“Are you gonna stand there,” a voice said, “or can we get this young’un inside and into bed?” Raydean had materialized by the Lincoln, peering in the back window, her face softened with concern.
“Big man,” Raydean said, looking at Pa, “can you carry her or do you need me to take the feet?”
Pa hid a smile. “If her head rolls off, you catch it,” he said. “Otherwise, I think I can handle it.”
Ma’s eyes fluttered open as Raydean opened the back door and she looked at all of us and smiled. “I thought I was dreaming,” she murmured.
“You should’ve been,” I said. “Ma, you shouldn’t be making a trip like this so soon after surgery. It’s only been a week.”
Ma frowned at me. “Good, so the doc won’t be none the wiser on account of my post-op check ain’t till next week. So long as nobody feels the need to rat me out …”
They all turned and looked at me, like I was the one making all the trouble. Great. Just what I needed, more guilt.
Pa reached in for Ma, who slapped his hands away and insisted on walking under her own steam up the steps and into the trailer. Once there, Raydean bustled ahead of her, straight into the guest room, where she turned back the covers and smoothed the sheets for her new patient.
“Just what you need,” she said, turning to Ma. “A good liedown and a cup of my tea when you wake up. How about it?”
Ma was so pale it scared me. She nodded, all the strength worn out of her by the trip. Pa stood in the doorway looking equally worn.
“Big man,” Raydean said, “you’re due for a nap, too. Sierra here’ll get the bags in and see to what needs unpacking. You two rest up.” She looked at Ma. “I’ll keep an eye on your girl for you.” She knew why Ma had come. Raydean had instincts like millipedes got legs; she was just covered over with them.
Ma and Pa, like I’d never seen them do before, shut down. There was no argument, no talk of what needed to be done. They merely crawled into bed and went to sleep, leaving me and Raydean to sort out the details.
Raydean was tickled pink by the turn of events and wasted no time in letting me know.
“It’s perfect,” she crowed. “I got me a crop of patients and you got you a purpose beyond sorting out the little details of Gambuzzo’s life.” She rummaged through my freezer, tossing a frozen chicken out onto the counter and sighing.
“You ain’t got the fixin’s for the dumplings,” she muttered. “Reckon I’ll go across the street and fetch what I need.” She straightened and looked up at me. “While I’m doing that, you might ought to get yourself dressed and prettified. You got to use what God gave you if’n you’re gonna catch the bastard.”
She didn’t wait around to hear what I had to say in the matter, either. She was off, leaving me to do as she said. I wandered down the hall and caught Fluffy sneaking into the guest room. Fluffy knew her priority: Keep watch over the parents.
I stood in the shower, wishing I hadn’t forgotten to make coffee and trying to gather my wandering thoughts. Ma and Pa would sleep for hours, I hoped, long enough for me to make serious inroads into taking care of Vincent’s murder charge. The sooner I got that sorted out, the sooner Ma would quit worrying.
I reached for the shampoo and tried to figure out how to “follow the money,” as Raydean had put it. The killer wanted Vincent out of the way, but why? Pair that up with Izzy Rodriguez being dead and it looked like the killer was after club owners, or control or something. Who at the table wanted control? Who was left still standing?
Yolanda was missing and probably dead. She didn’t seem to stand to gain from killing anybody. She was just a hooker, hired to keep people busy, to keep them from noticing what was going on. She’d run screaming from the room the instant the first shots were fired.
Vincent, Eugene, and Bruno were all out of the picture, too. They only stood to lose more with the Tiffany lost to Riggs and their butts in a sling. Izzy Rodriguez had been my prime suspect, but he’d come out on the short end of the deal too.
That left Mike Riggs and Denny’s friend Turk Akins as suspects. Riggs had threatened to kill Dennis Watley. He’d won the club from Vincent. Why would he kill Izzy Rodriguez? And Turk Akins had no motive as far as I could see. He could’ve killed his buddy for screwing his ex-wife and to clear the way to Becky Watley, but the widow had convinced me they weren’t looking to kill Watley. No, that didn’t make sense.
A third thought occurred to me, a thought that I just wasn’t ready to look at until all options were exhausted: Maybe the two murders were completely unrelated.
I shaved my legs. I tried to figure it all out and finally tossed it up in the air. I needed more to go on. I needed to talk to Mike Riggs. I needed to find some other key to this entire situation.
“It’s not hard,” I muttered to myself, “once you have a plan. I have a plan. One of the people in the room killed Watley and pinned it on Vincent. I’ll just find out who, spring Vincent, and call it a day. Bingo!”
I was feeling pretty confident, except that now I was gonna be stuck driving my parents’ Lincoln, because my Camaro was still at the Oyster Bar. I walked into the guest room and proceeded to lift Pa’s keys silently off the dresser. I had turned around, tiptoeing for the door, when Pa caught me, just like in the old days of my adolescence.
“This time put gas in it,” he muttered. “And try to park where you won’t get no seagull shit on it.”
“Thanks, Pa,” I whispered, but he was sleeping again.
I walked back down the hallway, resigned to the fact that I’d be driving Pa’s huge sedan. At least it was in better shape than Raydean’s Plymouth. But as I stepped onto the porch, I did a double take. The Camaro was on the street. Frankie the biker stood leaning against the right rear fender, a shit-eating grin on his face at what must have been the shocked look on mine.
“Don’t you need this?” he asked.
“How did you? You don’t even have the …”
Frankie pushed off the fender and opened the driver’s side door for me, gesturing to the inside of the car. “There’s a switch there, temporarily, to start the car. Only takes a minute when you know what you’re doing. Once you got a little bit of time, I’ll slip that ignition system back in. But this should do for right now.”
He leaned inside and gestured toward a toggle switch. “Go ahead, flip it.”
I slid into the driver’s seat and hit the switch. The car roared to life and Frankie smiled.
“Ain’t that cool?” he said. He walked around to the passenger side, opened the door, and got in. “I just never get used to the beauty of your perfect hot wire. It’s an art form, really.” He looked at me and smiled. “So where are we going?”
I just glared at him. “You could’ve just asked me for the keys, you know.”
He grinned all the more. “I know, but I was getting a little rusty. Besides, I get bored just hanging around.”
“Frankie, what are you doing here?”
His smile faded a little. “Well, I got nothing better to do, so I thought I’d bring you your car and tag along if you decided to go anywhere.”
“Moose sent you, didn’t he?”
“What makes you think that?” he asked, but he wasn’t looking into my eyes anymore.
“Enough said. You don’t lie good to me, Frankie. It’s your eyes. You can’t look at me and lie at the same time.”
Frankie sighed. “All right, but I’m kind of into the guy, you know? He saved my ass. I gotta help him out a little. He said you had a thing about him helping you and he’s a little jammed up right now anyway.”
I slipped the Camaro into gear, rolled into the driveway, then backed out into the street and headed out of the subdivision.
“What’s going on since last night?” I asked, figuring he knew. Frankie always knew.
“Oh, it was a big time at the penthouse last night,” Frankie said. “They must’ve had an informant because they searched and searched and found nothing until the vice people tur
ned up and started looking in a couple of places no one thought to look, one of them being Lavotini’s stash spot. They got fifty thousand in cash and an ounce of rock.”
I braked the car, sitting at the stop sign leading out of the trailer park, and just stared at Frankie.
“They popped Moose Lavotini for cocaine?”
Frankie shrugged. “I didn’t know either,” he said. “But it was in the wheel well of the sedan he and his men ride around in. He was treated and released by morning.”
“Moose? Don’t you mean arrested and released?”
“Yeah, whatever, but you know how them cops down here are with strangers. I’d say ‘treated’ is your better word.”
“Anybody could’ve put that there,” I said. “If he was dealing dope, it wouldn’t be small like that. It’s a plant.”
Frankie nodded. “Yeah, or else one of his men is trying to make a little side action off of their trip here. You know, some of them guys are local. The man didn’t just bring all of his own talent with him. The Syndicate’s got enough going up there without bringing the show down here just to help you out.”
I looked over at him and he shrugged. “No offense intended, Sierra, but what you got going on is nothing compared to what they got going on in Jersey. Anybody can tell you that. Jersey is like, well, like Dante’s Inferno or something. It’s evil. This is a vacation for your boy, Lavotini.”
I turned out of the trailer park and headed for town on my way out to the beach, still thinking to talk to Mike Riggs, but completely jammed up by this latest development with Moose. My Catholic guilt was kicking into overdrive now. What had I done? Not only had I contaminated Panama City with the Mafia, but I’d gotten my self-appointed savior into hot water, too? And should I feel guilty about my kidnapper getting his ass popped for dealing dope? I mean, even if it was his staff looking to work a side deal, Moose Lavotini was a criminal. Who was I to root for a criminal who routinely killed people?
Frankie reached over and turned on the radio, hitting the buttons until he heard something he liked, Cream blasting “White Room.” The man was terminally stuck in his past.
“Where are we headed?” he asked.
“The Tiffany.”
“Don’t you mean Big Mike’s House of Booty?” he said, needling me.
“Hell no, I do not.”
Frankie laughed and turned up the radio. Clapton made his guitar scream out the solo lick. Somehow it all seemed appropriate. I was headed to my old club to talk to a man who knows nothing about the business, accompanied by a biker doing a favor to a mobster and currently hiding out from every other biker in the world by coughing up an identity in the witness-protection program. I looked out the windshield at the overcast sky and thought, What’s next? What crazy shit could possibly jump into my life now?
Thirty-two
Mike Riggs knew what the world had planned for me next, he just wasn’t going to come up off it and tell me. He sat in Vincent’s Gambuzzo’s office, in Vincent’s old chair, and hunched back into the leather like a frightened sea turtle.
“I’m not talking to you,” he said. “The window of opportunity has closed and I’m not hiring.”
“Well, lucky for you,” I said, “I’m not looking.”
Frankie leaned in the doorway behind us, trying to look imposing. He frowned. He crossed his arms. And every now and then, he’d mutter something that sounded like “bullshit.” But it didn’t look like it was having an effect on Riggs.
“Listen,” I said, “what I got are questions about that night when Watley got capped and you won this place … temporarily.”
“Nope,” Riggs said, “no deal. I’m not talking.”
“The fuck you ain’t,” a deep voice said. “Motherfucker’s gonna talk or I’ll rip your fucking head off. Good enough deal?”
Eugene “Fully Automatic” stood just inside the doorway, towering over Frankie and holding an Uzi in his hand, pointing it at Riggs, his white teeth shining against his dark skin as he smiled.
“Lady wants to talk,” he said, enunciating each word carefully. “I think if she wants you to tell her something, you’ll be talking too.” He punctuated this statement with a short burst of gunfire that destroyed the paneling above the sea captain’s head.
“You got my back?” he asked Frankie.
Frankie nodded, looking a little wide-eyed himself.
“Good,” Eugene said, “then we got us a party.” He looked over at me. “Go ahead, Sierra, ask the boy what you want. He’ll talk to you now.”
Riggs was looking from Eugene to me, his face drained of color and his body visibly shrinking into his chair.
“Okay,” I said, “let’s get started. How about we start with an easy one, like how come you told Dennis Watley you’d kill him the week before he died?”
“Because he was taking my customers.”
“What do you mean?”
Riggs shifted in his chair, embarrassed and uncomfortable. “He’d see them coming and offer them a better rate. He’d take them away. It wasn’t like I was going to really kill him. A worm like that don’t need the actual stomping to get the message.”
“All right,” I said, “good. Now, what was the deal with you and Izzy?”
Riggs wouldn’t answer. He looked down at the desk in front of him, studying the hard wooden surface as if it held all the answers.
Eugene took a step toward the desk and looked to me. “I can pop his fucking knee caps,” he said eagerly, sounding as if I would be doing him a favor if I granted permission.
“No,” I said, straightening. “That won’t be necessary, will it, Mike?”
The captain looked up at me, the fear in his eyes unmistakable.
“You thought you and Izzy had it all sewn up. You two were going to be a big deal around town, but suddenly Izzy’s dead and you’re afraid you’re next, right?”
Riggs nodded, still saying nothing.
“Someone trying to shake you down, make you pay up?”
Riggs looked like I was reading his mind, not knowing it was commonplace, an easy guess.
“Izzy said he’d take care of it, but …” The sea captain’s voice faded.
“Yeah,” I said, “and look what happened. So now you think if you talk, you’re next, right?”
Mike Riggs shook his head. “No, that’s not it. I don’t know nothing. I never saw the guy. I never did nothing but get a phone call telling me to pay up.”
There wasn’t a sound in the room. Even Eugene seemed to be holding his breath. “So did you?” I asked.
“No. Izzy was here when the guy called. He told him if he was looking to shake me down he’d have to go through him first ’cause we was partners. I didn’t get no more calls after that, so I thought it was okay.”
I shook my head and looked at Frankie. What a mess. I was crossing names off the suspect list, one right after the other. There weren’t but three people left and two of them were missing, allegedly holding the bag on information that could lead me to the killer.
But I was also thinking about Vincent, remembering him saying he’d been set up, even inviting his own arresting officer to the game. Then I thought about Yolanda, paid to keep people busy and distracted.
I closed my eyes and reviewed the events of last night, of Nailor saying they had evidence that Moose Lavotini was selling drugs, that Nolowicki could put him at the murder scene, that when vice arrived they’d suddenly found Moose’s stash and money.
I thought about Tinky, dead in Watley’s garage. Then I started playing it all back in my head, how whenever somebody died or disappeared, Nolowicki had been in contact with them or at the scene. When Vincent and Moose got popped, who had found the drugs? I thought about Yolanda again, how she only wanted to talk to Nailor when her work would’ve brought her in contact with Nolowicki on a more regular basis. Why not talk to him? Why tell me to tell Nailor it had to be just between the two of them?
Everybody was out of the way. If Nolowicki wanted to run
protection or silent partner himself up to every stripclub in town, the way was open and easy. He could go to Riggs or any other club owner in town and say, Look what happens to those who don’t play my game. And Riggs couldn’t call the police because Nolowicki was the police. Nolowicki could always tell him that other cops were involved, and maybe they were. By getting Vincent locked up and out of the way, he could terrorize all the other club owners, take over if he wanted, and still look like a paragon of “coply” virtue.
I looked at Eugene and Frankie. They were the only posse I had right now, and somehow between the three of us, it was going to have to be enough. Nailor and police backup were out of the question. After all, Nailor saw me as just trying to protect a mobster and save a junior gangster from a murder rap. He saw me as the cause of all of his problems. He wouldn’t help. Nope. We had to prove it was Nolowicki in a way that guaranteed success. I figured that to be almost impossible without Yolanda or Turk Akins—or one of their bodies.
Thirty-three
Eugene and Frankie thought I was nuts. I could tell this by the way they didn’t say a word as I laid it out for them, by the way their eyebrows furrowed and they darted glances at each other when they thought I wasn’t looking. But at some point, the tide turned, probably the point where I explained about the drug connection being almost impossible in Vincent’s case, about how he wouldn’t have needed a stupid card game that had no guaranteed pay-off if he had really been running a drug operation. Dope dealers don’t need money to pay off the IRS.
Frankie was the first one to offer a suggestion on the Yolanda front. He smiled, stroking his upper lip as if he still had a mustache.
“I got some friends that’ll tell us if she’s still alive,” he said. “Let’s go.” He was headed for the Camaro’s passenger side door without waiting to see what I thought of the idea. Eugene looked like the last kid left on the bench, clutching his Uzi down at his side and staring at the ground like maybe I’d forgotten about him.
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