by Brian Drake
Regan retraced his steps, crawling toward the sound of the unknown man’s single shots. He rolled over the body of one of his men, saw another squatting behind a headstone. Regan joined the man and said, “Go forward,” and they broke cover. Their unknown enemy did the same. Regan’s partner fired. The unknown man fired twice in return, and Ben Regan dodged back to avoid the falling body of his teammate. Regan responded with a shotgun blast, but the other man had taken cover only to rise and respond with two shots. Regan dropped flat. The hot slugs whispered overhead. This new player wasn’t a rookie and his presence complicated matters, but only if Regan didn’t survive.
The other man’s pistol fell silent. Regan scooted backward on his belly until a headstone provided enough cover for him to blend with the shadows. Then he took off running. He hated retreating but couldn’t help Teddy dead. Not when they had a new obstacle to contend with.
Harry Brock had crawled halfway to his son’s grave before the gas ran out. Wolf found him still and very dead with one hand reaching toward his son.
Wolf knelt beside the fallen detective, breathing hard, wiping sweat from his forehead with the left sleeve of his overcoat. More sweat dripped down his back. He put away his gun, patted Brock’s pockets and found a phone. He scrolled to Scott Palakis’s number. Brock had helpfully stored it as Scott P. Cell. Wolf dialed.
Two rings; then, “What is it, Harry?”
“Brock is dead and you’re next unless you do exactly as I say.”
“Who is this?”
“My name is Wolf. I followed Brock from the bar to the cemetery where we were ambushed and--”
Wolf winced and jerked the phone from his ear as automatic weapons fire crackled across the connection. He yelled for Scott once. Wolf cursed. He needed answers, and the two people who could provide most of those answers were now forever silent.
13
Scott Palakis left the Mother Goose after his second drink. He didn’t like being alone in public. He felt self-conscious, everybody’s eyes on him, but he wasn’t done drinking for the night. He pulled the Mazda into a liquor store parking lot with visions in his head of a big bottle of Johnny Walker. He shut off the car, reached for the door handle. His phone rang. Caller ID said Brock and he answered.
“What is it, Harry?”
Somebody else said, “Brock is dead and you’re next unless you do exactly as I say.”
A sharp chill raced up Scott’s spine, pushing his pulse into overdrive. “Who is this?”
The man on the other end started talking but Scott’s attention snapped to the sedan pulling up a few spaces down. The small man who emerged stepped around the front of the black car with the kind of wicked submachine gun Scott had only seen in movies. The small man raised the weapon and Scott’s mouth opened to scream--
Two shots barked. From behind the Mazda. The small man with the movie gun staggered back but squeezed the trigger anyway and the blinding strobe of the muzzle flash shifted away from Scott. Bullets shattered the back glass and part of the rear quarter panel. Then the weapon fell silent as its master collapsed.
Scott had covered his eyes before the sub gun blazed. As he lowered his hands and stared wide-eyed at the fallen killer, the Mazda’s passenger door swung open and a big hulk of a man with no hair on his head landed in the passenger seat.
Miles Kincaid pressed the smoking muzzle of his Wilson Combat .45 into Scott’s neck. The hot muzzle burned the young man’s skin.
“Start the car.”
Scott drove with no destination given for almost an hour. Biting wind rushed through the blasted-out portions of the back seat. His passenger seemed not to notice, and the big man remained silent the entire time.
Scott was on the freeway heading into the mountains when his companion told him to reverse direction, head back into downtown, and proceed to the Bonaventure Hotel.
Scott parked down the street from the Bonaventure, in a dark alley between two other buildings. The car looked like it had been in a war. He didn’t want the valets gawking at the bullet damage.
Young Palakis and the big man walked to the hotel, through the bright, golden-tiled lobby, where it was warmer than the car, to the mirrored elevators, up six floors, and down a carpeted hallway to room 209. The big man slipped a key card into the slot above the door handle and turned the knob. Miles stepped through the dark entryway and Scott followed behind with a racing heart.
“Hello, son.”
Scott blinked. His father sat at the table, bathed in light from a wall lamp. No other lights were on. He looked like he was on stage, under a spotlight. Drapes covered the window behind the table. Vince Palakis held a glass of scotch. The bottle sat in the center of the table.
“Come here and sit down.”
Scott dragged his feet across the thick carpet, grasping the arms of the empty chair as he lowered onto the cushion. He glanced at the bottle. There wasn’t a second glass. Vince Palakis sipped the scotch. He cocked his head, regarding the young man who shared his blood, with the gaze of a coroner studying a corpse. Scott sank a little in the chair.
Presently, Palakis blinked away the gaze and smiled a little. His face softened. He said, “Seems like yesterday when I was teaching you to ride a bike. Remember how much trouble we had putting that thing together? Some assembly required?” He laughed. “I swear we built that thing from scratch.”
“Somebody stole that bike.”
Silence. Only the light ticking of Palakis’s watch indicated any activity amongst the three men. Scott realized most clocks didn’t tick anymore, but he always found comfort in a ticking clock. Life’s heartbeat. Time was just as alive as he was. Scott jerked in the chair, sucked air.
“You okay?”
Scott looked across at the big bald man, who stood by the door with folded hands. He was staring straight ahead. Not at the Palakis men. At something further away.
“Thanks to him, I suppose.”
Palakis said, “I had wanted to have this conversation after dinner tonight, but before you rushed out Miles called me and said he’d been to Alexa’s apartment and found her dead. I knew they’d try and kill you tonight. I thought it would be safer to bring you here because they’ll be watching for you at your place and mine.”
Scott blinked a few times.
“I’m not the best role model, am I, Scott? Don’t answer that. Let me get this out.”
Palakis took another drink. He stared at the carpet a moment.
“I’m the man I am today because of the choices I made. I think our decisions tell us a lot about ourselves. Whether or not you have corn flakes for dinner doesn’t say much, except that maybe you can’t cook, but the big choices reveal a man’s true self. They’ll tell you everything if you’re willing to listen. Most people aren’t.”
Palakis looked at his son. “Are you willing to listen?”
Scott nodded.
“Back when I was your age, I started running around with a guy named Ugo Califano,” Palakis said. “Poker buddies at first. We had the same playing styles, liked taking money off the suckers. Califano was a mob guy, light stuff. Ran a numbers outfit. Eventually we became pals, spent a lot of time in clubs and bars. The lifestyle appealed to me. The power Ugo had. It was contagious. Later, Califano became more and more of a leader in his crew while I continued my software business. Soon enough Ugo trusted me to take care of a certain DVD that’s received some attention in recent days. I knew what he was using it for, but I owed him for clearing some business obstacles, so I had no problem taking the disk.
“I never saw myself as a compromiser,” Palakis said, “morally or integrity-wise. I taught you about law and order and right and wrong because I believed it. I was always pretty-firm. And I don’t know how I became corrupt enough to do that sort of favor, or to ask the sort of favor that I did after the… accident. That’s what I mean, Scott. The choices I made were telling me all kinds of things about myself except I wasn’t listening.
“And then came the night o
f the crash,” Palakis continued. “I couldn’t let that hurt me. I’d built too much. Become a big shot. Had an image to protect. So I asked Ugo to help me get out of it, and he did, and now you and I are having a conversation I never imagined we would share and what I’ve been running from most of my life has finally caught up with me.”
Vince Palakis glanced over at the still-silent Miles Kincaid, and back to his son. He said:
“I’m glad you’ve become the kind of man who couldn’t stomach what I did, Scott. You’re better than me. I’m also glad that your mother isn’t here to see this. But now you have a problem, kiddo. The choices you made may have been right but there are consequences. The people you conspired with want you dead. They don’t need you anymore, and they want to kill you so Miles can’t find out who they are. Tell me everything, and we can clean this up. After tonight, you can go wherever you want, and you don’t ever have to see me again if you don’t want to.”
Scott kept his mouth shut. He’d heard no apology, words of regret. His father had given up trying to be good and wanted to know everything so he could save his own neck.
Scott wondered if this was his best choice. Brock was dead. Scott had nobody. Then he thought of Brock’s friend, the man who called his cell. He wasn’t going to tell his father the whole story, just enough to get away so he could call Brock’s friend.
The young man took a deep breath. “Harry Brock,” he said. “He found out about the video from your hooker friend, Jodi. He asked me to find where you kept the DVD and then he arranged the break-in so you wouldn’t suspect me. He found two guys that have a score to settle with Califano. He never told me their names, but they’re running some rackets out here. They hired the guys to bust into the house. Brock called me after dinner tonight when you were on the phone, so I gave you that excuse about tomorrow and went to meet him. He told me you’d brought in some help so he figured we’d be silenced before your guy got to us and now Brock is dead and you’re telling me this is all for my own good when we wouldn’t be talking if you hadn’t been lying to me all these years?”
“Brock didn’t tell you who he was working with?”
“Didn’t you hear a word I just said?”
“I heard you, Scott.”
“It doesn’t mean anything, does it?”
Palakis reached into a jacket pocket and slid a set of keys across the table. “Full tank,” he said.
Scott snatched the keys, stood up, and walked into the darkened portion of the room toward the door. The big man stepped aside. Scott opened the door, went out to the lighted hallway, and let the door click shut behind him. Leaving his father in a quiet tomb. He didn’t feel sorry at all.
As Wolf steered the Chrysler homeward, he ran down a list of possible options. He had few.
Brock had kept the address of his hooker friend, Jodi, stored in his phone. Wolf went there and found her lying on the carpet, shot through the head. He also discovered a single nine-millimeter shell casing on the carpet near the body.
At Brock’s one-bedroom flop, he found no notebooks, no laptop computer, no papers that contained any information about Teddy Gambolini or Ben Regan. Or where Wolf could pick up their trail.
The phone rang. He flipped it open. “Yes?”
“This is Scott Palakis.”
Wolf pulled over. His pulse quickened. “Hello, Scott.”
“Who are you?”
“Somebody who doesn’t want to see lives wasted.”
“I don’t have anybody else to turn to.”
“I hear that a lot,” Wolf said.
“We need to meet. I just finished talking to my father--” and the young man described the conversation, concluded with, “I didn’t tell him anything, but I want to tell you.”
“When and where?”
14
Wolf parked in front of room 526 at the Paramount Motel. The flickering lights outside each door showed off the building’s green/pink paint job. Wolf’s eyes itched. He needed sleep. Time to regroup. But he needed Scott’s information more than rest.
The door opened after Wolf’s second knock. Scott Palakis, his face tinged with a gray drabness coupled with heavy-lidded eyes, stared at Wolf. His pale lips remained pressed together.
“Scott,” Wolf said.
Scott opened the door. He was at a table by the window by the time Wolf shut the door and turned the bolt. He sat across from the young man. “My name is Wolf. I’m not a cop.”
“What are you?”
Wolf smiled. “Like Batman, except I don’t wear the tights.”
Scott didn’t smile. “Fair enough.” He closed his eyes, swallowed. “You never think your life will take the course it does. I never thought my father--”
“Tell me what you and Brock had going.”
Scott swallowed again and outlined the plan; his part; Brock’s part; gave more detail about the meeting with his father. Scott said nothing about Gambolini or Regan so Wolf asked about them.
“I don’t know those names,” Scott said. “I only met one guy named Amis. Brock said he was the top dog. We had a chat at Amis’s house, before the robbery. I told them about the security system at Dad’s, where the safe was.”
“That was the only time you saw him?”
“Yeah.”
“Was he alone?”
“There were two other guys. They hung around in another room. I didn’t hear their names. Maybe they were the guys you mentioned.”
“Know where Amis lives?”
Scott nodded. He gave Wolf the address, but Wolf tapped his chin, unsure. They could have used the home of somebody not connected to the scheme. But it was a place to start, more than he had now, and if he could tie Amis to Gambolini, so much the better.
“Does Amis have a first name?”
“Jack. Older guy. White hair.”
Wolf watched Scott a moment. The young man dropped his eyes. “What about my father?” he said.
“What about him?”
“I can’t--he can’t get away with what he’s done.”
“That’s up to you, Scott. Are you willing to talk to the district attorney?”
Scott’s eyes stayed down. “I’ll talk to anybody who can do something.”
“Stay here. Get some rest. I’ll be in touch.” Wolf rose, extended a hand. “Thank you, Scott.”
Scott Palakis blinked a few times, and then shook Wolf’s hand. “After this,” he said, “I’m never coming back to this city again.”
Wolf slept until noon, skipped lunch, and headed for Kiki’s apartment. He wanted to tell her about Bent Nose and Crew Cut, the thugs he shot at Mick’s Diner, and see if she could dig up their background. She wasn’t home, but Sheila was.
They sat on the couch and Wolf told her about what he’d been doing. He told her she’d soon hear some things related to Freddie’s murder, but it wouldn’t be the whole story. He was still working on the rest of it. She wanted to know what difference it made and cried on his shoulder.
After a while Wolf said, “Feel like going out later?”
“I guess.”
“A nice dinner beats staring at these walls all the time. I have something else cooking and I can’t go to this place alone.”
“What about Kiki?”
“We’ll bring her too.”
“You’re assuming she’ll want to go?”
“Trust me, she’ll want to go.”
Homicide Inspector John Callaway rose from behind his big mahogany desk. Behind him, a wide window looked out over the city and part of the bay. The large office had a wall of books, paintings on other walls depicted naval ships from the 17- and 1800s.
“Have a chair,” Callaway said after they shook hands. Callaway’s hands had their usual roughness; a desk man he had not always been, having worked in lumber and construction prior to his law enforcement career.
“You’ve been busy,” Callaway said.
“You should have been there.”
“What’s on your mind?”
Wolf presented his version of the events surrounding Freddie Webster’s murder. He told all about Vince Palakis and the video, the hit-and-run and Scott’s role, and Brock’s contribution. He made no mention of Gambolini or Regan. Those morsels he wanted to save.
Callaway said, “We can move on Palakis after his son testifies. What haven’t you told me?”
Wolf smiled. A low laugh rumbled up from Callaway’s chest. He couldn’t be fooled. “I have something for Kiki,” Wolf said. “Couple names to check out.”
“She’s at her office,” Callaway said, and shook Wolf’s hand again. “Good hunting.”
Wolf crossed the street to the building housing the district attorney’s office, and found Kiki filling a cup from the small water cooler in a corner of her office. When she turned, Wolf saw glasses perched midway down her nose. She was barefoot, no stockings, finger- and toenails painted black. The white blouse and Capri pants combo didn’t seem out of place with her. She smiled at Wolf.
“Girls with glasses are really sexy.”
“Shut up,” she said, removing the black-rimmed specs. She placed the glasses beside the open folder on her desk and sat. Wolf stood in front of the desk and pulled a small notebook from his shirt pocket, tore out a page and handed it to her.
She read the two names on the paper. “So?”
“Those guys were shot at Mick’s Diner night before last.”
“That was you?”
“They were trying to assault a young woman.”
“Uh-huh.”
“One of those guys died at the diner, the other at the hospital. I’m sure your people will have discovered it wasn’t injury-related by now. Get whatever you can, and I’ll pick you and Sheila up at seven tonight.”
“For what?”
“Dinner. Little place called the Candy Apple.”
“You’re never this social. What’s the catch?”
“The young woman I mentioned works there.”