Speak Ill of the Living (12 page)

He roared toward home, feeling new confidence in his skills with the motorcycle, and a nervous chill over the possibility that Henry could win his freedom.

With the state's star witness against Henry hopelessly impugned, a motion for a new trial might have real legs. If the physical evidence against Henry still existed, the defense could argue to make it available for DNA testing that wasn't around when Henry had been convicted. If the evidence was no longer in police storage somewhere, the case file could still overflow with reasonable doubt—with the right lawyer pushing the right buttons.

Eddie parked the bike outside his house and bounded up the stairs. He should make some notes of the argument he would present to Henry.

Inside, the house was dark.

He closed the door, looked around.

Why were the shades drawn? He didn't remember—

A hand from behind seized Eddie by the collar and the open-mouthed kiss of a gun froze the tender skin below his ear.

Chapter 16

The gun against his neck pushed Eddie roughly into the room. Eddie's knees went weak and he stumbled. The man holding the gun grunted, the hand on Eddie's shirt pushed him to his knees, and then bent his torso backward, the way Eddie imagined the mob would hold a guy before they whacked him. The gun knocked against Eddie's skull.

The room smelled like Skin Bracer.

“Where's my cat, Jimmy?” Eddie said. He was surprised at the level calmness in his own voice.

Jimmy Whistle whispered close to Eddie's ear, “Locked in the bathroom, and he's gonna starve in there while you're dead on this floor, unless I get some fucking answers.”

Eddie flinched at Jimmy Whistle's wet breath. But he felt relief.

This is an interrogation, not an execution.

If Eddie stayed calm, he could get out of this. He looked around the room for a weapon, just in case. His chess set was splayed over the coffee table. The piano bench was tucked neatly under the upright. His lumpy sofa bed with no back support could not be used to injure anybody, unless Eddie could get Jimmy to sleep on it. His eyes fixed on the brass pole lamp beside the sofa. It was five feet tall with a corrugated lampshade like the cap from a giant tube of toothpaste. The lamp was Eddie's best option, though hardly a handy weapon to wield.

“You had me fooled earlier,” Jimmy said. “I was buying what you were saying at my place, but I should have known better. I've been double-crossed by a Bourque before.”

“I didn't double-cross anybody.”

Jimmy tightened his grip on Eddie's collar. “Then who put that lady cop on me, eh?” he growled. “She came right after you did, asking what I know about this guy Lime, the kidnapped bank president. The thing is, I'm a good actor. You know how many shakedowns I saw in the joint? James J. Whistle, prisoner number zero-five-three-nine-two, is smart enough to play stupid.”

Jimmy had played stupid with Detective Orr so he could take out his anger on Eddie. “I was just looking for information,” Eddie said.

“Bullshit!” The gun pressed painfully into the flesh at the base of Eddie's skull. “What are you and your brother trying to pull?”

“Pull? We're not—”

“You and Henry are pulling something,” Jimmy insisted. He paused. “You're chasing the money, aren't you?”

Eddie said nothing. Jimmy shook him and roared, “AREN'T YOU?”

Chasing what money? Eddie wanted to say. But he didn't want to aggravate Jimmy Whistle, who seemed to be slipping into desperation. Desperate people are capable of anything, especially pulling a trigger. He wished he could see Whistle's face, so he could read how close Jimmy was to going over the edge. Eddie thought about it.
Chasing the money?
The money from the robbery Jimmy and Henry had pulled off?

That cash was never found, but that was more than thirty years ago. Would bills that old even be passable?

“You stole it,” Eddie said. “Why don't you chase it?”

Jimmy banged the butt of the gun across Eddie's spine. The startling pain sent Eddie wrenching against Jimmy's grip, but the cold barrel went right back against the hairless spot behind Eddie's right ear.

General VonKatz called for Eddie through the bathroom door.

Jimmy Whistle leaned close behind the barrel and informed Eddie, “That's
my
fucking money.”

Eddie said nothing.

“I rotted in the joint, kept my mouth shut and told myself every day that I didn't care about the gold.” He panted noisily. “When I got out I thought I didn't need it, but things have changed. If you're going after it, I want my share.”

“The papers never said anything about gold,” Eddie said. “It was cash. A banking transaction.”

“The paper's were full of shit,” Jimmy whispered. “They print what the cops tell them, and the cops didn't want anybody to know they were looking for gold bullion, untraceable if it's melted down and recast.”

Eddie was doubtful. “Why would the cops lie?”

“Maybe they didn't want to start a treasure hunt, or maybe they didn't want to explain why they couldn't find a thousand pounds of fucking gold.”

A thousand pounds?

Jimmy Whistle seemed to read his mind. “That's right, Bourque. One thousand seventy-one pounds of gold bar. Worth six hundred grand back then, which was a fine haul.” He twisted Eddie's shirt collar, pinching Eddie's throat. “I checked the metal markets today and then did the math. That gold is now worth six point six million.”

Jimmy let the number sink in a few moments, then ground the gun against Eddie's skull. “Half of that gold is mine,” he said. “Your brother took it from me thirty years ago,
and I want it
.”

“Took it from you? You took it together.”

Jimmy Whistle gave a hoarse growl, stepping in front of Eddie.

Eddie looked up from his knees. He felt sizzling dread at seeing Jimmy's purple cheeks and wet, red-rimmed eyes. He looked like a man with nothing to lose. He imagined a ski mask over Jimmy's face. Could he have been the one who tried to burn him?

Eddie wanted to tell him to calm down, but when he tried to speak Jimmy Whistle grimaced in rage and jammed the gun into Eddie's mouth. The steel cracked Eddie's top front tooth. Pain rocked Eddie's jaw and made his eyes water, as if he had been stabbed through the roof of the mouth with an icicle.

“Henry double-crossed us and took all the money!” Whistle thundered.

He pushed the gun deeper, until Eddie gagged.

Whistle's cheeks quivered as he spoke, seething: “I threatened to kill your brother, the son-of-a-bitch, but that animal just laughed. He said it was his insurance, to make sure he was treated on the up-and-up. Well, fuck him!”

Eddie clamped both hands around Whistle's wrist and stared up at him. He heard the General scratching at the bathroom door.

Jimmy Whistle yanked the gun from Eddie's mouth and pulled Eddie roughly to his feet. Both men lost their balance. Eddie steadied himself against the sofa. The brass lamp was at his elbow. Eddie felt something sharp in his mouth—a triangular shard of tooth that Jimmy's pistol had sheared off. Eddie rolled his tongue around the fragment; the shard was like a tiny razor.

Jimmy stepped toward Eddie, his face inches away, the gun between them, in Eddie's ribs. Eddie could count the pink veins squiggling across the whites of Jimmy's eyes.

Then his empty black pupils got bigger.

He's going to kill me.

Eddie tipped up his chin and in a sudden puff of breath blasted out the bone shard.

Jimmy slapped his free hand over his left eye. “You fucker!” he screamed in shock.

Eddie grabbed the lamp and swung it like an ax. Its base was heavy and came sluggishly through its arc, but it struck solidly across Jimmy's wrist and knocked the pistol flying. Jimmy squealed in pain and reached for Eddie. “Bastard!”

Eddie grit his teeth and drove a palm into Jimmy's sternum. The older man recoiled and Eddie scrambled for the gun.

The pistol was L-shaped and black, its handle wet and warm. Eddie was surprised at how heavy it was, how its vampiric touch seemed to bleed away his soul.

He leveled the gun at Jimmy Whistle.

Whistle's left eyeball was stained with a crimson dot where the tooth had cut him. Though ugly, it looked superficial. Whistle touched his wound and then inspected the blood on his finger. “It's all fun and games,” he said dryly, “until somebody loses an eye.” He nodded to the gun. “What the hell do you expect to do with that thing?”

Eddie looked at the pistol. What the hell
did
he expect to do with this thing? Shoot Jimmy Whistle? Of course not. If Jimmy rushed him, Eddie might smack him with the gun, but Eddie knew he would never pull the trigger.

Jimmy knew it, too.

“You lack your brother's killer instinct,” Whistle said. “If he was where you are, I'd be dead three times already.” He laughed, pointing to the pistol. “The safety is on.” He was calm now, and bitterly sarcastic. “You oughta know how to work your own gun—and it
is
yours, now that your fingerprints are all over it.

“I'm
shocked
that you pulled that gun on me,” Jimmy said, “to threaten me for information, after you invited me here to talk about your brother—and that's my story.” He gave an exaggerated smile. “I guess violence runs in your family. Don't forget to flick off the safety when you want to kill me.”

Goddam him, he was right. The gun was black market treasure, bought off a street corner, no doubt, with no paper trail connecting it to Jimmy Whistle. Detective Orr would never believe that Eddie had pulled a gun, but some other cop might. Who could say? Eddie decided that the authorities would not hear about his scuffle with Jimmy Whistle.

He looked Jimmy over again, seeing him in more detail now that he was disarmed. Whistle wore red tennis shoes, black socks, and blue polyester suit pants that were too short because they were hiked too high on his belly. His baby blue polo shirt squeezed him. His rough red face sagged around the jowls. He looked pitiful, like an unemployed clown who could no longer afford his makeup.

Had he really been about to kill Eddie?

Jimmy had admitted he was a good actor—he must have been to fool Detective Orr. Eddie rubbed his tongue against his chipped tooth. The hole felt like a canyon. Adrenaline that had dulled the pain was wearing off, and his jaw throbbed.

“Who killed those guards thirty years ago after the armored car robbery?” Eddie demanded. It was a prosecutor's question. If Henry hadn't killed the guards, Jimmy Whistle might have.

Whistle shrugged. “Henry, I assume.”

He assumed? What Jimmy
assumed
was not evidence against Henry, only what he saw. “Did you
see
Henry do it?”

“Didn't have to.” He hiked his pants even higher. “I know Henry Bourque. There's something sinister in that boy. I saw it the day my ma hired him on her farm, the Lord rest her soul.” Jimmy made the Sign of the Cross, which seemed an odd gesture coming from him.

Eddie lowered the gun. He had never imagined Henry working a job, like a real person. But of course he would have had to work. It wasn't hard to picture his muscled brother on a farm, a hay bale over each shoulder.

“So that's how you met him?” Eddie asked.

“I saw him work—the boy was
strong
—so when I needed muscle I knew where to go,” Jimmy said. He bit his bottom lip. “But Henry was a fuckin' wacko. Should've trusted my instincts, but I didn't.” He held out his arms so Eddie could see the whole of him, the husk left over after three decades of life had been wrung away in federal prison. “Look what it got me.”

“I'm not after the gold,” Eddie said.

“Whatever you say—you got the gun.”

“I want to help Henry prove he didn't kill those guards.”

Whistle laughed bitterly. “Like I said, the truth is in your hand.”

“Maybe
you
killed them.”

“Open your eyes,” Whistle said. His thumb and forefinger spread the lids of his wounded eye, and he gazed spitefully at Eddie with the little pupil of blood. “Henry killed them, Henry hid the bodies and Henry stole the money. There's no other possibility.” He let go of his eye and rubbed the spot on his chest where Eddie had shoved him.

“I need the money, Bourque,” Whistle said. “Not all of it, not half, not even a third. I just need
enough
.” He jabbed a finger at Eddie. “Yeah, I got secrets—a few good ones, lots of bad ones. But I didn't whack those guards.”

Eddie didn't necessarily believe him, but he left the option open. “Well,” Eddie said, “maybe nobody killed them.”

Jimmy squinted at him, an ironic smile over his face.

“A thousand pounds of gold would buy two blue-collar guards a nice life in the Cayman Islands,” Eddie said. “You said you never saw them murdered.”

Jimmy sounded doubtful. “They had families.”

“Maybe girlfriends, too.”

“They were tied up with rope.” He hiked his pants again. “I thought maybe we could sell them for ransom.”

“I read the news reports,” Eddie said. “One of the three guards escaped. If one could, they all could. So maybe two of them—”

“Dumas and Forte.”

“—those two escaped with the gold. Henry was charged with their murders and wrongly convicted so nobody ever looked for them. They could be the elders in some tropical village by now.”

Jimmy chuckled softly. “I'm done telling you what to believe, Bourque.” He rubbed his hands together as if to clean them of something. “I'll be leaving now so I can pedal home before dark—unless you're going to kill me in your living room.”

“No, I just vacuumed.”

Jimmy Whistle let himself out. He looked back to Eddie from the front steps. “I don't need much of the money, Bourque. You'll never miss it.”

Eddie didn't bother to argue. He locked the bolt behind Jimmy Whistle, and then inched the sofa against the door.

The gun felt like an alien life form in his hand. He wanted to get rid of it. Down the storm drain? Off University Bridge into the Merrimack? Or something less public. Eddie sealed the gun in a plastic zipper bag and brought it into the bathroom. The General was cautiously trying to sip from the dripping spout in the tub. The cat drank daintily, like a well-bred old lady.

Eddie removed the toilet tank cover. He dropped the gun in the tank and watched it sink, listened to the
thunk
when it landed. He replaced the cover thinking of what Jimmy had said. Then Eddie heard Henry's voice in his head.

I gave away the table I made to my partner's old lady
.

Henry Bourque had worked for Jimmy's mother.

His partner's old lady.