Next Last Chance

by Jon A. Hunt

  “What do you want?” asked the blond one as politely as possible with all the racket.

  “Car keys would be fine. Drape them over the barrel. Easy, don’t bump me…”

  “Rico’s gonna blow your fucking head off!” snarled Steering Wheel Face.

  “Who’s Rico?”

  The blond one laughed, even staring one-eyed into the loud end of my gun.

  “Just shut up and give me the keys!”

  He did as he was told. I carefully brought the .45 back and pushed the unlatched rear door open with a foot. Rain soaked the upholstery. I didn’t remove the key chain from the barrel till I was standing outside again. The horn went dead. My new best friend had a bloody nose. He glared at me through a streaked windshield, past the wiper blade that had stopped halfway down when the key left the ignition. He wanted badly to kill me.

  Something stopped him from trying, something besides my gun or the fact that everyone inside the bank and on the sidewalk had stopped to stare because his nose got jammed into the horn. The blond guy didn’t look all that fond of me either, and he just sat there, too.

  I got into the Viper, gunned the engine, and left.

  Rain and rough company had soured my disposition. That I’d kept the Viper out of an impound yard and myself out of an ambulance was frankly surprising. Escaping the city before that luck changed seemed smart. I joined meekly with midday traffic and allowed the glossy black sports car to be hustled north and west with all the other mechanized lemmings.

  At the light before White Bridge Pike dumped into Briley Parkway, I snapped a cell phone picture of the extra keychain I’d acquired. The Hertz tag told me those goons had picked up their ride at the Cincinnati Airport. Ohio was an inconvenient starting point if they’d spent most of their time trolling Nashville for little old me. I compounded their inconvenience by flipping the keys out the passenger window when the parkway crossed the Cumberland River.

  The roadway under the Viper’s tires was only damp. Swollen clouds drooped so low you could nearly reach up and touch them, but thus far their assault had been withheld. The car rode too low for me to peer over the bridge’s concrete barriers and see the river’s condition.

  The Whites Creek exit took me underneath the parkway to follow undulating pavement past tracts of new houses and a profitably situated nursery. Next came a straightaway with quasi-luxury homes trying to outdo one another on my right, and two churches side by side awaiting the homeowners’ tithes on my left. Then everything opened to farmland for a mile, and more fresh, unsold mini-mansions. The miniscule post office was tucked beside a rural bank near the Old Hickory Boulevard crossing. I continued through that intersection and beyond for twenty minutes before turning around. The post office might be watched.

  The traffic light held me where I could observe the post office’s surroundings. Catty-corner across the road stood a ramshackle building wearing dark lavender paint and carpenter’s lace over tall, narrow windows. A metal historical marker proclaimed a member of the James Gang had been arrested nearby. The neighborhood must’ve been rowdier back then. As ideally positioned as the house was for watching the post office’s gravel lot, somebody lived there. The light changed. I let the clutch out and coasted forward.

  The post office itself was a low cinderblock affair with storefront windows that displayed an inside wall full of ornate numbered doors, each with its own tiny window. The box wearing Sandra’s number was indeed a Size Two. Business hours painted directly on the glass let me know there’d be no sneaking in ahead of tomorrow’s scheduled drop. Enough empty space surrounded the building to make a traditional stakeout impractical. The front lot abutted the highway, the side and back lots were for employees and mail trucks only, beyond those an open field stretched to the nearest housing development. Surveillance would be tricky.

  I turned into the development’s entrance. According to brass letters affixed to a curved brick monument, this was Whites Creek Grove. That seemed a tad ironic: the trees had been cleared for houses. I parked beside the sign and dialed the Research and Development Department at Cool-Core Technology in Nashville.

  “Daniel Ayers, please.”

  Danny might well have been the world’s most gifted microelectronics engineer. He had trouble putting two halves of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich together, but designed quantum transistors at the molecular level. My father had paid dearly to get him and Cool-Core still compensated him generously to keep NASA from luring him back. He’d built my cell phone.

  “Hey, Ty! How’s it going?”

  “Terrific!” I told him. Danny’s eternal enthusiasm was contagious. “I love the phone.”

  “You’re on it now. The remote signature shows up on my screen.”

  “Yep. Speaking of remote, I was hoping you had a couple accessories kicking around the lab. I’d need them tonight.”

  “I’ll see what I can do. What are you needing?”

  I steered the Viper back onto the main road and accelerated toward Nashville. Danny stopped our conversation.

  “Jeez, how’d you get a GTS?! That thing’s not even on the market yet!”

  “What, you can see me?”

  “Not yet—working on it—but that exhaust note is unique. I’ve got a PS4 patched into the mainframe for sampling engine sounds, to see if we can get some of the console games to run on a cell phone prototype. One of the cars still on my wish list is a Viper GTS…”

  I laughed. “Okay, you caught me. Tell you what: get me the gizmos I want tonight, and I’ll bring the car in for a day so you can listen to it.”

  “Deal!”

  We finished and I let Danny get to work. He’d be useless to the company for the rest of the afternoon, busy with my request and daydreams of an American super car hooked up to analytical microphones, but Cool-Core’s board of directors wouldn’t begrudge me the favor. The more I concentrated on detective work, the less I monkeyed with corporate affairs.

  My last intended stop for the day would be to retrieve the Donovan’s pay-off cash, from a different bank than where I’d had my little parking lot chat with the hoodlums. Banks are just better at moving money around. They have armored cars. To keep the drive back into town interesting I put in a call to Jerry Rafferty.

  “Rafferty here.” He’d missed me, I could tell.

  “You got the picture I sent?”

  “Sure. I don’t suppose you kept the keys?”

  “Oops.”

  “Uh-huh. Those two are pretty sore at you.”

  “You picked them up?”

  Rafferty made that unreadable grunt of his. “Disturbing the peace. We had them for a whole hour. A couple hard-cases from Nevada. They were packing but both had permits.”

  “I figured they might be tied to your Olivet business and got tired of them following me.”

  “I’m looking into that.”

  “Any idea why they’d drive from Cincinnati instead of flying directly into Nashville?”

  “No clue. What the hell are you driving, anyway?”

  “You’d hate it. You’re a pickup guy.”

  “Yeah, well drive it slower or I’ll let them haul your ass in next time.”

  “All right,” I lied. “One more thing. The one with the pretty ear mentioned a ‘Rico’.”

  The Lieutenant’s tone changed, abruptly, like an accidental downshift to reverse on the interstate. “Where are you?”

  “Briley, by Whites Creek. Why?”

  “Meet me at the regular spot. I’ll be there in twenty minutes.”

  “Sorry, busy night. I’ve got errands—”

  Rafferty wasn’t a fan of first names, so when he used mine it got my attention. “Ty! Just get there quick as you can and don’t argue. We need to talk.”

  Six

  The bank visit couldn’t wait. JD Donovan’s eighty-five grand and I had an early morning appointment and there’d be no other chance of withdrawing those funds. The extraordinary sum required a bank manager’s involvement. I did wh
at I could to speed things along without giving the impression I’d rather hold the place up. Rafferty hadn’t exactly sounded patient on the phone.

  By “regular spot” Rafferty meant the Blackstone. Nashville’s original craft brewery had evolved into a popular West End establishment with chairs and tables, ambiance and a menu of nicely spiced fare to make you crave another cold one. Being a fan of the art, the Lieutenant did what he knew best to support the business: he drank a lot of the Blackstone’s beer.

  I found a space beside a dented seventies-era pickup truck. The pickup’s driver filled the whole cab, and in spite of the dismal lot lighting he had a paperback flattened against the steering wheel. When Smally wasn’t guarding my condo or carrying old ladies across streets, apparently Rafferty had him saving me parking spaces. His truck conveniently hid the Viper from West End traffic. He hardly glanced up from his book when I passed to go inside.

  Inside of the heavy entrance doors waited a standing area flanked by large stainless steel tanks, each labeled with the week’s liquid offerings. A pleasant roasting aroma enveloped me, seasoned with bits of conversations which didn’t concern me. Mention of Rafferty’s name earned me a nod from the hostess toward less frequented tables around behind the big metal silos. Rafferty sat back there by himself, crammed into a booth on the far wall. His hunched shoulders reminded me of a cornered bear.

  “What are you drinking?” he asked.

  “Metro’s dime?”

  “Mine.”

  “The oatmeal stout is decent,” I said.

  Rafferty instructed our table-minder to bring us two pints apiece. He never touched the stuff while on duty, so tonight’s sociality was personal business. We waited in silence till the girl returned bearing four dark glasses with caramel froth dribbling artfully down their sides. The Lieutenant suggested her tip would be appreciably larger if she ignored us till the glasses were empty. She smiled and made herself scarce.

  “You’re working for the Donovans,” Rafferty said.

  “You’re guessing.”

  “Don’t bullshit the guy buying the beer.”

  I took the manila envelope he pushed across the table and coaxed out three glossy prints. The topmost was a black-and-white still from a security camera. A time stamp in the bottom corner showed yesterday’s date, two thirty in the afternoon. The scene was a wide angle swath of the road outside Hillbriar’s front gate, with me leaning over the intercom.

  “I was under the impression the Donovan’s security system was for their use. Probably they’re under the same impression.”

  “Take it up with the feds if you like,” the Lieutenant said. “It’s their show.”

  All sorts of interested parties were crawling out of the woodwork. I shuffled the camera still under the other sheets and found my rainy-day Ohio friends smiling up at me from old mug shots. Maybe smiling was too strong a word. Jones, Jacob, alias Nick, was the dark-haired one with the earrings and attraction for steering wheels. His buddy was Darrowby, Delaware.

  “I bet they teased the hell out of Del in middle school.”

  “They’re real sorry about it by now,” intoned Rafferty. “Darrowby’s been up on four separate aggravated manslaughter charges.”

  “He seemed pretty level-headed to me.”

  “He said you stuck a gun in his eye.”

  The pint in front of me looked neglected. I paid it some attention. “I suppose that brings out the diplomat in most of us,” I admitted. “If he kills people, shouldn’t he be in prison instead of padding around after me?”

  Rafferty’s expression was placid as ever but his voice carried exasperation. “Both of them should be in prison.”

  “They aren’t here for the music,” I said.

  “No.”

  I had a hard time seeing JD or even his wayward bride associated in any way with Nick Jones or Delaware Darrowby. But Rafferty had brought up the Donovans on his own and included those mug shots in the same conversation. He’d found dots to connect. And against character, he wanted to talk about it. His hardwired reticence just kept battling for control.

  “Better spill it soon,” I told him, “or this is going to cost you more beer.”

  The Lieutenant drummed the table’s edge with fingers like miniature pile drivers. Finally, he relented. “Anything strike you as unusual about those two?”

  “Nick and Del? They’re actually pretty low-key for bad-asses.”

  “Exactly. They’ve have been around a while. They’re tough. They’re mean. They don’t have to advertise it, and that makes them expensive. If I’d hired them, I’d rather keep them handy at home except for really important errands.”

  “You’re losing me.”

  “You’ll catch up. Your buddies work for the Dover syndicate in Vegas. The family is in charge of nearly everything outside the law there. A few are in prison. Some are dead. Most have connections that keep them out of reach of the law. Harold Dover the Second runs things.”

  “Sounds important.”

  “He likes to think so. Harold doesn’t run as tight a ship as his old man did.”

  “Harold the First, I presume.” Monarchies always seem to share the same general lack of creativity.

  “He went by ‘Buck.’ And here’s where pieces start to fit together. Jones and Darrowby have worked for the family so long Buck had to have hired them, not his kid. They’re the only ones living who’d have a chance of recognizing Buck’s worst contribution to Nevada’s crime statistics. The other night’s shoot-up clinches it: they’re here looking for Rico.”

  “The guy Nick said was going to blow my head off.”

  “If you’re on his list.”

  The choreographed slaughter at Mount Olivet hadn’t been a first.

  Rafferty tipped down the last of his first pint. More talking than he was used to made him thirsty. I didn’t have words of my own to fling into the void. I was wondering which number would be on my bullet. He set the empty glass down deliberately and surveyed the room. Smally had come in and installed himself next to the beer vats at a table hardly large enough for him to rest his elbows. His presence closed off the room as securely as any door. When Rafferty spoke again, his voice stayed soft but with a hint of rage.

  “The Feds shut my investigation down and sent everyone home. So I don’t have a damned thing to talk about now except the weather, got it?”

  “Just us two guys bitching about the rain,” I said.

  “Rico’s been on the Bureau’s shit list for twenty years,” my friend went on. “Not America’s Most Wanted. They need a picture for that and they don’t have one. Feds have next to nothing. No family, no history beyond when he first showed up. What is known is that he started working hits for Buck Dover in the mid-nineties and he has a particular style. He uses engraved bullets, he never misses, and some lucky authority figure gets a list beforehand saying who’ll die in what order. He’s so good he can afford to be a smartass. He offed four men in front of an optometry clinic, shot each through the left eye. On World Sight Day.”

  My sense of humor was at a low ebb. Rafferty didn’t waste time waiting for a laugh that wasn’t coming.

  “He kills people with enough political clout the Feds do what they can to steer media away from specifics. Even when he guns down undercover agents, the Bureau soft-pedals. If they try too hard to put Rico in their crosshairs, maybe they risk letting those cute lists of his go public and jeopardize ongoing deep-cover operations. I’m only guessing. Whatever the reason, the Feds seem as scared of Rico as everyone else who knows about him.”

  “Who’s using whom?” I wondered aloud.

  “There’s more to it than either of us see. Before he dropped off the radar Rico shot his boss between the eyes. Damned near very gang on the West Coast sent people over to find this character, they’ve got a score to settle, and nobody on either side of the law will clue me in. Just my asking stirred up a hornets’ nest all the way back in Washington.”

  I twisted my glass on its
paper coaster to create a wet circle. “How’s this connected to the Donovans?”

  “Rico’s been here before. I found that in our own records, before I made the mistake of calling the Bureau. Remember when Muriel Donovan was murdered?”

  I nodded. Everybody in Nashville remembered.

  “What you heard about her was mostly correct. She was thrown off the top of the grand staircase in Hillbriar’s guest house. Or pushed really hard. End result’s the same. The fall might not have killed her, but when she tried to grab the railing her arm got caught and tore off. The file has pictures nobody would want to see. Muriel’s old butler had his DNA everywhere—he was her daily servant, so it would be—more importantly her blood was all over him when he was found. The part that got blurry before reporters got involved was how the butler was killed.”

  “He wasn’t shot by the old meat packing plant on the Cumberland?”

  “He was. The FBI forensics team that collected the bullet just never mentioned it had a number on the bottom.”

  Rafferty had my full attention now.

  “It was a hell of a shot. Eighty yards on a windy night, straight through his left eye. Definitely Rico. Except you won’t find any mention of him in the file. I just happened to be there when they found the bullet, or I’d have no idea about any of this.”

  “Then how do you know what you’re telling me now?”

  “I don’t just have friends in Tennessee, you know.”

  He flicked expressionless eyes toward Delaware Darrowby’s mug shot in a way that led my own gaze there. Lightly penciled in a margin were three words: Gabe Andrews, Paradise. I memorized the words, smudged them into oblivion with my thumb and passed the folder and its contents back to Rafferty. If the walls had been watching they’d have missed it.

  “There’s not much left for guessing,” he continued. “Obvious suspects all had solid alibis. JD wasn’t home. Sandra called the police from the main house when she heard Muriel’s scream If she’d come the from the guest house she’d have been seen by the grounds staff, so it couldn’t have been her. JD’s daughter was mixed up with meth distributors from the West Coast. Jetta’s friends could have brought Rico along for some sort of deal in the guest house. The old lady and her butler could’ve seen things they weren’t supposed to.”