A Week In Hel (5 page)

While I was trying to peel
Candi off of me, I noticed that weaselly fella with the razor blade
moustache was givin’ us the eye, so I decided to play
along.

I pulled Candi closer. Hell,
she was almost sitting in my lap. She gave me the eye and put a
hand on my cheek.

She leaned in to kiss me and
I asked, “Who’s the skinny bastard at the bar?”

She gave me one hell of a
kiss, and then laid her head on my shoulder, “Joey Catanza. He
works for The Outfit and collects for the rackets they run up here
in Pleasant Hill.”

There it was. She’d said it
again. “The Outfit.” It sounded like some kind of clandestine
government agency where they run secret and mysterious operations
that nobody wants to know about. In truth, The Outfit was the easy
to digest name for the organized crime element in Champion City. It
had been around for ages, I figured at least since prohibition,
maybe before. They ran all the usual rackets—protection, numbers
and other gambling, some real estate deals, adult entertainment,
dope; and they owned the Champion City Brewery and a majority
interest in Dement’s Distillery. The current king pin of Champion
City’s underworld was a first generation homegrown descendant of a
real live Sicilian Mafiosi, Dino Delapina. C.C.P.D. had been trying
to get the goods on him for years.

During my Granddad’s tenure,
Vicenza, Dino, and Gianni Delapina trafficked in illegal booze and
ran a skirt joint right in the heart of the downtown area. Gianni
shot up the old police headquarters with a tommy gun, and came to
my granddad’s place to kill him for having Vicenza deported and,
sending Dino to hell with the very same Smith Model 10 I would jam
into that skinny little bastard’s face, if he gave me any
lip.

During my father’s time on
the force, Angelo’s father Giacomo was sent to prison a couple of
times for pulling insurance jobs. They would buy interest in a
business; heavily insure the contents of the building, and then pay
some torch to burn it down. They had the insurance agents on a rope
somehow, but the third job was ruled arson, and Giacomo followed in
his father’s footsteps.

We sat there a while longer.
I was trying to relax, but I still had my hair up over having had a
gun pointed at the back oo my head. Candi seemed to have forgotten
about the whole incident; content for me to wear her like some type
of skin-tight shirt, or something.

Just as I was taking the
last sip of my beer, a couple of new faces came in the door. One of
them had a quite distinct Mediterranean look about him; wearing a
henna colored silk shirt and khaki chinos. The other one was a
pretty husky looking blond with a good start on raccoon eyes. I
wondered if his nose still smarted from its close encounter with
the table at the Grille.

“
Honey, your boyfriend’s
back,” I said quietly, pulling my arm from around her and gently
adjusting my piece for easier access.

“
We gotta get out of here
before they see us,” she whispered urgently.

As much as I wanted answers,
I didn’t want Candi anywhere around if I had to be aggressive. I
didn’t know what her history with these guys was, and I didn’t want
to take any chances. As much as I wanted to trust her, something
told me I shouldn’t.

I should always listen to
that something.

I glanced toward the front,
and saw that Henna and the beefy one were talking to the weasel.
“Can we go out the back?” I asked Candi, who once again looked like
she wanted to melt into the woodwork.

“
Yeah it’s back by the
bathrooms.” She gestured over her shoulder to the left of where we
sat.

I took Candi by the hand,
and we went for the doorway under a wooden sign that read,
“Restrooms.”

We passed under the sign and
down a short hallway, past doors on the left that read his and
hers, and two unmarked doors. Across the hall, there was a door to
a stock room, and a back entrance to the kitchen. At the end of the
hall, there glowed an exit sign, and we headed straight for
it.

I put my hand where the
crash bar should have been, and there was nothing. After a minute’s
fumbling at either side of the jamb, Candi reached in front of me
and flipped the lever on the deadbolt, gave the door the slightest
push and it opened freely. I closed the door behind us, and we
ducked around the corner to my car.

We got in, I started the
car, and we were on our way. When we were a couple of blocks beyond
the bar, Candi started to decompress. She produced a silver
cigarette case from somewhere and opened it, taking one out for
herself and holding the case up, offering one to me. I
declined.

She tucked it back wherever
it came from and produced a lighter, from the same place. She lit
her smoke and took a long drag, which she held for several seconds
and then exhaled it slow, like it was her last breath.

“
I really want to know what
the hell is going on,” I said, “Because it generally isn’t my style
to have people I don’t know point guns at me, allude to shit, and
then sneak off before I get answers.”

She didn’t do that coy, doe
eyed harlot deal this time. She cracked the window, tossed out the
butt, and put it up again, “Do you like me Thurman?”

I was about to pull over and
give her the business. I was tired of this game and didn’t want to
play anymore. I’m not one for pussy-footing around, not with men,
not with women; especially not with barmaids who refuse to come
clean about the racket their bosses are into.

“
Look, whether I like you or
not don’t matter.” I growled. “Only thing that matters, until you
want to be up front with me, is that I’m dropping you off at Center
Street and driving myself home, where I am going to eat a TV dinner
and go to bed. It don’t make a horse apple worth of difference to
me if I see your mug splayed out all over the morning paper. You
don’t want to level with me; I can’t help. If you liked me, you
wouldn’t string me around and expect me not to be sore about
it.”

Candi’s bottom lip quivered,
“So you don’t like me?”

I gave her a sideward
glance. I couldn’t tell what she was about, and it was making me
mad.

She started to slide over
next to me, and I waved her away. She settled back into her spot. A
moment later, she tried it again, and this time I gave her the
stiff arm.

“
Look, I don’t do bullshit
well, and you should respect that even if you don’t respect
yourself enough not to come on to a man who you don’t really know.”
Who was I to read her the riot act? I was sitting there thinking
two things, how to have my cake and catch the bad guys
too.

“
How am I supposed to get to
know you? You keep shoving me away when I try to get close,” she
sort of whined at me, and it pissed me off.

“
What’s to know? You called
the dispatch this morning to report a fight. A fight that was over
and gone before I got there, less than a minute after I got the
call. Not a stick of furniture out of place in the joint, and
you’re all ix-nay and hush about it while I’m in the place.
Probably because your two piezanos back there were putting the
screws to the joint’s owner, or maybe you were planning to pay them
off in trade. What about this guy, Bull McCaffrey? Where was he?
Y’know if he shows up with an extra opening someplace that sort of
let the life leak out of him, we will charge you as an accessory to
murder. You will be arrested, tried, and most likely sent off to
the Union County chicken shack.” I was pissed, and over the
top.

She wept quietly as we
traveled across town and I was beginning to think I had gone too
far. She just sat there with her hands clasped in her lap. She
looked out the window periodically, but mostly she sat there and
muttered to herself from time to time.

When I turned onto Center
Street, she looked up at me with mascara running. “I want to tell
you everything, okay, but if they find out, they’ll kill you too.
I’m sure they think I already talked, so I gotta get out of town
tonight or I will be on the front page of your paper tomorrow.
These guys don’t play around, and I’m not kidding. I’ve seen them
muscle people around, right there in the bar, but the stuff I heard
about is even worse than that.” She was starting to spill and I
needed to be writing this stuff down, so I stepped on the gas and
had us at her house a minute later.

“
Let’s go in, and I will
take your statement. I can even call someone to take an official
police report. That way if something happens, there is an official
record.” I tried to reassure her, “We can keep you
safe.”

She smiled at me from behind
her raccoon mask. “You’re so gallant. Is that what you want
Thurman, to be my hero?”

I shrugged, “I don’t set out
that way, it’s just what I do.” I wasn’t being some kind of
self-righteous bastard. It was true.

I cut off the engine and we
got out of the car. She took my hand and when I started to resist,
she held it with both of hers.

“
I’ll tell you my piece of
it, and you can decide if you need to call someone else for me to
talk to. I don’t like the idea of talking to the police about
what’s going on any better than I like the idea of them coming
after me to kill me, or do God knows what else, but I like the idea
of prison less than I like any of the rest of it…” She trailed
off.

Inside, we sat on the sofa
and I opened my pad. I slipped the pen out of the coil binding and
gave it a click. I dated the sheet of paper and referenced it to
the original call to White Walls, on the brawl
complaint.

“
Okay, I want you to write a
statement about the events of today, then I’m gonna read it back to
you, and I’ll want you to fill in the details of anything that you
wish to clarify. After that I’ll decide if I need to call the
detectives.” I said it as professionally as I could, but she still
looked scared. I held out the notepad and the pen.

She was kneading her
fingers, first one hand then the other. “D’you want a drink? I need
a drink,” she said. Her voice was small and laced with nerves. She
got up and went to the kitchen, returning a minute later with two
bottles of beer; one of the pilsner, and one of the
stout.

I reached into my pocket and
pulled out my key ring. I used the church key to open her bottle,
and in turn my own. She took a sip of her beer and then started
writing. I took several pulls on my bottle and enjoyed the thick,
smoky flavor of the stout. I sat back into the deep sofa and
started to relax. The beer was good, and Candi was a nice enough
girl. I watched her write for a couple of minutes, and then I took
another sip of beer, laid my head back against the cushion, and
closed my eyes.

Sometime later, I heard
footsteps creaking across the floor, and someone took the bottle of
beer from my hand. I figure it was Candi, because I felt her soft
touch against my skin. I tried to force open my eyes but tiredness
had a grip on me that I was finding hard to break. I relaxed again
and sleep started to take me.

‘
Wake up, sleepy boy,” Candi
whispered in my ear. I heard it, but I didn’t immediately connect
with where I was, or that I was really asleep.

“
Yeah, wake up sleeping
beauty,” said an angry, abrasive voice. This one startled me and I
opened my eyes.

The weasel and the beefcake
were standing across the room. The weasel held a familiar looking
pistol. Beefcake’s nose was crooked and, and his eyes were both
blackened. Candi sat nearby, holding the notebook and looking
scared.

I was still trying to puzzle
it out and fight the sleep out of my head. I was starting to wake
up, but I still couldn’t figure it—had she let them in, or did they
force their way?

Then I remembered that the
Ghia was in the drive when I got here this evening.

“
Son of a bitch,” was all I
could say.

“
I don’t know, I never knew
your mother,” the weasel said in his swizzled little voice, like a
queer Colonel Klink I thought.

“
I’m a cop,” I started off,
thinking maybe they’d tuck tail and run.

“
Yes, so we gather from our
mutual friend.” He gestured to Candi, who gave me her sad little
smile. “I have some questions for you,” he said, as he sat down.
“Candi assures me that she has told you nothing, and yet, when I
arrive here, I find her alone with you and writing a statement in
your notebook...”

I looked at him like he was
crazy. Who did he think he was? Serializing and monologuing like
some dime detective novel villain. The Shadow wasn’t coming to save
me, so I had to start thinking—Fast.

Just then, Beefcake pulled a
chair over in front of me. For a minute, I thought he was gonna sit
in my lap.

“
How’s your nose
asshole?”

He looked at me like he
wanted to carve my liver, but it was Candi’s giggle that sent him
over the edge. “Shut up, you little bitch.”

She might have had that
coming.

He backhanded her a second
later, and her lower lip cracked and started to bleed.

She didn’t have that one
comin’, no matter how it might have smarted. I had no idea what it
was between those two, but it was plain even to the casual
bystander that they didn’t like each other much.