Scratch Fever (25 page)

Nolan got out of the car. So did Jon. He came around to Nolan’s side. Nolan was looking around, looking for movement; he hadn’t been kidding when he’d told Toni somebody might be waiting in the bushes. The rain was coming down harder now—not a downpour, but they were getting wet standing there.

“You’re going to have to do it this time, Nolan.”

“Kill her, you mean? Yeah, I know. I’m not nuts about shooting a woman, even if it is Julie. But that bitch is the fucking plague.”

“It has to be done. You’re sure you don’t want me with you?”

Nolan smiled, put a hand on the kid’s damp shoulder. “You’re my insurance policy. Come in if you hear shooting. Otherwise, stick with the girl. Let’s get her out of this alive, what do you say?”

“I’m for that,” Jon said, smiling.

“I’m going in a side door,” Nolan said, pointing off to the left of the brick building. “Bob Hale gave me a rough layout of the place. The kitchen should be over there. I’ll leave the door open, in case you have to follow me in.”

“Right.”

“See you in a few minutes, kid.”

“See you.”

Nolan headed across the gravel at a slow jog. The gravel extended around the side of the building, where he found two doors, the first having no window, the second, down a ways, having a window with a grillwork through which he could make out what seemed to be the kitchen.

He started trying the keys on the ring; the fifth one opened the door. The Yale lock made a click that sounded loud as a gunshot to him, but he went on in, not hesitating, standing just inside for a while, leaving the door ajar, listening to see if his coming in had attracted anybody’s attention. He stood there a good three minutes and heard nothing.

He was in a kitchen, all right, a big room with natural brick walls, but appointed white; it seemed spotless, too, though there wasn’t much light in here to tell, just a small fixture on the wall inside the door, left permanently on, apparently. He moved past a row of stoves and pushed open a door that led into a small service area; he managed to avoid bumping into the trays on stands lining the wall, full of silverware, condiments, and the like. At the next door he listened for another minute or so, heard nothing, then pushed it open and went on into the big dining room.

There were some lights on. Just enough to get around without stumbling into things. And enough to get a look at the place, and see what it was that Julie was trying to hold onto. It was a nice layout, reminding him just a little of the Pier. The steamboat mural and the river view made this dining room a natural; with decent food, you couldn’t fail here.

He walked as softly as he could, but the floor wasn’t carpeted; it was a waxed wood floor that wanted to echo your footsteps. He knew there were two other levels, but Hale had told him he thought Julie’s office was upstairs, and her boyfriend’s down. Since they’d be together, most likely, it seemed to Nolan a toss-up as to which office they’d be in. Hers seemed slightly more likely, so he decided to check the downstairs first and get it out of the way.

He went down the stairs slowly, looking the casino room over—nothing elaborate, a small setup designed probably for the weekend trade. And he listened. Across the room, down by the bar, to the right, a door was partially open; lights were on within.

This was it, then; soon it would be over.

He stepped off the last step and stood there, looking toward that partially opened door, and something slammed into the back of his head.

He went down, not out, but while he didn’t lose consciousness, exactly, he wasn’t exactly on top of things, either.

By the time he knew what was what, he was sitting up, rubbing the back of his head, and Julie was pointing two guns at him, one of them his. Or Sally’s, actually: the silenced 9 mm. The other gun was a little .22 automatic that looked like a toy, the sort of toy the PTA would like banned.

She was smiling, and he’d never seen anything quite like it—nothing as beautiful, or as ugly, as that smile.

She was standing over him, just a few paces away, wearing designer jeans and a suede coat, open in front to reveal a pale green blouse and the shelf of her breasts. There was a purse tucked under one arm, and a paper sack at her feet; the top where the sack had been twisted shut had loosened up, and packets of money were peeking out

She was stunning: the brown hair frosted blonde; perfect features, with subtle makeup; tits he wanted to touch, even as he sat there knowing she would kill him, any time now.

Well
, he thought.
Might as well play out the hand . . .

“Where’s Jon?” he demanded.

She shrugged. “He got away from me. He’s wandering around the countryside, as far as I know.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“I don’t care.”

“Listen. I don’t give a damn about you, or the money you took that was partly mine. I just want that kid back.” He started to get up.

“Stay put,” she said. Pointing the 9 mm at his head.

From the doorway down by the bar, the boyfriend came out and walked across the empty casino room, moving slowly between the various tables; a big, sandy-haired man with glasses, and a face that was the saddest thing Nolan ever saw.

Julie turned and smiled at him as he came up beside her; she handed him the toylike .22, keeping the silenced automatic for herself.

“Harold,” she said, “I don’t think I’m going to be leaving after all.”

“You’re going to kill him?”

“I’m going to take him up to the kitchen,” she said. “It’ll be easier to clean up afterwards.”

“What about the boy?”

“Jon? He’ll show up, probably. Eventually. I’m not worried about him. I’ll handle it when the time comes.” She looked toward Nolan with respect in her smile. “This is the guy to worry about. But not for much longer.”

Nolan said, “Isn’t it a little messy, a little dangerous, shooting me on your own property? In your restaurant? Why not take me out in the boonies somewhere?”

“You’d do anything to buy a little time, wouldn’t you, Nolan?” she said.

“You killed Ron, didn’t you?” Harold said to her.

“What?” Julie said, not following him.

Nolan picked up on it. “That’s right. I just came from there, that farmhouse. She wanted Ron to kill the kid, but Ron wouldn’t do it let him go instead. Then your princess here shot Ron in the head and faked it up like suicide.”

She looked at Nolan, just a little amazed.

“Get up,” she told him. “We’re going to the kitchen.”

Nolan rose. “She’s the plague, Harold. Haven’t you figured that out yet? Everything she touches turns to dead.”

She turned to Harold and smiled like a madonna. “You stay down here. I can take care of this myself.”

Harold said, “I love you, Julie.”

“I know you do, Harold.”

He shot her in the right eye.

It knocked her back, left her sprawled across the bottom few steps of the staircase, a tear of blood tracing her cheek under where her eye had been. She looked at Harold out of the remaining one, or seemed to, anyway.

Nolan let out some air. Cautiously, he reached down and picked up the 9 mm, which Julie dropped when she died.

“Thanks,” Nolan said.

“Don’t mention it” the big man said, and turned the toy .22 on himself and looked down the barrel and watched death come out.

19

CRACKING
sounds, first one, then another, seconds later; gunshots, Jon was sure of it. Faint, but gunshots.

Despite his turned ankle, he ran, .38 in hand, Toni calling out behind him, telling him to be careful. He found the door to the kitchen open and almost ran into Nolan, coming through the service area beyond the kitchen.

“Nolan! Are you all right?”

“I’m fine.”

Nolan had a paper bag in one hand.

“What’s that?” Jon asked.

“A sack full of money.”

“No kidding? How much?”

“I don’t know. Want to sit down and count it?”

“Maybe we ought to get out of here.”

“Yeah.”

Going through the kitchen, Jon said, “What happened?”

Nolan told him quickly; he was finishing his story by the time they reached the Datsun in the lot. When they got in, Nolan taking the wheel, Toni climbing in back again, Jon started telling her the story and was finished by the time they were going over the old rumbling metal bridge into Burlington.

“Killed himself?” she said, not quite believing it.

“That’s right,” Jon said. “Poor bastard killed himself.”

“No, he didn’t,” Nolan said.

Jon looked at Nolan.

So did Toni.

“Beauty killed the beast,” Nolan said.

Nolan handed the guy in the toll booth the round-trip token and drove on.

   About the Author

Max Allan Collins, who created the graphic novel on which the Oscar-winning film
Road to Perdition
was based, has been writing hard-boiled mysteries since his college days in the Writers Workshop at the University of Iowa. Besides the books about Nolan, the criminal who just wants his piece of the American dream, and killer-for-hire Quarry, he has written a popular series of historical mysteries featuring Nate Heller and many, many other novels. At last count, Collins’s books and short stories have been nominated for fifteen Shamus awards by the Private Eye Writers of America, winning for two Heller novels,
True Detective
and
Stolen Away
. He lives in Muscatine, Iowa with his wife, Barbara Collins, with whom he has collaborated on several novels and numerous short stories. The photo above shows Max in 1971, when he was first writing about Nolan and Quarry.