Void Moon (1999)

by Michael Connelly

  "Yes, I know a little more than you think."

  He picked up the second passport, expecting to find Renfro's picture inside it. Instead, it was a photo of a little girl. The name below the photo was Jodie Davis.

  "Well, maybe I don't know everything. Who have we got here?"

  Renfro didn't answer.

  "Come on, Leo, work with me here. We can't have secrets, you and I."

  "Fuck you. Do what you have to do, but fuck you."

  Karch leaned back in the chair and looked over Renfro as if appraising him.

  "You Outfit guys think you're so untouchable."

  "I'm not with the Outfit, but fuck you anyway."

  Karch nodded as if amused by Renfro's protestations.

  "Let me tell you a story about the Outfit. Long time ago in Las Vegas there was this magician. He'd been around a long time, worked all the casinos, never really caught on. Always the warm-up, never the headliner. Raisin' a son by himself on the side. Anyway, he had a gig in the Clown Room lounge at Circus, Circus. No big deal. Just a table act for chump change - tips mostly. And so one night he's dealing three-card monte to a table of these three guys and they keep telling him to do it again. You know, 'Do it again and I'll get it this time.' Only they never got it. They never picked the ace. And it went on and on and it got one of them hotter and hotter. Like he thought this magician was personally makin' a fool of him or something. So skip to the end of the night. The magician punches out and is in the back garage walking to his car. And guess who's waitin' for him but those same three guys from the bar."

  Karch paused but not for effect. The story always got to him at this point. Every time he thought about it or told it, the anger seemed to boil up in his throat like acid.

  "And one of them, the boss of these three guys, had a hammer. They didn't say a word. They just grabbed the magician and bent him over the hood of his car. One of them used his tie to gag him. Then one by one the man with the hammer broke every one of the magician's knuckles. At some point he passed out and when they were done they just left him lying on the concrete next to his car. He never worked as a magician again. Couldn't even palm a quarter anymore. Every time he tried, it just dropped on the floor. I used to sit in my bedroom and hear him trying gags in the other room. I'd hear that quarter fall on that wood floor over and over again . . .

  "He drove a cab for a living after that. Cancer finally killed him but he was dead long before that."

  Karch looked at Renfro.

  "You know who the man with the hammer was?"

  Renfro shook his head.

  "That was Joey Marks. The Outfit's man in Vegas."

  "Joey Marks is dead," Renfro said. "And like I said, I don't work for the Outfit or anybody else."

  Karch stood up and came around the desk.

  "I came for the money," he said quietly. "You stole from the wrong people and I've come to set it straight. I don't care if you're with Chicago or not. I'm not leaving here without the money."

  "What money? I sell passports. I invest in champagne. I don't steal money from people."

  "Listen to me, Leo. Your spotter's dead. So is your cameraman. You don't want to be like them, do you? So where's the money? Where's Cassie Black?"

  Renfro turned so he was facing Karch and his back was to the sliding door. Behind him the pool glowed brightly in the dark. He lowered his chin as if looking inward and coming to a decision. He then nodded slightly to himself and looked back at Karch.

  "Fuck you."

  Karch shook his head.

  "No, Leo, this time it's fuck you."

  He lowered the barrel of the gun and calmly fired. The bullet blew out Renfro's left knee. It passed cleanly through the bone and tissue, hit the tile floor behind him and bounced up into the sliding glass door. The door shattered into large jagged pieces of glass that crashed down onto the floor and shattered again. Renfro dropped to the floor and grabbed his knee with both hands. His face was a mask of agony.

  The breaking glass was more noise than Karch had planned on making. The door was shattered except for one large jagged piece of glass held in the bottom of the frame. He figured the house must have been built before safety glass was required. He looked out into the yard and hoped the freeway noise had covered the sound.

  Renfro started gasping and moaning as he rolled over the glass, cutting himself on his arms and back. The floor was quickly becoming slick with blood. Karch stepped over and leaned down over Renfro.

  "Give me the money, Leo, and I promise I'll end it quick and painless."

  He waited but got no response. Renfro's face was scarlet. His lips were pulled back, exposing teeth gnashed together.

  "Leo? Leo, listen to me. I know you're in a lot of pain but listen to me. If you don't give me the money we're going to be here all night. You think it hurts now? You can't imagine what - "

  "Fuck you! I don't have the money."

  Karch nodded.

  "Well, at least we're making progress, right? We're now past the 'What money?' stage. If you don't have it, then where is it?"

  "I gave it to Chicago."

  The answer came too quickly for Karch. He looked closely at Renfro's face and decided he was lying.

  "I don't think so, Leo. Where's the girl? Cassie Black, Leo, where is she?"

  Renfro didn't respond. Karch stepped back a pace and calmly fired a bullet into his other knee.

  Renfro let out a loud scream that was followed by a stream of epithets that dissolved into delirium and moans. He rolled over onto his chest, his elbows tucked in and his face in his hands. His legs were sprawled behind him, twin pools of blood leaking from his knees. Karch looked out the broken door, across the pool, and checked for lights or any indication that the neighbors had taken notice. All he heard was the freeway. He hoped it would keep him covered.

  "Okay, okay," Leo blubbered into his hands. "I'll tell you. I'll show you."

  "Okay, Leo, that's good. Now we're getting somewhere."

  Renfro raised his head and pushed himself up onto his elbows. He started crawling forward, toward the shattered door, his dead legs dragging behind him and leaving a trail of blood.

  "I'll tell you," he choked out through pain and tears. "I'll show you."

  "Then talk to me, Leo," Karch said. "Where are you going? You can't go anywhere. You can't even walk, for crying out loud. Just tell me where it is."

  Renfro moved another painful foot closer to the door. When he spoke his voice was ragged and was delivered through clenched teeth.

  "See . . . you see . . . it was the fucking moon . . . the void moon . . ."

  "What are you talking about? Where's the money?"

  Karch realized he had gone too far. Renfro was delirious with pain and blood loss. He was quickly becoming useless.

  "The void moon," Renfro said. "It's the void moon."

  Karch took a step along with him.

  "Void moon?" he said. "What's that mean?"

  Renfro stopped moving. He turned his face and looked up at Karch. The tightness had gone out of it. He almost looked relaxed.

  "It means anything can happen, motherfucker."

  His voice was strong now. He suddenly raised himself off his elbows onto his hands. He raised himself up to full extension and lurched forward into the sliding door frame. His neck came down on the jagged piece of glass still held in the frame.

  Karch realized what he was doing too late.

  "No, goddammit!"

  He reached down and grabbed Renfro's collar and jerked him up and off the glass. He dropped him to the floor and then grabbed his shoulder and turned him over.

  He had acted too late. A deep, wide gash extended across Renfro's neck. He had cut his own throat. Blood was burbling out of the left side where the carotid artery had been severed.

  Leo Renfro's eyes were bright as he looked up at Karch. A bloody smile formed on his face. Slowly he reached a hand up and used it to hold his neck together. His voice was a whispered croak.

  "You
lose."

  Leo dropped the hand and let the blood flow from his neck. He kept the smile on his face and his eyes on Karch.

  Karch dropped to his knees and hovered over him.

  "You think you beat me? Huh? Huh? You think you won?"

  Leo could only answer with his smile. Karch knew it said Fuck You! He raised the gun and pressed the muzzle into Renfro's bloody mouth.

  "You didn't win."

  He leaned back and turned his face away. He pulled the trigger. The shot blew out the back of Renfro's head and killed him instantly.

  Karch pulled the weapon away and studied the dead man's face. His eyes were open and somehow he still had the smile.

  "Fuck you. You didn't beat me."

  He leaned back on his heels and looked around himself. He saw a drop of blood spatter on the white instep of one of his two-tone Lite Tread spectator shoes. He used his thumb to wipe it off and then wiped his thumb on Leo's shirt.

  He stood up and looked around the office. He sighed loudly. He knew he had a long night of searching ahead. He had to find the money. He had to find Cassie Black.

  31

  ON Friday morning Cassie Black arrived at the dealership at ten and checked with Ray Morales to see what was what. He had taken her calls while she had been out the last few days. Ray said all was quiet but that he had a prospect coming in to test-drive a new Boxster at three. He had just been given a development deal at Warner Brothers that ran into seven figures. Ray had gotten it out of the Hollywood Reporter and expected it to be an easy sale. She thanked him for thinking of her with the prospect and was about to head to her office when he stopped her.

  "You okay, kid?" he asked.

  "Sure, why?"

  "I don't know. You don't look like you've been sleeping much lately."

  Cassie brought her right hand up and cupped her left elbow, which still ached from the briefcase jolt.

  "I know," she said. "Just been thinking about things. Sometimes it keeps me awake."

  "What things?"

  "I don't know. Just things. I'll be in my office if you need me."

  She left him then and went to the sanctuary of her tiny office. She dropped her backpack into the foot well of the desk and sat down. She put her elbows up on the blotter and ran her hands through her hair. She felt like screaming I CAN'T DO THIS ANYMORE! But she tried to put her anxieties aside by reminding herself that one way or another her life would be changing very soon.

  She picked up the phone to check her voice mail, even though on Tuesday she had left a generic outgoing message saying she would be off work for a few days and referring calls to Ray Morales until she got back. Four messages had been left for her anyway. One was from a body shop reporting a set of customized chrome wheels for a ' 58 Speedster she had sold were now ready. The second call was from one of Ray's prospects - a producer at Fox - from the week before. He wasn't calling about the car he had test-driven. He was just calling to tell her he had liked her style and wanted to know if she was interested in going with him to a premiere of a friend's picture the following week. Cassie didn't bother writing down the guy's private cell phone number.

  "If you liked my style, why didn't you buy the car?" she said into the phone.

  The third message was from Leo. There was an agitation in his voice she had not heard before. The message had come in at 12:10 A.M . that morning. She listened to it three times.

  "Hey, it's me. What's wrong with your cell phone? I couldn't get through. Anyway, I just got back from my drop. I have those things you wanted but there's something else, something wrong. Somebody got the address somehow and dropped me something there. An ace of hearts from the Flamingo. I don't know what it means but it means something. Call me when you get this. Use all precautions and keep your head down. Oh, and erase this, okay?"

  Cassie hit the three button on the phone, erasing Leo's recording before she went on to the fourth message. The last call had come in at seven-thirty that morning and it was a hang-up call. There had been no background noise, just a few seconds of someone breathing and then the hang-up. She wondered if it had been Leo.

  She hung up the phone, reached down to the floor and pulled her backpack up onto her lap. She first dug through it until she found her cell phone. It had been turned off. She remembered doing it the night before after hanging up on Leo and deciding she didn't want him calling back.

  She turned the phone on now and put it down on the desk. She then continued digging through the bag until she found the box containing the deck of cards she had bought in the gift shop at the Flamingo. She quickly opened it, turned the deck face up and started going through the cards one at a time looking for the ace of hearts. The closer she got to the bottom of the deck the greater the dread that was building inside her. When she reached the last card without seeing the ace of hearts she cursed out loud and threw the deck across the small office. It hit the Tahiti poster and then cards exploded in all directions, coming down on the floor and the desk.

  "Goddammit!"

  She buried her face in her palms as she tried to figure out what to do. She snatched up the phone to call Leo but then thought better of it. Use all precautions. She thought of using her cell phone but dismissed that, too. She opened the desk drawer and grabbed a handful of change from a tray meant for pens and pencils and got up.

  She opened the door and almost walked right into Ray Morales, who had apparently come to see what the commotion was about.

  "Excuse me," she said, making a move to go around him.

  Ray looked past her into the office and saw the playing cards all over the place.

  "What, you playing fifty-two pickup in there?"

  "More like fifty-one."

  "What?"

  "I'll be back in a few minutes, Ray. I have to take a walk."

  He silently watched her cross the showroom and go out the glass door.

  Cassie walked a block down to the Cinerama Dome, where she knew there was a pay phone out front. She dialed Leo's cell phone number from memory and listened to ten unanswered rings before hanging up. Now questioning everything, she dialed it again in case she had messed up the first time. This time it went twelve rings before she hung up. The dread that had begun to rise in her while she looked through the cards had now gone several notches up the ladder to the level of panic.

  She tried to calm herself by trying to think of reasons the call to Leo would go unanswered. The cell phone and Leo were attached like Siamese twins. If the phone had not been turned on, she knew her call would have been diverted to a message. She wouldn't have gotten the continuous ringing. So the phone was on but not being answered. The question was why.

  The pool, she suddenly remembered. Leo swam laps in the morning. He'd have taken the phone out to the table next to the pool, but if he was in the middle of his laps he wouldn't hear it, not with the water sloshing around him and the freeway noise as well.

  The explanation calmed her a bit. She called Leo's number once more and again it went unanswered. She put the phone back on its hook and decided to go back to the dealership. She would come back and try calling again in a half hour or forty-five minutes. She remembered Leo once told her he swam three miles a day. She had no idea how long that would take but figured that a half hour should be enough time.

  Five minutes later she walked back into the dealership showroom and saw Ray and a man who wore a porkpie hat looking at the silver Carrera with the whale tail spoiler. Ray saw her and signaled her over with his fingers.

  "Cassie, this is Mr. Lankford. He wants to buy a car."

  The customer turned and smiled with embarrassment.

  "Well, I want to look at a car. I mean, drive it. Then we'll see."

  He put his hand out.

  "Terrill Lankford."

  She took his hand and shook it. His grip was firm, his hand dry as powder.

  "Cassie Black."

  She looked at Ray. She didn't want to do this. Her mind wasn't on selling cars.

  "Ray,
is Billy in yet? Or Aaron? Maybe one of them would be - "

  "Meehan's on a test and Curtiss isn't in till twelve. I need you to show Mr. Lankford a car."

  Ray's tone indicated he was put out by her flaky behavior and that there was no debate allowed here. She turned her attention to Lankford. He was neat and well dressed in a set of retro clothes that went with the hat. Judging by his pasty complexion she guessed he'd be interested in a coupe. But that was okay because the Boxster didn't come in a coupe. That left only the higher priced Carreras.