Hit on the House

Also by Jon A. Jackson:

The Diehard

The Blind Pig

Grootka

Deadman

Dead Folks

Man with an Axe

La Donna Detroit

Copyright © 1993 by Jon A. Jackson

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review. Any members of educational institutions wishing to photocopy part or all of the work for classroom use, or publishers who would like to obtain permission to include the work in an anthology, should send their inquiries to Grove/ Atlantic, Inc., 154 West 14
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Street, 12
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Published simultaneously in Canada

Printed in the United States of America

FIRST GROVE PRESS EDITION

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Jackson, Jon A.

Hit on the house / by Jon A. Jackson

ISBN 0-8021-3705-9

eISBN: 978-0-8021-9123-6

I. Title.

PS3560.A216H58  1993     813’.54–dc20
92-22723

Cover design by David High

Grove Press

154 West 14
^th
Street, 12
^th
Floor

New York, NY 10011

00 01 02 03    10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

I'd like to acknowledge the assistance and inspiration of the following people by dedicating this book to them. They are S. Clay Wilson (for the title), Mike Gouse (for the guns), my brothers for their technical and artistic input, and my son and my daughter and my sweetheart for their variously wry, caustic, and loving support. Thank you.

Hit on the House

One

“Y
eah,” said a man after a single ring.

“This is Hal. I got a message to call.”

“Oh, right. Just a minute, Hal. He's waitin’ to hear from ya.”

After a moment another voice came on the line. “Hal! Hey, how are you?”

“Me?” he said, as if surprised. “I'm just fine. I, uh, got a message . . .”

“Yeah. Say, that's pretty quick service, Hal. Where you calling from?”

“Does it matter?”

“Well, it could, Hal. See, I got a kinda rush job for you, and it's here, in Detroit. If you're in Alaska or some place like that, you won't be able to make it. But you sound like you're right next door.”

Hal considered for a moment, then said, “What's the problem, Fat?”

The Fat Man chuckled, a thick, gurgling sound that wasn't necessarily mirthful. “Jeez, you don't take no chances, do you, Hal? Whata you, paranoid or something?”

“No, I'm not paranoid, Fat,” Hal said without a trace of annoyance or disrespect, “but I have my system, you know.”

“Oh, that's all right,” the Fat Man assured him. “I like that. Better safe than sorry. But listen, this is really a rush thing. Twenty-four hours. Can you do that?”

“Just about anywhere that has a phone is within twenty-four hours of Detroit,” Hal said. “But it's never a good idea to rush.”

“You got a point, kid. But the deal is we got something goin’ down here, and we don't got a lotta time. It's worth a Benjy. Can you make it for a Benjy?”

“I'm practically there, Fat Man.”

The Fat Man gurgled. “That's my boy. You want me to pick you up . . . the airport, maybe?”

Hal thought for a moment. He was extremely interested in what the Fat Man wanted, but he knew it wouldn't do to seem too available. This was not a business that could be conducted by telephone normally.

“Why don't you call me back,” Hal suggested, “from some other phone.” He knew the Fat Man would understand that he meant from a pay phone.

“I can do it,” the Fat Man said, “but I don't wanta be standing around outside all night. It's cold here, Hal.”

“Call the service in the next fifteen minutes,” Hal said, “and give them the number. I'll get back to you within twenty minutes. I wouldn't normally work this way, but you're the one who's in a hurry.”

After he hung up, Hal went back to the bar for another drink. There was a large window beyond the bar that looked out onto the bowling lanes, but only a few people were bowling. The pins resounded faintly as the balls crashed into them. “I guess people don't bowl so much anymore,” he said to the bartender. For some reason he felt like small talk. Idly he wondered if it was simply a way of putting off thinking about what he was sure the Fat Man would be asking of him. But then he dismissed the thought.

“It's always slow on Sunday night,” the bartender said. “We're between leagues. Come in here tomorrow night, and it'll be jammed,” he said. “The new leagues'll be starting.”

Hal sipped at a beer and chatted a bit about the Tigers. Spring training was starting. The bartender felt that the Tigers didn't have a chance. “They don't want to pay the money for the big guy” was his theory. “Well, you can't blame ‘em—it's gonna cost ‘em four, five mil. That's what you gotta pay these days. But so what? You gotta pay
money to make money, right? So come August and we're five, six games out and then they'll be thinking pennant, but where you gonna find the big gun? You can't buy him then. Who's gonna sell you a hammerman, or a stopper? The Yankees? Get serious. Am I right?”

Hal looked thoughtful. He knew nothing about baseball and cared less, but he nodded sagely.

“Yer damn right I'm right,” the bartender said. “ ‘Cause when you come down to it, it's always one guy is the right guy. And if you didn't get the right guy in the first place, then yer ass is in a bag. Right? You gotta have the guy who can do the job, not some dipstick who can maybe do the job. So you saved a few bucks in the spring . . . big deal. Now you gotta pay twice as much. Whaddidyou save? You gotta spend money to make money. Am I right?”

“You're right.” Hal carried his beer back to the phone and called his service in Los Angeles. He rarely called this service direct. It relayed messages to a service in Omaha, which routed them on to Miami and thence to Fort Smith, Arkansas. The system was cumbersome, but Hal preferred it that way. It was more expensive and slower, but the security was worth it. In this instance, however, time was pressing, and the potential breach of security had to be risked.

“This is Harold Good,” he told the Los Angeles operator. He gave her his account number and instructed her not to forward the message this once. Then he called the Fat Man in Detroit.

“Hey, that was fast,” the Fat Man said. Hal could hear traffic noises in the background. “Well, what we got is Sid.”

Hal felt a chill. Somehow he had known it would be Sid, but he must have suppressed it. “Sid?” he said carefully.

“Yanh. Big Sid. You know him, you know where he lives. It's gotta be tomorrow night the latest. You got any problem with that?”

“I don't think so,” Hal said, “but I can't guarantee anything on this short notice. Um, it would be helpful to know what the rush is.”

“I thought you didn't like to know the details,” the Fat Man said. “You always say you don't wanta know.”

“Usually,” Hal said, “but it helps to know if Sid's going to be on his guard.”

“Nanh, he thinks he's pulling a fast one. But . . . he might be a little
jumpy. He's gonna run, see. He's s'posed to be taking a little vacation to the islands only he didn't buy a round-trip ticket. It might not be so easy to find him once he flies. He's over at Carmine's right now, blowing smoke.”

“I understand. I'll get right on it. Normally I'd have to have half up front,” Hal said calmly, “but under the circumstances it'll have to wait. I'll get back to you.”

Hal hung up but didn't immediately leave the phone booth. It was an extremely delicate situation, he realized, absolutely vibrating with danger. A part of his mind said, “Trap!” Sid was talking to Carmine? Hal knew Sid too well . . . and Carmine. Sid couldn't talk to Carmine without letting something show. Maybe it wasn't a trap, but how could he be sure? Well, he'd soon find out. He reminded himself that he'd always felt he was in this game for the sake of the game, the thrills, not for the money. The money was nice, but he really got off on the game. What he felt this instant was that if he'd wanted a game, this was the Big Table.

There was no point in trying to see Sid again, Hal thought, except for the big moment. If the Fat Man wanted Sid, that was it. Either they knew he was in on it, or they didn't. He didn't believe that they were kinky enough to play games. They had called him because he was their ace, the stopper, the hammerman. Hal liked that thought.

He drove back to Kercheval in a light rain. It was nearly eight o'clock and traffic was nil. He turned a block before Sid's street. He knew Sid's place well enough, but he chided himself for not having paid professional attention to the neighborhood. Now he had to spy it out. It was all residential, small single-family frame houses on this street. Most of them had garages on the alley, but they all must have had a couple cars apiece because all the spots on both sides of the street were filled. There was just a narrow driving lane. Everybody was home, it seemed, eating dinner or watching television.

He turned onto Sid's street. Compared with the streets around it, Sid's was at least twice as wide, almost a boulevard. No shortage of parking places here, not that he'd park on the same street where he'd do the job. The houses were correspondingly larger as well. Some of them were in fact mansions, set well back from the street, with enormous
lawns and a towering old tree or two. It was interesting, he thought, that this fancy street was here, like an island of luxury and privilege in a sea of modest working-class homes.

Sid was into plenty, of course. But this didn't really seem like Sid's style. Not flashy enough. This was an older neighborhood, originally the homes of lesser executives in the auto industry, just a few blocks from Grosse Pointe, where the real big shots lived. He cruised slowly by Sid's house. It was much like the others: a massive brick pile of no remarkable style, square, ugly, with a broad veranda. It was surrounded by a wrought iron fence, and a brick path curved across the lawn. There were heavy drapes on the front windows, but Hal could see the glimmer of lights. There was no way of telling if Sid had returned home. There were no cars in the drive, but as Hal recalled, there was a large garage, practically a stable, in the back that had been remodeled into apartments for Sid's men. Not more than a half-dozen cars were parked on the street.

He cruised the flanking streets again, but there were still no parking places. It was just as well, he decided. He parked two blocks away, on Kercheval, in a supermarket parking lot, and sat in the car for a long moment.

Now what? Might as well go take a closer look, he thought. He toyed with the idea of leaving the gun in the car. This would just be a preliminary walk-through. But he decided to take it. You never knew. He got out and locked the car, then opened the trunk. It was chilly and damp, but no wind. He drew a pair of dark gloves from his raincoat pocket and slipped them on. They were thin, like another skin. He liked the feel of them. He had tried many kinds of gloves, but these were the best. They were some kind of man-made fiber and had a tactile quality that silk gloves, which he had sometimes used, lacked. These were never slippery like silk, even when wet.

He glanced around. It was much too light here. From the trunk he took the slim case, rather like an attaché case. He set off through the misty rain, swinging the case in a casual manner. He thought he must look like an insurance agent or perhaps like someone's husband coming home late from the office, and the idea pleased him. But then he remembered that it was Sunday night, and he was disappointed. The
temperature was about forty, he thought, but the chill was penetrating, nasty, as it often seemed to be in Detroit. But he didn't mind. A good night for something. He smiled.

He stepped into an alley and went about ten paces before stopping to open the case. He picked the revolver, a Smith & Wesson K-22 Masterpiece, out of its molded foam bed and checked to be sure it was loaded. Well, of course it was loaded. He'd loaded the shells himself: .22 Super Vels. He slipped it into his coat pocket along with a couple of HKS Six Second speedloaders. It wasn't particularly noticeable despite its long barrel. He closed the case and set it next to a brick wall. It was invisible in the shadows, and he noted its position from the utility pole. He returned to Kercheval and turned toward Sid's street, gloved hands deep in his coat pockets.

It was after eight. There was no traffic on Sid's street. That was neither good nor bad. Of course, he told himself, he'd choose a later hour to do the job—when people were not walking their dogs, as an old lady was doing across the street. She was heavy and bundled into a long coat and wore a kerchief on her head. The dog, a waddly hound, was practically dragging his ears on the sidewalk, and he stopped to cock a leg at nearly every tree. The old woman tugged him on without stopping. She never saw Hal.

The block was very long, and when he was five or six houses away from Sid's, Hal was pleased to see that there were still no cars parked in front, though a Chevy Suburban sat across the street and down a few houses. The gate to the brick path was padlocked, Hal observed, as was another gate across the drive that ran up alongside the house. Two huge evergreens stood on either corner of the house, and the light still glimmered through the heavy drapes.

He wondered again what fantasies of respectability had motivated Sid to prefer this old neighborhood, and he strolled on. It wasn't usual for him to know the target, but it had happened before. He had no strong feelings about it, but he felt now that he had been foolish to get involved with Sid. The man was not stable, he realized. Impressive at first, in a loud and blustery way, very palsy-walsy. From the instant the Fat Man had said the word, Hal had known that he'd miscalculated. He'd be out some money, but assuming it wasn't a setup, which he told
himself it couldn't be, the Fat Man's fee would be ample compensation. Obviously, however, it made the approach to Sid more difficult.

The layout looked promising. The fence was no problem, and with all the trees . . . hell, it was practically like a farmhouse in the country. Nice and private. He couldn't remember if there was a dog, though. No sign of one. He should have paid more attention, he realized. Not very professional of him.

He turned up his collar and strolled on, shoulders hunched against the cold and the mist. He wished he'd worn a hat. A street like this, he felt, you had to be careful not to attract attention. You didn't want anybody looking at you too closely. But except for the woman with the dog, who was gone now, there wasn't a soul in sight. Not a car had passed.

He stopped before reaching the end of the block and turned back. No reason not to check out the front again before taking a look at the alley. The alley would put him in a position to check out the garage quarters. He had a hunch it might be the best way to go in, but he wanted to check again for signs of a dog.