I told him if I shot the fucker, we’d have a dead guy-actually two dead guys, counting the blond kid-in the Paddlewheel parking lot to either explain or get rid of. I said that if I could stop the guy but leave him and his buddy in the remains of what seemed to be an automobile accident, that would be less likely to come back to him. With all the after-hours drinking going on in Haydee’s, there had to be the occasional drunkdriving death around here.
“Yes,” Cornell said, nodding, eyes narrow in thought, “and I know just the place to stage it. You’d have to drive forty miles, but it would put it in the next county, far enough away to provide a cushion.”
“Yeah, a cushy-poo would be good,” I said.
“Are you making sport of me?”
“Think of it as good-natured fun, and not meanspirited ridicule. What I need is a ride back, and I’d rather not have it be you. I wouldn’t think your wife would want to be part of covering up killings. Anyway, your marriage is on the skids, isn’t it?”
He waved that off. “Our marriage is over, but our business thrives. And we’re heading into a whole new era for the Paddlewheel and Haydee’s Port, and she will benefit right along with me.”
“For now, skip the future-plans stuff. I met her, and she’s a nice woman. Don’t you have some flunky who-”
“Can blackmail my ass till eternity and a weekend? No thank you. She’s no angel, my Angela. You know what her maiden name was?”
“Something that shortens to ‘Dell.’ ”
“It shortens there from Giardelli. Her father is Anthony Giardelli.”
“No shit?”
“None.”
Which explained what Cornell’s Chicago connections were, and in part what role Angela had played in getting the Paddlewheel up and running. I had done jobs for the Giardellis. I’d also killed Anthony Giardelli’s brother Lou, once upon a time, but that was neither here nor there. No one knew that but me.
“What will you tell her, Dickie?”
“That you’re a troubleshooter who works outside the law. That I brought you in to take care of some assholes sent by the competition to eliminate me. She won’t want any details.”
“Good. And she’d do this for you?”
“For the business. Also…” He shrugged, and his smile was a white slash in his deeply tanned face. “…she still loves me.”
I shrugged. “What’s not to love?”
Now we were having breakfast, Angela and me, or anyway I was having breakfast and she was having coffee.
“Listen,” I said, “I’m sorry about lying to you last night. About being a salesman and all.”
She shook her head. She had a dazed, distant expression. “That was your cover story. I understand.” She shivered, and sipped coffee to stave off the cold; the air conditioning in the Wheelhouse was going pretty hard. Very quietly she said, “How many?”
“How many what?”
“How many people were in that car?”
“Two.”
“Both were sent to…hurt Dickie?”
“Both sent to kill Dickie.”
“He’d be dead if…”
“If I hadn’t stopped it, yes. It wasn’t my idea to involve you. I’m sorry.”
She shook her head. She was very beautiful, but she did look well-past forty, and every year of it. Minus plastic surgery, a woman could not exist as a nightclub singer without the drinking and smoking and carousing, her own and of those around her, taking a toll.
Still, I found her very attractive. I liked the mix of worldliness and vulnerability, and let’s face it, she had a rack to die for, even if it was lost in the sweatshirt half of a purple running suit. Her long reddish-blonde hair was back in a big ponytail, which revealed some of the miles on the nice face, and the grooves in her neck.
“Listen,” she said, leaning in, “I said I’d help, when Dickie asked, and I did it with my eyes open. We’re in a tough business, Dickie and me. How much do you know about what’s going on right now in Haydee’s? And for that matter, Chicago?”
The restaurant was fairly full-the crowd looked local, including farmers, as we were past the drinking-crowd breakfast of the earlier morning. But I was still concerned about being overhead, though we’d kept it nicely hushed.
“This isn’t a come-on,” I said, “but if you want to talk, we could have some privacy in my room.”
She shrugged. “Let me get another coffee to go.”
She did, and I finished the breakfast.
My motel room had a little area with a round table and two chairs, probably designed for businessmen to work, and I sat her and her coffee there. I invited her to watch the television while I showered, and she declined. She said she preferred to sit and think.
I got out of the black clothing I’d done the killing in, showered and got the sweat and any stray blood or dried gore off me, shaved and generally became human again. I’d brought a fresh pair of black jeans and a light blue polo shirt in the bathroom with me, and I put them on, then padded out barefoot.
I sat across from her. “Sorry to make you wait. I had a long night. I probably ought to get some sleep pretty soon.”
She sat up straight. “Oh, I’m sorry, I can-”
“No! I’m fine with your company. I like your company. Anyway, I want to hear what you have to say.”
She managed a smile. “I may be out of line getting into any of this. Dickie should probably fill you in, but…I don’t know why exactly, I just think you have a right to know, before you get in over your head.”
That was an interesting remark. She knew I’d just murdered two people, even if she didn’t know the details, and yet she didn’t think I was in over my head yet.
“Jack…it is Jack?”
Actually, it wasn’t, but she didn’t need my real name any more than you do.
“It’s Jack.”
“Jack, do you know whose daughter I am?”
I nodded. “Your husband told me-Tony Giardelli’s girl.”
“Right. And you know who he is.”
“Sure. He and his brother Vincent and their late brother Lou are about as high up in the Chicago Outfit as you can go.”
“All right. You know that much. Have you ever worked for the Giardelli interests?”
“From time to time, but not directly.”
She nodded. “I understand. My father has always liked to be…well-insulated…from anything violent or illegal. What you probably don’t know is that my father and his brother Vincent are not partners-they each have their own interests, and over the years they’ve been friendly rivals. Lately…not so friendly. It’s never been direct, again there’s much insulation, but Haydee’s Port has become a kind of a breeding ground in the family war that’s brewing.”
“How so?”
“My father backs me, and Dickie, in the Paddlewheel, maintains a financial interest. It’s Papa’s belief, a belief fostered by my husband, that the future of Haydee’s Port is upscale. This Wild West wide-open downtown doesn’t mine the full potential of Haydee’s, taking money from drunks and bilking the blue-collar crowd. And it’s dangerous, the kind of eyesore that at some point the politicians could be pressured into removing.”
“Whereas,” I said, “the classier Paddlewheel can be a Midwestern Las Vegas, where everybody wink-winks at the illegal side of it.”
“If Dickie has his way, with a new hotel, and beyond that plans to refurbish and reinvent downtown Haydee’s Port, we might see gambling become legal, in this county anyway…and it could truly become, as you say, a Midwestern Vegas.”
“What do you think of that plan?”
“I think it’s brilliant. I think I’ll be very wealthy in my golden years, and I’ll probably have a place to practice
