THE MAN WHO HUNTED HIMSELF

by Lex Lander

  ‘Who the fuck are you?’ he said, barely a tremor in his voice. He was afraid, but he wasn’t panic stricken.

  ‘As far as you’re concerned, the Grim Reaper.’

  Then I shot him, the cough of the silenced shot no louder than a human cough. The .40 calibre round took him squarely in the chest, and blood spurted to be soaked up by his checkered shirt. He sagged against the wall, still standing but his legs struggling to support his weight.

  ‘Wha ... wha...’

  The second bullet struck slightly to the right of the first, deliberately placed to stop his heart. More blood flowed. His eyes were still open, but they turned upwards, leaving only the whites showing. He slid to the floor, a sigh escaping his mouth. His arm flung outwards, striking the door jamb.

  It was a classic, clean kill. I was pleased with it, inasmuch as I could derive pleasure from taking a life. Even a life like Jeff Heider’s. He had committed murder himself in his younger days, and had ordered a few more since he and his brother became big timers. To judge from the bruising I had noticed on Maura Heider’s face a few days before, he deserved to die for his wife-beating habits too.

  Unhurriedly I detached the sound suppressor and returned it to my inside pocket, and the gun to my waistband. Now to check the body. I had no doubt that he was dead, I just didn’t want to find out I was wrong by reading about it in the newspapers. I squatted beside him, placed two fingers against the radial pulse on his wrist. It was lifeless. I repeated the exercise with his carotid pulse. Same result. I pulled back an eyelid and shone the pencil light in his eye. No contraction of the pupil. Jeff Heider scored three out of three on the dead scale.

  I straightened up and left the room. Down the corridor to the living room and on to the kitchen. Again I raided the fridge, emptying the bottle I had started on earlier. A tiny sound, vaguely metallic, reached me. I stood still, ears pricked. It wasn’t repeated. The air con thermostat tripping on or off? I wavered. To investigate or not. The house was unoccupied: I had gone over every square inch, including cabinets and under beds and inside showers. Even inside a locked closet. I had the place to myself.

  I shrugged away the sound and made for the French window. Back across the garden, through the hole in the wire. I reconnected the strands so that the point of entry would not immediately be apparent. Finally, the risk of leaving fingerprints gone, I peeled off the gloves. They would go in a bag with the gun, the sound suppressor, and a brick, destined for the bottom of a nearby man-made pool. That the police would drag the pool and eventually find it was of no consequence. It wasn’t connected to me or my fake identities in any shape or form.

  From the Heider residence to the Trader Joe’s supermarket was a mile or so. Far enough away not to link my parked car with the killing, should anyone notice it. It was just one nondescript Nissan sedan among dozens of similar conveyances. The bill of the baseball cap augmenting the night-time shading of my features, I hurried without rushing down straight empty avenues, past silent houses, all on individual lots. Walkers are rare in Las Vegas, unless for the purpose of exercise. Everybody goes by car. I would stand out for that reason, but people in cars don’t study faces, even if, at night, they could make them out. With my canvas bag I was just a late night shopper, too poor even to own a set of wheels.

  In the car, I changed from my black jeans and T-shirt, to cream cords and a checkered shirt. The windbreaker was reversible, so I reversed it, changing the colour from black to tartan. Not my choice but who cared. The discarded clothes went in the bag with the brick.

  I drove out of the lot, linked up with the Oran K Gragson Freeway to the next exit. From there onto West Cheyenne, taking the turnoff to North Tenaya Way, then left on to West Gowan to the Gowan North Detention Basin. The rectangular man-made pond is part of the Las Vegas flood control system. It wasn’t as deep as I would like, but I expected the bag to come to light sooner or later wherever I dumped it. So long as I was no longer around then, it mattered not a hoot whether it was tomorrow or in the next millennium. Twenty-four hours from now, James Freeman would have ceased to exist.

  It had been a clean kill. Among the cleanest ever, and I was well satisfied. Another piece of vermin disposed of. Good thing. A life ended. Bad thing. A commandment broken. Bad thing. A father taken from his daughter. Bad thing. The bad outweighed the good by a large margin, as was often the case.

  Over the years I had learned to roll with the negatives, like a punch that couldn’t be avoided. Dwelling on them wouldn’t restore life to the corpse. Nor would it cleanse me. It would also be a luxury when the priority now, as always, was to get the hell as far away as possible from the scene of my crime, in the shortest time. With or without regrets I wasn’t anxious to be around when the chauffeur or whoever discovered the late Jeff Heider.

  My flight was due to depart for Mexico City at 7am. It was the first international flight of the day. By choice I would have left earlier but I couldn’t be sure how long the job would take. If I had booked an earlier flight and Heider had not returned home until the small hours I would have had to rebook, run the risk that no seats would be available. It was all about compromise, the safest solution that could be relied upon.

  The clerk on the check-in desk was sleepy. I was first customer of the day, three hours before takeoff.

  ‘You’re early,’ he remarked, over a suppressed yawn.

  ‘Couldn’t sleep.’ I grinned self-consciously. ‘Hate flying.’

  ‘You shouldn’t,’ he chided. ‘Flying’s fine. It’s crashing you gotta worry about.’

  What a comedian.

  ‘That line is older than I am.’

  ‘All part of the service, Mr Freeman,’ he said, handing back my passport and internet-created ticket. ‘Enjoy as best you can.’

  I saluted him with the boarding card and wandered off in search of a coffee bar. I no longer had any checked baggage, the suitcase and its expendable contents were staying in Vegas. It was just me, the carryall and the shoulder bag. From Mexico City I was travelling to Paris. Having only cabin baggage ensured a smooth transition at both destinations.

  THE HUNT IS ON

  SEVEN

  The name on the card was Regan Randazzo, half trailer-trash American, half Italian. The Griffin, Freemont Street, was his hangout and message drop, and he checked in most days around 6pm.

  Freemont was just off the Strip, therefore the bar wasn’t quite top drawer. Its logo, on a flat brick section of wall above the entrance, was a green gryphon with a cocktail glass in its talons, complete with cherry. Beside it “The GRIFFIN Cocktails”. A vertical sign with the name spelled out in neon lights, topped by another green gryphon, was affixed to the wall. It opened at five, a few minutes prior to my arrival.

  Inside was gloomy and empty. I could hear a vacuum whining someplace in the back, and the clatter of metal, but nobody was tending the stone-faced bar and no fires burned in the circular fireplace that squatted in the middle of the floor. A juke box stood silent, like a chrome robot waiting for a button to be pushed. The upholstery was real leather, or lookalike leather, I couldn’t tell. Curved wooden beams traversed the ceiling. Small square tables with glass lamps lined the walls.

  I advanced into the gloom, using my foot to check for obstacles.

  ‘Anybody home?’ I called.

  ‘Yeah, man,’ came a disembodied voice.

  I reached the bar, leaned on it. The shelves behind it were piled with hooch, including some exotics such as Blade & Bow Kentucky bourbon and Four Pillars gin, the latter from Down Under and as hard to find as a gold seam in a coal mine.

  I rapped on the bar surface, climbed aboard a stool.

  ‘Stay cool, man, I comin’.’

  He came. African-American with dreadlocks secured by a red headband. Matching T-shirt, black jeans. The essence of cool.

  ‘You early. What I git you?’

  ‘Vodka, with ice. Any good brand.’

  ‘You got it, man.’

  While he was pouring a f
inger, I asked him if he knew Regan Randazzo.

  ‘Sure, man. Everybody know Regan.’ My vodka hit the mat he had placed on the bar top a moment before. ‘Say, man, where you from? You don’t sound like no Amurrican.’

  ‘That’s ’cos I ain’t’, I said, entering into the spirit of the banter. ‘Just tell me when he’ll be in. If he will.’

  ‘Sure, man. He be here roun’ six, I guess.’

  With that, he breezed away, snapping his fingers to an inaudible tune, and left me to while away the time until Randazzo showed up. Which he did, around ten after the hour. By then the Griffin had acquired a score or more of customers of both sexes, a buzz of conversation, and some bluesy music.

  I was on my third vodka when he announced himself with a tap on my shoulder.

  ‘Blondie said you’re looking for me.’

  I rotated on my seat, found myself facing a rotund, olive-skinned individual, with hair that gleamed as if it had been polished, and a matching moustache unpolished. He was dressed in a windbreaker made for someone longer and narrower.

  ‘If you’re Regan Randazzo, I am.’

  ‘Yeah, that’s me. Who’re you and what do you want?’

  Straight to the point. I liked that fine.

  ‘My name’s Freeman.’ From the ticket pocket of my sport coat, I dealt him my private investigator card. ‘Join me in a drink?’

  He glanced past me along the bar, then over his shoulder, finally at the card. Nodded.

  ‘Sure, why not?’

  On the stool, he was almost my height, so it must have been his legs that were short. A different barman, also African-American but not so cool, came over and took his order for a double bourbon. The barman obviously knew him because he deposited a soda siphon next to the drink and let him to do his own dispensing

  ‘Thanks, Tucson,’ he said, giving his bourbon a quick squirt. At least he had manners.

  ‘I’m looking for information,’ I told him as he tossed half his diluted drink back down his throat.

  ‘Who isn’t?’

  I let that pass. ‘It’s about the Heider killing, a couple of years ago. Jefferson Heider, known as Jeff.’

  He squinted at me, then placed his glass very precisely on the mat.

  ‘A shamus, huh?’

  ‘Nobody’s called me that in years. But, yeah, I’m a private cop.’

  ‘You sure you’re not with the LVPD? Undercover, maybe.’

  ‘Shit, no. You saw my card. I’ve been hired to do some digging, is all. See if I can trace whoever did it.’

  Behind me, the music went from R & B to Writing on the Wall, theme song from the latest James Bond movie.

  ‘You kidding? Everybody knows it was the Tosi crowd. And that fat slug Vittorio was wasted for it, a week or two after Heider.’

  ‘You mean everybody knows Tosi picked up the tab. My job is to find the guy who pulled the trigger.’

  He whistled, shook his head. ‘Some chance, after all this time. Word is the guy was from out of town, maybe even out of the country.’

  That shot was a shade too close for comfort. A couple of girls, somewhat underdressed, giggling, staggering a little, weaved past us towards the exit. Randazzo swivelled on his stool to watch them go, gaze fixed at butt level. Tucson watched them too while wiping a glass, his wide, white grin appreciative.

  ‘So you can’t help me,’ I said, feigning resignation. I hadn’t expected much. In any case, I was only here for appearances’ sake. Making it look as if I was working at the investigation, to satisfy the Heiders should any of them ask.

  He made a popping sound with his lips. ‘What’s it worth to me?’

  I shrugged. ‘A century?’

  ‘Okay. You thought of talking to Tosi’s kid?’

  I hadn’t. Tosi’s CV had listed six children by three marriages, the oldest of whom was male, twenty-three years old at the time the Heiders made him fatherless. To stir up a hornet’s nest with a leading element of the Vegas mob might not be the smartest move in the world. Mob members were notorious for their sensitivity to people sniffing around their affairs. My enquiries were sure to filter through to them via the local grapevine, and the least I could expect was an interrogation with violence. At the other extreme, a lingering death.

  Bearing in mind that the whole charade was pointless, I almost didn’t pursue it. Then a glimmer of an idea percolated through.

  ‘What’s he like, the son?’ I asked again.

  ‘Like?’ Randazzo made short work of the other half of his bourbon, banged the glass on the counter, and hollered ‘Anybody work here?’ The bartender who responded was the one with the dreadlocks.

  ‘Same again, Randy?’ he enquired.

  Randazzo nodded and the drink was served. A splash of soda and he was ready to start making inroads. A runt of a guy hoisted himself onto the next stool along, and in a voice that matched his size ordered a pint of Sam’s draft beer. A big drink for such a little fella.

  ‘What’s the Tosi boy like?’ I said again.

  ‘Like? Well, physically he’s nothing special, about average height, but mean as a rattler. Keeps himself in good shape. Good looking, I guess. The girls go for him big time. Let’s just say you wouldn’t want to get on his wrong side, if you see what I mean.’

  Most of which was not news to me, as I had already met him.

  Young Tosi’s name, I remembered, was Silvano. When his father had hired me to knock off Heider, Silvano accompanied him to our only meeting in Reno, Nevada, his centre of operations. I sent him to wait in the car. When I talked contracts, witnesses were never present. He resented it and wouldn’t budge until Tosi backed me up.

  ‘Do like the man says,’ Tosi snapped at him.

  It was bad enough that he had seen me. I almost quit there and then. But I had come a long way to see Tosi. Not only that, the referral hadn’t come from Il Sindicato, and this was a plus. These days my scope for independent action was limited, and when the opportunity arose for work “on the side,” I seized it with both hands. So I overrode my security qualms and went ahead.

  Silvano Tosi. Could Tosi’s eldest son be a natural fit for the hit man? Was he my fall guy? Handled right, Heider would swallow it. That wasn’t the only criterion though. My code of conduct, the “bad guys only” edict that allowed me to live with myself, was not for diluting. Just being the son of a gang boss wasn’t on its own sufficient to qualify Silvano for the death sentence.

  My glass was empty bar some melting ice cubes. Three single vodkas was my intake limit on an empty stomach. A year or two ago I had gone through a boozy patch. It was behind me now, but I couldn’t relax. It would have been all too easy to slide into my old habits.

  By the juke box, a young couple was dancing to the smoochy music. Sarah Vaughn, I think. Sixties stuff. The girl was taller than the guy, which spoiled the symmetry.

  ‘Does the kid run Tosi’s mob now?’ I made it casual, small talk.

  ‘Silvano? Sure. The mob’s still functioning and the kid is tough enough to keep them in line. His brothers are old enough to back him up too.’

  I could have pumped Randazzo some more, but didn’t want to give away my interest in Silvano Tosi, in case it filtered through to him.

  Randazzo had had his two shots of bourbon and a hundred dollars for fifteen minutes warming a bar stool, and he was more than ready to call it a day. He slid off the stool.

  ‘Sorry I couldn’t be more helpful,’ he said.

  ‘That’s okay,’ I said, effecting a resigned air. ‘I wasn’t expecting a hell of a lot. It’s pretty certain to have been a contract job, which means the hatchet man was bound to be from out of town. No local guy would take on a job that leaves a vengeful family to come hunting for him.’

  ‘You’re right there. Anyhow, good luck, Freeman. You’re gonna need all you can get.’

  He sketched a farewell wave to Blondie who blew him a jokey kiss in return, then he was gone. A minute or so later, I left too.

  It was food for serio
us thought. At a table in the bar at the Renaissance, with a double tomato juice to stimulate the process, I applied my intellect to the can of worms I was carrying around with me, to a backdrop of discreet music and muted conversation among fellow imbibers. On the face of it, the task was simple and straightforward: isolate Silvano Tosi, kill him, present his corpse to the Heiders as the man responsible for Jeff’s demise. He was as good a fit as I was likely to get. No reason to delve deeper. Or was there? It might be just a little bit too convenient to convince Heider, finding out that the killer he had been hunting for two years had been on his doorstep all along.

  Cross that bridge later. For now, the challenge lay in penetrating the protective screen Silvano was sure to have in place. No top mobsters moved without plenty of armed bodies around them. The boss was always a potential target. Such people lived in a state of perpetual fear, and the number of bodyguards deployed depended upon the level of that fear. As so often before, when my target was the head of a mob, it made me question their rationale, why they aspired to reach to the top of their chosen tree when it just put them at risk of being felled by their rivals. A form of megalomania, I supposed; an obsession with power at any price. Even the ultimate price.

  Speculation aside, if Silvano Tosi was my man, from here on in it would be a straightforward contract, same as any other. If I succeeded, I would be in the clear and handsomely rewarded.

  I became aware that I was under scrutiny. At the table next to mine, half screened by a square pillar, a woman was seated alone, a nearly full champagne flute before her. Her stare was brazen, and as I caught her eye she rose and came over. And I hadn’t even winked at her, let alone beckoned. She was wearing a scarlet evening dress, daringly cut, and walked with a confident swing of her hips, like a runway model. Around her neck, a double rope of pearls descended to be swallowed in the shadow of her cleavage.

  ‘Hello, handsome,’ she said. It sounded like a line out of an old Bogart movie. ‘My name’s Natasha.’