Boldt

by Ted Lewis

  “You really know a lot about women, don’t you, Roy?” Murdock says after a while.

  “I know all I need to know,” I tell him. “I know they think from between their legs, and where their brains are supposed to be is just a jumble of dollar signs.”

  “And that’s all,” Murdock says.

  “Like I say,” I tell him. “That’s all I need to know. If there’s anything else, it doesn’t make any difference. The important things are like I’ve said. These are the things you’re up against if you want to handle them.”

  Murdock gets up off the toilet seat.

  “Well,” he says. “Thanks for the advice. I’ll bear in mind what you’ve told me. I only wish we’d discussed it sooner then maybe I wouldn’t be in the jam I’m in.”

  I don’t say anything to him. I just let him leave the bathroom on the crest of his own great natural sense of humor and carry on with soaping my dick.

  I wake up and feel worse than usual. My first thoughts are I can’t understand it. No booze last night, nothing, and I feel terrible. I get out of bed and look in the mirror and I look like I feel, that is, worse than usual. So I walk out of the bedroom in the direction of the bathroom, but the bathroom door’s shut and beyond it I can hear the running of bath water and Murdock’s less than average voice trying to catch the notes on “For the Good Times.” So I turn to the kitchen and at least there’s one thing, the coffee’s brewing, so I turn up the light and sit down at the kitchen table and wait for the coffee to heat up. Murdock’s out of the bathroom before that happens and he comes into the kitchen like a member of the class of ‘74 and takes over with the coffee and takes two cups and sets them out and pours.

  “Now,” he says, looking around. “There’s the icebox. And what do we have in it, I wonder? Because this baby is just in love with the idea of starting the day out right again.”

  Jesus, I think to myself. Murdock is no longer interested in living. Murdock opens the door of the icebox, bends over and peers inside.

  “Eggs, bacon, yeah, that’ll just about do it,” Murdock says, taking out what he wants and straightening up. “Can I fix any for you?”

  I look at Murdock and that tells him all he needs to know, and while he’s throwing eggs and bacon into the pan, I get up from the table and take my coffee through into the bathroom.

  The city’s not exactly what you’d describe as being expectant but it has a different feel to it. It’s a little tighter, not quite so sloppy. The day is clear and knife-edge clouds in the sky add to the general sharpness of the day’s atmosphere.

  I check out the squawk-box on Fleming. He answers right away.

  “Came out five minutes ago,” he tells me. “And he’s taking the same route as always.”

  “And the other one?”

  “As usual, no sign this early.”

  “Call me when the other one shows.”

  “Sure.”

  The equipment cuts out and Murdock says, “Business as usual?”

  “As usual,” I tell him.

  We drive around for a while, taking in all the obvious and supposedly subtle signs of Bolan’s security operation and having a few laughs. About an hour or so before my brother’s due to arrive at the station, we drive my car over to within a street or so of where Draper’s told us to be when the motorcade comes through. We sit there and smoke cigarettes watching the people going by. The sun rises a little higher in the sky and about half an hour before the arrival’s due, Fleming comes back on the airways.

  “Two things. First, he’s unloaded the kid. Took him to the park, walked around a while, then went to the south gate and there’s a car waiting driven by another black woman. The kid gets in the back of the car, the car takes off, the guy starts strolling through the park, but even though he’s strolling, he doesn’t have to put on a great burst of speed to get to any of those parts of the route.”

  “And what’s the other thing?”

  “The other one’s out a little earlier. Obviously the item wasn’t suitable.”

  “Why?”

  “She’s taking it back.”

  “Like before?”

  “All tied with a ribbon.”

  “Tell Copeland to make sure and keep with her.”

  “He will.”

  I put the set down and tell Murdock.

  “That’s nice,” he says. “We’re covering the first part of the route while the good-looking nigger strolls over to somewhere in the downtown section and makes the hit. By the time we get there, we run into the ambulances coming back.”

  Murdock switches on the ignition but I put my hand on his arm.

  “Just wait a while,” I tell him. “We got time.”

  “How much time exactly do you think we’ve got?”

  “At least until Fleming gets back to us again.”

  “And, of course, you know when that’ll be.”

  “I’ve a pretty good idea it’ll be inside of the next fifteen minutes.”

  “Oh, well that’s fine then. I can relax.”

  “You do that,” I tell him, and light up a cigarette. I look toward the end of Maxwell Street to the intersection across which the motorcade’s going to pass. There’s a few people wandering around obviously taking up early positions for their rubber-necking, but there’s not exactly anything you could call a thronging crowd. We sit there a little longer with Murdock doing everything with his hands except jerk himself off and as I’m throwing my cigarette butt into the street, Fleming comes back on the set again.

  “This is what you want,” Fleming says. “He’s near Weaver Street, the park side. But the other one, she went back to the boutique and she’s in there a few minutes when who should show up but the boyfriend, the denim guy, only this time he’s in his car. He parks outside the boutique and out comes the girl, still with the box, and she gets in back and he begins to drive.”

  “Copeland still with them?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Where are they now?”

  “Weaver Street.”

  I whistle and repeat the name.

  “I’m on my way now. Keep hitting me with their progress.” I don’t have to tell Murdock what to do because he’s already pulled away from the curb and begun to make for Weaver Street. I look at my watch. In five minutes my brother’s train will be pulling into the station, and it’s going to take us just over that time to get to Weaver Street. Murdock must be thinking along the same lines because as he drives he says, “You couldn’t let us have an extra five minutes could you.”

  “Sure,” I tell him, “if I’d known where we were supposed to be.”

  Fleming comes back on the equipment.

  “The girl’s walking. They guy dropped her and took off. She’s on Weaver walking north carrying the box. The other guy’s still on the park.”

  “What’s the exact location of the girl?”

  “Hold it.” Jack comes back on again. “She’s just waiting to cross the street on the opposite corner to where Fitch’s Department Store is.”

  I cut Jack out and tell Murdock to get into Grafton Street, the one that runs behind Fitch’s parallel to Weaver Street. When Murdock’s back of Fitch’s, I get back to Jack.

  “Where is she now?”

  “Hold on.” A short wait. “She’s crossed over; she’s about ten yards in from Fitch’s corner.”

  “Drop me here,” I tell Murdock, picking up the equipment. “Drive to the next intersection and get out and wait for her on Weaver but for Christ sakes—”

  “You think you got to tell me?” he asks as I slam the door. I hurry along the south side of Fitch’s and slow down when I turn the corner to start going north after the girl. But I’m not slow enough not to make her; there she is in front of me about thirty yards ahead still floating in her cheesecl
oth, holding the dress box, walking behind the single file of rubbernecks on the edge of the pavement. I keep my eyes fixed on her and call up Pete as I walk.

  “Where’s the other guy now?”

  “On Brook Street. If Weaver’s where he’s going, he’ll be there in approximately two minutes.”

  Brook Street’s the next intersection along from the one where I told Murdock to leave the car—the street a block from where Styles is at this moment.

  I cut Fleming out and close a little on the girl; then I get this crazy feeling and my gut turns over because a few yards farther on and the girl will be out in front of the Hillcrest, the place we rousted the other day. I close a little more and then it happens—a quick left and she’s in the Hillcrest. I run to the point where the building starts and contact Fleming again.

  “Where is he now?”

  “He crossed Weaver Street and he’s still on Brook Street.”

  I swear to myself. Styles is going in via the back door, and while I’m thinking about that, Murdock steams up and tells me that the girl’s just gone into the Hillcrest and I tell him that I am aware of that fact. So we look at each other for a second or two and then there is nothing left but for us to go in because we have to be where the girl is before Styles. We go in and I’m thinking of all the ways we can find the girl without rousting the whole place and spoiling Styles’s entrance when I realize there’s one big thing in our favor and that’s the perfume—the one she was wearing before I went up to the Plaza Suite with her. I walk up the stairs in its wake motioning Murdock not to ask the questions he wants to ask, and we’re soundless until we reach the first floor and it’s soundless; everything’s quiet, just like last time. I look at my watch. My brother’s on his way. I look down the corridor. There’s still the same three rooms. The gimp’s, the hustler’s, and the one where the agent was. And then it lands in my mind ten minutes late; the hit isn’t going to be made next door to where an agent’s got a stakeout. Not even in the same building. So either the agent’s in on it or the agent isn’t an agent.

  I raise my right arm and point a finger at the third door along. Murdock nods, whether he understands or not. I make another movement with my arm and Murdock stands to one side of the door and I put my hand on the doorknob and turn it. It turns. I push, hardly at all. And then, as I’m about to go in, a door on the opposite side of the corridor opens and out steps Charlie Bancroft and Earl Connors and they’re carrying all they need to make Murdock and me stop the movements we were making to unload our own heat. Bancroft’s glass eye winks bright in the corridor’s gloom and Connors’s faint smile even in this light seems just a little wider than usual. Their appearance is enough to freeze my mind but however strong the shock, it’s not severe enough to stop the torrent of thoughts teeming through my head, the possibilities, the alternatives, but the only incongruity is the fact that I notice they’re both wearing gloves. Bancroft says, “Now all you have to do is what you were about to do. And that is go through that door.”

  I’m looking at Bancroft and Murdock’s looking at me so hard I can feel it without having to look at him. But the nearest we’ll be to getting answers is to do what Charlie Bancroft tells us to do; otherwise, we’ll never get the answer to anything ever again except the one that’s nice and soft and is poised to whisper its truth out of the end of Charlie’s silencer. So I say to Charlie, “You want us to go through the door?”

  “You got it in one,” Charlie says.

  There’s no point in asking Charlie what we’re going to find when we go through the door so I follow through and let the door swing inward. And the first thing I’m aware of is the bed because Lesley is sitting on the bed and beside her, lying lengthways, is the box with the lid off it; nestling nice and neat in the crepe paper is a polyethylene-encased rifle. But the thing I notice most of all is the kind of smile Lesley is wearing.

  I go through the door and Murdock follows behind me and then Bancroft and Connors are in, too, and the door clicks closed behind them.

  “First the heat,” Charlie says, “on the bed. And you know how to do it right, so that’s how I’d like you to do it.”

  Murdock and me do it right and Connors slides around in front of us and picks up our guns from off the bedspread.

  “It’s not exactly the Plaza Suite,” Lesley says, looking at me, “but this time you’re going to score, believe me.” While she’s talking, the door opens and Styles comes in and closes the door behind him and he’s got a very happy smile on his face.

  “Hello, fellows,” he says. “Glad you could make it in time for the main event.”

  He takes a pair of gloves from his coat pocket and while he’s putting them on, he says to Lesley, “Unveil the goods, honey.”

  Lesley pulls the polyethylene from off the rifle but she doesn’t empty the rifle out of its box. I also notice that Connors and Bancroft have exchanged the heat they were carrying for Murdock’s and mine. Styles takes the rifle out of the box, turns to me and looks at me for a long moment, and then he says to me, “Against the wall. Just back up until you reach it and then don’t make another move.”

  I do as he tells me. When I’ve done that, Styles moves forward until his face is a couple of inches away from my face and his grin is as broad as ever. Then he shakes his head.

  “You sucked hard, baby,” he says. “You gobbled up and swallowed every last drop.”

  Murdock is frozen in the middle of the room between Lesley on the bed and me and Styles with Connors and Bancroft flanking him.

  “But being such a dumb cop, that’s what we figured and we figured right.”

  I don’t say anything. Styles raises the rifle and pushes the muzzle against my mouth.

  “Open wide, baby, and take one last suck.”

  Behind him, I hear Lesley giggle.

  “Appreciate the last drop,” he says, “because in a couple of minutes’ time you’re never going to gobble anything again.”

  Connors says, “You finally made the front page just like your brother. A real shame you won’t be around to read about it.”

  Styles puts a little more pressure on the rifle and I have no choice but to open my mouth and I feel the cold metal against my teeth.

  “Don’t worry,” Styles says, “you still got a couple of minutes to savor the sweet smell of my aftershave and all the other things that make life worth living. You got until the parade comes by but then when this little old piece has been fired out the window, it goes back in your mouth and the trigger’s pulled again, precisely at the moment Charlie here pumps a few from your own piece into your partner’s guts as he tries to foil your assassination bid on your brother’s life.”

  He keeps looking at me and he keeps on grinning.

  “Real nice and real neat, wouldn’t you say?” he asks me, but I don’t answer him.

  Then he takes the squawk-box from my pocket and looks at it.

  “I got to admit the guy on the other end was pretty good, but that was to our advantage, you know? I guess you do, by now. It’s a pity though, the way life’s turned out for the other guy.”

  He taps me on the teeth with the barrel again.

  “Okay, baby,” he says. “Just wait there and watch and drink in the fresh air while you can. It’ll be your turn in a minute or so.”

  Styles backs off from me and Connors covers me while Styles walks over to the window. There’s a small stool just below the sill and Styles sits down on it. He props up the rifle, leans his arm on the sill and leans forward slightly to look out onto the street. Bancroft puts my gun at Murdock’s throat and so Murdock has no choice but to back up against the same wall and watch and wait like I’ve got to. I look at Lesley and she looks back at me and smiles the smile and gets up off the bed and comes and stands in front of me and leans forward and very gently kisses me on my lips. When she’s done that she leans backwar
d and says, “One for the road. And it’ll be one of my favorites knowing it’s your last one.”

  The girl’s between me and Connors, and Bancroft reacts to what she’s said by looking in my direction for a brief moment and grinning. And Styles, for all his concentration on the scene outside, has taken in the girl’s movement and Bancroft’s movement and he snaps at them to do what he wants them to do; his voice rising above the noise of the crowd as the motorcade approaches. But it’s too late for the effect of his words to be felt by Bancroft because Murdock has made his move and everything happens at once like concurrent images in a split-screen movie. Murdock grabs Bancroft’s gun hand and pushes it wide at the same time giving Bancroft the full force of his knee in the crotch. Bancroft begins to go down and Connors can’t help his reaction which is for a split second to focus his attention on what’s happening to Bancroft. Which gives me the opportunity to go to work on him the way Murdock did on Bancroft, but I’ve got to make it even faster because Styles has started to move. I’ve got to give him credit; he’s not panicked into using the rifle; instead he rushes over to Murdock as Murdock’s stretching down to get his gun back out of Connors’s fingers. While all that’s happening, I’ve put Bancroft down and got my own gun back and thrown myself in the direction of the door. That particular action of mine puts Styles in two minds but his decision is made for him by Lesley throwing herself against Murdock and over-balancing him. When she’s achieved that, she picks up Murdock’s gun and points it at him. Now Murdock, when he over-balances, doesn’t fall to the floor, he bounces against the wall and when he sees where his gun is, he makes a grab for it and Styles can see what’s going to happen. He starts screaming at the girl not to do it, but he’s too late—she pulls the trigger. Three times she pulls it—the bullets hitting Murdock on approximately the same small area of his stomach. Simultaneously he begins to scream in pain and the blood begins to gush out of him like an echo of his scream, but he doesn’t go down; he just staggers slightly looking down at the blood that’s raining onto Lesley’s cheesecloth. Oddly, she’s looking down at the red spots on her clothes, too, in a kind of mild disbelief, taking a step or two back like someone who’s been splashed by a passing water truck. By now Styles knows the whole thing’s blown and all he can do is to take me out in a different way to the way he’d planned. He’s holding the rifle at waist height and he swings around to hip-shoot in my direction. I start scrambling at the door but Bancroft’s started to rise from his knees and as Styles pulls the trigger, the top of Bancroft’s head gets between the bullet and me, and suddenly the top of Bancroft’s head is flying in pieces to all four corners of the room. Styles fires again but by that time I’m out in the corridor and running faster than I ever ran in my life. And as I get to the end of the corridor, a scream begins all on its own coming from me because there is no sound at all from Murdock.