For a second he had considered the possibility that the money he had found in Tony’s closet was from something else—bookmaking, loan-sharking, his daughter selling Girl Scout cookies. Except Tony didn’t have a daughter, Girl Scout or otherwise. Ray knew exactly where the money had come from. Loose bills, every denomination from ones to hundreds, just like in the counting room at the House.
This was a shit sandwich, and Ray had just taken a big bite.
The question he had been going over in his mind since checking into the room was what to do with the cash. He could take the money and run, just like that old song said. Then he could spend the rest of his life running, always looking over his shoulder. The Messina family had a long reach. Or he could give it back.
Why not? He had done what they asked him to do. He had found the stickup crew, two members at least, even killed one of them. He had identified Tony Zello as the inside man. He had even recovered the money. If life were fair, he would get a pat on the back and a reward for a job well done. But life wasn’t fair and Ray knew it.
What the fuck was Tony thinking? Anyone else Ray could understand. Robbing the House was full of risk, but three hundred large was a lot of money. But Tony was a made man on his way up, and made men didn’t rob the family. And what about Vinnie insisting that Ray find the people who murdered his son? How did that fit with Tony setting up this whole job? Unless they were in it together. But what about Pete getting his face blown off? Whose idea was that?
Ray had a lot of questions but few answers. One thing he was pretty sure about was Hector. He was the bait, the goat tied to the stake, waiting for the tiger. Give Hector a few bucks, tell him to take a break at three o’clock and to make sure Ray covered the door for him. Hector didn’t need to know any more than that, certainly not that a robbery was about to go down.
Once the robbery happened, Hector must have gotten scared and hid out after realizing he had been used, that he was expendable. Turns out Hector had been a lot sharper than Ray. The pimply faced kid had seen it coming and had tried to get away.
All that money. Tony Zello was going to go nuts once he discovered it was missing. He probably already had. Ray hoped Jenny stayed at the hotel. If she went back home and Tony even suspected she had helped Ray, he would kill her for sure.
There was only one way out of this jam, and that was to turn over the money. The only person Ray was sure wasn’t involved was Old Man Carlos. But without going through Tony or Vinnie, something Ray obviously couldn’t do, he would never be allowed to see the Old Man. Then again, maybe he didn’t need to be allowed.
Charlie Rabbit’s words came back to him, Once a week he gets dressed up and drives himself out there. No driver, no guards. He doesn’t want anybody else around.
Two more days until Carlos’s date night.
They were probably the longest two days of Ray’s life. Even longer than his first two days in prison.
It rained the entire time, so he stayed in his room drinking Jameson, smoking Lucky Strikes, and watching TV. He couldn’t keep Jenny out of his thoughts. In prison there had been distractions. Just trying to stay alive had kept him busy. As he waited for the days to tick by, Ray found himself calling room service and asking questions about the menu just so he could hear another live voice. He got so bored he was actually glad he had to go see his parole officer.
He put his Mustang in a pay lot on Poydras, just down from the federal building. The bag with the money and the Smith & Wesson were in the trunk. Like always, the meeting with his parole officer was short, less than half an hour.
“You still working, Raymond?”
“I go by Ray.”
“Well, Ray, are you still working?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Any contact with the police since our last meeting?”
“No, sir.”
“Been associating with any known felons?”
“No, sir.”
After the meeting, in the lobby downstairs, Ray nodded to the guard as he passed through the security checkpoint. There was a covered breezeway between the federal office complex and the federal courthouse. The break area set up in the middle of the breezeway had a couple of cement benches, some concrete planters, and a decorative cigarette butt can half-filled with sand.
Ray stepped out of the office building and was cutting through the breezeway when he came face-to-face with Detective Carl Landry. Aside from Tony Zello, Landry was probably the last person on earth Ray wanted to see.
“What are you doing here?” Landry asked.
“It’s a public building,” Ray said. “I’m sightseeing.”
The cop smiled. “Yeah, I guess it is.” He jerked his thumb toward the courthouse. “I just booked a fugitive, wanted for two counts of bank robbery. He’s a scumbag thief, maybe you know him?”
“I got nothing to say to you, Carl.” Ray tried to shoulder past the detective, but Landry’s elbow bumped him in the solar plexus. Not very hard, nothing anyone would notice, but Ray wasn’t ready for it, and it knocked the wind out of him.
While Ray took a couple of deep breaths, Landry said, “You know how I caught him? The bank robber, I mean. A snitch gave him up for fifty bucks.”
“I’m happy for you.”
“Got me thinking . . .”
“Don’t hurt yourself.” Ray tried to walk away again, but the detective grabbed his arm.
“All that time you spent in prison,” Landry said, “did you ever wonder who it was who gave you up?”
“The feds used a wiretap.”
The detective nodded. “But who put them onto you? They had to have something to base the affidavit on.”
“Are you trying to make a point, or do you just like hearing yourself talk?”
“I heard you’ve been hanging around with your old running buddy.”
“Who are you talking about?”
“I heard you and Jimmy LaGrange kissed and made up.” Landry grinned. “Let me give you a tip. You want to have a covert meeting, don’t have it in the police garage.”
Ray shrugged and walked away.
This time the detective didn’t interfere, but when Ray was a good twenty feet away, Landry called out to him, “If you’re going to kill him, do it in my district. I want to work the case.”
Ray just kept walking.
“You’d be doing me a favor by getting rid of him,” Landry shouted.
This time Ray turned around. “You hate him that much?”
Landry nodded. “He’s a dirty cop and a snitch.”
A snitch.
“How’s it feel,” Landry yelled, “knowing your partner gave you up and sent you to prison?”
Ray shook his head, thinking, not Jimmy. He might be a stuffy little prick now, but back then, back in the day, he was solid. He broke his hand and was off for two months. That’s the only reason he didn’t get caught up in the FBI wiretap. Injury leave for two months . . . the time coinciding almost perfectly with the sixty-day wiretap . . . just a coincidence . . . but Ray didn’t believe . . .
He felt his guts twist so hard it staggered him.
Landry motioned him over and pointed to one of the cement benches. “Have a seat, Ray.”
Ray sat down and listened to the cop’s story. A whore had called PIB, claiming LaGrange beat her up in a motel on Tulane Avenue.
“She was beat up,” Landry said. “But that’s not why she called. Turns out Landry wouldn’t pay her. She said she didn’t mind giving him a couple of freebies not to hassle her, but after a while it got to be every day, and it was cutting into her work time.”
So she decided to set him up for PIB.
“We wired her room at the Rose Motel,” Landry said, “and got him on video fucking her, then threatening her when she asked him to pay for it.”
According to Landry, LaGrange had been eager to make a deal. He promised to give up the Vice Squad in exchange for his job and total immunity. Carl Landry Sr. was on the Vice Squad. Because of the conflict of inte
rest, Landry Jr. called in the FBI. The U.S. Attorney inked a deal with LaGrange’s lawyer. Then LaGrange started talking. Based on what he said, the feds got a court-ordered wiretap. Sixty days was all it took, sixty days to wrap up everyone on the squad, everyone except Detective Jimmy LaGrange.
“And you let him stay on the job?” Ray said.
Landry shrugged. “That wasn’t my decision.”
“Why are you telling me this?”
The detective shrugged. “I just thought you should know.”
That wasn’t the reason. Landry wouldn’t piss on Ray’s head if his hair were on fire. Something else was driving the man. Ray thought about something Landry had said that night at the House. “Why did you leave PIB?”
Landry’s face tightened. “I wanted a change.”
Ray shook his head. “Tell me the real reason.”
The detective stared at Ray for several long seconds before he answered. “If your father is a crooked cop doing federal time, they don’t need you in PIB.”
Still not the whole story. Ray said, “It bother you that Jimmy LaGrange is still on the job?”
Landry looked down at his tie. He used both hands to tighten the knot, then smoothed it out with his fingertips. When he looked up at Ray, he had a death’s-head grin on his face. “It doesn’t bother me at all.” Then he stood and walked away, leaving Ray sitting alone on the bench.
Now Ray understood. Landry couldn’t stand the idea that Jimmy LaGrange was still a cop. By telling him that LaGrange had been the government’s snitch, Landry was turning up the heat, trying to bring things to a boil and hoping Ray would strike back at LaGrange. Ray knew the game, and he wasn’t going to play.
At least not by Landry’s rules.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Ray drove his Mustang east on Chef Menteur Highway. Past the strip bars, the Asian sex spas, the Vietnamese village, then out into the swamp where Chef Menteur lost its name and became just U.S. Highway 90. He drove all the way to Sawmill Pass, on the north side of Lake Catherine. Still inside the city limits of New Orleans but so different from the densely packed urban decay of the rest of the city that it might as well be on the dark side of the moon.
Out here there was nothing but rednecks with shotguns, pickup trucks, and shrimp boats. The year Ray had spent in the Seventh District, he had answered maybe three calls out here. These people took care of their own problems.
The only reason he knew where he was going was because on slow nights some of the cops would drive by the Messina camp. The older Seventh District hands were like teenagers, spinning tales to younger kids about a haunted house in the neighborhood. According to police legend, the secluded camp had been the site of at least a dozen mob murders and more than a few torture sessions. The walls were painted red to hide the bloodstains. Ray’s old sergeant said the swamp around Carlos’s place was a watery grave, hiding the bones of dozens of people who had crossed the Don, and that alligators nested there, waiting for their next meal. But Ray didn’t believe that stuff, at least not all of it.
After his accidental meeting with Carl Landry, Ray had gone back to his motel. For the next several hours he had thought about Jimmy LaGrange, about the whores on Tulane Avenue, about the Rose Motel, and about one teenage whore in particular, one he knew was dead. Thinking how the whole Vice Squad went to prison except for Jimmy LaGrange. Thinking about Jimmy the Rat.
Finally, it was time.
Ray had left his room at 9:00 PM. Old Man Carlos was supposed to be a reasonable man, so maybe he would recognize the truth when he heard it. It was ugly, but it was still the truth.
It had been years since Ray was there, so he almost missed it. An unmarked gravel drive that ran off the highway, back toward the lake. Messina’s camp sat on about five acres of land, the front half of which was densely wooded. The only way in was the single-lane driveway.
Tires on gravel make too much noise, so Ray killed his lights and parked on the soft shoulder of the road. From the trunk he pulled the leather bag holding the money and Dylan Sylvester’s Smith & Wesson. He thought about leaving the gun behind. You didn’t win friends or people’s trust by pulling a gun, but he decided to keep it in the bag, just in case.
The camp was a hundred yards from the road. It was a single-story, wood-framed house set on thick pylons nine feet above the ground. A wide staircase led to a screened-in porch on the front. Looking under the house, Ray could see a second, smaller set of stairs in the back, on the lakeside. Parked on the cement slab beneath the house were two cars, a black, four-door Cadillac Deville—spaghetti and meatballs, mobsters and Caddies—and Priscilla Zello’s maroon Jag.
As he stood looking at the house, the only sounds Ray heard were the crickets in the woods and the gentle lapping of the water against the boat dock out on the lake. Even though it hadn’t rained since last night, the ground was still saturated from the recent downpours. Through the front windows, Ray saw a couple of lights burning inside.
By fishing camp standards, the place was big, at least 2,000 square feet, with unpainted, rough wooden siding that gave it a rustic look. On three sides the woods were cleared back twenty yards; the lakeside was cleared a little farther, thirty yards down to the water’s edge. The ground between the woods and the cabin was covered with grass. As Ray stepped off the gravel driveway, his shoes sank in the soggy earth.
Creeping toward the house, his feet made sucking sounds each time he lifted them, then sloshed as he took his next step; but it was better than the crunching sound of his footsteps on the gravel. He passed the front steps, went under the house, past the two silent cars, then paused at the foot of the back stairs. They rose to a covered porch with a wooden railing, much smaller than the screened-in patio on the other side of the house. A dim light shone through the glass panes of the French doors.
Ray thought about slinking away, about how stupid this was, about taking the money and leaving town. Instead he tightened his grip on the double handle of the leather bag and tiptoed up the stairs.
I must be crazy.
On the porch, Ray stood to the side of the doors and peered through the glass panes like a Peeping Tom. The master bedroom was lit only by the light from the half-closed bathroom, but that faint glow was plenty enough to see by. Plenty enough to see Carlos Messina’s big fat ass thrusting rhythmically between a pair of soft white thighs.
The sound of the Old Man’s panting and grunting drifted through the door but was nearly drowned out by the shrill screams from the woman under him. Ray couldn’t see her because Carlos’s big, bald head was beside hers, facedown on the pillow, blocking Ray’s view, but he had no doubt who she was.
There was no way he could get a fair hearing if he interrupted, so he waited, but he couldn’t turn away. Like someone passing the scene of a horrible accident, he had to look. After a few minutes the Old Man’s thrusting grew deeper and quicker while the woman’s shrieks became sharper and shorter.
Finally Carlos tensed up, thrust one last time as he let out a long moan, then collapsed on top of the woman. Almost immediately she started to squirm under his weight. The mob godfather rolled off her and onto his back, then used the sheet to wipe the sweat off his face. Priscilla Zello scooted away from Old Man Carlos’s mountain of sweaty flesh.
Ray reached out and grabbed the door handle. He had been ready to kick the door open if it had been locked, but it wasn’t. He just pushed it back and stepped inside.
The bed was to Ray’s right, centered against the wall, a nightstand on either side. Mrs. Zello was sitting up on the far side of the bed. Carlos Messina lay on the side nearest Ray, the mob boss on his back, eyes closed, his furry chest bathed in sweat.
Priscilla saw Ray first. She screamed, a high-pitched, piercing shriek that made the hair on Ray’s arms stand up. The scream was real this time, not like when she was taking Carlos inside her. Like a frightened cat, she backed against the headboard and froze. The Old Man’s eyes popped open and he rolled onto his side, facing Ray.
His expression went from shock to anger.
Ray held out his free hand, palm first. “Mr. Messina, I need to talk to you. It’s an emergency.”
Priscilla screamed again. Carlos Messina jerked around and looked at her. Too late, Ray realized the Old Man wasn’t looking at her; he was looking past her, to the nightstand on the other side of the bed, at a Beretta 9mm lying on top of it.
Ray dropped to one knee and let Tony’s leather carryall fall to the floor. He jerked open the zipper and snatched the Smith & Wesson pistol from inside. Carlos rolled across Priscilla, one arm stretching toward the gun on the nightstand. Ray ran around the foot of the bed to the far side. Priscilla rolled to her left, out from under her overweight lover, away from the nightstand and the Beretta. With the gun thrust out in front of him in a two-handed combat grip, Ray aimed the Smith .40 caliber at Carlos Messina’s head. “Stop!”
Carlos looked to his left, stared into the muzzle of Ray’s gun, just four feet from his face. Ray saw the Old Man’s hand freeze less than a foot from the Beretta.
“I just want to talk,” Ray said.
“Kill him,” Priscilla screamed from the other side of the bed. “Kill him!”
Carlos looked at the pistol lying on the nightstand, and then again at the gun pointed at him. Ray sensed him running through the geometry, figuring angles and distances. Evidently, he realized he was going to come up on the short side of the equation, so the Old Man sighed and sat up.
Priscilla looked at Carlos like she had never seen him before, her eyes wide, her mouth open. “What are you doing?” she demanded.
He turned to her and with a calm voice said, “Shut up.”
“What?”
“You heard me.” Then he turned his attention back to Ray. “What do you want?”
Ray relaxed the death grip he had been holding on the gun. “Just to talk. I’m not going to hurt anybody.”
“You expect me to believe that you broke into my bedroom and pulled a gun on me while I was getting a piece of ass just so we could talk?”
House of the Rising Sun Page 24
