St. Louis Noir Read online

  As I slid past, it stopped. I looked at my watch: it was just two minutes after I had popped the trunk. If I was lucky, nobody would have called in a report about hearing shots fired yet.

  I drove west, as planned, keeping off the highways. Nice and steady, just below the speed limit. I flushed the pills down the toilet in a Denny’s near Crestwood Mall and dropped the gloves and padded envelope in the dumpster of a strip-mall Chinese restaurant in Sunset Hills. I pulled over three times, first to vomit and then twice more to dry heave.

  I knew our plan had more holes in it than plan. I didn’t know if Tom and Drexel were right- or left-handed; how thorough the police would be with ballistics; or whether they would wonder why Gene had been beaten to death and the other two shot. I didn’t even know if the two of them were actually dead; it’s not as though I knew how to check for a pulse. I didn’t read mysteries. But the police would be coming around the Pillbox soon, asking questions. Anderson had been briefed on what to say. After giving up the weaponry, he had professed total allegiance. Nobody else knew anything.

  I was aware of all the ways it could go wrong, but prayed that it wouldn’t. I had at best another ten months with Paul before she skipped town after graduation. Another ten months to love her, to thank her for giving me the vengeance she never had, to hope that I would stay free for all of it.

  I had scanned the vicinity for witnesses once more before driving away. There were none to be seen, just mute buildings and weed-sprouted sidewalks. That didn’t mean, of course, that nobody had seen three skinheads driving into the parking lot and one leaving.

  But then, maybe it wouldn’t matter even if they had.

  People never can tell one skinhead from another.

  The Brick Wall

  by John Lutz

  Interstate 64

  Eddie Delgado was running third in his 88 car, the one he called Lucinda, and so far he hadn’t been touched. Ahead of him was the 57 car, trailing smoke out from under the hood. It was the 43 car that concerned Eddie. A driver like the one behind the wheel of 43 wasn’t much more than a kid, wasn’t actually going to finish ahead of Eddie Delgado. Letting the kid race at the track Eddie owned and managed was one thing. Letting him win was quite another.

  Eddie’s Speed-O-Rama was one of those dirt tracks found on the outskirts of a lot of cities, where future big-name drivers learned their trade and established their careers. The cars were held together with wire and duct tape, their doors welded shut so they wouldn’t fly open in rolls or collisions. Drivers were belted in tight, like infants in those contraptions that made babies look like miniature astronauts. Baby steps, Eddie sometimes thought. But dangerous as hell.

  The drivers didn’t mind the danger. In fact, they fed on it. This was where they learned to survive, and then to win. Legends had raced at Eddie’s Speed-O-Rama before becoming champions.

  Eddie could have moved up to important tracks like nearby Wentzville, but he didn’t want to. He liked being right where he was. Where he owned the track. Where he felt at home and in control. He liked to win.

  Four laps to go. Time to thrill the crowd. Eddie let out a loud series of yips no one could hear over the roar of engines. The smell of high octane was carried on the clouds of dust and clots of mud, the result of keeping the track wetted down so dust wouldn’t consume the oval and spectators. Eddie slapped the gearshift lever with the heel of his hand and Lucinda picked up speed. He wasn’t like a lot of drivers, who jammed cotton or rubber plugs in their ears. This was Midwest muscle with RPMs, horsepower, and plenty of noise. Nobody looked at speedometers. They all read fast! And decibels were part of the deal.

  This, by God, was what Eddie lived for.

  Racing beat-to-hell stock cars—souped-up but within the parameters that were possible with cars people drove to and from work—wasn’t for pussies. Eddie liked to demonstrate that to people on Friday nights, then brag about it afterward at the Eight Banger Lounge. That Eddie was part owner of the Eight Banger made his victories all the sweeter and more profitable.

  Coming out of a skidding turn into the straightaway, Eddie mashed down hard on the accelerator and Lucinda responded. She was hot to go, and a surge of confidence flowed through Eddie. He’d felt it before. It was a sensation he never wanted to feel for the last time. He knew he was going to win.

  As he moved up on 57, over a car length per lap, he couldn’t hear the crowd over the engines, but he knew it must be roaring. Ahead of him and off to his right, he could see people standing up, rising like an ocean wave.

  He did actually hear them roar when he used 57’s back draft to help sling Lucinda around the vehicle.

  And there he was, tied with the 43 car going into the final lap.

  Tricky. But strategy wasn’t everything. There was something more important: what Eddie thought of as gut time. That was what made a race-car driver.

  Halfway around the track, the two cars remained tied. The east turn was coming up, with its brick barrier to protect anyone crossing to use restrooms or buy food and drinks. Eddie eased left and fell back slightly.

  The 43 car took the bait. Eddie let mud from 43 splatter his windshield for a few seconds, giving the young driver false hope. Then he gunned Lucinda and suddenly dropped to the inside of the track. He loved to drive against inexperience.

  Now it was Lucinda dishing the dirt. But 43 gradually pulled even, surprising Eddie.

  As they roared into the turn, both cars went into their controlled skids. If one driver didn’t make a move soon, either one might win. There could even be a tie. One of those kissing-your-sister races that satisfied no one.

  Eddie didn’t have a sister. He couldn’t tolerate a tie. And second place was unacceptable.

  Blasting out of the curve, he increased his speed as he eased right. The 57 car had gotten back into it. All three lead cars were close together now, almost wheel to wheel. The 43 car suddenly moved to the inside, controlling enough of the track to seize the race and the glory. Gut time. Whoever went into the next turn first would win, with clear track ahead to the checkered flag. Whoever hesitated would go into the wall.

  Eddie went hard into the turn immediately, dropping low on the banked track. Mud clots flew in the corner of his vision. Someone was dangerously close. He knew that if the 43 car went straight it might hit him. He might be killed. The driver in 43 must know that too.

  Lucinda was overheated and faltering. The 57 car emitted streamers of black smoke and fell back, and the inside lane was open. Half the inside lane. Would the young driver of 43 risk his life by squeezing past Eddie and brushing the wall, possibly killing both of them?

  For that not to happen, Eddie would have to give ground.

  Gut time.

  The kid in 43 decided to clip the wall and pray.

  And win if he survived.

  * * *

  Eddie Delgado was born in Texas but grew up in St. Louis.St. Louis was where he began driving competitively, first the midget autos, then stock cars. His winnings increased exponentially, until the accident, when he’d run into another car’s wheel that had broken loose. That was when he took the time to heal, and bought a local racetrack from a promoter down on his luck.

  Eddie continued to race. He’d been a terror when he was younger, and even now, when he chose to pencil himself into a race, he was often the winner. That was one reason his dirt track still brought crowds: they knew there was a chance they were going to see hometown legend Eddie Delgado race his battered but famous stock car, Lucinda.

  The human Lucinda had been the first woman Eddie laid, and he might have married her. But once she found out about him, got to know him really well, she moved all the way to somewhere in Canada, where he wouldn’t find her.

  * * *

  “The truth is,” Mickey Dolan said, now that the race was history, “you didn’t have to block 43 on the turn.”

  Mickey was a short, muscular man, with bushy black hair beginning to gray and the features of a bulldog saddened and ea
ger for trouble. Mickey and Eddie had met and been teenagers together in Dogtown, gone to the same St. Louis schools, gotten into the same kinds of trouble. Together they had gone on a streetlamp-breaking binge, attempted to climb a 200-foot TV tower, tried to blow up a tree with a jug of gasoline and a rag wick. The truth was, they had more nerve than sense. Mickey’s father had been a St. Louis cop; otherwise, the boys probably would have spent time in juvenile detention.

  After high school graduation, they both joined the Marines. That changed things.

  This sweltering late afternoon the two men were in Mickey’s backyard. It seemed isolated but was only about a hundred yards from Interstate 64, one of the main east-west highways leading to and from downtown St. Louis. Where Mickey and Eddie sat, at a round white metal table with a green umbrella over it to protect from the sun, the highway was invisible beyond some trees and a prefabricated fence that fit together like some oversized construction toy. The idea was to mute the sound of traffic, and it worked pretty well. Now and then a horn honked. Or an emergency vehicle with a siren passed. When the highway was crowded, like during rush hour or before or after a Cards or Rams game, you could smell the exhaust fumes that filtered through the trees. Both men enjoyed that.

  “Are you saying I should have given 43 a break and lost the race so your son could notch a win?”

  “You know I didn’t mean that,” Mickey said. “I simply meant you didn’t have to block him. You could have given Alan a shot, seen if his car had it.”

  On the table were a couple of cork coasters and a blue vinyl cooler bag that held ice and six bottles of Schlafly beer. Mickey unzipped the cooler and shoved it over so Eddie could grab a bottle. Then he reached across the table, got one for himself, and removed the twist-top cap. These were veteran beer drinkers—neither man chose to use a glass.

  Eddie took a long pull and wiped foam from his upper lip. “I own the racetrack, Mick. It’s for stock car racing. Except for demolition derbies, that’s what race cars do, try not to get passed.”

  “There are rules.”

  “Written and unwritten.”

  “It’s a local dirt track,” Mickey said. “Small time. It’s not Indy or the Grand Prix.”

  Eddie shrugged. “A race is a race. And you might take a look behind you at your fine house, bought with prize money mostly won at Eddie’s Speed-O-Rama. You’re the one who decided it was time for your son to take on some of the competition.”

  “Alan was ready. He raced stock cars all over the country.”

  “Then he should have expected me to pass on the last turn. You might feel bad about it, and I don’t blame you, but it’s the life Alan chose to live, and, short though it was, he lived it.”

  With your approval hung in the air.

  “The Marines made him think like that, like he could do any damn thing he tried.”

  “You and the Marines,” Eddie said. “Alan thought he had the balls to break me on the track.”

  “You could have let him pass.”

  “It’s not in my nature. Or in Alan’s. Or in yours, Mick.”

  Unseen beyond the trees, the six-lane traffic on I-64 was building to a low, steady roar, reminding Mickey of the sea. He used to enjoy sitting at his outside table, drinking Schlafly, listening to that sound. He didn’t like it so much anymore, now that Alan was gone. He tried to ignore the sound but couldn’t. It was almost rush hour, when all the yuppies and white-collar drones returned to their hives. It seemed they all drove I-64 to or from the western suburbs. Mickey thought sometimes it would be smart for them all to switch houses.

  Eddie seemed not to notice the noise, even as the traffic increased. Maybe he’d spent too much time around race cars, listening to them howling and reaching for speed. Soon the noise would level off, as the cars slowed in heavy traffic until they were creeping for home. Sometimes, on burning-hot days like this, they would come to a complete stop. That was when the highway looked like nothing so much as a long parking lot.

  Mickey sipped his beer and said, “It’s true my son lived the kind of life he wanted, Eddie, maybe even died the death he would have chosen.”

  “So what’s your complaint, Mick?”

  “You hurried things along.”

  “He was good at his job,” Eddie said, “and it was his job.”

  “So you got the checkered flag, and Alan got the brick wall.”

  Eddie planted his elbows on the table, but the metal was too hot so he quickly removed them and sat back. It was a typical July day, and there were crescents of perspiration beneath the armpits of his shirt. “There’s nothing any of us can do about it now, Mick, except to say we’re sorry.”

  “You’re sorry you cut Alan off so it would be you or him at the wall?”

  “There’s a difference between sorry and guilty, Mick.”

  Mickey took a long sip of Schlafly and set the bottle on its coaster with exaggerated care, as if he might be afraid his hand would tremble. “Alan was moving up fast. You should have let him pass.”

  “That’s not the way it works, Mick, letting people pass. That kind of thinking is how wars are lost. We’re all sorry. To hear you say it, we’re all guilty. You, your ex-wife, everyone.”

  “Don’t forget yourself, Eddie. Alan chose to take a chance rather than let you win.”

  Eddie smiled. It wasn’t a nice smile. In fact, there was something rapacious in it. “Like you taught him, Mick.”

  “We both taught him.”

  “Sooner or later we all make the choice he made, if we become winners. That’s what it comes down to. We roll the dice in these beat-to-shit high-speed cars and take the ultimate and winning risk.”

  “You let him roll the dice and die, Eddie.”

  Eddie’s face got flushed, then hard. “I treated him just the way I’d treat any other driver trying to take over my race.” He finished his beer, then leaned across the table, looking hard at the other man. “What really bothers you, Mick, is that if you’d been in my place, you’d have given him the same choice. He could risk passing and maybe win, or maybe hit the wall. Or he could settle for second.”

  Eddie put down his empty bottle and stood up, scraping metal chair legs. He wiped perspiration from his forehead with the back of his wrist.

  There was a series of chimes, and he wrestled his cell phone from his pocket. He said “Yes” four times, then broke the connection and laid the phone on the table. “I gotta take a piss.”

  “Go ahead,” Mickey said. “The house is unlocked.” He watched Eddie walk across the wide lawn to the house. He thought it was odd that, while he blamed Eddie Delgado for killing his son, he was sure the guy wouldn’t steal anything from the house. Trust between longtime friends was a strange thing.

  * * *

  On the way out of the house, Eddie picked up a small crystal ashtray and slipped it into his pocket. He wasn’t sure why.

  Mickey didn’t get up when Eddie returned, but he leaned back in his iron chair that looked too small for him.

  “What they say is right,” Eddie said. “We don’t drink beer, only rent it.” He propped his fists on his hips and made no move to sit down. “I got a business to run, Mick.”

  “It’s hot out, and the traffic is thick this time of day.” Mickey slid the vinyl cooler across the table. “You’ll want this.”

  Eddie stared at him.

  “A gift from me to you, Eddie,” Mickey said with a smile.

  Eddie was suspicious. Was this a gift? Or some kind of wise-ass comment? Had he somehow been seen pilfering the ashtray? Eddie played dumb and said, “The question is, why?”

  Mickey shrugged. “The I-64 traffic is murder. You’re gonna have a hot drive home. You got four more iced beers in there.”

  “Let’s each have another before I leave,” Eddie said.

  “Sounds good.”

  Eddie removed two beers and handed one to Mickey. They wiped dampness from the bottles with their shirttails and twisted off the caps. Eddie raised his bottle in a
casual toast to Mickey, who hesitated, then returned the gesture and took a long pull.

  Within minutes, both bottles were empty.

  “I’ll get the cooler back to you,” Eddie said, standing up. The beer, or something, was making him sweat as if he’d been out running in the summer heat.

  “Whenever you think of it,” Mickey replied.

  Eddie was lowering himself into his silver Porsche, when Mickey, standing at the wooden deck rail and looking down at him in the driveway, said, “There’s one more thing, Eddie.”

  Eddie Delgado was about to start the Porsche’s engine. Instead, he just sat there in the sleek convertible and looked up at Mickey. It was hot all right, here in the sun, and Eddie wanted to get the car moving so there was a breeze. He wasn’t in a mood to put up with more of Mickey’s bullshit. He kept his voice modulated, but the irritation came through: “What is it now, Mick?”

  “I’ve got a shotgun here.” Mickey held up a double-barreled twelve-gauge where it could be seen, then laid it on the rail. “If you move to start your engine or get outta the car, I’ll use it.”

  Eddie didn’t think Mickey had the balls to aim and fire a shotgun at him. On the other hand, he’d seen Mickey do some crazy things on the racetrack. That was why he was a winner. That was why they were friends. Or something like friends.

  “Am I gonna get another speech, Mick?”

  “Short one.”

  Eddie made himself smile. “Fire away.”

  “I thought about that,” Mickey said. “Had a better idea. Fairer.”

  “Fairer to who?”

  “Both of us. We’re gonna let God decide, like He usually does in matters of life and death.”

  “Decide what?”

  “Whether you murdered Alan just so you could win a race.”

  “Hurry it up then, Mick. I’ve gotta drive all the way into the city, and traffic is building up while we’re here flapping our gums.”

  “You got a cooler on the seat next to you. Inside it, you got two unopened bottles and four empties.”

  Eddie thought back. Mick had put the empties, even their bottle caps, back into the cooler when the bottles were empty. Not like him to be so neat.