Seven Silent Men (11 page)

“Jesus, look at that,” the pilot said, staring down through his side window.

The two men behind him said nothing, continued unscrewing the side bolts of a metal refrigerator locker.

“The city looks like a huge blinking checkerboard,” the pilot continued. “A checkerboard run amok.” He glanced back at the pair of men kneeling over the locker. “You oughta see.”

“You see for us, friend,” the shorter man said. “You keep your eyes straight ahead or down on the city … but
not
back here.”

“Sure thing.” The pilot turned back to the controls. He hadn't liked his two passengers from the moment he picked them up, and their big metal locker, in East St. Louis an hour and a half before. They sure as hell weren't from East St. Louis or anywhere in the Midwest. They were too close-mouthed, too well dressed, too hard to pin down to suit him. He couldn't be sure if they were mob guys or big business guys or CIA. He'd flown all of them in his day and could usually sense who was who, sooner or later. But these two on board now eluded him. Ah, what the hell, he told himself, Lieutenant Jake Oferly of the Chicago PD had asked him to take the job, so how bad could the pair be?… anyway, when you fly charter in and around Chicago it's smart to stay on good terms with Jake. And they did pay in advance, $1,400 on the spot. Why worry?

“Lose altitude,” the short man ordered.

The plane dove and leveled off. The two men slid the heavy lead lid from the locker … lifted and lay on the cabin floor a hermetically sealed plastic body bag … unzipped the bag. The corpse of Teddy Anglaterra lay exposed. A naked cadaver that the two men began dressing in a light green initialed work shirt, a dark green tie, dark gray slacks and a dark gray suit jacket. Once the body was dressed, the shorter man moved forward to make sure the pilot continued looking ahead. The taller man strapped a broken watch to the corpse's wrist, draped a silver crucifix around the discolored neck. A battered wallet without identification went into the rear pocket of the trousers. Keys and change and sixteen dollars in waterlogged bills slid into a side pocket.

“You're still too high.” The short man was standing directly behind the pilot.

“If I go any lower we can't glide.” The pilot indicated below. “Is that the spot you want?”

The short man looked down through the window and told him it was.

The Cessna 210 flew due north and made a wide, one-hundred-and-eighty-degree turn and started back down over the river, flew at wingtip past Warbonnet Ridge and on down over the Treachery and palisade-top construction sites for the Grange Association and Prairie Farmer Association and River Rise Realty Corporation, on beyond Mormon State National Bank and Lookout Bluff and Hennings Wharf.

“We're here,” the pilot said.

The tall man jerked up and opened the trapdoor in the cabin floor, pushed the corpse through, hung his own head down and out and watched Teddy Anglaterra splash into the Mississippi River at a spot not far from where the body of a lunatic lady had been retrieved by helicopter two days earlier.

“So there the danged boys are, Ed Grafton and Cub Hennessy, hunkering over the office desk and sniffing away like they can't tell something dead from something hissing.” Billy Yates, his face lathered with aerosol soap, spoke into the motel suite's bathroom mirror as he stood in neatly ironed pajama bottoms shaving with a straight blade. “They were telling the rest of us what happened at the hospital with Brewmeister. Telling, hell, they were putting on a full production. Partying too. They brought a half case of white lightning in with them. I mean, real mountain moonshine. The kind that peels paint off fenders. And they'd been drinking pretty fierce before they came barging into the office. I didn't know what to expect. It was old hat to the other agents. Most of 'em ate it up. A few didn't. There're some real tight butts up there.

“So anyway, Ed Grafton and Cub Hennessy are telling us about talking to Martin Brewmeister and the Brass Balls. Brass Balls is what they call anything from Washington, D.C., around here. They don't say SOG or Seat of Government or Headquarters or even Washington if they can help it. Everything's Brass Balls or Brass-Balled Monkeys to them.”

A long and languid “Ohhh” emanated from the dark bedroom beyond the open door.

“Actually, it's Ed Grafton who's telling what went on,” Yates amended. “Cub Hennessy's passing around white lightning. Right in the middle of a sentence, Ed Grafton stops talking and gets this expression on his face and hunkers over and starts sniffing. Sniffing and sniffing all around. Cub Hennessy hunkers and starts sniffing too. They sniff and sniff, the two of them. Ed Grafton makes like a hunting hound, leaps up on top of a desk and gets on all fours, points his nose at the conference room door and lifts his hind leg and freezes. Cub Hennessy, he starts in howling at the moon. Then they both take out these toy pistols, these cap guns, and they sneak up on the door. Whammo, they pull open the door and guess what bursts out, Tina Beth!”

“… What bursts out?” Yates's wife, Tina Beth, asked from the unlighted bedroom.

“Happy de Camp does.”

“Who?”

“Happy de Camp. He's the agent whose son burned his draft card.”

“Ohhh.”

“And guess what Happy's wearing, Tina Beth? Nothing! He's bare-bottom naked 'cepting for a pinstripe jacket and a one-dollar bill tied around his you-know-what. Happy bursts out and goes racing round the office letting out these war whoops with Ed Grafton and Cub Hennessy snapping caps at his naked behind.”

Yates grinned off into the darkness of the bedroom. “Remind you of anything, Tina Beth?”

“Shush up, naughty boy.”

Shaving resumed. “Then Ed Grafton stands on another desk and proposes a toast to Denis Corticun and Harlon Quinton. They're the two Brass Balls up in Martin Brewmeister's hospital room who thought the bank robbery was the crime of the century. Pretty soon everybody starts in toasting everything and even the tight-butt agents are a little loaded and having a good time. It was crazy up there, Tina Beth, and getting crazier. Only around here they like to say looney-toon for crazy.

“They're drinking white lightning and warning Ed Grafton he better shag out if he's going to catch the evening plane back to Montana. Ed Grafton's enjoying the toasting too much to leave. They're toasting some things two or three times. Toasting Denis Corticun and Harlon Quinton and all the Brass Balls at headquarters. Toasting Frank Santi, the chief of police, and all the Prairie Port cops who went chasing the bank robbers. Toasting the bank's alarm system which said the crooks were trapped in the vault. Most of all, they're toasting the crooks themselves, who went to all that trouble to make so little money.

“The scuffle kinda started when they toasted going over to the assistant U.S. attorney's office and getting jurisdiction to investigate the robbery. Somebody or other said the assistant U.S. attorney never did catch the softball when the lights went out the other night. I don't know what the hell they were talking about, Tina Beth, but Cub Hennessy got good and mad about it. Someone was accusing the assistant U.S. attorney of dropping a softball in the dark and finding it on the ground and holding it up when the lights came on, saying he caught it all the time. Cub Hennessy said the assistant U.S. attorney was the only public official he knew who never lied and that if he said he caught it in the dark, he sure t'hell caught it in the dark. Arguing turned to shoving, and that's when Ed Grafton announced he's got to go catch the plane for Montana. He put an arm around the agent who was arguing against the ball getting caught in the dark, Lester Kebbon, and says, ‘Come on, you're driving me to the airport.'

“They leave and somebody or other grabs for the one-dollar bill on Happy. Happy de Camp's still only wearing a pinstripe jacket and the one-dollar bill around his you-know-what. Remember where I told you the dollar was wrapped around, Tina Beth?”

“Billy Bee, does this story have an end?” asked the voice in the dark.

“Sure does, hon. What happens when one agent grabs is that other agents start grabbing too. They're chasing Happy de Camp around the office giddy as schoolboys. Happy starts grabbing back on the run. Pretty soon everybody's grabbing at everybody and laughing and scrambling and, whammo, they end up in one big pile on top of Happy de Camp. And whammo again, guess who walks in, Tina Beth?”

“You're treating me like a little kid again,” Tina Beth said in the darkness.

“'Course I'm not.”

“Y'are so. You go on stopping and asking me questions like I was a little kid taking a test.”

“Tina Beth, that's my way of telling things. Always has been, you know that.”

Hearing no further objection, Yates turned back to the mirror, tilted up his head, began to slice away foam from beneath his chin. “Right in the middle of everything, Denis Corticun walks into the office.”

“Who?”

Billy Yates glanced off through the door. A giggle rose in the darkness.

More under-chin foam was cut away. “… Denis Corticun was the Brass-Balled Monkey talking to Brewmeister. The one they were toasting. The pinstripe guy I told you about earlier. Don't you see, it's his pinstripe jacket Happy de Camp has on. Happy de Camp and Jez Jessup snuck into Denis Corticun's hotel room and lifted his pinstripe jacket.

“Tina Beth, you cannot believe the expression on Denis Corticun's face when he walked into that office. I mean, he was ash-white horrified. And he hadn't even spotted Happy de Camp yet. Happy was buried under a pile of agents. All Denis Corticun saw was a white-lightning free-for-all. Corticun's got this habit of clearing his throat, and he did so loudly to get attention, only it didn't get anybody's attention. He had to call for attention like a drill sergeant. Had to call a couple of times. When everyone quieted down, he said someone had broken into his hotel room and stolen his jacket and he wanted to know what the best procedure was for reporting the loss to the police … whether he should do it through our office or call the police directly.

“… Which is when he saw Happy de Camp. The pile got off Happy, and Happy stood up wearing Denis Corticun's pinstripe jacket and nothing else but the one-dollar bill. Corticun was speechless. He pointed a finger and damn near choked before he could finally shout, ‘That man doesn't have his pants on!' Faster than you can blink an eye, every agent in the place dropped his pants and was asking, ‘Which man?' Poor old Preston Lyle forgot he had on these panties. Little teeny underpants that look like girls' panties, only they're not. They're manufactured for men. You could have fooled me they're manufactured for men. Once the other agents see them, they start chasing Pres like they were chasing Happy earlier. Chasing and shouting, ‘Panty raid, panty raid.' It was a sight, Tina Beth, a sight indeed.”

“Preston Lyle? He the one married to the redhead?”

“Uh-uh. That's Butch Cody. Butch is thirtyish. Pres is more our age … twenty-six or twenty-seven.”

“Twenty-six or twenty-seven! Billy Butler Yates, you maybe can flimflam the riffraff with talk like that, but
I'm
nineteen. Twenty comes December. I'll have it no other way. You go and be whatever you want. Only jest leave me home, hear?”

Yates grinned a feeble grin reserved for those ever-increasing moments when he wasn't sure if Tina Beth was truly offended or faking. As usual, he traveled the road of least peril. ‘You're nineteen, and what say I promise to stop kidding about age?”

No response came from the blackness beyond the door. “All kidding stops,” Yates declared, “and I'll settle in at a firm twenty-eight?”

“You won't be twenty-eight come November,” stated Tina Beth. “Why do you make everything older?” She began to cry, loudly.

Yates put down the straight razor and hurried across the bedroom.

“Tina Beth,” he said, dropping to a knee beside the bed on which the cross-shadowed silhouette of a shorty-clad young woman lay facedown atop the sheets. “The last thing I want to do in this life of ours is make anything older, specially you and me.”

She buried her head deeper under her arms.

“Hear what I'm telling, Tina Beth?”

“Stop lookin' at my bottom,” came her tearful demand.

“Honey, I'm not looking at your bottom,” he lied.

“Yer always lookin' at my bottom,” she said. “Every time you squinch down like that, it's to see my bottom close. That's all I am to you, a bottom—”

“That's a pernicious lie.” He rose and sat on the bed, bent over her. “It's the top I love, not the bottom.”

“Stop drippin' shavin' soap on my back.” She threw a hand blindly up behind her to fend him off. “You're always
drippin
' on me.”

“Shows to go how all wet I am.”

“… Stop tryin' to make me laugh.”

“Shows to go what a big drip I am.”

Tina Beth rolled over, sat up abruptly and crossed her arms. “I'm no dopey-dope. I read three books a week and coulda even finished college if I had a mind to. 'Stead I married you, unfortunate to say. You never talk to me like I coulda finished anything, college included.”

“Sure I do.”

“Show me one ferinstance. Tell me in plain old unsyrupy words when you ever once treated me like I coulda finished college.”

Yates gambled on repentance. “I see your point, Tina Beth. I'm ashamed and I apologize. If fences could be mended, how would you like me to talk to you?”

“Shorter. You go on and on like some whiskery old guide in museums. You tell me all them tiny details like who's wearing one-dollar bills and who isn't—”

“A man in my job's no better than what he sees and remembers, Tina Beth.”

“Then remember it for yerself and don't repeat it a hundred times. You know how many times you told me Mr. Grafton sniffed and sniffed? You told me and
told
me. Once woulda done.”