So Young So Wicked Read online

  So Young, So Wicked

  Jonathan Craig

  This page formatted 2011 Munsey's.

  http://www.munseys.com

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  * * *

  http://www.munseys.com

  JONATHAN CRAIG

  So Young, So Wicked

  Meet Leda, the dainty town beauty, 15 years old and getting her kicks out of grown men and hot-blooded murder

  Meet

  She was a small, incredibly pretty girl dressed as a drum majorette. She had the tiniest waist and the most nearly perfect legs Steve had ever seen.

  Victim

  He dropped the picture on the coffee table and looked at Licardi. “Go ahead, tell me you're getting next to that. I haven't had a decent laugh in a long time.”

  Licardi picked up the picture and held it close to his eyes. “God,” he said softly. “She's really something, ain't she? And only just turned fifteen. God.”

  Steve made an impatient gesture with his cigarette. “Stop dreaming, Vince. You're never going to do anything about that and you know it.”

  Licardi nodded, still looking at the picture. “No,” he said. “But you are.”

  “Me? You crazy? I wouldn't fool around with anything that young for—” He broke off abruptly, staring at Licardi.

  Licardi glanced at him over the top of the picture and smiled. “You're going to do something about her, all right, Steve. You're going to kill her...”

  Chapter One

  STEVE GARRITY SAW the burned paper match wedged between the door and the jamb an instant after he had inserted his key and started to twist the knob. He paused, abruptly and completely motionless, and suddenly the muggy August morning seemed chill. The match was a signal that Licardi had been here, a warning to stay in the apartment until he came again. And a visit from Licardi could have only one meaning.

  He took a deep breath and reached for the match. Number nine, he thought as he bent it slowly between his thumb and forefinger. Number nine. Just a burned paper match stuck in a door, and yet it means that a man's going to die, and that I'm the one who's going to kill him.

  He frowned at the match, flicked it away, and stepped into the apartment. Outside in the corridor the air had been stifling, heavy with the stored humidity of a night that had kept the air-conditioned club where Steve played piano filled with customers until closing time, at four a.m.—but here in the living room the air was dry and cool, kept that way around the clock by Steve's own air-conditioning unit in one of the huge front windows that faced the uptown side of East 51st Street. The apartment had four rooms, all of them expensively furnished, all of them soundproofed. Not even the rush-hour cacophony of midtown Manhattan penetrated here; the almost inaudible hum of the air-conditioning unit was the only sound.

  He walked past the grand piano, past the low sectional sofa, past the hi-fi and the television console, and opened the doors of the cellaret. He rarely drank alone, but there were times when he felt an exception was in order, and this was one of them. He poured a pony of rye into a highball glass, filled the glass halfway up with plain water, added an ice cube, and put the drink down on top of the cellaret while he took off his jacket and tie and opened his collar. Then he picked up the glass, sipped at it slowly for a moment, and walked back to the piano. He sat down before it, took a deep swallow of his drink, and put the glass down on the lowered top. It would be good for him if he could get drunk, he thought. Just once. He'd like to really hang one on. But there was no point in thinking about it. Professional killers didn't get drunk; if they were smart they didn't drink at all. Not if they wanted to stay alive. One good drunk, and a little—a very little—loose talk, and it would be all over.

  He played softly for a moment, trying to work a little of the tenseness out of his arms and shoulders; and then, suddenly, he brought all ten fingers down viciously against the keys in a roaring discord, picked up his glass, carried it out to the kitchen, and emptied the rest of his drink into the sink.

  The pattern was always the same, he reflected. First there was the instant of fear, and then the minute or two of resentment, and finally the inevitable resignation to the fact that you were going to murder a man—for money, and because you had no choice. If you didn't murder him, the syndicate would murder you. It was as simple as that.

  The door buzzer sounded just as he finished rinsing out the glass and setting it on the drainboard. He walked back to the living room, fastened the night chain in its slot, and opened the door the three inches the chain permitted.

  It was Licardi. Steve unhooked the chain and motioned him inside. “You're a real careful boy,” Licardi said, smiling. “You open the door just wide enough for somebody to stick a gun inside, and no more.”

  “I knew it'd be you,” Steve said. “Who else would it be? Hell, it's five o'clock in the morning.”

  “That's just the trouble,” Licardi said. “Five o'clock's when a guy's brain starts to tire out on him. That's what happened in Cincinnati, ain't it? This guy opened the door for you a couple inches. It was enough, wasn't it? Sure. You want to make a man a drink, or do I fix it myself?”

  “You know where it is,” Steve said. “Fix it yourself.”

  Licardi shrugged and waddled toward the cellaret. He was a very short, very thick-bodied man with tremendous shoulders, close-cropped gray hair, and a fat, bulging neck that sweated constantly. His round face had a yellowish cast to it, and there were mud-brown streaks in the whites of his eyes. Just beneath his hair, and extending from one side of his forehead to the other, was a grayish band of skin almost an inch wide—the mark left, Steve had assumed, by an electric needle when a much younger and much vainer Licardi had had his hairline raised.

  “Lousy liquor you've got,” Licardi said as he stirred the drink. “You could afford better.”

  “I've got better,” Steve said. “It's just that I save it for my friends.”

  Licardi grinned, walked to the sofa, and sat down heavily. Steve stared at him for a moment, then sat down on a hassock and lit a cigarette. “All right, Vince,” he said. “Let's have it.”

  “Don't rush me,” Licardi said. “This is one you ain't going to like.”

  “What makes you think I like any of them?”

  Licardi glanced about the living room. “You live pretty good, Steve. Nice and cool in here. Nice and quiet, too. What'd this place rock you?”

  “If you mean for the air-conditioner and the soundproofing, twenty-eight hundred.”

  Licardi nodded. “And the furniture?”

  “Another grand and a half.”

  “Not counting the hi-fi and the piano, of course.”

  “For God's sake, Vince. What are you, a tax appraiser?”

  “Like I said, you live pretty good. You asked me what made me think you like your work. That's why. Because it lets you live so good.”

  “Oh, sure. If I lived any better I couldn't stand it.”

  “Yeah.”

  “You going to keep this up all night?”

  Licardi sighed. “All right, so rush me. Make me feel like I ain't wanted.” He reached into his inside jacket pocket, took out a photograph about the size of a postcard, and sat studying it for a moment before he handed it to Steve.

/>   “Nice, eh?” he said. “This kid was just fifteen last month. My God, think what she'll be like in about three years from now.”

  The photograph was of a small, almost incredibly pretty girl with a pomponed shako set at an angle on dark, shoulder-length hair, a fringed jacket that swelled tautly over upthrust breasts, and a snug hip-length skirt that reached the tops of her thighs and no farther. She had the smallest waist and the most nearly perfect legs Steve had ever seen.

  “She's one of these drum majorettes,” Licardi said.

  “You're kidding,” Steve said. He dropped the picture on the coffee table and looked at Licardi. “Go ahead, why don't you? Tell me you're getting next to that. I haven't had a decent laugh all night.”

  Licardi picked up the picture, held it close to his eyes, and shook his head slowly. “Jesus,” he said softly.

  “Watch yourself, Vince,” Steve said. “You'll get the girl all wet.”

  “Man, she's really something, ain't she? Look at those legs. And only just turned fifteen. My God.”

  Steve made an impatient gesture with his cigarette. “Why don't you stop dreaming, Vince? You're never going to do anything about that, and you know it.”

  Licardi nodded, still looking at the picture. “No,” he said. “But you are.”

  “Me? You crazy? I wouldn't fool around with anything that young for—” He broke off abruptly, staring at Licardi.

  Licardi glanced at him over the top of the picture and smiled. “You're going to do something about her, all right, Steve. You're going to kill her.”

  “Kill a fifteen-year-old girl? Now I know you're crazy.”

  “What's the matter, boy?” Licardi said, his smile widening. “You a little squeamish about killing women?”

  “You call that a woman? She's nothing but a kid.”

  “Yeah? Your eyes ain't good. Take another look at that build on her.”

  “To hell with the build. To hell with the whole idea. You must have gone out of your mind.”

  “Not me,” Licardi said. “Me, I'd do damn near anything to her before I killed her. But it ain't me that does the deciding. I just get the word and pass it along to you, like always. And the word is that the kid's got to be hit. Get used to the idea, Stevie and get used to it fast.”

  “But she's—”

  “But nothing. She's all yours, Steve.”

  Steve wet his lips. “But why me? Why didn't they pick someone else?”

  “Because they didn't want nobody else,” Licardi said. “All the other torpedoes look like just what they are. But you don't. You're a real handsome, clean-cut young guy that looks like he ought to be a salesman or something. You're the only one could get away with it.”

  “Bull,” Steve said. “It's out, Vince. Tell them to get another boy.”

  “Sure,” Vince said. “That's just what I'll tell them. I'll say you've decided to retire. Then all you'll have to do is guess where they'll give it to you—in the belly or in the head, or maybe both. They ain't cheap when it comes to using lead, Steve; that's one thing you got to hand them.”

  “The whole damn outfit must have gone nuts.”

  “Uh-uh,” Licardi said. “They don't make mistakes, Steve; you know that. But I ain't saying I envy you. It's going to be the toughest one you ever handled. Just her being so young and beautiful will raise enough noise, God knows, but that ain't all.” He paused. “She lives in this little town upstate, this Garrensville. That's where you got to hit her, Steve. Right in this stinking little town that's got only about five or six thousand people in it, and where every one of them keeps an eye on everybody else all the time.”

  Steve ground out his cigarette and crossed to the cellaret. “What do they want me to do? Commit suicide?”

  “It'll be suicide, sure enough, if you flub it,” Licardi said. “You'll be on your own right down the line, like always.”

  “Sure,” Steve said bitterly. “Like always.”

  He took his time making his drink, furious with himself for having reacted in the way he had. What had he been trying to do, give Licardi the idea he'd gone soft?

  That could be dangerous. Once the higher-ups had the slightest reason to think you'd lost your nerve, they got rid of you. You lasted just as long as your nerve held out and you didn't bungle. Let your nerve falter just a little, or bungle a job just a little, and the syndicate would make you wish for death a long time before they gave it to you.

  He carried his drink back to the hassock and sat down.

  “Let me see that picture again,” he said casually.

  He studied the girl's face for several moments and then handed the photograph back to Licardi. “All right,” he said. “I could pick her out of ten thousand.”

  “You won't have to,” Licardi said. “There aren't that many people in the whole town. And besides, there couldn't be more than one piece like that in the whole state, let alone a little jerk place like this Garrensville.”

  Licardi held the photograph by one corner, ignited the opposite corner with his cigarette lighter, and held it until the flame reached his fingers. Then he dropped it into the ash tray and poked at the curled ash with his forefinger.

  “A damn wonder it didn't catch fire all by itself,” he said. “What with the way that kid gives off heat and all.”

  “What's her name?” Steve asked.

  “Leda,” Licardi said. “Leda Louise Noland.”

  “What'd she do to rate a hit?”

  “Don't ask foolish questions,” Licardi said shortly. “What's the matter, you getting nose trouble?”

  Steve shook his head. “A girl like that. I just don't get it, Vince.”

  “What's to get? All you got to worry about is seeing that she don't get any older.”

  Steve took a swallow of his drink and looked at the charred fragments in the ash tray. “Why all the sweat?” he said. “I've done jobs in small towns before, Vince.”

  “Not like this one, you ain't,” Vince said. “This Leda's the town beauty, for God's sake. She's the kind just naturally gets all the attention there is around, anyhow. And now, ever since they threw her old man in the county clink, everybody keeps an eye on her harder than ever.”

  “What's he in for?”

  “I don't know what for. He's in, and it ain't no skin off yours or mine. Anyhow, what with the kid's mother dead ever since she was born, and with her old man cooling it in jail, she comes in for a lot of notice. She's livings with an aunt, a woman named Nancy Wilson. They re at Five-o-nine High Street. Got that?”

  Steve nodded. “Five-o-nine High Street. Nancy Wilson.”

  “Just don't write it down anywhere,” Licardi said. “Like I was telling you, what with all this attention she gets, you'll be lucky if you get her alone more'n five seconds before somebody starts wondering what in hell a sharp type like you is doing futzing around with her. That Garrensville ain't the big town, boy; they don't like it for grown men to futz around their little girls.”

  “Maybe you could line up a female torpedo somewhere. It'd be simpler all the way around.”

  “Don't crack wise.”

  “All right, so say it's only five seconds. How long do o you think it takes to pull a trigger?”

  Licardi grinned mirthlessly. “Hot, ain't it?”

  “What?”

  “This weather. It's cooked your brain.”

  “What's that supposed to mean?”

  Licardi leaned forward, rested his elbows on his knees, and spoke with a voice that was strangely flat, almost toneless.

  “I mean there ain't going to be any trigger,” he said. “I mean there ain't going to be any gun, or any knife, or any ice pick, or any damn weapon at all.”

  Steve started to speak, then changed his mind and sat staring at Licardi unblinkingly.

  “Don't bother asking me why,” Licardi went on. “Just listen, and listen good. This hit's got to look like an accident. Hell, it's got to more than look like one; it's got to be one.”

  “Accide
nt!”

  “Yeah, accident. That's going to make it just about as dangerous as a hit can get. But that's the way it has to be, Steve; there's no way around it. If there was, the boys would take it. They don't fancy these things up just for the hell of it.”

  Steve lowered his glass to the coffee table, his eyes on Licardi's face. “Listen, Vince—”

  “Don't 'Listen, Vince' me,” Licardi said. “I ain't much higher up in this outfit than you are. All I do is bring you the word.” He leaned back against the cushion and nodded slowly. “It has to look like an accident, Steve. You make it look like anything else, and you're a dead man.”

  “But how do they expect me to—”

  “They don't care about how,” Licardi said. “They leave that up to you.”

  “It's impossible.”

  “It better not be,” Licardi said. “You know that much, if you don't know anything else.”

  Steve reached for his drink, brought it half to his mouth, then set it back down again. “It means I'd have to hang around and wait for a chance to phony something up. It might be days before I got a chance to pull it, even if I figured something out. It'd take a long time, maybe even weeks.”

  “Not weeks,” Licardi said. A few days you've got, yes. But that's all. You'll have to work up some kind of cover for being there, too. And you'll have to stay around for a while after the hit. You can't just scratch her and take off; they'd have you pegged for the job ten minutes after they found out you'd left. You've got to have a damn good reason to be there in the first place, and you've got to hang around and mingle with the folks a while afterward.”

  “That's all?” Steve said. “You sure that's all, Vince?”

  “It's tough, I admit.”

  “What's tough about it? All I have to do is go to a town where I'll stand out like a man from Mars and somehow get to a girl that everybody in the place is watching over every minute of the time, and then just more or less see to it that she has an accident that kills her. If that's all I have to do, why'd you try to make it sound so tough for?”

  “Don't be bitter,” Licardi said. “You're getting paid, ain't you?”