The Last Call by George Wier

Author:George Wier
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Mystery, Noir, Action & Adventure, Series, Hard-Boiled, Thriller & Suspense, Adventure, action, Crime, Thriller, Literature & Fiction
Publisher: Flagstone Books
Published: 2014-01-10T06:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

I’d learned a long time ago that the only way to head off trouble was to face it head on. Doing anything else only tends to stack it up deeper further down the road. So, I was hoping that my little call to Pat Kinsey would be worth something later on. Also, I was hoping beyond hope that Julie would get something out of what I was doing. She’d been running for some time, it appeared, probably mostly from herself. Maybe I was just kidding myself, but what I was wishing for most of all was that she’d begin to face up to whatever she had done.

Me, I’m no saint. I’m basically lazy, and I’ve found it far simpler to get along in life by looking, confronting, and stopping the stone before it gets too much inertia going down that long hill. Sometimes, if you wait too long before trying to stop it gets you nothing but flattened by it.

Julie sat next to me on the couch while I dialed Archie Carpin’s number.

“Do you want to talk to him first?” I asked her.

She shook her head.

I got a ring.

“Start talking,” the voice said. It was a masculine voice.

“If this is Archie, Julie wants to talk to you,” I said.

There was a long silence. I could almost hear the gears turning.

“I don’t care much for talk,” he said.

“I can understand that,” I said. “But the fact remains that talking is better than shooting.”

“Who says?”

“Marshall Dillon, for one. The word we’re looking for here is negotiation, I think.”

“Well,” he said. “Really, I ought to kiss her. She killed my number one competitor. Nobody else was brave enough to do that.”

“Are you talking about Mr. Neil? Your horse-racing competitor?”

“The one and only.”

It was my turn for silence. I looked at Julie. She was petting Dingo. Also, she was biting her lower lip.

“How did he die?” I asked.

“Somebody put a very large caliber bullet through his neck. Like to have cut his head off.”

“Well damn,” I said.

“That’s ancient history. What I want to know is where she put it.”

“I thought he died last week,” I said.

“Last week and a million years ago are about the same. Dead is dead. I repeat: so where did she put it?”

“Put what?” For a moment my question was sincere. I had forgotten about the money. Then I got the picture in my head: the close lightning and the fat drops of rain and the grating metal-on-metal sound of the vent cover opening and two million sliding down into oblivion.

“Don’t be an idiot,” he said. “I want that money.”

“Oh... That money. Well. That’s also why I’m calling. To open negotiations.”

“I won’t negotiate,” Carpin said.

“That’s what Julie said. But people can change, Archie,” I said.

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“I’m talking about a deal,” I said.

I noticed Hank looking at me rather studiously. He nodded his head “no”.

“The money first, then we talk,” Carpin said.

“No way,” I said. I didn’t have to hesitate.

“I know she stashed it somewhere,” he said.

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