I got the .357, rolled onto my back, and shot twice at where I expected Nicky to be. My ears rang. I blinked. Nobody was there. My hands were shaking. How many bullets had been fired from this gun, three? That left three in the chamber. No sign of Nicky. I swallowed and edged backwards through the muck, trying to get closer to Darlene and Mary Kate. The room felt like a combat zone. The air stank of gore and cordite. I made it to the doorway. Clyde's gun was in the middle of the lobby, several yards from Darlene.
"Get the gun," I called. "I'll cover you."
"Naw, I wouldn't move if I were you, lady," Cowboy said. His voice sounded hoarse. He shifted position so I could spot him. He was on his feet, in the potted plants, and now had an angle on Darlene. "Hey, Callahan, why don't you put that gun down so we can all have us a little talk?"
Little Nicky came out of the row of cubicles. "Yes, put it down now, Mr. Callahan, or Eric will shoot your woman. Come on, you're a proven survivor, why not buy some time?"
"No, Mick," Darlene said. "Don't give up your weapon."
I froze. My head pivoted back and forth between Cowboy, MK, Darlene, and finally, Nicky. With luck, Jerry was still listening. He had control of the computers that ran the entire complex. Jerry would be the U.S. Calvary, come to the rescue. He'd think of something. I dropped the weapon and stepped toward Cowboy. Nicky was a lot more pissed off at me than Eric. Or so I hoped.
Nicky smiled, held up my cell phone. He'd crushed and shattered it. There would be no calvary. "Now we finish it, Callahan. Yes?"
"Yes," Cowboy said, "now we finish it. It's your turn to disarm, Mr. Argetoianu. Just set it down on the carpet, if you please."
Nicky said, "What?"
Cowboy took aim at his head. Stunned, Nicky did as he was told.
I heard fresh movement in the lobby. A row of military types entered the building, true boots on the ground; brisk, efficient men issuing orders in low tones. Darlene sat up grinning. She flashed me an okay sign. Mary Kate had stopped screaming and was now crying instead. She stayed flat on the floor. I smiled at Eric, shook my head.
"Yeah, I kind of wondered about you from the start, Cowboy."
"He shot Ed," MK sobbed, "poor Ed." After a moment, "Are you okay, Mick?"
Several of the men in SWAT-style black entered the computer room, but now I could see that their uniforms had been stripped of all insignia. These guys were Black Ops for sure. Two of them flanked Nicky. They kept him covered, stood casually, as if awaiting orders.
Cowboy sighed. He lowered his weapon, slid down the wall. "Will somebody get me a fucking medic?" The crowd of men parted and their leader stepped into view. He was smiling.
"Hey, Bone." I sat down on the floor, too. Bud was amused that I wasn't surprised to see him alive.
"How goes it, Mick?"
Darlene looked puzzled. Mary Kate pulled herself together. Bud Stone, also in Ops black, knelt next to me. He dropped a big paw on my shoulder. "You done good, Callahan."
"I don't know whether to hug you or beat the shit out of you," I said. "Tell you one thing, you have a ton of explaining to do."
"Don't I know it," Bone said. "Look, we were trying to get here sooner, but the local cops were flat bought and paid for. They blocked the road and wouldn't move. We didn't want to start a firefight, and they wouldn't budge. Finally, my boss got some big, swinging dick in Washington to order them out of the way."
The medics appeared. They began to attend to MK, Darlene, Cowboy, and even Nicky. As for me, I waved them off. After all, most of the blood on my clothes had come from other people.
Mary Kate quieted down, stared at me, tears running down her face. "I'm so sorry, Hero. I'm so sorry."
I looked away. We are what we are. All the while, some guys in white canvas and plastic masks moved things around, cleaned up gore, and generally messed with the crime scene. Someone had given them specific instructions and they were out to make this look the way the brass wanted it to look. The covert soldiers were rushing everywhere; a few guys in street clothes, too, but they were all military nonetheless. It takes one to know one.
I wanted some answers. "You never left Special Ops, did you, Bone?"
A bad Pacino. "Just when I think I'm out, they pull me back in."
"Does the wife know?"
"Wendy? Oh, hell, no. I think she suspects, but they won't let me fess up all the way. And believe me, that part of it really sucks."
"Okay, I figure the information on this damned disc was too hot for regular channels. If it fell into the hands of the real cops or the FBI or the press, all hell would break loose."
Bud Stone nodded. "You got that right. By the way, you don't look too shocked. How long have you known?"
"I finally got ahead of the curve this morning, when Mandel said you were trying to sneak back in to replace the disc with a phony. That tipped me off. Well, and the size of the explosions at the ranch. Sounded like professional grade. I didn't want to say too much to the others, in case one of them got captured and interrogated. Need to know, and all that."
"You always were a smart one."
"I told Darlene some of it, and had Jerry install a double worm on the most sensitive material. In case you're wondering, we're not putting anything right again until every single wrinkle that affects us has been straightened out. Screw us over, you've got nothing."
"I hear you," Bud said. "We'll take care of it all; the mob, the law, everything. You know, Callahan, you're still pretty damned good." He placed a hand on his heart. "Sincere offer. My boss says you can come and work for us any time you want."
"You can tell your boss to fuck off."
"Tell her yourself," Bone said. He smiled brightly. "She's mean as a fucking snake and flat scares the crap out of me. Anyway, you want something cold to drink? Let's get you patched up."
I tugged his sleeve. "Sit your ass down for a second and explain. So, you needed a beard, somebody who could do some of the legwork, somebody the bad guys would know didn't work for the DEA or CIA or whatever acronym currently covers what you do. Maybe everybody wanted into this for their own reasons, but me, I wouldn't care. I'd just want to help out a friend."
"Right you are."
"You told your boss about me. That I owed you big-time."
"Yeah, but not anymore, bro. We're even." Bone fixed me with a sincere look. "I never meant for you to get in this deep, Mick. I swear. It all just kind of got out of control."
I looked back toward the lobby. A young woman now sat with Mary Kate, consoling her. She wore a uniform, had blonde hair tied back in a ponytail. She looked kind of familiar. Then I remembered her face. It was Brandi DeLillo.
"Damn. So Brandi there was one of yours all along. That was just about having an excuse to get me into this situation."
"No, not exactly," Bone said. "Now you're overestimating your importance. Like I said, I never meant for you to get all that involved. It's like this. We planted Eric undercover more than a year ago. It was Nicky's people who first bought themselves a double agent and scored the disc. Next we heard they were trying to skull out a way to sell the material without exposing their own people. Well, what's left of the Vegas mob went for the deal. Now, we all knew from Eric that Pesci had toyed with making a personal move on the disc while it was in transit through Gordo. So it was Eric who went to Pesci and suggested the bullshit deal with Faber and Toole and using me as the fall guy."
I nodded. "In other words, he pointed all of them your way, so you'd be able to get the disc, change the contents any way you wanted, and put a phony back in the pipeline. A lot of crooked people on the other side would suffer, but your Washington friends would still have their asses covered."
"Yeah," Bone said. "I was to nab the disc when I went after Gordo for additional cash, take our people off and put it back. Intercepting it would look like an honest mistake. Eventually, Pesci would have everything he wanted; the drugs, the money, and the disc to sell, but only our edited version. We'd be playing them the whole way."
<
br /> "But when the time came, Faber and Toole got there first, killed Gordo, and tried to double-cross everyone else."
"Exactly, and all while working for the guy already screwing the mob. What a mess. Yeah, turns out damned near everyone was making a move of their own. It got to be one giant cluster fuck. Of course, Pesci went nuts. Hell, then even ET got into it, figuring he'd screw Pesci out of the drugs and the cash. Anyway, we just lost control of things."
"No kidding. Now, were you in on sending Eric and Clyde to the bar that first night we met up?"
"No, I didn't know they were going to be there, man. That was Pesci. And poor Eric didn't even realize I was actually playing for the good guys. Also need to know basis and all that. We both found out later."
"So why did you contact me in the first place? I still need answers. Why me?"
Bud Stone said, "Well, pretty much because you're a badass."
"Right. That's all?"
"Mick, you got quite a reputation, especially from that thing happened up in Dry Wells. My assignment was to look like a real sucker, a guy with an expensive mistress, someone who'd buy Faber and Toole and their bullshit idea for a big score. Now, that dumb guy would want the little mistress looked after. I picked you because we were old buddies, you are known publicly to be a wild card, you owed me, and they'd believe I'd ask you for help. But we never thought they'd grab you and threaten your friends."
"Like you said, it all got out of hand."
"And fast. Hell, the firm had to call Brandi back in because we were afraid we'd get your man Lopez killed. Sorry, I didn't know that had gone down, either, or I would have told you not to worry about her anymore."
"Major Stone?"
A young soldier stood in the doorway. Darlene and Mary Kate were being herded away. MK seemed pretty much in shock but Darlene was resisting evacuation. She was waiting for me to join them.
"Mick? You okay, Mick?"
"Go ahead, Darlene. I'm fine."
"Take them out to the van," Bone said. "And close the door."
The wooden doors creaked slowly and clicked shut. I rubbed my temples. "You took your own sweet time getting here, Bone. Why didn't you just contact me when you knew I had the disc?"
"We didn't know. We saw that shootout from a distance, but our people said Mandel was holding it, and that Nicky's foot soldiers got away with the FedEx envelope. We didn't know Mandel had already passed the disc on to you until we overheard Nicky say so via satellite."
I looked away from my friend, stared back at Nicky. Speak of the devil. "What next, Bone? What about him?"
Bud Stone got to his feet. He grunted. "Shitfire, it looks to me like the fucking St. Valentine's Day Massacre happened in here, don't it? Big, big mob fight. Little Nicky and his boys shot a lot of people and then poor Nicky got killed his own self."
Nicky registered that statement and tried to break free from the two men guarding him. "No! Wait!"
The two agents just stepped back, kicked his legs out, and dropped him to the carpet. Nicky cried out. Suddenly a strange, haunted look came over his face. The crotch of his pants went wet. Nicky whimpered, wiped his eyes and whispered, "This is how a man drowns." The words made no sense, but the horror in his voice gave me a chill.
The two soldiers looked up for orders. Bud eyed me. "Now hear this, Callahan. The miserable prick had poor little Jacob Mandel shot down, and I know Jacob's daddy from the SEALs. So it's a done deal. Now, do you want to kiss him goodbye or anything?"
Nicky's eyes pleaded with me. I wanted to protest summary execution, do the honorable thing, but Bone wouldn't have listened, and Nicky certainly didn't deserve protection. I finally just shook my head. "I guess not."
Bone said, "Nicky, consider yourself kissed." One of the two soldiers fired. Nicky's chest exploded. He fell over.
I looked down and away. "Jesus, Bone."
"Oh, come on," Bud Stone said. He shrugged as if nothing of significance had occurred. "When did you go all girly on me? You're just like us, bro."
"I am?"
"Sure." Bud slapped my shoulder. "One of the wicked."
Epilogue
"St. Louis, as in Missouri?"
"Well, turns out it's television as well as radio, and they do have the Rams, so wouldn't be a total loss."
Darlene edged away. I grabbed her arm and held on. "I'm only kidding, honey. I don't know if I'm going to take the job. Honest. I'm just thinking out loud. And you could always come with me."
We were in my living room in our underwear, listening to some early Randy Travis. "Come with you? LAPD is the finest in the country, Callahan. Why would I want to work anywhere else?"
I kissed her neck. "I was thinking maybe so we could be together."
"Don't even think about starting up again," Darlene said. She rose and headed for the kitchen. "Are you thirsty? I want some juice or something."
"Sure. Grab me some ice water while you're up."
It was night and we had the lights dimmed low. The drapes were open to the backyard. I watched the twinkling lights of a jet liner that emerged silently from the clouds. Randy finished the song and the CD player stopped. Now I could hear the jet, the ice-cube maker, and glasses clinking in the sink. Darlene came back with our drinks. She set them on the coffee table and stretched out flat on my couch with her legs up and the juice balanced between her breasts. I watched from the floor. "Service scantily clad. I like that."
"You would." She took a long pull of what looked like cranberry juice. "Did Mary Kate call again?"
"No." I shook my head, even though she wasn't looking. "Just that one time. I figure she's too embarrassed to pester me."
"Are you going to call her back?"
"Someday, but right now I'm not sure what to feel. She was setting me up, you know? MK and Talbot were going to rip us off for the money and the dope. On the other hand, that accidentally saved our lives."
"Can't argue with the result," Darlene said. "Maybe you should cut her some slack."
"I'm thinking on that."
She whistled. "Man, I'll tell you something, Bud Stone's people did a hell of a job on the LAPD. It's like the last couple of weeks never happened. You know what it takes to pull off something like that? Reams of paperwork have to up and vanish. From what I can gather, stuff got marked as clerical errors and deleted from the system."
I sat up, drank some water. "All in the name of Homeland Security, no doubt. One size fits all."
"So Jerry gave them what they needed?"
"Once we were all in the clear."
"You didn't pull a fast one on them or anything . . . like set it up to fail later?"
"I thought about that, but it didn't seem worth the risk. Jerry's smart, but these people run the world. They managed to twist everything around again within a couple of hours, so now the Russian mob is scouring the planet looking for Big Paul Pesci. Meanwhile, the crooks named on that disc go to bed every night believing it's still out there."
"Except for our homegrown Washington DC crooks. They can relax."
"Exactly."
"And Pesci is dead, at least according to your friend Cowboy."
"Eric? Actually, I never learned his real name. Now I probably never will. Hey, you want to maybe get something to eat?"
"I should get going."
I walked over to the couch, leaned down. "One of these days, you should be staying."
"Oh, really? You mentioned something about St. Louis a ways back."
I stole some of her drink. It was cranberry. "I'm going to turn it down, Darlene. I just decided."
"Why's that?"
"Well, you for one thing." I forced her to make room, snuggled close. "And LA is the show biz Mecca. Assuming I'm going to keep on working in radio or TV, I have to be here. Besides, I'd miss the desert. At least this way I can get out there by car in a couple of hours."
"Going to sell this house?"
"I'd rather not." I closed my eyes. "Hey, something will turn up."
A f
ew moments slid by. I was almost asleep when Darlene whispered, "Are you doing okay?"
I twitched. "Huh? What do you mean?"
"You've seemed kind of down, Mick. You're doing a fair job of hiding it, but a girl can tell."
Quite a woman. "It's just something Bud Stone said."
"What?"
"He said that I was like him and 'just one of the wicked.' That really bothered me for some reason. It sounded familiar, so I looked it up. It's from Shakespeare, Henry the Fourth."
"Why let it get under your skin?"
I hugged her close. "Because I'd like to think I'm a good man. That people can change. That I can change. Bone made me wonder if I'm in denial about that, or just kidding myself."
"Look up neurotic in the dictionary, Callahan. It has your picture next to it."
I laughed. "I never should have told you that one. Looks like I'm going to get it thrown back in my face. So, you don't agree?"
"I don't know if we can ever really change or not," Darlene said. "All I know is that we have to try, and that there is something noble in the effort."
"That's all that matters?"
"Maybe. Anyhow, it's all we have."
Darlene tried to sit up. I hugged her close again and pulled her back down. "Wait a little while." My mind was replaying things she'd been lucky enough to miss. Like little Nicky saying this is how a man drowns.
"Sleeping here, Mick?"
"No, I want to stretch out on the bed."
We got up and helped one another down the hall, two of the walking wounded; just a couple of people trying to get by.
"Okay," Darlene said, just as I'd hoped. "I'll stay until you fall asleep."
Maybe that is all we have, I thought, as we lay down on the warm sheets. Trying to change for the better, and maybe steal a bit of precious time together.
You know what? Sometimes it's enough.
About the Author
Harry Shannon has been an actor, a singer, an Emmy-nominated songwriter, a recording artist in Europe, a music publisher, a film studio executive, and worked as a freelance Music Supervisor on films such as Basic Instinct and Universal Soldier. He is currently a counselor in private practice. Shannon's "horror genre" books include Night of the Beast, Night of the Werewolf, and Night of the Daemon. He's also author of the Mick Callahan suspense novels Memorial Day and Eye of the Burning Man, and the thriller The Pressure of Darkness, all from Five Star Mysteries. Harry has been published in a number of genre magazines, including Cemetery Dance, Horror Garage, City Slab, Crime Spree, and Gothic.net. His first horror script, Dead and Gone, was filmed by director Yossi Sasson. Find out more at www.deadandgonethemovie.com.
One of the Wicked: A Mick Callahan Novel Page 24