Past Due Read Online Free Page B

himself. Son of a bitch, if he just hadn’t of ducked.”
    “What happened to the suitcase?”
    “We was supposed to hand it up to the guy what hired us. But you see all that sitting in front of your face, what are you going to do? We’d been taking all the risks, and all for a measly three hundred each. Shit, Victor. The two of us what had done the thing loaded up our pockets, our crotches, our shirts, just stuffed in as much as we could. We ended with about ten grand apiece and you couldn’t really tell there was nothing missing, it was still that full. Then we locked it up again, and the guy what brought me in, he lugged it away.”
    “Who was he?”
    “Just someone. I don’t want to say. We go back.”
    “To get out of this, you might have to tell his name to the DA.”
    Joey shrugged.
    “And this guy, he lugged the suitcase to where?”
    “Don’t know. That was the job, to take the suitcase and deliver it on up. But the guy I was with said it would have to be buried after what I done with the baseball bat. That was twenty years ago and for twenty years there’s been silence. Until now.”
    I leaned forward. “Tell me.”
    “Last night. Late. They came around asking me about it, demanding answers, wanting to know who else was involved. They knew about the pier, they knew about this Tommy that we offed. And, Victor, they was looking for the suitcase. Two men, a sour face with a Brit accent what did all the talking, and some other, shiny-faced freak who stood stiffly with a cigarette in his fist and said nothing, not a freaking word.”
    “What did you tell them?”
    “Nothing. They wanted the name, too, but I gave them nothing. That’s why I got this decoration round my eye. But I always been stand-up, Victor. You know that.”
    “Sure. Stand-up. So how’d they know about you?”
    “I don’t know. I don’t know. But I’ll tell you this, ever since it happened I ain’t said a word about it to no one. No one, understand?I ain’t like one of those peacocks strutting around, proud of who they offed. It made me sick, the whole thing. I look back, whatever I turned out it wasn’t what I was intending. You think I planned what I became. You think I planned three jolts in the joint. I was young, I didn’t know what I wanted. But after that, I couldn’t want nothing decent, you know? All I was fit for was what I ended up doing, small-time nothings with the occasional spectacular screw-up. But I thought this thing what happened was long over. I thought I was past it. And then, twenty years later they’re looking for the suitcase? What the hell’s that all about, Victor?”
    I didn’t have an answer for him then—my advice had been to make a deal, to give the story and the name of his old pal to the DA, to pay the price and put the thing behind him, a suggestion he said he’d have to think about but that I figured he’d ignore—and I didn’t have an answer for him now, but I would find one, yes I would. On the last day of his life, Joey Parma had given me a sordid piece of his sordid past, and now that his throat had been slashed I couldn’t just give it back.
    Joey Cheaps might have been a sad sack no-account who still owed me my fee, but he was a client. That means something, to be a client. It means he gets my loyalty, whether he deserves it or not. It means he gets my absolute best for the price of an hourly fee. It means in a world where every person has turned against him there is one person who will fight by his side for as long as there is a battle to be fought. And the final battle, far as I could see, was just beginning. So, I couldn’t just ignore what had happened, I couldn’t just ignore that my client was dead, that his killer was free, that his past had risen to swallow him whole. My life was imploding in on itself like the fizzling core of an atomic bomb, but a client was dead and something had to be done. Yes, something would have to be done.
    But first things