Westlake, Donald E - Novel 51 (22 page)

           
“Li Kwan!”

           
Kwan froze inside the box, silent,
barely breathing. His heart was a fist in his chest, massively clenching.

           
“Li Kwan! We know you’re in there!
Come on out! Goddamn it, don’t make us search every goddamn container!”

           
The voice was irritable, weary, but
not actively hostile or angry. It was just a ship’s officer faced with an
annoying duty. They know we’re here, Kwan though, not yet realizing the
significance of the fact that his was the only name called. But there was no
point trying to hide any longer. With a sigh, wondering how much trouble he’d
made for himself, Kwan stood, picked up his duffel, and opened the front of the
container, letting the panel swing out and down on its hinges. “Here I am,” he
said, to the three aggravated uniformed Caucasians, who turned to him with
identical frowns of exasperation.

*
 
*
 
*

           
Dat had betrayed him, turned him in,
there was no question about that. Dat, more than that, had set him up in the
first place, suggested the scheme, inveigled him into it, and
then
betrayed him. Kwan had plenty of
time to think about that in the
Star
Voyager's
small cream-painted brig. What wasn’t clear was why Dat had done
it.

           
Kwan had discussed that with Father
Mackenzie, when the man had come in shortly after the arrest, introduced
himself, and asked if there was anything he could do. ‘Talk to me,” Kwan had
said, and Father Mackenzie had been happy to do so—he didn’t seem to have much
to occupy himself on the ship, except to be on call for providing the last
rites to Roman Catholic passengers who succumbed to strokes or heart attacks
while at one or another of the nine meals offered every day— and when the
conversation had turned to Dafs betrayal Father Mackenzie had made one
tentative suggestion that just might be the truth. “He could be an agent of the
Chinese government,” the priest said. “I’m not saying he is, but he could be.
Sent to make sure you never get into a position where you can publicly
embarrass
China
.”

           
“But I still can, Father, if someone
would call the
New York Times
as soon
as we arrive. If
you
—”

           
But no. Father Mackenzie couldn’t,
or wouldn’t. Bravery and action were impossible to him. He was just a small
decent man, doing what he could.

           
Aaaaaaaaahhhhhh, they’re all decent
men.

           
Shortly after Father MacKenzie left,
the vibration of the engines stopped. We’re here, Kwan thought bitterly. The
free world.

           
But then nothing happened for
another hour. Kwan paced the floor in the small room, increasingly nervous. Was
this really going to be the end? The priest had said that
Hong Kong
was already seeking extradition.
Hong Kong
, not
China
. It would be harder for
China
to take him away from American
jurisdiction, but
Hong
Kong
could do it
easily. Put together some trumped-up criminal charge—nothing political, not at
all—and the Americans would see nothing wrong with sending a petty thief or
arsonist or blackmailer home to a fellow democracy for a fair trial.

           
Sinking deeper into bitterness and
gloom, Kwan paced the narrow floor, rubbing his hands together, pushing his
fingers through his thick hair, biting his lower lip. Thoughts of his own death
crowded in on him, the dog’s death he’d be given, death equally through
humiliation and a bullet. After all this.

           
He stopped when he heard the grating
noises of the door being unlocked. He was facing the door when it opened and
three uniformed crewmen entered, these Caucasian faces impersonal, showing
nothing at all. “Your escort’s here,” one of them said. ‘Time to go.”

           
Kwan’s duffel was on the bed.
Picking it up, he said to them, “You know, for one moment, we touched the
conscience of the world.”

           
“Is that right?” the man said,
uncaring. Looking around the bare little room, he said, “Got all your stuff?”

           
“But the truth is,” Kwan said, “the
world doesn’t have very much conscience.” And he went with them.

           
What is it about Susan Carrigan? I
don’t need her any more, but here I am with her. I’ve studied my actions, my
motivations, my reasons for continuing to see Susan after her task was
finished, and I’ve come to a conclusion. It seems to me that the quality in her
that attracts me is that
she does no
harm.

           
I’m mostly aware, of course, of the
others, the ones who snarl and bite, the ones whose messy miserable struggles
led finally to my present assignment. My awareness of
them
is so complete that Susan is becoming more and more of an
amazement to me. I’ve been seeing for myself why He has grown weary of these
creatures, but it wasn’t until I got closer to Susan over time that I began to
sense why He had made them in the first place.

           
This means nothing, of course. His
Will be done. It only seems to me that I ought to get a clearer picture of the
humans while they still exist, that I should see them both at their worst and
at their best. I knew them so little, understood so litde, when I started.
Susan shows me the parts I hadn’t suspected.

           
We see each other three or four
times a week. We go to movies, or to stage plays, or to dinner. A few times, I
have spent an evening in her apartment to watch some special program on
television. She is easy enough in her mind about me by now that I could move
the relationship onto a sexual plane, but I have not. (I don’t precisely read
her mind, but I can make myself aware of levels of her emotions and the general
flow of her thoughts, and I’m rather sure an overture from me would not be
unacceptable.) My only personal sexual experience was with Pami: nasty and
brutish, though not particularly short. With humans, sex is where reality and
belief touch, where the physical and the emotional rationalize one another; it
might be better for me not to know any more than I already do.

           
As for Susan, I do enjoy her company
Her reactions to the world she sees, her opinions, are so close to my own that
there are moments when I find her uncannily angelic. She isn’t, of course. She
is human, so my time with her will be extremely limited. (Even more than under
normal circumstances.) I’m glad of the opportunity, though, no matter how brief
it must be.

           
In the meantime, what’s this? Out in
Illinois
, what is Frank Hillfen up to?

           
Getting into trouble all on his own,
without any help from me.

           
There’s nothing to worry about,”
Joey said.

           
Frank knew better than that. There
was
always
something to worry about.
That’s what life added up to: worry. “Just tell me the scheme,” he said.

           
Joey was a big heavy slob who always
smelled of tomato sauce. He had some kind of teamster job out at Scott Field,
the huge air force base just a few miles out of East St. Louis, but what he
mainly did was muscle for some of the heavy guys around the area. He wasn’t a
mob soldier, not a made guy, just another bulked-up goon they called on
sometimes when bones had to be broken or a litde demonstration of power had to
be made on the street. Between times, Joey got along as a smalltime
break-and-enter guy, a lot like Frank himself, except not as fastidious about
avoiding violence.

           
Normally, Frank would keep away from
a guy like Joey. People who saw violence as just one more tool of the trade
always scared Frank a little, because he didn’t believe violence could be
contained with absolute control; it tended to slop over, like a drunk’s soup.

           
But Frank had been stuck here in
this nothing town for

           
weeks now, never scoring any more
than just enough to keep himself fed and housed, and the time had come to
accomplish something. Joey was a guy Frank knew from Mindle’s, the bar a block
and a half from the shitty litde furnished room he was staying in. A couple of
times, Joey had hinted over beers that he might have a score he’d like to count
Frank in on, but Frank had always played it stupid, not getting the hints. But
enough was enough; he’d been stuck in this town too long.
East St. Louis
! Jesus!

           
“Tell me the scheme,” Frank said.

           
They were at a side booth in
Mindle’s, three in the afternoon, Ralph on the stick, a few loners at the bar,
traffic going by past the dusty windows out front. Joey had bought a round of
beers, that’s how much he wanted to do this thing, whatever it was. And now he
leaned forward over the table, holding the beer in both his scarred fat hands,
fat lips barely moving, tomato sauce-scented breath floating the words like
little ghosts across the black Formica: “It’s a courier.”

           
Frank couldn’t quite do that
ghost-speech trick; he leaned his cheek against his left hand, to hide his
mouth and direct his words toward Joey and away from the people at the bar:
“What courier?”

           
Joey’s lips twitched. “Ganolese,”
floated the name, into Frank’s ear.

           
Frank dropped his hand and stared at
Joey. “Are you crazy?”

           
Leo Ganolese was one of the capos
around this part of the country, maybe
the
capo. He’d let everybody else go drive themselves crazy dealing drugs, dealing
women, while he stayed with what he knew. Leo Ganolese was in the gambling
business, had been in the gambling business for forty years, and would stay in
the gambling business forever. Over on the
Missouri
side, and here in southwestern
Illinois
, he was the man in charge, in so solid the
Federals never even bothered to try to make a case against him.

           
And nobody ever was stupid or loco
enough to try to take Leo Ganolese’s money away from him. “Forget it,” Frank
said. “I gotta be outta my own mind to even sit here with you.”

           
“Wait for it,” Joey advised. He was
still doing the silent-voice thing. “I got it figured. Lemme splain.”

           
Frank was drinking Joey's beer;
until it was gone, he’d let Joey splain. Then he’d walk out and have nothing
more to do with this idiot. “Go ahead.”

           
“The courier’s an old guy,” came the
little word-puffs. “It’s like his retirement job. Every morning he goes around
in a car, he picks up cash from the action the night before. All by himself. By
lunchtime, he’s got it all, he takes it to the Evanston Social Club. It’s
usually around eighty grand, every day, sometimes more.”

           
“No,” Frank said, his hand up to his
cheek again. “Doesn’t make sense. One old guy in a car! Eighty grand every
day?”

           
“He’s some kinda cousin of Leo
Ganolese,” Joey explained. “Safest courier there is. Everybody knows don’t
touch him.”

           
“Including you and me, Joey,” Frank
said.

           
“You know why that’s a no?” Joey was
getting excited, the words stronger, turning almost into solid speech in the
air. “That’s a no, because over in
St. Louis
, right now, they got a big horse show going
on.”

           
“And?”

           
“And the city’s full of punks from
all over the country,” Joey said. “They follow the horses. They don’t have the
kinda respect for the local situation that the local guys do. We take down the
courier, we don’t let him see our faces, everybody’s got to
know
it can’t be anyone from around here
did it. Leo Ganolese is gonna be sure it has to be some out-of-town punk just
came to
St.
Louis
.”

           
“I just came to
St. Louis
.
East St. Louis
.”

           
“Nah,” Joey said. “You been around a
while now, you’re like a native citizen, Frank, believe me.”

           
Frank believed him. On that much, he
believed him. He, Frank Hillfen, was becoming a local.
Here.
The knowledge of that reality is what made him say, “I’ll
look at this guy. I don’t promise anything.”

           
“Sure, Frank! We’ll follow him
around, and—”

           
“No!” Frank couldn’t believe he was
contemplating a partnership with a guy this simple. “Somebody sees us driving
around behind your man, they’ll remember it later on. You tell me a couple of
his pickup places, that’s what we’ll take a look at.”

           
“Sure, Frank. Whatever you say.”
Joey’s excitement made him bounce around on the bench, fat fingers clutching at
the beer glass. “I’ll pick a couple spots, but I won’t follow him around. Okay,
Frank?”

           
He admires me, Frank thought. He
looks up to me, this asshole, he respects me. This is what Fm reduced to,
getting a score from a dirtbag that shouldn’t even have the right to
speak
to me. I gotta get out of this
town. I gotta get someplace where the scores make sense and the dirtbags don’t
know me and Fm not like a native citizen. We’ll look at it, Joey,” he said,
judicious, like an elder statesman.

*
 
*
 
*

           
Of course, it wasn’t as simple as
Joey thought; it couldn’t be. The old guy was there, all right, and he made his
collections every day, and he drove his car alone around his route, but he
wasn’t without security, not at all. There was always another car trailing
around behind him, with two bulky guys inside. Different cars on different
days, different guys taking the duty, but always there, hanging a block or so
back on the road, parking nearby when the old man made his stops.

           
The old man himself was—what?
seventy? eighty?—old, but spry. Skinny old guy, always wearing a gray topcoat
and a nicely blocked gray fedora hat, no matter what the weather. He drove at a
normal pace, maybe a little cautious, and he always moved in a dignified way,
like he was the messenger of the king; which in a way he was. His stops were
bowling alleys, delicatessens, bars, private homes; anywhere that one of Leo
Ganolese’s books or numbers drops or tables operated. At every stop, the old
man would get out of the car (that other car discreetly stopped just up or down
the street), enter the place with a calm and measured tread, and come out a few
minutes later with usually two or three other guys. (More security, that.) One
of the guys would carry a package of some kind, a paper bag or a shoe box or
something else equally nondescript. The guys would stand looking this way and
that while the old man opened the trunk and the package was put in there with
all the other packages. Then the old man would shake hands with one or two of
the other guys, get into his car, and drive away. The people from the
establishment would wait on the sidewalk until he was a couple blocks off and
the other car had moved after him.

           
“Not easy,” Frank said, back at the
table in Mindle’s. He was feeling cold in the pit of his stomach. There were
things you did, and things you were foolish to do. This was beginning to look
foolish.

           
Joey, of course, didn’t get it. “All
we gotta do is take out that backup car,” he said. “Look, Frank, between
Belleville and Millstadt there’s a long run, maybe ten minutes, lotsa places
where we could get rid of that other car. Then it’s easy.”

           
“What do you mean, get rid of that
other car?”

           
‘Take it out,” Joey said, shrugging
the whole problem away. “Listen, I know a guy down in
Missouri
, down in Branson, we can get hand grenades,
no fooling. We drive by, we flip one in the car, we—”

           
“Goodbye,” Frank said, and got to
his feet, and walked out of the bar.

           
He was half a block toward the
furnished room when Joey caught up with him, looking bewildered, maybe even a
litde put out. “Whad I do? Whad I do?”

           
Frank kept walking, Joey sweaty
beside him. “I don’t ever go near violence,” he said. “Never. You start
throwing hand grenades around—”

           
“So we just shoot the driver,” Joey
said, shrugging, making what he must have thought was a decent compromise.

           
“No.”

           
Then Joey grabbed Frank’s arm and
stopped him on the street. Joey was a fat slob, but he was also a muscleman fat
slob; those fingers holding Frank’s arm hurt. And Joey had something else in
his voice now, when he said, “Hold it a minute, Frank.” Something meaner, more
dangerous.

           
Frank stopped, because he had to,
and looked at Joey’s angry litde eyes. “What now, Joey?”

           
“What now, Mr. Big Man,” Joey said,
“is this. I look around this neighborhood, I don’t see a whole lot of people
working on being saints and angels, and that includes
you.
Don’t give me bullshit, Frank. I brought you a job, we looked
it over, it could be nice. All of a sudden, you’re too good for me. You don’t
do violence” Joey was still holding Frank’s arm, and now he squeezed a little,
bearing down. “Well, I
do”
he said.
“I’m not afraid of violence, Frank. You wanna be, that’s okay. You get my
meaning?”

           
This scumbag is turning mean, Frank
thought. I made a mistake dealing with him in the first place, and now he’s
getting resentful, his litde piggy mind’s gonna decide I’m his enemy. I got to
cut away from this shit. He said, “Joey, you knock over one day of one of Leo
Ganolese’s operations, it won’t hurt him that much. He’ll look for the people
did it, naturally, because nobody’s supposed to get away with crap like that.
But you’re right, he’ll probably figure it’s some punk hanging around over at
the horse show.”

           
“Just like I said,” Joey agreed, and
gave Frank’s arm a litde shake.

           
Frank ignored that. “But,” he said,
“you start killing his people, you start acting like Leo Ganolese doesn’t
deserve any respect, he’s gonna
find
you. So you can squeeze my arm all you want, I’d still rather face you than Leo
Ganolese.”

           
Joey thought about that. Finally,
reluctandy, he let Frank’s arm go, and Frank resisted the impulse to rub it
where it ached. Don’t give the slob the satisfaction.

           
Meantime, Joey was saying, “Okay.
We’re partners, we respect each
other.
You wanna come up with another way, fine by me.”

           
“So let me think about it,” Frank
said, telling himself, maybe I’ll just leave this town tonight, score something
along the way, just enough to take me maybe to Indianapolis, someplace like
that.”

           
But Joey said, “Frank, the horse
show’s
now.
My way, I can get this
hand grenade
tomorrow,
we can
do
it.”