A talent for killing, p.12
A Talent for Killing, page 12
“All three?”
“But not if only one of them was responsible. I was firm on that point.”
“It’s heating up here.” He put up one hand and cupped the bruised left ear. It felt hot under his palm.
“Can you find which one was responsible?”
“Maybe.”
“You want to turn the contract back?”
“Not yet,” Kane said. “I’ll see what I can do.”
“The client has mixed feelings about what I told him concerning his brother.”
“You told him what?”
“The brother’s true condition. And that the brother is in a private hospital in Florida, the location kept secret to protect him.”
The operator cut in. “It will be two dollars for three more minutes.”
Kane said, “We’ve finished,” and hung up.
He turned toward the lobby and found Franco standing twenty feet away from him. A brown tweed coat was over one arm, but both hands showed. They were empty and he’d pulled his dark blazer open so that Kane could see the waistband of his pants. Nothing there either.
“Just talk,” Franco said.
“You follow me? I didn’t see you.”
“Someone,” Franco said. “Not me.”
Kane let his eyes drift over the lobby. It was empty. There was a sofa and a low brass coffee table next to the escalator that ran down to the lounges and shops below. Kane turned in that direction. Franco matched him step for step. When they reached the sofa, Franco said. “There’s no reason to sit down unless you’re tired.”
“What does that mean?”
“They’re waiting to talk to you,” Franco said.
“They?”
“The people who own this town.”
“Talk about what?”
“It might be a job offer,” Franco said.
“Why today and not yesterday?”
“Things change. We got your message. Julie isn’t talking much right now. Ned, the big one, looks dumb but he isn’t. He told it the way he saw it. I guess you could say he was impressed.”
“No games,” Kane said. “I’ve had games up to my teeth.”
Franco shook his head. “It’s for real.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Through the open doorway, past Franco, Kane could see the three of them over lunch. It was in the private dining room in the rear of Pucci’s, an Italian restaurant on the outskirts northwest of town. Franco had parked in the back lot and they’d entered through the steamy kitchen. At the private dining room doorway, Franco had knocked and waited until he heard the “Come” from inside.
The dining room was olive green and trimmed in gold. Off to one side, still covered by white linen, was the long banquet table that could seat thirty or so people. It had been pushed there to make room for the smaller round table where the three man sat. Behind them, near the gold drapes, a hard young man with a cowlick and a shock of dark hair leaned against the wall, his hands in his topcoat pockets.
Kane knew Eddie Vincent. He overflowed the chair he sat in, and even as he looked toward the doorway, he stuffed veal marsala into his mouth, whole piece by whole piece.
To his Vincent’s left there was a tall, thin-chested man with gray-peppered red hair. Probably Red Stamper, the lawyer of the combine. He had freckles, too, though at his age they might have been liver spots.
The man to the right of Vincent, that end of the semicircle, Kane figured had to be Benjamin Turner. He looked of a small town businessman. The one who had the Ford or Chevrolet dealership. The man who’d been the Junior Chamber of Commerce Young Man of the Year when he was twenty-five. Now, in his forties, the comfortable weight was settling on him. Milky blue eyes found Kane, read him, and slid away.
Vincent straightened up and wiped his mouth with a napkin. When he lowered the napkin his mouth was still wet. “Come on in, Cassidy.”
Next to him Red Stamper twisted around in his chair and said, “Bill, you and Franco wait outside.”
Kane cleared the doorway. The bodyguard passed him, brushing him with a shoulder. Behind Kane, the door closed.
“Over here,” Stamper said.
Kane moved over toward them until he was a couple of feet from the table. The three men stared at him from the semicircle. Benjamin Turner lifted the two carafes of wine, one red and one white, and placed them on the edge of the table near Kane. “Have a glass of wine.”
Kane turned a spare wine glass and poured himself a glass of the white. His hand was steady and he realized that the three men were watching his hands. “Thanks.”
“John … that’s right, isn’t it?”
Kane nodded. He looked over the rim of the glass at Red Stamper while he drank.
“You’re making some problems for us.”
“I hadn’t intended to,” Kane said.
“Nevertheless, you have,” Stamper said.
“I got you to notice me,” Kane said. He drank the rest of the wine in one gulp and placed the empty glass on the front edge of the table.
“All that … just to get noticed?” Turner stopped with a thick wedge of steak inches away from his mouth.
“I had my look at the pickings here. All I want is some of the table scraps. That’s not much to ask for.”
Eddie Vincent crossed his knife and fork in the center of his empty plate. He took a long gulp of wine. When he lowered the glass Kane could see the curved grease mark on the lip of the glass.
“All this small talk aside,” Vincent said, “I’ve got my feeling about you, I think you’ve made your dead bones.”
Benjamin Turner whipped his head in the direction of Vincent. “We don’t need to talk like that.”
Red Stamper said, “Shut up, Ben.”
Kane shrugged, “I was in one of the less popular wars. Men die in those. They walk right in front of a bullet without seeing it.”
“Not that,” Vincent said. “I mean in the streets. In the alleys.”
“It’s important for you to know?” Kane said.
Vincent nodded.
Kane said, “I’ve scraped a bone or two.”
“Many times?”
“Some.”
“On contract?” Vincent said.
“When the money was right.”
Turner’s fork clattered on his plate. He’d been trying to put it down quietly but it’d dropped from his fingers. “I don’t want to listen to this. If I’d known …”
Stamper’s eyes didn’t move from his appraisal of Kane. “Ben, go sell a duplex or something.”
Turner pushed back his chair. “I don’t know anything about this.”
“If you’re so goddam innocent, how the hell do you know what we’re talking about?”
Turner dug into the topcoats stacked across the seat of a spare chair. He came up with brown herringbone and, struggling to get his suitcoat sleeves into the arms, he flapped his way toward the door. Like a fat, awkward bird.
Kane watched Stamper and Vincent. He read the contempt on their faces.
Stamper said, “Glad you enjoyed your lunch, Ben.” The door opened and slammed. Stamper turned to Kane. “We need something done.”
“Done right. No loose ends and no arrows pointing back here.” Eddie Vincent lifted the napkin from beside his plate and wiped the grease mark from his glass. He filled the glass from the carafe of white. “You might be the man for it.”
“No local talent?” Kane said.
“You wouldn’t believe how punk the local talent is,” Stamper said. “You met Park Simpson, I think, and there’s Franco and that dumb kid, Julie. That’s about the lot.”
“You left out Ned.” Kane said.
“That one. He can’t even find his way across town on a bus.”
“Let me see if I understand you. You want somebody killed.”
“That’s it,” Stamper said.
“Exactly.” Eddie Vincent nodded.
“Big fish? Little fish?”
“Medium,” Stamper said.
“Medium to medium-big,” Eddie Vincent added. “You interested?”
“If the money’s right,” Kane said. “That’s what it turns on.”
“It has to be done in the right way. Can’t be done here in town. Maybe in Atlanta where it can look like a mugging that went rank.”
Kane nodded. “Better that way.”
As if on cue, Red Stamper and Eddie Vincent turned and faced each other. Neither nodded but the agreement was there.
“It’s a man named Hardy Winston,” Eddie Vincent said.
It started right after Kane left the private dining room at Pucci’s. Franco spent a minute or two in the dining room while Kane found his way to the Naples Lounge out front and had a cognac. Franco eased his weight onto the bar stool on Kane’s right a few minutes later. Franco’s whole attitude had changed. All the hostility had washed away and he acted like he and Kane were the best of new friends.
From Pucci’s, they moved on to Ryan’s, a tavern designed like an English pub. Around six, they left Ryan’s and drove on to the Nineties Club. All that time Franco was buying. He kept saying, “Not a chance, old buddy.”
Not long after they arrived at the Nineties, Kane looked toward the bar and saw Julie sitting there. There was a mass of white tape over his nose and he kept his mouth closed over broken teeth.
“Your boy over there,” Kane said.
“Dumb shit,” Franco said. “Ought to know he couldn’t handle you like some fat drunk.” The admiration showed now. “The way Ned told it, he thinks you move like a cat and you see in the dark.”
“Ned was the one I should have hurt.” He reached up and touched his swollen left ear. “But I thought he might be pick-up help. I thought Julie might carry the message better.”
Franco touched the side of his head with his finger. “Always thinking, that’s you.”
At eight, Kane had a small steak and a salad. The drinking went on. At nine, Franco left the booth and remained on the phone for a few minutes. When he returned to the booth, he said, “Got a couple of girls coming over to my place. You up for a party?”
“Any choice?” Kane said.
“Just between the girls,” Franco said. “You can pick the one you want. It don’t matter to me.”
Kane sat on the sofa in the living room-kitchen section of Franco’s trailer. The sliding door that led to the bedroom had closed behind Franco and the red-haired girl he called Allie. Next to him, the girl who’d been furnished for him, a small-boned and delicate brunette named Charlotte, took a long, deep breath. Through the drinking part of the party, all the talk that led up to the grand exit Franco made with his hand on Allie’s rear end, she’d been prim and proper. Now, with the door closed behind Franco, she placed a hand lightly on Kane’s crotch.
“Everything all right, honey?”
Kane got out his cash roll and peeled off a couple of twenties. “My head’s not on it tonight. Some other girl’s walking around heavy in there.” He held out the two twenties. “If it’s all right with you, let’s don’t and say that we did.”
“You sure, honey?” Her hand moved from his crotch and closed over the bills. She had them folded and tucked away in her purse before he could blink twice.
“Dumb thing,” Kane said, “but it’s kinda like love.”
“I think that’s sweet,” Charlotte said.
“But since Franco’s putting on the party, I wouldn’t want him to think I was backing away from the dessert.”
“That’s sweet, too,” She leaned across him and kissed him. He got the strawberry taste of her lip gloss. “Wish I met more nice men like you.” The thin, phony sadness made Kane want to laugh.
When Franco came out of the bedroom half an hour later, he’d dressed in a t-shirt and trousers. His feet were bare. Kane’s tie was off, a couple of buttons open on his shirt and he’d kicked off his shoes.
“Good?” Franco asked from behind the low refrigerator where he was filling a glass with ice.
“None better,” Kane said.
Next to him, Charlotte smiled. “Your friend here, Franco, is a mean horse.”
“Why the fuck not?” Franco said. “Ain’t he hard ass of the year?”
The last bottle. Halfway gone. It was near midnight. Charlotte had taken Kane’s money and the cash that Franco had paid her and left. The other girl, Allie, was stored away in the bedroom. Watching Franco, the glazed stare and the lumbering way he moved, Kane decided that it was time to pick some at Franco’s head and see how much he knew.
“You know what those guys want of me?”
Franco nodded and said. “And it’s about time too.”
“Got to think on that,” Kane said. “Got to think about it tomorrow. After I get over tonight. If I get over tonight.”
“Shit, friend, tonight is worth the headache.” Franco lifted his scotch and almost missed his mouth. A dribble ran down his chin and darkened the neck of his t-shirt. “Nothing else, you and me, we got over raising our backs at each other.”
“And raised them at the broads instead.”
“You bet.” Franco nodded toward the back of the trailer. “You want some of Allie, you go help yourself.”
“Not tonight. Got the edge taken off by Charlotte.” Kane got a cigarette from a crumpled pack and watched Franco’s hand wag and waver as he tried to touch a match to the tip of it. “This offing people, that’s the extreme way to deal with troubles.”
“Got to do it sometimes. Hell, you know that better than I do.”
“Not me,” Kane said. “You got me mixed up with some other dude who makes that kind of living.”
“Sure.” Franco grinned. “Anything you say, friend.”
“That thing today at Pucci’s. Hard to figure.”
“How?”
“The three of them sitting there. Two of them for it. Right down the line, all the way to the boneyard. The other one backing off, chicken guts showing.”
“That’s the democratic way.”
“Bothers me,” Kane said. He lifted his arms and stretched. “Lord, that girl almost broke my lower back. Guess I’m not in training like you are.”
“Why’d it bother you?”
“You do this kind of work and you got to believe that you got good backing. That nobody’ll blow whistles around town and put your ass in a crack.”
“Nothing to worry about,” Franco said. “You take the last one …”
“Huh?”
“Forget it.”
Kane stood up and looked down at him. “No, man, I got to know everything. Anything that might tell me about the deal here. Shit, you’re talking about us getting our backs down. You got to show me you’re talking straight to me.”
“The last one. Won’t talk names. No percentage in that. Let’s just say the guy had big eyes and a mouth that might have been moving when it wasn’t supposed to be.”
“And the three of them backed it?”
“Didn’t have time for that,” Franco said.
“Two then?”
“One,” Franco said.
“Stamper or Vincent?” Kane said. “I can’t see Turner writing an X on anybody.”
A hesitation. A flicker, then Franco said: “Vincent.”
In the dream, the childlike Vietnamese girl said. “Western thought is so odd.”
In the darkness, Kane could not even see her face.
“Why?”
“In your society you think of death as some kind of harsh intruder. Some stranger who comes without being invited. In the East death always sits on the lip of the rice bowl.”
Kane said, “Go away, leave me alone.”
He heard a knocking, a tapping, and he thought that it was the sound of her high heels as she moved away from him. The knocking went on and on and it didn’t have the pace of someone’s walk. He awoke and realized that the knocking was at his motel door.
His watch on the night table placed the time at 3:10.
CHAPTER TWENTY
The package arrived from Jacksonville on the eight ten p.m. bus. The package was ten inches long, about six inches wide and about seven inches high. Printed on the outside of the carton was SUPREMACYAM-FM CLOCK RADIO.
On the way back to the Restaway Motel, Bull stopped under a street lamp on a deserted street and opened the carton. The large item in the package was the receiver. He lifted that out and placed it on the seat next to his leg. He had to dig around in the packing material until he found the bug. It was taped to one side, in a box about the size of a small matchbox. He opened the container and found the bug nestled in a wad of surgical cotton. He closed the box and placed the bug in his jacket pocket. He returned the receiver to the carton and drove on to the motel.
The parking slot in front of Kane’s room was still empty. Bull parked in his space and walked down to the office. Carol closed a ledger she was working with and hurried to the counter.
“I was wondering where you were.” She said.
“A late call on a client,” Bull said. “Had to get that business finished before nine o’clock.” He grinned at her. Letting it show. “Hey, you know what? I left my key in my room. I’m locked out. How about letting me have the master key for a few seconds?”
“For you, anything.” She lifted the master from the hook on the side of the key rack and brought it to the counter. The look she gave him was a parody of all the seductive looks she’d seen in hundreds of movies during the fifties and sixties. “You said something about nine o’clock?”
He looked up at the clock. It was twenty to nine.
“You bet your ass I did.”
When he went into Kane’s dark room, he took no time at all to attach the bug. Even before he’d called the Agency contact in Jacksonville, he’d paced out his own room and located the best spot for the bug. He went straight for the lamp on Kane’s night table. He tilted it to one side. When the bug touched the flat metal screw at the base, he could feel the magnet hold.
Total time in the room was only a minute. As it turned out, he had all the time in the world. There was time for Carol when she got relieved at nine.
Carol dressed and left his room at eleven. As soon as she was out the door, Bull got the receiver from the dresser and placed it on the night table beside his bed. He flipped the ON switch and stretched out on the bed.
