Night and Day (Book 3): Bandit's Moon (12 page)

This new office was more like it.
Big wooden desk, small round table to the right with four chairs, perfect
for a late-night card game or debating which liquor store to rob next. And
a pair of comfortable chairs in front of the desk for Eddie’s
guests.

Behind the big desk was Eddie Gee
himself, and he had changed too.

Eddie had always been, at the very
least, chubby. He’d gone from that to fat, and then morbidly obese after
some wiseguys sledge-hammered his feet following a con gone wrong. Eddie
had ballooned up to around four hundred pounds and stayed there.

The Eddie Gabriel sitting behind
the desk was thinner. Not thin, not even chubby. Eddie was still fat, but
his weight was dropping, and at a good clip. He’d lost a noticeable amount
since I’d seen him last summer.

“Charlie Welles,” he said with a
small smile. “Close the door and take a load off.”

As I sat down, I said, “Damn,
Eddie, you’re wasting away. That deliberate, or are you dying?”

“Always got a joke, don’t you,” he
said. “Nah, I had some whatchamacallit, band surgery on my stomach. My
stomach’s like a fuckin’ thimble now, but I lost sixty pounds
already.”

“You’re looking a lot better,” I
said. It was true. Eddie still had a round bald head and a round body, but
the body was getting smaller.

“Ain’t about the looks, old pal of
mine. You remember when I saw you last summer. Couldn’t hardly walk. Hadda
use a fuckin’ wheelchair half the time.” He paused. “Docs told me they were
gonna have to cut off my feet. I’d heard it before, but this time three
docs, all said the same thing. Lose the weight or lose the feet.” He
paused. “It ain’t bad. I eat a few mouthfuls about ten times a day. But my
feet don’t hurt as much. And I can walk to the car without hangin’ on to
Angelo’s arm.”

He stared at me silently for a
moment, then said, “So I got a call this mornin’ from our friend. When I
was still at home. Next time you see our friend, you might wanna tell him
to keep it to workin’ hours. I don’t like business calls at
home.”

“I’ll be sure to mention it.” Even
in the confines of his own office, Eddie didn’t want to mention Northport’s
name. It probably wouldn’t be good for him if his employees knew he was
dealing with the cops.

“So our friend tells me that you
have an interest in the east side, and thought I might be able to help out,
maybe grease a few wheels for you.”

“Let’s face it, Eddie, you’re the
Mayor of Downtown and you have hooks in all over the city. Who
better?”

“You’re right about that,” he
said.

He leaned back in his chair, put
his hands across his still-ample gut, and said, “So, Charlie, tell me about
your problem.”

I almost had to laugh. This was
probably the Mayor of Downtown routine. Mr. Big, hearing your story,
dispensing wisdom and occasional assistance.

“You remember the Floresta?” I
asked.

“Sure. Papa Lazaro’s turf. A real
combat zone, not a cop to be seen.”

“Yeah,” I said. “Well, Papa doesn’t
live there anymore. In fact, Papa doesn’t live anywhere anymore. He and his
familia got evicted.”

“By the cops?”

I shook my head. “No, the cops
didn’t like Lazaro, but they left him alone, before the war and after. He
kept the peace in that part of eastside, so the cops didn’t have
to.”

“Then who evicted him?”

“Woman named Katarina Schleu and
her bunch, the Humans First Front.” I paused. “I’m surprised you haven’t
heard about it.”

“I hear gossip, but I don’t pay a
lot of attention to that kind of stuff. If it ain’t gonna put a dollar in
my pocket, it ain’t my problem.” He paused. “And what the fuck kinda name
is Humans First Front?”

“A Resistance name,” I
said.

“Oh, those jamooks,” he said with a
laugh. “Give guns to a bunch of chimps, you got yourself a
Resistance.”

“Not these guys,” I said. “They’re
heavily armed and they know what they’re doing.”

“Bullshit,” he muttered. “They got
soldiers, I got soldiers. They got guns, I got guns. I run downtown, they
run a crummy apartment building in eastside. They ain’t nothin’.” He
smiled. “So what’s your problem with them?”

“They may have something in the
works,” I said. “Something big. Something that could be very bad for
everybody.” I paused. “Yourself included.”

“Oooh, I’m shakin’ in my boots,” he
said. “What your interest in it?”

“I’ve been hired to find their
boss, Schleu, and stop whatever they have planned.”

“Stop it how?”

“However it takes,” I said. “Kill
her if I have to.”

Eddie whistled. “So you’re a
headhunter now,” he said. “You shoulda told me you were in the business. I
sometimes have that kind of work available and I pay pretty
good.”

“You got quite the wit,
Eddie.”

“Whatever,” he said. He leaned
forward. “Angelo!”

I looked over my shoulder when the
door opened a couple of seconds later. Angelo stood in the open doorway,
jacket unbuttoned, hand inside it. He probably thought I was getting ready
to clip his boss.

“Come on in and siddown,” Eddie
said.

“Right, Ed,” he said. He came into
the office, closed the door and sat at the small table to my
right.

“Charlie here has a little problem,
and we’re gonna help him out some,” Eddie said. “So what’s the score,
Charlie?”

“Well first, you might need to know
that I’m not the only one interested in Schleu,” I said. “There’s some guys
who say they’re FBI, and they’re staked out across the street from the
Floresta.”

“Feds, huh,” Eddie said with a
smile like a wolf’s. “I ain’t never had any rumbles with the Feds, but
somebody over on eastside might know about ‘em.”

“I’m not a hundred percent sure
they really are FBI,” I said. “They might be working for the Vees. Couple
of things about them seemed a little hinky. But they said they were FBI,
showed me ID. I wasn’t gonna argue. Guy in charge called himself Special
Agent Robert Eichhorn.”

Eddie stared at me for a minute,
then glanced at Angelo. He started to laugh. Angelo started to
laugh.

“What?”

“You been had, Charlie,” he said,
still chuckling. “Bobby Acorns ain’t no FBI man. He’s a button. And the
only bloodsucker he works for is No-Neck Al Werkle.”

Chapter
Eight

“Who the hell is No-Neck Al
Werkle?”

“Al used to be a capo for Carlo
Barozie,” Eddie said. “Barozie’s man on the eastside.” He laughed. “It
ain’t exactly prime real estate, but Werkle ain’t exactly a top drawer guy
hisself.”

“He’s a candy brain,” Angelo
muttered.

“A former candy brain,” Eddie said,
glancing at him. “Bloodsuckers ain’t got no use for white lady. Don’t do
nothin’ for ‘em.” He looked back at me. “Werkle was a coke head before he
got turned. He’s a lot calmer now.”

“So Eichhorn works for
him?”

Eddie nodded. “Eichhorn’s crew was
back and forth. Workin’ direct for Barozie uptown, then back with No-Neck.
Then back to Barozie. They’re people. You know, humans. The bloodsuckers
needed ‘em, but they never let ‘em get in tight.” He paused. “Bobby have a
couple of guys with him, little fireplug named Pirelli and a big guy named
Brewster?”

“Yeah.”

He smiled. “That’s what’s left of
his crew. He had a few more guys, but they didn’t make it back to eastside
when the cops closed down Barozie and the rest last year.”

“So why the hell were they staking
out the Floresta?”

“Beats me,” Eddie said. “But I like
this. This is good. This is real good. No-Neck owes me big. He ain’t gonna
be able to retire his debt with this, but it’ll sure remind him of
it.”

He looked back at Angelo. “Your bum
of a little brother still lookin’ for work?”

“Frankie isn’t a bum,” Angelo said.
“He’s just had some bad breaks, that’s all.”

“Yeah, whatever. Still got him on
your license?”

Angelo nodded.

“Okay, give him a call and get his
ass over here,” Eddie said. “He’s gonna sub for you while you go with
Charlie to see No-Neck tonight.”

“That’s not a good idea,
Ed.”

“You said he wasn’t a bum. If he
just had some bad breaks, this is a chance to change his luck.”

Angelo sat silently for a moment,
then said, “Yeah, he’ll be okay. But...” His voice trailed off and he
shrugged. “But he isn’t me. Why don’t you send Frankie instead?”

 “Cause Frankie don’t know
Werkle,” Eddie said firmly. “I can make a call to No-Neck, tell him to give
Charlie every cooperation and so on. But I need somebody there to remind
him about me and his debt. Frankie ain’t gonna cut it. Has to be you.” He
smiled. “Please, Angelo, don’t give me agita over this. Just do it,
okay?”

“Sure, Ed,” Angelo said. “I’ll give
Frankie a call right now.”

It was almost funny sitting there,
watching Eddie play the crime boss that he only knew from books and movies.
A French-Canadian con man who’d shortened his first name from Edouard and
his last name from Gabrielle, still running a con. Though after so many
years, he might have actually become what he pretended to be.

Angelo stood and went out of the
office, closing the door behind him. Eddie watched him leave, then turned
to me. “Okay, so this is gonna work out good for both of us. Tonight you
and Angelo go see No-Neck. Ya find out what Bobby Acorns is doin’ at the
Floresta. And then ya all put your heads together and figure out how to
whack that woman, whatshername.”

“Katarina Schleu,” I said. “But I
need to find out what’s going on with her first. Killing her might not stop
whatever they have planned.”

“Cut off the head and the body
dies,” Eddie said. “Look at what happened last year. Kaiser dead, Barozie
dead, Gagliano dead. Where are their soldiers now?” He sighed and fluttered
his hands in the air. “All in the wind.”

I wasn’t sure that what happened to
the uptown mobs last year would happen to the Humans First Front if Schleu
died. The Resistance wasn’t the mob. But I’d have a better idea when I knew
what they had planned for Christmas Eve.

“I’m on a deadline here, Eddie,” I
said. “I only have till Wednesday night to wrap this up.”

“What, you don’t finish the job,
Santa’s gonna put coal in your stockin’?”

“Yeah,” I said. “A really big,
nasty lump of it.”

“Relax,” he said with an expansive
smile. “Ya got plenty of time till Christmas Eve. Tonight ya talk to
No-Neck, tomorrow you figure out what you need to do to whack the lady and
make everybody happy.” He paused. “Ya still livin’ in that dump over on
Bacon?”

I wasn’t happy to hear that Eddie
knew where I lived. “Yeah.”

“Okay, so around six tonight,
Angelo shows up at your door. Ya take a drive over to eastside, talk to
No-Neck. Wear somethin’ nice, somethin’ respectful. Maybe one of them black
suits, one of the nice ones like you had last summer. Not a cheap
one.”

Last summer, when I was doing a job
for the area government, General Bain had provided three expensive black
suits for my use. I was running the protection detail for the former German
ambassador while he investigated the possibility of resuming normal
diplomatic relations between the United States and his country. Bain didn’t
think my usual hundred dollar off-the-rack suits were suitable for the job.
He was probably right.

“I’ll see what I can do,” I
said.

When I got home, what I really
wanted to do was take a nap. It had been late when I got back the night
before after my encounter with the fake FBI agents, and Daryl’s arrival
around five in the morning had really cut into my sleep.

I did try to nap. I had a few hours
before Angelo was due to show up at my door, so I had plenty of time. But I
was antsy. I might have time for a nap, but I was running out of time to
find out what Schleu had planned. Eddie might think I had plenty of time,
but it was only four days to December 24th. And I might need every one of them.

I called the answering service.
Twelve messages from Daryl Northport, all from Friday when he was trying to
track me down. Nothing else. The service knew to tell prospective clients
that we were closed till January second, and most people would move on to
other agencies willing to stalk wayward husbands or interview trial
witnesses right through the holiday season. When you need a private
investigator, you generally need one sooner rather than later.

I put on the TV and watched a
college football game for half an hour. But I’m not a fan, and I’m really
only interested when I’m rooting against a team. I didn’t care about either
team on the field, so I turned it off.

I picked up a book I was in the
middle of, about an inter-dimensional thief saving the many worlds, one at
a time, but after a few pages, bent the corner and put it down. My mind
wasn’t focused enough to follow some asshole’s adventures in time and
space.