Missing Persons
Page 18
“That’s enough of your horse shit. Is this your way of begging for your life?”
“Not hardly. I don’t really give a rat’s ass about my life. You want to take it, be my guest.”
“You’re so full of shit, you know that?”
I realized I was still holding the egg carton.
“Just so you know,” I said. “I’m going to put this egg carton inside my car. If you want to shoot me, please feel free to do so.”
Hickey grinned and moved in front of the car he had been standing beside. He took a couple of steps in my direction, keeping his gun trained on me all the while.
I showed him the carton and slowly walked toward the rear of the cruiser. With my back turned, he wasn’t in a position to see me grab hold of a pair of eggs. He was totally flummoxed when I whirled and threw both of them at his head.
The first one struck him in the right eye, the second on the chin. Pieces of shattered shell and gooey egg drippings splattered his face. Startled, he moved to defend himself, but I was on him before he could.
I grabbed his wrist with my left hand and, with my right, grabbed the gun barrel and jammed it into his mid-section. I let go of the barrel and took hold of his index finger, which was still on the trigger of the Glock.
He attempted to wrestle the pistol free, turning his hip as if readying to drop me.
But his eyes registered horror when he suddenly realized I was jamming his trigger finger with my own. Without warning, his stomach was blasted by a .40 mm cartridge that blew a hole in his mid-section the size of a small picture window.
The astonished look in his eyes quickly faded to blank. I stepped away as he collapsed into a newly formed puddle on the rain-swept parking lot, his dead face disfigured by the splatter of egg yolks and large shell chips.
I knelt beside his fallen body and checked for signs of life. There were none. I stood up slowly and examined myself for any gunshot residue. Aside from a few blood splashes, I was okay. I opened the trunk of the cruiser and removed the tarp I kept there. I covered the body with it, shook off the rain, and climbed into the cruiser where I sat silently for several minutes.
Then I punched the number of the station into my cell phone and when Marsha Russo answered, I told her what had gone down.
“You okay?”
“A little wet is all.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“It boiled down to him or me. I offered him an out. He refused to take it.”
“Are you going to start beating yourself up now?”
“I don’t know, Marsha. I killed a man. If I look closely enough, I’m fairly certain I’ll spot a way it could have been avoided.”
“Don’t second guess yourself, Buddy. It was the right thing to do.”
“If you say so.”
“I say so. The Blackbirds will be happy. You did their job for them.”
“It’s not over with the Blackbirds.”
“Meaning?”
“There’s a day of reckoning in store for them. I’ve got a new mantra.
“Which is?”
“No gangs in Dodge.”
“The Birds aren’t going to like that mantra.”
“You think?”
“I do.”
“Isn’t that a crying shame?”
Chapter Sixty
“He suffered a stroke,” my father said.
“Who did?”
“Who do you think?”
“Long Senior?
The old man nodded.
We were seated in my condo where he had come to visit after checking out the site of the Hickham Long shooting. His condition had stabilized for the moment and his spirits were high. He showed flashes of his normally cryptic self, which pleased him.
He wandered idly around the condo, looking into each of the rooms. “I still can’t understand why you chose this over the mansion.”
“Privacy.”
“Privacy’s overrated. Life’s comforts and a handful of servants trump privacy any day.”
“He’s still alive, I gather.”
“The doctors say he’ll survive.”
“Big surprise,” I said. “Any complications?”
“Only for the District Attorney.”
My father sat heavily on one of my armchairs. “He’s not a young man and if there are physical consequences as a result of the stroke, they’ll make prosecution problematic.”
“So he’ll walk free.”
“If he’s able to walk.”
“You don’t really believe this stroke nonsense, do you?”
“What I believe is irrelevant. If the doctors say he’s impaired in any way, the DA will be forced to take that into consideration.”
“What was it the DA said? This is a sad story, right?”
“Yes.”
“Even sadder now that Hickey’s gone.”
“Yes.”
“Barry Long, Senior, is a crook. A con man. Been one all his life. He trained both of his boys to walk in his footsteps. The irony is how he fell prey to someone else’s con.”
After a while, my father said, “They’ll never prosecute.”
“Why not?”
“The Lytell factor. He’ll stick to his sad story thesis. He sees Senior Long as Job. He lost everything, and if that weren’t enough, he now has to deal with the anguish caused by the death of his eldest son. Plus, he’s had a stroke. Could things be any worse?”
“Hook, line, and sinker,” I said.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“This entire thesis is a bucket of con-artist crap. The old man didn’t think Hickey could be counted on to bail him out so he suffered a so-called stroke. He knew Hickey was a cartel target and feared they would not only put the exclamation point on Hickey’s life story, but conceivably on his as well. So he gambled the cartel wouldn’t come after a dying man. Hence the stroke. Which proved irrelevant because the devoted son had already ridden to his rescue.”
“And died in the process.”
“But not at the hands of the cartel.”
My father shifted in his seat. He appeared to be experiencing some difficulty breathing. When he saw me staring at him, he waved me off. “I’m fine.”
I watched him closely, all the while taking note of his physical condition. “Hickey could have taken the Darien dough and gone into hiding with it,” I told him. “Good-bye and good luck. Instead, he used it to vindicate his father, who will no doubt surprise everyone by experiencing a miraculous recovery. A sad story, my ass.”
“Are you suggesting that Hickey took one for the team?”
“I am.”
“Why would he do that?”
“Because he had to know they’d never let him walk away. Despite the return of the money, the score was still unsettled and one of them had to pay the price for it. So Hickey set out to martyr himself. But first he chose to settle accounts with me, following which his plan was to cough himself up to the cartel. What better way to look good in his old man’s eyes than by erasing me, and then taking a bullet himself?”
“Who cares?” the Sheriff said. “One less scumbag for the State to house and feed.”
“Compassion becomes you.”
“Fuck compassion. It’s better for us this way. It’s off our plate.”
My father wrestled himself to his feet. “Politically speaking, you’re the big winner here, Buddy.”
“Politically speaking?”
“That’s right.”
“It’s funny, you know.”
“What is?”
“I had my reservations about coming back here. I like L.A. I like being part of the LAPD culture. Their politics are firmly rooted in irony. You win some, you lose some. And sometimes the ones you win are a whole lot worse than
the ones you lose. When I came back to Freedom, I had hopes that small-town politics were more honorable.”
“And?”
“They’re less so. They’re encased in psychological corruption—based on the misguided belief that the ways and means of a small town are superior to those of a big city. Which is a crock of hypocritical bullshit.”
“You’re a cynical man, Buddy.”
“You think?”
When he reached the door, he turned to me. “You play your cards right and this business with the Longs could well prove to be your ticket to a brilliant future. Your name on any ballot will promise a near-certain winner.”
“The only win for me is doing well what you asked me here to do. The father and son stuff. It’s why I came and it’s why I’ll stay. This is about us, Burton. Nothing else.”
“It heartens me to hear you say that, Buddy.”
We looked at each other.
“I meant it when I said you could have a large future here,” my father said. “It’s a place where you could make a difference. You’re a winner here. Despite your cynicism. The choice is yours.”
He closed the door softly behind him.
“Some fucking choice,” I said to the door.
Chapter Sixty-one
It took a while to find her. She had moved from the Los Feliz Towers leaving no forwarding address.
I surmised that out of all of her options, Vegas was the likeliest. Work was readily available. One could live quietly in near-anonymity. I took the chance she was there.
After turning up nothing but blanks, I was able to convince the Las Vegas Sheriff’s Department to allow me access to their digital files of hotel employment applications for the past several months. Law enforcement regulations called for background checks on any potential gaming industry employee.
It was the name Margaret Short on a recent job application that caught my attention. Margaret Short had been hired by the Wynn organization and was working as a cocktail waitress at the Encore.
I planted myself in front of the employee entrance, watching the midnight shift-change when I spotted her. She exited in the company of two other women. Once outside, they said their good nights and headed off in opposite directions.
She walked away with her head down. I fell into step behind her. Sensing she was being followed, she wheeled around. She had lost weight. Her face looked gaunt. Her hair was cut short.
When she saw it was me, she stood staring as if frozen to the spot. Then she stepped up to me and slapped me hard in the face.
“For Hickey?”
“For Hickey.”
“Would it help if I told you I had no choice?”
“No. And I should probably do it again.
“For Catharine?”
“Of course, for Catharine. Her TV show is a hit and the two Barrys are dead broke.”
“Perhaps there’s a God after all.”
“Must you always be so cynical?”
“I had nothing to do with it.”
“Oh, please. You had everything to do with it.”
“It was Catharine’s eleventh hour surprise. You have to hand it to her. She suckered the Reverend and he never saw it coming. What is it they say about a dish served cold?”
The desert winds had turned brisk. She shivered visibly. “I waited for you, Buddy.”
She moved close and put her arms around me. She held tight, trembling slightly, her face buried in my shoulder. She leaned back, tears now in the corners of her eyes, and caressed my cheek where she slapped me. She kissed me tentatively. “I wasn’t sure you would find me. Or if you even wanted to find me.”
“What are you doing here?”
“In Las Vegas?”
“Yes.”
“If I tell you, will you think me an oddball?”
“It’s possible.”
She hesitated before answering. “Re-inventing myself.”
“And?”
“I’m a work in progress.”
I couldn’t resist a smile. I pulled her close and kissed her. I slowly traced the curve of her lips with my finger. “Was there anything you wanted to know?”
She gazed into my eyes and whispered, “What took you so long?”
Author’s Note
Please note that San Remo County and its cities, including Freedom, are fictional places. No such county or cities exist in the state of California.
Acknowledgments
Many thanks to…
…my friends at PPP…Barbara Peters, Annette Rogers, Michael Barson, Diane DiBiase, Beth Deveny, Raj Dayal, Holli Roach, and Robert Rosenwald…with gratitude for their support and encouragement;
…my extraordinary team of champions…Tom Distler, Melanie Mintz, Steven Brandman, Miles Brandman, Emanuel Azenberg, Steve Shepard, and Roy Gnan…
…my friend and partner, Tom Selleck…
…my mentors…Robert B. Parker, Elmore Leonard, Lee Rich, Ivan Held, Christine Pepe, Bruce Jay Friedman, Arthur Miller, and Tom Stoppard…
…and my great pal, Helen Brann, who meant the world to me…
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