Blood Cruise: A Deep Sea Thriller
Page 12
“That so?” Tony asked. He turned his attention to Nick. “What’s the ruling on that, Sheeran? What does the house have to say?”
“Uh, well, you know how it is, Tony,” Nick sputtered. “That’s the way the game is played.”
“Not much of an answer,” Tony said.
“Show them,” Ben said as he raked in his chips. “That’s how the game is played.”
“Fine,” Tony said without any more of a fight. “You want to see what I had? Here ya go.”
He fished his cards out of the muck and flipped them over. Pair of aces.
“Damn,” Nick said. “Ouch.”
“Lucky bastard caught his straight flush,” Tony said. “Ain’t a damn thing I can do about that.”
“No, there isn’t,” Ben said. “Good hand. You played that perfectly. Good show of strength and nice effort trying to push everyone out. If I hadn’t been short stacked, you would have taken that one.”
Tony watched Ben for a few seconds then laughed. “I think that was a real compliment,” Tony said. “No BS, right?”
“Right,” Ben said. “No BS. Pretty sure you can find me talking about a hand just like that on my blog. You checked when you only had three aces then went in hard when you caught your fourth. At that point, I was irrelevant and you were playing Lane. Which was the only mistake you made in the hand. If he’d called you then you’d have made a nice chunk, but he folded and it all came down to the two of us.”
“You think I should have bet less?” Tony asked. “Kept Lane in?”
“Maybe,” Ben said. “You had four bullets, so it would have been near impossible for him to beat you. If he had his own straight flush then you were dead whether you bet big or bet small. But, at least by betting small you may have squeezed some chips out of the loss to me with the side bet.”
“Good to know,” Tony said and started laughing. “Very good to know!” He pointed at Nick. “This guy of yours ain’t half bad. I think I’ll let him live a while longer as long as he keeps giving advice like that.”
Ben bristled and almost lost the cool he had been working so hard to build up. All he wanted to do was grab the man’s drink glass, crack it on the side of the table, and stab the shards into the son of a bitch’s throat. But, instead, he sat back and pushed the image of the Guillotine staring at Tanni out of his mind and gave Tony a huge grin.
“You’re a giver,” Ben laughed. “I appreciate the gift of life.”
“Never say I ain’t got a soft side,” Tony said, laughing as well.
Tony’s guard cocked his head and nodded, moving quickly to the table. A quick whisper in Tony’s ear and the man was up on his feet.
“Ladies and gentlemen, I’m afraid my time at the table is over,” Tony said. He hooked a thumb over his shoulder at his guard. “Feel free to keep playing. In fact, I insist on it. My man here will make sure you remain in the game room while I conduct some business.”
“What?” Carlos exclaimed.
“Hold the hell on!” Lane snapped.
Jessica slid away from the table, her hand halfway up her dress. Ben caught her eye and shook his head. Jessica frowned then glared at him. Ben shook his head harder. Jessica pulled her hand out of her dress and turned her glare onto Tony.
“What you got tucked up there?” Tony laughed. He motioned with his head to his guard. “Have a look.”
The guard took one step and Jessica stood up.
“I don’t need my .32 to put you down,” Jessica said to the huge man with the big gun pointed at her. “I’ll cram your own gun up your ass and empty it before you know what’s happening if you take one more step towards me.”
“Let her be,” Tony said to his guard. “But you keep an eye on her. She goes to scratch her snatch and you put two between her eyes.”
“Tony, man, this is so not cool,” Nick said. “What the hell are you doing? This is not the time for business. I made that clear when you were invited. Friendly game of poker so everyone can see the yacht and—”
“I’ll take the yacht,” Tony said. “Full asking price. How does that work for you, Sheeran? You think I’m being cool now?”
“You’ll take it,” Nick said. “Uh, well, awesome.”
“Is it? Because you don’t sound too thrilled,” Tony said. “Why is that?”
“What? No, I’m stoked, man,” Nick replied, clapping his hands together. “It’s just that you’re kind of threatening everyone and it puts a damper on my excitement. Hard to celebrate the sale of my yacht when someone could be getting shot on it any second now. You know what I mean?”
“I’ve had the money wired to you already,” Tony said. “I assume you have the ownership paperwork ready to go?”
“Yeah, yeah, of course,” Nick said.
“Good,” Tony said. “Let me handle my business while you get that together. I’ll sign it all once I know my other endeavor is handled. Then we can sit down and finish our game. On my new yacht.”
“Nope,” Lane said. “Nicky may be cool with this, but I am not.”
“Me neither,” Carlos said.
“Want to guess my answer?” Jessica asked as she held up two middle fingers. “Can you read between the lines?”
“Let the guy do his thing,” Maggie said from the bar and all eyes turned on her. Everyone looked completely surprised since most of them had assumed she’d passed out. “The sooner he does whatever he’s going to do then the sooner this game can be over and we all go back home and forget any of this crap happened.”
“That’s the booze talking,” Ben said.
“Smart booze,” Tony said. “Your lady is right. Let me do my thing, as she put it, and we will all be good. Try to stop me and my thing will turn ugly pretty fast.”
“I’m guessing your thing is pretty ugly already,” Jessica said. “If your dick matches your face.”
“Jessie,” Nick said. “Tony’s a guest of mine. Let’s be civil and not piss off the guy with the henchmen, okay?”
“I blame you for this, Nicky,” Jessica said as she walked over to the bar and sat down next to Maggie. She tapped at the bar then snapped her fingers at Manny. “I have people waiting back on shore for me to turn up safe and sound. If I have even a scratch on this bod when I get back there, they will take it out on you.”
“Maybe next time you want to sell a boat, you put it in the classifieds, mate,” Lane said.
“It’s a yacht,” Nick replied. “And you don’t put a sixty-five million dollar yacht in the classifieds.”
Tony’s guard cleared his throat.
“This discussion is over,” Tony said. “I will return as soon as possible. Nobody go anywhere.”
He turned and walked out. Two of his guards were waiting for him outside the doors. A third one closed the doors and everyone could see he was taking a position right outside before the doors closed.
“Niya is out there,” Carlos said, glancing at Tony’s guard. “Let’s hope that is not a problem.”
“I will have someone detain her,” the guard said. “For her safety.”
“Downright kind of you,” Lane said and slapped his hands on the table as he stood up. “Manny? Set me up with a row of martinis. Since the night isn’t about poker anymore then I might as well get really drunk.”
“It’ll dull your senses,” Jessica said. “May want to stay sharp if things get dicey.”
“Thanks, Mum, but things have already gotten dicey,” Lane said. “I think some bar therapy is the way to take the edge off the testosterone dump that Tony just took on us.”
“Nice,” Carlos said. “Now I can’t get that image out of my head.”
Ben hurried to Maggie’s side and put his arm around her shoulders.
“Are you okay?” he asked her.
Maggie held up a full glass fast enough that some of the cocktail sloshed out onto the bar.
“I’ve been working on getting to okay as soon as the Italian gorilla arrived and started pushing people around,” Maggie said. Sip
ping from her drink. “Comfortably numb has been achieved.”
“Sorry about this, guys,” Nick said. “Really, I am.”
No one responded and he shrugged.
“At least I get to sell my boat,” he said then smacked himself on the forehead. “Yacht, I mean. Dammit.”
23.
Ashley kept to the shadows, making sure she was well hidden by corners and blind spots as Tony and his armed entourage made their way from the game room to the sun deck above. She typed a quick message into her phone and sent it to Manny then slid the phone in her pocket, opened her blazer, and pulled out her 9mm pistol.
“Now, what would a hostess need with a Glock?” Niya asked as she came out of the restroom and blocked Ashley’s way. “Or is that a Beretta? Yes, on second examination, I can see the difference. Still…”
“Nothing you need to worry about,” Ashley said, as she held the gun down at her side. “You should go back to the game and join the others.”
“Ms. Romanski?” a man called from the end of the passageway. “I have been asked to escort you back to the others.”
“Have you now?” Niya replied over her shoulder, her body and attention still facing and focused on Ashley. “And who asked you to do this? Our host?”
“Mr. Giraldi has requested it while he attends to some business,” the man said. “He will return to the game as soon as he can, but in the meantime he would prefer no interruptions or possible distractions. It is for your own safety.”
“My own safety?” Niya asked. She glanced down at Ashley’s pistol then turned her back on the woman and faced the guard at the end of the passageway. “And if I do not comply with Mr. Giraldi’s request?”
“Then your safety would be in jeopardy,” the guard said, “and Mr. Giraldi could not be held to blame for anything that might accidentally happen to you.”
“I see,” Niya said.
She started to walk towards the guard, her hips swaying back and forth, making good use of the tight dress she wore. She slowly, almost playfully, unclasped her heels and slid one off then the other. She twirled the shoes by their straps on her index finger as she continued walking towards the guard.
“This accident, you speak of,” Niya said. “Would it involve you? Because I’d hate for a handsome, obviously kind-looking gentleman to get involved in something as nasty as harming a woman.”
“Ma’am, all you are being asked to do is return to the game room,” the guard said. “There is no need to make this difficult.”
“It won’t be difficult at all,” Niya said as she casually tossed her shoes at the man.
He hesitated for a second, unsure of whether to catch the shoes or bring up his semi-automatic. That hesitation was all Niya needed. She leapt to the side, her stockinged feet pushing off the wall and sending her flying at the guard, her left arm raised, fist closed. She came down fast and hard and the man’s head snapped to the side. He wobbled for a moment then fell to his knees.
Niya grabbed him by his lapels before he could fully collapse. His eyes swam in his head and struggled to focus on her. She brought his face down and her knee up at the same moment. The crunch of bone echoed in the passageway and Ashley flinched at the noise as she came hurrying up behind Niya.
“Giraldi will wonder where this guy went,” Ashley said.
“Yes, he probably will,” Niya said, relieving the unconscious man of his weapon. She bounced the pistol in her hand, feeling its heft. “Heckler & Koch .45 auto. I would have expected him to have an Italian pistol like your Berretta, Agent Mulgrew. Surprising he went German.”
Ashley began to raise her 9mm, but Niya beat her to the punch and had the .45 up and aimed at the woman first.
“Tut, tut, Agent Mulgrew,” Niya said. “You can’t be surprised that I know who you are. Do you think a woman would make it this far in the Ukrainian underworld without having friends in high places? I like to keep tabs on those that are keeping tabs on me.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Ashley said. “I’m just a hostess.”
“A hostess that grips her pistol like she knows how to use it,” Niya laughed.
“I’ve had training,” Ashley said. “Every member of the crew has. International waters can be dangerous.”
“Did you really think I would accept an invitation to join a poker party from someone like Nicholas Sheeran?” Niya laughed again. “The man is small time and has a reputation as a flake. Mr. Garfield, Mr. Whittier, and Ms. Holstein have had dealings with Mr. Sheeran in the past. I have not. He is not on my level.”
“Then why accept?” Ashley asked.
“Because my friends in high places let me know that Mr. Giraldi had something in store and maybe it was worth me checking out,” Niya said. “The fact that there’s at least one INTERPOL agent on board tells me that my friends were correct. Of course, they told me to expect you, and that maybe this mission isn’t precisely sanctioned. So many players.”
Ashley didn’t reply, she just stared at the muzzle of the .45.
“Still don’t want to play along?” Niya said. “Then I think we will have a problem here. I certainly know Mr. Sheeran is going to have a problem. Snitches don’t last long in my world. I doubt the man will ever see solid ground again in his soon to be very short life.”
“You have this all wrong,” Ashley said. “I’m not what you—”
The gunshot was exceptionally loud as Niya squeezed the trigger. The .45 bucked, but not much, and Niya turned the pistol back and forth in her hand, admiring the gun.
“Ah, I see why they went for the H&K,” Niya said as she stood over Ashley’s corpse, blood pooling into the carpet from the good sized hole in the woman’s head. “I may have to keep this one.”
She turned and put two rounds in the back of the unconscious guard’s head. The man’s body shook from the impact then went permanently still.
Niya reached up under her dress with the hand not holding the pistol and pulled down the legs of the tights she was wearing underneath. She then grabbed the hem of her dress from behind and yanked it up and over her head, shimmying out of it in record time, all without letting go of the pistol or taking her eyes off the end of the passageway.
She tossed the dress aside and stood there in an athletic top and black tights, her head cocked and listening. When she didn’t hear footsteps coming her way, she knelt by the dead guard and patted him down, removing the two extra magazines from his belt and tucking them into the waistband of her tights before standing up and giving Ashley’s corpse one last look.
“I believe I may have burned a bridge with my friends in high places,” Niya said. “But sometimes you must burn things down before you build them back up.”
She strolled down the passageway, her feet bare, back straight, and pistol out in front.
“Now, let’s see what Mr. Giraldi is up to, shall we?”
24.
The guard by the game room door didn’t even flinch at the far-off sounds of the gunshots. But he did tighten his grip on his pistol and made sure everyone knew he wouldn’t be distracted and that they’d have to get through him if they wanted to try to leave.
“Giraldi’s men are the only ones with firearms, right?” Lane asked. “Sounds as if one of them is having a bad day.”
“More like the person on the receiving end of those shots is having a bad day,” Carlos said.
“You may want to contact your crew and see what’s happening,” Jessica suggested to Nick as the man just stood by the poker table and stared across the room at the guarded doors. “Sheeran? Nicky? Are you listening?”
“He’s still going to buy the yacht even if it has a few bullet holes in it, yeah?” Nick asked no one in particular.
“Nicky,” Ben snapped as he walked over and grabbed the man by the shoulders. “Dude. We are way past you selling this boat.”
“Yacht,” Nick said then cried out as his head rocked back from the slap Ben gave him. “Jesus, Benny! What the hell?”
The mention of the Nebraska city got Nick’s attention and he shoved Ben away.
“You don’t get to bring up Omaha,” Nick growled. “That is below the belt, man, and you know it. There was no way any of us could have known what that place was. No way.”
“What happened in Omaha?” Maggie asked, her speech slurred considerably from alcohol and fear.
“Not the time, baby,” Ben said.
“Hold on, now,” Lane said. “You’ve piqued my interest, mate. I kinda want to know what happened in Omaha too.”
“Not the time!” Ben snapped and looked back towards Manny. “We need to get out of this room then get off this ship!”
“None of you are going anywhere,” the guard said then focused on Ben. “Why’d you look at the bartender?”
“What?” Ben replied, his head whipping back around to focus on the man that held the gun on them all. “I didn’t look at him specifically. I was just looking behind me at everyone at the bar.”
“Didn’t seem like that to me,” the guard said. “You had a reason you were looking at the bartender. Why?” The guard nodded in Manny’s direction. “How about you come out from behind there? Nice and slow. Hands where I can see them.”
“I’m just washing glasses back here, sir,” Manny said. “I’d prefer to stay out of all of this. I’m not getting paid to be involved in whatever is going on. I’m getting paid to look the other way and keep my mouth shut. That’s all I want to do.”
“You think I’m asking?” the guard snarled. “Get your ass out from behind that—”
His brains exploded out the back of his head and splattered against the game room doors. There were more than a couple of startled screams from the guests and all eyes whipped about to focus on Manny and the smoking pistol in his hand.
“Mr. Sheeran? Would you please relieve the corpse of its weapon?” Manny asked. “Then bring it to me, if you will.”