by Dick Lochte
His kidney was still tender. He paused to test it by taking a big, deep breath of cool but polluted Southern California night air. That’s when he realized there was a black Cadillac convertible parked with its top up, partially hidden by the Range Rover he hadn’t used in months.
And he heard the TV going inside the house.
He forgot the pain entirely.
He circled the black Caddy, wondering if Mace had gotten into a scrape where he’d had to jack the car. He tried the door. Locked. So much for the jack theory.
Inside the house a Limey announcer was doing rapid-fire color on a game while a crowd of spectators did a lot of screaming.
What the hell . . .
Paulie decided to call Jamey after all.
But before he could get out the smart phone, his front door opened. Drier was standing there. He gave Paulie a friendly grin and holstered the weapon. ‘Welcome home,’ he said. ‘We were worried you might be on a sleepover.’
Corrigan was in the living room, sitting on Paulie’s leather couch, drinking one of his special hefeweizens and watching his big flat fifty-three inch monitor. ‘League One football all night long,’ the weapons broker said with a grin. ‘And in high-def. You gotta love this country.’
‘Make yourself comfortable, why don’t ya?’ Paulie said. ‘Beer OK?’
‘Actually, it tastes like crap. Drier couldn’t find any imports.’
‘You’re drinking an import. From Germany, where they know a little about making beer.’
‘Yeah? Well they can put this one back in the horse.’ Corrigan placed the bottle on the carpet, grabbed a remote and clicked off the TV before turning to Paulie. ‘Sit down, brother Lacotta. You and I need to chat a bit about brother Mason.’
Paulie took a stuffed leather chair near the couch. ‘What about him?’ he asked.
‘Exactly what team is he playing for?’
‘What are you talking about?’ Paulie asked, the question making him uneasy.
‘I . . . bumped into him a few hours ago at Jerry Monte’s little shindig,’ Corrigan said. ‘Know why he was there?’
‘Sure,’ Paulie lied. ‘But I don’t know why you were.’
Corrigan gave him a fake smile. ‘Interestin’ guy, Jerry. We all may be doing some business, down the line.’
‘He got the coin?’ Paulie asked, getting to the heart of the matter.
‘Regrettably, no. But it’s Mason I want to talk about. Why do you think he crashed the party?’
‘Looking for the coin,’ Paulie said.
‘Hmmm. There may be some truth to that, but it’s not what he told me. He said he was there because he’d fallen under the spell of the lovely Miss Lowell.’
‘He conned you.’
‘He’s conning somebody,’ Corrigan said.
‘They looked pretty cozy at the party,’ Drier said. ‘And when we left, we passed the dame in her car, waiting for somebody. I don’t think it was that putz Monte.’
‘Let me get this straight,’ Paulie said. ‘You guys rush right over here and bust into my home? Watch my fucking television? Drink my fucking beer? All this just to let me know my best pal is slipping it to my old girlfriend?’
‘Take it down a notch, Lacotta,’ Corrigan said. ‘The point is, I think they’ve got the coin and they’re selling us out.’
‘Always nice to hear what you think,’ Paulie said. ‘Here’s what I know. Maxil Brox is in town and he says he’s gonna burn me alive if he doesn’t get the coin by midnight tomorrow.’
Corrigan’s hooded eyes opened wide. ‘Brox? Here? That’s bullshit. He wouldn’t risk it.’
‘You’re batting zero, Corrigan. Not half an hour ago, I was this close to the son of a bitch.’
Corrigan shrugged. ‘Well, hell, all the more reason to reel in Mason and the broad right now, shake ’em upside down and see if the coin doesn’t hit the carpet.’
‘How would that solve my problem?’ Paulie asked. ‘Even if we get the coin, I’m not gonna turn it over to Brox. That still leaves me on the Russkie’s list of things to light on fire.’
Corrigan opened his mouth to reply. But instead of speaking, he frowned. He turned toward Drier who drew his gun and started moving silently toward the kitchen area.
‘What?’ Paulie asked.
‘You didn’t hear it? A creak,’ Corrigan said. ‘Probably nothing, but, if not, Drier will handle it.’
Paulie saw the big man slip silently into the darkness of the hall leading to the kitchen. ‘Getting back to Brox,’ Corrigan said, ‘you let us worry about him. You just concentrate on getting the coin. Why not give brother Mason a call? See what he’s up to?’
Paulie took out his phone, turned it on, then shook his head. ‘He’s a throwback. Doesn’t use a phone. But if he’s with Angie, we got a tracker on her car.’
‘Perf—’ Corrigan began. Instead of completing the word, he paused to reach down and remove a small pistol from an ankle holster.
What happened next in the room was disturbing and potentially mind-blowing. Paulie saw Drier emerging from the shadowy hallway. But he wasn’t using his legs. It was like this six-foot-two strongman was floating toward them, eyes closed, lifeless, his head twisted at a very unnatural angle, blood spilling over his lips on to his chin.
Then he was flying.
He collided against the couch, bouncing back against Corrigan just as the gray-haired man was starting to raise his gun.
The giant who had been carrying Drier, who had thrown him like a beach ball, stood in the middle of the living room, grinning at Paulie. Huge. Muscled. Wearing a Superman outfit complete with red cape. Looking like fucking Elvis Presley, pretending to be Superman.
Corrigan had lost the gun. With Drier’s body pinning him, he moved his hand frantically trying to retrieve it. Before he could, a man wearing what Paulie thought to be a beautifully tailored Savile Row gray suit, almost danced across the room to pluck the gun from the carpet.
Paulie suddenly remembered the phone in his hand. As the giant advanced toward him, he turned and began walking away.
‘That one’s leaving,’ he heard the giant announce.
‘Stop him,’ the other man ordered.
Paulie was blinking at the fucking phone, pressing the screen, trying to get it to start recording. It responded with a click, the loudest goddamn click he’d ever heard. He felt the big man getting closer. He saw that there wasn’t much memory left, but anything was better than nothing. If he could find some place to put—.
He didn’t get the chance. A hand the size of a honey-cured ham closed around the back of his neck. He thought the giant’s fingers and thumb were actually touching under his chin.
‘Don’t kill him, Timmie,’ the thin Limey commanded.
‘Jesus, no. Don’t,’ Paulie croaked.
As the big man turned him around, Paulie let the phone slide down his leg to the carpet. He kicked it under a table before Timmie started dragging him to the center of the room.
But . . . what were the odds that it was recording? Or that Mace would show up? And find the phone? And be able to figure out how to operate it?
Still, a guy had to try.
The well-dressed Limey pointed Corrigan’s gun at him as he grunted to his feet. ‘If either of you gentlemen are in possession of the coin,’ he said, ‘now would be a propitious time to admit it.’
‘Mason’s got it,’ Corrigan said. He was looking at Drier’s twisted body and Paulie was surprised to see that the guy was tearing up.
‘And where might Mr Mason be at this moment?’
Corrigan forced himself to look away. He sniffed and said, ‘Somewhere with the dame.’
‘Ah, cherchez la femme.’ The well-dressed Limey kept the gun trained on Corrigan as he said, ‘Mr Lacotta, did I hear you mention something about a tracking device?’
THIRTY-NINE
It was a little before six a.m. in Bayou Royal, Mace realized; approximately the time he usually awoke, preconditioned by the pas
t. His late father’s workday had begun around then and he remembered opening his eyes to the murky pre-dawn light, listening to the old man putting his breakfast dishes on the kitchen sink directly beneath his bedroom. Then there’d be solid footsteps moving away to the front door. Then the front door slamming shut as James Duke Mason left for the cannery to prepare for the shrimper families, fathers and sons and even grandfathers, who’d be returning with their early catches.
But, thanks to pollution, the disappearing marshlands, the ruinous oil spill and cheaper imported shrimp from South America and South-East Asia, the business had fallen off. And the cannery had been sold and torn down and replaced by a seafood chain restaurant run by thugs. And his father was dead. And he was in Southern California, where it was nine minutes before four, still very dark outside and inside their motel room.
He lay in bed, staring at the cracked ceiling, listening to Angela’s soft, steady breathing as she slept and the sound of surf mixing with the light but constant traffic along the coast highway. He’d assumed he was awake because of his body’s natural alarm clock. But the headlights that momentarily swept across the ceiling made him wonder if some sixth sense hadn’t put him on the alert.
He slipped from the bed and moved to the window.
The source of the light was a vehicle that had turned into the motel lot and was now parked behind the Mustang in a way that blocked it. It was the black Bentley that had followed him earlier.
He grabbed his pants and put them on while shaking the bed, waking Angela.
‘Huh?’ she asked, blinking at him in the darkness.
‘Visitors,’ he said. ‘We have to go.’
‘What visitors?’ she asked, getting out of bed.
‘I don’t know,’ he said, forcing himself to stop watching her as she slipped on her shoes and searched the floor for her clothes.
The driver had turned off the Bentley’s lights, but Mace could still see puffs of exhaust reflecting the blue of the neon motel sign. The passenger door opened and a large masculine figure separated from the machine. Stepping into the sign’s neon glow, the blue-tinged man looked big and powerful and mean.
He stood there, apparently trying to select a likely cabin to invade. Mace was relieved they’d left the Mustang by the motel’s entrance, but, as the big man trudged toward the manager’s office, he was sorry about exposing the elderly Wally to their trouble.
Angela was nearly dressed. ‘Give me your phone,’ he whispered.
‘It’s in the car.’
‘Of course it is. You ready?’
‘For what? What’s your plan?’
His plan. He moved quietly across the cabin to a screened window that looked out on a canyon road. It didn’t matter where the road lead, as long as it was away from the motel.
Removing the screen from the window was about as difficult as zipping his fly, which Mace remembered to do just after helping Angela from the cabin.
There was a distance of about forty feet separating cabins seven and eight where they would be exposed as they headed toward the canyon road. Mace raised a hand, suggesting that Angela stay hidden while he checked the open area to make sure the Bentley and the searcher hadn’t changed positions.
He doubted anyone in the sedan would be able to observe their departure. And even if poor Wally had been awake and fully toothed, with their location on his lips, he didn’t think the searcher could have gotten a fix on their cabin so quickly. Still, he wanted to check.
He saw no movement in the semicircle in front of the cabins. Satisfied that they had a better than even chance of getting away up the canyon, he took a few steps backward until he was behind the cabin. He heard Angela emit an odd ‘ahh’ and was starting to turn when something very hard connected with his skull.
The surprise lasted only a bright and painful few seconds.
‘Wake opp, you mees-ar-ab-al bastard,’ a gruff voice ordered. Mace thought it sounded a little like the former governor of California. He could feel the man’s breath and smell its chippino-and-cigar odor. He didn’t want to open his eyes. Even though he’d enjoyed several of the ex-governor’s movies, he really didn’t care to see that lantern-jawed face glaring at him from just a few inches away.
‘Slap him awake, Gulik,’ another accented voice said.
‘He is awake, Klebek, but I slap him anyway.’
Mace tried to raise his hands, to protect himself. When that didn’t work, he tensed for the blow. It was not much of a slap, more like a pat. He opened his eyes.
The face in front of his was far from lantern-jawed. It was small for the attached massive body, and round, and featured a patchy black beard, bloodshot eyes topped by brows that were hairier and thicker than anything on his shaved but gray-stubbled head. Several of his teeth were gold. They glinted in the light of the cabin.
Mace’s wrists had been tied to the rear legs of his chair by curtain pulls. His ankles had been tied to the chair’s front legs. The bindings placed him in a difficult position in which his limbs were kept immobile by his own weight.
Gulik backed away, allowing Mace to see more of the room. Another big man, whom Gulik had called Klebek and who could have been his uglier brother, sat on the bed where, only a short time ago, he and Angela . . .
Gulik said, ‘Your pussy in the car with Reiko. Reiko almost as handsome as me. Manhood like baby’s arm. Maybe he fucking her. Maybe she sucking him. Either way, she now know what a real man is. Too bad for you.’
Mace surprised them all, including himself, by grinning.
‘You think this funny?’ Gulik asked.
‘I just had a Popeye moment,’ Mace said.
‘What that mean?’
‘Popeye, being threatened by Bluto. Olive Oil in danger.’
‘This guy is moron,’ Klebek said.
‘We want coin,’ Gulik said.
Mace looked down to see that his right pocket had been ripped from his pants, leaving the pants torn halfway down the leg. ‘I’m guessing you know I don’t have it.’
‘You get coin for us, we give you back your pussy.’
‘Why would I want her, after she’s been doing all that stuff with Reiko?’
Gulik scowled. ‘You foking with me?’
‘I wouldn’t fok with you. I leave that to Reiko and his baby’s arm.’
It took Gulik a few seconds to get the gist of the comment. Mace was able to shift slightly on the chair, waiting for the punch. To his surprise, Gulik shrugged and pressed two kielbasa-like fingers against Mace’s forehead, pushing him and the chair over backward.
Momentarily disoriented, lying on his back, he saw what appeared to be two Guliks towering above him. ‘Get us coin, funny man, or we kill your pussy. We kill fat bastard you work for. We kill you.’
‘I get it,’ Mace said, his eyesight refocusing. ‘You guys kill people.’
Gulik rested a foot on his chest. The foot was encased in the biggest Dr Martens steel-toe boot Mace had ever seen. ‘Maybe I break your ribs,’ the big man said. ‘Stomp broken edges into heart.’
Mace had a sudden memory flash of Wylie’s broken body. He blinked it away and said, ‘That might make it difficult for me to deliver the coin. You should check with your boss Jerry Monte first.’
‘Jerry Monte?’ Klebek said in what sounded like genuine surprise. ‘What’s he got to do wit’ any—’
‘Shawt opp,’ Gulik ordered his associate. He turned back to Mace. ‘You think we work for la-di-da who sing and dance?’ Gulik said. ‘We work for Maxil Brox, you dumb mothofoker.’
There was something weird about the two of them, something off, but Mace couldn’t get a fix on it. Something strangely familiar, too. ‘What do you think Brox would prefer?’ he asked. ‘Me dead, or the coin?’
The big man glared at him, nodded and removed his foot. He took a cellular phone from his pocket and placed it on the floor next to Mace’s head. ‘What time?’ he asked his associate.
The man on the bed looked at his wristwatch.
‘Four twenty-eight.’
‘OK,’ Gulik said to Mace. ‘You get coin and wait for call from Maxil Brox at exactly six a.m. He tell you what to do. You don’t answer or you don’t follow his instructions, we kill your pussy, we kill your comrade.’
The other man rose from the bed and they both headed for the door.
‘It’ll take me longer than an hour,’ Mace said. ‘Even if I wasn’t tied up.’
Gulik paused, thinking about it. ‘Mr Brox call you at seven a.m.,’ Gulik said. ‘No later.’
‘Be sure to tell him you left me like this. My guess is he’ll give you guys a special reward for making it impossible for me to do anything but lie here.’
Gulik paused at the door. He walked back to Mace. Giving him a wide, gold-tooth grin, he said, ‘So helpless, huh?’
He raised his huge foot and brought it down hard and fast, breaking several rungs of the wooden chair.
Then, laughing, he followed his partner from the cabin.
FORTY
Even with the smashed rungs, it took Mace a while to splinter the chair enough to free his limbs. It was a quarter to five when he found Wally lying behind the counter in his office, unconscious; five nineteen, by the time he left the wiry old man sitting in a customer chair, mixing sips from what he called a ‘breakfast brewski’ with puffs on a double doobie to take the edge off his head pain and cursing the ‘baboon who fucked me up.’
Mace ripped the tracking device from Angela’s Mustang and tossed it into a pathetic little marijuana garden that Wally, or somebody, was tending next to the manager’s office. Too impatient to put the top up on the convertible and ignoring the dew slick on the bucket seat and steering wheel, he started up the car and ground his teeth waiting for the wipers to clear the ocean-salty moisture from the windshield.
Then he was off to Paulie’s house on Mulholland, using the drive time to pick at the scattered pieces of information he’d been given by Gulik and others and place them in context with what he’d already figured out.
He had decided, for example, that Paulie had to be the victim of the piece, the only participant who had played by the rules. The goat, in other words. There was no question but that his long-time rival, the late Tiny Daniels, had hijacked the coin with the formula. Mace knew this to be a fact. He’d gotten it straight from the horse’s mouth.
