Raising a hand like a traffic cop, Mr. Happer leans forward to pay close attention to the scene on his TV. Gordon doesn’t have to look to know what’s on the screen. It’s Peter Ustinov again and that damn movie Mr. Happer watches over and over. By the sound of it, Ustinov and David Niven are slowly working their way through the murder on the riverboat. What was the name of that French detective Ustinov plays? Hercules something-or-another.
Mr. Happer suddenly turns his deep-set black eyes to Gordon.
Pushing seventy, Mr. Happer is a skeleton of a man with razor-sharp cheekbones, sunken cheeks, and arms that always remind Gordon of the films of those refugees from Dachau. Mr. Happer reaches with his left hand for the envelope on his desk, picks it up with his spider’s fingers, and opens it.
“That’s all Smutt had on him,” Gordon volunteers.
Mr. Happer nods and says, “Four hundred?” He focuses those black eyes on Gordon and says, “What about the twenty grand from the Fairgrounds.”
Gordon is careful as he looks back into the man’s eyes. He shrugs. “He said he had other bills to pay.”
“Before me?”
“That’s what I said to him.”
“So?”
“So I took care of him. Tossed the room and that’s it.”
Mr. Happer shakes his head. Gordon watches him and remembers the man’s name isn’t Happer either. The old bastard was born Sam Gallizzio and tried for most of his life to become a made man, working at the periphery of La Cosa Nostra. Trying to be a goomba, Happer failed. He did, however, manage to remain alive, which isn’t easy for an Italian gangster who’s not LCN, even if he’s only a semi-gangster.
Shoving the envelope into a drawer, Mr. Happer pulls out another envelope, which he slides across the desk to Gordon.
Gordon picks it up and slips it into his coat pocket. He doesn’t have to count it. He knows there’s a thousand in there — the old bastard’s cut-rate hit fee.
Mr. Happer picks up a stogie from an overflowing ashtray and slicks it in his mouth. He sucks on it and its tip glows red. He shakes his head again.
“It’s worth it,” Mr. Happer says, as if he needs convincing. “The word’ll get out. Make it easier later on. That’s what the big boys do.”
Gordon nods.
“He woulda never come up with the fifteen,” Mr. Happer says, and Gordon wonders if the old man is baiting him. “He woulda never paid me.”
Fanning away the smoke from between them, Mr. Happer says, “You sure you tossed the place right, huh? You weren’t in no hurry.”
“No hurry at all.” Gordon feels the old man squeezing him.
Mr. Happer raises a hand suddenly, leans to the side to catch something Ustinov says. He nods, as if he’s approving, then props his elbows on the desk. He looks at Gordon.
“You sure?” And there it is. The question.
“I’m sure, Mr. Happer.” Gordon likes the way his voice is deep and smooth.
“I gotta ask you straight up, you know that, don’t you?” The old coot’s face is expressionless.
Deny. Deny. Deny. Gordon doesn’t even blink. He feels good.
Finally, the old man blinks and Gordon says, “Mr. Happer. I’ve always been straight with you. You know that.”
Mr. Happer waves his hand again as he falls back in his chair.
“Son of a bitch dumped the money awfully fast.” Mr. Happer looks again at the TV.
Gordon stops himself from reminding the old bastard that their agreement was simple. Find Smutt, get as much as you can from him, then whack him and leave him where he’ll be found. He did his job. A contract is a contract.
Gordon waits. He wants to say, “Well, if that’s all—” but knows better. He waits for Mr. Happer to dismiss him.
The old man turns around and looks at the windows that face the river. He takes another puff of his cigar, lets out a long trail of smoke, and then says, “That’s what I get for dealing with bums like Smutt. At least he got his.”
Turning to Gordon, the old man smiles, and it sends a chill up Gordon’s back.
“I was thinking of asking you if you happen to know where Smutt used to hang out. Maybe he had another place. But the money’s long gone.”
When the old man looks back at his TV, Gordon casually looks at the windows. A gunshot rings out and excited voices, including Ustinov’s, rise on the TV. Gordon waits.
Finally, after the commotion on the riverboat calms down, Mr. Happer looks at Gordon and says, “I know where to get you.”
Gordon stands and nods at the old man and leaves, Mr. Happer’s dismissal echoing in his mind. He knows where to get me. Goodbye and hello at the same time.
Stepping out into the sunlight again, Gordon squints and stretches, then walks down the stairs. He looks at the brown, swirling river water and laughs to himself. Ustinov is still on the river-boat, floating on his own brown water, trying to solve the murder with Mr. Happer watching intently. It strikes Gordon as very, very funny.
Before pulling away in his Caddy, he slips on his sunglasses and looks around. He spots the tail two minutes later, a black Chevy.
Gordon Urquhart’s bedroom smells of cheap aftershave and faintly of mildew. Waiting in the darkness, Stella Dauphine sits on Gordon’s double bed, her .22 Beretta next to her hand.
She wears a lightweight tan trench coat and matching tan high heels, a pair of skin-tight gloves on her hands. A young-looking thirty, Stella has curly hair that touches her shoulders. For a thin woman, she’s buxom, which made her popular in high school but proved a hindrance in the mundane office jobs she held throughout her twenties.
Beneath the trench coat, she wears nothing except a pair of Barely There sheer, thigh-high stockings. She runs a hand over her knee and up to the top of her left thigh-high, pulling it up a little as she waits.
Closing her eyes, she listens intently.
She didn’t used to be Stella Dauphine. Born Carla Stellos, she changed her name after a year in New Orleans. After seeing a late-night movie on TV — A Streetcar Named Desire — and after parking her car on Dauphine Street, she decided on the change. She felt more like a Stella Dauphine every day.
Her eyes snap open a heartbeat after she hears a distinct metallic click at the back door. The door creaks open. Standing at the foot of the bed, Stella picks up her Beretta, unfastens the trench coat, her gun hidden in the folds of the coat as she waits.
She feels a slight breath of summer air flow into the room and hears a voice sigh and then light footsteps moving toward the bedroom. A figure steps into the doorway.
The light flashes on.
Gordon Urquhart’s there, a neat .22 Bersa in his hand.
Stella opens the trench coat and lets it fall off her shoulders.
As Gordon looks down at her naked body, Stella squeezes off a round, which strikes Gordon on the right side of his chest. He’s stunned, so stunned he drops his gun. Gordon’s mouth opens as he stumbles into the room, falling against the chest of drawers. Blood seeps through the fingers of his right hand, which he’s pressed against his wound.
“You shot me!”
“Kick your gun over here.”
Gordon’s face is ashen. He blinks at her, looks at his chest, and stammers, “You shot me!”
“If you don’t shut up, I’ll shoot you again.” Stella’s mouth is set in a grim, determined slit. “Now kick the gun.”
Gordon swings his foot and the gun slides across the hardwood floor. Stella steps forward and kicks it back under Gordon’s bed.
The big man is breathing hard now. Blood has saturated his shirt.
“I think you hit an artery,” he says weakly.
“Then we don’t have much time, do we?”
“For what?”
Stella points her chin at the bed. “Sit, before you collapse.”