A Week In Hel (9 page)

I was expecting some lip,
but she looked me in the eye and didn’t talk. She was giving me her
full attention and I was glad. It had already been a long night,
and it wasn’t even late.

When Hazel came in a minute
later, we ordered steaks and potatoes. Candi ordered a glass of
wine, and I ordered coffee, Black.

Hazel also sold us on a
Buckeye Brownie, a sinful concoction for couples (which me and
Candi weren’t) consisting of a warm brownie, 2 scoops of vanilla
ice cream with hot fudge, peanut butter, caramel, whipped cream,
nuts, and cherries served on one plate with two spoons. She calls
it a couple’s dessert. The idea being like a milkshake with two
straws, only for people who are really into each other.

“
By now, I’m sure you don’t
want to hear anything I have to say,” she took the words right out
of my mouth, “but you have to understand, I’ve tried to stay out of
the mess The Outfit runs in Pleasant Hill, but now things have
gotten to the point where I need to get out.”

I nodded. My eyes never left
her and she seemed to age right in front of me. She relaxed a
little when she realized I was listening and she started to
unfold.

“
You’re right not to trust
me. Those guys think I’ve told you about their rackets. Either way,
numbers or protection, or talking about the way they shake down a
joint by butting into the business. The worst though is when they
strip all the cash out, and then run up the debts on the owner
before they torch the place. That’s if you cooperate. Otherwise,
they just outright kill you.” Her tone was grave, and she looked a
little pale.

This was all sounding pretty
large for a barmaid from the hill, and I was only giving her
partial credit until the next—

“
So why haven’t they killed
you yet?” I just laid it out there. Admittedly, I was just trying
to bait her into another round of tears.

“
They can’t. Like Antonio
told you, I got something that they like more than hurting people
who are too afraid to say no.”

Even a brick of ballistic
goop like me knows that the only thing the mob likes more than
blood is money made off of strong-arming people who worked hard to
get it.

“
Money?” I asked for the
sake of rhetoric, whoever the hell he is. I already knew, and she
knew I knew.

She smiled and nodded. “A
lot of money. The kind of cash that can get you killed.”

“
How much is that?” Like I
said, I’m not real smart when it comes to committing
crimes.

She gave me a look, like I’m
over cooking her grits. “I already told you, about four million
dollars.”

I was just floored, thinking
about all the arbitrary stuff people say; raining cats & dogs,
penny for your thoughts, rob Peter to pay Paul, and it takes a
barmaid to bag the big bucks.

“
Was that really in your
duffle bag?” I knew she was gonna say yes, I just knew
it.

She gave me her big brown
eyes again, and nodded.

Sometimes I hate being
right.

“
Yes, I told you that
already.” She was working those eyes again, and it was getting on
my nerves, bad.

“
You know these aren’t the
kind of people who go to the police?” I knew she knew, but I had to
say so.

A few minutes later Hazel
brought our food. She sat a glass of red wine on the table in front
of Candi, and left a mug of black coffee for me.

“
You might just want to
leave me the pot,” I said to Hazel, who grinned at Candi like they
were setting me up for something. A few minutes later, she returned
with the pot and a second glass of wine for Candi.

The nutty aroma of the
steaming mug was more enticing than that of the slab of meat and
baked potato, never mind the salad. I took a sip of it and felt
rejuvenated. I downed half the cup. The night was getting long in
the tooth, and I wasn’t up for any more funny business.

“
So what’s your angle with
The Outfit? I know you gave me the song and dance about your dear
sainted mother, but I’m not buyin’. Give me the beans, or I’ll
drive you down to the brewery district and kick your ass out of the
car and scram, but not before I dump your ill-gotten gains all over
Delapina’s playground.”

She recoiled as if I’d
offended her. I knew better, but I didn’t let on. She was a regular
Red Skelton—a broad of a thousand faces, and the one she was giving
me now had poker written all over it. The subtle way that she went
from pouty, to jinxy-minxy was sort of sensually deceptive in its
way. She wasn’t any too happy that I was on to her.

“
Look, I’m here to get and
you’re here to give answers. Another way to play your angle is that
I have probable cause to believe that you’ve robbed the owner of
White Walls.”

She gulped hard, “That’s
what the other policeman said.”

Now it was my turn to sit
like an ape with egg on my face. Well no harm in asking, “What
other policeman?”

“
A detective named Johnny
Rosales,” she said firmly. “He said he was from the protection
squad.”

I couldn’t believe she’d be
so easily fooled by a racket that had been in the papers, on TV,
and the radio. It takes one crook to get one over on
another.

“
Oh yeah, well what did
‘Detective’ Rosales have to say about it?”

“
He told me that the cops
felt that a crook like Angelo Delapina, or Joey Catanza getting
pinched really wasn’t a crime.”

“
I can’t say I don’t agree,
but I’m surprised you were reeled in by that rat. Johnny Rosales is
a twice-pinched nickel bag dealer and wanna be hit man, nothing
more. He’s walking around because we can’t hang anything on him
right now, but if you’d be so kind as to tell me who was in that
back room, and what really happened to Bull McCaffrey, I’d gladly
go pick him up.”

She was about to dispute, I
knew it, and I could almost guess what was coming next.

“
Well he had a badge and
I.D.” She was confident in her argument.

“
You know how many fake
I.D.’s I see every day?”

“
Not as many as I do.
Remember, I work in a bar in a college town.”

She had a point, at face
value, but White Walls was not trendy enough for the college set.
It was mostly blue collar, with a few upper middle class regulars,
but not many.

“
Oh yeah, tell me about the
I.D.” I was about to tear into her, but the aroma of my steak
reached up and got me by the eyeballs. I turned to the steak and
went after it like I was mad at it. The potato was merely
collateral damage. I ate, she ate, and we sat in silence. There had
been an unspoken truce declared. Well maybe call it a
cease-fire.

When I’d finished, I downed
the rest of my coffee. I didn’t mention it, but I was very doubtful
that I’d be able to wring the truth out of her about the money, or
anything else. I gotta say though, it was a real pleasure to watch
her eat, and not talk.

“
Take me to your place,” she
said, as soon as she finished eating.

I’d been finished for a few
minutes, and I was on my third cup of Joe. Hazel came around,
asking if we wanted that Buckeye Brownie. I passed, and Candi just
gave her a demure, girly smile and Hazel left with the impression
that we’d be having dessert later.

I gotta say that Candi was
one hot ankle. I’d have been all over her if she wasn’t such a
minx.

So after a palaverous
hugging from Hazel, and a semi-meaningful molestation from Billy,
who got a very chesty hug from Candi, we were on our way. I made
note of her moving his roving hand from her very shapely backside
to her waist no less than three times.

When we got to the car, I
unlocked my door and I was about to get in, when I noticed Candi
standing by the back bumper.

“
Can I have my bag please?”
She was subdued and very cordial. I was beginning to wonder if
being felt up by an old shell-shocked marine hadn’t had an
effect.

“
If I’d known all it would
take to make you compliant was having your ass grabbed by an old
man.”

She didn’t say a word, only
nodded, and didn’t make eye contact. I went to the back of the car
and opened the boot. There, just as we’d left it, was the duffle
bag. I dunno if it really contained the four million like she said
it did, but somebody would. I grabbed the heavy thing and dropped
it into her outstretched arms. She hefted its weight and smiled. We
got in the car and I started it up.

“
You sure you want to go to
my place? I mean you been steadily avoiding telling me the truth
ever since I entered that gin palace this morning. I’d hate for you
to break your streak.”

“
Ouch.” For some reason she
looked stung. I wasn’t trying to be mean. I was just pointing out
the obvious. Ever since I picked her up, we’d been on the run.
Every time she started coming on, trouble came up. Every time I
started to get sympathetic, somebody either busted her chops or
jammed a gun in my face.

“
Is this really the way you
are, all Brutus all the time? How does anyone ever get close to
you? I’m hard because I have to be, because those guys are after
me, but it’s like you get off on being a hard ass.”

She was on the verge of
tears again, but I think it was for real this time. It was
different, Her throat was tight when she spoke, and she was having
real trouble keeping it together.

“
You want to get to me doll,
you gotta ante up with the truth. I’m a cop. I’m not some face, or
some drone, so into you being the queen bee that he hasn’t found a
way to get honey someplace else. I think the boys from The Outfit
rousted your joint for their money, and poor old Bull McCaffery was
trying to help you when they gave him the business. You called the
cops and they either decided to scram, or they were in the back of
the joint icing down Bull when I showed up. Up to that point you
are either innocent—which I doubt, or complicit, which makes you
responsible if Bull McCaffrey calls it in dead
tomorrow.”

She was giving me those
brown eyes again. This time they were hot, scared, but hot, “So how
am I responsible for them putting the kibosh on Bull? He was just
too stupid to mind his own business.”

“
So they killed him?” It
sure felt like she was admitting it.

“
I didn’t say that, and why
do you think I had anything to do with it if they did?”

Yep, she was hot all right.
“Well aside from what I might suspect, you have, by your own
admission, taken four million dollars. It really doesn’t make a lot
of difference whether it was from a criminal. Felony theft is
felony theft.

She was looking a little
green. “I’m just taking what belongs to my family. The racket
killed anything that amounted to shit in my life. Two large a week
for 30 years, with a little pension tacked on, is nothing compared
to what I’d like to do.”

I didn’t want to admit it,
but her logic wasn’t that far off from my own. I mean if I was
putting my big size 14 foot in her dainty little glass slipper—too
bad for Candi that her coach was gonna turn into a hearse.
Especially if that glass slipper turned out to be concrete
shoes.

“
Y’know, maybe if you
leveled with me and told me the whole truth, I might be able to
help you,” I offered. I was really trying to be genuine. In life
you gotta decide which parts of right and wrong are the parts you
can live with—I figgered that I’d rather help somebody who had been
wronged, than somebody strong-arming the same.

She shrugged me off, “What
d’you want to help me for?”

“
I gotta admit I’m a sucker
for a damsel in distress. I got cleaned up and came to your place
because I saw a pretty girl that needed rescued. I didn’t know what
was going on, but I had hoped this might have gone down more like a
date than a Chinese fire drill.”

She smiled up at me with
those big brown eyes, and it was almost enough. “You’d want to date
me?”

I would. I mean I don’t
usually go for the sexy, but deadly type, and felons are definitely
out; but charged ain’t necessarily convicted, and she was smoking
hot.

“
Sure, why wouldn’t I want
to date you?” I was trying to soothe her.

“
Cause now you think I’m a
crook and you want to charge me with a felony. Regardless of how
you dress it up, you want to screw me to get to the top.” The sound
of it was harsh, and even though it crashed on my ears, it was not
inaccurate.

“
I gotta admit you are more
than half right about the way my cop brain works in the regular
sense.” What? Hell, right is right.

“
What about in the irregular
sense?”

“
How do you
mean?”

She batted those eyes at me
again, “In the sexual sense is how I mean.”

I turned into the lot at the
Shawnee Hotel and backed into a space.

“
Shawnee Hotel Security,”
she said, aghast. “I thought you were a real cop.”

“
I am a real cop. I’ve been
the handyman, and security guy here since I was seventeen.” I
explained further. “When my old lady punched the clock I had to let
the house go, it hadn’t been home since dad died. I came here
because I could afford to pay my bills, take care of mom, save a
little; not to mention they knocked my rent way down for helping
out the maintenance man. The manager knew my dad from way back, and
offered me the security job as soon as it was open. He knew I was
going to be a cop as soon as I was old enough on paper. We’ve never
had anything more than a drunk vet needing help getting to his
apartment. I don’t usually have much to do. I’m a homebody, so I
don’t mind it.