A Catskill Eagle

CHAPTER 10

LEO CAME KNOCKING AT THE DOOR PROMPTLY AT five. Hawk and I stood out of sight from the front door and Fay let them in.

“Hello, Leo,” she said. “Allie, come on in.”

A soft voice murmured so that it was barely audible. “You girls have a good week?”

The door closed and the two men came into view. Hawk and I pointed guns . at them. Leo looked at us, and back at Fay. He was a large man with neat graying hair. He wore horn-rimmed glasses and a full Brooks Brothers costume. Striped shirt, knit tie, Harris tweed jacket, gray flannel trousers, wing-tipped Scotch brogues. Behind him Allie looked like he’d grown up watching Victor Mature movies. He was wavy-haired and heavylidded and wore a dark shirt with a white tie. The collar of his leather jacket was turned up and a cigarette smoked in the corner of his mouth. Behind me I heard Hawk snort.

Leo looked at us, and back at Fay. Meg stood against the far wall by the kitchen.

“You lousy bitch. You set me up,” Leo said in his mumbly voice. He was carrying a briefcase. Not the neat square attache kind, but a big scuffed satchely one.

I said to the women, “Go get your luggage.” Meg started to speak and Fay took her arm and said, “Shhh,” and they went back down the hall. Leo looked at me. There was sweat on his upper lip. His eyes were moist and bright.

“I’m going to fry their ass,” he said.

Hawk said, “No point talking.”

“No,” I said. I bit my back teeth hard together and shot Leo. He went back a couple of feet and fell.

Allie had his hand under his jacket when Hawk shot him. Allie fell on top of Leo, his legs sprawled toward the kitchen. I picked up the briefcase and took it to the counter and opened it. The smell of the shooting was strong in the room and the sound of it seemed to ring in the silence. I opened the briefcase. It was full of money. Hawk had taken Leo’s wallet out and Allie’s and was going through them.

“Leo appear to have about six different credit cards in six different names,” Hawk said. “That seem dishonest to me.”

Fay and Meg edged back down the hall and looked carefully out into the living room.

“I think you’ll like all this better,” I said, “if you don’t look at the bodies.”

Meg turned back at once, but Fay looked carefully past me at the two corpses. Her face had no expression. Then she looked at me.

“What about us,” she said.

I took four hundred dollars from the briefcase and gave it to her. “Two days’ pay,” I said.

“And we can go?”

“Yes.”

“You shot him for us,” she said. “He’d have blamed us.”

There was too much money in the briefcase to count quickly.

“Toss what you got in here,” I said, “and let’s roll.”

Hawk put credit cards and licenses and Allie’s gun and the money from the two wallets in the briefcase and I closed it.

“Got some car keys,” Hawk said. “Hope he ain’t driving something look like a carnival ride.”

“With those clothes,” I said, “no chance. Probably a BMW.”

Fay was still standing in the hallway. Meg had come down the hall behind her carrying two suitcases. Fay was watching me.

“You didn’t have to burn them,” Fay said. “Why’d you burn them?”

“Seemed like a good idea,” I said.

“Two guys you didn’t even know, for two whores you didn’t even know.”

“Know you better than we know Leo,” Hawk said.

“Good-bye,” I said. “Sorry for the trouble.”

Meg said, “Good-bye.”

Fay simply looked after us as we went out the door and down the steps to the street.

A silver gray Volvo sedan was parked at the curb.

“You pretty close,” Hawk said. “A preppy pimp. Can’t count on nothing out here.” He got in the driver’s side. I put the briefcase on the backseat and got in beside him and we rolled out onto Mission Street.

“First we eat,” Hawk said. “Then what?”

“Mill River,” I said. “I want to take a gander at Jerry Costigan.”

“You like buffalo stew?” Hawk said.

“Certainly. And Cleveland stew and Detroit stew…”

“No. Buffalo meat. There a place up on Van Ness serve buffalo stew, we slip in, eat some, slip out, and head for Mill River.”

“And if the cops show up,” I said, “we can circle the wagons.”

We locked the briefcase in the trunk of the Volvo and went into Tommy’s-Joynt and ate buffalo stew. Buffalo stew tastes very much like beef stew. But there’s nothing wrong with beef stew. We each had a large bowl and sourdough rolls and a side of coleslaw and three bottles of Anchor Steam Beer. No cops came. No sirens blew. Warner Anderson and Tom Tully didn’t come in and put the arm on us. We finished our meal and went outside and got in Leo’s Volvo and headed south again toward Mill River.

Ten minutes out of the city I made Hawk stop the car and I threw up on the side of the road. When I got back in the car Hawk said, “You shot Leo to protect those whores.”

I nodded.

“Had to be done,” Hawk said.

“I know.”

“You’ll feel better in a while,” Hawk said.

“Better than Leo,” I said.