That’s How I Roll: A Novel (38 page)

Judakowski was one killing I’d never confessed to. It happened just before they caught me, but I’d still had a number of opportunities to meet with the new boss of his gang.

“Lou Money” was what he went by—I didn’t know if that was his real name, and it didn’t matter to me. Didn’t matter to me that some even say he was the one who’d put Judakowski on the spot. Lou Money knows better himself. I made sure he knew. I told him every detail, and I knew he had his own sources inside the local cops, so he could find out for himself that I’d told him the truth.

That was very important to me, that Lou Money knew I told the truth. That was because I told him the truth of how Judakowski had been killed, but I lied about the reason. What I told Lou Money was that Judakowski had broken his word to me, and Tory-boy almost
got himself in deep trouble as a result. I couldn’t have something like that
ever
happen.

Lou Money was a very understanding man. He’d make a good boss.

o Judakowski’s gone. And Lansdale’s not around anymore, either. He died in a fire. The way I heard it, he was doing some business with a man who lived in a trailer, way outside of town. They were still talking out in the yard when the trailer just blazed up. Everyone started running away. Then one of the trailer’s windows broke out and they could hear a woman screaming inside.

That stopped them dead in their tracks—the man they were doing business with, he was supposed to be living there alone. The woman was wrapped in flames, but they could still hear her screaming. When Lansdale heard “My baby!” he just spun around, wrapped his coat over his head, and charged into the trailer before any of his men could stop him.

It must have seemed like forever, but Lansdale finally burst out of the trailer, bringing some of the fire with him.

His men had been standing there with their own coats off, ready to beat out the flames. But they could see they were too late. The way it’s told, nothing was left of Lansdale but a burned-to-the-bone thing of disfigured horror.

There’d be no open-casket funeral for Lansdale, but the baby he went after was alive. The baby had some burned flesh, but they got him to the hospital in time to save him.

I heard they shipped him off to the Shriners, and he’s going to be as good as new, eventually. Folks say the Lord was watching over that baby. If that’s true, I guess Lansdale went out doing the Lord’s work. That’s about as squared-up as a man can get.

ow do I know all this? It’s not complicated. Lansdale wasn’t like Judakowski. Not only didn’t he think he could never be replaced, he had named his own successor a long time ago, and he made sure everyone knew it. Including me.

Coy came to see me on a visit. His name wasn’t on the list every Death Row inmate is supposed to file with the Warden’s office, but they never enforced any of those rules any too strictly with me.

Coy was still too young to carry himself like Lansdale, but I could see he was following clear footsteps, and he’d walk to the end of that road. Coming to visit me, that was sending a message. And taking a risk to do it. But I knew Lansdale would have expected nothing less.

All I really knew about Coy—he must have written down his last name to get inside for the visit, but he never told it to me—was that he was some kind of martial-arts expert. And the story people tell about that does sound embellished a bit.

The story was this: Lansdale was holding a sit-down at the bar he owned, The Blues ByYou. It pulls in a pretty rough crowd, but everybody knows you leave your attitude at the door.

Regulars knew the signals. Like if Chester Phillips took off the black pullover he always wore. Chester could sweep a few balls off the pool table into that pullover and grab both ends in one hand before you could blink. He had this spinning motion he’d do, which always ended with that loaded pullover striking someone. Whatever Chester hit with that move was going to break, and his preference was for heads.

Maybe the young man who walked in the door that night was looking to make a name for himself. Nobody had ever seen him before, but he must have known something about how things work. He walked right past Chester and over to Lansdale’s table.

It was Coy he wanted. He cursed him out every way you could imagine, going way over the line that people call “fighting words.”

Coy just ignored him. As long as the stranger didn’t put his hands on anyone, nobody was going to so much as acknowledge his presence.

All his challenge-talk finally got out of hand—he was making so much noise that Lansdale had to tell the young man to leave.

“You gonna throw me out, old man?” He must have been well past crazy to say something like that. Or his veins were running wild with meth courage. Maybe even both.

That’s when Coy stood up from the table. He wasn’t a bouncer or anything, but the other man had singled him out first, so he was the natural choice.

No sooner did Coy stand up than the hyped-up guy whipped out a push-button stiletto and snapped the blade to life.

Eugene folded his hands on top of the table. That should have told the young man something right there—you flash a knife in front of Eugene, you’re going to end up contributing to a blood bank the Red Cross never heard of. But Eugene was a surgeon, not a coroner. Folding his hands like he did, that was the same as telling the other man he was already as good as done.

The young man didn’t know Eugene, so he couldn’t read the smoke signal.

“Son,” Lansdale called over to him, “didn’t your daddy ever tell you not to bring a knife to a gunfight?”

The young man watched as Coy walked toward him, both hands held in front of him, palms up, like he was waiting for something to fall.

“I don’t see no gun,” the young man said as he slashed the air in front of him. He handled the knife like a man having an epileptic fit.

Coy just kept closing the distance, moving slow, like he was worried about that blade. The only person in the whole bar who might have believed that was the demented fool flashing it.

While he was still too far away for a knife to reach him, Coy shot out his left foot. There was a sound like plastic bubble-wrap popping and crackling at the same time. You didn’t need a medical license to know the knife-man’s kneecap was shattered.

Coy sure didn’t. He’d already turned around and was walking back to the table before the guy with the blade hit the floor.

The young man was shrieking like a bat using its sonar to hunt in the dark. The only word you could make out was “Hospital!”

Nobody in the bar looked his way. At the back table, everybody stayed quiet, waiting for Lansdale to speak.

“That better be a cell phone you’re reaching for,” Lansdale told the young man. “Use it to call a cab. And be sure to tell them you’ll be waiting on the sidewalk. Outside.”

One of the waitresses opened the door, then slid a chair in place to keep it open. Somehow, the guy dragged himself outside.

ansdale really died a hero, saving that baby like he did,” I told Coy that day he visited.

“Yeah, he did. Good thing we’d come in two cars. If we’d had to wait until Eugene was finished carving up that scumbag, the baby might not have made it.”

“Why would Eugene—?”

“Could’ve been because that miserable little piece of shit had told us he lived in that trailer alone. Could’ve been because he was such a foul weasel that he just walked away when that fire broke out—that had to be his woman who broke out the window, probably his baby, too.

“Could even have been that Eugene figured that slimeball was responsible for Mr. Lansdale’s death. Me, I never asked him.”

truly believed both Lou Money and Coy would keep the word their bosses had given me all those years ago. For different reasons, sure: Lansdale wasn’t a boss to Coy; he was family, and that means certain things would be expected of him. Whatever anyone
expected of Lou Money didn’t matter—he wasn’t going to risk his whole operation being exposed over the little bit of it I was asking him to keep secret.

The reasons didn’t matter—both men’s word would stay as rock-hard as the men whose positions they had inherited.

I’m still relying on that, but I can’t see into the future.

hat wasn’t enough protection to satisfy me. Giving one man power isn’t a guarantee he’ll use it right.

So, if Tory-boy ever got a call from the one person I told him he could always trust, my little brother would go down to our mine. Then he’d finish it just the way I’d taught him. All he’d have to do was push a button.

That same person who I told Tory-boy he could always trust would mail out one final package. That one would have everything I had on each of the two operations.

I didn’t know what Lansdale’s son would do with that pile of information, but I had a pretty good idea.

’d set all that up way before I was handed another card to play. For this town, a trump ace.