Crime, Thrillers & Mystery / The Thanks You Get
THE THANKS YOU GET
By
PAUL MCGORAN
They were sharing a room at a rundown courtyard motel at the north end of the Strip where it turns kind of sleazy. Off and on, Henry Shevlin had been living with Duke Santoro for three years and had known him a couple years more in stir. Shevlin didn’t like Las Vegas much and he didn’t like the way his life was going. But he was the type to do anything for a friend.
As if Duke was anybody’s friend. Oh yeah, Henry liked him, couldn’t say he didn’t. So did a lot of folks, mostly the gals in town. The big guy had a quick tongue and a bad boy charm and he could be a lot of fun when things were going his way.
The bed was near the window overlooking the cars in the courtyard. Henry was lying there in his skivvies reading a magazine when he saw Santoro out of the corner of his eye. He was snaking through the rows of parked cars, taking a diagonal route toward the stairs to the second floor balcony that the rooms gave out on. He had the easy long stride of an athlete, really a pleasure to watch. In a minute he was pushing open the door to the room.
Right away, Henry could tell Duke was agitated. He walked in real quiet, took off his jacket and draped it neatly over the desk chair. Then he turned, walked to the right side of the bed and sat on it. After loosening his tie, he took a cigarette from a pack on the bedside table and lit it with a kitchen match. All this without a word.
Henry figured what the hell, get it out in the open. “Hey, big fella, what’s up?”
“Nothing.”
“Can’t be nothing, Duke. You’re pissed off. Anybody can tell.”
“It’s that little bitch, Lana. She didn’t show up tonight.”
“She, uh, told you she would?”
“No, but she always does on Tuesday. She’s stepping out with that kid Randy she talks about.”
“Hell, that’s just to make you jealous is all. She’s crazy about you.”
“I don’t like anybody cutting in on me. I can’t take it and I won’t.”
He got up then, still smoking, and started pacing the floor. Henry watched him for a minute before saying: “Just let it go, Duke. Show her you don’t fall for that routine.”
“You know I won’t put up with it, Hank.”
“That’s right, big guy, you don’t have to. Just ignore her. She’ll come calling.”
“Shit!”
If Duke seemed agitated before, he was at the boiling point now. His lip curved up in a sneer and his nostrils flared. He stubbed his cigarette out, stopped pacing and undressed completely to the waist. Then he sat on the bed, his back to Shevlin.
Henry knew he’d best shut up and wait. He tossed the magazine to the floor and shifted down in bed, lying there with his head propped up to keep an eye on Duke. When he was sure the storm had passed, he turned to switch off the bedside lamp. He was quiet; Duke was quiet.
The room wasn’t totally dark because of light from the courtyard filtering through the window curtains. Henry could feel Duke make a quick turn onto the bed facing his back, close enough so he could hear his breathing. When the breathing became a snore, he relaxed and drifted off to sleep.
Next morning, he was out in the motel courtyard leaning against the junk box, reading the paper and waiting for Santoro to come down. He always took longer than Henry to get ready. Duke would shave and shower, same as him, but he put a lot extra into it. He was especially fussy about the way he dressed. Neither of them had a lot of clothes, but Duke sure knew how to vary his look and keep his duds looking fresh.
Henry saw him step out to the landing from the room and look up to the clear, bright sky. Then he headed down the outside stairs to the parking area. He was dressed in a dark sport jacket, tan slacks and an open collar shirt. That quick stride of his brought him over to the car in no time.
Henry pushed himself off the side of the car and folded his newspaper. He said he had to be at the bar by nine for his shift.
“Okay,” said Duke. “Me, I’m gonna take the day off. Want to go to breakfast?”
“Yeah, well I do, but I’m nearly broke. I was figuring on maybe a coffee and donut.”
“Hell no, dude, I’m flush! Tell you what, I’ll spring for the whole megillah.”
Henry pointed to the car and said, “Lead the way, my man! What are you going to tell your boss?”
“Haven’t decided. But I picked up eight hundred bucks shooting dice last night and I’m not gonna be dealing no cards for a couple of days.”
“Say, Duke, you almost never gamble.”
“Never for long, anyway. The percentages are lousy.”
They drove down to a diner type restaurant just beyond Fremont Street and were eating breakfast in a booth by the front window when Lana Firewood walked in. She had a slim young dark-haired guy with her who was grinning from ear to ear. Henry saw her glance around and then turn to speak to Smiley. He figured she must have spotted them and he kind of held his breath for what would happen next. Duke hadn’t seen a thing yet.
Lana walked straight towards them, high heels clattering across the tiles, her boyfriend trailing behind like a happy puppy. Henry looked up as they came close. She gave him a little wave while she still had Santoro’s back to her. Finally, she made a point of stopping and turning around when she passed them by.
“Oh hi, Duke!” she said, acting all surprised. “I didn’t recognize you from behind.”
Duke looked from one to the other, still chewing on a piece of toast, and then he nodded real quick and grunted. This may have been rude but Henry was glad he didn’t speak because it sure as hell would have been ruder. Lana looked annoyed, squaring her shoulders and biting her lower lip.
“Good to see you, Henry,” she said, turning and walking past with Smiley to an empty booth further along the same aisle.
Duke put down his knife and fork, took the napkin out of his lap and tossed it on the table. His face had flushed.
“Come on,” said Henry, “don’t let her get to you. You know what she’s doing.”
“When I was a bouncer, I occasionally took a certain amount of pleasure in leaning on somebody who insisted on getting out of line. Pain is a terrific agent for rapid attitude change.”
“She’s trying to make you jealous. So forget it. Screw her!”
“Screwing her is apparently one of the easiest and cheapest things to do in Las Vegas. Like being comped for a buffet lunch. I think both of them need a rapid attitude change.”
“C’mon man, take it easy.”
Henry was getting nervous and Duke had to see it. But he took a deep breath and seemed to calm down.
“Listen, no rush Hank,” he said, “but as soon as you’re done here, I’ll drop you off at work. I’m gonna take a long ride.”
When Shevlin asked him where to, Duke didn’t answer. His face was set tight and he stared straight ahead with a kind of dark expression that Henry couldn’t even begin to describe.
Randy and Lana pulled up to her place in the suburbs around ten o’clock and parked in front. They had no idea Duke followed them. Lana was in the passenger seat – the side nearest the curb. She pulled herself up close to Randy at the wheel and gave him a long, wet kiss. Duke was ready to do them right there and then, whoever might see it be damned. There were red spots in his vision and his breath was coming fast, but he shook it off. So he could do it right, he said to himself.
He knew what was going on because Lana had brought him there just last week. He even remembered their conversation in front of the house. She had leaned in for the same kind of wet, lingering kiss that she was favoring Randy with today.
“You know, nobody’s home right now and I could sure use some company,” she had said.
“Use me baby, I’m your boy!” Duke laughed.
“O-o-o-o, it’s a boy!” she squealed, moving her hand into his crotch.
Both of them were laughing by then. They rushed out of the car, met at the curb and ran to the front door holding hands.
Today, he parked on the new service road behind Lana’s house at the edge of the subdivision. A sort of gully separated the road from the subdivision, so you couldn’t see his car from her place. He doubled back and climbed through the gully and brush behind the house. As he approached, he could hear Lana’s dog barking.
It didn’t take long for him to get into the garage through the door in back, and then quietly jimmy the door to the kitchen. It was cool inside and a little dark. After hesitating a moment, he walked to the kitchen island and sat on a stool, where he waited patiently.
Lana and Randy had come into the living room through the front door. She asked Randy to get a couple of beers and began attending to her dog. No one heard Duke sneak in. Randy opened the armoire in the living room, found the remote and switched on the TV.
When he pushed through the swinging door to the kitchen, Randy headed for the refrigerator. Then he spotted Duke staring at him with that ice-cold look of his, still sitting quietly on the stool by the kitchen island.
In a low voice, Duke told Randy to leave. He said it as a simple request. At first, Randy tried to placate him. He recognized him from around town where they both had casino jobs.
“What are you worried about?” asked Randy. “It’s not like we’re in competition, pal. Lana’s been around the block.”
“Yeah, well I’m here and intend to get what I came for. And who the hell let you in, anyway?”
“It doesn’t matter where she’s been, Junior. Nobody beats my time. Nobody.”
When Duke stood and moved toward him, Randy pulled a knife. The boy was nothing if not game. Santoro grabbed his blade arm and stripped the knife away with his other hand. In close quarters, Randy tried to bring his knee up, but the big guy pivoted slightly and launched a right uppercut.
As he went down, Randy’s arm cleared the kitchen counter. While sprawled out on the floor, he reached for the wooden knife block that had tumbled down with him. Deftly, he withdrew a meat cleaver and rose to attack. The first blow struck home and now Duke had a wicked defensive cut across the back of his left hand.
But he sidestepped the second strike, pulled the cleaver out of Randy’s grip and knocked him down again with a right hand blow that crunched into his face and broke his nose. Blood gushed out and Randy was moaning, beaten. Duke felt his own blood rise inside him as never before.
“A cleaver, you fucking idiot!” he blurted. “I don’t believe you went after me with a cleaver.”
Poor Randy had to see it coming from the way Duke looked at him. The big man hefted the cleaver and hacked at him from the throat down, pausing only to kick his head in when Randy feebly raised his hands to make him stop.
The racket they made was muffled by the television, but Lana must have heard something. “Randy!” she yelled. “What’s going on in there?”
Her dog was yapping now in that hysterical way small dogs have. Duke scrambled out of sight to the side of the refrigerator. He was covered in sweat and his hair hung down on his forehead. Lana came through the door with the pooch trailing. She looked at Randy on the floor and all that blood, gasped in disbelief, and wobbled backward. When she turned and spotted Duke, her eyes registered confusion, then relief – as if she were glad to see someone who could help her. He moved to her quickly, spun her around and snapped her neck before she could utter more than a quiet whimper.
He needed a minute to calm down. When his heart stopped pounding, he tried to think logically. Lucky for him, he didn’t have a whole lot of blood on his clothes. He washed his hands, found a dishtowel to stanch the cut he had sustained, then wiped down every surface he had touched. Before leaving, he coaxed the quivering dog into the living room, took a careful look around the kitchen and pocketed Randy’s knife. A minute later he was back in his car on the service road.
Henry was at the motel when Duke came back that day at two in the afternoon. It was sure easy to tell something was up. He looked glassy-eyed, and he was chain-smoking. There was gauze wrapped around his left hand, and some white tape over that.
At first Henry didn’t see the stains, but Santoro’s clothes were all wrinkled and there was a bulge in his jacket pocket that turned out to be a little towel with blood on it. When he whipped that sucker out, it seemed to trigger something. He laughed, sat on the bed and talked in a way Henry had heard once before, when he went off his head and beat up two guys in a hick bar in Montana.
Henry couldn’t believe it at first; Duke was saying some scary stuff, over and over. When it all came clear, he figured the best he could do was not act upset, but be calm, help him out, tell him what to do.
“You totally lost it, Duke,” he said. “Like before. Only you gotta get yourself together fast. Take it easy now, real easy. We have to stay cool. Okay, pal?”
“All right, Henry. I get it,” he said.
They both knew the clothes had to go. Henry told him to strip absolutely everything off so he could take care of getting it incinerated. Shoes and socks, and the towel too. All of a sudden, he was into it, helping his friend, figuring out what to do. Did he think Duke would be grateful, or like him better? Probably that was it.
And he did a damn good job. He unwound the makeshift bandage and saw that Santoro needed stitches. Now this was a little tricky, but biting the bullet and going to an emergency room with the right story should take care of it.
“You got that dough from gambling last night, Duke, so what the hell. Give them a phony name, tell them you was chopping up a chicken with a butcher knife, and get a few stitches.”
“Yeah, all right. Sounds good.”
“Other than that, get cleaned up and get out of town.”
Henry said he would stay in Vegas, go to work like usual. Nobody had anything on him; that part he didn’t have to worry about. The motel room was in his name alone, nobody could link him with Santoro too much, he was just a buddy who came and went. They hadn’t been here so long that a lot of people knew them.
Duke made a bundle of his bloody clothes and shoes, wrapping it all up with his jacket and tying the arms together. Henry knew just where to go when it got dark. There was an alley not far away where a few alkies and druggies would be warming themselves over a fire barrel. Even Las Vegas gets cool in January.
Piece by piece in the darkness, the clothes flared up and disappeared. An old greybeard wino laughed like hell every time Henry popped another article of clothing into the barrel. The shoes went in last, and somehow that made the old man mad. The poor bastard probably saw they were better than what he had on.
When Henry walked back to the motel, he had a satisfied feeling from doing the job right. As they agreed beforehand, he rapped softly on the door four times and waited. Santoro opened it and pulled him in, that thousand-yard stare of his telling Henry everything had changed. Still, the little guy got his shiv out fast, like a magician pulling a dove out of his coat. Not that it mattered too much with Duke grabbing his wrist and spinning him around, jamming the hand with the knife back into the doorframe, where it stuck. He was pretty much defenseless then, held tight and a foot off the floor.
Duke had Randy’s knife out now and brought it up to Henry’s throat from behind, carving deep from ear to ear, like you might take a pig on the farm. He gagged and went limp as the blood poured out in a warm cascade. Dropping the body quickly to the tarpaulin spread out on the floor, Santoro watched his pal expire. He began to laugh, just a chuckle at first, then loud and derisive.
As his eyes were closing, Henry could burble out just the one question.
“Wh…wh…why-y-y, Duke?”
“Hey buddy,” he shouted, making sure Henry could still hear. “I appreciate what you did. But there’s no such thing as a perfect crime if you’ve got an accomplice. Can I help it if I’m a perfectionist?”
Fading fast to black, Henry sighed. So that was the thanks he got.
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This 96 word review has not been unlocked.
This 194 word review has not been unlocked.
I liked that, overall. Two minor points:
Could be tighter; too many and’s and then’s for my taste; an ‘and then’. The narrative voice could go more cynical and world weary (i think) if all superfluous words were lost.
The Duke is so wound up about Lana he murders the guy but kills Lana without a word, without passion. Didn’t seem quite right to me. Maybe he could unload his feelings on her verbally before killing her(?) as the last killing demonstrates his supreme coldness.
Nice job.
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This 350 word review has not been unlocked.
This is pretty good. Your writing is strong- just descriptive enough without going overboard.
The one thing worth noting here is that I didn’t really get into the story until Duke started his stalking. That’s when the story got interesting to me, and from that point on, I was invested in it – reading it word for word, rather than just skimming.
That’s what got me thinking…instead of the traditional introduction, setup, payoff structure, what if you started this story with Duke on the prowl, then mixed in the background story as you went along.
Might be a good way to capture the reader earlier. Anyway, it was just a thought.
Either way, this is a good story. Your writing is very strong. I look forward to reading other things you’ve done.
This 22 word review has not been unlocked.
Whoa. Murder galore. This is one hot headed guy! Great gread, but not really my kind of thing.
I really like this story. It was a bit draggy in the beginning but midway, it got really good. Very well written.
I truly like your story and you have some great dialog. I thought this was sardonic “A cleaver, you fucking idiot!” he blurted. “I don’t believe you went after me with a cleaver.”
You have afew lines that are predictiable. – like “ice-cold look of his” It’s up to you if you want to make this line reflect your style. It works as it is, but thatss all. From this line
“Poor Randy had to see it coming from the way Duke looked at him.
He needed a minute to calm down.” – His just hacked a person to death and he needs a moment to calm down. You really need to get into what he looks like, how is is feeling. There must be blood all over him and the sweat mixed together has to have a smell. His hands sticky from blood, eye lashes stuck together. There are all sorts of things you can describe to get the reader sick to there stomach or something to remember. It you are going to right a scene of someone butchering another. The smallest details will pay off.
I think your ‘voice’ for this piece is really great. The vocabulary, prose and style work very well for these characters and their story.
There are multiple uses of “court” and “courtyard”. Is it possible to mix it up a bit? Parking lot, lot, asphalt??
Is “ruder” a word? Or should it be “more rude”?
“don’t let // “Don’t..
Is that ten o’clock am or pm?
at the edge of the subdivision. A sort of gully separated the road from the subdivision // “subdivision” twice in a short period. Consider revising one. Neighborhood? Homes?
he pulled a knife. Quickly, Santoro disarmed him, knocked him down and pocketed the knife. // “knife” twice. Consider revising second. Weapon? Switchblade?
Also, thank you for making the disarming quick and painless. I find reading drawn-out fight scenes incredibly boring.
in shock already.// you could probably cut this phrase and not miss a thing. The behavior communicates beautifully.
He needed a minute to calm down. // you could cut this too.
pretty much defenseless then, // cut ‘then’
Very nice twist at the end. The story began from Henry’s perspective I thought, which cast Duke in an unbalanced but sympathetic light. Even during the murder of Lana and Randy. That little poke at the end lets the reader know that No, Duke is a very bad guy, and not sympathetic at all. Well done!
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