Double or Nothing (Daniel Faust Book 7)

by Craig Schaefer

  A high-pitched whine split the air as a circular saw carved a beam down to size. My eardrums stung. I shouted above the noise.

  “Figured I’d try finesse first.” I waved a hand toward the wooden ribs of the room and held up my phone. “Gonna step outside, make a couple of calls.”

  Ever since my “death” in prison and my subsequent miraculous resurrection, I’d had one constant thorn in my side. Detective Gary Kemper. He was still raw about how I’d blackmailed him once, back during the Lauren Carmichael business, and he jumped at the chance to return the favor. He knew that Daniel Faust was still among the living, and now my continued cooperation was the only thing keeping him from a phone call to the FBI.

  So far, he had wanted the same thing I did: stopping the gang war between Vegas and Chicago. Now that the war was over, the thought of what he might do with his leverage was enough to keep me up at night. I could end the problem with one bullet, except for a couple of problems. First, Kemper wasn’t stupid. No chance he hadn’t worked out some kind of contingency plan, a way to screw me from beyond the grave.

  Second, I wasn’t big on killing cops. That used to be a solid rule of mine, until I’d gunned down a pair of corrupt detectives on the Outfit’s payroll. Now it was more of a guideline. I wasn’t looking to bury any good cops, anyway, and Kemper was a good cop. He was more or less honest, on the job for the right reasons. That made him my enemy, but I figured his continued presence in the world was a net good. Sometimes the choice that lets you face yourself in the mirror every morning is the only choice worth making, even if it causes more headaches down the road.

  He picked up on the second ring. “Kemper.”

  “It’s me. I need some information.”

  I waited for his incredulous pause to end.

  “Seems you forgot how this works, Faust. I call you. You do what I tell you to. Then you go away until I feel like telling you to do something else. It’s kind of a one-way street, this thing we’ve got here.”

  “Spoken like a man who’s lousy in bed, Detective. When you’re fucking someone, you should at least give ’em a reach-around. Besides, I’m doing my civic duty and helping to stem a dangerous new drug epidemic.”

  “Do tell.”

  “I have it on good authority that Metro busted an ink dealer,” I said. “Not one of our people, and not one of the usual suspects. An out-of-towner, driving a car with New Mexico plates. I need to know if he’s still in lockup.”

  “Which sector did he get picked up in?”

  “No idea,” I said.

  He grunted into the phone. “So what, I’m supposed to call all of ’em? Who told you about the bust?”

  “Commissioner Harding.”

  “Don’t even joke about that,” he said.

  “No joke. I was having a morning sit-down with him and Mayor Seabrook. They don’t like me very much, you’ll be pleased to hear. They like this ink stuff even less. I’ve got avenues of information that the boys in beige don’t, and I’m looking to help out.”

  “We’ve got this handled,” Kemper said. “Ink’s not getting a foothold in Vegas.”

  “You’ve got a buddy in the Chicago PD, Detective. Call him up, ask how their plans went. C’mon, you’ve got nothing to lose. All I need is a little information. You do your thing, I’ll do mine, and we’ll see who’s got something to brag about when the dust settles.”

  “I’ll call you back.”

  Twenty minutes later, he had the inside scoop. The pusher was a career loser named Charlie Malone, a drifter with a history of racking up two strikes in states with three-strike laws. A “habitual offender,” Kemper called him, but his real habit was feeding the hungry mouth in his arm. His usual business was ripping off drug dealers; apparently he’d gone from beating ’em to joining ’em. He’d bonded out two hours ago.

  “He’s from out of state and a flight risk,” I said. “Who was dumb enough to post bond for this guy?”

  According to the card they left behind, Coughlin and Son Bail Bonds, Inc. was dumb enough. I got their address and called for a cab.

  * * *

  The wobbly ceiling fan inside Coughlin and Son’s shoebox of an office spun as slow as a revolving door. Barely kicking up a breeze, just pushing the sluggish cigarette-flavored air around. The garish sofa by the door looked like it had been bought from an elderly grandmother’s estate sale; the ten-year-old issues of People magazine littering the coffee table probably came from the same place. Farther in, a bullet-headed man with a missing front tooth—Coughlin or Son, I wasn’t sure—looked up from his mammoth of a monitor and gave me a wave.

  “Afternoon,” he said. “Help ya out?”

  The door swung shut at my back.

  “I hope so,” I told him. “I’m here about one of your clients. Charlie Malone, busted on possession?”

  A glint of recognition. “Yeah, my kid bonded him out. Pretty standard, they got him on a Class E, that’s five grand for bail.”

  “You know he’s from out of state, right? And doesn’t have any reason to stick around. Why’d you take the risk?”

  His eyes narrowed. “And we’re having this discussion why exactly?”

  Time wasn’t on my side. I thought about playing it hard, locking his front door and leaning on him, but there’s a time and a place for that kind of maneuver. Bail bondsmen deal with tough guys for a living; intimidation would just make him dig his heels in. I gave him a smile instead.

  “I’m a PI,” I told him. “Keep it on the down-low, but certain people in high places are worried about ink dealers from New Mexico suddenly darkening our city’s doorstep.”

  Coughlin showed me his open hands. “Hey, I got nothing to do with that. We issue bonds to anybody and everybody, no matter the crime. Innocent until proven guilty, am I right?”

  “No judgment here. Just seems like a waste of five grand.”

  “Nah,” he said, “the money’s guaranteed. We would have turned him down flat—like you said, he’s probably gonna jump bail, and I don’t feel like driving to New Mexico—but the guy’s lawyer is good for it.”

  “Lawyer?” I tilted my head. “Since when does Legal Aid vouch for a client’s bail money? Most of those guys can barely be bothered to show up for court.”

  “Uh-uh. This ain’t pro bono. Guy’s got a real lawyer.” He tugged open a desk drawer, rummaging around until he came up with a rumpled business card.

  I took it from his outstretched hand and twirled it in my fingertips. Gold on cream, elegant and precise. Weishaupt and Associates, it read. Mr. Smith, Esquire.

  I owned a card like his, but mine had bloodstains. The warden of Eisenberg Correctional had given it to me thirty seconds before I shot him dead. It was a golden ticket, he told me: all I had to do was show some mercy, let him walk, and call the number on the card, and I could have anything I wanted as a reward. He caught me on a bad day; I was all out of mercy.

  Since then, my buddy Pixie had been digging into Weishaupt’s business. Her shovel mostly hit bedrock. The firm was a sham, as far as she could tell. Their website was a rat’s nest of dead links and spyware, their street address was a vacant lot, and their “lawyers” were stock-photo actors. Their computer system had bulletproof security that stopped her cold—and considering Pixie broke into government mainframes for fun, that said a lot.

  I already knew Weishaupt was up to some nasty business. Apparently they were expanding their repertoire. I pocketed the card.

  “I need to have a word with Mr. Malone. I assume he had to give you an address? Wherever he’s supposedly staying while he waits for his hearing?”

  “Sure.” Coughlin looked me up and down. “Thing is, I don’t need some pissed-off junkie with an assault record storming in here, demanding to know why I gave out his personal information.”

  “If he asks, I got it from the court.”

  “If you’re really working for people in high places,” he said, “I should tell you to go and do that.”

  I gav
e him a tired sigh and a just-us-working-stiffs smile. “C’mon, pal, I’m trying to earn a living, just like you. Sure, I could do that, but it’s a drive across town and at least an hour sitting in some pencil jockey’s waiting room. Help me out?”

  He stared at me, he stared at his computer screen, then he hauled his keyboard across the desk.

  “Just keep my name outta your mouth,” he told me. “He’s staying at a transient motel on Paradise Road, stone’s throw from the airport. Do me one favor?”

  “Name it.”

  “I saw that look in your eye just now. Seen guys like you before.”

  “Do tell,” I said.

  “All I’m saying is, when you’re ‘having a word’ with this guy? If you gotta hurt him bad enough that he’s gonna miss his court date, a courtesy call would be appreciated.”

  4.

  Malone was holing up at the Paradise All-Suites, a fancy name for a roach motel that was a hellhole in the fifties and hadn’t been fixed up—or cleaned—since. The daylight faded as my taxi pulled into the lot, the silhouette of a jumbo jet soaring like a steel vulture in front of a rippling orange sunset. In the distance, rising up over the tenements and condos, the Strip opened one sleepy neon eye.

  A television squatted in the corner of the lobby, blaring some old sitcom. Canned laughter washed over my back as I stepped up to the check-in desk. The clerk had bloodshot eyes and shaky fingers. He barely glanced my way as he droned, “Forty bucks a night or ten by the hour, no pets.”

  “Looking for one of your tenants. Charlie Malone.”

  Now he looked at me. “Who’s asking?”

  I set a couple of ten-dollar bills on the counter. “Alexander Hamilton.”

  He stuffed the bills in his shirt pocket.

  “Tell Mr. President he’s on the second floor. Room twenty-three.”

  I turned to go, then paused. I looked back at him.

  “You…do know Hamilton was never president, right?”

  The clerk shrugged. “You know history, but I got your money. Which one of us is really smart here?”

  I couldn’t argue that.

  “Got another ten-spot,” he said. “I’ll tell you something you oughta know.”

  I fished in my pocket and tugged out another bill. I set it on the counter—then yanked it back when he reached for it.

  “Info first,” I told him. “I’ll pay what it’s worth.”

  “Saw Malone visiting the room of a long-term tenant this morning. Aforementioned tenant is a successful small business owner.”

  “Drugs?”

  “Guns,” he said. “Saw Malone leave with a pocket thirty-two, But that’s none of my business.”

  I gave him the ten.

  I jogged up bare concrete steps to the second-floor hallway. Up ahead, the door to twenty-three jiggled and swung open. An emaciated guy in a yellow tank top and prison tats, three days of stubble on his cheeks, wandered out into the hall. He looked my way. Our eyes locked. He knew.

  Malone darted back into his room and slammed the door behind him. I heard the metallic click of a deadbolt as I broke into a run. I hit the door shoulder-first, and the cheap wood shattered like a broken promise. The room beyond was a grungy kitchenette strewn with crumpled beer cans and dead roaches. Malone was on the far side, halfway out the window; he looked back with big wet puppy-dog eyes, like he was emotionally hurt that I was chasing him. Then the .32 in his hand spat fire, and I threw myself to the soiled carpet, rolling behind the sofa as shots whined over my head.

  I came up on one knee with a brace of playing cards in my left hand. I flung them like throwing knives and they lanced across the room trailing heat-mirage ripples in their wake. Two went wide, digging halfway into the rotting plaster, and a third sliced his tank top and scored a red line across his hip. He yelped and tumbled out the window. The fire escape rattled as it caught him like a baby in a rusty cradle.

  “Don’t run,” I shouted. “It’s only gonna get worse if you—”

  He ran. The fire escape groaned as he thundered down the metal steps. I leaned out the window then ducked back, another bullet cracking past my face and blasting the wooden sill into splinters. I took a deep breath, counted to two, and jumped out after him.

  Lights were clicking on all over the complex, eyes peering out from behind dusty drapery. I didn’t need this kind of attention. The cards stayed snug in my breast pocket; doing magic in public was the definition of a bad idea, and drawing my pistol was only marginally wiser. Malone was either smart enough to stop shooting or he was just too scared to think about anything but getting away from me. He dropped down to the pavement, stumbled, and raced for the street with his arms flailing.

  I was right behind him, my heart a jackhammer, shoes pounding the sidewalk. Slowly slipping farther behind as the distance between us grew and my lungs burned with every breath. Maybe I was getting old, maybe the fear or the drugs or both were giving him an edge, but I was losing this race. Traffic on the side street was sparse, but it was still there, and the occasional wash of headlight beams at my back was the only thing keeping me from pulling my piece and going for a leg shot.

  A car cruised past, a snow-white Audi Quattro. Smooth and easy—until it suddenly swerved right, jumped the curb, and slammed on the brakes. Malone ran headlong into the car’s hood, flying off his feet and rolling, coming down on the other side in a tangle of limbs. I ran around the car and slapped the gun out of his hand. Then I gave him a backhand hard enough to loosen the few teeth he had left.

  “Told you,” I panted, “not to make me run. Asshole.”

  The driver’s-side door opened and a goddess stepped out. Well, the closest thing I’d ever seen to one, anyway. Tall, her pinstripe blazer and slacks perfectly tailored to her frame, her scarlet hair falling over one shoulder in an elaborately braided twist. She wore an impish smile.

  “Sorry to interrupt your evening exercise,” Caitlin said, “but you were late for our dinner date.”

  Malone clutched his arm, the skin purple under his twitching fingers, and gritted his teeth. He was a mess of cuts and scrapes. “My arm,” he whined. “Think you broke my fuckin’ arm—”

  I rested my hands on my knees, crouching, still trying to catch my breath. “Oh, we haven’t started breaking things yet. Cait, help me get him into the back seat?”

  Caitlin snickered and hoisted him up under one arm, like he was lighter than a sack of groceries. She unceremoniously tossed him into the back, then leaned over his pale, sweaty face.

  “If you even think about bleeding on my car seats,” she murmured to him, “then after my lover is done with you, I get a turn.”

  She got behind the wheel. I sat beside her and buckled in. We pulled away from the curb, off the side street, and into the flow of nighttime traffic.

  “How was LA?” I asked.

  “Delightful. Tanesha sends her regards, by the way. She treated me to an early listen of the new album, now that it’s finished. It’s going to be amazing.”

  It was a sore spot, but I still had to ask. “How about her, ah…ghost problem?”

  “She doesn’t know she has one, and ideally never will.” Caitlin sighed. “I caught a glimpse of Monty’s shade in one of her hallway mirrors. Still clinging. Doomed romanticism is lovely in poetry and song, but a bit sad in real life.”

  “Some people just don’t know how to let go.”

  “Hey,” Malone groaned from the back seat. “Where are you taking me?”

  I ignored him. “Nicky’s out of the hospital and back in hiding. The twins are taking care of him while he rests up, which sounds like a special kind of hell.”

  “I heard they tried to make chicken soup once.” Caitlin’s nose wrinkled. “Twenty chickens died and a small farm was wiped from the map. I’m told a grenade launcher was involved. What about Paolo?”

  Another sore spot. A much fresher wound. I didn’t answer right away. I looked out the window and watched the Vegas skyline slowly come to life.

>   “They discharged him this morning.”

  Caitlin’s glance flicked my way. “Did you go and see him?”

  “Not yet. I mean, I visited him in the hospital, twice, but he was all doped up on morphine.”

  “You should go see him,” she said.

  “I know.”

  Hunted by the courts of hell, Damien Ecko decided to go out with a bang, focusing his rampage of revenge on my friends and family. He got his hands on my buddy Paolo and mutilated him. Nothing personal between them, he did it just to spite me. When he was finished, Paolo—a world-class forger and a hell of an artist—only had two fingers left.

  Ecko chewed off the others, one at a time, while Paolo screamed for mercy.

  “What happened wasn’t your fault,” Caitlin said. “Paolo knows it wasn’t your fault.”

  I shifted in my seat, leaning my weight against the armrest as oncoming headlights washed across the windshield.

  “I talked to the Commission,” I said. “Everybody’s in agreement: he took that hit for us, collectively. So we’re gonna…I mean, we can’t make him whole. Nobody can make him whole. But he’ll have money. He won’t want for anything.”

  Anything but his hands. Anything but the craft he could never practice again.

  “You should go see him,” Caitlin said again.

  “Hey,” Malone piped up from the back. “Hey.”

  I turned in my seat, swallowing down a white-hot flash of anger.

  “The fuck is your problem?”

  “My arm. I need a hospital.”

  “Yeah, we’ll get right on that.” I faced front again.

  “Brought you a present,” Caitlin said.

  “For me? You didn’t have to do that.”

  “I don’t have to do anything I don’t want to do,” she said. “Look in the glove compartment.”

  Her gift lay coiled on top of the Audi owner’s manual and a pristine registration card. Black leather straps curled like octopus arms around a long, thin tube. I took it out, brow furrowing as I turned it in my hands, buckles catching the moonlight.