Blood Money полностью

“Who else? I knew they’d be on me, when that kid, that friend of yours Jon, told me back in that doctor’s office, told me you knew I was the one that took the money, told me you were coming after me. I knew about you and your new ties with the Family. That if you knew I was alive, so did they. They’re coming today, aren’t they? Are they outside now, Nolan?”

“If they are, they got here on their own. They know you’re alive, yes, but they gave me two days to find you and get my money back.”

“Don’t shit me, not with Harry and Tillis shot all to shit.” He bent over and looked very sober. “Nolan, I want to work out a trade with you. Listen to me. You take care of Walter, get him out of here before the Family comes. You see that he stays alive.”

“What do I get in return?”

“That kid friend of yours, that Jon. Walter’s holding him down at the boathouse right now. Why the hell else would I take that kid Jon with me? I knew you were coming after me, that if you caught up with me, I could use the kid as a buffer. He’s your friend, saved your life once — I know, I was there.”

“Sorry. Jon is holding a gun to your son’s head right this minute. You don’t have the edge you thought you had, Charlie.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“I don’t have time to lie to you, Charlie. We got to get on with this before those people you mentioned start showing up.”

“No, no,” Charlie said, whimpering, his eyes filling with tears. “Walter’s got to get out, nothing to happen to Walter, not Walter, he’s the only thing left. Please God.”

“Tell me what you did with the money, Charlie, and I’ll help your kid get out of this.”

“Do I get your word on that?”

“Sure.”

“You always called me a melodramatic bastard, remember?”

“I still do, Charlie.”

“Well, that’s true, I guess it’s true but you... you got your own quirk. You’re straight, in your crooked way. You give your word and you keep it. So I know if you give me your word, you’re going to stand behind it, Nolan. I’m sure of it.”

That wasn’t particularly true, but Nolan let it slide by. Charlie was saying all that in order to convince himself he could trust Nolan, and Nolan knew it.

“What did you do with the money, Charlie?”

“You promise, you promise you’ll help Walter?”

“Sure.”

Charlie let out a relieved sigh. He smiled on one side of his face and said, “A funny goddamn way for us to finish it up, Nolan. Me turning to you to save my kid’s ass. My God. You know something else funny? I didn’t even need that goddamn money of yours. I got all kinds of money, in this guy’s account and that one, money to live a couple goddamn lifetimes, if I had ’em. No, I took that money because I hated you, I wanted you to bleed, I wanted to hurt you the one place you could feel it, in your goddamn pocketbook. It was for blood, not money, and now neither one means a goddamn thing. Why’d we do it to each other? What the hell was the goddamn point?”

From behind them came a sound — bup bup bup bup bup bup — no louder than someone giving a deck of cards a hard shuffle, and Charlie screamed, “Mother of God!” and jumped behind the sofa. Nolan dove under the coffee table, turned it on its side and held it in front of him like a shield, while the slugs ate up the room, tearing into the dark wood walls, ripping apart the leather sofas, knocking down furniture, their white sheets flying in the air, like dancing ghosts. Charlie went scrambling over to the dining area, got behind the big long table and tipped it over with a crash, got sheltered behind its thick wood while the slugs splintered away at its surface, bup bup bup bup bup.

Silence.

Nolan peeked out from behind the table and the bup bup bup started in again, but not before Nolan saw the gun and the man behind it. The gun was a grease gun, a submachine gun that fired.45 slugs and looked as if it had been put together with discarded tin cans; the barrel had been screwed off and a tubular silencer put on its place; two magazines had been taped together so the guy could flip it around and shove in a fresh round without missing more than a half-second of action.

The guy behind the grease gun had a chubby face and a skinny body and all of a sudden Nolan knew who Charlie’s pipeline to Felix was. All of a sudden Nolan knew who killed Tillis and Harry and why.

Nolan had his.38 in one hand and the silenced automatic of Charlie’s in the other and started firing at Angelo, shooting haphazardly, firing both guns like some two-gun kid in a Western. With that grease gun out there, aiming was out of the question, even though the guy was standing out in the open, over by a side door directly behind where Nolan had been sitting.