Free Hush Money by Max Allan Collins Page B

clams,” Nolan said.
    “I’m laughin’,” the guy said. “I were you, Nolan, I’d shake a fuckin’ leg.”
    “Don’t call me Nolan,” Nolan said.
    “Oh? Why the fuck not?”
    “Because,” Nolan said, “I don’t know you and you don’t know me, and it’s an arrangement that’s worked fine ’til now, so leave it alone.”
    Jon said, “Nolan, I had no idea he works for that Felix character. I mean, the guy broke in the house and came up on me when I was asleep, and I saw his gun and . . .”
    “You did the right thing. It’s just a little surprising Felix would send such low-caliber help around. I didn’t know the Family was hurting so bad.”
    “Hey, Nolan,” the guy said, “tell you what. How ’bout you suck my dick and choke on it?”
    Nolan went over and grabbed the guy’s ear and twisted. “Be polite,” he said.
    “Christ! Awright, awright! Christ almighty, let go my fuckin’ ear! Here on out, I’m Emily fuckin’ Post!”
    “Okay,” Nolan said and let go of the ear.
    The guy sat with one hand on his ear and the other covering his nose and eyes with Kleenex; if he’d had another hand to cover his mouth, he could’ve been all three monkeys.
    Nolan reached over and picked the phone off the coffee table and tossed it on the guy’s lap.
    “Make a call,” Nolan said. “I want to talk to Felix.”
    “Call him yourself, motherfucker!”
    “I thought I told you to be polite.”
    “Okay, okay! Shit. Jesus.” The guy stopped to look at lie Kleenex and decided his nose was no longer bleeding. He composed himself. He dialed the phone and when he got the desk clerk he asked for Felix’s room.
    “This is Cotter,” the guy said. “Well, I’m here with Nolan now is where I am. . . . Yeah, at the antique shop. . . . Well, I had a little trouble. . . . No, just a little trouble. I guess you might say I didn’t handle this the best I could. . . . Yeah, I guess you could say that too. Look, Nolan wants to talk to you.” Cotter covered the mouthpiece and said, “Hey, I was supposed to bring you out to see him right away, and now I’m calling up and you’re wanting to talk to him and it’s making me look bad. Give me a goddamn break and don’t go into the, you know, little hassles we been havin’. I mean I come out on the shitty end of the stick anyway, right? A fuckin’ half-hour nosebleed, you twistin’ my fuckin’ ear off my head, and I’m sittin’ here with my balls needin’ a fuckin’ ice pack or something, so give me a goddamn break, what do you say?”
    “Sure,” Nolan said and took the phone.
    “Nolan?” Felix said. “What’s going on there?”
    “Hello, Felix,” Nolan said. “Say, are you missing an incompetent asshole? One turned up here.”
    “Nolan, I apologize,” Felix said. “I don’t know what’s been happening there, but you have my apologies. This was a rather hastily contrived affair and I regret its being so rough around the edges.”
    “What the hell’s that supposed to mean, Felix?”
    “I have a room here at the motel, Nolan. This is a very important matter I’ve come to discuss with you, a matter of utmost urgency. Can you come out here straight away so we can put our heads together?”
    “Well, I tell you, Felix. We put our heads together maybe four or five times so far this year and each time it’s in a motel room. Every damn time I see you it’s in a motel room. I start to feeling like some cheap whore meeting a businessman on his lunch hour.”
    Felix laughed at that, trying to keep the laugh from sounding nervous, and came back jokingly, “Now how can you compare yourself to a whore, Nolan, with the kind of money you make?”
    “Call girl, then. What’s in a name? Either way you get screwed.”
    “Nolan . . .”
    One nice thing about Felix was that he was afraid of Nolan. Nolan had learned early on that intimidation was his most effective means of dealing with Felix, which was one of the big advantages of going through a