Scratch Fever

6

IT WAS a November afternoon that could have passed for September — not quite Indian summer, cooler than that, but with the sun visible in a blue, not quite cloudless sky. A nice day to be in Iowa City — if you liked Iowa City.

And Nolan didn’t, particularly. Maybe that was why he moved out of here, a few months ago. That had certainly been part of it. That and Jon leaving.

Not that he and Jon had been particularly close. They had been through a lot together, but basically they were just partners — in crime, in business, if there was a difference — and had shared that old antique shop as mutual living quarters for a year or so. That was about the extent of it.

But without Jon around, Iowa City stopped making sense to Nolan. It was as though the town had an excuse being this way, with a kid like Jon living in it; now Nolan felt out of place, out of step, and more than a little bored in a college town perched uneasily between Animal House and Woodstock.

This downtown, for instance.

He was seated on a slatted wood bench. A few years ago, if he’d been sitting here, he’d have been run over: he’d have been sitting in the middle of a street. Since then, the street had been closed off so these college children could wander among wooden benches and planters and abstract sculptures, like the one nearby, a tangle of black steel pipe on a pedestal, an ode to plumbing, Nolan guessed. Some grade-schoolers were climbing on a wooden structure that was apparently supposed to be a sort of jungle gym; very “natural,” organic as shit, he supposed, but the tykes seemed as confused by it as he was. A movie theater was playing something from Australia given four stars by a New York critic; people were lined up as if it was Star Wars 12. A boy and girl in identical U of I warm-up jackets strolled into a deep-pan pizza place; another couple, dressed strictly army surplus, followed soon after and would no doubt opt for “whole wheat” crust. Nolan hadn’t seen so much khaki since he was in the service. One kid in khaki was playing the guitar and singing something folksy, as though he hadn’t heard about Vietnam ending. Like Nolan, he was seated on a wood bench, and people huddled around and listened, applauding now and then, perhaps to keep warm. Nolan burrowed into his corduroy jacket, waiting for Wagner, feeling old.

That was it. Sudden realization: these kids made him feel old. Jon hadn’t had that effect on him. Jon had, admittedly, looked up to him, in a way. But it hadn’t made him feel old. Not this kind of old, anyway.

He glanced over at the bank. The time/temperature sign said it was 3:35. Wagner had been in there an hour-and-a-half already. Nolan had been in there, too, but only long enough to sign the necessary papers. He didn’t feel comfortable in a bank unless he was casing or robbing it.

For nearly twenty years, Nolan had been a professional thief. His specialty was the institutional robbery: banks, jewelry stores, armored cars, mail trucks. He had gone into that line more or less as a matter of survival. He had been employed in Chicago, by the Family, in a noncriminal capacity, specifically managing a Rush Street nightclub; but a falling out with his bosses (which included killing one of them) had sent him into the underground world of armed robbery.

Not that he’d been a cheap stick-up man. No, he was a pro — big jobs, well planned, smoothly carried out. Nobody gets hurt. Nobody goes to jail.

It took almost the full twenty years for those Family difficulties to cool off — then, largely due to a change of regime — and it was during those last difficult days of his Family feud that Nolan teamed up with Jon. An unlikely pairing: a bank robber pushing fifty and a comic-collecting kid barely twenty. But Jon was the nephew of Planner, the old goat who pretended to be in the antique business when what he really was was the guy who sought out and engineered jobs for men like Nolan. It had been at Planner’s request that Nolan took the kid on.

And the kid had come through, these past couple of years — the two Port City jobs; the Family trouble that included Planner being murdered; the heisting of old Sam Comfort And more.

But Jon just wasn’t cut out for crime. Oh, he was a tough little character, and no coward. He’d saved Nolan’s life once. Nolan hadn’t forgotten. But the kid had a conscience, and a little of that went a long way in Nolan’s racket.

Fortunately, he and Jon had made enough good scores to retire, about a year ago. Or anyway, Nolan considered himself retired, knowing that his was a business you never got out of, not entirely; there were too many ties to the past for that.

Wagner was one of those ties: a boxman, a safecracker, who retired a few years ago and started up a restaurant in Iowa City, called the Pier. He’d made a real go of it but his health failed, and he invited Nolan to buy him out and Nolan had.

Only now Nolan was in the final stages of reversing that process: letting Wagner buy him out and take the Pier back over.

And there Wagner was — knifing through the crowd of window-shopping kids, moving way too fast for a guy in his fifties with a heart condition. But then, that was always Wagner’s problem: he moved too fast, was too goddamn intense, a thin little nervous tic of a man with short white hair, a prison-grey complexion, and a flat, featureless face made memorable only by a contagious smile.

And then he was sitting next to Nolan, pumping Nolan’s hand and saying, “You’re a pal, Nolan, you’re really a pal.”

“I made money on the deal,” Nolan said noncommittally.

“Not that much. Not that goddamn much. It was nice of him wasn’t it?”

“Nice of who?”

“The banker!”

“Bankers aren’t nice. Bankers are just bankers.”

“It was nice of him, Nolan. To come down after hours to sign papers. That just isn’t done, you know.”

“Banks have been known to open at odd hours.”

“Huh? Oh, yeah. I get it Ha! Lemme buy you lunch.”

“It’s past lunch.”

“Why, did you eat already?”

“No.”

“Then let’s have lunch. It’ll make a great prelim to dinner. It’s on me, Nolan.”

“Okay,” he said.

They walked across the bricked former street to a place called Bushnell’s Turtle; it was a sandwich place specializing in submarines (its name derived from the fact that a guy named Bushnell invented the “turtle,” the first submersible) and was in a beautiful old restored building with lots of oak and stained glass and plants. They stood and looked at the menu, which was on a blackboard, and a guy in a ponytail and apron came and wrote their order down. Then they were in line a while; the kid in front of Nolan was long-haired and in overalls with a leather thong around his neck and was reading, while he waited, a book called Make Your Own Shoes. Soon they picked their food up at the old-fashioned soda-fountainlike bar, where the nostalgic spirit was slightly disrupted when a computer cash register totaled their order.

“The hippies did it right for once,” Wagner said, referring to the restaurant. He was about to bite into a sub the size of one of the shoes the kid in line was planning to make.

“I agree with you,” Nolan managed, between bites of a hot bratwurst sandwich, dripping with mozzarella cheese and sauerkraut.

“I love this town. Love it. Makes me feel young.”

“Yeah, well, it makes me feel old, and you be careful or you’ll have another heart attack before the ink is dry.”

“Don’t worry about me,” he said, his mouth full of sub, “this pacemaker’s made a new man out of me.”

“You should’ve stayed in Florida. There’s nothing wrong with being retired.”

“Florida stinks! Nothing but old people and Cubans.”

“And sunshine and girls in bikinis.”

“Don’t believe everything the Chamber of Commerce tells you. How’s the Quad Cities thing working out?”

“Okay,” Nolan said. “It’s early yet.”

“It’s smaller than the Pier, I take it”

“Much. I can loaf with this place.”

“You opened yet?”

“In a couple weeks. Still getting the inventory together. Still working with the staff.”

“I’m sure you’re working with the staff. Particularly the female staff.”

“Just one.” He smiled.

“Special, this one?”

“Just a girl. I knew her from before.”

“Oh. What’s it called?”

“Sherry.”

“Not the girl, the joint.”

“Nolan’s.”

“No kidding? What was it called before that?”

“I don’t know. I think it was always called Nolan’s. It’s been around for years. That’s why I had to shut it down, for remodeling and such.”

“Whaddya know. It must’ve been meant to be. So are you using the Nolan name there, then?”

“Yeah. I decided to. The coincidence of it was just too good to pass up. I still pay taxes and sign legal stuff with the Logan name. That’s one good thing I got out of the Family — a legal name.”

Wagner started on the second half of the massive sub. “You know,” he said through the food, “I feel guilty about not giving you more money for the Pier. You’re giving me a better operation than I sold you.”

“I know. I didn’t sell out entirely, remember. I still got half interest.”

“Which you split with that kid, Jon, right?”

“Right. And the money you’re going to be paying me monthly is sent in two checks, one for me, one for him.”

“You see much of him lately?”

“No.”

“So what’s he doing? Where is he?”

“Playing with a rock’n’roll band, of all things.”

Wagner shook his head. “A nice kid, messed up in a business like that.”

Nolan smiled, sipped his beer. “Yeah. When he could’ve stayed in heisting.”

They finished their meal and walked out onto the street. “We still got work to do,” Wagner said, hands in pockets, rocking back and forth on his feet. “The accountant’ll be down at the Pier by now.”

“Let’s get it over with,” Nolan said.

“You in a hurry or something?”

“Look who’s talking.”

“Then you’ll stay the evening? The Al Pierson Dance Band’s playing.”

“Sure. Why not.” He hadn’t given Sherry a definite time he’d be back. There was no rush.

They drove down in Nolan’s dark blue LTD.

The Pier was a former Elks Lodge, on the banks of the Iowa River, converted into a seafood restaurant. The bottom floor was the Steamboat Lounge; the main floor was the Mark Twain Dining Room; and the upper floor was the Captain’s Ballroom. But Nolan and Wagner were headed for the Accountant’s Den, which was to say, the office that had been Nolan’s and was now Wagner’s, where an accountant was waiting to go over the books, before the final changeover in management.

That took several hours, and by that time Nolan and Wagner were ready to eat again, in the dining room, where an illuminated aquarium built into the length of one wall gave a deep-sea effect. Nolan had the house specialty — pond-raised catfish — the one thing about Iowa City he missed.

Then they went upstairs to the ballroom, where the Al Pierson Band was playing. An eight-piece group in powder-blue tuxes, the Pierson Band had a good, solid sound; Nolan was amazed how full so small a brass section could sound.

About eight months ago, it had occurred to Nolan that in a town full of country-rock discos and live rock’n’roll clubs, there was nothing for people of his generation — the sort of people who flocked to Iowa City for football and basketball weekends. He began providing Saturday night entertainment and soon added Friday, with groups like the Pierson Band. And it went over big — big enough to hire some top names; even the current Glenn Miller configuration had played at the Pier.

“How can you stand that shit?” Jon had demanded.

“What shit?”

“That... that Muzak!”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about, kid.”

“It’s worse than fucking disco!’

“I considered a disco, but that fad seems pretty dead to me. Besides, I’m not after the college crowd.”

“Nolan, I got a piece of this place. What if I want to book a rock act in the ballroom?”

“No way in hell. You want the Ramones playing upstairs, while my businessmen and professors eat surf-and-turf downstairs? Sure.”

“Well that music sucks, and that’s all there is to it. I knew you were old, but I didn’t know you were Lawrence Welk.”

And the kid had stalked out.

It was probably the most hostile exchange they’d ever had. Soon Jon was gone, working out of Des Moines with his rock band.

He’d wanted to explain it to Jon. He’d wanted to explain that there were few things in this life that could bring a tear to his eyes, but one of them was Bob Eberley (or a good facsimile) singing “Tangerine.” No kid brought up on the Beatles could understand that.

He sat at a side table and had a few drinks and listened to the music and watched the couples dance. The floor was crowded, and most of the people were in their forties, fifties, sixties. Lots of blazers and blue hair. It made him feel old.

He looked at his watch: almost one.

He went to Wagner’s office and used the phone to call Sherry. She answered on the fourth ring.

“Hello,” her voice said.

“Hi, Sherry. Glad you didn’t have the damn answer phone on. I’m sorry I’m so late.”

“That’s okay.”

“I’ll be back in a few hours.”

“Fine.”

“Bye, doll.”

“Bye, Logan.”

He hung up.

He went back and sat at a table. He ordered another drink. Pierson was playing a Donna Sommer song, and Wagner was out there shaking his bootie with some faded homecoming queen. Then the band began “Just the Way You Are,” and Wagner came over, sweating, smiling, and sat with Nolan.

“Still determined to kill yourself, Wag?”

“I guess,” Wagner grinned.

“Fuck!” Nolan said.

“What?”

He stood. “Logan she called me.”

“Huh?”

“She called me Logan.”

“What are you...”

“Someone’s there with her. The girl’s in trouble.”

Wagner was saying something, asking him something, but he didn’t stop to answer.

7

THE FIRST THING Sherry thought about when she got back to the house was putting out the dog. She’d been gone all day — shopping at both North and South Park with Sara, then sharing a pizza and a movie with her new friend (Sara worked at Nolan’s, too, as a waitress). But she knew the dog wouldn’t have made a mess. It was completely housebroken. Any dog that dared live with Nolan would have to be housebroken.

She pulled her little Datsun into the drive, parked it off to the side, leaving the way clear to the garage for Nolan when he got back. It was a chilly night, and she felt it: she was wearing the London Fog raincoat Nolan had bought her (it had looked overcast when she left the house that morning) and had as yet to hit him up for a winter coat.

She smiled to herself. Hours of shopping, and all she’d bought was one thing (some designer jeans, the ones Debbie Harry pushed on TV). Being a kept woman of a guy as tight as Nolan did have its drawbacks. Oh, he always came around, eventually; but being a Depression kid, he seemed to have trouble spending the kind of money it took to live in an inflated economy. But she wasn’t complaining.

She went in the front door, opened the closet, and turned off the burglar alarm. The alarm was not connected to the local police station (Nolan was respectable these days, but not that respectable); it was just something that made enough noise to presumably scare burglars away and perhaps rouse some neighbors.

Actually, Nolan’s house was about as isolated as a home in the midst of a housing development could be. Of course, it was a small, exclusive development, of $150,000-and-up homes, of which Nolan’s was easily the nicest and most secluded. The rest of the development took up one short street, which turned circular at its dead end and led back out again. Nolan’s private drive was just to the right as you entered the street, and the sprawling, ranch-style home was surrounded by trees, the backyard dipping down to expose the lower story, which led out to a patio surrounded by more trees — two acres of them — with just enough yard showing to put a pool. Have to work on that, Sherry thought.

It was a four-bedroom house, two up, two down, with a spacious living room with a wall of picture windows looking out on the trees in back of the house. There were no paintings or other wall decorations to speak of, giving the place a blank look. There was one paneled wall, with fireplace, adjacent to the picture windows. The ceiling was slanted, open-beamed. It was a room of creams and soft browns, like the comfy brown modular couch that faced the TV and stereo area, the TV a 26-inch Sony, the stereo a component number on a rack, with records below — hers on one shelf (running to Barbra Streisand) and his on another (running to Harry James).

She hung up her raincoat and stretched. She was wearing a cream silk blouse and tailored brown wool slacks, very chic, but she’d been wearing them all day, and they were on the verge of rank. She’d kill for a shower.

But first, the dog.

It had not greeted her at the door. Had Nolan been there, and had she come in the door, the dog would have been yapping hysterically, jumping up on her, pushing at her thighs, then nipping her heels. Had she been a stranger, it would have attacked. But she’d come to know that the dog recognized her, by sound, smell, whatever, and when she came in without Nolan, the dog kept its place by the glass doors on the lower, basement floor.

That was because Nolan always entered that way. He never came in through the garage, even though he parked his car there and that would be the easiest way. He never came in through the front door. He always walked past the house down the stone steps into the backyard and unlocked the glass patio doors and came in that way. Because even at this “respectable” time of his life, Sherry had come to learn, Nolan retained an outlaw’s paranoia. And entering his home the least expected way (actually, coming down the chimney or through a window would be even less expected, but...) seemed par for Nolan’s course.

And there the dog was, curled near the glass doors on its circular rug, where it had been sleeping, looking up at her with bright eyes, tail wagging, a white-spotted black terrier about the size of a healthy rabbit.

She leaned down and petted it — got licked for her trouble — and unlocked the glass door and slid it open for the dog to go out. No need to chain it up: it wouldn’t go far from where Nolan lived. It wouldn’t go out of the yard, in fact.

The dog, like Clint Eastwood in an Italian western, had no name. Nolan referred to it only as “the dog” or “the mutt.” It still seemed odd to her that Nolan would have a pet at all. She seldom saw him give the animal affection or attention, but it was clear the dog lived for Nolan’s occasional pat.

It had taken her the best part of her entire first week back with him to worm the story out of him. Seemed the mutt had turned up at his back door, half dead; it had been in a bad dog fight or two, had half an ear chewed off, and hadn’t eaten for days. “A skeleton with a tail,” Nolan had described it.

Apparently the dog had touched a nerve in Nolan that Sherry hadn’t known existed. He took the dog in; in fact, he took the dog to a vet — spent money on it! And, while saying Nolan nursed the dog back to health would be going too far, the dog had somehow survived. And somehow knew Nolan was responsible.

If Nolan sat in his reclining chair, reading a paper, watching TV, the dog slept on the floor near his feet. When Nolan slept, the dog slept under the bed. When Nolan ate, the dog sat politely nearby, waiting for the inevitable scraps. Every now and then, Nolan allowed the dog up on his lap; he’d pet it, grant it a smile, and it would curl up and sleep there. But only now and then.

Sherry was more openly affectionate to the dog, and the dog returned the affection; but it loved Nolan. It was, after all, a bitch.

She let the dog in, and it followed her upstairs, tagging after her as she undressed. Then she heard its claws clicking on the stairs, heading back down to wait for Nolan again, as she got in the shower and let the hot needles wash away the hard-earned sweat from a day of shopping centers, pizza, and Robert Redford.

Soon she was in a black Frederick’s nightie, sitting on the couch, waiting for Nolan to come home and fuck her. She knew it sounded harsh, but that was what she was in the mood for: a good, hard, horny fuck. And she’d bet that Nolan would feel the same.

She was twenty and had a nice, if not busty, figure; she knew that her appeal to him was her youth, the suppleness of her body, the cuteness of her features, her California blonde hair (dyed or not). And she knew that his appeal to her (beyond this house and his affluence) was as a father figure. A coldly handsome, closed-mouthed father figure, perhaps; a father figure with bullet scars on his muscular body. A father figure who was great in the sack. But a father figure.

She’d first met Nolan at the Tropical, a motel he was running for the Chicago Family. Initially, she’d been a waitress there, and a bad one: it was when she got called on the carpet for spilling food in customers’ laps that she ended up in Nolan’s lap, and that pretty much was where she’d stayed the rest of that summer.

Then her father had called and told her her mother had had a stroke, and it was back to Ohio for Sherry. There would be no time to finish up college (she had a two-year community college degree and had hoped to get a four-year business degree) and the only job she could find was waitressing at a Denny’s. Which was better than hell, but just barely. And when she wasn’t waitressing at Denny’s, she was looking after her mother, which she didn’t mind, because she loved her mother, but it was sad. So very sad.

Three months ago her mother had died.

Sherry started back to college, and only a month in, she knew she couldn’t hack it. It wasn’t that she was stupid; she wasn’t particularly smart, either, but it wasn’t that she was stupid. More like bored. She was more bored than waitressing at Denny’s. It was a rare week that she didn’t think about her summer with Nolan. She had even cried herself to sleep a couple times, missing him, wishing she could have stayed with him.

Then, last month, he called. She didn’t even know how he’d managed to track her down, but he had. And he wanted her to come live with him.

“I need a hostess at my new restaurant,” he said.

“That’s like a waitress, right?”

“Right. Only you don’t spill shit on people.”

“But Logan, that’s my speciality.”

“I know. And can the Logan stuff.”

Logan was the name she’d known Nolan by at the Tropical.

“How come?”

“I’m using Nolan here. So don’t call me Logan anymore. It’ll just confuse people.”

“Well, I’m already confused.”

“That’s how I like you.”

“I’m also broke.”

“I’ll send plane fare.”

“I’m on my way, then.”

Their month together had been a lot of fun, if not a honeymoon. Nolan wasn’t altogether humorless, though when he did make a joke, it was so dry, you could miss it if you weren’t looking. They made good love together. They got along. He didn’t insist that she cook — one thing he wasn’t stingy about was taking her out to eat, though he did collect receipts to deduct on the meals on his taxes, claiming he was “checking out my competition.” And when she did cook, he didn’t complain, even when the results (her Tuna Surprise, for instance) were less than spectacular. Memorable, yes; spectacular, no.

During the first week, the Nolan/Logan thing had been a running gag with them; she’d kept right on calling him Logan, till he finally threatened to turn her over his knee and spank her. She dropped her drawers and said go right ahead. And he had, and more.

But afterward he said, “Seriously — get used to calling me Nolan. I got to stick by one name in one place.”

And from then on it was strictly Nolan.

She was watching a “Mission: Impossible” rerun when she remembered the answer phone: she hadn’t checked for messages. She went into the kitchen, and the red light was flashing on the little tape unit by the phone on the counter. She rewound the tape and played it back.

“Nolan, this is Jon. I’m calling from a place called the Barn, just this side of Burlington. I’m here with my band.”

Jon. That was the kid Nolan was always mentioning. The one who was his partner or something, back when Nolan wasn’t respectable. She’d never met Jon, but she knew he was someone important in Nolan’s life.

“This is going to sound crazy,” the voice was saying, sounding tinny coming out of the small speaker, “but I think I saw that bitch Julie. No, scratch that: I did see her, no mistaking it. She is not dead, Nolan.”

What was this about? The kid sounded scared.

“Now the worse news: she saw me. Nolan, if she’s been playing dead, she’s not going to be happy I found out she’s alive. She’s going to cause trouble. So what I’m going to do is finish out the night — it’s just before midnight, as I’m talking — and I’m going to confront her, if I can get the chance, and cool this down.”

Very nervous, Sherry thought — even desperate.

“In the meantime, if you get home by, oh, twelve-thirty, get in your car and drive down here. Come via 61 all the way, so that if for some reason I end up coming after you, I’ll spot you on the highway. It should take you about an hour and forty-five minutes to two hours to get here; the band quits at one-thirty, the club stays open till two, and then it’s another half-hour or forty-five minutes of tearing down equipment and loading. Which means there’ll be too many people around for her to try anything till three, I’d say. Or anyway, two-thirty. So if you can leave there by twelve-thirty, get down here. Otherwise, stay put and wait for me to get back to you.”

It was a disturbing message. She didn’t understand it, but that only made it all the more disturbing; she rewound it, listened to it again, then rewound it again so that Nolan could hear it when he got home.

But one thing was certain: the twelve-thirty deadline was past; it was quarter till one now.

She went back to the TV, found an old crime movie with Cornell Wilde, which she started to watch, then switched to “Second City TV.” The crime movie was hitting just a little too close to home.

It took only about four minutes of “Second City” to get her laughing; she hadn’t forgotten the disturbing answer-phone message, but it wasn’t dominating her thoughts now. But she did wonder when Nolan would get here.

That thought had barely flicked through her mind when she heard the footsteps on the stairs and smiled. God, he was quiet coming in. Nobody was that quiet Usually, the dog would have yapped at him, though, happy to see him. Not tonight. That was odd.

Still on the couch, she turned her head and glanced back at Nolan.

Only it wasn’t Nolan.

It was two men: one of them, disturbingly, looked a little like Nolan, but a younger Nolan, about thirty-five, with no mustache and short, curly, permed hair that gave him a Caesar sort of look. He was in black — black slacks, black turtleneck, black gloves. The other man was coming up the stairs behind the Nolan clone, in shadows; she couldn’t see him yet.

She reached for a heavy sculpted glass paperweight on the coffee table near the couch.

It exploded before she could touch it, shards of glass nicking at her arm. Choking back a scream, she clutched her blood-flecked arm with her other hand and glanced back at the men. The Caesar type had an automatic in his hand; there was an attachment on the end of it — a silencer? — and smoke was curling out the barrel. He was smiling faintly.

“I don’t like shooting at Art Deco pieces,” the man said. His voice was a smooth, curiously pleasant baritone. “Don’t make me shoot any more furniture, dear. I’d sooner shoot you.”

She felt very naked in her Frederick’s nightie, and flashed onto an absurd thought: Thank God I didn’t go crotchless!

Then she saw the other man. He, too, looked familiar. Then she placed him: he was a ringer for that guy that used to be on that Angie Dickinson police show. But, again, younger — perhaps thirty. He had curly, permed hair too, and a silly smile that scared her more than the tight, controlled smile of the other man. This one, too, was in black; this one, too, had an automatic with an attachment.

The first man came over to her, with a gloved hand brushed the glass from the coffee table, and sat down, the gun casual in his hand, but pointing at her. He was tanned. Handsome, in an unsettling way.

“Where’s Logan?” He said.

“Logan?” she said.

“Or Nolan. Whatever he’s calling himself here.”

“He lives here,” she said. Stupidly, she thought.

“We know,” the other’s voice said. She sat up, so she could see the other man. He was over turning off the TV, then crouching to look through the albums under the stereo. Looking through the records. Jesus. What kind of...

“Sally,” the second guy said, holding up an album. “She’s got Barry Manilow.” Then to her: “You got good taste lady. How about Rupert Holmes? You got Rupert Holmes?”

“Uh, no,” she said. What the fuck...

“Put some records on, Infante,” the first one, Sally, said. “Put on the live Manilow album.”

“That thing where he does the medley of commercials kills me,” Infante said. He had the slightest speech impediment: Elmer Fudd after therapy.

“Does it kill you?” Sally asked her, smiling, apparently amused by his flaky partner.

“I hope not,” Sherry said.

“So do I,” Sally said. “I don’t like killing things, but I will if I have to. So will Infante, won’t you, Infante? It was Infante killed the dog. I didn’t have the heart to.”

She brought her hand up to her face, bit her knuckles. She tried to hold back the tears, the trembling. It was no use. Barry Manilow was singing, “Even now...”

“Go ahead and cry, dear. Infante!”

Infante was right there, like a fast cut in a movie. “Yeah, Sally?”

“Check out the house. This Logan or whoever isn’t here, but check out the lay of the land, and then get the lady some Kleenex. Her makeup’s starting to run.”

“Sure, Sally.”

And Infante was gone.

Sally smiled; that the face was vaguely like Nolan’s did nothing to reassure her — if anything, it only terrified her more. She had never been so scared; she’d never been so conscious of her heart, pounding in her chest, as if trying to get out.

Sally touched her arm; his touch was cold as a snake.

“If you rape me,” she said, tightly, teeth clenched, “Nolan’ll kill you.”

Sally laughed; it was almost a gentle laugh. He patted her arm. “We’re not going to rape you.” Then Infante was there, holding the Kleenex out to Sally, who took it and passed it on to Sherry. “We’re not going to rape her, are we, Infante?”

Infante looked at Sherry as though she was a slug. “Are you kidding?”

Sally held Sherry’s hand; in the background Barry Manilow sang. Sally said, “All we want to know is where Nolan is.”

Sherry said nothing.

“Is he coming back soon?”

Sherry said nothing.

“He’s out of town, isn’t he?”

Sherry said nothing.

Sally said, “Flick your Bic, would you, Infante?”

“Sure,” Infante said. He got his lighter out. Sally held both of Sherry’s arms down while Infante grasped both of her feet around the ankles and locked them in the crook of one arm as he held the lighter’s flame to the bottom of her right foot, just under the toes.

She screamed. The pain was intense; it went on forever.

“Three seconds,” Sally said to her. “You want to try for ten?”

“Please...”

“I don’t get pleasure from this. Infante doesn’t get pleasure from this. Do you, Infante?”

Infante, still gripping her ankles, grinned and said, “No.”

“If we were sadists,” Sally said, leaning in close, “we’d burn your face, not the bottom of your feet.” He blew against her cheek; his breath was minty.

“There’s nothing I can tell you,” she managed.

“Infante. Flick your Bic.”

“No!”

“Wait a second, Infante.”

Barry Manilow was singing about the Copa; Infante was singing along, softly.

“Well?” Sally said to her.

“He didn’t tell me where he was going. He just said he’d be gone most of the day, on business.”

“Flick your Bic, Infante.”

“That’s the truth!”

The other foot, this time; the pain was searing, like a branding iron, lasting for days.

“Five seconds, that time,” Sally said. “You want to get serious, dear? Or you’ll never dance again.”

Infante snickered at that, still singing to himself.

“I’m telling the truth!” she said.

Sally thought about that.

“Please,” she said, “he didn’t tell me, he didn’t tell me, why should he bother telling me?”

“When will he be home?”

“I thought he’d be back by now. He said about midnight.”

Sally let go of her arms, looked at his watch. “Jesus,” he said to himself.

“Maybe she’s telling the truth, Sally,” Infante said, still gripping her ankles, the lighter in hand.

“Maybe. I wouldn’t want him coming in on this, that’s for sure.”

The phone rang.

Sally looked at her sharply. “Could that be him?”

She nodded.

“Where’s the phone?”

Another ring.

“In the kitchen,” she said.

Infante said, “Extension’s in the bedroom,” releasing her ankles and running to the bedroom.

“Pick it up on the fourth ring!” Sally called out.

He was dragging her to the kitchen; she felt the skin on her burned feet catching and tearing against the carpet.

He pushed her toward the phone, and she picked it up on the fourth ring.

It was Nolan.

She answered his questions, Sally’s automatic with its attachment kissing her neck.

Got to warn him, give him a sign, she thought.

“I’ll be back in a few hours,” he was saying.

“Fine,” she heard herself say.

“Bye, doll.”

“Bye, Logan.”

She hung up.

Would he pick up on it? That she’d called him Logan? Had that been warning enough?

In the other room, Barry Manilow was singing, “This Time We Made It.”

Sally dragged her back to the couch and she passed out.

8

NOLAN LEFT his LTD on the street, a block away, and made his way up behind the house, through the sloping woods. He stayed within the trees, not going across the lawn until he was parallel to the corner of the house — some lights on, upstairs — and then, keeping low, made for the sliding glass doors off the patio.

It had taken him just under an hour-and-a-half to get here; he’d come via Interstate 80, and no Highway Patrol had stopped him despite his speeding. He was grateful for that much. Whoever had Sherry in the house wouldn’t expect him back this soon. He was grateful for that, too. But he wished he had a gun.

Somebody inside the house had a gun. He saw the concave pucker in the glass where the bullet had gone through. Beyond it he saw the slumped form of his small dog. The door’s lock had been jimmied, so he didn’t bother with his key. He just slid it carefully open. And stepped inside.

No lights on down here. But his night vision was in full force, and moonlight came in the doors behind him, and he could see the big open room, which would be a game room when he got around to putting a pool table in. There was a fireplace, as there was upstairs, but no furniture yet. Nowhere to hide, unless it was in one of the rooms off the hallway directly across from him: the two guest bedrooms, extra john, furnace room. He stood silently for a good minute. He heard muffled sounds upstairs. Nothing down here.

He slid the door shut behind him.

He knelt and gave his dog a pat.

He didn’t have a gun. He didn’t have a goddamn gun. He’d been in such a goddamn hurry to get here, he hadn’t even stopped to ask Wagner for something. And he didn’t have anything stashed down here, no weapon of any kind. He always went to the precaution of coming in the back way, but he hadn’t bothered with stashing a gun. Stupid. He looked at the boxes stacked over against one wall. What was in those? Anything useful?

Still kneeling, he smiled to himself. Patted the dog’s warm body. Got some blood on his hand but didn’t wipe it off.

Some of that stuff in the boxes was Sherry’s. She’d told her father she was getting an apartment when she moved here, so he’d given her some things: pots, pans, and so on. Also silverware.

He slipped out of his shoes and moved soundlessly across the carpeted floor to the boxes. Very carefully he sorted through the first box; the wooden case with silverware in it was under some Tupperware. He removed one stainless steel steak knife with a four-inch blade. He held it tight in a fist wet with the animal’s blood.

There was only one way up, and that was the stairs, coming right up into the living room, at the back. Half a flight, a landing, then, to the left, another half a flight, and bam. If they were waiting for him, watching for him, he was dead. If they weren’t, he had a chance. The stairs were carpeted, and he was quiet. He went up the first half-flight and waited, just one step below the landing. Listened.

Music.

“I think she’s coming around, Sally,” a voice said. An immature voice.

“Doesn’t matter,” another, older voice said. “She doesn’t know anything else we want to know.”

“Maybe we should ask her how he comes in. There’s more than one way in.”

“You may have a point.”

“You want me to hold her feet again?”

“I don’t think that’ll be necessary.”

Music — they were playing music on the goddamn stereo. Barry Manilow, wasn’t it? Crazy.

“She’s awake, Sally.”

That name Sally, again. A man named Sally. Sal. Sal and Infante. The two bodyguards working for Hines, the local Family man.

“Which way does he come in?” he heard Sal asking.

“Front door,” Sherry’s voice said. Hurting.

“Maybe you better hold her feet again, Infante.”

“No!” Sherry said. “It’s the garage way. Doorway’s in the hall.”

“You telling the truth? Hold her feet, Infante.”

“It’s the truth!” Sherry all but screamed.

Actually, Nolan would have preferred Sherry really tell the truth. That would send at least one of them down here. Well, maybe there was a way...

He stepped onto the landing. Looked up the stairs. No one at the top. There appeared to be only the two men here with Sherry, and they were in another part of the living room above.

He went up a few steps. Peeked over the edge of what was the living room floor, at left, through the black latticework railing.

Sherry was on the couch.

Infante’s back was to Nolan, and the guy was apparently holding Sherry by the ankles. The other one, Sally, was pinning down her arms, questioning her, his back partially to Nolan.

“Better flick your Bic, Infante,” Sally was saying. “Don’t burn the same spot.”

Nolan’s hand tightened on the steak knife as the pain made Shery jerk up, into a sitting position, while Sally covered her mouth with a hand to stifle her scream.

But when Sherry jerked up, her pain-widened eyes met Nolan’s. He was visible from the shoulders up. He gestured: raised a finger and pointed downward, thinking Send them to me, doll. Send them to me.

Then he ducked down out of sight. Sat on the steps.

“All right!” Sherry said. “All right. It isn’t the front door. It isn’t the garage way, either.”

“What way is it dear?” Sally said.

Nolan slipped back down the stairs.

“He comes in the way you did,” she said.

“The basement!” Infante said.

Brilliant Nolan thought. He was standing with his back to the wall, just at the bottom of the stairs, to the right.

“I better move that dog,” Sally said. “Shit! And he’ll see the bullet hole, too. Damn!”

“What’ll we do, Sally?”

“Shut off the fuckin’ music, for one thing. He could be here in fifteen, twenty minutes. Christ! I’ll go down and get rid of the dog.”

The music stopped.

Infante said, “He won’t notice the bullet hole, or that we broke in through there, till he gets up close.”

“Yeah, you’re right. So if I’m watching for him down there, I can nail him right through the glass door while he’s standing out in the yard. Yeah. Okay. You stick with the bitch here, in case he varies from pattern and comes in up here.”

“Okay, Sally.”

“Just shoot him. Don’t talk to him.”

“Yes, Sally. Sally.”

“Yeah?”

“You be careful I wouldn’t want nothing to happen to you.”

There was a pause.

Then Sally said, “Yeah. You, too.”

Nolan heard Sally on the stairs. He stepped off the last step, and Nolan put a hand over his mouth and the steak knife in his back, lower right.

Nolan eased him to the floor. Sally gurgled and died, getting blood on Nolan’s hand. Nolan wiped his hand on Sally’s shirt. Then he took the man’s silenced 9 mm from a limp hand and left him there, the knife handle sticking out of his back like something to pick him up by.

Nolan went slowly back up the stairs, gun in hand.

Infante was sitting on the arm of the couch, his back to Nolan, blocking Nolan’s view of Sherry, who was still lying there. He couldn’t risk a shot, for fear of hitting her. He should probably try to lure Infante downstairs... but Infante would likely drag Sherry along, not wanting to leave her unattended, so that was out.

Nothing to do but try to come up behind him slow.

Nolan was halfway between the top of the stairs and the couch when Infante turned and with a startled expression that was only vaguely human, shot at Nolan three times with the silenced 9 mm’s twin. Nolan dove for the floor and rolled into the entryway area by the front door while a plaster wall took the bullets, spitting dust.

The kitchen was off the entryway, and Nolan ducked in there, as it connected to the living room and would allow him to enter on the opposite side, which should confuse Infante and give Nolan a better look at where Sherry was, to take a shot at Infante and still keep Sherry out of harm’s way.

And Sherry was on the couch, all right, but Infante was heading down the stairs, into the basement, shouting, “Sally! Sally!”

Nolan went to Sherry, who reached for him, hugged him.

“Are you okay, doll?”

She was smiling, crying. “My feet are killing me.”

“I better go after him.”

“No! Stay with me.”

There was an anguished cry from downstairs — a wail.

“I’ll kill you!” Infante’s voice, muffled but distinct, came from below.

“Maybe he’ll come up after me,” Nolan said.

But the next sound from below was the glass doors sliding/slamming shut.

Nolan ran to the picture windows. He saw Infante scurrying across the yard, off to the right, into the woods.

“Stay put,” Nolan told Sherry.

“Nolan...”

“Stay put!”

“Where would I go?” she yelled at him, angry for a moment.

Nolan went out the front door, fanning the gun around in front of him. The full moon was keeping everything well lit; there was a pale, eerie wash on the world. But no sign of Infante.

Then he heard an engine start, a car squeal away.

He stood there a moment and let the cool air cool him down.

Then he went back in. To Sherry.

He examined her feet.

“Sons of bitches,” he said.

“They hurt. They really hurt.”

“Second-degree burns. You’re lucky.”

“Oh, yeah. Lucky.”

“They’ve started to blister. Third degree would’ve been trouble. I’m going to get you some cold water to soak them in.”

“Please.”

He got a pan with ice and water in it and eased her to a sitting position, and she slid her feet in, making a few intake-of-breath sounds, but seeming to like it, once done.

“I should get you to a hospital,” he said. “I should get you to an emergency room.”

“How can you do that?” she said. “They’ll want to know how it happened. I don’t know what this is about, but I know you. And I know this isn’t something you’ll want the police or anybody in on.”

He scratched his head and said, “Right. Burns on the feet are dangerous, though. You need a doctor.”

“Sara’s boyfriend is a doctor.”

“Sara? At the club?”

“Right.”

“Will he keep his mouth shut? Will he make a post-midnight house call?”

“He’s a married doctor. He’ll do anything Sara asks him.”

“Good. What’s Sara’s number?”

“It’s in the back of the phonebook.”

“I want you to stay with her for a few days.”

“Where will you be?”

“I don’t know yet. I don’t know what this is about, either.”

He got up to go to the kitchen to call Sara.

“Did you know those two men?” Sherry asked.

He turned and looked at her. For all she’d been through, she looked terrific, sitting there in a short black nightie, soaking her feet.

“Yeah,” he said. “A couple of guys who work for Hines.”

“Hines. Isn’t he connected?”

“Yeah, Hines is Family. That bothers me. I haven’t had any Family trouble for a long time.”

“You going to talk to Hines?”

“He’s out of town. And anyway, those two were Family, out of Chicago, before they got assigned to Hines. They could’ve got their orders from somebody other than Hines. With Hines out of town, that almost seems likely.”

“You’ve got Family friends.”

“There’s Felix, that lawyer I always dealt with. But if I call him, he’ll lie to me, if I’m on the shit list again. I don’t know. I think I’m going to have to go out and knock heads together and see what’s going on.”

He went to the kitchen.

“Nolan!” she called out

He came back out and said. “What?”

“I almost forgot. There’s a message for you on the answer machine. A long one.”

“Oh?”

“It’s from that friend of yours.”

“Jon?”

“Yes. It sounded like he was in trouble. Maybe this has something to do with that.”

But before she had finished her sentence, Nolan was in the kitchen playing the message. He listened to it twice.

He came back talking to himself, saying, “Julie, alive? If so, how is she connected to anybody Family? I don’t get it.” Then, to Sherry: “Did those guys hear that message? Did they get that out of you?”

“No,” she said. “I kept thinking they’d want to know, if they’d known to ask. But they didn’t ask, and I was happy to keep it from them.”

“Good girl.”

“You missed your deadline, you know. You were supposed to go after your friend if you got home by twelve-thirty.”

“Well, I didn’t. And he isn’t here yet, so I’m going after him anyway. It’s my only lead.”

“Did you call Sara?”

“Not yet. Listen. Tell her nothing. Nothing about how you got the burns. Nothing about the shooting. I’ll let her know I’ll make it right by her, for helping, no questions asked. Then I’ll have to bandage your feet up, best I can, till her doctor friend can apply proper dressings at her place.”

“Okay.”

“Then I got to bury something in the woods, and I’m off.”

“You mean that guy downstairs? Sally? You killed him?”

“Yeah, I killed him. But I don’t mean him. I’ll dump him someplace. He doesn’t rate a burial. I’m talking about my dog.”