HER BODYGUARD

by Michelle Jerott

  Matt swore quietly under his breath. An obvious conflict of established facts, and he'd missed it. "This is starting to feel complicated."

  He sat back, staring out across the water as the boat drifted on the gentle waves. "Maybe Conroy doesn't know anything, except that the partner he double-crossed still managed to stiff him before dying. That means the only ones who could've known about the shoes were Graziano and his men."

  "How?"

  "Joey must've lived long enough to tell them there was a map in the shoes. Or something."

  "We didn't find a map," Lili reminded him. "And if that's what happened, why didn't Lou Graziano grab the shoes?"

  "Maybe he didn't have time. Or maybe he did, but something happened later, which might be the real reason why Riley ordered him killed. I can't see where Riley could blame Graziano for leaving the money behind. He couldn't do anything about the cops that were hot on his ass."

  He frowned. "Do you know how long it was between the time when Mancuso was killed and when the cops showed up?"

  She shook her head. "No, sorry. If there was any mention of it in the books I read, I didn't pay attention. Why?"

  "I don't know. Just trying to get all the facts straight." He regarded her a moment longer. "Where did you find Rose's shoes?"

  "I bought them at a farm auction in Vermont from some people who had a couple of her things. Their great-uncle worked as a cook at Big Moccasin Lake Lodge during the thirties. Back then, people thought nothing of helping themselves to crime scene souvenirs – including the police. I suspect that's what happened with Rose's shoes, and over the years they were forgotten."

  "So if somebody went back looking for Rose's things, he'd have found the shoes missing, and wouldn't know who took them. He'd probably figured the shoes were gone for good."

  "Until I showed up in Chicago, waving them around everywhere I went."

  "There's something we're missing about those shoes."

  "You'll figure it out," Lili said with confidence.

  He'd stretched out along the bench, his head against one side and feet dangling over the other, frowning again. "It sure would be a lot easier if Conroy could've pointed out the spot where Mancuso buried that damn bag."

  "You think he buried it?"

  "It'd be the most obvious answer, except that Joey's turning into something of a puzzle."

  Lili had heard enough of dead men and buried loot, and she gave Matt a poke with the tip of her hiking boot.

  "Forget Joey … all this pretty scenery is making me feel romantic."

  Matt looked amused. "We'll end up in the lake if we try to make out in a rowboat."

  "Did I say anything about sex?" she retorted. "Maybe I just want a kiss."

  She nudged Matt's legs off the bench, then sat down beside him. The boat rocked, but not alarmingly so. She laughed at the look on his face, and leaned down and quickly kissed him.

  He made a deep mmmm sound, wrapping his arms around her and drawing her down to his chest. He kissed her soundly, thoroughly, leaving her breathless.

  "You like to kiss." In the sunlight his eyes were silver-pale, startling in their intensity, and Lili decided she could easily look into his eyes for hours and hours.

  The rest of her life, even.

  "I do like kissing." He smiled. "Especially you."

  She raised a brow.

  "Okay, okay … only you."

  "Smart man," Lili purred, and kissed him again, this time running her hands beneath his flannel shirt. While his tongue played with hers, she pulled up his T-shirt until she could touch warm, bare skin.

  He made another low sound in his throat, and Lili closed her eyes, letting herself sink into the kiss. She didn't rush it – nor did he. He was getting into it, kissing her on the lips for a long while, then using a little tongue, then moving his lips from one corner of her mouth to the other.

  All the while, the boat moving gently beneath her, Lili kept her eyes closed and listened to his breathing – steady at first, then growing faster, less even. Her hands roved over his firm muscles, and the scents of the lake and woods, and Matt's warm skin filled her, arousing her. Especially arousing because the kiss couldn't lead anywhere else.

  After several minutes, she began rocking forward and back against him, in time with the rhythm of the waves. The slight friction deepened her languid arousal to something hotter, sharper. Matt's hands moved to her bottom, and cupped her beneath the smooth leggings she wore, his fingers straying closer and closer between her thighs.

  Her breathing was as uneven as his, and still he kissed her, biting gently on her lip, letting her do the same to him, rubbing the roughness of his beard against her, peppering kisses on her chin, her ear, her eyelids.

  When he kissed her lids, Lili fluttered her lashes against his lips, laughing. She couldn't help smiling as he kissed her. That warm contentment, all that desire and happiness, pushed its way out, even when her predicament was anything but lighthearted.

  Finally, Matt broke the kiss. "Enough," he murmured. "You're making me crazy … and I've got a hard-on like you wouldn't believe."

  She glanced down, then stroked him through the denim. "Maybe we should start rowing back. Fast."

  Lili looked around, noticing they'd drifted a bit. Through the trees, she glimpsed a large, unfamiliar building. "What's that?" she asked.

  "Must be Big Moccasin Lake Lodge," Matt answered.

  Lili's imagination took over, thinking of Joey and Rose, and how their desperate attempt to escape their fate had ended here. It was eerie, in a way. The place was so isolated, she guessed it was mostly unchanged from that night in 1933. If she let her imagination run far enough, she could almost see Joey, his fedora tipped low, his tommy gun in his hand and Rose at his side.

  After a moment, Matt said thoughtfully, "It's closer by boat than by car to where we're staying. But I should've figured that, since the two lakes are connected."

  "Does it matter?"

  He hesitated, then shrugged. "Probably not."

  He let her take one of the oars, and together they started rowing back to the resort.

  "Will we look around over at the lodge?" Lili asked, working to match her oar speed to his.

  "I don't see how we can avoid it, considering its history."

  "I can hardly wait." She shuddered, her imagination getting the best of her. "The thought gives me the creeps."

  Matt grinned. "I thought you wanted some excitement in your life."

  "There's excitement … and then there's danger. Unlike you, I don't find them interchangeable."

  His grin faded. "Don't make assumptions about me, Lili, and I won't make them about you."

  "Are you saying you don't find the danger exciting?" She stared at him. "Please … just this once, answer me truthfully."

  "There's a rush," he said. "But I don't seek out danger because I get off on it. I told you before, most of the time my job's boring."

  "And you prefer it boring."

  "Yeah, I do."

  There was a tightness in his voice that warned her not to press further. Foolish of her to keep coming back to this, even though it continued to gnaw at her. It accomplished nothing: He ended up angry and defensive, and she never understood him any better.

  He liked being a bodyguard; his job scared her – and that was that. Not a hopeful prognosis for a successful relationship, no matter how much she enjoyed being with him, or that the sex was wonderful and sweet.

  Maybe she should just accept her time with him for however long it lasted. That had been her intention to begin with.

  It would be the sensible thing to do – except the thought left her completely dissatisfied.

  Seventeen

  As he drove away from his short meeting with Monica – who had been tired and irritable through it all – Matt kept a constant surveillance in his mirrors, half expecting that someone had followed her, or that she'd arranged a net to take him in. He hated to be suspicious of her, especially after all she'd done f
or him, but with Lili's safety at stake – not to mention his own ass–he wouldn't take any chances.

  He detected nothing unusual, though, and after ten miles of mostly empty road, he relaxed. Lili was engrossed in looking through the accordion file Monica had handed over, stuffed with copies from old arrest records, evidence files, and library books.

  "What's it look like?" he asked, eyeing the bulging folder.

  "Joey and Willis were never model citizens," Lili said wryly, looking up. "Early on, it was mostly petty theft and assault, some extortion. Willis had a few arrests for running liquor, and Joey did some strong-arm stuff for a mobster in Kansas City before he ended up in Chicago. They didn't get into serious trouble until they started robbing banks, payrolls, and stores. Willis shot and killed a gas station owner in 1931. Joey killed a cop during a bank robbery a few months later … and at that point, their fates were pretty much sealed."

  Typical gang activity. Poor and angry young men in big cities had few opportunities; it didn't make much difference if the year was 1931 or 2001. Because they grew up with violence and hate and poverty, knowing nothing else, it became a way of life. A short life, and something he knew too much about.

  "Anything in there on the murder itself?" he asked after a moment.

  Lili thumbed through the papers, then pulled out one. "Monica was right about there not being much of an investigation. Or if there was one, the records disappeared. I guess the police were so happy Joey was dead, they didn't much care how he got that way. There's just a copy of a newspaper article dated the day after Joey and Rose were killed. The headline says Mancuso and Woman Die in Wisconsin Gun Battle."

  "Can you read it to me?"

  "Sure. It's not long." She cleared her throat. "'The end came in the black of night and in a rain of bullets'—"

  "Damn," he interrupted, with a short bark of laughter.

  Lili poked him with her elbow to silence him, but she was smiling. "So, reporters back then were fond of their purple prose. 'The end came in the black of night and in a rain of bullets, and when it was all over, Chicago bandit Joseph Mancuso, twenty-five, and his woman accomplice, Rose McIntyre, twenty-two, were dead, killed by fellow mobsters before sheriff's deputies and federal agents could intervene. The deputies and agents engaged the mobsters in a gun battle near Big Moccasin Lake in northern Wisconsin.'"

  "Huh," Matt said, staring out at the road unwinding before him. It nagged at him, this part about the law officials at the scene. What he wouldn't give for an accurate timeline of that night's events.

  "What?" Lili asked. "You keep saying 'huh' like it means something."

  "Just thinking. Go on. I want to hear about what the cops found at the lodge."

  "Okay." Lili paused, looking over the article. "Toward the end it says, 'Deputy Henry Adams reports more than fifty slugs were fired into the lodge, where deputies found a woman's red shoe, soaked in blood.'" She stopped, grimacing, then continued: "'A blood trail led from the lodge, and bloody leaves and spent shells were found outside close to the porch. Sheriff's deputies plan to drag the lake today, where they believe the mobsters disposed of the bodies of the slain bandit and his gun moll.'"

  "Is there any speculation as to the motive for Mancuso's murder?"

  "It says, 'sources claim the murder was in retaliation over a recent theft of cash and personal belongings from the residence of Chicago mobster Michael Riley, a known associate of Mancuso and his partner, Willis Conroy. Conroy was arrested earlier in Minneapolis, and reportedly tipped off the police as to the whereabouts of his partner and his partner's female companion.'"

  "Personal belongings," Matt murmured. "It was more than money. Joey must've taken something Riley valued … although that doesn't explain the Graziano connection, dammit."

  Going after the money had never made sense, not after seventy years, and whatever cash Mancuso had stolen would be pennies compared to what modern-day drug trafficking, racketeering, gambling, and prostitution would bring in. Something personal, though … that made sense. Now all he had to do was figure it out – and where Graziano fit into things.

  If he fit into things at all.

  *

  Lili had made sandwiches and packed sodas for the trip, and on the way back from the meeting with Monica, they stopped at a small wayside to eat. Still engrossed in the file, she ate her sandwich as Matt sprawled in the grass beside her, apparently dozing.

  She'd pulled out photos and copies of personal letters, and the old photographs in particular tugged at her: Joey, with his dark, broody good looks, and Rose, with her long, slender neck and wide-eyed beauty. Not a single picture caught Rose at a bad angle. She looked like a Hollywood starlet, right down to the penciled eyebrows, cupid bow lips defined by a dark lipstick – probably siren red – and finger-waved hair. In every picture, Joey and Rose were touching each other, and it was adoration, plain and simple, on Rose's face when she was wrapped in Joey's arms and looking up at him.

  How had such young lives gone so terribly wrong? She couldn't believe Joey had been born heartless and evil; something had made him what he became. And Rose – what had kept her from reaching for more than an ex-con who'd only die young and violently? Had she looked at Joey and seen a way out of her mother's lifestyle? Had he been exciting and handsome, an answer to her boredom? Or had she simply loved him, fatal flaws and all?

  After all this time, it was impossible to know the truth.

  Lili pulled out the next photo. Careful, almost girlish handwriting on the back identified the two young men decked out in suits and fedoras, looking every inch like "jazz age sheiks."

  "Here's a picture of Willis and Joey."

  Matt opened his eyes, propped himself on his elbows and looked. "Which one's which?"

  Whoever took the picture – Rose, probably – had been standing too far away, and from a distance both men, dark-haired, clean-shaven, and wearing double-breasted suits, looked alike. "I think the one on the left is Joey."

  "They look like a couple of arrogant little bastards," Matt said at length, and lay back down.

  Surprised, she stared at him, wondering at his reaction. After a moment she continued thumbing through the photos, lingering on one of Joey and Rose hugging each other beside a tree: Rose beaming at the camera, Joey wearing a half-smile, cocky and defiant – yet his grip on Rose looked almost desperate, as if he were afraid to let her go. As if she were all he had in the world.

  Then again, that romantic streak of hers was probably seeing things that weren't there.

  Putting it aside, she picked up the letters. They were dated long before that fateful night in 1933 – so nothing in them would help solve the immediate puzzle of the shoes or missing bag – but she read them anyway. The first, written by Joey from prison, was dated July 12, 1930.

  Dear Baby:

  How is my sweet girl? I am o.k. Dear, I hope you will come see me soon, for I am lonesome, and thinking about you, often. They took away my picture of you, and it made me mad. But, don't worry I would not cause no trouble, so I can get out of this joint. You should know, Frank is working on an early release. Honey write soon. I need a sweet letter from my million dollar baby girl. I would die a happy man if I could see you right now.

  I love you,

  Joey

  With a soft sigh, she put the letter down. Tears, irrational and pointless, stung her eyes.

  "What's wrong?"

  How embarrassing, going weepy like this over two people long since dead, and one of them a killer. "Joey loved Rose. You can tell by reading his letters to her."

  She wasn't surprised to see his frown. "Monica told me Mancuso killed at least eight men. Most were scumbags like him, but two were cops and another was a poor farmhand caught in a robbery gone bad. Don't make him into some kind of antihero."

  Lili nodded, knowing he was right, yet unable to shake a sense of sadness. She looked over the copies of Rose's letters to Joey, some upbeat and chatty, others moody and dark. Rose was a woman of mercurial moo
ds.

  September 20, 1930

  Mr. Joseph Mancuso

  Illinois State Prison Joliet, Illinois

  Hello Honey

  How is my man tonight? Lonesome and blue as me? I wish you were here to make me laugh like you always do. Darling, I can't find no energy to write. I cry all day, wishing I would die, I miss you so much. All I want is to stay in bed and dream about how much better it will be when you are back with your baby, where you belong, and promise me you won't work for the mob and stay out of trouble. I know you can do it, honey, because you are better than the others. Don't you believe what they say about you. I would not love you if you were cruel or bad, and that is the truth. Missing you so much, crying in my pillow, boo-hoo-hoo, that's me, sugar. Write soon.

  All my love to you,

  Rosie

  Lili sighed. "Rose could've benefited from some Prozac. She was one very depressed young woman."

  Matt made a derisive sound. Obviously his opinion of Rose wasn't any better than his opinion of Joey. He sat up again, stretching. "I'm going to talk to Conroy today," he said abruptly. "You up to playing cards?"

  "Sure." She glanced at him, puzzled. "Why?"

  "I noticed Conroy had a checkerboard and a deck of cards with him the other day. Probably how he passes the time when he's not watching TV. I'll ask him to play a game of cards and get him talking then."

  So he hadn't been dozing at all, but plotting. God forbid he should just relax.

  "Isn't that a little risky?"

  "Sweetheart, everything we're doing is risky." His boyish grin made her heart pound, and he leaned forward and kissed her nose. "You probably should have gone with Monica when she asked you to go back."

  As if she'd ever have seriously considered it, despite Monica's persistent arguments. No matter how things turned out between them, her place was with Matt. She knew it, with a certainty that went bone deep.

  She smiled back. "I probably should've, but it looks like you're stuck with me, Hawkins."