by Michael Kerr
He pondered on events that had conspired to lead him to this time and place in his life. He was on the run from the police, and the mob. However tranquil the present surroundings, he knew that his life expectancy was in serious danger of being explosively curtailed. He had done a deal with the cops; his continued freedom in return for ensuring that when Eddie Moscone went to trial, the crime boss would get life for his hand in at least a dozen killings. But he had slipped his minders in London and flown the coop, to start over in the U.S. He was out of the loop, living one day at a time, knowing that everyone wanted a piece of him.
Buddy Miller thought that he looked the part. He was wearing an oversize, straw cowboy hat, mirrored shades, a baggy pair of knee-length shorts, and plastic sandals. His beer gut and thin, white-skinned legs promoted the appearance of someone no more sinister than a middle-aged guy who’d just hit the beach and was doing what all the other visiting morons did; collect shells.
Less than a hundred yards away from his mark. There was no hurry. Buddy picked up a large conch, examined it, and walked across to where the surf fizzed on the wet sand, to hunker down and rinse the shell before popping it into the white plastic bag, on the bottom of which rested a Glock 17 fitted with a suppressor.
Three pelicans glided by, scant inches above the ocean’s surface. The man who now called himself Jerry Mason thought that they looked prehistoric, like pterodactyls. The big, dull orange sun was now slipping quickly over the horizon, making a fitting backdrop to silhouette the large-beaked birds.
“Hey, Taylor?” A voice behind him.
Fuck! Even as he turned his head, he knew that it was over. How he’d been found didn’t matter. He was going to die: Knew that the hand inside the plastic bag was pointing a gun at him, but reacted instinctively, twisting, diving sideways as he reached back under his shirt to grasp the butt of the Browning.
Steve’s last image was the reflection of a glorious sunset in the stranger’s shades. A split second later he simply ceased to exist as a bullet punched through his forehead to pulverize his brain and take the back of his skull out, blowing his twitching body into the surf. There were no last thoughts, regrets, or even time to feel fear.
Buddy looked both ways. He’d waited until the two kids had run off, after being summoned by an unseen voice. It was mid-November, low season, and until the Thanksgiving holiday brought hordes down to infest Florida, it was relatively quiet. He stepped forward, put another slug in the mark, and released his grip on the pistol in the now holed bag. Spent a couple of seconds watching dozens of half-inch-long fish glint silver as they darted in to gulp down the blood and tissue that was now liberated from the corpse’s head, before he ambled up the beach, through a fringe of palms to enter Taylor’s cottage and quickly, expertly search it. He found nothing.
Back in the rented Ford Taurus with false plates, Buddy opened his cell phone and made a call to New York City.
“Yeah?”
“It’s Buddy.”
“And?”
“I made the sale.”
“Sweet. See you when you land.”
Buddy broke the connection and drove off slowly along West Gulf Drive. Fifteen minutes later he was crossing the causeway to the mainland. Sanibel appeared to be a very pleasant island, all low-rise and laid back; the type of place he would like to revisit someday with Muriel, his wife of thirty-one years.
Picking up I-75 north, Buddy planned to spend the night up in Tampa, and maybe get himself laid before flying back to the Big Apple. This job had made a nice change. Buddy liked to travel, it broadened the mind.
CHAPTER ONE
“TAYLOR turned up,” DS Regina (Reg) Stuart said, placing a mug of black coffee on her boss’s desktop, after first pushing a sheaf of papers to one side to make room for it.
“Music to my ears, Reg,” DI Ben Drury said, closing and tossing a dog-eared manila file onto a stack of others that were leaning Tower of Pisa fashion on the edge of his desk. “Where is the scumbag?”
“The States. In a morgue at Fort Myers in Florida.”
“Uh?”
“He was found with his brains blown out on some beach.”
Ben took a sip of coffee. “When?”
“Two days ago. He was staying at a small beach resort under the name of Jerry Mason. The local police put his prints through AFIS – the Automated Fingerprint Identification System – and came up with his real ID. He’d been lifted by Dade-Metro in Miami four years ago for GBH on a nightclub owner at South Beach. Charges weren’t filed, due to the complainant being killed in a hit and run. They couldn’t tie Taylor to it, but were sure he’d arranged for it to happen.”
“Shit! That puts us back to square one with Moscone. Without Taylor’s testimony, he’s untouchable.”
“I wonder how he found Taylor? We couldn’t.”
Ben sighed. “When he did a runner from Witness Protection, Moscone’s boys will have been watching, and followed him. End of story.”
“So what do we do now, boss?”
“Confirm that it really was Taylor who got capped. He was a slippery customer. I wouldn’t be surprised if he’d faked his own death.”
“It’s definitely him. We got an attachment of autopsy photos sent through with the report. He’d dyed his hair, shaved off his beard, and the crabs had started in on him, but he was still recognizable. And he had an old SAS tattoo on his right arm. We haven’t got the print comparison through yet, but I think it’ll be a formality.”
“Is that it, Reg?”
“ ‘Fraid so, boss.”
“Okay, so let’s concentrate on other fish. No good crying over one that got away.”
Eddie Moscone was walking on air. The cops – and in particular the pricks in the Serious Crimes Squad, who’d been on his back for over two years – had fucked-up, royally. With Taylor dead, they had zilch. And anyone else who might have been thinking of making a deal with the filth would think twice, now that it was common knowledge of how the rogue hitman was traced to the sunshine state and whacked. It was a demonstration that disloyalty could seriously damage your health. And that running didn’t get you very far. The world really was a small place nowadays.
Eddie was in his office at the Raffaella Club. He was talking on a secure line to Joey Farino in New York.
“I owe you, Joey,” he said. “You need anythin’ taken care of this side of the pond, just name it.”
“I was only too happy to help out, Eddie,” Joey said. “That’s what friends are for. And it was no big deal. When the mark flew in, he got a cab into town and rented a car. All my guy had to do was pick his time and attach a gizmo to it. These satellite trackin’ devices are the business. No one can take a powder with technology like that keepin’ a fix on ‘em.”
“It’s a changin’ world, Joey. I can’t even work a fuckin’ DVD. I gotta get my daughter to do it for me.”
“That’s why we pay people to look after business, ain’t it, Eddie? Stay well.”
“An’ you, my friend. Ciao.”
Eddie sat back and smiled. Everything was back on an even keel. “Get me a JD, Tommaso,” he said to the hulking young man who was sitting in front of a wall-mounted plasma television, watching cartoons with the volume turned down.
Tommaso Corsi leapt to his feet and strode over to the corner bar. Poured three fingers of Jack Daniel’s into a lead crystal glass, and used tongs to put several wedges of ice in it. He worshipped Eddie, and would do anything for the man. Eddie Moscone was his half sister’s husband, and had taken him in as a thirteen-year-old, to raise as a son. If Eddie said jump, all Tommaso might ask is: ‘How high’?
“Now get Nick up here,” Eddie said, taking the proffered glass from the enormous hand that held it out rock steady in front of him.
Tommaso relinquished the JD and picked up the phone to ring down to the gaming room and summon Nick Darvo.
“Yeah, boss,” Nick said, entering the office after punching a four digit number into the panel on the door to
gain entry. Eddie put security, not cleanliness, next to godliness. Even had a bank of wall-mounted monitors facing his desk, to watch all movement within the club, and outside the front and rear entrances. CCTV negated any surprise visits by the police or other unwelcome callers. It was just one of the many tools he employed to keep ahead of the game.
“I want you an’ Tommaso to go see the bitch that Taylor was shacked up with. I have it on good authority that he kept tapes of telephone conversations I had with him. He didn’t give them up to the police, or have them with him in Florida. Maybe she knows where they are. Find out. An’ one way or the other, hurt her.”
“How hurt do you want her, boss?” Nick asked.
Eddie put a manicured thumbnail to his front teeth and flicked it forward to produce a loud click.
Nick nodded and suppressed a smile. He enjoyed killing women.
Marcy Curtis had heard the news. Knew that Steve was dead. Even knew that it was odds on that Moscone was behind it. She had not known where Steve had gone, and was pissed off that he had not contacted her after he’d done a runner from the police, who were protecting him. She had done a lot of soul-searching; decided that she didn’t need him in her life anymore. The eighteen months spent together had been fun. But when the Old Bill had broken into their apartment in the middle of the night and dragged them both out of bed at gun point, she had started to see Steve for what he really was. The police had questioned her for nearly two days, before seemingly accepting that she had no idea of Steve’s involvement with Moscone and the mob. Jesus! They’d said that Steve was a contract killer. She didn’t want to believe it, but on some level knew that it was probably true. It explained his mysterious trips, and the fact that he would not discuss his business, apart from saying that he was a trouble-shooter for an oil company, whatever that was supposed to mean.
It had been two plainclothes cops that came round to break the news. With no preamble, the DI – a steely-eyed, square-jawed type by the name of Drury – had told her that Steve had been found shot dead on a beach in Florida. Said that if she had been holding out on them over anything, then now was the time to come clean. She had stifled the tears and told him to go to hell.
Now, twenty-four hours after the cops’ visit, Marcy had got to grips with the situation. Had even phoned Steve’s brother in Durban, who she had never met, but whom Steve had talked about a lot.
Harry Taylor ran a small, elite safari operation, taking the well-heeled up north into the Hluhluwe Game reserve, which was one of the last refuges of the white rhino. Harry was reputedly a gung-ho type, who thrived on adventure and danger.
“Have you heard about Steve?” Marcy had said, after telling Harry who she was.
“What do you mean? Heard what?”
“He...he’s dead, Harry. He turned up on a beach, somewhere in Florida. He’d been shot.”
“Are you all right?” Harry asked after a long pause.
“What do you think? I thought he was some kind of trouble-shooter in the oil business. Then he gets lifted, and I’m told he’s a fucking hitman for people like Eddie Moscone. Did you know what he did?”
“No,” Harry said. “I haven’t seen Steve for over three years. We talked on the phone regularly, but not about work. Last call I got, he said he wanted to bring you out here to see the sights and the big game.”
“He never told me,” Marcy said, turning her head as the doorbell rang. “Someone’s at the door, Harry.”
“Okay. I’ll try to find out what’s happening, and arrange for Steve to be flown home for burial. I’ll call you when I know anything.”
After saying good-bye, Marcy went to the door. “Who is it?” she called.
“Police, love. We need to talk to you about Steve Taylor.”
Christ, not again. They were hounding her. She would not let them in. Just tell them to leave her the hell alone. She wrenched open the door, ready to call them fascist pigs who got off on intimidating law-abiding citizens, but was confronted by a giant of a man, who gripped her by the throat, lifted her off the floor and entered the apartment, to walk through to the lounge and throw her on to the settee.
Coughing and spluttering, her throat a mass of pain, Marcy pushed herself up into a sitting position to face the man who had hurt her, and a much smaller, older man, who appeared from behind the bulk of her attacker.
“Let me introduce us, Marcy,” Nick said, removing a gun from the inside of his jacket and pointing it at her chest. “I’m Nick, and my young associate here is Tommaso. I understand that you are aware of what happened to that piece of shit boyfriend of yours. He got capped for grassing up our employer, Mr. Moscone. And certain incriminating tapes that we believed to be in his possession, were not. Do you get my drift?”
“No,” Marcy wheezed. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“That’s what I hoped you’d say,” Nick said, smiling, to show small, yellow teeth. “You might just be telling the truth, but you’ll appreciate that we have to be absolutely sure.”
Tommaso stepped forward and almost casually clipped her on the point of the chin with his clenched fist.
They searched the apartment thoroughly, and came to the conclusion that the tapes, if they existed, were not hidden there.
Marcy came round and panicked. She had been stripped, and was now laying in the bath, her wrists and ankles bound with silver duct tape. And her mouth was sealed with it. She breathed through her nose and began to cry, in part because of the pain in her head and jaw, but in the main because she knew that the two men were going to kill her.
“You ready to join lover boy?” Nick said, entering the bathroom, now wearing navy-blue overalls buttoned up to the neck over his mohair suit, and latex gloves on his small, slender hands. He was wielding a broad-bladed knife he’d taken from the wood block on the kitchen counter. “Give Taylor hell when you see him. If he’d kept his mouth shut, you wouldn’t be about to get sliced and diced.”
It was forty-five minutes later when Nick and Tommaso left the apartment. They were now positive that the woman had not been holding out on them. Nick had removed the tape from her mouth and given her a lot of incentive to answer his questions.
Tommaso felt sick to his stomach, but did not show it. Nick was humming Volare, and was in fine mood. What he had just done seemed to relieve a pressure that only visiting extreme violence on someone could alleviate. He opened the boot of the car and deposited a Harrods bag – containing the now sodden overalls and gloves – into a cardboard box. He would feed them to the furnace in the club’s basement when they got back.
Read the remainder of Deadly Reprisal at all good e-book stores, or go direct to the Kindle store at http://www.amazon.co.uk/Deadly-Reprisal-ebook/dp/B006QCK23G/
