Authors: Max Allan Collins
When he returned to the door of the study, Nolan peered in through the crack and saw Werner, undisturbed, still at his desk, reading. With the .38 in hand, Nolan drew back his foot and kicked the door open.
Werner dropped his book and sucked in air like a man going down for the third time. “Nolan . . .”
Nolan waved hello with the .38.
Werner shoved the book off to the side of his desk. “Uh . . . shut the door, will you, Nolan?”
Nolan did. He walked over to a chair in front of the desk, turned it backward, and sat down, looking straight at Werner and leveling the .38 at him.
“It’s good to see you, Nolan.”
Nolan smiled. “Good to see you.” He laid the gun down on the desk and stretched out his arm.
The two men shook hands.
“You didn’t exactly make it easy for me,” Nolan said.
“Oh, but I did.” Werner smiled. “I usually have two men on watch here, one in, another out. I gave the guy who covers inside the house a night off. You only had Calder to contend with.”
“Your boy Calder didn’t seem to want you to find out I got past him.”
The smile settled in one corner of Werner’s mouth. “That’s the way Calder’s mind works, all right. He’s a thinker. Thinks too much, really. As long as he doesn’t ever stub his toe too bad, he’s got a chance to make it in the business. Have much trouble with him, Nolan?”
“Some. Wouldn’t have a few years back.”
“Calder’s a hard-headed little bastard.”
“You’re telling me.”
Werner spread his hands. “I’m sorry to put you through this breaking-and-entering routine, but it’s best to maintain certain appearances, don’t you think, Nolan? If, uh, interested parties found out you and I still have connections after all this time, things could turn sour for me in a hurry.”
Nolan nodded and said, “I know there’s risk involved, for both of us. I didn’t think I’d ever have to contact you again, till this came along.” He patted his side.
“It has been a few years, hasn’t it?”
“Five. That was when you said things had cooled down. You said, don’t worry.”
Werner shrugged. “I thought things
had
cooled down. Eleven years should be time enough to cool anything down. But it obviously wasn’t. Even after that eleven years has
gone to sixteen, it’s like it started yesterday. Who’d ever think one of Charlie’s dimwits would be able to recognize that ugly face of yours, after all those years?”
“He didn’t seem to have much trouble.”
“How’re you feeling, anyway? How long’d it keep you down?”
“Just over a month. Feel weak. Never was much for getting shot.”
“Hell, you don’t look so bad. The bus trip okay?”
Nolan got out the pack of cigarettes and offered a smoke to Werner, who shook his head no. Nolan lit one up. “Trip was short, few hours is all. I slept all the way. I sleep a lot these days.”
“Meaning what?”
“Meaning I’m getting old. Like everybody gets old, but sooner. Like you’re getting old, but worse.”
“Forty-four isn’t old, Nolan.”
“When you live the way I do it is, and for me it’s forty-eight.”
“Nobody forced you into being what you are. You could’ve had what I’ve got if you’d played it just a little bit different. Do you see this place, Nolan? Not bad. My life’s a breeze, old buddy. Only time I ever work up a sweat is when I go down to the local gym for a workout.”
“Yeah. Life’s a regular Disneyland when you don’t fall from good standing with the . . . what are you boys calling the Family now these days? Cosa Nostra? Too ethnic. The Outfit? Too vague. Better Business Bureau, maybe?”
Werner’s smile twisted. “The term Family is back in fashion, among the insiders. We’re back to calling it the Family again.”
“Cozy.”
Werner got up and went to the door and flipped the lock. In his blue Banlon shirt and gray slacks he looked like something that had walked off the front of a country club brochure. He strolled over to a line of bottles sandwiched between two quarter-rows of books on a shelf halfway down
the wall behind the desk. He poured two glasses of Scotch, handed one to Nolan, and kept the other.
“You know, Nolan, killing Charlie’s brother that time was a mistake.”
Nolan lifted his shoulders, then set them back down. “Today it’s a mistake. Sixteen years ago it wasn’t.”
“No, you’re wrong.” Werner’s smile was gone now. “Even then it was a mistake. Maybe less of one, since you were young and had a chance and could live a running life without much sweat. But, now, the inevitable is starting to catch up with you, and it gets closer by the day.”
Nolan nodded. “I’m old.”
“You’re not old . . . but you sure as hell aren’t young anymore. Look, I got to admit that when you quit Charlie, you had no choice but to turn to what you did. I mean, a murder rap hanging over your head on one side, your ex-friends gunning for you on the other. And I’ll give you credit . . . you turned out to be the most successful grand larceny artist I ever ran across. Racked up how much in those sixteen years? Near half a million?”
“Just over that.”
Werner waved his hands. “More or less, what’s the difference? It’s gone now. All that’s left for you is to decide what happens next. The money is gone, or as good as.”
That was right.
Gone.
Nolan looked into his drink. When he’d called Werner from the girl’s apartment the day before, he’d found little need to tell his old friend about what had happened: Werner’d already gotten most of it through the Family grapevine.
For sixteen years now, Nolan had made his way as a specialist in engineering institutional robberies. Through a number of sources, Nolan lined up other professionals, with their own specialties (drivers, strongmen, climbers, safemen, electricians, et cetera) and molded them into compact units of three to six, hitting banks, armored cars, jew-
elry stores, and firms on cash payroll. Occasionally, a well-moneyed individual would also feel the squeeze of Nolan’s particular talents. He’d stayed away from places owned or controlled by what was now calling itself the Family, and he avoided Chicago and the surrounding area, where the local Family operation was helmed by his ex-employer, Charlie.
Over the years Nolan had kept in touch, off and on, with Werner, his lone Family friend who remained as such, though then only secretly. Eleven years after the incident that had enraged Charlie over Nolan, Werner told Nolan that Charlie’s grudge had cooled. Cooled enough, at least, for Nolan to quit looking over his shoulder.
A month-and-a-half ago, considering the matter with Charlie past history, Nolan had consented to use the Chicago area as the planning base for a bank job three other pros had in mind for a little town some thirty miles out of the city. Nolan and the three others used an old hotel in Cicero while they hassled out the details of the job. A week before the score was to be made, Nolan was spotted in Cicero by one of Charlie’s men, who recognized him and got off the shot that had caught Nolan in the side.
The other three pros he’d been working with split (and Nolan could hardly blame them: he’d likely have done the same in such a case), but he managed to get to the apartment of a girl he’d picked up just the night before, and she stayed by him and didn’t ask questions. The only problem he had with the girl was convincing her a doctor wasn’t necessary, since Nolan felt that as long as the bullet wasn’t in him, had passed through clean, there wasn’t anything to worry about.
The tragic part, as far as he was concerned, was that his cover was blown.
When he’d sent the girl to his hotel for his personal belongings, she had found that somebody (Charlie’s man, Nolan assumed) had traced him there and had taken all his things. One of the things missing was a suitcase, and in it was a billfold and papers belonging to one “Earl Webb.”
The Webb name was one Nolan had built for many years, a costly name, a name that had documents to prove its existence as a living being, a name that owned three restaurants and a miniature golf course and laundromat and a couple of drive-in movies, losing businesses purchased to keep on losing so that juggled books would keep the name’s federal income tax returns looking legitimate.
A name that held over half a million dollars in banks around the U.S.
“If Charlie leaks the Earl Webb cover to any of the authorities,” Nolan said, “all I got to do is try and touch a cent of my money and local cops and state cops and FBI’ll swoop down on me like hungry birds. I got to find out whether or not Charlie’s leaked it yet.”
Werner shook his head from side to side. “The answer to that one I don’t know. But I
do
know Charlie, and my guess is he hasn’t let out a word . . . up to now. He’s got this Earl Webb lead on you, and he’ll try to find a way to use it himself before he gives up and lets it go to anybody else.”
Nolan stubbed out his cigarette. “He won’t be able to use it himself. Oh, he might track down a place or two I rented under the Webb name, places I stayed at between jobs sometimes, and maybe he’ll get to some of the guys who run fronts for me. But there isn’t anything or anybody connected with the Webb name that I’m about to touch or go near now. The only possible good he’ll get out of the name is to expose it and screw me out of my cover . . . and my money.”
“You’re probably right, Nolan. And Charlie’s had just about enough time to find this out for himself.”
“You got any ideas?”
“Well, maybe one. But suppose I do have a good way out. Suppose I got things straight between you and Charlie and he got off your back for good. What then? Try and get in good with the Family again and shoot for an executive position? Or maybe just continue your present career without threat of Family intervention?”
“None of that,” Nolan said. “I want to retire.”
“Retire?”
“I couldn’t work now if I wanted to. The word’s out that the Syndicate people want me dead . . . and that doesn’t exactly make me a desirable working partner in the circles I move in. Me saying things are clear with Charlie, if that could happen, won’t make any difference. The people I work with would expect me to say that whether it was true or not.”
“I see.” Werner finished his drink. “You surely have more on your mind than just retirement.”
“I do. I want to go back to what I used to do.”
“Nightclubs, you mean?”
“That’s right.”
“It’s been sixteen, seventeen years, Nolan, since you were managing clubs for Charlie. The whole nightclub scene has vastly changed.”
“I can adjust. For twenty years, the last sixteen especially, I been going the fast pace. Been shot four times. Fires. Car wrecks. Can’t remember all the times I got the shit kicked out of me. You name it, I did it, or somebody did it to me.” He got out another cigarette and lit it. “It’s not that I want to quit this life so much as it is I’ve burnt it out. I got to try something else, and clubs are the only other thing I know.”
Werner looked away for a moment, as if weighing each word he was preparing to say, then said, “If things
could
get straight with you and Charlie, I might be able to use you in one of my clubs here in the Cities. Like I say, you been away from it a while, but I’d be glad to have a man of your caliber working for me.”
Nolan got up and poured himself another drink. “I may take you up on that offer, Werner. But if I can get to my money, I can buy my own club.”
Werner shrugged. “Well, the offer stands.”
“That’s generous as hell of you, and I appreciate it, don’t get me wrong, but it won’t be worth last year’s calendar if I don’t get this thing settled.” Nolan leaned over with the
bottle of Scotch and refilled Werner’s drink. “You said you had an idea. Let’s hear it.”
“It’s going to sound crazy.”
“It’ll have to sound crazy to be worth a damn. Go on.”
“Well, all right . . . in a word, negotiate.”
“What are you, crazy?”
“You got to understand, Nolan, things have changed since the days when you were working for Charlie. Things aren’t handled the way they used to be. The violence, it’s soft-pedaled now. The Family’s into businesses now, Nolan, big ones, not just front operations, but big and on-the-up-and-up businesses. The old way of handling things is passé.”
“How does that affect me?”
“Well, since the Cicero shooting, Charlie’s probably been getting pressure from upstairs, pressure to cool it if and when he does find you again. They’re not saying, ‘Don’t kill Nolan.’ They’re just saying, ‘Careful and no mess.’ Now, Charlie knows damn well you’re not the kind who’ll lay down and die like a good boy . . . with you, he knows there’s going to be mess.”
“So?”
“Take advantage of it. Offer to meet and talk. Charlie could come in from Chicago, it’s just half an hour by plane, and I can have some place set up here in the Cities as neutral ground. You could tell him that the pressure of having him out for you these past sixteen years has finally got to you; that he really got you cold over in Cicero; that you’re sorry you got mad that time and shot his little brother . . . tell him any and all the lies you like, but get it talked out.”
“Seems to me this kind of thing doesn’t get talked out.”
“Maybe not, but remember—Charlie was probably just as upset about the twenty thousand you relieved him of as he was about you knocking off baby brother. Money means a lot to Charlie, and then there’s his pride. He’d probably like to find a way to come out on top with you, without violating the ‘cool it’ orders coming from upstairs. You paying him off is a possible out for both of you.”
Nolan didn’t say anything for a few moments. Then he said, “It’s worth trying.”
Werner laid his hands out on the desk. “I’ll make the contact tomorrow morning.”
“You can do this without getting yourself up shit creek?”
“I think so. I’ll just tell Charlie that you got me at gunpoint or something and proposed the idea and that it sounded good to me, so I thought I should let him know. He’ll eat it up. Charlie always has been a melodramatic bastard.”
Nolan nodded.
“Tomorrow I call him.”
“I appreciate this, Werner.”
“I owe you, Nolan, for a lot of times. No need to talk that end of it. Where you staying?”