Killing Is My Business Read online

  I followed him. We went down the stairs and across the checkerboard tiles and then outside. We got into his car. It was on the small side for me, even with the lid down. But I got in all the same and Alfie made a big show of sliding out of the driveway and spitting gravel all the way. Then we hit the main road and drove out through the hills and down into Hollywood. Alfie kept his cigarette lit despite the wind in his face. He was having a whale of a time too, the way he was grinning and the way he kept pressing his foot steadily harder on the accelerator.

  “You like driving, then?” I asked.

  Alfie nodded. “Nothing beats it, Charlie. They don’t have roads like this back home. They’ve all run out. No cars like this one either.”

  “It’s a little faster than my Buick,” I said.

  Alfie laughed. “I’ll bet.” He patted the wheel. “Shelby Cobra, ’65. Bought it secondhand from a little dolly bird, the name of West. Hey, she was a private eye like you! But she was moving to New York. Perhaps she’d had enough of all this sunshine. Or maybe she was looking for alternative options like you, eh?”

  I frowned on the inside. “I’m sure,” I said.

  We kept driving and Alfie didn’t speak again until we pulled up at an angle outside a store called Jerome’s. He didn’t actually speak then either, he just got out of the car and I followed and then when he held the door of the store for me he said “Hop along, Charlie, hop along,” before throwing his cigarette onto the sidewalk.

  An hour later we were heading back to Falzarano’s and I was wrapped in a new suit that was a dark blue. Underneath the suit I had a shirt that was purple and came with a tie that was made of the same fabric dyed the same color. On top of the suit I had a short black trench coat that was the same as Alfie’s, just a few sizes larger. My brown fedora had been replaced by a number that was identical except it was made of dark-green rabbit felt.

  I was starting to like Alfie a little more, even though I noticed he didn’t wear a hat. He’d spent a lot of time looking at them in Jerome’s with a store attendant at his elbow and I could see on his face there was a genuine curiosity there, but then I could also see that he didn’t want to do anything to disturb his hairdo.

  I didn’t have that problem.

  Alfie paid for everything with fresh bills that came off a tight roll of cash and when we pulled back around the fountain outside Falzarano’s castle there was a man wearing sunglasses and carrying a rifle waiting for us. He nodded at Alfie and did his very best to ignore me completely. He jerked his thumb over his shoulder.

  “Boss is looking for you,” he said.

  “Ta, mate,” said Alfie. He got out of the car and skipped up the steps into the house. I followed a good deal slower and when I passed the man with the rifle he looked anywhere that wasn’t in my direction.

  That was more like it. I was in a new suit and coat and I had a new hat and I was feeling better about the job already.

  17

  Falzarano was sitting behind the desk in his study. He wasn’t alone. The two seats in front of him were occupied by two men. They sat with their legs crossed in a mirror image of each other. One man had his hands steepled in front of him, his elbows balanced on the arms of the chair, while the other was doing a fine imitation of the boss by gripping the arms like the easy chair was about to be launched like a roller coaster.

  The man with the steepled hands glanced over his shoulder at me and Alfie as we walked in and then he snapped his head back around in Falzarano’s direction almost as quick. The other man didn’t do anything in particular.

  I didn’t know who either of them was, but the house was full of a lot of people I didn’t know. In fact, I had only been introduced to the boss and his lady and Alfie so far and the only other name I knew was Stefano and I knew I wouldn’t be seeing him again anytime soon.

  I glanced at the carpet by the desk. It was clean but there was a damp patch. Someone had scrubbed up the mess Alfie had left.

  “Ray, Ray, Alfie, Alfie, so glad to see my boys again,” said Falzarano. We stopped in between the two chairs and I got a good look at the two men sitting down. The one with steepled fingers had a faint tang of alcohol floating around him. He was balding and he had a line of close-cropped brown hair that did one half orbit around the sides of his skull and in the front he had soft, round features and nothing in particular to distinguish himself.

  That didn’t stop my circuits buzzing as I looked at him.

  And then that feeling was gone.

  The other guy had short brown hair brushed forward neatly, the furrows left by his comb as deep as a ploughed field. He had a moustache that was trimmed to geometric perfection and he wore glasses with tortoiseshell frames that were a good deal lighter in weight than the apparatus on Alfie’s face. He was a pipe smoker and he held a pipe that was short and straight in the corner of his mouth. It looked like it hadn’t been lit in a while.

  Falzarano nodded at the two men then gestured with both arms stretched across his desk. “Gentlemen, gentlemen, thank you, we will resume our conference later,” he said, and then he turned his attention to the cigar box on the desk.

  The two men nodded then stood. The man with the round face slipped around his chair and headed out of the office with his head ducked down and his tie loose around his neck. The other guy stood there a moment, the bowl of his pipe cupped in one hand like he wasn’t sure his teeth could hold onto it properly. He looked at me, didn’t say a word, then left. I watched him go and I watched him close the door behind him.

  “Ray, Alfie, please, please,” said Falzarano.

  Alfie took the invitation and sat down. “Thank you, Mr. Falzarano, sir, thank you.”

  The leather creaked underneath him. I stood until Falzarano waved again and then I sat in the other chair. The leather creaked underneath me a great deal more.

  “I see Alfie has been looking after you, Ray, my son, ah, ah, ah?” Falzarano smiled and clipped the end of his new cigar.

  Alfie grinned and pulled his packet of cigarettes out and then pulled a new one out with his teeth.

  Nobody offered me anything to smoke. I wondered whether I should short a circuit or two behind my faceplate just for effect.

  “Yeah, took him down to old Jerome’s,” said Alfie. “I’ll tell you what, Mr. Falzarano, sir, he got looked after there, I tell you, he got looked after. Lovely chap, that Mr. Humphries. Knows a thing or two, know what I mean, eh?”

  Falzarano clapped his hands and laughed. “Excellent, excellent. Now—”

  He paused, patting his jacket. He was looking for matches.

  I slid to the edge of my seat and I slid a hand forward toward the boss, holding my fingers like I was going to click them. When I was in touching distance of the end of his cigar I upped the voltage and shortened the resistance, the result of which was a blue electric spark that danced on my fingertips. It caught the cigar immediately and Falzarano sucked hard to get the flame going. Then I sat back and he sat back and he laughed around the cigar while his hooded eyes went as wide as they ever had, which is to say not very.

  “Ah, I knew I liked you, I knew I liked you,” he said. He pulled the cigar out and looked at the end of it like he’d never seen a cigar lit before.

  “Yeah, lovely, wonderful, you’re a doll, doll,” said Alfie. I turned to look at him and found him lighting his own cigarette with a silver lighter and frowning at the same time. Somebody didn’t like the attention being off him.

  I sat back in my chair. Alfie pocketed the lighter. Then he reached over to my seat and slapped me on the chest with the back of his hand. He seemed to like doing that. His frown went and was replaced by a laugh which I wasn’t sure was genuine. Then he sat back again.

  I looked at the boss and got down to business. “You wanted to see us, Mr. Falzarano.”

  The boss nodded and pulled himself a little straighter in his chair. “I did, Ray. Now, listen, the pair of you. I have a job for you. Something easy, just to get you involved in the busine
ss, right, right?”

  I nodded. “Sounds fine. I’m sure Alfie can show me the ropes.”

  Alfie nodded and smoked and lounged in his chair like he was relaxing at his favorite gentlemen’s club. He made his favorite clicking noise with his tongue again, like he was trying to talk to a horse.

  “Good, good,” said Falzarano. “Now, the job, it’s easy. I want you to go visit someone.”

  Alfie blew smoke towards the low ceiling. “That we can do, sir. Who are we going around to see then?”

  Falzarano leaned over the desk, pulling a small notepad toward him with his left hand while extracting a gold pen from his inside pocket with the right. He scribbled on the paper, tore the sheet off, then returned the pad and the pen to where they had been before folding the note in half and handing it across to Alfie.

  “Coke Patterson,” he said. “An old friend.”

  Alfie pocketed the note. “Righto, guvnor. You want him, you know…?” Then he made a squelching sound with his tongue against the inside of his cheek and this was accompanied by a stabbing motion, in and out, with his free hand.

  Falzarano shook his head. “No, you don’t need to go that far, Alfie. All I want you to do is deliver a message. One that he won’t forget anytime soon, if you know what I mean.” He slumped back in his chair again and shrugged. “Whether he can walk or sign his own name after you leave, that’s up to you. Use your initiative, okay, right? But he needs to get the message. Okay? Okay?”

  Alfie nodded. I glanced at him and then at the boss. I said, “okay,” and Falzarano nodded at me and then he nodded at his cigar, like it was part of the family too.

  Alfie came to the end of his smoke and he sat there rotating the last remnants of the thing for fifteen and a half seconds before holding up the spent end. Falzarano grunted and slid a crystal ashtray along the top of his desk like he was serving a drink in the Old West.

  “When’s kickoff, then?” Alfie asked.

  “That I leave to you,” said Falzarano, “but I want him to remember your visit, and remember it well, so perhaps very late or very early. Sometime before the dawn, maybe. Use your initiative, okay? Initiative. I need the members of my family to be able to do the tasks asked of them on their own, with only a guiding hand here or there, okay? Okay?”

  Falzarano demonstrated this by holding his palms in close parallel over the desk and angling them this way and that like he was shepherding carp in a pond. While he did this I realized he was looking at me.

  I was the new boy, after all. I nodded.

  Falzarano slumped back in his chair. “Good, excellent, excellent,” he said and he slapped the desk with his fat hands again. “I know this job is in good hands. You just come back and you tell Papa how it went, okay? Okay.”

  Then he returned his cigar to his jaw and he grinned around the smoke.

  Alfie stood first, said, “Thank you, Mr. Falzarano, sir, we won’t let you down, now, sir.” He almost bowed as he spoke and then he gave me a nod and curled around his seat.

  I lifted myself out, knocked the edge of my new hat with a metal knuckle, and followed Alfie out. Once the doors were closed and we were alone in the corridor we stood together for a while, Alfie watching the empty passageway with a frown while he patted the front of his jacket with increasing urgency.

  “Something wrong?”

  “Eh?” Alfie jerked his head like he didn’t know I was standing right next to him. “Oh, no, no,” he said. “No, the job’s a good one. Easy money, as they say. No, we’re good, we’re good. Peachy in fact. Ah!”

  His hand dived behind his lapel and returned to view clutching a packet of cigarettes. Alfie selected one of the smokes and placed the filter between his lips, gazing down the corridor as he did so with narrow eyes shining behind his thick glasses.

  I glanced down the hall to see what was so concerning, but there was nothing for Alfie to be looking at in particular, unless he’d taken a dislike to Carmina’s taste in decor. A carpet like the one we were slowly sinking into, I couldn’t blame him.

  “Okay,” I said. I checked my clock. It was heading toward six. We didn’t have anything to do until dawn, which meant I had time to have a look around the house and then get back to the office and make my report to Ada before coming back to meet Alfie for the job. The timing couldn’t have been better.

  But Alfie still hadn’t moved. I looked at the cigarette in his mouth. Alfie was frowning so hard I thought he was trying to light the thing through sheer force of will.

  “So everything’s ‘peachy,’” I said.

  “Yep, Charlie, just peachy,” said Alfie. He took the cigarette out of his mouth and then put it back in one smooth motion. “Except I was just wondering, that’s all.”

  “Wondering about what?”

  “The job.”

  “I thought the job was peachy?”

  “It is, but them two blokes what the boss was talking to just now, when we came in.” Alfie turned back to the doors and pointed at them to make sure I knew which room we had just been in.

  I paused. I brought images of the pair back in front of my optics. I looked the man with the soft features over and then I looked at the man with the pipe. “What about them?” I asked.

  “Well … nah, it’s just Mr. Falzarano, right? You know what they say.”

  “I’m afraid you’re going to have to tell me.”

  “Keep your mates close, but keep your villains closer.” Alfie laughed and then the laugh died in his throat and he went back to staring down the passageway.

  “You know them?” I asked. I studied the images inside my head. Balding man, soft face, nervous. The pipe smoker, moustache and hair that took some work. I picked the balding man to start. I wasn’t sure why I fixed on him first but it was something to do with the way my circuits buzzed again when I looked at his picture, like part of me was trying to get the other part of me to remember something important, something that I had known once but didn’t know anymore.

  “The bald guy,” I asked, “you know him?”

  “Eh? Oh.” Alfie shrugged. “No,” he said. “But I know what car he drives.”

  I shrugged. “Okay.”

  “Yeah, a lovely number. Reminds me of home.”

  “Do tell.”

  Alfie moved his hands in the air like he was sculpting a woman out of clay. “Ooh, lovely number. Jaguar E-type, British racing green. Import from the old country, right-hand drive. Lovely thing. Lovely.”

  Something about a green Jaguar E-type made those circuits buzz a great deal more. I had a feeling the bald man with the green car was going to feature front and center in my report to Ada.

  “And he worries you?” I asked.

  “Oh no, no,” said Alfie. “No, not him. The other fella. The one with the pipe.”

  Pipe. Hair. Moustache. A mean look, but that might have been my imagination running away with me.

  “Okay, so you know who he is?”

  Alfie patted his pockets again, then stopped and turned toward me, angling his neck out like he was looking for a kiss. “Here, be a doll, doll.”

  I frowned on the inside and lifted my fingers to the end of his cigarette. One blue spark later and Alfie was inhaling smoke so hard his cheeks collapsed right into his face. Then he blew smoke at the ceiling and pointed to the doors of Falzarano’s office with his cigarette.

  “That bloke with the pipe,” said Alfie, “Pretty sure his name is Coke Patterson.”

  “That was Coke Patterson?”

  Alfie shrugged. “Think so. Guess we’ll find out later, eh?” Then he laughed and slapped my chest again. “Anyway, see ya later, skipper. I’m going to see if I can find meself a bloody cup of tea in this shop.” He glanced at his watch. “Meet you in the main hall at, ooh—”

  “Four a.m.?”

  Alfie grinned. “I like it. Initiative, eh? Initiative. I tell ya, the boss is going to like you. I’ve got a feeling about it.”

  Then he set sail across the ocean of carpet and I wai
ted for him to pass out of sight before I headed up to my room, all the while thinking of Jaguars in British racing green and small men with round features that were anything but memorable and what Coke Patterson might have done to incur the displeasure of Zeus Falzarano.

  18

  If the house was quiet during the day, the thick walls and thick carpet and nothing inside but the slow tick of clocks and the slow footsteps of guards patrolling the carpet and nothing outside drifting in except the faint bark of guard dogs, then at night the house was positively silent.

  I spent the early part of the evening looking out of the window of my room, but not at the view, although I might have taken a glance or two in the direction of the stand of pines and the hills beyond now and again. It was a nice view after all.

  I had time to kill and a plan to hatch, and that plan had two simple parts.

  Part the first, look around the house for whatever it was that our client was interested in. I had to admit that the nonspecific nature of this search annoyed the hell out of me, but I also knew I had to trust in Professor Thornton and the detective skills he and his team programmed me with. I didn’t know what I was looking for, but I just had to hope I’d know what it was when I found it.

  Part the second, get back to the office so I could report to Ada and get some shut-eye before heading back to work. This was the hard part, and this is why I spent so long looking out of the window. I didn’t exactly need to make my coming and going any kind of secret—I wasn’t a prisoner, I was an employee, apparently—but nor did I want to draw too much attention to it. Especially given the hours I intended to operate in.

  So I stood by the window and I looked out of it. What I was mainly watching was the guard patrols, because these were the men who would see me come and go. That, I wanted to minimize.

  So I watched.

  From my vantage point I could see several riflemen walking around on the big lawn and several more were down on the path on the other side of the low wall beyond the shrubbery. I learned to tell those guards apart by their hats. The ones on the lawn seemed friendly with each other. Occasionally they would meet and shoot the breeze, figuratively speaking, taking off their hats and wiping their necks with handkerchiefs and occasionally some of the dog handlers would swing by and they’d all have a big old union meeting in the middle of the lawn.