SILENT GUNS (7 page)

Trent pushed away and followed Maxie; although, he
knew it was not smart, but necessary. Two men, dark suited, with
large frames and thick necks, intercepted Trent at the door. Jammed
from either side, powerful fingers clamped his arms and twisted.
Trent winced in pain as he felt fingertips touch bone.

“
We catch your ass in here again
and you’ll not live to regret it,” Trent shook loose or was let go:
he couldn’t be sure which but both arms throbbed as he chased after
Maxie vigorously rubbing them. He caught sight of him just as he
entered the Brass Bull Bar. Maxie had flopped down at a
table.

“
Order one for me, too,
Maxie.”

“
What? Well, I’ll be. . , Tony.
Christ! That was you who saved my ass.”

“
Don’t mention it, just thank me
now that I’m crippled for life.” Rubbing didn’t make the sting go
away.

“
They were on to me,” Maxie
exclaimed. “Hey! I bet they thought you were in on it,
too.”

“
Brilliant deduction. Why’d they
rough up me and not you?”

Maxie ignored the question. Trent let the question
lie, but Maxie owed him an answer.

Maxie Hirsch’s are everywhere. They are nondescript,
common and meld in with the background. They are survivalists who
take what they can and give no quarter. Maxie lived by that credo.
It toughened him, but left him cynical and a loner. Trent and Maxie
had enlisted together in the Navy; boyhood chums whose paths later
separated –- Trent to the Naval Academy; Maxie to Machinist school.
Distance parted them when Maxie mustered out. With Maxie, Trent
laid it on the line. Maxie jumped at the chance, he could hardly
restrain himself. Trent judged Reno to be closing in on him. They
stayed and small-talked for hours. It beats notes on a Christmas
card. When they weren’t reminiscing, they talked about machinery.
Maxie loved machines: He loved machines more than anything else in
the world, except Flo.

* * *

Locating Hank Graves was easy: he was in the Sparks
phone book. Trent spotted him the moment he entered the tavern. The
bar quieted instantly, heads turned as a bull of a man stood
filling the doorway. Madden’s description was accurate: shaggy,
black, thatched head carried on tremendously broad shoulders; dark,
thick eyebrows shaded intense eyes that stared aside a thick nose
and flared nostrils, a face pock-marked, a chin badly miss-aligned.
Heavy thighs set beneath a small, pinched waist. Surprisingly, he
moved with quickness, an animal like gait. Graves came towards him.
Without shifting his weight or making an effort, he slid his bulk
into Trent’s booth.

“
Trent, right?” Graves smacked his
palms flat down on the table. The back of the booth shifted as he
settled in. Yellow dust caked the backs of both his hands. Trent
stared at them with fixed attention. Graves thrust them out and
chortled, “Enough here to blow off your head. Blasted the side off
a mountain this morning,” he said, scraping yellow from under
stubby fingernails.

Two bottles of heavy, dark beer were set on the
table. Graves grabbed one and tasted it. “Warm piss,” he said
making a face. “I like mine ice cold. Bring four more, Babe.” He
slapped the waitress on the fanny and laughed. She slapped his hand
and turned away. “You government? A cop?” Graves twisted his head
and glared at Trent with one eye cocked as he held a bottle halfway
frozen to his mouth. He took a long pull, finally appeared for a
breath to wipe the foam away on his sleeve.

“
Neither. Madden said you might
appreciate a change of scenery.”

“
I’ve knocked around a bit. Done
some odd jobs that shocked some people, different, you could say,
like blowing up things. Setting wrongs right. Get the drift?” There
was a swagger in his manner as he polished off a second bottle. His
face split into a slow leer. “So, what do you want from me? Is
someone giving you a hard time?” Graves didn’t try to disguise a
thick veneer of toughness that barely covered a streak of cruelty:
meanness lay beneath.

“
You act like Navy. Is that why
Madden sent you?” Graves asked.

“
I was an officer.”

“
So! You’re the one…Madden and
Newby’s buddy. The guy that got shafted. So, what’s the
gig?”

“
Would you be interested in a
quick five-million?”

Graves whistled. “That’s mucho bucks. Do I have to
kill somebody?”

Trent explained.

“
Madden and Newby are ‘in’,
yes?”

“
Yes. I’ll be at Fitzgerald’s.
Think it over.” Trent got up and left. “I leave
tomorrow.”

Fitzgerald’s Casino nestled beside the railroad
tracks. Out front, a flashing, world-famous over-the-street sign
proclaimed: Reno – The Greatest Little City in the World. It was
long past midnight. A dozen freight trains had rumbled by, rattling
the hotel. Trent struggled as he forced himself up from a
sweat-soaked bed. Sheets clung to his naked body. As he peeled them
off, he wrote off a last effort at a goodnight’s sleep. As his bare
feet hit the floor, he grabbed a cigarette and lit it. Myrna still
haunted his thoughts. As hard as he tried, he could never come to
grips with her rejection, the divorce. A failed marriage: plans for
the future, a family, all went up in a puff of smoke. He blamed
only himself. She tolerated his violent mood swings, even tried to
help. At flare-ups, she deftly calmed his obsession for revenge, a
drive he could not intellectually reject. The Old Testament’s call
for an eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth, took emotional possession
of his soul. Without Myrna, pangs of loneliness would grip him,
visions of desolation. He lurched for the shower, the hot spray to
beat away the badness. Dried, he pulled on soft cotton trousers and
a shirt, slipping into a pair of moccasins. Pocketing the room key,
he headed down to the casino just as the phone jangled.

“
It’s me, Graves. Got to see you
now.”

“
Come on over.”

“
No. There’s an all-night eatery
on Center Street, the Black Ball. Be there at four.” Graves hung
up. Trent arrived early and took a booth at the back. As he glanced
at his watch, the nape of his neck tingled with unease. He noticed
a metal-shielded door that stood off his left shoulder that opened
to a back alley, a cold draft coil around his ankles. The smell of
stale cigarette smoke and rancid grease hung uncut in the air. Two
standing floor fans, one in each of the back corners were
motionless. The eatery had all the markings of a local hangout,
however unlikely at four in the morning. Two customers sat at the
counter, probably late-hours casino employees. He caught a distant
strain of dance music. The side booths stood empty. Graves was
right on time. Trent valued that – dependable. The big man was
shaking as he slid into the booth.

“
What happened to you?” Trent
asked, guardedly. “Get hit by a truck?” Graves’ head was battered
and badly swollen. An ugly discoloration seeped out from under a
tightly wrapped bandage that shielded one eye and the left side of
his head. Underneath, he had been shaven clean.

“
Forget it,” Graves shot back. “I
want in.”

“
You could have told me that over
the phone. Women trouble? Gambling debts? A job that didn’t work
out?” Trent demanded. “What kind of trouble are you in?”

“
Nothing’ I can’t handle. What’s
the guarantee on the payoff?”

“
None. We all ‘score’ or nobody
scores.” Trent stared at him and wondered if he had moved too
quickly.

“
Fair enough,” Graves cut him
short, his face flushed and sweating, occasionally darting a glance
over his shoulder.

“
You’ll need this.” Trent withdrew
a folded sheet from his inside pocket and shoved it across the
table. “Madden says you have contacts. The gunpowder is a must. Can
you get it?” Graves unfolded the paper, read down the list and
mumbled something like, “It won’t be easy.” He refolded the sheet
and stuffed it into his shirt. Trent slid a brown, sealed envelope
across the table. “Put this in your pocket.” Graves grabbed it and
without looking, slipped it out of sight under his
shirt.

“
When do I report in?”

“
I’ll call you, just be ready. Get
the stuff. Arrange to be away for a couple of months. Fabricate
some pretext.”

“
How soon?”

“
Trouble?” Trent watched him
cautiously.

“
You got that wrong. You and some
guy named Maxie Hirsch are in deep crap. Certain not-so-nice people
are curious, asked questions. I told them I didn’t know anything: I
paid the price.”

“
About us? What kind of
questions?”

“
Who the hell is
Hirsch?”

“
He’s your traveling companion.
His address and phone number are in the packet plus you’ll find the
money you’ll need for the powder and travel expenses to Seattle.
Make sure Maxie gets nothing except travel expenses. Is that
clear?” Graves nodded. “Keep your noses clean, travel together and
follow the instructions in the packet.”

“
Where do I meet this guy
Hirsch?”

“
He is expecting a call from you,
but not until I call you: don’t be seen together. And, then get out
of town fast.”

“
With pleasure, I can’t wait,”
Graves got up, checked off the two at the counter and slipped
quickly out the metal door. There was more to Graves than met the
eye: Maxie, too, for that matter, Trent felt a twinge of
irritation. Aside from the money advance, if they didn’t checkout,
he would cut bait. He glanced at his watch: it read four-fifteen.
He waited ten minutes, paid the tab, headed back to the Fitz,
packed his bag and caught the next flight home.

* * *

“
You weren’t serious, were you?
Pulling off this caper with a bunch of oddballs?” Simons chided,
smiling inwardly. By now the sun had set in the west and darkness
descended over the cabin. “Harry came by and dropped off a salmon.
How do you want it? Baked? Boiled? Or fried steaks.”

“
Whatever you do best.” Trent
stoked the stove, tossing in another log. The cabin had grown
colder. Simons dragged out a frying pan. “You can never tell about
people. Some surprise you; others disappoint. Choirboys, they were
not; but I was not exactly on a church mission.”

Simons added, “When we learned their identities, I
had Graves and Hirsch checked out by the Navy and Reno Police. In
case Graves didn’t tell you, he did time for careless use of
explosives. He trained at a Navy gunpowder arsenal and kept up his
contacts. He worked for the Nevada Highway Department blowing up
things, but that’s why you took him on, wasn’t it? He did dirty
work for NARDO, a front for criminal elements in the Reno area with
ties to Vegas and Atlantic City. He had a falling out with NARDO,
we weren’t sure over what. But, I suspect you know all this.”

“
Not at first, but as you say, I
had to make the best of talent available,” Trent said
sharply.

“
Hirsch was a slot mechanic. Got
caught rigging slot machines to produce large payoffs. His partners
got paid off for lack of proof of rigging. Hirsch was persona non
grata at casinos and had been denied re-employment. The Reno
Transport Company picked him up as a part-time mechanic. The
Casinos wanted their money back. They cut a deal with his two
accomplices, but Hirsch cached his and balked. Maxie Hirsch was a
compulsive gambler.”

“
Those two damn near blew the
whole plan,” Trent controlled his irritation. “I had them checked
out, found out pretty much what you did. Except the idiots bought a
truck together and started hanging out against my explicit orders.
They forced my hand: I had to get them out of Reno before I needed
them.”

“
What about this Harper? He was no
jewel, either,” Interjected Simons, flipping two cuts of sizzling
salmon.

“
Time changes people. Harper
wasn’t as Madden remembered him.”

“
Buried eight years up in Canada,
I heard. No surprise. How did you find him?” Simons
asked.

“
Being a Navy man, I figured he’d
hang around Vancouver harbor. I tried the authorities, but they
were no help. No interest in sailors evading the clutches of
American justice. Just showed his picture around the waterfront
bars and finally got a tip from a bartender.” I did the rounds
until I hit on the right one, the Wee Willie Tavern.

A black man, he sat alone at a small round table
under a conical lampshade, his teeth sparkled white in the shadows.
His lips were thick, his nose flat, eyes a very dark brown. His
face was uncharacteristically thin.

“
Ben Harper?”

“
Aye, who wants to
know?”

“
Tony Trent.” A foot stirred and a
chair slid back. Harper’s hair was gray and cropped short. A dark
blue sweater, pulled taut covered a muscular frame. A cigarette
dangled from his lips.

“
What’ll it be, Bud?” the
bartender asked, compulsively wiping his one-time white
apron.

“
Whiskey and seven. I don’t know…”
Trent nodded towards Harper. The bartender interrupted, “He’s a
regular,” turned and walked away.

“
Do you remember me?” Trent
asked.

“
Should I?” His eyes were dark and
restless.

“
Peter Madden tells me you’re the
best with big guns.”