The Staked Goat - Jeremiah Healy (28 page)

"A favor? For you, anyt'ing. You t'ink I forget?
My arm, my business, what you need?"

About seven years ago, some high-level car strippers
were using Eddie's yard, through a dishonest foreman, to shelter some
of their skeletons. My old employer, Empire Insurance, was
underwriting a lot of theft and vandalism policies then, and an
overly eager assistant DA tried to connect Eddie to the ring. Eddie
was clean, but he also knew that I was the one who steered the
assistant straight with some help from a Holy Cross classmate who was
one of the assistant's superiors. The only time I ever saw Eddie in
tears was when he became convinced that his foreman had betrayed him
by fronting for the ring.

"Just a small—" I said, when I was cut
off by the tow truck driver, who shoved me aside and started to beef
to Eddie. The driver was maybe thirty, at 220 about thirty pounds
overweight. He came complete with a freely running nose and body
odor, even in the cold, like a month-dead moose.

Eddie just swung his wrecking ball of a left fist
fast, hard, and upward into the driver's stomach. The driver went
down on his knees, gagging, and Eddie cuffed him alongside the head
with the heel of the same hand, toppling him over into the slush and
mud.

"Swine!" bellowed Eddie. "You wait
until Eddie Shuba ready for you. Now, get your rig and get out.
Forever, move!" Eddie kicked him rather gently for punctuation,
glared at the other driver, who was obviously in no mood for the
same, and then gave me a forward march gesture with his right arm.

"Come, Johnnie, we go into my office. Where
there is peace and men can talk."

I followed him into the shack. The driver's dry
heaves weren't quite drowned out by the compressors that seemed never
to stop.

Eddie closed the door behind us, which shut out most
of the noise. He offered me vodka.

"Only if I can sip it," I said.

He roared laughter and an epithet about how I had to
learn to drink vodka properly. He poured us each about two ounces of
100 proof into styrofoam cups. He handed me mine, we toasted the U.S.
of A., and then he threw his drink off in one gulp, smacking his lips
without a hint of coughing.

I took a polite slug. He seated himself in a big worn
leather office chair, using both hands to position his bad leg at a
more comfortable angle.

"So, Johnnie, how can Eddie Shuba help you?"

I prefaced my request with an abstract explanation of
how I was helping the widow of a war buddy and was dealing with a
very bad man. Eddie nodded gravely.

"So basically I need an old car that'll drive
maybe thirty miles competently at highway speed. I'll also need a key
to your front gate."

"Sure t'ing. I got a four-door Chevy Nova that
run."

I shook my head. "No, I need a bigger car,
preferably a two-door, with a long engine compartment."

Eddie poured and tossed another shot, wiping his
mouth with the back of his hand. "I got maybe two cars so. One a
Pontiac, '67. The other a Buick, '69. The Buick run better maybe, but
it's four doors. The Pontiac got only two."

“
Make it the Pontiac then."

Eddie looked grieved when I pulled out my bank-roll.
"No, no," he said, "favor to good friend. Eddie-"

I held up my hand. "I insist," I said,
counting out three hundred. "By the way," I asked, "do
the cops in this town come by here much at night?"

Eddie, rummaging around through some dog-eared,
stained paperwork, gave his lion's laugh again.

"Hoo, sure, Johnnie, sure. Just like they go to
church. Ever' Christmas and Easter."

He gave me a registration and a set of car keys, then
tossed a gate key on top. "Come, we try this beauty for you."

"Oh, Eddie," I said. "Two more
things."
 
"Yeah?" he
said, turning at the door as I finished my vodka.

"We're going to talk some more, but if anybody
asks you about today, you tell them I just asked you if I could use
the driveway beyond the gate as a meeting site. I never got any old
car or any gate keys from you."

"Okay," he said, a quizzical look on his
face.

"And, Eddie?"

"Yeah?"

"After I use it, I want the car crushed."

"Crushed?" said Eddie.

"I'll be leaving it here tomorrow night, and
I'l1 want it crushed first thing in the morning."

Eddie Exed me squarely. "I show you where to
park it. I work crusher Friday morning myself. First t'ing."

We went back out into the
yard.

* * *

After Eddie Shuba, I saw the Button's brother. I
barely had time to catch the post office before it closed. I decided
to let it and the stationery store go till tomorrow morning. I looped
and skipped as much rush-hour traffic as I could, buying an evening
Globe from a kid at an intersection just as it hit the street a
little after 5 P.M. At the next three traffic lights, I leafed
through it. My identification as the corpse was dumped to page six by
two flareups in the Middle East, a political corruption case, three
tires, and a schoolbus accident. I pulled off into a Seven-Eleven
store parking lot and called Lieutenant Murphy.

He picked up on the third ring.

"It's Mr. Lazarus," I said.

"Who?"

"You know, the Charcoal Kid?"

"Hold on," he said, bellowing something at
someone on his end. I thought I heard a door close.

"Where have you been, Cuddy?"

"I've been busy," I said.

"What have you got?"

"Nothing definite."

"Let's hear about the maybes."

"I'd rather not."

"Now look, mister," he said, the telephone
growing warmer from his voice, "I am out on a limb for you. I
have an as yet unidentified—"

"Misidentified," I interjected.

He growled but drove on. "Unidentified body in
the morgue and I have to either confirm or deny the Globe article."

"Tell them that no positive identification is
possible until my prints come in from Washington."

"The hands were too burned. I got Daley calling
dentists. You know how many--"

"I haven't been to the dentist since mine died
two years ago."

"That's all right. Boring him is better than
chewing his ass for the reporter slip. Now, what have you found out?"

"Al Sachs was killed by a guy he'd met in the
service. Al had blown the guy's cover somehow."

"How? What's the guy's name?"

"I'm not sure of that yet."

"You're not sure of the name?"

"No, of how A1 found out."

"What difference does that make? Do you know who
the killer is?"

"No, not as such."

Another growl. "What do you mean, 'not as
such'?"

"Look, Lieutenant, I'm at a pay phone, and there
are three teenage thugs looking to—"

"Fuck the thugs. What's his name?"

"Sorry, Lieutenant, I can't hold—" I
jiggled the cradle five times, then held it down. I'd have to be
straighter than that with him next time.

I got back into the rental and drove it to Nancy's
house.

"You know," she said, lazily swirling the
wine in her glass, "it's kind of nice coming home to a cooked
dinner."

I had stopped at a small grocery and bought four
split chicken breasts and some Shake 'n Bake. I tossed it together,
and it was ready just fifteen minutes after she'd come in the door.

"In my opinion, it's the Green Giant Niblets
that set the whole tone of the meal."

She laughed. We were both half kneeling, half
squatting around the low table in her living room, throw pillows
under our rumps.

I sipped some of my wine. She pushed some corn around
on her plate.

"Are you getting close?" Nancy said, eyes
down and casual.

"Close to what?"

"Close to whoever or whatever you're after?"

"Yes."

"Can you tell me about it?"

"Not ever."

She nodded. She finished her meal in a subdued, but
not sulky, manner. She cleared the dishes while I finished my glass
of wine.

Nancy came back into the room. "How about a walk
on the beach?" she said peppily.

"The beach?"

"Yeah, Carson's Beach."

"Nancy, it must be zero with the wind chill."

"So, you can use some of my sweaters."

"They wouldn't fit."

"I'll ask Drew Lynch for some of his then."

"I don't want him to know I'm here," I said
lamely.

Nancy came over and put her hands on my shoulders
gently, as though lecturing a slow learner.

"John, you won't have to show Drew any
identification for me to borrow a sweater from him. Besides, he
certainly knows you're up here by the sound of your footfalls."

I thought back to Jacquie and Ricker above me in old
Curl's house. I shuddered.

"Chill?" she said.

"No," I replied.

"Wel1, then, let's go."

"What about the numerous ruffians who no doubt
frequent the area?"

She laughed. "Don't worry, it's too cold for
them."

I yielded.

Drew's sweater was a thick-ribbed, oily burgundy
turtleneck that closed out the cold. The stars were bright over the
patch of inky black harbor we could see as we strolled along the
beach. A couple of joggers in ski masks thumped by us, looking like
terrorists and flicking their mittens at us in salute. Nancy swung
her arms conservatively at her side. I kept my hands in my pants
pockets, thanking whoever had given Drew the sweater for Christmas.

"It's tomorrow, isn't it?" she said. She
spoke quietly, but the air was so cold and the night so still that I
was sure the joggers, at least a quarter mile behind us by now, could
have heard her. We kept walking.

"What's tomorrow?"

"Whatever it is that you're going to do."

I exhaled heavily. My breath clouds never got started
because of the wind coming off the harbor.

"Probably," I said. "If all goes
well."

She dug her hands into her pockets and watched her
feet. "Would it do any good for me to argue that the court
system is the better way to resolve disputes like this one?"

She made me smile in spite of myself. "No, it
wouldn't.”

"John Francis Cuddy," she said wearily,
"you are too old, too recently drugged, and probably too damned
decent to deal with these people."

"You left out too loyal, too arrogant, and too
stubborn to quit now."

She stopped and punched me in the arm, harder than I
was ready for.

"Don't!" she cried out, then dropped her
voice. "Don't you dare make fun of yourself."

"O.K.," I said, feeling the little glow
inside again. "I won't."

She shook away the tears beginning to form in her
yes. She went up on tiptoes and threw her arms around my neck,
drawing her face up into the side of my throat.

"Please come back," she said. No sobbing,
just an even, reasonable request.

I stroked her hair and began to realize just how much
I wanted to.

We walked back to her house, Nancy's left arm slid
into the crook of my right. We climbed the stairs. We both knew I'd
taken a step out there on the beach. She had the good sense to
realize that a step wasn't a leap.

"Couch?" she said lightly.

I nodded.

"I usually set the alarm for seven," she
said in the same tone.

"That'll be just fine."
 
She walked into her bedroom. "Why don't you
take the bathroom first," she said, closing the door behind her.
 

TWENTY-THREE
-•-

MY AGENDA FOR THE; MORNING WAS SHORT, AND THE first
two items took no time at all. I drove to Newton, a city about eight
miles west of Boston. I obtained a large General Delivery mailbox for
a month at the Newton Post Office under the name of "J. T.
Davis" and bought ten dol1ars' worth of stamps. Then I stopped
at a stationery store and bought five large book-mailing envelopes
with the legend "Books—Fourth Class Mail" already printed
on them. I put these in the trunk of the rent-a-car, just above the
blanketed shotgun I had bought at the shop of the Button's brother. I
got into the car and drove to Eddie Shuba's junkyard.

I drove by slowly and counted off the five side
streets Eddie and I had agreed upon yesterday. I turned right and
spotted the old Pontiac slumped into a parking space next to a
weather-beaten house and across from a nonoperational auto body shop.
I pulled in ahead of the Pontiac and walked back to it. I got in and
found the keys on a wire just under the glove box. I pulled off the
ignition key and turned the engine over. The car started on the third
try. I let it warm up while I went back to the rental and transferred
my cargo from it to the Pontiac's cavernous trunk. I put the Pontiac
in gear and drove it into the driveway of the auto body shop and
behind the building itself. The old car still had effortless power
steering and crisp, albeit squeaky, braking. I turned off the engine
and sat in the car for a few moments with the front windows rolled
down. No noise, no voices. I got out and walked to the back of the
car, my footsteps crunching the unshoveled snow. I reopened the
trunk, taking out the tools Eddie had left there for me, and returned
to the front of the car. I opened the hood of the Pontiac and went to
work. It took less than an hour.