Everybody Goes to Jimmy's (9 page)

It hadn't worked perfectly.

Anna heard a voice she thought was Vaughn's yelling Hildy's name, but it was cut off and drowned out by gunfire. Pauley was yelling from the backseat as she got the car started and jammed it into reverse. She felt bullets hitting the car, and headlights were flashing in her eyes. Hildy slid out as Anna struggled with the steering wheel and fishtailed back onto the dirt track that led to the road. She thought there were two cars behind them and they were still being shot at. She couldn't really remember how she got away from them or even where she went that night. She just drove as fast as she could on the country roads. Hours later, when she was sure that nobody was behind them, she stopped and turned around and saw that Pauley had been hit. She got into the back seat and found it soaked with blood. She slapped him until he opened his eyes, but he couldn't talk at first.

When he came back to life a little, she told him that they were somewhere near Waynesville or maybe Springboro. He didn't remember exactly what had happened until she told him that somebody, a lot of guys probably, opened up on them. Pauley said that it must have been the idiot brother. It didn't make sense for Vaughn to double-cross them. He wouldn't hurt Hildy. The way Pauley figured it, right after Anna and the others left the farm that afternoon, the idiot brother got into the booze they'd left for Livingston. He'd done that before. Maybe he figured that since they were so close, he could take it easy. Maybe Livingston knocked him out when he came with the booze and food. Maybe they drank more and the idiot brother passed out and Livingston walked away.

He probably got out on the road, flagged down a ride, and got off at the same gas station where Vaughn had been making his calls. Now, Anna and Pauley had been right when they assumed that Livingston wasn't a low-life hoodlum thug like me, but since he was in the illegal booze business, he knew several low-life hoodlum thugs, and he called them instead of the cops. Even before the lawyer delivered the loot, Livingston was making other arrangements.

But at that point, it didn't matter what had gone wrong. They had to get away. Pauley said that he knew of a place where they might be OK. It was a hundred miles or so away in a little town called Wapakoneta. If Pauley was guessing right about Livingston, the cops probably wouldn't be looking for them, but they'd have to stay away from places where word might get back to the wrong people, meaning the people they usually worked with. It also meant they couldn't go to any of the doctors or vets who treated gunshots on the QT. They had to get to Wapakoneta.

Anna drove through the night. By morning they were seeing signs for Lima, and Pauley said that meant they were going in the right direction. Anna arranged a couple of lap robes in the back, covering up most of the blood. When they stopped for gas, she told the attendant that her husband was sleepy. It wasn't a lie. Pauley drifted in and out, and he didn't look good. She bought a road map. Late that afternoon, she checked them into the Lake Shore Motor Court as Mr. and Mrs. Bill Angiello. She said her husband was feeling poorly and asked for the most private and quiet efficiency they had. She paid for a week.

When she helped Pauley inside, he was hunched over and limping like an old man. Inside, after she'd got his clothes off and cleaned him up in the tub, she saw that he'd been shot twice in the stomach and side, and there was one exit wound in his back. He felt cold and sweaty. She went back into town and found a store where she bought food, milk, bandages, and newspapers. Following his mumbled instructions, she patched Pauley up. He wouldn't eat anything and didn't even want any milk. Running true to form, she was as hungry as she'd ever been in her life and ate damn near everything she'd bought. There was nothing about Livingston in the papers.

Then, for the first time, really, she looked at the briefcase. It had been shot, too. She figured it was possible that the bullet in Pauley had gone through the briefcase first. Inside, there was the money, some of it loose bills, some rolled up with rubber bands around it, some stiff new bills bound in bank tape.

There in the dim yellow light of the little lamps, with all of the curtains tightly drawn, the door double-locked and a chair wedged under the knob, she sat on the floor and counted, writing numbers on the brown paper grocery bag. It was all there—seventy-five thousand dollars, more money than she'd ever seen at one time, and it all belonged to her and Pauley.

Then it all belonged to her.

Pauley Domo died that night.

She said that she sat up all night with the body and the money. What to do? She wasn't about to give up the cash, and the longer she stayed there, the more dangerous it was for her. She was on her own. She didn't know anyone close who could come to help her. What to do with Pauley? She could try to wrestle the body into the car and bury the body in a shallow grave in the woods, or find a place at the nearby lake where she could sink it. But Pauley was a big guy, and she wasn't even sure she was strong enough to move him.

So, at dawn, she wiped down the room for her prints, stripped off Pauley's clothes, hung out the “Do Not Disturb” sign and drove to Toldeo, the closest city with a big train station.

“That's the one part of it that I'm really ashamed of,” she said, “leaving Pauley like that. But I couldn't think of anything else to do. I'd earned the money, goddamnit. We wouldn't have got Livingston in the first place if he hadn't believed that Hildy and me were really going to put on a show for him, so the money was mine. I was pretty sure that Hildy and Vaughn were dead, and I hoped like hell that the idiot brother was dead. The money was mine if I could hold onto it. But, there I was, a woman alone. As long as I was trying to move the money by myself, I was an easy mark.

“So, what I did was I held onto a little traveling money and packed up the rest real carefully in four wooden shipping crates and sent them on their way.”

She must have seen something in my expression because she said, “What? You don't believe me?”

She sat up in the bed and shoved a fist into my chest. “You'll believe it when you see the money,” she said.

“I'll see the money?”

“Of course. I sent it to you.”

For a moment, I was too flabbergasted to do anything. Then I laughed. “Why the hell would you send it to me?”

She snuggled down, pressing her tits deliberately against me, and put her head against my chest so I couldn't see her face when she spoke. “I know it sounds crazy, and I guess I was a little crazy when I did it, but this is God's truth, Jimmy.”

She looked up at me so I could see how godly and truthful she was. “You're the only person in the world I could trust to help me with this. I know I treated you kind of rotten, and I thought maybe you'd hate me for running out on you the way I did, but we had good times, and over the years, I'd ask people about you. I heard when you bought your place, so I knew you were still around and doing well.”

“And now,” I said, “there are four boxes being held for Jimmy Quinn.”

“Aren't you the clever boy.”

“Or for anybody who has papers that say he's Jimmy Quinn.”

“What are you talking about?”

“A few hours ago, I came across a dead guy who had a phony union card and driver's license made out in my name.”

She sat up fast and said, “Oh fuck.”

I was not surprised.

Chapter Eight

She threw off the sheets and slid out of the big bed. As she picked up the robe, she muttered, “That crazy bitch. If she has …”

Then she turned and stared at me. “You know something. What is it?”

“All kinds of strange things have been happening lately. Somebody tried to break into my place. Somebody blew up a bomb in the alley last night. Couple of guys braced me on the street and slipped me your note, and there was a kid on the street who knew my name but a mean-looking old lady scared him off. Then a German came in and made an offer to buy me out, and after that, there was the guy I just mentioned in a warehouse over on the East River, and while I was there, a cop got shot and killed, and after what you just told me, I suspect you know more about all that than I do. I'm missing some details. Why don't you wise me up?”

She stood, fists on hips, robe hanging open. I could tell she was working her way through what I'd said, and it troubled her. After a time, she nodded like she'd come to a decision. She shed the robe, opened a bureau drawer, and dressed—garter belt, underwear, and brassiere. White silk, and new by the look of them. Skirt, blouse, and shoes from the closet. She wasn't trying to be seductive or playful, but I still found it extremely interesting. Buttoning up, she said, “I can't stay here. I'll be in touch. And Jimmy, take care of yourself. There are people who …” She stopped and thought some more. “No, just … take care of yourself. Now get dressed. We gotta get out of here.”

She threw the rest of her clothes into a small bag. I dressed more slowly and gave her a Jimmy Quinn's Place business card with the telephone number.

She unlocked the door and kissed me hard. “You did all right for yourself, Jimmy. I'm glad to see that, really I am. I knew you would. I knew I could trust you. You're a right guy.”

I caught a cab back to the speak. As the driver headed downtown, I realized I was still completely confused even though a couple of things made more sense. Whatever was going on with the guys who tried to break in and Klapprott's outfit—that had something to do with the seventy-five thousand Anna claimed to have. That's what everybody was looking for. Maybe it didn't matter if her story about kidnapping the bootlegger was phony, if the money was real. And for now, I could figure that the dirty ten-spot was part of it. And I could figure that Anna needed me to get to the rest of it. Sure wasn't love or sex that brought her back to the Taft Suite, not that I was complaining, mind you.

It was around two o'clock when I got back. The crowd had thinned out considerably. Frenchy was behind the bar, and Connie was sitting at a table talking with Mercer Weeks. That was odd. The three-fingered guy who'd left the key and the dirty money was back at my table holding a newspaper up in front of his face, and Malloy, the night watchman from the warehouse, was at the bar. Frenchy said both of them had been waiting to see me.

I held up a hand, gesturing to Three Fingers to wait, and hooked a stool next to Malloy. He was closer. I nodded to Frenchy. He gave Malloy a brandy.

“Ah, Mr. Quinn, I didn't recognize your name earlier, and that shames me. Your reputation precedes you.”

“What reputation is that?”

“Why, as a man who runs one of the finest speaks in the city and keeps company with some of the city's most prominent banditti. Alas, as I predicted not long ago, my previous employers, the Kraut cocksuckers, have shitcanned me.” He paused to drink.

“Therefore, I'm thinking that perhaps those unfortunate occurrences at the warehouse earlier this evening might have some small bearing on your fine establishment, what with your name having been brought up in such untoward circumstances. Suppose the perpetrators of those horrors were to attempt something similar here after-hours. Wouldn't you want someone on the premises to dissuade them?”

“
Dissuade
?”

“To advise or urge against. To discourage or deflect. A word not often used in this context, but it seemed appropriate.”

“And how would you dissuade them?”

He opened his coat, revealing a Luger in his belt. “The Krauts will never miss it.”

He hitched up on his stool, leaned over his drink, and gave me a canny look. “Now, sir, I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, here's this feller that I don't know from Adam's off ox. Hadn't even clapped eyes on him until …”—he pulled a watch from his vest pocket—“… five hours ago. And now he comes into my excellent establishment and asks for a job. But what do I know of him? First, he allowed two gentlemen—gentlemen of dubious quality but gentlemen nonetheless—he allowed these two gentlemen to be cut down in a building that had been engaged to protect. Second, he brazenly admits to stealing a weapon from his previous employers. Why would I, or anyone, place such an individual in a position of responsibility?”

I tried not to smile. “Why indeed.”

He shrugged. “I have no answer. I was just hoping that such a display of honesty, however uncharacteristic, would be persuasive. The long and the short of it is that I need a job and this is a good place. What do you say, sir?”

“Wait here.”

Three Fingers still looked tired and watchful beneath a day's growth of dark unshaven stubble. He put down the newspaper and said, “I told you I'd be back. Things are moving pretty fast now. I don't want to trust anybody, but word is you're OK, so that's that. The thing is, it ain't safe for me on the street anymore. Somebody sold me out.”

“You want the key now?”

He said, “No, there's something else that's more important—” But he was interrupted by some commotion at the front door.

I heard Fat Joe Beddoes, using his loud no-nonsense voice, say, “I don't know you, so you're not getting in. Get the fuck outta here, ya jackleg bastards.”

There were more loud men's voices from outside. I heard Fat Joe open the front door. I told Three Fingers to wait a minute and went to see if Fat Joe needed help.

By the time I got to him, Fat Joe had gone outside to dissuade the jackleg bastards, and he didn't need me. They'd decided to find another speak. Before I could go back inside, Three Fingers scuttled out past me, my paper under his arm. Whatever he wanted must not have been that important after all.

Back inside, I found that Connie had joined Marie Therese behind the bar. I motioned for Fat Joe to come over too.

“This is Arch Malloy,” I explained to them. “Remember when Ellis came in earlier? He took me to a warehouse where Malloy was the night watchman. Guy got himself beat to death there. Turned out he was carrying papers, union card and the like, made out in my name.”

Frenchy looked surprised. Fat Joe didn't look like anything.

“And Malloy here got fired. At least, that's what he says. And now he has come here, thinking we need somebody to stay here after-hours.”

Frenchy gave Malloy a skeptical eye. Fat Joe didn't do anything.

“Consider this,” Malloy said. “Like the unfortunate dead man that was found in my warehouse earlier, the two jackleg bastards you just dispatched truly are part of a larger plot. They are in league with my previous employers to do whatever it is they're attempting to do. Just now, they were testing your defenses. In a couple of hours, after you've closed, they or their associates will return with more mischief on their minds.”

Fat Joe and Frenchy looked at each other. Frenchy shrugged.

I briefly considered that Malloy and the jackleg troublemakers were part of Klapprott's business, but no, that was too complicated. They were drunks, and Malloy was a smooth talker with a sense of humor and a stolen gun. My kind of guy.

I said, “Fat Joe, how would you like to earn a little extra tonight? Two's better than one. Keep Mr. Malloy company. One of you can sleep on the divan.”

Fat Joe shrugged and said, “Why the fuck not?”

I turned to go to my office and found that Mercer Weeks was waiting for me.

“Quinn,” he said, “Jacob wants to talk to you. I've got a cab waiting.”