The Last Whisper in the Dark: A Novel (20 page)

He nodded, his carved stony chin jutting. “Okay, now I know for sure you mean what you say.”

“If I didn’t, would I be here?” I asked.

“Maybe. Maybe you’d try to help him out just to keep your conscience clean and prove to yourself that you weren’t out to steal his woman and watch him die. And when the time came maybe you’d kill him yourself.”

Christ. It was the third time in three days that someone thought I had it in me to snuff out a life like swatting a moth. What in the hell was I putting out there into the world?

“The name of the torpedo?”

“Walton Endicott.”

“He’s not using goombahs anymore?”

“There aren’t that many left around. Most of them have run to Chi or L.A., either mobbed up there or gone legit or retired. He puts his regular boys on the street to find out whatever they can, then Endicott follows up.”

“So where can I find Endicott?” I asked.

Wes shrugged his huge shoulders. “I don’t know. He doesn’t work out of the Fifth. He doesn’t like to be seen with Mr. Thompson. He seems to think that working with wiseguys is beneath him. He’s the real thing, Terry. The kind they don’t make anymore. A professional killer. Pure ice.”

“So how’d he wind up on Danny’s payroll?”

“He works for whoever will pay him. Times are tough for everybody.”

“I guess so.”

Wes had more to say but needed to work up to it.

“There’s something else, Terry.” He craned his neck and checked down the hall to make sure Em was out of earshot. He slid to the edge of his seat, gesturing for me to do the same. I leaned in. “They say he uses a needle.”

“What?”

“He kills with a needle.” Wes enunciated clearly, striking each syllable like banging flint together.

“A needle? What do you mean? Like a syringe?”

“I don’t know.”

“Like a knitting needle?”

Wes shrugged again.

“Or like a hat pin that some old ladies still wear? Or like a stiletto maybe.”

“Jesus H., I don’t know. A needle. That’s what they say. That’s all I know. He’s put the shits into some of the Thompson soldiers that you’d figure would never rattle. I’m telling you, you can’t go up against this guy.”

“I don’t want to go up against him,” I said. I reached for my cigarettes and Wes gave me a look like I’d just spit on the floor. He was taking this new home owner’s pride a little far. I stuck the pack of smokes back in my pocket. “I just want to talk to him.”

“He doesn’t talk. Guys like that don’t talk. He’s racked up a lot of numbers, Terry. We’re talking triple digits.”

“Oh bullshit.”

“I’m serious. You pay ">“Why not?”tphim and the job gets done, period. He doesn’t make mistakes like the other boys might. He’s a very nasty customer. Let it lie. Chub called his tune.”

All of it was true. Chub had made his choice. I didn’t want to go up against an iceman torpedo. But I’d made Kimmy a promise I never should have made to make up for a promise I didn’t keep.

“You never answered me before. What’s the name of the new mouthpiece that Danny’s listening to? That’s how Danny got ahold of someone like Endicott, isn’t it? Even Big Dan never used somebody who performs hits with a needle.”

Wes didn’t want to give me any more information. He hadn’t wanted to tell me as much as he already had. He knew he was putting me in harm’s way. But I was calling my tune. “Guy’s name is Haggert. Eddie Haggert. He’s not a ginzo, but he was a trusted confidant of Big Dan back in the old days. Guy’s about seventy, a former middleweight, fought at the Garden a couple times. Drives a big Caddy and talks about it like it’s his mistress. He came out of retirement to help the Thompson family, mainly because he was bored and wasting away.”

“I didn’t see anybody like that at the Fifth tonight.”

“He wasn’t there. He was coming in late.”

I got back up on the roof of the Fifth Amendment.
Danny Thompson was still at his father’s station, the corner table where all the real business got done. The hive was buzzing. I watched more and more cars pull in. The thugs, soldiers, and big shots spread out across the bar drinking and flirting with the chick bartenders. Cigar smoke hung heavily in the air now. The men hugged each other and kissed one another on the cheeks. Even the non-goombahs did it. You pretended to love the guy you might someday mow down. It went back to the Garden of Gethsemane.

A few of the high rollers took women upstairs to the private rooms. I listened to their vacuous giggles as they followed the men, carrying drinks and plates of sandwiches and appetizers.

I checked my messages and had a new voice mail from Darla. “I’m still thinking about your offer. Maybe you can come over tonight and persuade me one way or the other. Stop by no matter how late it is, if you’d like.”

A half hour later I spotted Eddie Haggert swing around the corner in a vintage ’59 Cadillac Fleetwood Sixty Special. Sporting a fake fender scoop, chromed ice cones, three-row bullet rear grille, extraordinary fins, and a molding that wrapped from the front to the back, this was fifties flamboyance at its best. He was old-school all right. The good old bad days.

He slid from the Caddy and moved across the lot with the fluid grace of an ex-pro athlete, much like my father moved. A shout went up when he walked in. Danny g the only one I had leftedor ot to his feet. Danny didn’t get to his feet for anybody.

They did the kissing and hugging thing. Danny waved his boys
away. He and Haggert went into a huddle. They were in deep discussion for ten minutes. I could see the sweat on Danny’s brow. He usually talked much too loudly when discussing business. His father had never raised his voice, not even when he was furious. You never knew who might be listening.

But Danny had learned to keep it down. He spoke calmly, controlling himself, sipping a large dark beer. I’d seen him for the first time in five years a couple of months ago and he’d put on a lot of weight, shifting uncomfortably in his seat, wearing a suit a couple sizes too small for him at the time.

Now he’d dropped a few pounds and looked healthier, stronger, a little more like his old man. Danny’s silky blond hair had receded into a prominent widow’s peak, but he no longer appeared to have the nervous tic of constantly brushing his thumb across it. Haggert’s company had given him a boost of confidence.

I was pretty sure Haggert was going to make a run to take over the whole show. He’d come out of retirement to jockey his way up to being the number-two man. I didn’t see a guy who’d drive a boat like the Fleetwood Sixty Special being happy unless he had all the power. A roughhouse boxer like that didn’t get back into the ring unless he wanted to win the title.

Nobody drifted near Danny’s table or the back office. It was time for a midnight snack, and the kitchen was busy.

Haggert had the same cool as Big Dan, as most of the old time players. He wore a three-thousand-dollar black suit and still went in for cuff links. He had his white hair sharply parted on the side, something you didn’t see much of nowadays. He had a rawboned handsomeness to him, huge powerful-looking hands even as he used a tiny spoon to stir his cappuccino.

His smile seemed genuine and he had a habit of chuckling as he spoke, his shoulders heaving gently. He had dark blue eyes that were, somehow, a little too warm. There was a forced gentleness there that
you knew you couldn’t trust. I found myself liking him from afar, and realized just how dangerous that sort of thing was, considering I was hanging on to the rim of a roof staring in at a bunch of wiseguys.

I had my tools with me but I didn’t even need them to get into the back office. The ventilation was bad in the building so they kept a lot of the windows open a crack, even during frosty autumn evenings. I went around the back of the Fifth, popped one of the window frames of the office, crawled inside, crossed the room, locked the door, and propped a folding chair under the knob.

I searched the small room as quickly and efficiently as I could. I wasn’t expecting to find anything of use but it was a better place to start than plan B.

Thirty years of useless paperwork was piled up everywhere I looked. Anything of real importance would’ve been shredded or locked up. They were sloppy but not quite that sloppy. I started at the computer. It wasn’t encrypted. Nobody encrypted anything. There were files of transactions in a code I knew would be easy enough to break if you put a little time in. It wouldn’t give the feds much. It wouldn’t give me anything.

A second set of books would be hidden away someplace. A third set someplace else. Maybe written out, maybe on other computers. Most of the Thompson dealings were legit, like most underworld action nowadays. There was still a rotary phone on the desk. this many times beforeit himselfLike my own family, Danny was a holdout.

I checked for anything that might help me get a line on Walton Endicott. I didn’t think his cell number would just be sitting out in the open. But then again, it had to be somewhere. Danny played at mobsters, not spies. Information wasn’t going to self-destruct. They had to be able to get in touch with the torpedo. I could see Haggert memorizing such numbers and destroying the evidence, but not Danny.

Big Dan used to keep a small safe in the corner, but it wasn’t there
now. I figured they might move it around, but they wouldn’t get rid of it. I checked the whole place but couldn’t find a new stash for it. I went back to the computer and played around some more. I couldn’t find anything to give me an edge.

The doorknob rattled.

“Hey,” a voice called. “What’s this? Somebody in there?”

“Just a sec,” I said. “Just a sec?”

“Just two ticks.”

“Two ticks? Who’s that?”

“Give me a minute here, Chico.”

“… Chico?”

I kicked back in the chair and thought, Shit, plan B, we’re going to have to do this the hard way.

He had the door unlocked but still couldn’t get in because of the propped chair. I pulled it away and the door flew open and a huge bruiser stood there with the same body and face and expression as about ten thousand other guys who’d performed the same function for bad guys going back to Capone.

“Who the fuck are you?”

“You wouldn’t happen to know Endicott’s number, would you?” I asked.

He carried a Sig Sauer compact in a shoulder holster. He must’ve bought the holster first because the compact fitted loosely in it. He had his hand on the butt of it but hadn’t yet drawn the weapon. I smiled and held up my hands. The smile annoyed him enough to make him pull his piece. He held it on me while he patted me down.

He took my burglary tools and said, “You trying to rip us off?”

“In a manner of speaking,” I said. “So, you know this Endicott fella? Supposedly kills people with some kind of needle?”

The tough spun me around, gripped me by the neck gruffly, and shoved me forward with the barrel of the Sig Sauer planted in the
middle of my back. He pushed me out into the bar. There was a kerfluffle of activity. Some guys yanked their hardware. The dude who had me shoved me toward Danny.

“Mr. Thompson, we have a—”

Danny didn’t let him finish. He looked up from the table and waved me over with two fingers, the way Big Dan used to allow passage to his corner.

He didn’t like to be called Danny but I had no idea what the hell else to call him. Mr. Thompson sounded excessively formal.

I said, “Hello, Danny.” It might miff him but we were headed in that direction anyway, no matter how it started off.

He didn’t lock up the way I expected. He looked practically serene and let his face slip into an easy smile. He reached out and shook my hand. “Terry. You’re losing your tan. Sit down.” this many times beforeit himself

Haggert drank his cappuccino and wore an amused smile. I didn’t know if he knew who I was but it was a good bet. Or maybe that was just my ego talking. As I sat Danny let out a chuckle, cool, controlled, confident. But it was already too late for him, and he didn’t even know it.

More top wiseguys came in and walked up the stairs. I smelled shrimp scampi smothered in garlic-butter sauce. The back room door opened for a minute and I saw some bigwig out-of-towners playing cards, women waiting patiently laid out on sofas.

The last time Danny and I had met face-to-face I’d held a Desert Eagle on him. I’d snatched it off one of his soldiers and shot the guy through his leg with his own gun. I was in as dark a place as I’d ever been before. I’d planted the pistol in Danny’s ear. I’d drawn stacks of stolen money out of my pocket with my left hand and tossed them, one after the other, onto the table. They bounced and fell into his meal and then into his lap. Eventually I believed him when he said that he hadn’t had my uncle snuffed.

I could feel the slow embrace of history forcing me along a particular path as if we had rehearsed this many times before. It was a strange ballet, perfectly executed for ten thousand nights, about to be performed once more. I was a bullet ballerina.

I kept my eyes on Eddie Haggert. Now that I was up close I could see all the scars of his early boxing years pounded into his face. The thick tissue around his eyes, the pulped nose. Both his ears were cauliflowers mostly covered over by his white hair. All the knuckles on both hands had been flattened.

“Get you anything?” Danny asked me.

“Sure. Coffee. Black.”

He motioned one of the waitresses over and put in the order. Then he turned to me. “From what I remember you don’t like coffee much. You must’ve been casing the place for a while out there. Getting nippy, is it?”

It was an astute observation. I’d made a mistake. It wasn’t much of a mistake but it proved I wasn’t as focused as I should be.

“So, Terry,” he said. “You juking me now?”

“Not exactly,” I explained.

He nodded at that, slowly, with great dramatic emphasis. I felt sorry for him. He had to dwell on every gesture, every word, run each thought through his head five times over. Despite his newfound reserve he just didn’t have the natural disposition for the job.

Haggert watched him. I wondered how long Danny might have.

“Not exactly,” he repeated. “Care to clarify that a bit?”