All Due Respect Issue #2 (8 page)

At dusk, two officers led me outside to the impound lot. My car was parked over by the fence.

Back in Queens, I dropped by the Hunt and Fish Club and saw the
capo
, Big Tony.

“I’m going away for a few days,” I told him.

“Where?” he asked.

“Florida,” I said, “I have a guy down there I need to see. Could mean money. Big money.”

Tony nodded. “Alright. What’s it about?”

“Porn,” I said.

Tony smiled. It looked out of place on his morose mug. “Alright.”

The next morning, I packed a suitcase and went to see the landlord. In those days, I was living in a big apartment building in Flatlands.

I found the guy in his office, reading the paper. He was a little Jewish guy named Harold. He was alright. Never asked questions.

“Here,” I said, slapping five crisp hundred dollar bills on the table, “I’m going away for a while. Dunno when I’ll be back. This should cover rent while I’m gone.”

He snatched up the bills. “Bon voyage.”

After that, I was on my own. Caswell told me to drive to Jackson, and, once I was there, to call a number and get in touch with the field director down there. He didn’t tell me to get there in a timely fashion, but he implied it.

I left New York at nine and followed the coast to D.C. There, I took 81 and rode it all the way to Nashville, where I turned south. I blew into town the next morning an hour or so before dawn.

I found a phone booth and called the number Caswell had given me.

“FBI Field Office, Jackson.”

“Yeah, lemme talk to the guy in charge. He’s expecting me. Name’s Merlino.”

Two seconds later, he’s on the phone directing me to some twenty-four-hour diner.

I drove over and parked near the road. I closed my eyes for a few minutes, because I’m tired, and next thing I knew, some asshole in a hat’s climbing into the passenger seat.

“Whoa! What the fuck?”

“Mr. Merlino, I’m agent Darrell.”

“You ever heard of knocking?”

“On a car?”

I looked at him and he at me.

“Anyway, here.” He handed me a big file. “You’ll find a list of suspects in there. Pick one, it doesn’t matter which, and get the information from him. Try not to kill him.”

“None of this makes any sense to me,” I said.

“Does this?” With that, Darrell produced a bulging envelope stuffed full of cash.

“Of course
that
does.”

“Do you have a gun?”

“Yeah. A couple.”

“Good.”

After he left, I took the files and went into the diner.

The inside of the place was shabbier than the outside. I took a corner booth, and ordered breakfast. While I waited, I read what I could. Basically, the “civil rights Workers” were last seen on Route 15 south of Louisa, thirty miles east of Jackson. All of the suspects were local. Hell, one was the fucking sheriff.

From what I was able to gather, the Klan’s front was a Hunt and Fish club on the outskirts of town. Every single member was a Klansman, which makes things easier, you know? Like back in Queens, if you wanna shoot up a bar where wiseguys hang out, you gotta worry about collateral damage. Sure, the
capo
of a crew might operate out of it, and all of his guys might be there, but there were also gonna be other people, you know, guys off the street, couples.

Anyway, I went over as much of the information as my brain could handle (about four pages) before I called it quits. Over a steaming plate of eggs, hash browns, sausage, and bacon, I wondered which asshole I was gonna bust up. Certainly not the sheriff, though it would be fun breaking a cop’s jaw.

Finally, I settled on Delmar White, a TV salesman.

After a nasty breakfast, I drove up to Louisa. First thing I did was find a motel; there was a dumpy little motor lodge on the edge of town. I rented a room and unpacked my bags. It was eight at that point, and I was beat, so I decided on a little nap.

Six hours later, I dragged myself out of bed and caught a shower. Freshly dressed, I hopped in the car and drove over to Delmar’s shop on Main Street. One thing I can say about Louisa, it was a nice little town, the sorta place you’d find on a postcard or something.

Anyway, I parked in a little side lot between the shop (
DELMAR’S TV/RADIO
) and the town hotel.

Before I got out of the car, I grabbed my Saturday Night Special out of the glovebox and tucked it into my pants. I got out and walked across the street.

The shop was cramped and stuffy, a little fan on the table blowing the same stale air around and around.

Some fat guy sat behind the counter, his beady little eyes nearly lost in the folds of his face.

“I help you?” he asked.

“Yeah, I’m looking for Delmar.”

“That’s me.”

“Good. I’m new in town. Need a set.”

Delmar got up and came around the counter. “Alright.”

I spent I dunno how long looking at TV sets. Finally, when he was at ease, I made small talk with him, asked him if he had anyone working for him.

“My nephew comes in after school,” he said, “should be here in…about an hour.”

“Good,” I said, and pulled out the gun. Delmar’s eyes got real wide.

“In the back,” I said. I was facing away from the windows. Anybody passing by wouldn’t see shit.

“Alright, alright,” he said, “take it easy.”

Never taking my eyes off of him, I locked the door and flipped the
OPEN
sign to
CLOSED.
I’d done that sort of thing a hundred times before.

The back room was a little workshop piled with TV parts. I shut the door behind me.

“Look, I don’t have much in the register, but you can…”

“Where are they?” I asked.

Delmar looked taken aback. “Who?”

“Those civil rights kids.”

“I dunno…”

I cocked the gun.

“Hey! Hey!”

“Don’t fucking lie to me,” I said. “If there’s one thing I hate, it’s a fucking liar.”

“Okay! Okay! I don’t know where they put ’em. I…I…I didn’t have anything to do with it. They just told me.”

“Who?”

“Roscoe Parker, George King, and Larry Smith. They’re the ones did it.”

Roscoe Parker. Also known as Sheriff Parker.

“What exactly did they do?” I didn’t really give a shit, but I thought the feds might like to know.

“Well, uh, Sheriff Parker pulled ’em over and arrested them. Only he didn’t take ’em to the jail, he brought ’em to the club. He called George and Larry over, and…”

He trailed off, out of breath. He looked like he’d just run a mile. Poor fat bastard, all sweaty and pale.

It occurred to me that he was scared shitless. I snickered.

“Okay. That’s all I wanted to know.”

A look of relief washed across his doughy face. “Look, I…”

I shot him twice. The first bullet hit him in the chest and drove him back against the wall, his eyes and mouth flying open in shock. The second tore out his throat, and splattered the wall behind him with blood.

On my way out, I robbed the register.

Outside, the wet Mississippi heat swallowed me whole; before I’d even made it to the car, I was drenched in sweat.

I supposed I should call the office and see what they wanted me to do.

Back at the hotel, I locked the doors, drew the blinds, and sat on the bed. I was just reaching for the phone when it rang, startling me.

I chuckled and picked up the handset. “Hello?”

“Mr. Merlino?” The voice on the other side was tight and stern, like a priest after he finds you gangbanging a nun with some other guys.

“Hey,” I laughed, “I was just about to call you…”

“Mr. Merlino,” the director said, cutting me off, “you are being paid to collect intelligence,
not
to blow people away.”

“Oh, they find him already?”

“Yes, they did.”

“Well, you can’t expect me to ‘collect intelligence’ right if I leave a neat little trail of witnesses behind me. You know as well as I do that he would have called the cops and his butt buddies too, and this little spy and chase shit would be over.”

“Did you at least get him to talk first?”

“Yeah, I did.”

“What did he say?”

“Said the guys who did it are Sheriff Parker, George Smith, and Larry King.”

“You mean Larry Smith and George King?”

“Whatever.”

“Did he say anything about bodies? There
are
bodies, right? They’re not being held somewhere?”

“Nah. They’re dead. He didn’t know where they put ’em. Only the Three Stooges there know that little sweetheart.”

“Well, we’re gonna need you to find that out for us.”

“And then what, let the assholes get away? ‘Oh, don’t kill ’em; that’s awful.’ What do you want me to do? I beat one of ’em up, get him to tell me where they buried the bodies, and then I let him go and he tells his buddies and…what?”

“Don’t worry about that. It’s not your problem.”

“Fine. Fuck you.”

I hung up.

Once I was done fuming, I opened up the file and found the part about George King. Fifty-eight, King called himself the “Grand Wizard” or some shit. Guess that made him kinda like the don. I’ve never personally tried to whack a boss, but I know it wouldn’t be easy, so I skipped over him and went on to Larry Smith.

Ol’ Smithy, it said, owned an auto shop outside town. Since it was hardly five, I decided to try there first.

The drive took twice as long as it should have because downtown Louisa was closed. You’d think they’d never had a murder before.

So, I had to take a detour. It was getting dark by the time I pulled into Smith’s Auto Service.

The place was closed, kinda like I expected it to be. After I looked up Smith’s address, I shot out a window and left.

Smith lived in a little house in a field of little houses. I parked across the street and killed the engine.

I watched the place for maybe an hour, until the ugly blue paint got on my nerves. I was about to drive off and call it a day when the garage door opened, and some asshole kid, maybe sixteen or seventeen, started backing a motorbike out. Behind him was an older guy pushing a lawn mower.

The kid took off and the father disappeared around the side of the house. I picked my gun up off the passenger seat and slipped it into my waistband.

I got out and crossed the street. I was just about to round the corner of the garage when the lawn mower man appeared, almost like he forgot something and was going back to get it.

We startled each other.

“Who are you?” he demanded.

“Name’s Merlino,” I said, and grabbed him by the back of his head.

“Hey!” he screamed, and then the gun was in his mouth.

I looked around. To the right, another house. The only window in view was covered. To the left, wall. Behind us, the street stood empty and sun-dappled; dusk was drawing on.

“Look, motherfucker,” I said, “do yourself a favor and tell me the truth.”

His eyes widened.

“Okay?”

He nodded.

“Where’d you bury those kids?”

He said something, but the gun was in the way. I pulled it out and jammed it against his temple.

“Miller’s Quarry,” he stammered, “just past a chain-link fence and under a weeping willow tree.”