Face value, p.6
Face Value, page 6
Emily cackled again. “If she didn’t like it, I can tell you we’ll hear about it,” she said. “All she ever does is complain about Johnny Sutcliffe’s tiny dick.”
“How’s she feel about this guy Callahan who’s her new beau?” Pax asked.
“She says it’s like fucking a hippo,” Cyrus said. “Guy’s a few pounds overweight, but he’s always nice to her. Seems to me he doesn’t deserve the grief.”
Emily gave the bartender the hairy eyeball. “That’s ’cause you aren’t underneath his flabby ass,” she said. “He must weigh half again more what Annie does.”
The phone on the back bar rang and the bartender picked up.
“Speaking of the devil, it’s Annie, for you,” Kipling said, handing over the handset.
Eddie tucked it against his shoulder and kept his voice down. “What up?” he said. “I’m sitting here nursing a brew and waiting for you.”
“Hey, honey,” she said. “I had to work a little late tonight. I had a bitch of a banking problem to deal with and I have a sort of headache. I think I want to go home and get into bed—alone. Can we postpone hooking up until tomorrow?”
Eddie took a sip of beer. “You still on the clock then?” he asked.
“Yeah, baby,” she said. “I promise to make it up to you when we’re together again.”
“No problem,” he said. “How about tomorrow?”
“Sounds fine to me,” she said. “I may have something for you on Fitz by then, too.”
Eddie smiled. Annie figured she had his number. There’s nothing like offering a hungry man a big slice of pie with ice cream on it.
“Sure, babe,” he said. “Let’s plan to meet at Lowery’s, just like tonight. I’m looking forward to seeing you again.”
“I love you,” she said tenderly.
“Yeah,” he replied. “Me too, honey. I really enjoyed last night. See you tomorrow.”
He handed the phone back to Cyrus and swigged down the last of his beer. “My date’s decided to stay home tonight,” he said, counting out bills. “I think I’m going to do the same. You two take care, okay?”
With a wave, he slipped out of the bar and headed for the Ford.
NINE
ANNIE APPARENTLY HADN’T been bullshitting about working late: her Honda was still in the staff area of the bank’s parking lot when Eddie got there. He pulled into a space across the street and slumped down in his rental while he waited for her to come out, watching the squares in their four-doors clog the streets on their way home to TV dinners, canned beer and an evening of Netflix.
He wondered if any of them would have as much luck getting their ashes hauled as he had the night before. Annie had really thrown herself into it, giving Eddie the works. He couldn’t tell whether her enthusiasm was real or an act but even if she was only balling him to get a chance at the money, his feelings wouldn’t be hurt. When Pax was on an assignment, the only thing he cared about was making the recovery and pleasing his bosses, particularly Chance.
The reason was simple: if one of its employees doesn’t cut the mustard, the Combine doesn’t grade down his personnel reports or hand him a pink slip; it terminates him in a way that involves chains, weights and a river. Eddie figured he still had a lot of good years ahead of him. He had no interest in being terminated like that.
Annie finally knocked off around seven. She walked out of the bank and said something to the security guard that must have been funny because he was still laughing as she walked to the Honda and backed out of her space.
Pax took care not to be spotted, lagging three cars behind her. Her route took him a mile or two further than her apartment was located, threading through residential areas that looked like they had been built for ex-GI’s after World War Two.
He made some of the houses as hillbilly shacks because they had no curtains, sported rusting vehicles on blocks and had blue plastic tarp covering their carports and outbuildings.
Others along the route had neatly trimmed lawns edged by big white stones that had been freshly painted. Little beds of well-tended flowers were nestled under their front windows.
A white friend of Ed’s in Southern California lived in Lennox in a crumbling shanty like those Pax was passing. The friend, who shot porn for low-end sleaze mags, once said, “There are lots of blacks in our neighborhood, but we’re the only niggers.”
Eddie assumed the folks who lived in the neatly maintained homes were probably the former; the shotgun shacks likely teemed with peckerwoods like his skin mag buddy.
Annie turned into the driveway of a house that fit neither category and Eddie pulled to the curb a half block away. Slumping down in his seat again, he used his side mirror to watch her get out of her Honda, climb three stairs to the porch and knock on the door.
Fitz Callahan opened it.
She gave him a quick kiss then stepped inside as he scanned the street.
For the first time since he’d met with Chance in Chicago, Eddie allowed himself a touch of excitement. He felt like pulling into Callahan’s driveway, jumping out and pounding him into liverwurst but he knew that would be a mistake. He had no idea what kind of weapons his ex-partner might have at hand and he was leery of bursting into the Aussie’s house only to find him holding a shotgun or semi-automatic. In addition, it would take time and a judicious application of pain to get Fitz to tell him where he had stashed the remaining bonds; Eddie was sure Callahan wouldn’t just stand still while Pax tied, tortured and interrogated him.
It was going on 8 p.m. He’d get something to eat and then come back and take Fitz on solo. Putting the Ford in gear he made a U-turn and drove past slowly enough to memorize the number painted above Callahan’s door.
• • •
Pax parked at a McDonald’s on Southeast California not far from Callahan’s little house so he could sit inside and wash down a Big Mac and fries with coffee. He bought a second cup to carry out, but decided it tasted like something you’d paint a telephone pole with after drinking half of it. He dropped ashes and dead Marlboros into what was left while he sat and watched Fitz’s house.
Annie’s Honda was gone and the light in the front room was on, but Eddie couldn’t tell if Fitz was still home. Searching for the missing bonds while Callahan was out would have been ideal but if Fitz had a clue Pax had traced him to Kansas, Eddie might find himself walking right into a fusillade of gunfire. Callahan already had shot him once and Pax wasn’t interested in learning if his aim had improved over the years. He decided to watch for a clue about whether Fitz was alone inside. If he was, Pax would need a plan that was a bit more devious.
He cranked the seat back and finished his cigarette. It took him less than ten minutes to drift off to sleep.
TEN
THE BACKFIRE OF A PASSING CAR jerked Pax back to consciousness about forty minutes later. A startle reaction is probably the worst way to wake up from a cat nap: it leaves you groggy, irritable and cranky. As a result, Pax was in no mood for rational planning.
All Callahan’s lights were out; Eddie figured that probably meant Fitz was inside so going through the front door wasn’t a good idea. He slipped out of the Ford, scanned the area quickly to make sure nobody was on the street watching him and crossed the street to Callahan’s driveway.
Fitz had a chain-link fence around the withered grass in the back. That made Eddie worry there might be a guard dog in the yard. But when he creaked the rusty gate open there was no response of any kind. He moved quietly to the back door, grabbed a shovel from a bunch of rusty tools leaning against the house and picked up a loose rock the size of a hardball.
There was a window on Eddie’s right with an exhaust pipe for the stove on the pitch of the roof a few yards away. Probably the kitchen, Eddie thought. Pax wound up one-handed and threw the stone through the window, shattering the glass with a crash.
Eddie moved to the side of the door where the latch was mounted and waited. Inside someone cursed and made a loud thumping sound as they moved through the darkened interior.
Pax took a batter’s stance with one shoulder against the house. There was a crash inside and the back door flew open. Fitz stepped out on the porch with a large revolver in his right hand, looking over toward the kitchen window Eddie had smashed with the rock. As he did, Pax swung the shovel down neatly snapping the blade off the shaft across Fitz’s forearm.
The revolver hit the porch and Callahan grabbed his broken limb, his head thrown back in pain as he yelled hoarsely. Eddie picked up the gun and slapped the Australian across the cheekbone with it, knocking him back through the door. As Fitz hit the deck, Pax looked at the gun and smiled. It was a Dan Wesson .44 magnum with a four-inch barrel—the same gun Eddie’d taken off the wannabe strong-arm man in the Trip Hammer years before.
“Cheap cocksucker,” Eddie muttered, glaring at Callahan.
The Aussie was on his knees, barely able to hold himself up with his good hand. He vomited violently as pain surged through his limb. Apparently, Pax’s timing was perfect: the Aussie was in pajama bottoms, naked to the waist. A beam of moonlight fell on his flabby upper body as he reared back to howl with agony and Eddie could see sharp shards of bone protruding from the meat of his lower arm.
Not bad, considering I had no plan whatsoever, Eddie thought with a smile. He grunted as he splintered the rest of the broken handle on the back of Fitz’s head and tossed it aside. Grabbing a handful of greasy blond hair, he dragged the Australian up off the floor and further into the interior of the house.
There was a broken-down sofa against the wall in the living room. Eddie pushed Callahan onto the couch and dragged a wooden chair in front of the whimpering Australian. He sat in it and pointed Fitz’s revolver in Callahan’s face.
“How’s the arm, mate?” Pax said sarcastically as Callahan moaned, tears of agony rolling down his cheeks.
“Jesus! Eddie!” Callahan said, his lower lip trembling as he recalled the last time they’d met. “What are you doing here?”
“You stole five million in bearer bonds from my employers,” Pax said, thumbing back the hammer on the pistol. “I’ve found most of it, but there’s more than a million still missing. I need to bring it all back. Where’s the rest of it?”
Callahan bit the inside of his lip in an effort to fight the pain. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, mate,” he said, still gripping his shattered arm as if he feared it might fall off. “What money?”
Eddie smiled. “You are going to make this such a pleasure, you fucking Australian cunt,” he said, grabbing a pillow off the side of the couch, pressing it to Callahan’s right knee and ramming the pistol into it.
The cushion didn’t completely cover the sound of the shot, but it muffled it considerably. Pax could have used another pillow for Callahan’s mouth, however: the Australian shrieked with pain as the large caliber bullet turned his knee joint into a gory paste.
“This is more fun than Skee-Ball,” Pax said, his smile growing wider. “You have another knee and then I can start working on your arms. You’re going to eventually start thinking to yourself, ‘Maybe I should give him what he wants before I end up a quadriplegic.’”
Callahan looked at him with terror. He blinked hard and wiped away tears with the arm that still worked.
Eddie thumbed back the hammer. “If you give me what I’m after, we’ll call it even,” he said, jamming the pillow against Callahan’s left knee. “I’m on somebody else’s clock, so I’m even willing to spot you the seven hundred grand you stole from me out in L.A.”
There was a pool of blood under Callahan’s right foot. The Australian’s jaw trembled but he didn’t immediately reply.
“Your choice, asshole,” Pax said, shooting Callahan’s other knee through the blood-stained cushion.
Callahan couldn’t even muster the strength to scream this time. He just moaned and sagged back on the sofa.
Eddie cocked the revolver again.
“No—no more, please,” Callahan groaned, holding up his hand helplessly. “My girlfriend Annie’s got it. She told me some big bruiser was looking for the money. She didn’t tell me it was you, though.”
Eddie grinned. “She didn’t know,” he said. “I gave her another name. I figured if I came looking for you as Eddie Pax, you’d be in the wind, for sure. Losing you and more than a million bucks that doesn’t belong to you would really fuck me with my boss. So, what’s your girlfriend going to do with the bonds?”
Fitz swallowed hard and Eddie could tell he was struggling to keep from slipping into shock. “She said I’d better give it to her for safekeeping,” Callahan said. “She’s going to lock it up in one of those boxes at the bank where she works. I was going to bring her the rest of it tomorrow. I have it in a storage locker over on the other side of town and I was going to pick it up tomorrow.”
“You had it there,” Eddie said with a malicious smile. “I took it off your hands earlier today. It’s on its way to Chicago even as we speak.”
Callahan blinked. His surprise looked genuine.
“My boss wants all of it back, so I’m going to have to pay Annie a visit,” Pax said.
“You want to know where she lives, Eddie?” Callahan said, licking his lips nervously. “I’ll give her up in a minute, mate, just to show you I’m not shining you on.”
Pax laughed. “You couldn’t shine a pair of patent leather shoes, mate,” he said with a sneer. “Why did you bring her on board, anyway? You already had two partners?”
Callahan grinned lasciviously. “Wait’ll you see her norks,” he said. “She’s a righteous root, Eddie, just fucking hanging for a banging. It’s like falling into a whore house with a swag of moolah.”
“I’ve seen her norks and her fucking fanny,” Pax said. He crossed his fingers and held them up so Callahan could see them. “See this? That’s how Annie and I are, dipshit. I spent last night fucking her until her eyes crossed—and in her bed, too. She probably had to brush your pubic hair out of the way to make room for us.”
Callahan looked thunderstruck.
“Yeah, chump,” Pax said. “You thought you had everything under control, but you were wrong. I still have a couple questions, though: stuff my boss is going to want to know. First of all, your fence was Johnny Sutcliffe, the guy who owns the bar, Lowery’s. What happened to him?”
Fitz shrugged then winced at the pain it sent shooting through his arm.
“Annie took him out,” he said. “Originally Johnny and I were going to split three ways with my other partner.”
“Oscar Johnson?” Pax asked.
Callahan looked at him with surprise again. “Yeah. How did you know about him?”
“I found his body on the bed in his apartment,” Eddie said. “Did your girlfriend whack him, too?”
Fitz winced again as he shook his head. “No, I did him,” he said. “By then Annie and I had decided to get shut of the other people who knew about the robbery and keep all the money ourselves.”
Eddie gave him a bitter smile. “Shades of Southern California,” he said. “You really are a double-crossing cocksucker, Callahan. Have you ever done a job where you didn’t fuck your partners?”
Fitz looked resentful but said nothing.
“You were watching Sutcliffe’s pad, weren’t you?” Pax asked. “When I showed up, you dropped a dime. That’s why the cops showed up so soon after I got there.”
Fitz nodded. “I thought you were looking for the money from the California jewel robbery,” he said. “I figured the cops would bust you for doing Oscar. That would get you out of my hair. I didn’t know you were here about the five million. So you’re working for the big boys these days, eh? Just my fucking luck,” he added bitterly.
Pax nodded. “I been on the Combine’s payroll since a couple years after you screwed me in L.A.,” he said. “I told my boss how you fucked me over when he recruited me. That’s why he sent me on this job—I had an extra incentive to nail your ass.”
Eddie shook his head. “Your girlfriend, Annie, is a piece of work, Fitz,” he said. “She bumps off one guy involved in the job then tries to get the other one working with her to screw you. The minute I show up, she’s all over me like flies on shit, trying to play me against you. Didn’t it occur to you that sooner or later she would put you on the hit parade, too?”
Callahan shook his head. “No way, mate,” he said. “I took enough out of the swag to live the high life for a while, but I put the rest in the lay-by. Then Annie started asking where all the cash Johnny and I were spending came from. I knew she was dodgy so I didn’t tell her anything—Johnny did. Fortunately, he didn’t know where I stashed the swag.”
He shrugged, but the movement obviously caused him pain. “After she carked Johnny and I did Oscar, I was the only one who knew where the bonds were,” he gasped. “She had to keep me alive in order to collect.”
Eddie thought about it. “She must not be as smart as she thinks she is,” he said. “I found the number for the locker easy enough. There was a business card from the storage outfit in Sutcliffe’s billfold. It even had the locker’s number on it. The key was on a ring in his pocket. Not exactly rocket science, man.”
Fitz smiled weakly. “She’s a fiddler, but she’s not the brightest bulb in the lamp,” he said. “I gave Johnny the key and that card. I told him to hang onto them for me—I had a bunch of personal shite in the locker I was planning to move into my basement when I had time. It was true enough so far as it goes; I just didn’t tell him the bonds were in it, too.”
His smile faded. “Of course, you hadn’t entered the picture yet,” he said. “If I knew you were going to be involved, I would have scooped up the whole shitaree and beat feet out of town.”
Eddie frowned. “What made you think your murderous lady friend Annie wouldn’t put a couple of pills in you when you turned up with the rest of the bonds tomorrow?” he asked.
