The Last Stand Read online

  Fred glanced down at his watch and muttered under his breath. He wanted to help and it was killing him he couldn’t. He got up, tossed a buck on the table and said, “Be careful, man.”

  On the wall pay phone in back, I put in a call to Ginger and told her I’d be at her sister’s place in an hour.

  I made it there in half that. Marsh answered the door, but Ginger was right there to play interference. She escorted me to that little TV room and shut us in, turning a lock to give us extra privacy.

  “What do you need?” she asked.

  I kissed her, held her.

  “Sometimes a guy needs a woman,” I said, “and there’s just no substitute.”

  We settled onto the couch and held hands, but my smile wasn’t working. She said, “What is it, Rod?”

  “Our new state representative, John Graves, hired me. I’ll be his personal bodyguard. It makes it legal for me to investigate and carry a gun.”

  Ginger surprised me by saying, “Good.” I went on. “John and I’ve been friends since forever. And I did him a king-size favor once. Now it’s his turn.”

  “But if he’s involved in politics…”

  “John isn’t mixed up with this crowd. I know him well enough to know he wouldn’t play footsie with the Syndicate.”

  Her eyes were tense and she was shaking her head slowly. “How can you be sure of that?”

  “Oh, they’ll try their damnedest to get him on their side. If he cooperates, he’s safe. If not, he’s dead. But I can pack a gun legally now, and when they come, I’ll be ready.”

  Ginger drew her lips tight. “It’ll take you away from me.”

  “Only briefly. It’ll all happen fast.”

  She squeezed my hand and found a brave smile. “This is what you want, so I’m happy for you. But when this is over, promise me—no more playing with guns. I…I love you, Rod, and I want you alive.”

  I swallowed those words and let them digest a while. Then I said, “That’s what I want, too, honey. But first I’ve got to kill some people.”

  Her eyes got wide and her mouth made an “O” that went with them. But she didn’t protest.

  She only relaxed herself and sank into the couch, her head leaning back, her lips giving me the green go-ahead. I leaned over and kissed her again, hard and long, knowing it wouldn’t end there, just like it wouldn’t end for us, ever.

  She broke away from me long enough to say, “Why can’t we leave this lousy place and just—”

  “Shut up, baby.”

  But it sounded like “I love you.”

  * * *

  I slept in my own pad that night with the .38 under my pillow, but no one showed. A call from Fred got me up bright and early.

  “Got something you’d be interested in, buddy.”

  “Shoot.”

  “I’m calling from a booth just off Fourth. Never mind what we talked about yesterday. I give a great big damn today.”

  “So you’ve got religion. Preach.”

  He cleared his throat. “I been snooping. In and around Morgan’s, everything on the inside looks on the up and up. But then I stumbled over something in the alley behind the club—an old man, hell beaten out of him. But still breathing.”

  “Lot of guys get beat up, that part of town.”

  “Maybe. But guess who he says did it to him—personally?”

  “Shark?”

  “Shark.”

  I asked where he was, then slammed down the receiver. Without shower or shave or breakfast, I jumped into yesterday’s clothes and made tracks to Fourth.

  My ex-partner was sitting in a car patiently smoking a cigarette when I pulled over. I hopped out and got a look at the shabbily dressed, stubble-bearded old guy stretched out in the back of Fred’s unmarked car, passed out.

  I climbed in on the rider’s side and said, “You sure he isn’t just drunk? And got that blood on his face from a fall?”

  Fred shook his head. “There’s no smell of liquor on him. Doesn’t read like dope, either. He’s yours if you want him. Don’t say I never gave you anything.”

  I leaned over and had a careful look at Fred’s cargo. Those bum’s clothes had cost money in another life, and that face looked like it might have belonged to somebody once.

  I asked Fred what he got out of the guy.

  “Not much. When he first saw me, he thought I was one of them. The badge finally changed his mind. Then he dropped the name.”

  “Shark?”

  He nodded. “I checked his wallet. No identification. But there was a twenty tucked under the flap, so he wasn’t rolled. And who’d roll a guy like that anyway?”

  He helped me lug the bum over and into my car, and I headed for the apartment. This time I used the spare pad. Took all my strength to carry him in and when I finally got him onto the bed, my guest started to sit up. He was coming around slowly.

  I wiped his forehead with a damp washcloth. Washed the blood off his swollen face. “Take it easy, pal.”

  He opened his eyes a little, with a start, but I calmed him down with the best smile I could muster.

  His voice was sandpaper working on a rusty tin can. “Who… who are you?”

  “Rod Dexter. Mean anything to you?”

  The eyes flashed wide. “Don’t…don’t kill me.”

  “I want to help you. You want some water?”

  He nodded. I got him a glass. He guzzled it, then sipped more slowly. He handed it back shakily. By the time I set it down, he was asleep. Or had passed out again.

  I slept on the sofa in the front room and was up the next morning before him. I went to rouse him, but he wasn’t asleep. He was on his back staring at the ceiling.

  I pulled a chair up.

  He looked at me with rheumy, suspicious eyes. “Thanks for the bed.”

  “Forget it.”

  “But you want something in return.”

  “Nothing’s free in life.”

  “Yeah, I…I noticed.” He shifted his eyes away.

  “What’s your story, Pop?”

  The old man gave me a strange look, like a very wise man regarding a very slow student. “I don’t have a story. I don’t count. I’m a just sucker who takes what comes. I’m nothing.”

  I lit up a cigarette. His eyes tightened with nicotine hunger. I put the cig between his lips and he drew heavily on it, taking the most from the first puff, letting it drift slowly out his nostrils.

  “Everybody has a story, Pop. What’s yours with Shark?”

  He gave me a shivery glare. “I was big once. They liked me when I was big. I ran that place for Morgan himself. But the booze got me and I took the slide down and now they hate my guts.” He said something nasty and took another deep drag. “I disappeared on ’em, a long time ago. Until Shark came to town, they didn’t bother messing with me.”

  “You were on the street. Somebody recognized you.”

  “They came looking. Somebody realized how much I’d seen, how much I knew. And this is what they did to me. They didn’t kill me ’cause if my corpse turned up, and somebody honest like you used to be, Captain Dexter, somebody like that ran my prints, they’d make me as one of the local crowd and the heat might come on.”

  “You mean if the right cop, or the right reporter got hold of you, there would be hell to pay?”

  “Hell to pay and more. So they beat me and told me to crawl onto the next freight out of town. And that’s just what I’m gonna do.”

  “No, Pops, first you’re gonna talk. Spill everything you know about that bunch.”

  He shook his head. “Sorry, Captain. I ain’t talking. Maybe I don’t owe them anything, but I’m not dead and I wanna stay that way. Nice of you helping me out, but you only did it so I’d spill, and comes right down to it, I don’t figure I owe you one damn thing.”

  He’d been tough once, real tough. And some of it was still under there.

  I eased the .38 out the hip holster and held it loosely in my hand, like it was a bar of soap, not saying an
ything, giving him time to let it sink in.

  He got a smile going, but it was sick. “You won’t use that, Captain.”

  “I’m not captain of shit anymore. I’m just a guy your former friends screwed over.” I cocked the hammer back. His cigarette drooped and sweat beads pearled on his forehead.

  “I been through the mill myself, you know,” I told him. “You know me. All you hoods know me. I can kill just like you boys do because that’s the only way to survive in this jungle.”

  Tears were trickling down his stubbly face. “You…you won’t do it.…”

  “A bullet makes you a corpse, and like you said, some cop runs your prints, and some reporter follows the leads you represent, and the hunt I’m on gets easier.”

  “I haven’t been on the inside with those guys for over a year!”

  My fist tightened around the .38. “Who’s number one?”

  “…Shark.”

  “Around here he is. But who does he answer to?”

  “He’s…the top man.”

  “I don’t think so.” I stuck the .38 closer to his wet face and pressed the cold steel gently to his cheek. “Let’s back up. Start with your name.”

  “Miller,” he gasped. “Bud Miller.”

  “Bud, you haven’t anything to be afraid of. Nothing stands between you and that freight…except me. You want a ride to the train yard, or a trip to the boneyard?”

  “Red Duval.”

  “Who is Red Duval?”

  “He’s…the Syndicate’s man in Capitol City. They’ve been planning this for years. Gantsville isn’t the first town in this state, or the neighboring ones, they’ve taken over.”

  I frowned. “Are you saying the capitol is already in their pocket?”

  The important man Miller had once been had come out of hiding. His voice was stronger now. “No. But it will be. For now, Duval’s just headquartered there. And that’s all I know, Captain. I swear to God.”

  “Get out of bed,” I said.

  “Huh?”

  “You want that ride to the freight yard or not?”

  He wanted it, and got it.

  CHAPTER 6

  I was driving back after dropping the old man off when I finally picked up on the black Ford making each turn I did. If he was tailing me, he was doing a crummy job. I cut right at the next corner on the caution and the red stopped him. I gunned the motor and shot through a back street that took me across town. Alone.

  I wound up at Larry’s Place where I found a vacant stool and when Larry saw me, he got me a Pabst from the tap and set it in front of me.

  “Good to see you alive and well,” he said.

  “Alive, anyway.”

  The door opened just as I lifted the mug of beer.

  He was a middle-aged guy with a long, thin neck. Black hair was trying to climb itself up from his unbuttoned white shirt and congealed into a pile of greasy black hair on the top of his skull.

  The guy walked over to the bar and when no one came to take his order immediately, he banged his fist on the counter.

  Larry turned toward his direction and said, “What’ll it be, mac?”

  “Start with a little service, bud. What kind of joint you runnin’, anyway? When I walk into a place, I want to be waited on, and fast.”

  “So what’ll it be?” Larry asked again.

  The guy let a twisted, ugly grin come over his lean face. He motioned for Larry to come closer. Larry obeyed.

  I saw his hand grab Larry by the collar and shove him back. That was when I slid off my stool.

  When he looked up, I was standing over him. The smile had left his face, but if I thought he was scared, I was in for a surprise.

  “What’s your problem, big boy?” he asked.

  “Man said he’d get you a drink. Be nice.”

  He jumped off his stool and stuck his face next to mine, so close I could smell the sickening odor of cheap hair tonic.

  “Some people ought to mind their own business.” Then he smiled the same ugly twisted smile, proud of himself.

  I grabbed his long hair and slammed his head into the bar, the sound of it like a gunshot. A scream of pain and rage gurgled from his throat as I let go, wiped the grease off my palm on my pants leg, while he straightened and drew a fist back. My right literally beat him to the punch, pulping lips and loosening teeth, the impact sending him pitching back onto the floor like he slipped on a banana peel. He made the mistake of grabbing my ankle, and I plowed my free foot into the side of his skull.

  That should have been the limit for any man. But this one was really tough. He made it back to his feet and dug into his coat for something, but I was ahead of him. The left side of my sports jacket was thrown back and my hand was resting easily on the .38. There wasn’t a prayer for him and he knew it. So he held his hands up and gave me a big smile through bloody lips. He didn’t have much left, and his knees gave way and he hit the floor.

  I reached down and peeled back his coat and saw the shoulder holster with a .45.

  Like the gun that killed Mayes Rogers. Maybe it was that gun. I removed the clip and tossed it away, then handed the weapon to the shaking fatso called Larry and asked, “Ever see him around before?” He shook his head and I looked back down at the guy. He was still out cold.

  Everyone else in the joint was looking in some other direction.

  I threw a fin on the table and took the back door out. It would take some work to drag the unconscious man out into the street, but Larry and the other bartender could handle it.

  The man in the bar made me think. Not many people in this town carry guns, and if they did, they wouldn’t use a shoulder holster with a .45, unless they were nuts.

  Or unless they were paid to.

  Had that been a set-up to get me embroiled in something fatal?

  And I damn near had taken the bait and played guns with the guy, who probably figured he could take me. If I’d taken him, in a public place like that, the PD would quickly put an end to my little crusade.

  Anyway, what if he wasn’t the trigger man—what if he was just an angry drunk with a short fuse? And even if he did have the contract on me, and I got rid of him, Shark would just send another. At least this one, I knew what he looked like now. And maybe he’d be nice and rattled, if we met again…

  I reached John Graves by phone and told him I’d be around in an hour. When I got there, I was politely ushered in by the male secretary.

  Johnny greeted me with an easy smile. Without waiting to be invited to sit down, I flung my weight on the couch.

  I said, “I think it’ll be best if you let me stick with you very closely from now on. I met up with a guy at a bar, big bastard with trouble on his mind. Now that might not sound so unusual, but this particular son of a bitch was packing a .45. He might’ve been put on my tail, I don’t know. But word might be out that we’re connected now.”

  Johnny shifted in his seat. “Sounds like you’re ready to go on the clock.”

  “You got it.”

  “Fine. Tomorrow at noon, we leave for three days in Capitol City. Can you make it?”

  I had things to do in Gantsville, but I just shrugged and nodded.

  “Good,” he said.

  “Nothing good about any of this, John. There’s a hired killer, a trigger man, sent to put me out of commission, and maybe you. I think that bastard is who I ran into today. The one with the .45.”

  I was at the door when I said, “Next time give me a little more notice, pal, or I’ll tell you where to go.”

  “Insubordinate from the start,” Johnny said with a grin. “I’m not surprised.”

  * * *

  Whatever move I made, you could bet Shark would be on top of it. He had cops on his payroll and an army of hoods. He could have me tailed or sic his trigger man on me, though I was starting to wonder if he was saving me up for himself to have the satisfaction of putting a bullet in me personally. How I’d love to have him try.

  But there was no doubt in my m
ind that he knew I was tied up with Graves, and would be aware of the Capitol City trip.

  We landed at the Capitol City airport in John’s private plane and checked into the hotel at 3:15 in the afternoon. The lobby was buzzing with men and women, all shapes and sizes, from around the state in for a big political banquet here in the hotel, some talking to others, some trying to check in, others on their way up to their rooms. None of them were quiet about it. But who ever heard of a quiet politician.

  As far as I was concerned, I was glad to get to the room and relax. I wasn’t interested in walking up to people and having them ask me what district I was from or what representative I worked for.

  Graves went to that political banquet at six; it would last until around nine o’clock. With all the reporters and so many others around, he should be safe there. So I went down to the lobby to check out the hotel bar, knowing the politicos would be occupied, and that’s when I saw him.

  He was standing next to a paperback rack picking up a newspaper. The lobby was empty, everybody at the banquet. There was an elderly man slouched down on a couch across the room, but he was half-asleep.

  The guy knew I was staring at him, and he didn’t seem to mind. His hair was still greased back and he wore that same smug look, though his lips were still a little puffy the day after our encounter at Larry’s Place.

  He was the trigger man. Had to be. The man with the .45. The man who knocked Mayes Rogers off, the man here to try to knock me off, and maybe John Graves, too.

  He found a seat on a long couch and began to read his paper. Every once in a while I’d see him peep over the top of it. But he wasn’t jumpy. In fact, he was as calm as could be, which was the exact opposite of me.

  Was he alone? It would do no good to get rid of this one only to catch a bullet from a buddy of his. No, I had to let this play out.

  So I walked past him, close enough that I could get another good look at his ugly mug, then took the elevator to our room.

  I was stretched out on the bed when, an hour and change later, Johnny walked in.

  “How was the banquet?” I asked.

  “Rubber chicken and boring talk. Where were you to protect me from that?”

  I sat up. “Johnny, there’s a guy I want you to watch out for. You know the one I told you about, who I bumped into at Larry’s bar. Well, I saw him in the lobby about an hour ago. He’s the Syndicate killer, all right. He’s got long black hair, the greasy stuff. He has a long, pencil-like neck, a lean, ugly face, and he’s around forty. If you see him, don’t go near him. He might even be staying in this hotel. His boss is the Syndicate’s man here in the capitol.”