by Anne Stuart
"Then why did you get involved with someone like Morris?"
Billy glanced around the room. "This place bugged?"
"Who the hell cares?"
"I do. If I tell the cops he'll find me and cut my throat. Mary's, too. And he's the man to do it."
"Is that why you agreed to drive the car? That's Ms. Emerson's theory, by the way. I don't ascribe to it—I'm keeping an open mind."
Billy allowed himself a brief, humorless laugh. "That Ms. Emerson's something, all right. She had me pegged from the word go. She's too damned smart. But I didn't tell her."
"Didn't tell her what?"
"About Morris."
"What about Morris?"
Billy turned his head to stare out at the dismal landscape. "He said he'd kill Mary if I didn't help him," he said in a low, toneless voice. "And he would have. You remember what it was like, Rafferty. They put out the word, and it gets done. There's no place you can hide from them."
"This isn't Chicago in the 1920s, Billy," Rafferty said, ignoring the little chill of apprehension that ran up his spine. "No one has the nerve to do the sort of thing the gangs did back then."
"Except Morris. He would have killed her. And he would have enjoyed it." He met Rafferty's gaze. "And you know why, Rafferty?"
He wasn't absolutely sure he wanted to know. "Why don't you tell me?" he said, wishing like hell he had a cigarette.
"Because Willie Morris wasn't always Willie Morris. He used to be known by another name, back in the old days. He's Drago, Rafferty. Ricky Drago. And he's totally out of his mind."
For a moment Rafferty didn't move. And then he very calmly reached into his coat pocket, pulled out his cigarettes and lit one. "Hell," he said briefly, taking a deep drag. "Hell and damnation."
It had never made any sense to a man like Jamey Rafferty. Maybe that was why he kept returning, year after year, why he couldn't simply let go and try to accept the way things were.
He'd had more brains than the other six men put together, the other six men who'd died in that Chicago garage on St. Valentine's Day more than sixty years ago. That had been his value to Moran, his brains, not his brawn. Moran was someone who knew how to use his human tools—the Scazzetti brothers were simple enforcers, with limited brainpower and unlimited brawn. They made the collections, guarded Moran and made certain no one thought they could get away with anything.
Then there was Richstein and von Trebbenhoff, two middle rank dons from the outlying areas, who just happened to be in Chicago on that fateful day. Neither of them were complicated men—they did what they were told and didn't ask questions. Billy Moretti was a kid, a messenger boy, someone who lived on the fringes of the gang and was well paid for it. He had a widowed mother and three sisters who counted on him, and Billy was willing to take chances for their sakes.
And then, of course, there was Ricky Drago. He was a killer, pure and simple, one who took pleasure out of blood and terror. They had a lot of fancy names for people like him nowadays: sociopath, mass murderer, monster. People like Drago came along once in a generation. Unfortunately it looked as if Drago was getting a second chance.
The other six had accepted their fate without a lot of questions. They'd met death in that Chicago garage on a cold, February morning, met it in a blast of gunfire and a bright white light that dissolved into nothingness.
And then suddenly they were back, all seven of them, walking around on the streets, staring at each other in shock. It was the day before Valentine's Day, February 13. But it was one year later: 1930.
It didn't take long for the ground rules to be made apparent. They returned to Chicago for no more than forty-eight hours, the seven of them suddenly showing up at the old garage. They couldn't hurt anyone—Drago was the first to discover that when he tried to rob a taxi driver. They simply wandered around the city for two days and then vanished back into the void once more. Until the next Valentine's Day rolled around.
It wasn't until several years had passed that they realized there was an escape from the endless cycle. One of the Scazzetti brothers fell in love with a girl from his old neighborhood. And this time when they returned Scazzetti was still there, happily married.
One by one the men had fallen, finding someone to love them, finding someone to love, living out their new lives in married bliss, until the mid-eighties, when only Billy, Drago and Rafferty were left. Rafferty had assumed no force in heaven or earth could change Drago's murderous ways, but a sweet-faced woman named Lizzie had worked miracles.
Billy followed the next year, and it wasn't until he'd gone to Mary O'Hanahan Moretti that Rafferty realized that the kid had been holding out, afraid to leave him alone with Drago. The thought amused him. He'd spent enough time around psychopaths like Drago—he was more than capable of taking care of himself. Besides, Drago was unable to hurt anyone as long as he lived in the St. Valentine's Day limbo the others did.
It had been three years since Billy had left. Three years that Rafferty returned, alone, on a frosty February morning to spend his forty-eight hours of life. The Scazzetti brothers had died in the fifties. Richstein and Von Trebbenhoff were long gone. Drago had moved with his wife to a suburb, and Billy kept his distance. True love had transformed Drago, but there was too much history to forget everything.
Rafferty viewed the entire process with hard-core cynicism. Some years he came back to disaster. The Depression had been very bad in Chicago, and even the novelty of being able to buy a drink in public hadn't offset the despairing mood of the entire city.
The war was probably the worst. Those three years had been torment, knowing people were dying for their country, knowing all they could do was float in limbo. Drago had joined up, of course, more intent on killing Krauts than being patriotic, but he'd left after forty-eight hours all the same. Only the Scazzetti brothers had managed to serve, having settled into their new lives in time.
Rafferty had hated the late forties and fifties. He'd spent his forty-eight hours for almost a decade sitting in a bar, drinking and smoking.
The sixties were insane—too crazy for him to even try to comprehend. Two days every year was not enough time for him to catch up with the changing world, and by the sixties he no longer even tried.
By the seventies he was into hedonism. It was an easy enough matter to find a willing woman and spend the forty-eight hours in bed. Which was exactly what he did. He didn't believe in love, or second chances, and nothing he saw during his brief sojourns changed his mind. Not even his friends' happiness, or the promise of life lived out to its natural conclusion, could dent his hard-core cynicism.
And now here he was in the nineties. Things had begun to move so rapidly he no longer made any attempt to catch up. He simply arrived, looked around and did his best to satisfy his physical needs, for cigarettes, for a drink, for sex and food. And then he was gone again.
Until Billy started dragging him back into feeling again. He thought he had everything taken care of. Billy had his own comfortable life, the others were long gone. He could spend his two days in a single-minded pursuit of pleasure, with no one's needs to interfere, to make him start thinking.
But the years had changed him. Decades ago he could have turned his back on Billy and his wife. Decades ago he could have ignored the danger Ricky Drago posed to innocent people. After all, he'd worked side by side with the man in the twenties, he'd watched with distant horror the kind of bloodbath Drago could instigate.
He'd changed, and it made him angry. He'd already blown a good four hours on Billy's problems and a woman who wasn't the type to put out, and he didn't relish wasting any more time trying to save the world from the likes of Ricky Drago. That was Ms. Emerson's province. Let her provide the sainthood. As for him, he needed a drink.
It took less than two hours to get Billy Moretti released, the charges dropped. In retrospect, Rafferty wondered why the hell he'd bothered with organized crime when being a lawyer seemed so much sleazier. He watched with awe and respect as Helen Em
erson went from one superior to the next, sweet-talking one, arguing with another, being humble and deferential with the third while she managed to convince the man that letting Billy Moretti off this time was his idea in the first place.
"You're going to be on tighter probation," she told Billy as she waited by the elevator. "It's the best I can do for you."
Billy was still looking uncomfortably pale. "I appreciate it." He cast a beseeching glance at Rafferty.
"The next time you won't be so lucky," Rafferty said in his most lawyerly voice as the elevator door opened. "I'll keep an eye on him, Ms. Emerson."
She just looked at him. Funny, how people thought glasses ruined a woman's looks. He was starting to like hers. Maybe it was because she had such terrific warm brown eyes in the first place. "See that you do, Mr. Rafferty. Or the next time he won't be so lucky."
"There won't be a next time," Billy said. Rafferty thought of Ricky Drago, and wondered.
They stepped into the creaky old elevator, and Rafferty shoved his hands into his pockets. He'd wanted to touch her, to shake hands with her, hell, to kiss her goodbye. He wasn't going to see her again, and for the first time in his endless, misspent time on earth he found he regretted that. He leaned back against the elevator, giving her a wry smile. "See you," he said, having mastered that bit of jargon from the seventies, even knowing he wasn't going to see her at all.
She didn't want him to go. He knew that, as well as if she'd telegraphed it. "Thanks for the breakfast," she called, just before the doors slid shut.
"You bought Ms. Emerson breakfast?" Billy muttered in disbelief. "I can't believe it."
"Can't believe I can be a gentleman?" Rafferty countered. "I buy women breakfast all the time."
"Yeah, but they usually earn it the night before."
"What makes you think Ms. Emerson didn't?" Even saying it, he felt faintly rotten. Helen Emerson wasn't the kind of woman you ruffled the sheets with and then paid off with a fancy breakfast. He knew that the moment he saw her—it had been one of his reasons for feeling so uneasy.
"She's not that kind of woman," Billy was saying.
"Billy, Billy," he chided. "Every woman is that kind of woman. Once they meet the right man."
"Are you the right man for Ms. Emerson?"
"Me? Forget it. I've told you a million times before, true love and all that garbage isn't for Mrs. Rafferty's son Jamey. I like my life just fine. Forty-eight hours a year with no bills, no regrets, no responsibilities. It suits me fine."
"Sure, Rafferty," Billy said, his voice disbelieving. "So what are we going to do about Drago?"
They'd stepped out into the chill February air. The day had brightened, marginally, but the wind was still whipping through the streets, and Rafferty shivered, pulling his old overcoat around him more tightly.
"What do you mean, what are we going to do about Drago? He'll keep away from you from now on—that's one thing you can thank Ms. Emerson for. Now that you've been picked up in connection with the Carnahan robbery, Drago would be a sitting duck if he's seen with you. He might be crazy but he was never stupid. He'll lie low, find someone else to terrorize."
"That's the problem. It's not just Mary and me I'm worried about," Billy said earnestly.
"You worry about the fate of the world, Billy," he said, lighting another cigarette, cupping his hands to shield the flame from the brisk north wind. "After all these years, haven't you learned there's not a damned thing you can do about it?"
"I wouldn't be here if I believed that."
Rafferty shrugged, shaking out the match and tossing it onto the sidewalk. "You can't stop Drago, Billy."
"I can't just stand by and let him do it, either."
"Do what?"
"I told you, he's crazy. When his wife was killed he sort of went off the deep end."
Rafferty sighed. He didn't want to hear this, didn't want to get involved, but Billy had always been impossibly stubborn. "How was she killed?"
"In a car accident. Drago was driving."
Rafferty swore. "That's tough."
"Tough enough. I figure Drago had two choices. To blame himself, or to blame someone else."
"I can guess what Drago chose. Who's he blaming? Was there another driver involved?"
"Nope. Drago was driving recklessly, and the car skidded into a cement bridge. He was furious because he'd been brought in for questioning."
He knew what was coming. He'd never been psychic in his life, but by now he knew the kinds of tricks fate played on him. "And?"
"And he blames the prosecutor who brought him in. He told me he was going to kill her, that it's just a matter of time and circumstance. I believe him, Rafferty. He'll do it."
"I don't have to ask who the prosecutor was, do I?" He took a deep drag on the cigarette. It no longer tasted as wonderful. It was no surprise—sixty-four-year-old cigarettes lose something of their punch.
"Ms. Emerson."
"Does she know?"
"I don't think so," Billy said. "It's been a couple of years. Drago's been biding his time. But she's put a spoke in his wheels this time around, and she's got enough on him to go after him, even if I don't cooperate. He's got nothing else to lose. He'd go after her this time, and a man like Drago doesn't miss."
"Hell and damnation," Rafferty said again. "So what do you want from me, Billy? You think I can confront Drago, talk some sense into him? He doesn't have any sense."
Billy shook his head. "He's off the deep end, I told you. I don't know what you can do about it, what either of us can do about it, short of going to Ms. Emerson and trying to explain. Problem is, I'd have to explain what I was doing hanging around with someone like Drago, and you know I'm a lousy liar."
"You always were." He refused to sound sympathetic. He didn't want to get trapped in this situation. Trapped with saving Helen Emerson.
"I have to get back to Mary. She's probably been worried sick about me, and this pregnancy hasn't been easy on her. I just need to spend some time with her, the next day or two. When you have to…uh…leave, then I can take over. Maybe in the meantime we could come up with a believable story to warn her."
Rafferty stared at him for a long moment before dropping the cigarette onto the sidewalk and crushing it beneath his shoe. "No."
"Come on, Rafferty, it's only a couple of days…"
"It's my only couple of days. I'm not going to spend it baby-sitting for an uptight virgin."
"Rafferty…"
"No!" he said, raising his voice. "I can't help you. You know as well as I do that there's nothing I could do to stop Drago anyway, as long as I'm here on borrowed time. Go check on Mary, then make an anonymous phone call or something to warn the woman. Drago's already waited this long—he'll wait another day or two."
"I don't think so," Billy said.
"It's not my problem. I stick my neck out for nobody, you know that. I've already wasted too much time dealing with your problems, and I'm late for a very heavy date with a certain lady."
"What lady?"
"I don't know—I haven't met her yet. But she'll be stacked, blond and willing. And with any luck I won't have to set foot out of a hotel room for the next thirty-six hours." He glanced at his wristwatch and swore. "Damn it, I've already wasted half the day!"
Billy just looked at him. Rafferty was used to that expression; he'd seen it on his mother's face often enough when he was growing up. He'd disappointed Billy. The hell with it. He was sick and tired of being a good guy. He wasn't going to feel guilty.
"Hell and damnation," he said aloud. "You aren't going to do this to me, Billy. I don't care." And he stalked off down the sidewalk, the icy Chicago wind whipping through his hair, his coat collar pulled up high.
He got no more than three blocks. Three blocks to think about Billy's expression, like that of a beaten dog. Three blocks to think of Mary Moretti, her belly swollen with a troublesome pregnancy, lost and frightened and needing her husband. Three blocks to think about Ms. Emerson, with her
huge eyes and untidy apartment, with her kissable mouth and wonderful legs. And her innocence—he couldn't forget that. Not to mention a family full of cops. Couldn't her brothers and father protect her?
A light snow had begun to fall when he wheeled around and started back, cursing beneath his breath. He didn't even know how he was going to convince Helen Emerson that she should accept his company. She hadn't been any too sure of him in the first place, and he couldn't up and tell her she was the target of a madman.
He'd worry about that when the question came up. He'd always been adept at convincing women he was attracted to them, and with the bespectacled, besuited, untidy Ms. Emerson it wasn't going to be that much of a stretch, illogical as it was. He was attracted to her—that was half his problem.
She was just coming down the broad front steps when he saw her. She was wearing that ridiculous puffy coat, and she was clutching a pile of folders against her chest. The wind was tossing her long hair into her eyes, and she shoved it out of the way as she stepped onto the sidewalk.
He stood watching, wondering how he was going to explain his sudden return, when he heard the sound of the car. A sound he'd heard too many times, too many years ago, the throaty rev of a car about to speed through a crowded city, intent on disaster. He turned, in time to see the anonymous black sedan come hurtling around the corner.
Heading straight for Helen Emerson.
Chapter Three
« ^ »
For a moment Rafferty couldn't move, rooted to his spot on the sidewalk as he watched disaster about to unfold. He'd been a witness too many times, stood silent and unmoving as the grisly violence of gangland Chicago tactics took their toll. He'd met his own fate that way, at the end of a machine gun. He couldn't stand by and let it happen again.
He moved then, fast, barreling into Ms. Emerson full force, knocking both of them onto the sidewalk in a tangle of limbs and folders. In the distance he could hear the screech of tires as the car backed up and sped away, and he closed his eyes in a brief, silent moment of thankfulness.