noticed.
“If you take me out, you’re doing it for nothing. I didn’t cap your uncle. I didn’t give the word. Whoever did it will still be out there.”
“Your father would be ashamed of you,” I said. “You’ve got no cool, Danny. Your dad wouldn’t have given much more than an asskicking for snatching thirty-seven g’s during a dirty game. Not to someone who deserved as much respect as Mal did.”
“I thought it might come to this. I thought you might think it was me, but you’re usually more levelheaded. I didn’t expect you to take it so far.”
“You’ve got to work on your presentation,” I told him. “You’re not very convincing.”
“I don’t know what else you want me to say.”
Big Dan had done some rotten things in his time but he never crewed up with a psycho hitter who used a blade like that. Mal had thrashed around in his own guts for five minutes before he finally gave in.
And I had heard him talking to someone. I had turned over and gone back to Kimmy instead of looking out the window. All I’d had to do was go to the window and maybe he’d still be alive.
I backed up a step. I checked Danny’s eyes one last time. So far as I could see, he was telli='1@ng the truth. It didn’t mean anything. He was nearly as adept a liar as I was. I said, “We’re done now, Danny, for good.”
I backed up farther. I kept the guns trained on everyone. The mooks looked a little disappointed that I hadn’t pulled the trigger.
“Take your money, Terry,” Danny said. “I don’t want it.”
“It’s not mine. It belongs to Wes.”
Wes sucked down the rest of his wine and poured himself another glass. “I knew you were going to juke me,” he said. “Did you go in through the same window? I don’t care if it
I backed out all the way to the front door. Nobody got to their feet. Most of them went back to their food. No one was going to come after me right now. Danny might decide later on that he couldn’t let so brazen a move go without some kind of answer. He had to save face in front of his men and the other outfits. But I thought that maybe this was the breaking point. His men were already jumping ship, and this might make the rest of them go. He wasn’t cut out to be a boss. He couldn’t handle this kind of stress.
I cleaned the guns down and threw them both into the backseat of Wes’s car. I hadn’t accomplished a thing. Just as I was leaving, I saw Butch pull in. I thought, Fuck him, let him drop, I don’t give a shit. He hadn’t even shown at the funeral to help support Dale, the prick.
But I wasn’t going to let my little sister go down with him. She was an actress. I imagined her with a plastic mask over her face, her hair styled short, more boyishly, a padded shirt filling her out with a male physique. I saw her carrying a gun Butch gave her that still had the serial numbers intact. I saw her lying in the backyard with her hands clutched to her belly.
I had to make sure she was safe from coming anywhere near the underneath. I couldn’t let what happened to me and Collie and Mal happen to her.
I drove around town for a while. I turned on the radio. I listened to the news. Cara Clarke’s death had officially been listed as a suicide.
33
In the morning I drove over to Stan Herbert’s pawnshop. He’d bought out the stores on either side of him and had upped his game. He had a lot of old flea-market type crap but he’d expanded into the real deal. Old TVs, DVD players, DVDs, CDs, iPods, laptops, cell phones, BlackBerrys, digital cameras, and other computer equipment. He still wasn’t going to be able to give Butch’s crew what they were expecting for the ice. Maybe he’d lied to them and planned on making excuses when it was time to pay up.
There were a handful of people in the place, some customers wandering around and a couple of young employees who were rearranging stock. Stan was in back, in his office, sitting in front of his computer and going through ledger sheets.
“Hello, Stan,” I said.
He looked up and the screen continued to glow in the reflection in his glasses. He’d lost the rest of his hair, but he’d picked up a few pounds and looked healthier and happier than I remembered. He wheeled his seat back and looked me up and down.
“Well, you’re a Rand, I know that much,” he said. le.ard hug D01C;Not sure of the breed, though.”
“Terrier.”
He nodded. “Okay, I think we’ve met before.”
“A couple times when I was a kid, helping my father unload laptops and stereo systems.”
“Not so loud. The boys up front don’t know I was ever a part of the bent life.” He got up and closed the door, sat again and steepled his fingers. “Heard about Malamute. Saw it on the TV. Hell of a waste, him going out like that. Hell of a card player. Hell of a finger man.”
“Right. Can we talk?”
“I don’t move your kind of product anymore,” he said.
“What kind would that be?”
“The illegal kind.”
“Oh, you’ve gone straight. Good, glad to hear it.” I raised my voice and projected toward the door. “Then you’re not going to try moving any ice you might get from a five-man crew that’s taking down a family jewelry store and expecting to get paid mid-six figures-”
“Christ, not so loud,” he hissed.
It was probably true that he’d gone mostly legit. But like every other fence in the world, he’d never turn down a good heist when he was going to pull in a major percentage and do almost no work for it.
“What’s their score?” I asked.
He shrugged and shook his head. “I don’t know.”
“Stan, you do know. I know you know. Just tell me and I’m out of here. What is it?”
“I don’t rat. I don’t do that.”
“It’s ratting if you go to the cops. I’m not a cop. Besides, you’re already going to rob them blind. You lied about the payout and they’re only going in because they think they’re about to be rich. Even if they pull it off, they have to kick up to the Thompson crew. They’re going to walk away with peanuts and they won’t be happy. They might even try to take it out of your ass.”
“Jesus.” He opened the bottom drawer of his desk and my stomach tightened. I got in much closer and watched him carefully. He pulled out a bottle of J &B and poured himself two fingers in a dirty glass. “Why do you care?”
“That’s my business, Stan. Your business of the moment is to tell me who’s running the string.”
“You Rands, you used to be a good family to work with.” He threw back half the glass and made a face. “But now you’re all sick in the head, you know that?”
I leaned on his desk. “Yeah, I know it. Now, who bosses the string?”
“Some kid.”
“Which kid? Use names, Stan. Butch?”
“No, not that one. He’s a moron. He only goes by Butch because his last name is Cassidy, can you believe it? Fucking idiot. No, the boss is another guy. Young, like Butch, but smarter, you know? His name is Harsh. That’s all I can tell you.”
“Is it his score? Did he put it together?”
Stan finished his drink, put the bottle back in the drawer, pushed the glass away from him.. Tр1C;I think so.”
“Is it a tight string?”
“Who knows? I can’t be sure with this new kind of punk.”
“Contact info.”
