Authors: Max Allan Collins
Nolan said nothing, glancing around, looking for Grossman.
Four guys in tee-shirts and jeans were sharing two joints and a like number of girls, one of whom had bleached blonde hair and a “Save the Whales” tee-shirt, the other a dark-haired girl wearing an old black sportcoat and a striped tee-shirt. Not bad-looking girls, but sort of skinny and not particularly clean, looking a bit tired from being passed around like another joint.
Finally Grossman stood up in the corner, where he’d been obscured by two stacks of book boxes. A third girl appeared with him, a black girl with dreadlocks and Bo Derek breasts distorting the face of Bob Marley on her sweatshirt.
“He’s no pig,” Grossman said, his face a mix of insolence and fear, “at least not the cop kind. Are you, old man? Of course he does steal things, but I don’t think pot interests him.”
“You people can go on with what you’re doing,” Nolan said. “Just don’t get so high you’re letting anybody in who asks.”
A boy with a yellow caterpillar for a mustache looked up from the floor and said, “If you’re looking to score some coke, I can help.”
“Shut-up,” said the over-age kid who’d let Nolan in, obviously not anxious to discuss a dope deal with somebody who might be there to rip them off. “Grossman, I don’t know
who this guy is, but I for sure don’t want him in here. Or you either.”
Nolan said, “Coming, Grossman?”
“Okay, old man, okay, I’m coming.” He turned to the black girl and said, “See you, Naomi.”
She shrugged.
Grossman came over and Nolan took him by the arm, reaching over and tugging the string on the hanging bulb, then walked out.
Nolan guided the boy away from the door and pushed him up against the side of the building.
“Grossman,” Nolan said.
Grossman said, “What’s the idea of cutting my runtime, old man? Don’t I get Sundays off?”
“Shut up.”
“Look, you won’t let me see Shelly, what the hell you expect me to do with my time?”
“Try jacking off,” Nolan said. “You can’t get busted for that.”
“You never know in Iowa,” Grossman said, letting out a giggle that let Nolan know he was at least a little high. “And aw shit, man, don’t you know I’m going nuts by myself up here without my old lady, what d’you expect out of me? Don’t you think I’d rather be with Shelly than some fuckin’, tokin’ black chick?” He laughed at his own joke. “But
you
wouldn’t understand about that, ’cause you’re so goddamn
old.
”
Nolan shoved him against the building with the heel of his hand and held him there.
“Now listen to me, clown,” he said. “You been pushing my patience and I’m not patient to begin with. I told you yesterday what I’d do if I caught you doing dope, and I see you didn’t take me too seriously.”
“Hey, old man, tell you what, how about you eat me?”
Nolan sighed, shook his head. This kid just didn’t seem to get it, but what the hell, a person had to try. He swung a sharp left into Grossman’s stomach and the air emptied out
of the boy like water from a gushing hydrant; he slid down from under Nolan’s hand and sat on the ground.
“What you do that for?” Grossman said after a while, rubbing his stomach like a child with too many green apples under his belt.
Nolan kicked him in the side and said, “Same reason I did that.”
“Goddamn you!”
“Logic fails with you, Grossman. What choice do you leave me? There’s more than just money riding on this job, Grossman, it’s not a goddamn game. Now get up.”
He held his hand out for Grossman to take and pulled the boy to his feet. Just as Grossman seemed to regain his balance, he clutched Nolan’s arm and yelled, “Shit, look out!”
Two hands from behind Nolan latched onto his shoulders and spun him to the ground. A sharp kick dug into the soreness of his side and he saw some flashes of light and sank into darkness for a while.
When his eyes opened, Nolan found himself leaned against the side of the building with Grossman next to him. The figure in front of him came gradually into focus, and even then he couldn’t remember who it was, who it was behind the familiar face. Then a moment later he finally knew.
The watchdog from Werner’s. The bored son of a bitch who couldn’t stay knocked out.
Calder.
He was trying to get a grip on what in the hell was going on when Calder said, “Hello, Nolan,” and kicked him in the side again. The flashes of light returned, and the darkness.
Calder kept his .38 trained on the longhaired kid, but swung his gun now and then over toward Nolan, who was still out.
Calder caught himself rubbing his left temple with his free hand; stroking the bruised area of his face had gotten to be a nervous habit with him these past several days. And now he felt a pat satisfaction in having the party responsible on the downhill end of a .38.
Calder waited for Nolan’s eyes to open and said, “I’ll take your gun.”
Nolan handed it over.
“Who’s your rock star friend, Nolan?” he said, jerking a thumb at the kid.
“Who says my name’s Nolan?”
“It’s Nolan. What’s your name, rock star?”
The kid glanced at Nolan and got a shrug of permission. He screwed his face around sullenly and muttered, “Grossman.”
“Okay, Grossman. You and your buddy Nolan get your asses up off the ground and come with me. You’re taking a little walk over to my car.”
The kid named Grossman turned to Nolan and asked, “He taking us for one of those one-way rides like in the movies?”
Nolan said, “Everything this guy does is like in the movies.”
“Clint Eastwood, huh?”
“More Charles Bronson, I’d say.”
Calder laughed softly. “Spare me, boys,” he said. “Get up and get going.”
Nolan pushed to his feet and Grossman followed suit. Nolan looked at the boy and said, “Watch this guy, Grossman. Study and learn. Nothing can shake him. Everything bores him.”
“I’m bored with you two, all right,” Calder said. He chopped the air with the .38. “Move.”
Calder waited until they had walked around front of him, then motioned them to the right. He marched them carefully down the block to his car, a late-model Dodge Charger, light blue.
“Nice wheels,” Grossman said.
“Don’t bother buttering him up,” Nolan said. “He’s bored, remember?”
“Shut up and get in back, Nolan,” Calder said, “and leave the door open till I get in with you. The rock star drives.”
Calder waited while Grossman opened the door and got in, then joined Nolan in back. He handed the keys up to Grossman, keeping the .38 on Nolan, and said, “You know where the Maricaibo Supper Club is, kid? On the Illinois side?”
Grossman nodded. “Yeah, in Milan. Over by the Showcase Cinema.”
“Head that way. Take the Centennial Bridge.”
“Okay.”
“And don’t get cute or it’s over for the funny man here. Remember, it’s just him and me and my gun in the backseat behind you.”
Grossman turned the key in the ignition and pulled away from the curb.
Calder said, “Keep it at twenty.”
“Okay.”
Calder sat with his back to the window, his right leg tucked under his left. He reached his free hand into his suit-coat pocket for a cigarette, keeping the gun leveled at Nolan. “All of a sudden you don’t talk much,” he said.
Nolan shrugged.
“You’re going to do big things for me, Nolan, you know that?”
“Am I?”
“Yes. Some people in the Family are very interested in you.”
“Oh?”
“That’s right, and I wouldn’t be expecting your old chum Werner to bail you out, this time.”
Nolan leaned back against his window and kept silent.
Calder’s soft smile stayed with him while he lit his cigarette and sucked in some smoke. Finally, he thought. Finally
playing nursemaid to that pussy Werner was paying off.
The morning after his painful run-in with “prowler” Nolan, Calder had become very confused. When he’d reported the broken window to Werner, saying a neighborhood punk had tossed a rock through it, Werner had been uncharacteristically good-natured about it. And no mention of anything being disturbed in the house.
That wasn’t like Werner and it confused Calder.
Because Werner’s usual reaction would have been bitch bitch bitch. He was such a fucking pussy, anyway, always afraid somebody was after him, always bitching to Calder to make sure nobody got near the house.
Such a big man, Werner. Big talk, big deal. That college education cool of his, all his talk about the Family being a corporation, now; big business. Big bullshit.
The old boys who had built the Family’s foundation did it with force, with violence; but those guys were almost all gone, now, replaced by the corporate types, the Werners. There was merit in both approaches, Calder admitted; but it seemed to him the next ruling faction in the Family might well be made up of men like himself, men who knew how to use both violence
and
intelligence to the best advantage.
When Werner had reacted to the broken window by brushing the incident aside, he’d set Calder to thinking. Calder came up with the theory that the guy who’d broken in was a friend of Werner’s, a friend Werner didn’t want anybody to know about.
The pussy was putting something over on the Family.
Calder had called his friend Nick in Jersey City and told him about what happened, and asked if he knew of anybody Werner might want to see without having the Family know.
“Werner?” Nick had said. “I doubt he’d be pulling anything. He’s been around and’s been considered an up-and-comer for some while. Talk is that any time now he’ll be voted onto the executive council.”
“All the more reason,” Calder said, “for him to be careful when he sees somebody the Family wouldn’t want him to see.”
“True,” Nick said, “but your starting point’s still doubtful. Look, Calder, you’re an ambitious boy, and a real thinker, but your best bet is to hang in there with Werner, get in good with him and maybe when he gets moved up, so’ll you.”
“Werner doesn’t like me
because
I think. He’s been trying to hold me down ever since I been with him. But if I could get something on him, it’d help.”
“Better be careful, Calder, Werner’s one of the fair-haired boys right now.”
“If he’s crossing the Family he won’t be anybody’s fair-haired anything for long.”
“Well . . . what did this guy that broke in look like?”
“Six-one, or maybe only six. Dark, shaggy hair, with some gray in it, around the sideburns. Mustache. High cheekbones. Narrow eyes. Good shoulders on him, hell of a wallop for a guy his age.”
“How old would you say?”
“Oh, fifty.”
“Could be Nolan.”
“Who?”
“Nolan. He and Werner were friends back in Chicago. The guy in the Chicago operation, this Charlie guy, is supposed to hate Nolan’s guts.”
“How come?”
“Charlie’s brother, a guy named Gordon, a real fuck-up if there ever was one, he used to run part of the Chicago operation for Charlie. This Gordon wanted to move Nolan into the enforcer type of work, bodyguard stuff and whacking guys, too.”
“What was this Nolan doing at the time?”
“He managed a nightclub. One of the Family clubs.”
“Since when is a club manager tough enough to shift over into the strongarm stuff?”
“When the club is on Rush Street and he does his own bouncing. And when because of that ritzy bastards feel safe enough to come in among the seamy crowd and spread some bread around.”
“He was good, I take it.”
“The best.”
“Well, what happened, Nick?”
“This Gordon told Nolan to kill a guy, some guy who worked in the club. Nolan didn’t want nothing to do with it. He knew this guy and liked him, and besides, he was happy doing what he was doing, just managing the club. When Nolan said no, Gordon had Nolan roughed up, and the guy Nolan wouldn’t whack was whacked by somebody else. The next night Nolan shot Gordon, cut out with twenty grand from the till.”
“That must mean Nolan’s right up there on the Family’s list of open contracts.”
“Well, not really, the heat’s off Nolan pretty much, except with Charlie. To tell you the truth, most of the sentiment on the Family council at the time was good riddance to Gordon. And remember, it’s been a long time since this happened, too, twenty years or so.”
“Twenty years?”
“Fifteen maybe. More than fifteen, I think.”
“You figure maybe it was Nolan who went to see Werner the other night, Nick?”
“I don’t know . . . I heard . . . you keep this in strict confidence?”
“Sure, Nick.”
“There’s a guy that works for Werner, they call him Irish, I think . . .”
“Yeah. Herman Cavazos.”
“Anyway, this guy Irish is supposed to be a friend of Nolan’s. Nolan’s reportedly turned into a heist artist of the first order since he split with the Family.”
“How’s that tie in with Cavazos?”
“Well, a friend of my brother’s worked with Nolan once, and according to my brother, this Irish guy was mechanic on the job. Under the hat, okay?”
“Sure, Nick.”
After that Calder spent his off hours parked near
Cavazos’ warehouse, watching for Nolan. Thursday, Friday, and Saturday went by, and today, on Sunday, just when Calder was chewing himself out for wasting so much time and weighing whether or not to go in and put the squeeze on Cavazos, Nolan showed. Calder had waited till Nolan left the warehouse, not wanting to involve any of Werner’s other employees if possible, and had followed him to the head shop on the hill.
In the front seat the kid said, “Who’s got fifteen cents for the bridge?”
Calder dug in his pocket and tossed a dime and a nickel up to Grossman and sat back as the car eased onto the Centennial bridge.
“As you’re coming down off the bridge,” Calder said, as the boy slowed to toss the change into the toll basket, “there’s a cut-off to a fourlane, on your right. Take it.”
“What do you figure to do?” Nolan asked.
“Oh, I’ll give Werner a chance to explain you.”
“What?”
“I suppose I could take you to Chicago myself and deliver you to Charlie, and probably pick up some points along the way, not to mention some heavy bread. But Charlie? Charlie’s on the down ride, Werner’s going up. So I’ll give Werner a chance to make it right by me.”