The Last Whisper in the Dark: A Novel Read Free

the office. Right?
Immediately
. Why did you wait so long?”
    “That’s my fault,” my father said. “I didn’t want him put to sleep.”
    “Getting a checkup isn’t the equivalent of being put down.”
    A hard, mean diamond glint entered my old man’s gaze. How could you explain what a hot shot might mean to us? He wet his lips. “I realize that now.”
    “John F. Kennedy could have died.”
    “Yes.”
    “And you could">“No,” I saidplas have saved him a great deal of suffering.”
    “Yes.”
    George shook his handsome head. “And when the time comes, it’s more humane to put him down than to let him endure such agony.”
    “I see that now.”
    “
Good
. You can stay here with him until he’s awake enough to walk out on his own.”
    Two days later I filled in the hole under the apple tree while JFK sat beside me, thumping his tail against the frosty morning earth.
    We were about a hundred yards away from my uncle Grey’s unmarked grave in the woods, a man I had loved, admired, and eventually been forced to kill.
    JFK made that throat-clearing sound again and I turnon/xhtml+xml;

I’d been watching my former best friend Chub Wright’s garage almost every night for two months, keeping an eye on him as he met with various crews and helped them plan their getaway routes. Chub sold souped-up muscle cars and offered information on radar traps, state trooper activity, police routes, the best way out of town, and potential hole-up spots.
    Chub had conferred with three different strings since I’d started eyeing the garage. I didn’t recognize any of them. All of them paid him off the way he required. A certain amount of cash before the boost and a small percentage of the total take after the heat died down. So far, one of the crews had returned to give him his cut. Nobody in the bent life would rip him off. Chub had a name for himself and still threw weight, partly because he knew the right people but mostly because he’d run with my family for so many years.
    There was no reason at all why he should continue to take these kinds of risks. He had a legitimate business making good money. I knew all about his aboveboard finances. I’d crept his office and found both sets of books. They were both way in the black.
    My dreams were getting worse. In them, Kimmy begged me to watch over her husband. I woke with her taste on my lips. I woke with Chub’s blood on my hands. I showered for hours and still imagined I saw them red.
    I checked the time. It was nudging past ten. The garage remained dark. Chub was at home with his wife and daughter, watching television or snacking on chips or making love to Kimmy. The freezing wind shaved my throat.
    Chub showed up at ten-fifteen. His luck would eventually playout. It had to happen. He’d keep pushing the odds until one of the crews turned on him or the cops pulled a sting operation. There was no place for him to go except into the bin or the grave.
    I watched him park and head inside, flip on the lights in the bays, and step into his this many times before to be Q office. I thought about crossing the lot, saying hello, and trying to shake his hand. I’d made the attempt before but it had ended badly.
    I sat back and lit a cigarette and smoked in the dark staring through the windows of the garage.
    Headlights flashed across the lot. I threw down the butt and edged back into shadow.
    This latest crew was a tight-knit four-guy unit. The wheelman drove a blue-black GTO with extra muscle under the hood. They carried a lot of hardware. They dressed the same, in black clothing with black jackets, black shoes, wearing black wool hats, with hair dyed the same shade of black. It was something crews sometimes did during heists to confuse witnesses and keep the onlookers from getting a good description. I’d never heard of a string doing it before a job. It proved they were keeping Chub on the outside. They didn’t entirely trust him. That might be natural wariness on their