Barely Legal

81

Herbie hurried down the block to the address. The house had a concrete walkway to the door. He hesitated, afraid of making noise that would alert whoever was inside to his presence. There was a front lawn the size of a postage stamp, but it was thick grass. Herbie walked on it, crept silently up to the door.

There was a front window. The curtains were drawn, but there was a crack at the far right side. An open grate to the basement window just below was a hazard, but Herbie eased around it, leaned close, and peered in.

The man he’d been following was standing in the living room, griping at two men who were sitting at a card table playing cribbage, and a third man just sitting on the couch and watching TV. He didn’t seem to be griping about anything in particular, he was the kind of guy who just liked to gripe. He said something vague about traffic, but there hadn’t been any traffic, and something about having to tail a guy first, all of which might have made sense if he were making excuses for being late, only he didn’t appear to be late because no one got up to go.

Each one of the guys was sporting a shoulder holster with an ugly-looking gun.

The guy he’d been following said, “So, where’s the girl?”

The goon on the couch jerked his thumb. “Upstairs.”

“Can I see her?”

“No, you can’t see her. What do you think this is, your private peep show? You’re here to sit watch.”

“What does it matter?”

One of the card players stopped playing long enough to point his finger at the guy. “Because she’s important to someone and we don’t want to fuck it up. So you pay attention to me. You do not have any contact with the girl. If you do, I’ll know, and it will not be good. It will not be, how do they say, conducive to your health.”

“Do we get to kill her?”

The player laughed and shook his head. “Fucking idiot. If we gotta kill her, it’s not a ‘get to’ thing, it’s a job. And it would be done by the pros, not you. You’re just a guy. You got your gun?”

“Yeah.”

The guy took it out of his shoulder holster and held it up.

“You don’t gotta show us, I’m just asking.” To the man on the couch he said, “Jesus, where did you get this dingbat?”

“I didn’t get him. Mookie got him.”

The card player sighed. “There’s one exception,” he said.

“What’s that?”

“If the cops come, you kill the girl and get out.”