remember?”
“Shut up and get in back, Nolan,” Calder said, “and leave the door open till I get in with you. The rock star drives.”
Calder waited while Grossman opened the door and got in, then joined Nolan in back. He handed the keys up to Grossman, keeping the .38 on Nolan, and said, “You know where the Maricaibo Supper Club is, kid? On the Illinois side?”
Grossman nodded. “Yeah, in Milan. Over by the Showcase Cinema.”
“Head that way. Take the Centennial Bridge.”
“Okay.”
“And don’t get cute or it’s over for the funny man here. Remember, it’s just him and me and my gun in the backseat behind you.”
Grossman turned the key in the ignition and pulled away from the curb.
Calder said, “Keep it at twenty.”
“Okay.”
Calder sat with his back to the window, his right leg tucked under his left. He reached his free hand into his suit-coat pocket for a cigarette, keeping the gun leveled at Nolan. “All of a sudden you don’t talk much,” he said.
Nolan shrugged.
“You’re going to do big things for me, Nolan, you know that?”
“Am I?”
“Yes. Some people in the Family are very interested in you.”
“Oh?”
“That’s right, and I wouldn’t be expecting your old chum Werner to bail you out, this time.”
Nolan leaned back against his window and kept silent.
Calder’s soft smile stayed with him while he lit his cigarette and sucked in some smoke. Finally, he thought. Finally playing nursemaid to that pussy Werner was paying off.
The morning after his painful run-in with “prowler” Nolan, Calder had become very confused. When he’d reported the broken window to Werner, saying a neighborhood punk had tossed a rock through it, Werner had been uncharacteristically good-natured about it. And no mention of anything being disturbed in the house.
That wasn’t like Werner and it confused Calder.
Because Werner’s usual reaction would have been bitch bitch bitch. He was such a fucking pussy, anyway, always afraid somebody was after him, always bitching to Calder to make sure nobody got near the house.
Such a big man, Werner. Big talk, big deal. That college education cool of his, all his talk about the Family being a corporation, now; big business. Big bullshit.
The old boys who had built the Family’s foundation did it with force, with violence; but those guys were almost all gone, now, replaced by the corporate types, the Werners. There was merit in both approaches, Calder admitted; but it seemed to him the next ruling faction in the Family might well be made up of men like himself, men who knew how to use both violence and intelligence to the best advantage.
When Werner had reacted to the broken window by brushing the incident aside, he’d set Calder to thinking. Calder came up with the theory that the guy who’d broken in was a friend of Werner’s, a friend Werner didn’t want anybody to know about.
The pussy was putting something over on the Family.
Calder had called his friend Nick in Jersey City and told him about what happened, and asked if he knew of anybody Werner might want to see without having the Family know.
“Werner?” Nick had said. “I doubt he’d be pulling anything. He’s been around and’s been considered an up-and-comer for some while. T
alk is that any time now he’ll be voted onto the executive council.”
“All the more reason,” Calder said, “for him to be careful when he sees somebody the Family wouldn’t want him to see.”
“True,” Nick said, “but your starting point’s still doubtful. Look, Calder, you’re an ambitious boy, and a real thinker, but your best bet is to hang in there with Werner, get in good with him and maybe when he gets moved up, so’ll you.”
“Werner doesn’t like me because I think. He’s been trying to hold me down ever since I been with him. But if I could get something on him, it’d help.”
“Better be careful, Calder, Werner’s one of the fair-haired boys right now.”
“If he’s crossing the Family he won’t be anybody’s fair-haired anything for long.”
“Well . . . what did this guy that broke in look like?”
“Six-one, or maybe only six. Dark, shaggy hair, with some gray in it, around the sideburns. Mustache. High cheekbones. Narrow eyes. Good shoulders on him, hell of a wallop for a guy his age.”
“How old would you say?”
“Oh, fifty.”
“Could be Nolan.”
“Who?”
“Nolan. He and Werner were friends back in Chicago. The guy in the Chicago operation, this Charlie guy, is supposed to hate Nolan’s guts.”
“How come?”
“Charlie’s brother, a guy named Gordon, a real fuck-up if there ever was one, he used to run part of the Chicago operation for Charlie. This Gordon wanted to move Nolan into the enforcer type of work, bodyguard stuff and whacking guys, too.”
“What was this Nolan doing at the time?”
“He managed a nightclub. One of the Family clubs.”
“Since when is a club manager tough enough to shift over into the strongarm stuff?”
“When the club is on Rush Street and he does his own bouncing. And when because of that ritzy bastards feel safe enough to come in among the seamy crowd and spread some bread around.”
“He was good, I take it.”
“The best.”
“Well, what happened, Nick?”
“This Gordon told Nolan to kill a guy, some guy who worked in the club. Nolan didn’t want nothing to do with it. He knew this guy and liked him, and besides, he was happy doing what he was doing, just managing the club. When Nolan said no, Gordon had Nolan roughed up, and the guy Nolan wouldn’t whack was whacked by somebody else. The next night Nolan shot Gordon, cut out with twenty grand from the till.”
Two for the Money Page 11