Maxie’s eyes were dark and mournful, his mouth a thin cold line in a face that was puttylike, unlined, unused, as if no emotions had left their tracks. As he slowly lowered his hands toward his knees, one hand lingered near the right-hand pocket of the draped-on-the-chair suit coat, a pocket with a revolver-size lump in it.
“You could die in that chair,” I pointed out.
Maxie blinked again, swallowed and put his hands on his knees.
I moved slowly over there, my back to a wall so I could keep my eyes on both Maxes, and flipped the suit coat off the chair; it dropped to the floor with a clunk. Lucky for us all, his coat didn’t go off.
“Is this a rubout?” Maxie asked, like he was asking the time.
“Not necessarily,” I said, moving back near the doorway, just inside of which I’d left his partner. “We’re just going to talk.”
“If the Dutchman sent you,” he said reasonably, “you’re working the wrong side of the street. We pay
“Listen to Maxie,” Hassel advised, with a nervous sidelong glance.
They didn’t seem to see the inherent fallacy of telling a guy holding a gun on them that they could “protect” him.
“The Dutchman didn’t send me,” I said. “A rich lady from Washington, D.C., did. Named McLean.”
The two men exchanged glances. I couldn’t read anything in it. God knows I tried.
“You fellas look smart enough to know Gaston Means can’t be trusted,” I said.
Maxie Greenberg nodded thoughtfully.
“That bastard lies when he prays,” Hassel confirmed.
“You boys need a new man in the middle,” I said. Which was where I was, keeping the gun on them both, Hassel with his mitts up, Greenberg hands on knees. “I’ll give you the money, you give me the kid.”
Hassel gave me another sidelong nervous glance.
Eyes boring into me like a sniper sighting a victim, Maxie said, “Who are you?”
“A guy looking to make a few bucks and put a kid back in his own crib.”
“What makes you think we got Lindy’s kid?” Hassel said.
“I don’t remember mentioning Lindy’s kid,” I said.
A loud banging out in the other room scared shit out of me; I damn near started firing.
“That’s the door,” Hassel said, flatly. “The one you come in.”
The banging continued, and a voice said, “Boss, it’s Vinnie! It’s Vinnie, boss! Let me in.”
Hassel smiled smugly. “Well, there’s our boy Vinnie. I better let him in, don’t you think?”
“If he’s your boy,” I said, “why doesn’t he have a key?”
“Somebody might take it off him,” Maxie said.
“You gotta be named ‘Max’ to get a key,” Hassel said.
Private club.
“We don’t answer it,” fat Maxie said with the faintest of smiles on his thin lips, “he’ll bust it down.”
I took Hassel by the arm; it was fleshy but there was muscle under there. “Get rid of him. No need to get cute—we’re going to make a straight business deal, here. Fewer faces that see me, the better.”
He looked at me with those black dead eyes, and nodded.
I went over to Maxie, and stood just to his left, between several wooden four-drawer filing cabinets and the corner of the wall the desk was up against.
“If this is business,” Maxie said, hands on his knees, his head tilted to one side in a gesture of reasonableness, “why have any guns at all?”
“I like negotiating from a position of strength.”
There was the garbled sound of conversation out in the living room, then the sound of running, the sound of furniture being knocked over. Maxie started to move, started to rise, but I swung into his gut with the nine millimeter, knocking the wind out of him, sitting him back down, sending him in his chair rattling back against the desk.
And the gunshots started.
They were muffled shots, silenced shots, WHUP! WHUP! WHUP! WHUP!, but they were gunshots all right. Some of them were happening in the connecting room, and Maxie, still doubled over, glanced at me with round accusing eyes and I ducked down and flattened back against the wall, using the wooden filing cabinets for cover, and saw Maxie drop his hand toward that coat on the floor, fumbling for the gun in that coat pocket, getting it in hand, a .38 Police Special, sitting on the edge of his chair and looking up toward the doorway, at something and somebody I couldn’t see, looking as if he were about to rise his fat ass up out of that chair, only he never did.
He sat back in the chair, leaning back like a man getting a close shave, but this was no close shave: he was getting bullets pumped into him, into his chest, into his neck, into his face, the top of his head erupting and spattering the Old Heidelberg neon, his legs and feet tap-dancing while the silenced bullets softly sang.
Then the gunshots stopped and left him sitting with his head back and emptying out, blood dripping on the carpeted floor like red rain. Cordite stench scorched the air, gun smoke mixing with blood mist.
And I was cowering against the wall, in the corner made by the wall and the wooden filing cabinet. Unseen, I thought. They didn’t know I was here—did they?
