Bolt

by Bryan Cassiday

  “I don’t know what to think,” she said, shifting in her seat. “It’s suspicious to me that the man gets shot when he’s working on an assignment for me.”

  “It might have nothing to do with you. Maybe a robber did it.”

  She nodded. “Possible.” She paused. “It seems odd that it happened when he was working for me, though.”

  “Did the Mexican cops say they had a suspect in the murder?”

  “No.”

  “Did you talk to them?”

  “No. I’m telling you only what I saw on the TV news.”

  “How can you be sure it was this PI you hired? Maybe it was an American tourist who was shot during a robbery.”

  “I recognized his passport photo, which they showed on the TV news. And they gave his name as well.”

  “Before he was shot did he tell you he had seen Lyndon with another woman?”

  “No.”

  “His death might have nothing to do with you.”

  “Hard to believe.”

  “Then you want me to investigate his death?”

  “I want you to find out who’s stalking me.”

  “You think he’s trying to kill you?”

  Her expression became intense. “The business with the stalker started after they killed the detective in Cabo.”

  “Do you think the stalker’s the killer?”

  “Nobody was following me before they killed the detective.”

  “What’s this PI’s name, anyway?”

  “Rakowski. Sam Rakowski.”

  “Did you tell your husband somebody’s stalking you?”

  “No. I think he’s the one behind it.”

  “He’s retaliating because you stuck a PI on his tail?”

  “That’s what it looks like to me,” she said, flustered as she stood up, flicking her hands at her sides.

  “You’re saying he found out Rakowski was tailing him and shot the guy.”

  She paced back and forth in front of the sofa. “It seems so.”

  “Does your husband have a history of violence?”

  “He can lose his temper at times.”

  “And he takes it out on you?”

  “He hasn’t beaten me, if that’s what you’re saying.”

  “You think he could kill somebody?”

  “He could . . . I believe he could . . . ,” she tailed off.

  “Then who’s this guy that’s stalking you?”

  “I have no idea.”

  “You think he’s working for your husband?”

  “Rakowski was shot, and now this guy’s stalking me. I’m putting two and two together, is all.”

  “There may be no connection.”

  “Does that mean you don’t want the assignment?” she said, ceasing her pacing to eye him.

  “What’s he look like?”

  “I haven’t gotten a good look at him. He keeps ducking into the shadows when he sees me watching him.”

  “He doesn’t want you to see him,” said Brody, nodding.

  “Which means he’s up to no good.”

  “Hmm.”

  “Does that mean no?”

  “When did you first notice this tail?”

  “After I got back from Cabo a couple days ago.”

  “What exactly do you want me to do?”

  “Find out who’s stalking me and why. And if my husband’s seeing someone.”

  Brody mulled it over. “My rates are $400 an hour, plus expenses.”

  Deirdre stared at him. “You cost as much as a lawyer.”

  “Not in this town. Lawyers go for $750 and up in these parts.”

  “Still . . .”

  “A Porsche mechanic gets $250 an hour. I believe my services are more valuable than his.”

  “Why do you charge so much?”

  “Because I’m good, and I’m discreet.”

  Deirdre walked away from him, considering the proposition, head bowed in thought.

  Slewing around to face him she said, “You’re hired.”

  Chapter 5

  The most powerful man in Europe lived in a bunker in San Luca, Calabria, Marcello knew. And it wasn’t the chancellor of Germany. It was the capo crimine of the ’Ndrangheta. Nobody knew his identity, save for the mastro di giornata. The capo crimine had the most power because he had the most money, the lion’s share of which was derived from the sale of narcotics.

  Marcello felt proud he worked for the most powerful man in Europe—in the world most likely. It made Marcello feel powerful himself, as he stood in the customs line at LAX displaying his forged passport to the officer, a middle-aged black woman wearing spectacles attached to a silver catenary lanyard that draped beside her neck.

  Knitting her brows she held his passport in her hand and compared the headshot in his passport to his face, flicking her eyes back and forth between the two.

  Marcello started feeling nervous. The combination of his jet lag from his long trip and his edginess during customs inspection was eating at him, making him more nervous than was his wont.

  Wasn’t everything in order? he wondered. The ’Ndrangheta used the best forgers in the business. What could possibly be the holdup? Why was she taking so long?

  “All right, Mr. Kyle,” she said, handing him back his passport.

  Marcello, aka Joe Kyle, accepted it with a smile.

  “What is the nature of your visit here?” she said. “Business or pleasure?”

  “Pleasure,” he said.

  The truth was, he enjoyed killing people. It afforded him a rush of power. Even though his visit to the States was technically business because the boss was paying him to do a job, Marcello would be enjoying himself at the same time. He figured a response of “pleasure” would lead to less questioning than if he had said “business.”

  “All right, Mr. Kyle, I hope you enjoy your stay in the United States,” she said with a smile.

  Do you realize you’re talking to one of the most powerful people in the world? he thought.

  “I know I will,” said Marcello, smiling back.

  The target of his assassination wouldn’t be so lucky, he decided. Whoever that target was. The mastro di giornata had yet to convey that information to him.

  He didn’t have to visit the baggage carousel because he traveled light. He had one carryon. He carried no weapons on his person. What weapons he needed he would purchase in Los Angeles.

  He felt the silver crucifix that hung from a necklace around his neck. Words Jesus had said flashed through his mind. I come not to bring peace, but a sword.

  For his job, Marcello pictured himself on a religious crusade. He was ridding the world of scumbags. If the boss assigned him a target for assassination, it meant the victim was evil. The boss didn’t pick a target for no reason. He picked only enemies of the ’Ndrangheta.

  The world was all about power, not morality, Marcello knew. The enemies of the ’Ndrangheta, usually the government, didn’t set out to destroy the narcos out of moral rectitude, though this was what they claimed, but because the narcos had the most money. The government and other foes of the ’Ndrangheta couldn’t stand the idea that anyone else had more money than they had. Envious of the ’Ndrangheta, they were determined to quash it.

  Marcello had no qualms about killing the enemy. He had killed or maimed many. As he saw it, they deserved it. Everything was permissible in a crusade.

  I come not to bring peace, but a sword.

  He remembered the time he was walking down the street near his home in San Luca with his mother when one of their neighbors, Luigi, the son of a postal worker, a teenager about Marcello’s age at the time, had called his mother an American whore.

  “Battona. Battona americana,” Luigi had cried after Marcello and his mother. Whore. American whore.

  Beaming, Luigi had strutted in the street like he owned it.

  “Ignore him,” his mother had told Marcello.

  Boiling with rage, he had somehow managed to control himself and did not
retaliate. He ushered his mother home, amid taunts thrown by the amused Luigi.

  Despite the onslaught of jeers that followed him down the street, Marcello had done nothing.

  Until the next day.

  He had gone over to Luigi’s house and made friends with him telling Luigi what a great guy he was. Luigi gloated, his vanity stroked, feeling he had made a new follower in Marcello, a cowardly sycophant he could treat as his slave from now on.

  Marcello had invited him to go hunting in the nearby forest with their luparas, sawn-off double-barreled shotguns. Luigi, an avid hunter, had agreed.

  It was a clear, beautiful spring day, Marcello remembered, the birds chirping everywhere like they were sowing the air with joy.

  In the forest, walking on duff under the pines, Marcello had come to a halt and rested telling Luigi to go on ahead, that he would catch up in five minutes.

  Luigi had scoffed at Marcello, calling him a weakling in amused disgust, and continued without him, his lupara strapped to his shoulder.

  Luigi had not gone the better part of twenty feet before Marcello had called to him to turn around. When Luigi had turned, Marcello had shot off one of Luigi’s arms with his lupara. Luigi had screamed in agony, his eyes huge with fright, blood shooting from a mutilated artery dangling from his shoulder. Dropping his lupara, grimacing, he had grasped his searing wound.

  “Apologize,” Marcello had said.

  “You’re insane,” cried Luigi.

  With the lupara’s other barrel Marcello had blasted Luigi’s head off his neck. Not completely off, the head hung by a flap of flesh on the back of his neck.

  Marcello had committed his first murder. He had felt no guilt—only triumph, as Luigi’s body had crumpled to the ground, steaming blood fountaining from his throat drenching a deadfall beside him.

  Was there something wrong with him for feeling no guilt? Marcello wondered. Or was guilt a concept dreamed up by those in power to keep underlings from revolting? Contrary to what he was supposed to feel, he had felt joy surging through him as he blew Luigi’s head to smithereens.

  He had felt . . . what was the word? . . . liberated. Liberated from what? The lies of those in power? The lies of the teachers, the priests, the nuns, the politicians . . .

  Had his vengeance led him to stumble onto the truth—that there was no guilt, which was contrived and imposed on you by society? That committing murder felt thrilling and enjoyable?

  It was during that moment he decided he would have no compunction about committing murder again. In fact, he was looking forward to it, a pleasurable experience to be repeated.

  I come not to bring peace, but a sword.

  In Christ’s words lay the truth, he decided.

  He had buried Luigi’s corpse in the woods so nobody would find it.

  He had severed the flap of neck flesh with his pocketknife and buried the head separately.

  The rumor had gone about town that Luigi had run away from home. Marcello had made no attempt to squelch it.

  Chapter 6

  Brody returned to his apartment in his forest green Mini Cooper, parked in the underground garage, and took the stairs to his room.

  He sat down at his desk that overlooked the street, awoke his laptop, and searched for the local newspaper in Cabo on the Internet. He found the Baja Post and located the issue for the date that the detective Sam Rakowski had been murdered.

  The local cops believed Rakowski had been the victim of a robbery, since his assailant had jacked his wallet, according to the online article.

  The killer had shot him in the head with a low-velocity, copper-jacketed, hollow-point .22-caliber round. Otherwise known as a dumdum bullet (which had been outlawed by the Geneva Convention), a copper-jacketed hollow-point round inflicted massive damage after penetrating a victim because the round flattened out as the jacket blossomed like flower petals wreaking maximum damage on the internal organs in the path of the bullet’s trajectory through the body.

  Professionals used such rounds, Brody knew. The murder had the markings of a hit, despite what the cops had said about robbery as the motive. Pros used the small-caliber low-velocity .22 to insure the bullet remained within the body tearing apart as much vital tissue as possible as it bounced around. The low velocity hampered the bullet from exiting the target.

  It didn’t sound like the type of weapon a run-of-the-mill local robber accosting well-heeled American tourists would use, Brody decided.

  The question was, who had hired the shooter? Deirdre suspected her husband Lyndon. Had Lyndon also hired the guy that was stalking Deirdre? Brody wondered.

  He tweaked his cell phone out of his jeans’ trouser pocket and called Deirdre.

  “Hello,” she said.

  “This is Brody. Did you tell the LAPD about Rakowski’s murder?”

  “No. Was I supposed to?”

  “No. The murder happened outside their jurisdiction. They might know something about Rakowski that would explain his murder and whether his murder had something to do with you. You might want to tell the cops your life is in danger.”

  “I don’t want to involve the cops. I don’t want publicity on this. Any publicity could ruin my marriage.”

  “It sounds like it might already be on shaky ground.”

  “What makes you say that?” she said, her tone resentful.

  “If you suspect your husband of killing—”

  “I don’t want the cops involved,” she cut in. “That’s why I hired you.”

  “What about Lyndon?”

  “What about him?”

  “Does he know Rakowski got wasted?”

  “How would I know?”

  “You didn’t tell him?”

  “I didn’t see any point in it. It would’ve been a bad idea to tell him.”

  “Why?”

  “My telling him about it would indicate I knew Rakowski. Lyndon would suspect I had hired the guy to tail him. Or how else would I know him?”

  “True enough. There’s no reason Lyndon should know Rakowski’s dead or even care about it.”

  “Unless Lyndon’s the one that killed him.”

  “Or had him killed.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “The type of pistol used suggests a professional hit man used it.”

  “I see.”

  “Did Lyndon mention anything to you about Rakowski?”

  “Nothing.”

  “I’d like to talk to Lyndon.”

  “Don’t do that. He’ll suspect I’m the one that’s siccing a PI on him.”

  “If he’s the prime suspect, I need to know where he’s coming from.”

  There was an edgy pause on the line.

  “Can’t you pretend to be somebody else or that you have a different job if you interview him?” she said.

  “Of course. Discretion is my middle name.”

  “I don’t want him to find out I suspect him of cheating on me. Why do you need to talk to him?”

  “I’m trying to find out something about his personality and also about his feelings toward you.”

  “He can blow his stack at the drop of a hat.”

  “Hot-tempered. That’s good to know. All the time?”

  “Only occasionally. He’s high-strung. Everybody in the Business is.”

  “He wouldn’t last long in my business.”

  “I don’t care about your business.”

  “Even if Lyndon knew you hired a PI to tail him, why would he kill the guy? I find that a bit drastic.”

  “He was sending me a message,” she said, her voice fraught.

  “Do you know if the Cabo cops have any suspects in Rakowski’s murder?”

  “I have nothing to do with them. Why would they contact me?”

  “If they knew you had hired him, they might get in touch with you in order to find out a motive for his murder.”

  “The Cabo cops think he was robbed, according to the paper.”

  “If they knew Rakowski was on assi
gnment when he got whacked, they might change their opinion.”

  “I’m not gonna tell them I hired him. I don’t want anyone to know of my involvement with Rakowski.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Positive. And I don’t want you telling them about my connection with him. The papers might get ahold of that info and Lyndon would find out.”

  “It might help the Cabo cops track the killer.”

  “I don’t care about Rakowski’s killer,” she said in a huff. “I care about the guy stalking me.”

  “Might be the same guy.”

  Brody heard footsteps in the background on the other end of the line.

  “I’ll talk to you later,” said Deirdre.

  She hung up.

  Chapter 7

  Brody parked his Mini in the Foxes’ driveway. He walked to the front door and rang the doorbell.

  The better part of a minute later Deirdre opened the door. Wearing jeans and a blouse with a plunging neckline, she looked at him with a vacant expression. Braless.

  She had dirt on her hands, he noticed.

  “I was out in the garden,” she said, noticing the direction of his gaze and eying her hands.

  “I have an appointment with your husband,” he said.

  A man in his forties, almost a head taller than Deirdre, appeared behind her. Forty-five with grizzled hair, he had an air of self-importance. He placed his hand on Deirdre’s hip like it belonged there, a snake finding a warm rock to rest on.

  “What is your name?” she asked Brody.

  She was a good actress, he decided. If he didn’t know better, he would think she had never seen him before. He doubted Lyndon could tell she knew Brody.

  “Who is it, honey?” asked Lyndon.

  “I don’t know,” she answered. “He says he wants to see you, Lyndon.”

  “The name’s Broderick Scott,” said Brody. “We spoke on the phone about insurance.”

  “Come on in,” said Lyndon.

  Deirdre and Lyndon slipped away from the door, allowing Brody to enter.

  Brody walked into the foyer.

  Lyndon was wearing an unbuttoned flower-printed aloha shirt, sky blue board shorts, and Day-Glo orange flip-flops.

  “I was poolside when I heard the doorbell,” he said.

  “I’ll leave you two alone,” said Deirdre, and made for the French window that gave onto the pool.