The Last Kind Words: A Novel Read online

  “I might have a job for you,” Butch said.

  “A job?”

  “Yeah. I can’t say too much about it now, not until I get all the details. It’s not a bank or anything. A jewelry store. Family-owned. We take it a week from Tuesday.”

  Now I understood what he meant about hitting three or four states in a couple of days. All the highways and exits. He was fantasizing about a crime spree, taking down scores across America, being a real outlaw. Like you didn’t have to plan as much. Like it was easier to escape the cops on the I-25 in the middle of Wyoming, twenty miles to the nearest exit, than it was dodging the staties on the Wantagh Parkway. I realized why he smelled like oil. It was gun oil.

  My mother had good instincts. She knew a criminal when she saw one. This kid stank of trouble. I should’ve been sharper.

  “I’ve got three men already,” Butch went on. “We need another for crowd control. It’s a small shop, but they’ve got a lot of employees. Like I said, family-owned, so they’ve got Mom and Dad in back, a couple of uncles doing inventory, sisters and cousins up front working the counters. The hardware will be clean, untraceable. Unless you’ve got your own piece you’d rather use. In and out in under four minutes.”

  “I don’t do that,” I said.

  He frowned. “You don’t do what?”

  “That.”

  “Hit jewelry stores?”

  “I don’t carry a gun.”

  He smiled like I’d just told a joke that hadn’t quite come off. “Since when?”

  “Since always.”

  “But you’re a Rand.”

  “And we don’t do that,” I said.

  “Are you kidding me?”

  “I’m not.”

  For some reason I was suddenly offended by the fact that he was standing here without a shirt. That scrawny chest on exhibit. His naked nipples steered toward me.

  He bounced like he was being tickled and let out a small burp of a giggle. “You’re old-school thieves. You’re famous. Everybody knows what you’re all about.”

  “No armed robbery.”

  He cocked his head. “No exceptions, huh?”

  “None.”

  “Not even for a big enough payday? Let’s say, six figures?”

  The kid was a fucking idiot. Jewelry was always the hardest thing to unload on a fence. Some pieces could be identified as readily as fingerprints. It had to pass through a lot of hands before anyone could turn it into cash. You saw maybe a dime off every dollar. For a five-man crew to see a hundred grand each you had to pull down a five-mil score. This mook would never be involved with that kind of a major haul.

  In this town he wouldn’t even think about it unless he was in the good graces of the Thompson syndicate.

  I asked the obvious question. “You do any work for Danny Thompson?”

  “A little of this and that,” Butch said.

  “What kind of this and that?”

  “You know—things. Stuff.”

  I watched Dale across the way, returning with a couple of beers. She could make it only a few steps before someone stopped her, chatted her up, got her laughing. She was pretty and popular and shouldn’t be hooked up with a twenty-year-old hood talking armed robbery. The rest of them looked like punks and assholes but at least they weren’t getting ready to take a five-to-seven rap.

  I wondered if she was drawn to Butch because he was a thief like her brothers and father. If she felt more comfortable with him than some straight-A joe working at the Walmart and putting himself through night school. If she liked the smell of gun oil on him. I thought of this mutt on top of my sister. My fists tightened and my knuckles cracked. The pounding bass from his radio beat into my feet and moved up my legs, into my chest, and up through my brain.

  I got in close, went nose-to-nose with Butch as he backed up and became trapped against the Chevy’s grille. He turned his hip to me as if to climb away.

  He frowned and said, “Hey, man, hey—”

  A little of this and that. Butch was one of the hangers-on. Back in Big Dan’s day I watched them come and go, guys trying to mob up who Dan would take advantage of for as long as he could. Get them to do some extra dirty work, the stuff he didn’t want to lay out on his own crew. But he’d always pay them something for the risk and trouble, even if they didn’t get any of the respect they were hoping for. Danny, though, I could see him running guys like Butch out to do everything from shining shoes to cleaning his rain gutters to pulling heists, just so he could skim off the top, paying them nothing and letting them drop wherever they fell.

  “Stay away from him.”

  “Why?”

  “Because he uses guys like you.”

  “You shouldn’t talk about Mr. Thompson that way, it’s not healthy. He’s got a lot of ears, even out here, you know what I’m saying?”

  “I know what you’re saying.”

  He hissed a laugh. He thought he was on the inside track, hip to the action, impervious to injury. I considered proving him wrong, chopping him in the throat or shattering that already ugly nose, but it would hurt Dale, and I couldn’t make my sister suffer any more than I already had.

  It took him a few more seconds to realize how badly he’d fucked up. He’d presumed too much, spilled too much. His smarmy expression froze.

  “Hey, man, hey. It’s cool, right? We’re cool?”

  “Sure.”

  “You’re a Rand. It’s not like you’re going to cause any trouble, am I right? Tell me if I’m wrong.”

  I was a Rand. “Old school, Butch. I don’t blow anyone else’s scores.”

  “Righteous.”

  I backed away from his car, let the throbbing hum ease out of me, taking some of the agitation with it.

  Dale returned and handed me a beer even though I hadn’t asked for one. What the hell. I drank quickly while Dale discussed how she and Butch met. It was my story. It was the same story as most of the kids here and the ones from my day and before, going back to my old man and my uncles and maybe to the Indians who’d originally owned the land. You hung around and eyed one another until someone eyed you back and then you decided if it was worth your time to launch ahead.

  She hugged him. She mothered him. She cared about him. When the drizzle grew a bit harder, she got in the backseat and pulled out a shirt for him. He put it on reluctantly. She fixed the collar for him. I wasn’t going to be able to talk dirt with her.

  “I’ve got to run,” I said.

  Butch and I shook again. I looked at him like he was already in the can, his head shaved, tattooed with swastikas, on his knees for the Aryans.

  “Good meeting you,” he said.

  “You too.”

  Dale took my hand and walked me back to my car. I found myself almost unconsciously studying the texture of her palms and the pads of her fingers. Had Dad sent her scurrying up drainpipes too? Could she pull a five-card lift?

  She gave me a hug. “I’m glad you came out here to see me.”

  “I am too.”

  “What are you going to tell Ma?”

  “That of all the things there are for her to worry about, you’re not one of them.”

  “That’s sweet, but do you believe it?”

  “I believe you’re smart and sharp. It won’t help, though. You know she’ll keep on her course.”

  “I don’t expect anything different from her. That’s what we all do. Stay our course.”

  I wanted to ask, And you? How are you handling everything?

  “Love you,” she said, and spun away.

  I got in behind the wheel and snapped the dome light on. I opened Butch’s wallet. I’d picked his pocket when he’d turned his hip to me. I hadn’t even intended to. It was as if he’d offered me the chance and my body had reacted.

  I found out that his real name was Joe Cassidy. Now I knew where the Butch came from and probably where the crime-spree fantasies had originated too. He had six dollars in singles. A suspended driver’s license with a Freehold a
ddress. No condoms. That’s why Dale made sure she always kept a pack on her, because our good friend Butch here just didn’t give a shit about protection.

  He also had no credit cards. That meant either Dale was fronting him pocket change for beer and gas and the like or he had a problem. Gambling or drugs or something else. I wondered if she had a part-time job or if she was nimble-fingered and following in the rest of the family’s footsteps.

  The question became: Did Dale know what Butch was up to? Or, worse, was she in on the score with him? The idea of it made the back of my skull ache. But she was fifteen. At fifteen, the rest of us Rands had been creeping around second-story bedrooms and stealing silverware and jugging tiny safes.

  I pocketed his six bucks and tossed the rest out the window as soon as I hit the highway. Butch Cassidy. Motherfucker. I gunned it down the road, thinking, When Butch went down, would he take Dale with him? What was I going to have to do to protect her? How far was I willing to go? And how many of these kinds of questions had filled my brother’s head before he got caught in the underneath and never came up again?

  My head was full of the dead. I sat at the bar in the Elbow Room with the photocopied files and ordered a Jack and Coke.

  The place was a dive. It had gotten worse since the last time I’d had a drink here. The men looked the same except maybe a bit more desperate. The drinks were watered down, the felt on the pool tables that much more worn. The mirror behind the bar had a thick film of grime on it so you could barely see your own face. Maybe it was a blessing.

  The whores worked the losers a little more brazenly. They didn’t bother with subtlety. They didn’t play the buy-me-a-drink-and-maybe-I’ll-go-home-with-you-and-oh-by-the-way-I-cost-a-C-note-sorry-I-didn’t-mention-that-sooner game. It was all out front. I wasn’t sure if I liked it better or not. At least you didn’t waste time or get your heart chipped away when you realized the girl with the cool blue eyes and the slow smile wasn’t really turning it on because you might be Mr. Right. You knew at the start you were wrong, and so was she.

  The cops had interviewed the owner and two bartenders who had been working the night Collie went on his spree. All three swore he hadn’t been drunk. That he hadn’t started any kind of a ruckus or been involved in any sort of disturbance. That he hadn’t been pestering anybody. There had been no fights. He hadn’t pawed any of the girls. He hadn’t tried to rob the place. No one reported having their pockets picked.

  The juke purred a trio of female voices, low and tempting. The speakers beat at my back. I chowed on cocktail peanuts and sucked beer. My concentration skittered around the room, picking up pieces of conversations and lonely muttering. Men were talking standard shit. Who’d been ripped off by the boss, the government, the wife. Men with preteen sons talked proud. Men with older sons talked about intense disappointment. It was times like these that I was glad my family was full of men who kept quiet.

  Someone bumped my shoulder and I spilled a quarter glass down my shirt. He didn’t say excuse me. I turned and glowered. I wondered if this could start a chain reaction that would land me on death row.

  I glanced at the register. I could have it cleaned out in under ten seconds. I could wait for the bartender to go get another case of beer from the storeroom. Or I could sucker-punch him and nab the cash. No one would try to stop me. That kind of draw was always there for me. Knowing I could reach out and grab what I wanted at any time. Of course it was. I was a thief. The devil had to be in Collie’s ear all the time as well.

  I wondered what set of circumstances would have to come together to send me on a spree where I would kill old women and nine-year-old girls. I knew my rage could send me into barroom brawls. But Suzy Coleman. I just couldn’t imagine anything pushing me to murder a little girl.

  I stood and moved toward a table in back. As I passed the end of the bar, a middle-aged pro with greasy eyes put her arm out and grabbed my wrist. She smelled of Four Roses and stale hamburger. I thought if she was making a play for me this was the wrong way to go about it. She held on tightly without so much as lifting her gaze or saying a word. She was sitting with a john who either hadn’t been buying her whiskey fast enough or was taking too long cracking open his wallet and paying for her services. Now I saw she was using me to make him jump. He glanced up as if I was disturbing him and gave me the death glare.

  I thought about Collie. I was going to be thinking about Collie for a long time to come, but especially in this place. Every scent, motion, action made me wonder. Was this what did it? Could this do it to me?

  She opened her mouth to say something, then changed her mind when she looked into my eyes.

  I walked on, snapping her grip.

  I got a table and eased into the bench seat and thought about my brother doing the same thing. It would’ve been a tight fit for him five years ago. He’d had a substantial gut. He would’ve had to suck it in. The table edge would be cutting into him. He’d try to ignore it, throw back another Corona.

  I didn’t want my brother in my head, so why was I so desperately trying to get into his? It was a setup. I knew it. I could feel it. He was positioning me in some kind of a play in a game that wasn’t even mine.

  I started to slide out of the booth just as the waitress came around. She was thin-lipped, frizzy-headed, bony-shouldered, and small-breasted, yet somehow exuded sensuality.

  “Get you?” she asked.

  “Nothing.”

  “Nothing?”

  Was there any possibility Collie was telling the truth? He seemed to believe it, but what kind of proof was that? He was at least as nuts as everyone else on death row, and that was a heap of crazy.

  I slid back into the booth and knew I had to make a decision. Read the files or burn them. Stay or book. Give in or get the hell out. I’d gone this far for reasons I didn’t understand. Maybe I should head back out west. Maybe I should pull the job with Butch. Maybe I could show up at Kimmy and Chub’s front door and invite myself in. Had I come home to flame out like my brother?

  “Fuck,” I said.

  “What’s that?”

  The waitress was watching me. She didn’t seem bored waiting. A hint of talcum powder trailed across her cleavage. She probed a bad back tooth with her tongue and winced but didn’t stop.

  “Sorry. Give me a Dewar’s and Coke. A lot of ice.”

  “You okay, man?”

  “Sure.”

  She tilted her head back toward the bar. “Flo over there wants you to buy her a dirty martini.”

  I could guess who Flo was. “And why would she expect me to do that?”

  The waitress shrugged. “It’ll make her more friendly to you, you know?”

  “I’ve got all the friends I can handle.”

  “The guys like her. Some of them anyway.”

  “Not tonight.”

  “Okay, man.”

  I spent the next forty-five minutes reading and slowly getting drunk. My stomach was empty by now, and the liquor hit me harder than it should have. It didn’t slow me down. I kept knocking them back, hoping to disconnect. The pages flashed before me. Facts, dates, blood-spatter patterns, interviews. I knew the picture but details kept adding color and texture. More than I wanted to know.

  The reports were about as cool and dry as they came. There wasn’t a hint of emotion anywhere, not even in my brother’s confession. He’d told the cops the same thing that he’d told me. There was no reason. He explained what he’d done that night step by step. How he’d moved from one victim to the next. He named the seven. He didn’t name Rebecca Clarke. She’d been completely left out. No one seemed to care.

  The victims soon emptied of whatever personality I’d instilled them with. Paul Coleman. Sarah Coleman. Tom Coleman. Neal Coleman. Suzy Coleman. Doug Schuller. Mrs. Howard.

  He said he hadn’t known any of them prior to that night. He’d had no grudges with any of them. He didn’t even know their names. He’d never seen them before. He’d chosen his victims completely at random. He
’d driven around town until he felt the urge to kill and then he’d climbed out of his car and headed off on foot. When he was finished with one he’d proceeded to the next. He hadn’t done a thing to hide his crimes. He hadn’t muffled the gunshots. The noise awoke other vacationers in the trailer park, who’d called the police. Collie had been long gone by the time they arrived.

  Why go on a spree and end it of your own accord? Why not go out in a blaze? Had his rage really been vented? Had he been angry at all? The papers described him as coldhearted, methodical, meticulous.

  Collie hadn’t taken the stand. He’d never attempted to explain himself in court. His attorneys hadn’t bothered to dispute the Becky Clarke snuff. They figured he was already up for seven charges of murder so an eighth didn’t matter. They were adamant on a plea of insanity. It was a bold and stupid play, but they were strapped—Collie refused to recant his confession. Still, they should have homed in on that dispute and made it the central theme of their case. If they could cast doubt on that one killing, then they might shake the D.A.’s case a little. Becky Clarke had been strangled with a sash of some kind. They hadn’t pulled any fibers. Collie had used a blade and a gun and his fists to commit his other murders. When the cops arrested him they found the gun unloaded on the bar where he’d put it.

  So where were the knife and the sash? Why would he toss those and not the pistol?

  The whole fucking thing was ridiculous.

  I went through the paperwork again. I had the feeling I’d missed something. I dug around and came up with one of the forensics sheets. I scanned it, and most of the terminology didn’t mean anything to me.

  And then there it was. No one had made a big deal out of it.

  “Jesus,” I whispered.

  Saliva. They’d found dried saliva on each victim’s forehead. No one suggested what it might mean. They only dealt in facts.

  But I knew. Collie had kissed each of them on the forehead before, or after, he’d murdered them.

  Every one of them except Rebecca Clarke. There’d been no saliva found on her.