Two for the Money E-Book

Max Allan Collins

• Herausgeber: Hard Case Crime
• Kategorie: Krimi
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2011

Seitenzahl: 564

Beschreibung

A brand-new edition of the first two classic Nolan novels, Bait Money (1973) and Blood Money (1973), now with a beautiful new cover painting. AFTER 16 YEARS ON THE RUN, WOULD NOLAN BURY THE HATCHET WITH THE MOB… OR WOULD THEY BURY HIM FIRST? They don't come tougher than Nolan – but even a hardened professional thief can't fight off the entire Chicago mafia. So when an old friend offers to broker a truce, Nolan accepts the terms. All he has to do is pull off one last heist – and trust the Mob not to double cross him. Fortunately, Nolan has a couple of things going for him: an uncanny knack for survival and an unmatched hunger for revenge…

Leseprobe

Praise for the Books of MAX ALLAN COLLINS!

“Strong and compelling reading.”

— Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine

“Collins has an outwardly artless style that conceals a great deal of art.”

— The New York Times Book Review

“Collins breaks out a really good one, knocking over the hard-boiled competition (Parker and Leonard for sure, maybe even Puzo) with a one-two punch: a feisty storyline told bittersweet and wry... Never done better.”

— Kirkus Reviews, starred review

“Collins has a gift for creating low-life believable characters... a sharply focused action story that keeps the reader guessing till the slam-bang ending.”

— Atlanta Journal Constitution

“The Nolan series by Max Collins is fast-paced and exciting. Plunk down some hard cash for this one today.”

— Prevue

“Powerful and highly enjoyable reading, fast moving and very, very tough.”

— Cleveland Plain Dealer

“Intelligent, witty, and exciting.”

— Booklist

“Ingenious.”

— Publishers Weekly

SOME OTHER HARD CASE CRIME BOOKS YOU WILL ENJOY:

MONEY SHOT by Christa Faust

ZERO COOL by John Lange

SHOOTING STAR/SPIDERWEB by Robert Bloch

THE MURDERER VINE by Shepard Rifkin

SOMEBODY OWES ME MONEY

by Donald E. Westlake

NO HOUSE LIMIT by Steve Fisher

BABY MOLL by John Farris

THE MAX by Ken Bruen and Jason Starr

THE FIRST QUARRY by Max Allan Collins

GUN WORK by David J. Schow

FIFTY-TO-ONE by Charles Ardai

KILLING CASTRO by Lawrence Block

THE DEAD MAN’S BROTHER by Roger Zelazny

THE CUTIE by Donald E. Westlake

HOUSE DICK by E. Howard Hunt

CASINO MOON by Peter Blauner

FAKE I.D. by Jason Starr

PASSPORT TO PERIL by Robert B. Parker

STOP THIS MAN! by Peter Rabe

LOSERS LIVE LONGER by Russell Atwood

HONEY IN HIS MOUTH by Lester Dent

QUARRY IN THE MIDDLE by Max Allan Collins

THE CORPSE WORE PASTIES by Jonny Porkpie

TWO for the MONEY

byMax Allan Collins

A HARD CASE CRIME BOOK

(HCC-005)

First Hard Case Crime edition: November 2004

Published by

Titan Books

A division of Titan Publishing Group Ltd

144 Southwark Street

London

SE1 OUP

in collaboration with Winterfall LLC

If you purchased this book without a cover, you should know that it is stolen property. It was reported as “unsold and destroyed” to the publisher, and neither the author nor the publisher has received any payment for this “stripped book.”

Copyright © 1973, 1981, 2004 by Max Allan Collins

Cover painting copyright © 2004 by Mark Texeira

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the publisher, except where permitted by law.

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Print edition ISBN 978-0-85768-317-5

E-book ISBN 978-1-78116-100-5

Design direction by Max Phillips

www.maxphillips.net

The name “Hard Case Crime” and the Hard Case Crime logo are trademarks of Winterfall LLC. Hard Case Crime Books are selected and edited by Charles Ardai.

Printed in the United States of America

Visit us on the web at www.HardCaseCrime.com

To Barb

For aiding and abetting

Contents

Book One: Bait Money

Prologue

One

Two

Three

Book Two: Blood Money

One

Two

Three

Four

Afterword

BOOK ONE

Bait Money

EXCERPT FROM THE PORT CITY SAVINGS AND TRUST SECURITY PROGRAM:

In compliance with the Bank Protection Act of 1968, the following programs were installed by this bank:

. . . (4) Each teller station will have ‘bait’ money in the amount of $1,000.00 in denominations of tens and twenties. Federal reserve notes will be used. A permanent record will be maintained by the Auditor on all ‘bait’ money which will show bank of issue serial numbers and series years of which are recorded.

Prologue

A woman was usually a night to a week in Nolan’s life, yet this one had lasted a month and five days. But then, before it was different—before he’d never had so bad a need for one.

He sat up in bed, aware that the pain in his side was lessening, and scanned the room. He took in its drabness, and a slight smile came to his lips. Christ, had he really been staring at these four suffocating walls for over a month now? He closed his eyes, seeking not rest but relief from pink stucco walls and second-hand store furniture.

“Hi,” she said. She was in the doorway, bundled in a heavy coat, a sack of groceries filling her arms.

He nodded hello.

“I’ll just put these away,” she said.

He kept nodding, said, “Okay,” and watched her smile and leave the doorway.

He leaned back and reached out his arms while stretching his body. The pain didn’t increase at all from the movement; the place in his side where the bullet had gone in seemed completely healed over. Quite a difference from even a week before, when his body had been one big ache, one long, slow, muscle-bone-gristle ache.

He got out of bed and caught, turned away from his reflection in the bureau mirror. He climbed into a pair of boxer shorts, shaking his head and muttering.

That damn face of his, high cheekbones, narrow eyes, widow’s-peaked hair, that damn easily recognizable face, which both beard past and mustache present failed to disguise. At least the lean weeks had affected his body somewhat to the better. He felt drained, sure, but that roll of softness the years had put around his waist had disappeared.

“Hi,” she said, in the doorway again, now wearing only bra and panties.

She had never been beautiful, he supposed. But she’d been better than plain, and nowhere near ugly. Now, after seven or maybe eight years of traumatic experiences— assorted divorces, abortions, affairs with married men—she was getting the kind of lines in her face that polite people say show character. Nolan saw the lines as too much age for too few years, giving her an air of having been taken advantage of emotionally, used once and thrown away like Kleenex.

“You look tired,” he said.

She nodded, undoing the scarf that tied her black hair behind her head, letting the shoulder-length mane fall free. “I’m tired, all right,” she said, “but not physically, you know, just mentally. I mean, the old mind really gets a workout waiting tables eight till five. It’s a goddamn challenge.”

As she spoke, Nolan watched bitter lines deepen in her face and then lowered his eyes to her breasts as she released them from her bra. The breasts were large, and though beginning to sag, were still quite good. Her nipples were like rose-hued sand dollars.

“How was your day, Nolan?”

“Long. Dull.” He went back over to the bed and lay down again.

“How’s the side?” She came and stood by the bed and leaned over him, her breasts swaying like hanging fruit.

“What?”

“Your side, how’s it feeling?”

“Better.”

“Do anything today?”

“Just slept.”

“Oh? Now don’t hand me that line . . . you haven’t been sleeping more than nine hours out of every twenty-four since you been feeling better, and you had near that when I left for work this morning. So what’d you do today?”

“I watched television.”

“Sure you did. The soap operas.”

“That’s right.”

“Come on, Nolan.”

“I read the paper.”

“Do anything else?”

“No.”

“Took you all day to read the paper?”

“Slow reader.”

“All right, so be a bastard.”

“That was an accident of birth.”

“Smartass remarks don’t make you less a bastard, Nolan.”

“Okay, okay. I suppose I ought to tell you, anyway.”

“Tell me what?”

“I made a couple long-distance calls.”

“You did?”

“Yeah, I’ll pay for them. I’m going to pay you back for everything you’ve done for . . .”

“Shut up, Nolan.” She sat down on the bed, facing away from him and touching her face with her fingertips.

“What’s the matter?”

“Nothing.”

“What?”

“You don’t owe me a damn thing, that’s all. Do you understand?” Her voice was drum tight. “I am a lot of things, and I’ve been a lot of things, and I will be a lot of things in days to come. But I was not, am not, and will not ever be a whore.” She was quiet for a few moments, then added, her voice hushed, “You don’t owe me anything, Nolan. And if you try to give me any money, I’ll tear your goddamn heart out.”

He touched her shoulder.

She turned and rubbed her hand over his chest, twining her fingers in its hair. She made an effort and got a smile going and said, “I won’t try to pry out of you what those phone calls were about—you don’t have to worry about that.”

He nodded, smiled.

“Did you do anything else today?”

“No. Just did some thinking.”

“That’s what I was afraid of. That’s why those stupid damn phone calls put me on edge so.”

“What do you mean?”

“Now you’ve started thinking.”

“Thanks a bunch.”

“You know what I mean. You’ve started thinking, and before I know it, well . . .”

“Well what?”

“Well, you’ll be gone, damn it.”

He didn’t say anything.

“You are leaving,” she said, “aren’t you?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“You said you been thinking. Same difference.”

“Sometime I’ll leave. Everybody leaves sometime or other.”

“You’re half right. Everybody leaves me all the time.”

“What is this, self-pity day?”

“You’re goddamn right it is. Who else is going to pity me if I don’t? You?”

“How old are you?”

“What? Why are you forever asking me how old I am?”

“Don’t make me ask again.”

“All right, all right, I’m thirty-one.”

“What else are you? Besides thirty-one.”

“Free, white, and ten years too many?”

“You’re intelligent. Not bad looking.”

“Beautiful is what I am. A funhouse mirror with sex.”

“Shut up. You’re a good-looking kid.”

One side of her mouth smiled. “Maybe I should have pulled this self-pity routine before. I’ve never heard you talk so much—and compliments, too! Don’t stop now.”

He allowed himself a grin and said, “I’ll grant you I don’t talk much, but now I am, so listen, I got something to say: sling hash if you want to, or don’t sling it.”

She looked at him wide-eyed. “That’s it? That’s the big message?”

“That’s it.”

“Profound. Pretty fuckin’ profound, Nolan. ‘Sling hash or don’t sling it.’ Let me write that down.”

He laughed and grabbed her arm. “Okay. You think about it. For now let’s shut up and get on with it.”

Her lips took on a wry smile, and she latched her thumbs in her panties and tugged them off. “You got yourself a deal.”

They made love, slow, grinding love, and it was as good for them as it had always been over the past month of Nolan’s recuperation. At the beginning, because his wound was serious, their lovemaking had been gentle, increasing in intensity as the weeks passed, each time different for them. Nolan was amazed that this one woman could seem to be so many different women. Never having bedded down longer than a week’s time with the same woman, he had assumed a woman’s sexual possibilities could be sufficiently explored in that time or less. It was a pleasant surprise to him to discover at this late date that he was wrong.

After several hours of sleep, Nolan and the girl awoke to darkness and, checking his watch, Nolan said, “It’s nine, kid. What shall we do?”

“Hungry?”

“Yeah.”

“What do you want?”

“How about breakfast?”

“At nine o’clock at night?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay.”

She climbed out of bed, slipped on her bra and panties, got into a houserobe, and went out into the kitchen.

Fifteen minutes later Nolan and the girl sat at the kitchen table, eating the evening breakfast of scrambled eggs, bacon, and toast in silence. Nolan’s attention was on his plate of food, while the girl stared at him intently.

She broke the silence with, “Why do you ask me what my age is all the time?”

“Do I?”

“You did tonight, and I bet it was the hundredth time, too. Why?”

“To make a point.”

“What point is that? Oh, I remember, don’t remind me, that quote of yours that’ll go down through the ages: ‘Sling hash or don’t sling it.’ž”

He looked up from the plate. “That’s the one.”

“There’s got to be more to it than that.”

“Maybe there is. You never bothered asking how old I was, did you?”

“No, I didn’t. But then, you told me at the start not to ask you a lot of personal questions. For my own sake, you said.”

“That’s right. But you don’t have to ask, I’ll tell you. I’m forty-eight.”

She was surprised. “I thought forty, maybe . . . but, hell, so what? I been had by older men, that’s for sure.”

“You never met anybody older than me. I’m a dinosaur who can’t get it through his head he’s extinct.”

“What are you . . .”

“I’m forty-eight and I’m hiding out with a girl who spends her days slinging hash, and I’m living off her while I get recovered from a gunshot wound.”

“You said not to ask questions, Nolan, so . . .”

“I know. You’re not asking, I’m telling. You got time left. You got stuff left in you. I’m running out. Of time. Of stuff. I picked what I am, and I blew it. I got nothing left to do but make the best of the sucker choice I made a long time ago. Till it’s over.”

“I don’t . . . don’t follow you, Nolan.”

“You don’t have to. You got a life of shit here. Change it. Change yourself. You got time left to choose again. Me? My life’s shit because I picked wrong. Too bad. Too late.”

“I think you’re feverish again.”

“No, I’m not. Have you been listening to what I said?”

“Of course, Nolan, of course . . .”

“Sometime when you got nothing to do, think about it.” He wiped his mouth with a napkin and got up from the table. “Let’s not talk anymore. I’m tired again.”

They went back to bed, fell asleep quickly, then woke in a few hours and made love, hard, fast, violently. Then Nolan and the girl rolled apart and went back to sleep.

At five the next morning the phone rang them awake, and Nolan went for it, spoke a few times and listened for a minute-and-a-half without answering, said, “Yes,” and hung up the phone. He went back to bed and pretended sleep, just as he knew the girl was pretending she hadn’t seen and heard what had just happened.

At six-thirty the girl kissed Nolan on the cheek as she was preparing to leave the apartment for work. Nolan grabbed her, stroked her face, and smiled good-bye. Then he rolled back over in the bed and closed his eyes and she was gone. When she’d been away an hour, Nolan got out of bed, called the bus station to confirm his reservation, packed his bag, and left.

One

1

The drizzle felt good on Nolan’s face. The night air was chill, though not enough to freeze the drizzle, and the light, icy sting of it on his skin kept him alert as he waited.

He was sitting on a bench in the parklike strip of ground that separated the Mississippi River from the four-lane highway running along it. The highway connected the Siamese-twin cities of Davenport and Bettendorf, whose collective reflection on the river’s choppy surface vied for attention with that of Rock Island and Moline on the other side.

Across the highway was where Werner lived.

Werner’s home was a white, high-faced two-story structure, nearly a mansion, complete with row of six pillars. Already bathed in light by the heavily traveled and streetlamp-lined four-lane, the house was lit on right and left by two spotlights set on either side of its huge, sloping lawn, which banked down gradually to the highway’s edge. Even through the heavy mist, the whiteness of the overlit house made a stark contrast against the moonless night around it.

Typical Werner logic, Nolan thought, picking a place like that one: status plus prestige equals respectability.

Nolan had been waiting just less than an hour. His side of the road was darker, and the constant traffic flow and hazy weather seemed likely to obscure him from anybody who might be on watch over at Werner’s. He hadn’t seen any watchdogs yet, but he knew one would show sooner or later— a Werner-style watchdog, two-legged-with-gun variety.

He smoked cigarette number one off the first pack of the evening, second of the day. He was pleased when the drizzle didn’t put it out. Just as he was getting number two going, he spotted Werner’s man.

The watchdog came around from the back, walking slowly around the house, probing the thick shrubbery on both sides of it with a long-shafted yellow-beam flash. He was slow and methodical with his search, and after the shrubs had been checked, he headed for the paved driveway to the left of the house. He stood at the far end of the drive and let the flash run down over it, then walked toward the back of the house again.

Probably a garage back there, Nolan thought, the drive leading around to it.

Three minutes later the watchdog reappeared at the right of the house and began to move slowly over the sprawling lawn, crisscrossing it half a dozen times before angling down on the highway’s edge. He stood there for a moment in the light of a streetlamp, and Nolan got a look at him.

Not overly big, just a medium-sized guy, wearing a hiplength black brushed leather coat, open in front to reveal a dark conservative suit, complete with thick-knotted striped tie. The man didn’t look particularly menacing, but Nolan knew he’d probably been chosen for just that reason.

Subtle muscle. Typical Werner.

Nolan’s hand in his jacket pocket squeezed down around the rough handle of the .38. He put on a smile and stood up from the bench. Stepping out into the stream of traffic, sidestepping cars, Nolan called out to the watchdog.

“Hey! Hey buddy . . .”

The watchdog had turned to walk away, and Nolan met him about a third of the way up the sloping lawn.

“Say, I think I’ve gotten myself lost. You couldn’t give me some directions, could you?”

The watchdog had a bored, bland face that didn’t register much change between glad, sad, and indifferent, although Nolan could read it well enough to rule out glad. The hand with the flash came up and filled Nolan’s face with yellow light.

Nolan squirmed and held his free hand up defensively to shield his eyes, but he kept the smile plastered on. “Look, friend, I don’t want to bother you or anything, I’m just a stranger here and got my bearings fouled up and thought maybe you could . . .”

“This isn’t an information bureau,” the watchdog said. “What this is is private property. So just turn your ass around and go back across the street and take off. Any direction’ll do.”

The flash blinked off, and Nolan could tell he’d been dismissed.

Nolan gave him a bewildered-tourist grin, shrugged his shoulders and began to turn away. Before the turn was complete, Nolan swung the gun in hand out of his pocket and smacked the .38 flat across the watchdog’s left temple. The watchdog’s eyes did a slot-machine roll and Nolan caught him before he went down. Nolan drunk-walked the limp figure up the remainder of the lawn, carefully avoiding the glare of the spotlights, and took him over to the left side of the house, dumping him between two clumps of hedge. He checked the man’s pockets for keys but found none. He did find a 9mm in a shoulder sling, and tossed the gun into the darkness.

Subtle moves were fine for Werner and company, but right now Nolan hadn’t the time or energy for them. The watchdog would be out for half an hour or more; plenty of time. He glanced out toward the highway, which by now seemed far away, and decided that there wouldn’t be any threat from some public-spirited motorist stopping to question his handling of the watchdog situation. Thank God for mist and apathy.

He walked around the house in search of an unlocked window, trying not to let his out-in-the-open sloppiness with the watchdog bother him. He just didn’t seem to have the patience to work things out smoothly these days. Making a mental promise to tighten himself up again, he tried the last of the windows.

Locked.

Well, there might be one open on the second floor, and a drainpipe was handy, but Nolan ruled that approach out: his side, while improved, was not yet in that kind of shape, and he was beginning to think it might never be.

He broke the glass in a window around the back of the house, seeing no need for caution since the neighboring houses on both sides were blocked by stone walls, and a large three-car garage obstructed the view from behind. A light was on in a window over the garage door, probably the watchdog’s quarters, explaining the absence of house keys in the man’s pockets. Nolan slipped his hand in through the glass-toothed opening in the window and unlocked it. Then he pushed it up and hauled himself slowly over and into the house.

He caught his breath. The room he found himself in was dark; after stumbling into a few things, he decided it was a dining room. A trail of light beckoned him to the hall, where he followed the light to its source, the hairline opening of a door.

Nolan looked through the crack and saw a small, compact study, walled by books. Werner was sitting at his desk, reading.

Several years had passed since Nolan had last seen the man, but their passing had done little to Werner: he’d been in his early twenties for twenty-some years now. The only mark of tough years past apparent in his youthful face was a tight mouth, crow-footed at its corners. The almost girlish turned-up nose and short-cut hair, like a butch but lying down, overshadowed the firm-set mouth. His hair’s still jetblack color might or might not have come out of a bottle, though Nolan felt fairly certain that the dark tan was honest, probably acquired in Miami.

A rush of air hit the back of Nolan’s neck, and he started to turn, but an arm looped in under his chin and flexed tight against his Adam’s apple, choking off all sound. He felt the iron finger of a revolver prod his spine as he was dragged backward, away from the cracked door.

A whisper said, “Not one peep.”

The watchdog.

Shit.

“That gun in your hand,” the whisper said. “Take it by two fingers and let it drop nice and gentle into your lefthand coat pocket.”

Nolan followed instructions.

“Now,” the whisper continued, “let’s you and me turn around and walk back into the dining room, okay? Okay.”

The watchdog kept his hold on Nolan’s throat and walked him along, each step measured. Once they were out of the hall and into the dining room, the grip on Nolan’s neck was lessened slightly, though the pressure of the gun was still insistent.

“Keep it quiet and you’ll get out of here with your ass,” the watchdog whispered. “I’m only going easy on you because I don’t want my boss in there finding out I let somebody slip by me. A window with some busted glass I can explain, you in the house I can’t. So just keep it down.”

They approached the broken window through which Nolan had entered, and the watchdog released him, shoving him against the wall by the window. Enough light came in the window for the two men to make their first good appraisal of each other.

Nolan had been right about the guy being tougher than he looked. The whole upper left side of his face was showing a dark blue bruise, and a still-flowing trickle of red crossed down from his temple over his cheek, but the man’s expression remained one of boredom, only now it was as though he were bored and maybe had a slight headache. He’d shed the leather topcoat, and his suit was a bit rumpled, although the striped tie was still firmly knotted and in place.

“Sonofabitch,” the watchdog said, “an old man. I got taken down by an old man. Will you look at the gray hair. Sonofabitch.”

Nolan said nothing.

The watchdog’s upper lip curled ever so slightly; Nolan took this to be a smile. “Let’s get back outside, and a younger man’ll show you how it’s done. . . . Come on, out the window.”

The hand with the revolver gestured toward the open window, and Nolan grabbed for the wrist and slammed the hand down against the wooden sill, once, then again, and on the third time the fingers sprang open and the gun dropped out the window. Nolan smashed his fist into the man’s blackened temple, a blow with his whole body behind it. The hard little man crumpled and was out again.

Nolan leaned on the wall and gasped for breath. Half a minute went by and he was all right; his side was nagging him again, but he was all right.

He undid the watchdog’s shirt collar and untied the tie, then used it to lash the man’s slack wrists behind him and picked him up like a sack of grain and tossed him out the open window, where he landed in the hedge. Nolan figured he’d stay there a while longer this time around.

When he returned to the door of the study, Nolan peered in through the crack and saw Werner, undisturbed, still at his desk, reading. With the .38 in hand, Nolan drew back his foot and kicked the door open.

Werner dropped his book and sucked in air like a man going down for the third time. “Nolan . . .”

Nolan waved hello with the .38.

Werner shoved the book off to the side of his desk. “Uh . . . shut the door, will you, Nolan?”

Nolan did. He walked over to a chair in front of the desk, turned it backward, and sat down, looking straight at Werner and leveling the .38 at him.

“It’s good to see you, Nolan.”

Nolan smiled. “Good to see you.” He laid the gun down on the desk and stretched out his arm.

The two men shook hands.

2

“You didn’t exactly make it easy for me,” Nolan said.

“Oh, but I did.” Werner smiled. “I usually have two men on watch here, one in, another out. I gave the guy who covers inside the house a night off. You only had Calder to contend with.”

“Your boy Calder didn’t seem to want you to find out I got past him.”

The smile settled in one corner of Werner’s mouth. “That’s the way Calder’s mind works, all right. He’s a thinker. Thinks too much, really. As long as he doesn’t ever stub his toe too bad, he’s got a chance to make it in the business. Have much trouble with him, Nolan?”

“Some. Wouldn’t have a few years back.”

“Calder’s a hard-headed little bastard.”

“You’re telling me.”

Werner spread his hands. “I’m sorry to put you through this breaking-and-entering routine, but it’s best to maintain certain appearances, don’t you think, Nolan? If, uh, interested parties found out you and I still have connections after all this time, things could turn sour for me in a hurry.”

Nolan nodded and said, “I know there’s risk involved, for both of us. I didn’t think I’d ever have to contact you again, till this came along.” He patted his side.

“It has been a few years, hasn’t it?”

“Five. That was when you said things had cooled down. You said, don’t worry.”

Werner shrugged. “I thought things had cooled down. Eleven years should be time enough to cool anything down. But it obviously wasn’t. Even after that eleven years has gone to sixteen, it’s like it started yesterday. Who’d ever think one of Charlie’s dimwits would be able to recognize that ugly face of yours, after all those years?”

“He didn’t seem to have much trouble.”

“How’re you feeling, anyway? How long’d it keep you down?”

“Just over a month. Feel weak. Never was much for getting shot.”

“Hell, you don’t look so bad. The bus trip okay?”

Nolan got out the pack of cigarettes and offered a smoke to Werner, who shook his head no. Nolan lit one up. “Trip was short, few hours is all. I slept all the way. I sleep a lot these days.”

“Meaning what?”

“Meaning I’m getting old. Like everybody gets old, but sooner. Like you’re getting old, but worse.”

“Forty-four isn’t old, Nolan.”

“When you live the way I do it is, and for me it’s forty-eight.”

“Nobody forced you into being what you are. You could’ve had what I’ve got if you’d played it just a little bit different. Do you see this place, Nolan? Not bad. My life’s a breeze, old buddy. Only time I ever work up a sweat is when I go down to the local gym for a workout.”

“Yeah. Life’s a regular Disneyland when you don’t fall from good standing with the . . . what are you boys calling the Family now these days? Cosa Nostra? Too ethnic. The Outfit? Too vague. Better Business Bureau, maybe?”

Werner’s smile twisted. “The term Family is back in fashion, among the insiders. We’re back to calling it the Family again.”

“Cozy.”

Werner got up and went to the door and flipped the lock. In his blue Banlon shirt and gray slacks he looked like something that had walked off the front of a country club brochure. He strolled over to a line of bottles sandwiched between two quarter-rows of books on a shelf halfway down the wall behind the desk. He poured two glasses of Scotch, handed one to Nolan, and kept the other.

“You know, Nolan, killing Charlie’s brother that time was a mistake.”

Nolan lifted his shoulders, then set them back down. “Today it’s a mistake. Sixteen years ago it wasn’t.”

“No, you’re wrong.” Werner’s smile was gone now. “Even then it was a mistake. Maybe less of one, since you were young and had a chance and could live a running life without much sweat. But, now, the inevitable is starting to catch up with you, and it gets closer by the day.”

Nolan nodded. “I’m old.”

“You’re not old . . . but you sure as hell aren’t young anymore. Look, I got to admit that when you quit Charlie, you had no choice but to turn to what you did. I mean, a murder rap hanging over your head on one side, your ex-friends gunning for you on the other. And I’ll give you credit . . . you turned out to be the most successful grand larceny artist I ever ran across. Racked up how much in those sixteen years? Near half a million?”

“Just over that.”

Werner waved his hands. “More or less, what’s the difference? It’s gone now. All that’s left for you is to decide what happens next. The money is gone, or as good as.”

That was right.

Gone.

Nolan looked into his drink. When he’d called Werner from the girl’s apartment the day before, he’d found little need to tell his old friend about what had happened: Werner’d already gotten most of it through the Family grapevine.

For sixteen years now, Nolan had made his way as a specialist in engineering institutional robberies. Through a number of sources, Nolan lined up other professionals, with their own specialties (drivers, strongmen, climbers, safemen, electricians, et cetera) and molded them into compact units of three to six, hitting banks, armored cars, jew- elry stores, and firms on cash payroll. Occasionally, a well-moneyed individual would also feel the squeeze of Nolan’s particular talents. He’d stayed away from places owned or controlled by what was now calling itself the Family, and he avoided Chicago and the surrounding area, where the local Family operation was helmed by his ex-employer, Charlie.

Over the years Nolan had kept in touch, off and on, with Werner, his lone Family friend who remained as such, though then only secretly. Eleven years after the incident that had enraged Charlie over Nolan, Werner told Nolan that Charlie’s grudge had cooled. Cooled enough, at least, for Nolan to quit looking over his shoulder.

A month-and-a-half ago, considering the matter with Charlie past history, Nolan had consented to use the Chicago area as the planning base for a bank job three other pros had in mind for a little town some thirty miles out of the city. Nolan and the three others used an old hotel in Cicero while they hassled out the details of the job. A week before the score was to be made, Nolan was spotted in Cicero by one of Charlie’s men, who recognized him and got off the shot that had caught Nolan in the side.

The other three pros he’d been working with split (and Nolan could hardly blame them: he’d likely have done the same in such a case), but he managed to get to the apartment of a girl he’d picked up just the night before, and she stayed by him and didn’t ask questions. The only problem he had with the girl was convincing her a doctor wasn’t necessary, since Nolan felt that as long as the bullet wasn’t in him, had passed through clean, there wasn’t anything to worry about.

The tragic part, as far as he was concerned, was that his cover was blown.

When he’d sent the girl to his hotel for his personal belongings, she had found that somebody (Charlie’s man, Nolan assumed) had traced him there and had taken all his things. One of the things missing was a suitcase, and in it was a billfold and papers belonging to one “Earl Webb.”

The Webb name was one Nolan had built for many years, a costly name, a name that had documents to prove its existence as a living being, a name that owned three restaurants and a miniature golf course and laundromat and a couple of drive-in movies, losing businesses purchased to keep on losing so that juggled books would keep the name’s federal income tax returns looking legitimate.

A name that held over half a million dollars in banks around the U.S.

“If Charlie leaks the Earl Webb cover to any of the authorities,” Nolan said, “all I got to do is try and touch a cent of my money and local cops and state cops and FBI’ll swoop down on me like hungry birds. I got to find out whether or not Charlie’s leaked it yet.”

Werner shook his head from side to side. “The answer to that one I don’t know. But I do know Charlie, and my guess is he hasn’t let out a word . . . up to now. He’s got this Earl Webb lead on you, and he’ll try to find a way to use it himself before he gives up and lets it go to anybody else.”

Nolan stubbed out his cigarette. “He won’t be able to use it himself. Oh, he might track down a place or two I rented under the Webb name, places I stayed at between jobs sometimes, and maybe he’ll get to some of the guys who run fronts for me. But there isn’t anything or anybody connected with the Webb name that I’m about to touch or go near now. The only possible good he’ll get out of the name is to expose it and screw me out of my cover . . . and my money.”

“You’re probably right, Nolan. And Charlie’s had just about enough time to find this out for himself.”

“You got any ideas?”

“Well, maybe one. But suppose I do have a good way out. Suppose I got things straight between you and Charlie and he got off your back for good. What then? Try and get in good with the Family again and shoot for an executive position? Or maybe just continue your present career without threat of Family intervention?”

“None of that,” Nolan said. “I want to retire.”

“Retire?”

“I couldn’t work now if I wanted to. The word’s out that the Syndicate people want me dead . . . and that doesn’t exactly make me a desirable working partner in the circles I move in. Me saying things are clear with Charlie, if that could happen, won’t make any difference. The people I work with would expect me to say that whether it was true or not.”

“I see.” Werner finished his drink. “You surely have more on your mind than just retirement.”

“I do. I want to go back to what I used to do.”

“Nightclubs, you mean?”

“That’s right.”

“It’s been sixteen, seventeen years, Nolan, since you were managing clubs for Charlie. The whole nightclub scene has vastly changed.”

“I can adjust. For twenty years, the last sixteen especially, I been going the fast pace. Been shot four times. Fires. Car wrecks. Can’t remember all the times I got the shit kicked out of me. You name it, I did it, or somebody did it to me.” He got out another cigarette and lit it. “It’s not that I want to quit this life so much as it is I’ve burnt it out. I got to try something else, and clubs are the only other thing I know.”

Werner looked away for a moment, as if weighing each word he was preparing to say, then said, “If things could get straight with you and Charlie, I might be able to use you in one of my clubs here in the Cities. Like I say, you been away from it a while, but I’d be glad to have a man of your caliber working for me.”

Nolan got up and poured himself another drink. “I may take you up on that offer, Werner. But if I can get to my money, I can buy my own club.”

Werner shrugged. “Well, the offer stands.”

“That’s generous as hell of you, and I appreciate it, don’t get me wrong, but it won’t be worth last year’s calendar if I don’t get this thing settled.” Nolan leaned over with the bottle of Scotch and refilled Werner’s drink. “You said you had an idea. Let’s hear it.”

“It’s going to sound crazy.”

“It’ll have to sound crazy to be worth a damn. Go on.”

“Well, all right . . . in a word, negotiate.”

“What are you, crazy?”

“You got to understand, Nolan, things have changed since the days when you were working for Charlie. Things aren’t handled the way they used to be. The violence, it’s soft-pedaled now. The Family’s into businesses now, Nolan, big ones, not just front operations, but big and on-the-up-and-up businesses. The old way of handling things is passé.”

“How does that affect me?”

“Well, since the Cicero shooting, Charlie’s probably been getting pressure from upstairs, pressure to cool it if and when he does find you again. They’re not saying, ‘Don’t kill Nolan.’ They’re just saying, ‘Careful and no mess.’ Now, Charlie knows damn well you’re not the kind who’ll lay down and die like a good boy . . . with you, he knows there’s going to be mess.”

“So?”

“Take advantage of it. Offer to meet and talk. Charlie could come in from Chicago, it’s just half an hour by plane, and I can have some place set up here in the Cities as neutral ground. You could tell him that the pressure of having him out for you these past sixteen years has finally got to you; that he really got you cold over in Cicero; that you’re sorry you got mad that time and shot his little brother . . . tell him any and all the lies you like, but get it talked out.”

“Seems to me this kind of thing doesn’t get talked out.”

“Maybe not, but remember—Charlie was probably just as upset about the twenty thousand you relieved him of as he was about you knocking off baby brother. Money means a lot to Charlie, and then there’s his pride. He’d probably like to find a way to come out on top with you, without violating the ‘cool it’ orders coming from upstairs. You paying him off is a possible out for both of you.”

Nolan didn’t say anything for a few moments. Then he said, “It’s worth trying.”

Werner laid his hands out on the desk. “I’ll make the contact tomorrow morning.”

“You can do this without getting yourself up shit creek?”

“I think so. I’ll just tell Charlie that you got me at gunpoint or something and proposed the idea and that it sounded good to me, so I thought I should let him know. He’ll eat it up. Charlie always has been a melodramatic bastard.”

Nolan nodded.

“Tomorrow I call him.”

“I appreciate this, Werner.”

“I owe you, Nolan, for a lot of times. No need to talk that end of it. Where you staying?”

“Nowhere, yet. My bag’s across the highway behind a bush.”

“There’s a hotel of mine between here and downtown Davenport. Called the Concort Inn.”

“Yeah, saw it on the way out here. Nice-looking place.”

“I’ll call over and have them get a room ready for you. On me. You’ll be registered as Logan. Okay?”

“Good enough.”

“You need any entertainment?”

“Female you mean?”

“What the hell you think I mean?”

“Tomorrow night maybe. Tonight I’ll just sleep.”

“You are getting old.”

“That’s right.”

Werner unlocked the door to the study and walked with Nolan to a side door and let him out. The watchdog, Calder, was nowhere to be seen, and was probably still safely out of the picture, though Nolan was keeping his eyes open this time around.

From the doorway Werner said, “Nolan, we’ll make this thing work. The shooting has to stop.”

Nolan said, “Unless it’s just starting,” and turned toward the highway.

3

The phone rang Nolan awake.

He grabbed for the receiver, glancing at his watch: seven o’clock.

“Nolan?”

“Morning, Werner.”

“I just got through talking to Charlie.”

“Bet he was happy you called him this early.”

“Delighted. When he got the screaming out of his system, he agreed to fly in tonight.”

“I see. What about ground rules?”

“I’m supposed to check with you on that and call him back. If your terms are acceptable, then in he flies.”

“Okay—you, me, Charlie. In my hotel room. No bodyguards. No guns.”

“I think he’ll agree to that.”

“Good. Call me back.”

Half an hour later the phone rang again and got Nolan out of the shower. He wrapped a towel around himself and walked across the plush pink carpet to answer it.

“Nolan?”

“What’d he say?”

“Your ground rules are fine.”

“Good.”

“Nolan, this might just work out.”

“Yeah.”

“How do you like the room?”

“The bridal suite’s appropriate, somehow.”

“Thought you’d like it. Got any other needs?”

“Just the answer to one question. Does Irish still run that jukebox concession up here?”

“Cavazos? Yes, he does. I’m his silent partner, as a matter of fact, have been ever since you sent him around, seven or eight years back. It’s a lucrative little piece of action.”

“He still got the same sideline?”

“Now wait a minute, Nolan, you said no guns, in your own ground rules. . . .”

“This doesn’t have anything to do with the meeting,” he said. “All my personal belongings got stolen, Werner, back in that Cicero hotel a month ago. I need some traveling security.”

“Well. I can understand that. Yes, he’s still in the same sideline. He supplies all my men, for a start. What’ll you use for money?”

“Put up my balls as collateral, I guess. About all I got right now.”

“You need anything else?”

“Besides my balls you mean? No.”

“Talk to you later, then.”

“Talk to you later.”

Nolan dropped the phone into its cradle and went back to his shower.

4

Since Nolan had neither a car nor enough cash on hand to rent one, he was grateful that the Concort Inn was only a few blocks from downtown Davenport. The modern seven-story hotel was perched on the edge of the city, a blue slab facing away toward Bettendorf, as if ashamed of keeping company with the couple of seedy blocks separating it from the Davenport business district. Nolan’s destination was in the less seedy of the two blocks closest to the hotel.

The air was still late October brisk, but the sun was out, and there weren’t many clouds. The one-way street Nolan was walking along branched off from the four-lane highway and angled into the downtown area, and though he had the sidewalk to himself, the street was heavy with traffic— women, mostly, on their way to some midweek shopping.

As he rounded the corner, his eyes were drawn to a window filled with three lines of huge lettering: QUAD CITY/JUKEBOX SERVICE/INCORPORATED, bright red print out-lined in heavy black. The window fronted the bottom floor of a five-story warehouse-style brick building across the street in the center of the block. To the building’s right was a narrow alley.

Nolan found a hole in the flow of cars and crossed the street, walking up to the window. Beneath the foot-high red lettering were smaller red letters outlined in black: HERMAN CAVAZOS, MANAGER.

Herman?

So that was Irish’s real first name. Nolan smiled to himself as he moved over to the front door and tried it.

Locked.

He peered into the room beyond the window, peeking between the huge red letters. There was a waiting room in there, as wide as the building but not very deep, with a reception desk and a couch. The room managed to look both messy and unused at the same time. There was no one in it.

Nolan walked around the side of the building into the alley and found a side entrance, also locked, and a triple-size garage door with a row of head level windows running across it. He looked in and saw a huge cement-floored room. Coin-operated entertainment, new and old, was scattered across the floor: jukeboxes, pinball machines, cigarette vendors, and coin-run machines of many kinds.

Nolan tried the handle on the garage door and found it unlocked. He swung the big door over his head and walked in.

No one around.

Since this was Wednesday, it didn’t really figure as a day off, but that was the only way Nolan could see it.

Of course, there were four floors above this one, and somebody might be on one of them, so Nolan decided to give it a try. He yelled, “Irish!”

He didn’t get an answer; he tried again.

After half a dozen tries, he got a response. A distant voice from behind a closed door yelled, “Who the hell’s down there!”

“IRS!”

“In a pig’s ass!”

“We tax those too!”

Footsteps came clomping down the stairs behind the closed door, which snapped open, and the figure that belonged to the voice appeared in the doorway.

He was a small man, a few inches over five feet, with a nut-brown complexion and carrot-red hair. Nolan had never questioned the strange racial mix: he’d been told the little man was called Irish, and he’d left it at that.

“Nolan!”

Irish stayed in the doorway for a moment, repeated “Nolan!” and began to cross the cement floor at a walk that was nearly a run. He grabbed Nolan’s hand and pumped it.

“Nolan!”

“You dress good for a mick-spic jukebox jockey.”

Irish was wearing a light blue cotton suit, the cut of which had not come off a rack, with a pale yellow shirt and a striped tie in shades of yellow and blue. His Latin complexion and the red hair, with shaggy red eyebrows hanging over deepset brown eyes, made startling contrasts with the pale colors of his clothing.

“And you,” Irish said, “dress piss poor for an IRS man.”

Nolan raised an eyebrow and said, “Some joke. Round now, a joke’s the only place I can afford even thinking about the federal boys.”

“You got trouble, Nolan?”

“Up the ass. Where is everybody? Don’t you work all week like the other nine-to-five folks?”

“My guys are out today making their weekly run of service calls and deliveries—we do that every Wednesday. But what’s this with you? Something happen, you have a job go sour?”

“Like month-old milk. Someplace handy we can sit and talk?”

“Sure. Upstairs. Come on.”

They walked across the jukebox-filled floor, sidestepping machines, parts, and tools, and started up the rickety steps. They passed three doors on as many landings, going on up till they stopped at the fourth landing. The stairway and all the woodwork in the building looked poor, paint-peeling and seemingly rotting; and when Irish opened the final door, Nolan was stunned to see the room behind it.

“Like it, Nolan?”

“I take it Werner treats you well.”

The room was large, lush. It had thick white wall-to-wall carpeting, with side walls paneled in rich, dark wood; the back wall was taken up by a bar and three shelves of booze behind it, against textured white wallpaper with red swirls. An open door in the middle of the paneled wall at the left revealed hints of a bedroom decorated in deep blues, and the other wall bore a large framed print of one of Dali’s studies in soft washes. There wasn’t much furniture, just a 26-inch Sony TV in the corner to the left of the door and console stereo stretched across a side wall. The only other furniture in the room, outside of a couple of stools at the bar, was a sofa, long, and fat and white, looking very soft and very comfortable, and reclining on it was a lovely young girl of twenty or so, dressed in blue lace panties, also looking very soft and comfortable. Her skin was the color of dark butterscotch, her legs long, breasts small but nicely formed. The breasts Nolan couldn’t actually see that well, as her long black hair came down around both shoulders and partially covered them.

“Maria,” Irish said, “wait in the bedroom, will you? This is a friend come to talk with me.”

She got up. She was quite tall, five-nine at least. It figured, Nolan thought; Irish always did go in for big girls: his wife was practically six feet. Now that the girl was on her feet, her breasts didn’t look so small, Nolan noticed. Her nipples were very pink against her dark skin.

She walked over to the door, flashing an ivory smile at Nolan.

“Go on, now, Maria, shoo,” Irish said.

“Yes, Herman,” she answered, bouncing attractively into the adjoining bedroom, closing the door after her.

“She makes friends easily,” Irish said. “Maybe you’ll want to take her out while you’re in town.”

Nolan laughed, softly. “Herman. Can’t get over it. Herman.”

Irish flashed a Cheshire cat grin as he slipped out of his sportcoat and tossed it on the stereo. “I knew you’d have something to say about that . . . you’re lucky you got even ‘Irish’ out of me, I never got a first name out of you, you know.” He went over to the sofa and sat down, gestured for Nolan to join him. “A well-kept secret, that name of mine, while I was still in the trade. But when I became a more or less legitimate businessman, I could hardly hang out a shingle saying ‘Irish Cavazos.’ž”

“Suppose not.”

“How about a drink?”

“No thanks. Haven’t had breakfast yet.”

“Nolan turning down free booze? Not changing in your old age, are you, for Chrissake?”

“The old age part’s right, anyway. To be honest, Irish, my stomach gives me hell when I drink in the morning.”

“Whatever happened to that cast-iron sonofabitch I used to know, name of Nolan? The one that hit that armored car with me ten years ago?”

“He’s the same sonofabitch, Irish. Just ten years older, and pounded to tin foil. Are you forgetting who it was talked you into quitting the business?”

“I’m not forgetting it, Nolan. I owe you a hell of a lot for that. . . . If you hadn’t sent me and my savings to your old buddy Werner eight years ago, chances are I’d be either in stir or under the ground.”

“You were a clumsy bastard, Irish. Great with machines, but clumsy with everything else. It scared me when you worked a job without me.”

“Yeah, well, you gave me discipline, Nolan, and when I was on a job with you, I was okay, you could make me feel at ease. But the biggest favor you or anybody else ever did me was you telling me to get out while I had my ass in one piece.”

“So I did both you and Werner a favor.”

“You know the way I owe you, Nolan . . . just like Werner owes you for a hundred times . . . and that’s why I know I can ask you this and you won’t take it wrong: what in the name of Jesus and Mary and any remaining Saints are you doing around here? You know what’ll happen if anybody who knows you or that face of yours sees you? And reports to Charlie, who’s minutes away from the Cities?” Irish stopped and half his mouth smiled, the other frowned. “Incidentally, Nolan, that mustache of yours won’t fool anybody. You got a face worse than fingerprints.”

“Tell me about it. I just got through healing up from a slug in the side. One of Charlie’s boys spotted me in Cicero.”

“Then what the hell are you doing still in the area?”

“Werner’s helping me set up a meeting with Charlie. We’re going to try to talk it out.”

“Come on, Nolan, you don’t really think . . .”

“I don’t know, Irish. I’m getting old. So is Charlie. Because of him I can’t get to any of the cash I’ve piled up.”

“Jesus, what happened? You didn’t get your cover blown, did you?”

“Right the first time. Charlie’s onto my cover tag, so I got to get this thing settled before he starts giving it out to people like free samples.”

“Why’d you come to see me?”

“Well, the ground rules set for this meeting say no guns, but I’m not about to go into this thing bareass naked. Werner didn’t seem eager to tell me, but I finally gathered from him that you still got firearms for a sideline. Is that right?”

The shaggy red eyebrows knitted together and Irish nodded.

“I figure I can trust Charlie only with a gun in my hand. Can you fix me up?”

Irish got up from the sofa. “Come with me.”

Nolan followed him out of the room and down to the floor below. Irish unlocked the door, and Nolan saw that behind it was a second door, a steel one with a combination lock. The little man dialed it till it clicked free, then eased the door open and they went in.

The room was the size of a small gymnasium, covering the combined space of the first floor’s workshop and waiting room. The walls were padded with thick bulging tan canvas, as were floor and ceiling. Across the room a third of the way down was a wooden platform with a waist-high tablestand running along in front of it. Two metal cabinets were against the left wall, each as wide as a man with outstretched arms, and so tall they almost touched the ceiling. Covering the far end wall was a sheet of metal, which descended from the ceiling and slanted down into a catchbin; halfway down, a row of ten standard pistol range targets were lined across the metal sheet.

The two men walked over to the platform.

Irish said, “You still hot for .38s?”

“Smith and Wesson, if you got ’em. Four-inch barrels. Never could stand snub noses.”

“Well, you can’t always be picky. How many you need?”

“Several, at least.”

“You want the kind of piece I think you want, no serial number and still in top shape, you take what’s available. I got three Smith and Wesson .38s in stock, with four-inchers, and of the three, two are like new. The other one’s been around, and it’s got a pull to the left. I got a Colt Police Special that’s a hell of a lot more reliable.”

“Let’s see them.”

Irish walked over to the big steel cabinets, twirled the combination lock on one of them, and swung open the double doors. There were compartments and drawers inside, and after he’d done some fishing around, Irish came up with four guns and a box of cartridges. He scooped them all up in his arms, walked over to Nolan, and laid them on the tablestand in front of him.

“Don’t sweat the noise. Soundproof as shit.”

Nolan nodded, loading three bullets into one of the Smith and Wessons.

He tried all four guns. The Smith and Wessons were all good, but one of them did pull a hair to the left, and it was also slightly rusted. The Colt was fine.

“You’re right, Irish. I’ll take the two S and Ws and the Colt.”

“You need three?”

“Got to be safe. The only gun I got is on me. I had a couple others that got lifted by Charlie’s men in Cicero, along with a lot of other stuff.”

“Got a job on the line?”

“I don’t think so, Irish. I called Planner while I was healing up, and the only thing he had for me was a bad bet at best. Since Charlie shot my last job out from under me, nobody in the trade wants near me. Nobody worth a damn, anyway.”

“Jesus. I hope you get this thing with Charlie straightened out.”

“I will, Irish. One way or the other one.”

“You want that drink now?”

“I’ll pass again. Walk me down?”

“Sure. Let me put the guns in a box for you and wrap it up. Need any ammo?”

“Yeah. Better make it five or six packs. And throw some Three-in-One oil in, too, would you?”

“Okay.”

Later, the two men stood by the open garage door downstairs and talked of jobs they worked together. After half an hour had gone, Nolan asked Irish how much he owed him for the guns and ammunition, and was his credit good?

“You don’t owe me anything, Nolan. . . . I’m in to you for much more than money could ever repay. . . . I’m so goddamn lucky you got Werner to set me up. . . .”

“Werner’s the lucky one. I never met a man who knows more about mechanical things than you. I don’t care if it’s cars or tools or guns or . . .”

“Or jukeboxes?”

“Yeah. Those too, I suppose. What exactly are you doing for Werner? The jukebox thing’s a front, I assume?”