Big City Heat

by David Burnsworth

  Brack raised his head when the door opened.

  Detective Nichols pulled out a chair across from him and sat.

  Yawning, Brack said, “You want to tell me why you had to take out the biggest hood in Atlanta?”

  “He took himself out.”

  “Yeah, right.”

  “The real question is why you were with him.”

  It occurred to Brack that Nichols knew more than he let on. This game of the police trying to get him to talk while giving nothing away was beyond old. “I’m sure you already have an idea.”

  “You’re in a lot of trouble, Pelton,” Nichols said.

  “Yeah, well, go figure.”

  “For starters, interfering with a police investigation, conspiring with a known criminal, and trespassing.”

  Sitting back, Brack said, “My lawyer will eat you alive.”

  “Kualas has been under surveillance for possible terrorist activities. We can hold you without a lawyer and file it under national security.”

  Even though Nichols and his entourage did save him from being thrown off the building, Brack nevertheless felt the urge to pop Nichols in the mouth. He let it pass.

  “Of course,” Nichols said, his face suddenly all chipper, “there’s a way out of this.”

  Of course there was. “And what would that be?”

  Nichols hooked an arm over the back of his chair, as if totally relaxed.

  When it became apparent he wasn’t answering the question, Brack prompted, “You want me to work with you.”

  “Not exactly.”

  “Not exactly,” Brack repeated.

  “We’d like you to work for us. Unofficially, of course.”

  Brack looked up, not exactly for divine guidance. More to think about the offer without having to see Nichols’s face. Water had stained several tiles of the dropped ceiling. “Why would I want to do that?”

  “Because we can help you.”

  “What makes you think I need help?”

  Nichols inhaled through his nose and blew out a long breath. “The last time Kualas had someone on the roof, they ended up on the sidewalk. And not by taking the down elevator.”

  “That was then. This is now. I haven’t taken orders since I left the Marines and I don’t plan on starting again any time soon.”

  “Still,” he said, “you don’t have a whole lot of options.”

  There it was. Jail or slavery. Nichols was right, Brack didn’t have much of a choice. Both options were equally restricting. Brack chose the option that allowed him to at least walk around outside.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Thursday, two minutes to midnight

  The cork popped off, and champagne erupted from the bottle like lava from a volcano, the expensive libation spilling on the equally expensive carpet of the penthouse. Vito grinned and poured the celebratory liquid into the three waiting flutes. With that taken care of, he poured a fourth for himself, set the bottle back in the ice, and lifted his own glass.

  Levin, Townsend, and Regan raised theirs.

  Vito said, “To Kualas. May he burn in hell.”

  In unison, his three companions said, “Hear, hear!”

  They clinked glasses and sipped the bubbly.

  “There is no stopping us now,” Vito said. “The world is our oyster.” What he said to himself was, “The world is my oyster and Regan is my princess. You other two are along for the ride only as long as you help me get more.”

  Regan kissed him. “It’s all ours now, baby.”

  Vito smiled at her. It certainly was. He looked at Levin and Townsend. “Gentlemen, it’s time to get to work expanding our new empire.”

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  An hour later, Brack stood on the balcony of Tara’s second-floor apartment staring at the cars below, his deal with Nichols still on his mind. For various reasons, he’d asked Darcy to meet him here.

  Tara came out and handed him the glass of water he’d asked for. “You’re saying the police coerced you into working for them?”

  “Something like that.”

  “I thought you said Nichols threatened you with some form of National Security violation.”

  “He did. I wanted to tell him to go pound sand. Personally, I think they like me on the street. I’m helping them clean up a few of their messes.”

  The doorbell rang and Tara went to answer it. Through the open screen door, he heard Darcy’s voice. The two women walked out onto the patio.

  Brack said, “I miss the ocean.”

  Darcy said, “Me too. But right now, we have bigger issues.”

  Facing her, he said, “Yeah, like Kualas almost throwing me off the roof.”

  “I called Detective Nichols to tip him off, and guess what? He already knew about it.”

  He had to let that register. Several things came directly to mind. Like how conveniently Kualas met his maker. And how it could have gone really bad for him if the cops hadn’t shown up. “You think Vito had a hand in it?”

  “Of course,” Darcy said. “He is the one who would benefit the most if Kualas died.”

  Tara suggested that they bring this kind of talk inside. Brack and Darcy followed her in and she shut the sliding-glass door.

  Darcy said, “You charge headfirst into brick walls. Meetings with Kualas seldom end well. In fact, five murders in the last six months have him as a common denominator.”

  Brack folded his arms across his chest.

  Darcy continued, “I’m not going to apologize for doing what I could to save your life. Thanks to me, we know that you were probably set up on both sides by Vito. Now, you can stand here and pout or we can pool our resources and go after Vito.”

  After another six-hour stretch in his hotel bed, Brack sat at the kitchen table in Mutt’s house across from Brother Thomas and drank a glass of sweet tea. He missed his dog. It was the second day Shelby was “vacationing” with Trish in the north Georgia mountains without him. Realizing it was a good idea for them to be away from the city, Brack didn’t object—aloud. He didn’t want Vito to have any more leverage on him than he already had.

  With Kualas out of the picture, Vito could now control all of Atlanta. Logic would dictate he’d begin by consolidating and eliminating any of Kualas’s loyal henchmen. Brack didn’t have long to wait for the fallout.

  Friday morning’s breaking news reported not only the death of Kualas by the police, but also several immediate murders of members of his organization by persons unknown. Vito had lost no time in eliminating most of his wannabe competition.

  Detective Nichols, Darcy, and Brack had done together what Vito would never have been able to do alone. Enabled him to grow more powerful.

  Brother Thomas said, “What you gonna do now?”

  Every few seconds Brack flicked his uncle’s Vietnam Zippo open and closed. Since he’d become a reformed smoker after puking his guts out into a trash can thanks to Tara, he’d considered taking up Mutt’s vapor habit. But he’d already replaced his vice reacquired from his time in Afghanistan, cigarettes, with his more recent addiction of choice, cigars. He didn’t need another one at the moment.

  He said, “I’m kind of stumped here. Vito just doubled the size of his organization.”

  “Remember, Brother Brack, Vito is not yo’ focus. Neither is vengeance, mm-hmm.”

  “You’re right. I really need to be spending my time and energies trying to get Regan out of the situation she seems perfectly content to be in.”

  “Just because she think it’s the right thing for her don’t mean it is.”

  All that girl wanted was more sex, more drugs, more money, more perceived power, and more abuse, in whatever order it was dished out to her. And she’d found the perfect place to get her cocktail of self-annihilation.

  “So what you’re saying is all I need
do is figure out how to bust into Vito’s stronghold and remove one of his women.”

  “No,” Brother Thomas said. “What I’m sayin’ is we need to catch her outside unawares and drag her miserable behind back to reality.”

  “I know what you want, Brother Thomas. I want it too. But—and I can’t believe I’m the one saying this—we cannot go in blasting.”

  From the doorway, Darcy said, “I can’t believe you’re the one saying that either.”

  The men looked up.

  She said, “What we need is to go after his money. I might have a way to do that.”

  In an empty parking lot off Peachtree Street, Detective Nichols sat on the hood of his cruiser when Darcy’s Honda pulled up to it.

  The detective walked up to Brack’s open window. “What’s this all about, Pelton? And why’d you bring the press?”

  Brack said, “Thanks to me, you have only one dirtbag to deal with instead of two.”

  “Actually, I still have half a city full of dirtbags. Though you did help me get the biggest.”

  “We’re here,” Darcy said, “to help you get the other half.”

  “Tell me, how will ‘we’ do that?”

  Brack said, “We need what you have on Vito.”

  “Why would I give you that?”

  “You wanted me to sign on with you. Consider this my way of making good.”

  “I can’t simply hand over evidence to you.”

  “I realize what you want, Nichols, is a nice public arrest and guilty verdict. That is not our goal, but we’ll help where we can.”

  “I’m still not hearing anything that says I should violate protocol.”

  Darcy said, “What if I told you I have an informant in Vito’s camp?”

  “Big deal. We’ve got twenty.”

  “Obviously,” Brack said, “they are quite the help.”

  Nichols smirked. “More than you know.”

  This wasn’t going the way Brack wanted. His uncle had taught him about the rules of negotiation. Based on that instruction, he knew the next person who spoke would be conceding victory. He kept quiet. So did Darcy.

  “Okay,” Detective Nichols said. “I’ll give you what I have. Sadly, it isn’t much.”

  Before Brack could speak, Darcy said, “We’re supposed to believe that you don’t have much information on Vito. After all these years? I’ve got a fair amount and I’ve been in Atlanta less than a year.”

  Nichols opened his hands in a surrendering gesture. “I don’t expect you to, but due to his immunity and the fact that he doesn’t personally get his hands dirty, that is the truth.”

  “What about Townsend or Levin?” Brack asked him.

  “Those two are a different story.”

  When their ten a.m. meeting with Nichols ended, Darcy left to review the information he provided. Needing a break, Brack took a daytrip to visit his dog in the mountains where Trish had taken him. The hour-long drive gave him a chance to reflect on the present situation. Overall, it was pretty dreary. Despite the demise of Kualas, he was no closer to Regan, or to the further entrenched Vito. Cassie was still in critical condition in the hospital. Nina was dead. And his beloved Porsche was a pile of ash.

  Shelby greeted him by running out the door of Trish’s mountain cabin and almost knocking him down. Was he really glad to see Brack or grateful that he’d been allowed to spend so much time with his best girlfriend?

  Either way, the sight of his dog did Brack’s heart good. He’d missed Shelby. Badly.

  Trish said, “You don’t look so good.”

  Probably because I’m still getting over almost falling from a hundred-story skyscraper, he thought.

  He said, “Not getting much sleep.”

  “Well,” she said, “there’s a hammock on the back porch. Why don’t you take a nap with Shelby while I prepare lunch?”

  Who would argue with that? Within minutes, Shelby lay on his back at Brack’s side and both were in dreamland.

  An hour later Trish woke them. She’d prepared a nice lunch of pimento cheese and tuna salad sandwich wedges, and spinach leaves drizzled with balsamic vinegar. For dessert, peach cobbler. Brack washed it all down with a gallon of sweet tea.

  She asked, “How are you really doing?”

  Scratching behind Shelby’s ears, he said, “Just peachy.”

  “Yeah, right. Chauncey says you have a horrible game face. He wants you to give him a call. Phone reception is best on the back porch.”

  Trish’s husband was Brack’s lawyer. He and Brack had a bit of a strained relationship last year when Chauncey withdrew as Brack’s counsel because he also represented a family trying to take over his Pirate’s Cove bar.

  To be fair, Chauncey withdrew from representing the family as well—a good thing because the whole mess ended up in a huge scandal for the family.

  Brack stepped out onto the back porch of the cabin. From this setting high in the north Georgia mountains, the view of Kennesaw Mountain was amazing. And Brack had two bars of coverage available.

  Chauncey’s receptionist answered on the second ring and put him through.

  Chauncey spoke in his smooth Charlestonian way. “Hey they-ah, Brack.”

  “Hey yourself,” he said. “I’m up in the mountains in a cabin with your wife and my dog.”

  “Sounds like I should be wor-ried.” A soft chuckle characterized the attorney’s voice.

  “Depends on what you have to tell me,” Brack said. “You already know Trish has a crush on Shelby. One false step by either of us and I see her packing up and taking him with her.”

  “You don’t have to ra-mind me about that,” he said.

  “She said you wanted me to give you a call.”

  “Yes.” His tone changed from light-hearted to all business. “I understand you have some trouble over they-ah.”

  “What would give you that idea?”

  “Way-ell, for one, you called my wife to come and watch your dog. You yourself told me she’s li-able to run away and start a new life with him. The fact that you’re takin’ that risk means things are not currently in your fay-vah.”

  Brack smiled. “I guess I tipped my hand a little, didn’t I? Yes, things are not going exactly as I’d planned.” Cassie’s getting attacked had not been a risk ever imagined.

  “Kelvin Vito is an in-te-esting character,” Chauncey said. “His business interests run the ga-ye-mut from real estate to drugs and prostitution and exotic animal poaching.”

  “Thanks to Darcy I did learn most of that,” Brack said.

  “Our famous news repor-tah is still he’ping you out, huh?” He already knew the background on Darcy and Brack.

  “She’s still willing to go slumming with me.”

  “Good, Brack. That’s real good. You’re going to need he’p with this one.”

  Brack thought about walking into a deathtrap less than twenty-four hours ago and had to agree with him. “I can think of a few reasons why you’re right. Why do you think so?”

  “Vito is a very powerful man. And I understand his main adversary is now off the books. But there’s something you praw-bably don’t know. He’s got a handler.”

  “Handler?”

  “He repor-arts to someone else.”

  “No kidding? Well, don’t drag this out like some TV show. Who?”

  “His grandfath-ah, Marcus. He lives in Mexico.”

  Brack thought about that. “I’d like you to send everything you have on this Marcus to Darcy.” What he heard next sounded like a tap on a keyboard.

  “Done.”

  “Thanks, Chauncey.”

  “Don’t thank me,” he said. “If something happens to you, my wife will take your dog. And she just might give me the boot in the pro-cess.”

  “You and I both know it. Better do all you can t
o keep me alive then.” He hung up.

  It took Darcy all of sixty seconds from the time Brack heard Chauncey send the file for her to call him.

  Brack asked, “What’s the weather forecast for today?”

  “Very funny,” she said. “I just got the file from Chauncey. Why’d you have him send it to me?”

  “I’m out of town right now.”

  “Out of town? With whom? Wait, don’t tell me. It’s none of my business.”

  Did he hear a slight hint of jealousy in her tone? Hadn’t ever heard that before. He let her think the worst. “How about if I meet you in an hour?” he asked.

  “How about if I think about it?”

  “Suit yourself,” he said. “I’ll be on my way back to the city in a few minutes. You can call me on the way, or whenever you want. I’d like to see what Chauncey sent you.”

  “You’re with Trish, aren’t you?” A pause. “You jerk.” She hung up.

  Another successful attempt to win her over. Zero for four? Six?

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Friday, six p.m.

  That evening, Brother Thomas and Reverend Cleophus met Brack at Mutt’s house. Mutt was still with Cassie at the hospital.

  Brack said, “The situation is worse than we thought.”

  “How so?” Brother Thomas asked.

  “Did you know Vito has to answer to someone else?”

  “How is that worse?” Cleophus asked.

  After a moment of contemplation, Brother Thomas explained, “Because Vito can’t do anything without considering how he’ll look to the boss.”

  Cleophus said, “Well, we all gotta answer to somebody.”

  “Yeah,” Brack said, “but Vito would be much easier to deal with if he were the head of the snake. Instead of just cutting him out, we have to worry about his boss coming to town and taking over where Vito leaves off.”