Read Big Money (Austin Carr Mystery) Online
Authors: Jack Getze
acknowledgments
Thanks to Lawrence C. Sylvia, M.D. (Deceased), Chairman of the Department of Pathology, Monmouth Medical Center, Long Branch, N.J. for helping me create this fictional story's autopsy summary. Any inaccuracies are mine, not Dr. Sylvia's.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Former Los Angeles Times reporter Jack Getze is Fiction Editor for Anthony nominated Spinetingler Magazine. Through the Los Angeles Times/Washington Post News Syndicate, his news and feature stories have been published in over five-hundred newspapers and periodicals worldwide. His screwball mysteries, BIG NUMBERS and BIG MONEY, were first published by Hilliard Harris in 2007 and 2008. His short stories have appeared in
A Twist of Noir
and
Beat to a Pulp
. He is an Active Member of Mystery Writers of America’s New York Chapter.
http://austincarrscrimediary.blogspot.com/
Other Books by Down and Out Books
See
www.DownAndOutBooks.com
for complete list
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Catching Water in a Net
Clutching at Straws
Counting to Infinity
Gravesend
Chasing Charlie Chan
Circling the Runway
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2,000 Miles to Open Road
Road Gig: A Novella
Exit Blood
By Richard Barre
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Bearing Secrets
Christmas Stories
The Ghosts of Morning
Blackheart Highway
Burning Moon
Echo Bay
Lost
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Texas Noir
By Reed Farrel Coleman
The Brooklyn Rules
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Viper’s Tail
Murder in the Slaughterhouse
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Pine Box for a Pin-Up
Busted Valentines and Other Dark Delights
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By A.C. Frieden
Tranquility Denied
The Serpent’s Game
By Jack Getze
Big Numbers
Big Money
Big Mojo
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By Keith Gilman
Bad Habits
By Don Herron
Willeford
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By Terry Holland
An Ice Cold Paradise
Chicago Shiver
By Darrel James, Linda O. Johsonton & Tammy Kaehler (editors)
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By David Housewright
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By Jon Jordan
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By Jon & Ruth Jordan (editors)
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The Perpetrators
Scoundrels: Tales of Greed, Murder and Financial Crimes
(editor)
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Beat L.A.
(Graphic Novel)
By Robert J. Randisi
Upon My Soul
By Lono Waiwaiole
Wiley's Lament
Wiley's Shuffle
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Dark Paradise
(*) Coming soon
Here’s a sample from Robert J. Randisi’s
Upon My Soul
.
PROLOGUE
The day Sangster woke and discovered he had a soul after all, everything changed.
But along with the soul came a conscience, something else he had never experienced in his thirty-seven years. He was not awake five minutes when he began to weep. He wept not only for the people he’d killed over the years, but for their families, who had been deprived of their loved ones. He wept uncontrollably, and it was a day of firsts, for he had never cried before, not even as a child.
Sangster was a new man, but the question became...was he a better man?
He left his apartment that day and never returned. In fact, no one in California ever saw him again, and for many years he was presumed dead. Those who knew him figured that his line of work had finally caught up with him.
It seemed logical to assume that a man who was an assassin for hire would fall prey to an assassin, himself.
But that was not the case...
ONE
Three years later...
Sangster looked up from the chessboard at the man who had appeared at the end of his front walk. In the almost three years he had been renting this house on Algiers Point—one of the neighborhoods left dry by Hurricane Katrina located across Lake Ponchatrain from the French Quarter—the only person who had ever come up that walk was his neighbor, with whom he played chess at least three times a week.
“Know ’im?” Ken Burke asked.
Sangster glanced across the table at the older man, who had not looked up from the board.
“Yeah,” he said, “I know him.”
The man advanced up the walk carefully, as if he expected somebody to take a shot at him at any moment. He probably would have felt better if he knew Sangster hadn’t touched a gun in three years.
When he reached the porch he stopped and stared at Sangster before he spoke.
“Hello, Sangster.”
“Primble.”
Burke looked up at that, eyed Sangster, who could only shrug his shoulders.
“What do you want?”
“A lot of people think you’re dead,” Primble said.
“That was kind of the idea, Eddie.”
“It worked pretty well,” Eddie Primble said, “until now.”
“Well, you didn’t find me,” Sangster said. “I know that much. Who was it?”
“Top secret,” Primble said. “Is there someplace we can talk?”
“You don’t want to talk in front of my friend?”
Primble looked at Ken Burke, who continued to eye the board intently.
“You have a friend?” he asked. “Things
have
changed quite a bit in three years.”
Sangster looked at Primble.
“Yes, “he said, “they have.” He looked at Burke. Primble had aged badly in three years. Sangster knew Primble must have been forty, but much of his hair had receded and he’d put on weight. He looked fifty—healthy enough, but fifty. The cut of his suit also bespoke of some progress financially. He was sweating. It was February, but that didn’t mean much in New Orleans. It was still nearly ninety degrees.
“I have to talk to this man,” he said to his chess opponent.
“Go ahead and talk,” Burke said. “I’m concentratin’.”
Sangster looked at Primble.
“He won’t listen, he’s concentrating.”
“I intend to talk very plainly,” Primble warned.
“Talk as plainly as you want,” Sangster said. “I have no secrets from Burke.”
“Your friend,” Primble reiterated.
“And neighbor,” Sangster said. “He lives in the house next door.”
“How much does the old timer know?”
“Everything.”
“Everything?” Burke asked. He ignored the “old timer” remark. After all, he was seventy. If that didn’t qualify as an old timer, what did? “If I knew
everything
, this game would’ve been over a long time ago.” Sangster knew—Primble did not—that Burke was not only talking about chess.
“Eddie,” Sangster said, “you found me—or somebody found me for you. What do you want?”
“I need you,” Primble said, “to...to do what you used to do.”
“He wants you to kill somebody,” Burke said, eyeing the board, chin in hand.
“That’s what I used to do,” Sangster said. He looked at Primble. “I don’t do that anymore.”
“You don’t—come on, Sangster,” Primble said. “What else does a man like you do?”
“I’m retired.”
“Retired?”
“I don’t kill anymore,” he said. “I haven’t killed anyone in three years. I don’t even own a gun, and I haven’t held one in all that time.”
“You expect me to believe that?” Primble asked.
“I don’t care what you believe, Eddie,” Sangster told him. “It’s the truth.”
Primble thought a moment, put one foot up on the first step. It was warm, and he was sweating. He loosened his tie, undid the top button of his shirt.
“All right,” he said. “For the moment let’s assume that you haven’t killed anyone in three years.” He adopted a look of complete puzzlement. “Why not?”
“That’s not important,” the ex-assassin said. “All you need to know is that I don’t do it anymore. You need to find someone else.”
“Do you know how long it took me to find you?” Primble demanded.
“Let me guess,” Sangster said. “Three years?”
“I’m not just gonna take no for an answer, Sangster,” Primble said. “That’s not what I do, remember?”
“I remember very well.”
“In fact,” the man went on, “when you walked out you left behind an unfinished assignment. I had to have someone else do your job for you.”
“Luckily,” Sangster replied, “you hadn’t paid me in advance.”
“That’s not the point.”
“I know,” Sangster said. “I’ve been trying to get you to see the point, Eddie.”
“Sangster,” Primble said, “you were the best I ever ran.”
“I’m out of the business, Eddie.”
“You can’t get out of this business, Sangster,” Primble said. “Why don’t we just call the last three years a vacation?”
Sangster looked at the chess board. The old man hadn’t made a move yet. He had his chin in his left hand, and his right hand was down out of sight.
“Eddie—”
“You don’t think I came alone, do you?” Primble asked.
“I don’t really care if you came alone or not, Eddie,” Sangster said. “You’re leaving, either way.”
“There are two guns trained on you right now. If I nod, you’re dead, and your chess buddy, too.”
It got quiet, and suddenly they all heard the sound of the hammer being cocked on a gun.
“I thought you said you didn’t own a gun,” Primble said.
“He don’t,” Ken Burke said. “I do.”
Burke brought his right hand into sight. He was holding a big .45 Peacemaker, the kind they used to carry in the old west.
“You so much as twitch, let alone nod, and it’ll be the last thing you ever do,” Burke told Primble.
“Easy, old timer,” Primble said. “That thing’s pretty old. It might explode in your hand.”
“I guess you don’t really know much about guns, do ya, Mister?” Burke asked. “That probably comes from havin’ other people do your killin’ for ya. This here’s a collector’s item, and I keep it in pristine shape. It’s the pride of my collection, and believe me when I tell you it’s in fine workin’ order.”
That was the most Sangster thought he’d heard the older man say at one time in the almost three years he’d known him.
Primble was sweating even more, but it wasn’t from the heat.
“Is he serious?” he asked.
“Dead serious,” Sangster said. “Show him, Burke.”
With his left hand Burke took his wallet from his pocket and flipped it open to show Primble his badge.
“You’re a cop?”
“Sheriff,” Burke said. “Retired, but I keep my hand in.”
“Sangster,” Primble said, “I just wanted to talk.”
“Then you should have left the threats at home,” Sangster said. “Come on.” He stood up, as did Burke.
“Where we going?” Primble asked.
“You signal your boys to put up their guns,” Sangster said. “We’re going to walk you to the ferry, so nobody decides to take a shot at me.”
“Look, I—”
“We’re done talking, Eddie.”
“I need you, Sangster!”
“You heard the man,” Burke said. “Now give whatever signal you arranged so your men know to put up their guns.”
Primble frowned, and for a moment looked like a man about to cry. Finally, he turned his body partially and waved his hand in disgust.
“They’re leaving,” he said.
“Good,” Sangster said, “they’ll be on the same ferry you’re on. Let’s go.”
“I don’t know why—” Burke prodded Primble in the back with the barrel of the Peacemaker and the man almost jumped out of his skin. They made the walk to the Algiers ferry in silence.
Sangster watched the ferry start across the lake back to New Orleans.
“You sure his men were on there, too?” Burke asked.
“I’m sure,” Sangster said.
Sangster looked at the Peacemaker is his friend’s hand.
“I’m glad you brought that over here today to show me.”
“Yeah,” Burke said, with a grin. He took it off cock and lowered it to his side.
“Would it really have fired?”
“To tell you the truth,” Burke said, “I don’t know.” He waited a beat, then added, “Maybe if it’d been loaded.
TWO
On the ferry, Silk Guiliano and Jimmy O’Malley walked over to where Eddie Primble was sitting.
“What the hell happened?” Silk asked.
“Yeah,” Jimmy said. “He run us off?”
“He did,” Primble said. “He’s still as good as ever. Wants me to believe he hasn’t pulled the trigger—hell, even held a gun—in three years, but...” Primble shook his head in admiration. “He had that old man hold the gun. It was...brilliant.”
Silk looked at Jimmy.
“He ran us off, and Eddie’s impressed.”
“I
ain’t
so impressed,” Jimmy replied. He looked at Primble. “Is the bet still on?”
“It’s still on,” Primble said. “I fingered him for you, didn’t I? You both get a good look at him?”
“I did,” Silk said. He was in his early thirties, dressed completely in black. He had christened himself “Silk” years ago, liking the name and all its connotations. “Smooth as silk,” that’s what he told women, and he also considered himself to be smooth as silk with a gun.
O’Malley, on the other hand, was just the opposite. Late twenties, he was rough, crude, but effective when it came to killing.
One of these men wanted to take the place of Sangster in Eddie Primble’s operation, but Primble wouldn’t pick one until he knew that Sangster was dead and not coming back. So a wager had been put in place, between Silk and Jimmy. Whichever man managed to kill Sangster would get his spot. The other man would be relegated to second banana, and neither man wanted that.
“So,” Primble said, “you both know him on sight, the rest is up to you.”
Silk and Jimmy exchanged a look, then Silk asked, “Are you sure you didn’t talk him into coming back?”
“Yeah,” Jimmy said. “Maybe you told him about us?”
“He says he’s done with it,” Primble said. “If he’s truly finished, I can’t have him running around out here alive, not with what he knows. No, he didn’t agree to come back. He’s your target, boys, and there’s a lot at stake.”
“He didn’t look so tough,” O’Malley said.
“Don’t underestimate him,” Primble said. “That’s the only advice I’m going to give you both.”
“I’m not going to underestimate him,” Silk said. “What’s the point of killing him if he’s not the best?”
“Oh, he was the best all right,” Primble said. “The best I ever saw. Probably still is.”
“We’ll see about that,” Silk said, looking back at Algiers.
For want of something else to say, Jimmy O’Malley said, “Yeah.”
THREE
It had taken Sangster a year to get to know Ken Burke well enough to tell him the truth. As a retired lawman, Burke didn’t approve of the way Sangster had made his living, but as a man who had done his own share of killing—all in the line of duty, of course—he understood a man finding redemption. As a Christian, he forgave Sangster, and their friendship grew stronger after that.
They didn’t finish their chess game after walking Primble to the ferry. Sangster told the old man he had some thinking to do.
“About leavin’?”
“Maybe.”