Shot of Tequila

by J. A. Konrath

  “Go ahead and reach for it,” Royce grinned, sensing Leman’s thoughts. “I won’t kill you. I’ll just shoot your knees off.”

  “Go to hell.”

  Royce’s eyes went hard. There was a dark, flickering light behind them, and Leman could almost see the evil thoughts projected on the vampire’s brain.

  “I am hell.”

  And Leman, at that moment, believed him.

  Slake entered the office, his expression neutral and his gait unhurried. He glanced briefly at Royce, dismissed him as a nobody, and signaled out Marty.

  “Got two cops downstairs want to talk to you. Terco’s in the hospital. Tequila kicked the shit out of him at Remmy’s Health Club, then got away.”

  “They got a warrant?” Marty asked.

  “No. Just want to talk to you, they said.”

  “Tell them to kiss off.”

  Slake nodded. His gaze fell on Royce.

  “Who is he?” he asked.

  “That’s Mr. Royce. He’s here to help.”

  “We don’t need help.”

  “From what I’ve observed,” Royce bared his fangs, “you guys would need help finding a turd in a toilet bowl.”

  “Nice teeth,” Slake dead-panned. “I bet you were a bitch to breast feed.”

  Royce went dark, and Slake grinned at having ruffled his feathers. Then he turned and left, going downstairs to deal with the pigs.

  “Who was that?” Royce asked Marty.

  “That was Slake. So far he’s the only man I’ve got who hasn’t screwed up yet.”

  “He’s got a big mouth. I might have to shut it for him.”

  “Whatever,” Marty shrugged. “But wait until after we’ve nailed Tequila. I want that son of a bitch so bad my ass itches.”

  Royce pulled up a chair to Marty’s desk, and brought his vulpine face close to Marty’s fat one.

  “And you will get him,” Royce whispered. “Soon.”

  Leman stared at them, their eyes locked and grinning, and wondered for a freak moment if they were going to kiss.

  “Want me to check on Terco?” he asked.

  “Yeah. Go find out what the hell happened.”

  Leman nodded and turned to leave.

  “One more thing,” added Royce. “You telegraph your punches. You narrow your eyes. I saw it coming with plenty of time to move. Keep your eyes wide next time, you won’t be so easy.”

  Leman blushed again, but filed away the suggestion. Next time he took a swing at Royce, he’d be sure not to telegraph the move. He went after Slake to find out which hospital Terco was at.

  “That’s another one I may have to put the hurt on,” Royce said. “Nice bunch of guys you hired here.”

  “All that matters now,” Marty said, ignoring the jab, “is that I’ve got the best.”

  Seeing that little display with Leman had convinced him. Tequila was no match for Royce.

  No match at all.

  It was all coming together smoothly for Jack Daniels. She’d sent eight teams out with pictures of Tequila to the city’s homeless shelters, and one of the teams had a hit within the first hour. Several witnesses confirmed Tequila had spent the night at the shelter on Wabash, checking in under the name Mescal. Cute. Jack had a team keeping the shelter under surveillance if Tequila returned.

  Detectives Pierce and Rowan, the Organized Crime dicks that had been gathering information on Marty Martelli over the past several years, supplied Daniels with an extensive list of Marty’s employees, complete with bios of the many who had police records. They even had a file on Tequila, with a list of several leg-breaking jobs he was suspected of. But as with all of the other assaults committed by members of Marty’s gang, no charges were ever filed, or if they were filed, they were then dropped.

  Marty’s main men, according to Pierce and Rowan, were his collectors. They included Tequila, Matisse Tomaglio, an ex-cop named Jim Leman, an ex-professional bodybuilder named Sam Terco, and an ex-con named Hector Slake.

  Slake was the most interesting to Daniels. His record was longer than the other men’s records combined. This guy was a career asshole. Nine charges of assault and battery, six charges of aggravated sexual assault, two charges of attempted murder, and four charges of having sex with a minor before he finally served five years in Joliet for the rape and attempted murder of a fourteen-year-old-girl.

  Even more interesting than his rap sheet was a small detail from his prison records. Hector Slake had type 0 blood, which put him in the lead for the role as the unknown thin man who murdered the parking lot attendant in Tequila’s apartment building, along with murdering China Johnston and raping Sally Abernathy. The Identikit drawing that Frank Michaels the doorman had done bore more than a passing resemblance to Slake’s mug shots. Jack was planning to swing by Frank’s place and show him Slake’s picture, to see if he could make him. If he did, they’d have enough to bring Hector Slake in for a line-up.

  She and Benedict had been on their way to Frank’s when they caught the squeal about the disturbance at the Remmy’s Health Club. One of the perps was described as a short guy with a crew cut wearing a Blackhawks Starter jacket. A pretty good description of Tequila. They went to check it out, but the short man had gotten away after assaulting a life guard.

  Flashing around Tequila’s picture proved it had indeed been him in the fight. The other combatant was none other than Sam Terco, one of Marty’s elite collectors. Terco was taken to Rush-Presbyterian Hospital, and that’s where Jack and Herb had gone next.

  Terco had played it tough at first, refusing to even open his mouth. But the dumb son of a bitch had been on probation for assault, and this incident, witnessed by over fifteen people, all of whom said Terco had started it, would get his probation revoked. Terco would do time.

  He had been a wealth of information after that was brought to his attention. Terco admitted to attacking Tequila, but only because Tequila had stolen an undisclosed amount of money from respectable businessman Marty Martelli. Marty hadn’t called the police because he’d caught Tequila in the act, and decided to give him a break. Tequila, however, had gotten away.

  “Crawled through the heating vents like a rat,” Terco had said. “We put wet blankets in the furnace to smoke him out.”

  Which explained the fire at Spill last night.

  When Jack pressed Terco about how much was stolen, Terco hemmed and hawed. It had to be a lot to make them want Tequila so bad.

  Changing tactics, Daniels brought up the Binkowskis.

  At their mention, Terco became shifty, non-communicative, and betrayed himself as one of the worst liars Jack had ever seen.

  Jack checked Terco’s chart and found out he was blood type B. A match for the blood found on the salt crystals at the Binkowski’s house. He also saw that Terco had multiple cuts and bruises on his chest, consistent with being shot with rock salt.

  Terco demanded his lawyer, and Jack knew they had the bastard. A DNA test could match the blood on the salt crystals with his blood. Daniels treaded cautiously, talking to the State’s Attorney, getting the proper warrants, and finally building a strong enough case against Terco to arrest the prick. She also got a warrant to toss Terco’s place for the murder weapon, the .38. If they found it, Terco would be going away for a long time.

  When two uniforms came to put Terco under police custody, Jack and Herb went to Frank Michaels’s place to give him a look at Slake’s picture.

  Frank apparently wasn’t home.

  Daniels assigned two uniforms to watch Frank’s apartment and call when they spotted him. Then she and Herb decided to go have a chat with Marty Martelli. Neither Jack nor Herb expected anything at all from the Maniac in terms of evidence, confession, or testimony, and they didn’t want to intrude on the case being built by Detectives Rowan and Pierce. But one of Martelli’s employees had been killed and three more were under suspicion of murder. That was cause enough for a little chat.

  The first place they tried was Spill, Marty’s club. It wa
s a happy coincidence that Hector Slake was at the bar.

  “Hi, Hector,” Jack said, smiling broadly.

  Slake looked at Jack and his partner and sneered. He’d been sitting alone, drinking a club soda and thinking things through.

  “What can I do for you today, officers? We don’t open until four.”

  “Just want a word with the boss. Is Marty around?”

  “No, he’s not.”

  “Why don’t you check?”

  “Because I’m sure.”

  “Too bad. He might like to know we just talked to Sam Terco over at Rush-Presbyterian. Seems a guy named Tequila Abernathy busted Terco up at Remmy’s Health Club.”

  Slake’s face revealed nothing.

  “You wouldn’t happen to know where Tequila Abernathy is, would you?” Benedict added.

  Again, not so much as a blink from Slake.

  “Well, since Marty isn’t around, he won’t be able to complain if we break a few things,” Jack grinned. “There’s no one here but you and us Hector. Who would believe you when you said two cops came in and poured every bottle of liquor on the floor? It’s the word of two upstanding officers of the law versus a convicted baby-raper.”

  To emphasize her point, Jack knocked Slake’s glass of club soda off of the bar and across the room. It fell with a tinkling of broken glass. Slake gave Jack a bored look, showing no fear.

  “I’ll go double check,” Slake said, disappearing through a door next to the back bar.

  Benedict looked at his partner.

  “Scary, Jack. I got Dirty Harry vibes.”

  “I never liked these organized crime types,” Daniels said. “Not only are they scummy, worthless warts on the face of society who think they’re above the law, but they make so much more money than I do.”

  Benedict looked around the empty club, idly wondering what a place like this pulled in a night. And how much Marty padded that sum with laundered book money. Marty probably paid more in taxes a year than I make, he thought. His stomach gurgled in sympathy.

  “I think I had too much pizza.” Herb stifled a belch with his fist.

  “No kidding.”

  Herb dug the bottle of ulcer medication from his pocket and popped two pills. Jack watched, fascinated.

  “You can swallow pills without water?”

  “Sure. Can’t you?”

  “No. They get stuck in my throat. Then I’ll go and drink something, but they still feel stuck there.”

  Herb nodded. “That’s happened to me before. But not with pills. Turkey.”

  “Turkey?”

  “Day after Thanksgiving, grabbed a piece from the fridge, it was like swallowing a dry sponge. Felt it in my throat for a week.”

  “That happened to me with cold pizza once. Sometimes I think I still feel it.”

  “You ever throw up through your nose?”

  “Sure.”

  “That burning stomach acid sensation, all the way up through your nasal passages.”

  Jack frowned. “I hate that.”

  “Got the stomach flu once, after eating spaghetti. Threw up, and had a noodle hanging out of my nose. Just hanging there, swaying back and forth, burning like hell.”

  “What did you do?”

  “Nothing. Dog came by, took care of it for me.”

  One more reason not to get a dog. Jack immediately felt guilty for the thought.

  “Alan wants to get a dog. I’m not a pet person. But maybe if I got him one he wouldn’t be mad at me all the time.”

  “Jewelry works too.”

  “Jewelry?”

  “If you’re going to buy someone’s love, think big. And you don’t need to take gold and diamonds for a walk at 2 a.m.”

  “Point taken. Think I should get him some earrings?”

  “Only if they come with a matching necklace.”

  They waited several more minutes in silence before Slake came back through the door marked PRIVATE.

  “Nope. Checked everywhere. Marty isn’t around.”

  Jack’s spine stiffened. “Maybe we should check for ourselves.”

  “I wasn’t aware you had a warrant.”

  “We don’t need a warrant. We entered on suspicion of a felony after hearing screams coming from behind the door.”

  “Impossible,” Slake said. “The door is sound proofed.”

  “Maybe it wasn’t screams. Maybe we smelled marijuana. In fact, your pupils look kind of dilated, Hector. I have a strong suspicion you’ve been smoking the wacky tobacky. What do you think, Detective Benedict?”

  “He does have that certain spaced-out look often associated with the Devil’s oregano. And is that smoke coming from behind the door?”

  Jack and Herb started towards the door but it opened before they reached it. Walking through was a man that Jack IDed as former Chicago cop James Leman.

  “Hi, Leman. Liked the criminal element so much you decided to join full time, huh?”

  “Take off, cop, unless you’ve got a warrant.”

  Jack considered the situation. Making a mockery out of Slake if anything came of this would be pie. With another witness, one who used to be a cop, Jack wasn’t sure she could get away with it. Even though it was a cop kicked off the force for excessive brutality. Leman had worked Vice, and knocked around hookers to get freebies. Jack didn’t like pimps, especially ones with badges.

  “We want to talk to your boss. Routine questioning in a Homicide investigation.”

  “Homicide?” Leman raised an eyebrow. “Who died?”

  Instead of answering, Jack said, “What happened to your shoulder, Leman?”

  “A little accident.”

  “That accident didn’t happen to be named Tequila, did it?”

  Leman’s lips pressed together.

  “No wonder you couldn’t cut it as a cop, Leman. Can’t even handle a little shrimp half your size.”

  “Fuck you, Detective.”

  Jack’s lack of sleep, coupled with the problems at home, left her feeling mean.

  “Does it hurt, Leman? Your shoulder?”

  “What’s it to you?”

  Jack didn’t narrow her eyes, or pivot her hips, or twitch or lean or do anything else that telegraphed her move. Leman was caught totally by surprise when Jack drove her palm hard into the ex-cop’s bandaged shoulder. He fell back into the doorway and Jack walked right over him and marched up the stairs with Benedict in tow and Slake scurrying behind.

  The stairs led to a hallway, and Daniels heard conversation coming from the office at the end. She made her way to it quickly and announced her arrival by walking right in.

  There were two men in the room, Marty Martelli and a man that Jack didn’t recognize from Marty’s files.

  “Who the hell are you?” Marty demanded.

  “They pushed their way in Marty,” Slake said, looking at Daniels with undisguised venom.

  “See, Slake? Marty’s right here,” Jack said. “Not only are you a baby-raper, but a lying little gofer as well. Would you stand on your head if Marty told you to?”

  Slake murdered Jack with his eyes.

  “I asked you a question, cop.”

  Daniels turned her full attention to Marty the Maniac.

  “And I’ll answer your question. I’m Homicide, Detective Daniels out of the 26th. And now I have a question for you. Did you order the murders of Vincent and Marie Binkowski?”

  Marty made a face. “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “You want to call a lawyer first?”

  “Who the hell are Vincent and Mary Binkowski?”

  “Marie. One of your men, Sam Terco, shot them both last night. We’ve got him in custody now. You hire men with loose lips, Marty.”

  “Detective Daniels,” Marty had a placating smile on his face, and Jack was positive that she wasn’t going to get anything out of him. “I’d be more than happy to answer any questions you may have, but right now I’m in the middle of a business meeting.”

  “And who mi
ght you be?” Daniels turned towards Royce.

  Royce simply grinned, giving the Detective a peek at his fangs.

  “You’re never too old for braces,” Jack told him.

  “Are you the same Detective Daniels that broke that serial killer case a while back?” Royce asked. “You’re a legend in Chicago. You know, I’m a bit of a legend too. The name is Royce.”

  “Never heard of you.”

  “But I’m sure you and your comrades have come across my work on many different occasions, being in the division of police that you are.”

  Jack moved closer to him. “Are you confessing to murder, Mr. Royce?”

  “What would give you that idea, Detective? I’ve said nothing of the sort. And I’d repeat that denial fifty-six times, if necessary.”

  Jack stared hard at the fanged man. Was this guy really hinting that he’d killed fifty-six people? He had to be bullshitting. Yet Jack saw that look in his dark eyes. The sociopath look. This man was a murderer, no doubt at all. Perhaps someone Marty had brought in to deal with Tequila.

  Jack backed up. “My mistake then, Mr. Royce. I’ve dealt with enough killers to know you don’t have that hard-edged look about you. You’d probably faint taking a mouse out of a trap.”

  Royce’s vampire grin fell off his face.

  “It was nice meeting you, Detective. Perhaps we’ll meet again, and I’ll be able to add a few more denials to my list.”

  “I doubt it, Mr. Royce. I deal with killers, not liars. Now Marty the Maniac here, he’s the real item.”

  “You accusing me of murder now, Daniels?” Marty warned. “You think this gung-ho bullshit is going to work with me? You’ll be off the case by the end of the day, bitch. Now get the hell out, I’m sick of your bullshit.”

  Jack slammed her palms down on the desk and leaned forward, getting in the Maniac’s face.

  “I know about Tequila, Marty. I know you’re after him. And if he turns up dead, a blind man would be able to follow the trail straight to you. It happens with you old-timers, Marty. You get sloppy. You lose control. Even outside help like this pathological liar Royce won’t be able to fix it. You’re heading for a fall, and I’ll be there when it happens. If you think I’m a bitch now, wait till I get your fat ass in my interrogation room.”