Easy Death

by Daniel Boyd

  “Well….” Mort lowered the gun.

  “All I need is for you to do one little job for me—”

  “That’s it,” Helen interrupted. “Mort you take that gun and walk downtown and kill Boxer. Whatever happens, it’ll be less grief for all of us than you getting mixed up any more with this crooked mick.”

  Mort looked at Helen to see if she was joking.

  “Helen, you wound me deeply.” Sweeney tried smiling at her. “All I have in mind is about an hour’s work, easy done and strictly legal.” He turned back to Mort, deciding honesty was the best policy, or at least the only choice since he hadn’t had time to come up with a good enough lie. “I need it done right quick and you’re the only one can do it for me. You’re important to me now, Mort. You’re probably the only man I could find tonight who ain’t wanted someplace, ain’t got a record and can stand still if a cop walks right up to him. I need you. Understand it?”

  “Need him to do what exactly?”

  “Just take that ice truck back there and drive up to Dell’s. You know Dell’s, don’t you, Mort?”

  “Up by the Piketon bypass?”

  “Sure. Just take that ice truck up there and wait for Eddie.”

  “That’s all?” Helen asked, knowing it wasn’t, not even anything close to it.

  “That’s all there is to it. Eddie’s going to drive up and load something into the truck and then you can either ride back here with him or—” He almost said “or go to hell” but caught himself in time. “—or whatever you want.”

  “Sounds simple,” Mort said. “Now what makes it worth so much to you?”

  “And why can only Mort do it?” Helen put in.

  “Well now, Eddie may be driving a police car. Or something like it, that’s what he told me.” Sweeney looked straight at Mort, like a general looks at his troops when he wants to impress them with their own guts. “And you’re the only guy I know right this minute who can stand there and look innocent if a cop walks up and asks him his business.”

  “He is innocent, you cheap crook.”

  “Just what I meant to say,” Sweeney put in quickly. “Now what do you say, Mort? You want that eight hundred, or you want to go kill Boxer?”

  “Make it a thousand,” Mort said.

  “Eight hundred,” Sweeney said firmly, “and I’ll give it to you now this minute.”

  “No.” Mort shook his head, winced from the pain and squeezed his eyes shut to clear his vision. “You give it to Helen.” He turned to his wife. “Honey you take that money and get back to the kids. And hurry. I never did like that Gomez girl.”

  “She’s okay.”

  “She smokes cigarettes. I saw her doing it once out back of the fire escape.”

  “Maria?” Helen’s eyebrows shot up. “Smoking cigarettes?”

  “Yep. Back of the fire escape.”

  “And you never told me?”

  “Well I didn’t—”

  “I’ll leave you two to settle this.” Sweeney walked to a corner of his office, moved a table aside with his hip, kicked a rug out of the way, and lifted a plywood panel that covered a hole in the floor. Down inside the hole a safe sat, too heavy and awkward to move from that spot, which was why Sweeney put it there when he went into business in the first place. Sweeney dropped to his knees, dialed the combination quickly and opened the door. Looked down at the neat stacks of money within.

  He quickly counted out forty twenties and went through the process of locking and hiding the safe again. Got his bulky body up with remarkable speed and even a touch of grace.

  “Here you are, Helen,” he said, handing her the stack of bills, beaming like a jovial department-store Santa trying to get a messy kid off his lap. “And be careful going home.”

  “This whole thing stinks on ice, ya crooked mick.” She took the money, though, and turned back to Mort. “You be careful, hon. And come back to us quick.”

  There was something new in her eyes: growing respect, or maybe just the warm glow of holding all that money in her hands. Whatever it was, Mort drank it down like a hot, nourishing soup.

  “See you soon, hon,” he said. And, feeling a little embarrassed there in front of Brother Sweetie, he kissed his wife, picked up the keys and started through the door to the garage, weaving a little.

  “Mort.” Sweeney used his I’m-being-real-patient voice.

  Mort stopped right where he was and turned to Sweeney.

  “Leave the gun here, Mort.”

  Sheepishly, hoping he didn’t look real dumb in front of Helen, Mort shuffled quickly to the desk and carefully, like a man does when he’s not used to handling weapons, set down the snub-nose .38. Then he shuffled even more quickly back out to the garage.

  “I hope he’s up to it,” Sweeney muttered.

  “You listen to me.” Helen started out the other door, to the parking lot, the street, her home and children. “That man can do anything he sets his mind to!” And then she was gone.

  * * *

  Less than a minute later, Sweeney lowered the garage door, watching Mort drive off in the ice truck. He was thoughtful as he returned to his office.

  Let’s see: got to pick out the right car for this next part. Something good in the snow, with a big trunk, that they can’t trace back to me when they find it burned-out with the bodies inside. Maybe the ’46 Chrysler. No, wait a minute; Boxer’s got his own car and it’s plenty big enough. Just use that….

  He put on his overcoat, picked up the .38 from his desk and casually dropped it in his right-hand pocket. Might as well do it quick and simple. Simple’s always easy and quick is always quick. If this works out like I think it’s going to… He rifled quickly through the middle drawer and pulled out a blackjack, supple and worn from use. Stuck it up his right sleeve. Hate to arrive at a party empty-handed.

  Let’s see now. So I go out and I find Boxer first. Over to Lola’s or close by there. Ask him if he’s seen Mort, then kill him while he’s trying to think up a lie. Nothing fancy. Get him in the trunk of his own car, then go out and collect Slimmy. He’ll fit in the trunk too, fit just fine. But I better take the Chrysler just in case Boxer’s won’t start.

  Outside of the garage, in the lot, he started up the ’46 Chrysler that couldn’t be traced back to him and sat inside thinking things over while it was warming up. Find a good spot to leave Boxer’s car once I get it all loaded up. Someplace where it won’t get found quick but I can get back here easy, maybe the train station or—Hell, I got to be back here when Mort shows up with Walter and Eddie and all my money….

  He settled himself behind the wheel of the now-warm Chrysler, adjusted the mirror and headed downtown, reflecting that there was never enough time to get everything done around the holidays.

  Chapter 45

  Ten Hours and Thirty-Five Minutes After the Robbery

  December 20, 1951

  7:35 PM

  Eddie

  It wasn’t easy finding my way around a strange hospital, but I tried to look for the places with the most lights and the most folks running around wearing white. Anyone tried to stop me, I flashed my badge and looked busy. And I finally found what I was after.

  Callie was in a room by herself, and someone had turned the lights low so she could rest better. A nurse was tapping a bottle that hung over her head with a tube dripping something into a vein in her arm. And there was a rubber breathing mask strapped over her face while a machine pumped air in. Kept her quiet, too, that mask did.

  And that’s what struck me all at once sad about it: the quiet in that room. And the stillness. No sound but the oxygen machine shoving air in her lungs and pulling it back out again. Nothing else moving at all but that nurse, gliding around like somebody’s ghost.

  I can’t really say how I felt then. I mean, here was this woman I’d seen moving around like it hurt her to stand still, and talking like it pained her to shut up, and that was just a couple hours ago, and now here she was.

  So damn still.


  So damn quiet.

  Something about it, it bothered me more than I figured. Funny, me taking on like that. I wiped my eyes and flashed my badge at the nurse. “How’s Ranger Nixon doing?”

  “Miss Callie?” she smiled at me. Nurses and cops just naturally get along, working nights and seeing blood like they do. “Doctor Woodrum said she’s out of danger.”

  “Did they take the bullet out?”

  “You must be really worried about her.” She smiled again, the standard smile they keep tucked away and bring out for anxious relatives. “They’re going to let her rest a little first. Doctor Woodrum will see to her in a couple of hours.”

  “Woodrum hurt himself,” I said, “better call Doctor Robbins to do it.”

  “Doctor Robbins?” Her face showed what she thought of that idea, and it wasn’t much.

  “He’s what you’ve got,” I said. “Go get someone to page him.” She still looked funny about it, so I added, “He’ll surprise you.”

  For just a split second I thought she was going to put up a fight about it, but then she kind of shrugged her shoulders and walked out to do like I said.

  That was what I wanted. I wanted to say something to Callie before I got the hell out of there. Couldn’t figure what, though. And she likely wouldn’t hear it anyway.

  “Callie,” I finally managed, “they say you’re going to be fine. You’re going to do just fine.”

  And then it was like something from an old monster movie when that big left hand of hers come up from under the sheet and pulled the oxygen mask right off her face.

  “Can’t you keep from lying to me?” she whispered.

  “No lie,” I said, “Doc Robbins, he just told me the bullet’s where they can get it easy and, uh, they’ll get it out of you easy he said, and….”

  “And you’re J. Edgar Hoover in disguise.” Her voice was weak, not firm and classy like I was used to hearing it. And it was like she couldn’t keep her eyes focused. She squinted at me.

  “You’re not in uniform, Officer Drapp.”

  “They promoted me to plain clothes,” I said. “Now you just rest.”

  “I’ve got to—” She stopped to take a breath. “This is rather important, please. Can you listen?”

  “All ears here.”

  “I know you robbed that bank or armored car or whatever it was, so you must be rather a desperate character and all.” She stopped to breathe again. “But you brought me here so perhaps you could—” She stopped real sudden, like there wasn’t any air, and she brought that black rubber mask back up to her face and took some air from it, took it in deep.

  “You just rest,” I said.

  She pulled the oxygen mask back away from her face. “This is rather important,” she said again, so I guessed it must be rather important—to her anyway. “I’m Catholic,” she said, “I—that is, I quit believing in God back in college, all of us girls did, but aside from that I’ve always been a good Catholic, and I want a priest. I have a great deal to confess, I’m afraid.”

  “You don’t need no priest,” I said, “Doctor Robbins says—”

  “Will you for the love of Fred please just do it?”

  “I will.” I put a hand on her shoulder to kind of quiet her. “But you got to rest.”

  And she did it. Like all of a sudden everything went out of her and her head laid back on that pillow like a balloon runs out of air.

  “Promise me?” She whispered it, all faint and far away.

  I put the oxygen mask back on her face and snugged it up good. Listened to her breathing, long and deep.

  “Have I ever lied to you?”

  But she didn’t hear.

  Chapter 46

  Ten Hours and Forty-Eight Minutes After the Robbery

  December 20, 1951

  7:48 PM

  Boxer Healey

  In his room above Lola’s, Boxer Healey packed the last of his clean starched shirts carefully into the shiny-smooth natural rawhide Samsonite suitcase borrowed from Lola herself. Then he took his time rolling up neckties and tucking them neatly in the corners, telling himself he wasn’t afraid of Brother Sweetie.

  ….the day I couldn’t take that big pink blob is when I oughta just give up being a man and start crawling around him like everybody else in this no-account town….

  He went to the closet one last time and picked out a good overcoat.

  Still, there ain’t no good reason to stick here and let him make things hard for me. Not with the weather so good down in Memphis this time of year and trains pulling out every hour.

  He laid his coat across the bed and snapped the lock closed on the suitcase.

  And as he did he heard another click, from the door.

  Thought I locked that—know I did….

  For half of a split second he considered spinning around and swinging his left at whoever must be in the room behind him. He knew this room and its dimensions as well as he ever knew any boxing ring, and his chances of getting in a fast, unexpected punch were pretty good.

  Nah, he reasoned, might just be Lola come to kiss me goodbye. I got time to turn around slow and act polite.

  He turned and saw he was wrong.

  Bud Sweeney was in the room, moving fast up to where Boxer was still turning around, off balance. Before he could move again, he felt Sweeney’s big left arm around his shoulders, pulling him close, and the snub-nose .38, the one Sweeney kept for social occasions, pressed against his chest, up high, just over his heart where a shot wouldn’t cause too much bleeding. He just had time to appreciate that Brother Sweetie always did plan things out far ahead when he heard the last thing in his life as Sweeney smiled at him and said,

  “Merry Christmas, Boxer.”

  Chapter 47

  Ten Hours and Fifty Minutes After the Robbery

  December 20, 1951

  7:50 PM

  Eddie

  I got back to the place in the hospital where I first came in, and there was Drapp and two deputies with two of those beds on wheels, and they was piled high with my ill-gotten gains.

  “Before you go,” he said, “have you seen anything of that auxiliary officer from Piketon? The one that drove all this in?”

  I wondered why he wondered. Hoped he hadn’t been figuring all this through.

  “He’s back in the operating room with that ranger-lady,” I said. “She’s talking now.”

  That turned his lights on.

  “She is? What’s she saying?”

  “Keeps fading in and out,” I said, “but from what I can gather, she got a lot of help from that guy….” Doc Robbins was just then rolling Walter out, right where I needed him, and beaming like a Boy Scout because he was all fixed up like I told him, with a coat on and his hands bandaged and his feet padded up in a big pair of rubber overshoes.

  “Thank you so much, Doctor,” I said. “We can take it from here.”

  “This is the guy that came in with the ranger-lady?” Drapp asked me.

  Doc smiled, a little uncertain, “You’re sure he, uh—”

  And then a voice came over a loudspeaker in the ceiling, “Doctor Robbins, please report to the Operating Room,” and repeated it to make sure there was no mistake. “Doctor Robbins, please report for surgery to the Operating Room.”

  From the look on his face I guessed he hadn’t heard that in a while.

  “Yeah,” I said to Drapp. “Hang on a sec—” I turned back to Robbins. “Before you go,” I said, “you got a priest or something hangs around here?”

  “I, um, yes, Father Flaghtski is on call at all times…”

  “Get him,” I said, “that ranger-lady wants to see him before you take the bullet out. Just in case.”

  “I’m taking the bullet out?” He said it thoughtful, like he was trying to remember how far back it was the last time anyone asked him for anything important.

  I stepped close and patted him on the shoulder, all friendly-like. Did he screw up operating on Callie I was going to come back,
and him and me we’d have us a long talk about it, but no sense saying that now and getting him nervous, time like this. So I just said, “She wants that priest, Doctor. But you just make sure he won’t have to do any last rites or anything like that. Make sure of it.”

  “I took bullets out in the war.” I wasn’t sure if he was talking to me or to himself, or to somebody no one could see, maybe. “I took so many bullets out of those men. Sometimes it seemed that was all I’d ever do again.”

  “Then you ought to get it done right, and no problem.” Behind me, Drapp made an impatient noise.

  “I shall need another drink.” Robbins’ eyes focused. “Just one. And just a small one.” He looked at me and then at Drapp. “Goodbye for now, gentlemen.”

  He scooted off like a puppy that’s done good, and I could get my mind back to Drapp.

  “So I figure we book this one on suspicion,” he said and looked down at Walter. “Just to keep him handy till we work this out. Can’t go too far wrong arresting one of them.”

  “Sounds reasonable to me,” I said. “We can always drop it later, or just vag him, do we need to. But we don’t want that armored-car guard—” I was careful to say we so Drapp wouldn’t think I was running this thing. Or trying to. “—that guy Pierce or whatever his name is—we don’t want him getting too close to this one till we get this sorted out. I don’t suppose you could keep him here any longer?”

  Drapp grinned. “I told him we lost his statement,” he said, “and said he had to write it out again. And I said we needed his prints to process the bags. Should be good for another two hours.”

  “Sharp work.” I could have patted him on the head. “Have you arranged transport?”

  “Wait till you see!”

  So he walked me outside, along with four cops carrying the money bags, and it was a sure-enough pre-war paddy wagon, like you see in the old-time movies: a big metal prison on wheels with a peep-hole out the back and running boards with handles for cops to hang on to when they come charging down the street. Just looking at it sent me a deep-down shiver, and all the while the music outside was playing,