“Hear my words. I think you should come work for me,” Bibbione said, emphasizing each delivered word.
“And why the hell would I do that?”
“For starters, you’d make far more money.”
“It sounds to me like you’re losing money with my presence.
“One more question,” Bibbione said. “Do you hate the destruction and death as much as you love the money?”
Isidora cocked back her head and laughed from the belly. She threw her napkin across the empty dishes, pulled out her cigarette, and stood to leave the restaurant while mumbling something to her dog as she gathered him in her ample arms.
On her way out Bibbione said, “Remember. My offer still stands.”
She turned and flipped him off.
Bibbione retrieved his napkin and ordered another dish of escargot. With the one thing he and his enemy had agreed upon, he asked for another type of bread.
When Bibbione arrived back to his sprawling property he elected to walk in through the front door and inspect his gardener’s work with the planters that surrounded the entry courtyard. His two bodyguards dutifully pulled in behind him and waited to be invited inside.
“God damn it!” he screamed.
That was invitation enough and the guards barreled out of their vehicle and ran toward him, guns drawn.
“Look at this sight,” Bibbione shouted. “It’s disgusting.”
The two men rushed across the courtyard and near the front entrance. There they saw the blood, the broken neck and torn wings.
One spoke, “A dead bird. The classic sign of a mafia hit.”
“It’s fucking more than that. It’s a white heron,” Bibbione ranted through a clenched jaw.
The two men opened their glazed eyes wide and stared down at the bird.
“Idiots. A white heron symbolizes the antithesis of the hunter. This is no regular drop. This is solely the work of Isidora Childs.”
Bibbione raised his hands and clapped his palms hard against each other. The men looked up as they backed away.
“Isidora. She presented herself with us at the restaurant so she could have her hellish son, Hunter, do her dirty work. The message is that I’m not in the hunt.
“We’ll see about that. You too clean up this barbaric garbage and find out how this punk got on the property, let alone made it to my front door. I have a phone call to make.”
CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
MY CALL TO SCHLEP, made short by the car careening into me, went unnoticed by him, yet he was first to arrive in the ICU room except for my cop buddies.
“I’m fine, Schlep. Forget about me. I need you to track down Marcos. Reported missing by his sister, in Ibiza, Spain.”
Schlep scooted me over on the bed, typical of him when you least expect his shyness to give way to pure love, and he took my I.V. laced hand in his.
“I know of Ibiza, Cassie. It has rivaled and surpassed any party destination out there in the world, including Monte Carlo. Do you know why Marcos was there?”
I held on to the cold hospital bed rail. “Last I knew he had a quick assignment in Spain.”
Schlep shook his head, with his unruly locks moving in quick waves across his ears. “It’s not the place to go for a respite.”
“So, maybe he went there for another story. Something. Marcos is not a party boy. That much I know.”
“I promise you, I’m on it. If it helps, there’s been no reports of a missing reporter.”
“Dig deeper for me.”
Schlep deepened his grip upon my hand and kissed it. “Anything.”
“Schlep? I can’t get a hold of Breecie. Will you find her?”
“I’ll find two missing people for you, Cassidy. Meanwhile, I’m here. And by the way, Finnegan and Phoebe are with me. You knew that. I’m spoiling them so much they’re going to want to stay with me.”
BREECIE CAME INTO my hospital room carrying a beautiful xanthic colored bromeliad bursting with prisms of yellow, and wearing a sad dark face with drawn, pursed lips.
“It’s not so bad,” I said. I’ll be up and out of here in no time.”
“It smells dreadful in here. Some patient walked out of his room, right in front of me, and puked all over the halls. They can’t be fast enough in cleaning that stink up.”
“Sorry. I’m sure they’re on top of it.” Yeah. This is a hospital and patients puke and a whole lot worse, I thought.
She placed the plant on the provided white plastic shelf, issued hospital standard. I noticed the huge eggplant colored bruise on her wrist before she could bring her hand back to her waist and shimmy down the sleeves of the turtleneck.
“You look fantastic, Cassidy. I’m so sorry I didn’t get your messages. Schlep camped out at the pool with your dogs until he snagged me.”
“Are you working a heavy caseload?” I asked.
“A big fat case of me,” she said with a forced smile.. “That can all wait until we get you home.”
She sat, looking more out the window then at me. She kept her legs tightly crossed and fiddled with her long black ponytail.
“Tell me,” she continued, “what’s your escape plan?”
“A couple more days and a trillion more CT scans. But, as you can tell, I’m lucky. My brain is intact. My eyes are good. My ears are a little wonky when I talk. It sounds like I have on ear phones. Just a little sore here and there. I’m lucky.”
The usual conversation one might expect followed. Type of care, treatment course, amount of pain. Did they cite the driver of the car that hit me. Pretty much, bullshit between two close friends. She was hiding something. She hurt more than me, and it went far beyond the bruising of her wrist and arm.
Twenty minutes later she glanced at her watch and stood to leave, explaining she had a client meeting looming. As she shuffled her clothes around, a plant delivery arrived. A beautiful gardenia in full bloom.
Breecie accepted it and started to put it on that one lone shelf.
“Bring it here,” I asked. “I’d like to read the card.”
As she brought it nearer she breathed in the sweet fragrance of the huge white flowers. “Divine,” she said.
She pulled the card and handed it to me as she moved the flowers under my nose.
It was then it dawned on me. I had no sense of smell.
I didn’t smell the barf in the hallway.
I didn’t smell the glory of the gardenia’s essence.
CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO
STACIE WONDERED IF she was getting the attention she deserved from her hired detective. It didn’t seem to her that the Clark woman was doing anything on the case. Then again, there had been no other murders of siblings, true-blood or not.
She needed to make her move, and now, if she were to grab the attention of the board of trustees that controlled the fate of the Tucson Scorpions.
Dating the general manager of the team, Bill Michaels, proved to be a failed attempt at moving in on the action. Still, he had been the only man she had dated in years, and she loved his clumsy attempts at romance.
Maybe the time had come. Stacie dressed in a modest black dress, cinched in by the newest girdle fad at her waist, and boobs forward in the latest device to show her girls off without causing them to flop out of the contraption.
The dinner at Vivace’s would call for both her brains and beauty. She popped a Xanax, hoping that would give her the calm confidence she needed to convey as she dined with her date, Michaels, and two of the trustee members and their wives.
She ran a mental tally. Taylor would never be considered, even if she’d dropped her drawers or got on her knees for the entire board. Stacie’s only competition would be Seth, whom she hadn’t spoken to since barging in on his accountant’s home and the battle was drawn as she lost a relationship. He would always be a threat. Especially after he claimed he wasn’t interested. Bullshit!
Hunter played the cards hard. Every time she visited the corporate offices of the Scorpions, which had become mor
e frequent by necessity, Hunter appeared out of nowhere. That same smirking grin rode his face from ear to ear, even after they had long dropped any pleasantries of conversation in passing.
As the valet attendant opened the large wooden doors to the famed Italian restaurant, Stacie imagined herself draped in a swath of ermine and pearls, wearing such a heavy bejeweled crown that she had to use every muscle of her neck to hold her head up high.
Feeling in a place of control at the table, Stacie began the first talk about football. The Scorpions had already played three games with two wins. One injury.
“The kicker has to go,” she said as she stared her party down. “He’s lost one game and didn’t help with our team with the victories.”
Silence at the table. Shuffling of shiny silver forks. Sips of beverages.
“You do realize I just put valuable insight out there on the table?” she said.
Bill Michaels’ face has turned to a Mt. Vesuvius ash gray as the others looked toward him for a response.
“He’s new to the team, Stacie. He comes with the stats and the talent the team needs. Don’t let the news media fool you. They always want to kick a man that’s down.”
The others at the table broke a smile here and there, with one adding, “Don’t kick our kicker. Not yet.”
Stacie circled her shoulders and corrected her already slumping posture.
The chat at the table, mostly convivial for all but Stacie, embraced knowledge of the other teams, the Scorpion players, and sympathy for the injured linebacker, who would return to the game soon.
Stacie nodded and shook her head appropriately after deducing the tone of the words being presented. She had nothing more to share but to declare that the Scorpions were her team, her flesh, her blood.
As the check appeared at the table one of the trustee members asked Stacie how her brother, Seth, was doing?”
“His love is the stock market and New York,” she answered without pause. “He keeps very busy. Rarely has time for even a quick call to me.”
Stacie watched and listened as one member turned to the other and said, “Fine man, that Seth.”
Her stomach came unhinged. Fury burned the wood that might have been holding those hinges together. She excused herself to the bathroom and Bill Michaels followed. They missed the next comments.
“Too bad about his health.”
“A crying shame.”
“I suppose it’s still a private matter?”
“He’s a good man. We need to respect his wishes.”
SCHLEP RETURNED to the hospital the next day, bringing with him my special request.
Not one to break the rules, but I was already tight with the day nurse and while he had to be sneaky, Schlep popped into my room with a satchel filled with one dog, Finnegan.
“Just Finnie?” I asked.
“They’re little, but they aren’t hamsters, Cassie. One at a time.”
Finnegan peaked his head and front legs out of the bag and Schlep scurried him under my covers as the nurse turned a knowing blind eye.
I spied the note card from the gardenia plant and turned it over while Schlep fussed with his phone and pad. When he looked up I could see he didn’t need either to trigger his emotions.
“What is it, Schlep?”
“What do you mean. I came to see you and bring you a grin.”
“I can feel it. Give. It’s about Marcos.”
“Let’s start with what I don’t know. No one seems to know why Marcos decided to wrap up his project in Spain and go over to Ibiza. Word is it was a project in its infancy researching the MS13 satanic gang cells.”
He stopped and drew a breath. Usually, Schlep kept on going in his own world, leaving it to others to catch up as he spieled out an abstract soliloquy.
The hair on the nape of my neck reacted before my brain.
“Marcos did arrive in Ibiza, eight days ago. It’s pure facts anyone can find on the internet. Ibiza. So many drugs and so many tourists, famous and not. Drug dealers on the island are known to be experimenting on the wealth of takers frequenting the island. An anything goes island. Deaths from these experimental drugs are veiled in secrecy, but rumors put them in the escalating hundreds.”
“And, the cells? Are they there?”
“Cassie, they’re everywhere. They’re here in Tucson.”
“When was he last seen?”
“Two nights after he arrived. A locals’ hangout that the celebrities flocked to because the paparazzi hadn’t discovered it. That changes about every three nights.”
“Missing six days,” I mumbled.
Schlep sat with his head hung low, tapping a finger onto his skinny knee. Finnegan had come out from beneath the covers. The nurse growled and pulled the divider curtain around me.
“He’s no wild child. There’s no way Marcos was into the drugs on the see-and-be-seen scene drug island of the world.
“Undercover. He went there to document this horrendous situation and try to get a pulse on the experimentation and the deaths,” I said.
“You say that with great certainty,” Schlep said.
I lowered my voice to a whisper. “Cassidy’s got her groove back. This wasn’t the first test drive I wanted to take and don’t ask me why or how, but I know why he went to Ibiza and he went there of his own accord.”
Tears began to swell and my hands grew clammy.
“Cassidy, you need to calm down. I need to get back to work on this. And, I best not push our luck so it’s time for Finnie to go home with me and make up to Phoebe for leaving her behind.”
I nodded, as Finnegan gave me a wet kiss goodbye.
“I’ll be back with Phoebe in the morning, and hopefully more information.”
I wanted to tell Schlep that there would be no more information coming. He shouldn’t bother. I just couldn’t mouth the words. Marcos was alive. But he would not be ready to be found.
What I didn’t know was why.
CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE
THE NEXT MORNING I phoned Anthony Bibbione.
“I hope you liked the gift,” he said.
“I love gardenias. Thank you.”
“And? It didn’t deserve a phone call. What is this purpose of your call?”
“Always to the point, Bibbione. I do need your help.”
He laughed. “My psychic abilities are becoming as sharp as yours. Talk to me.”
I told this evil drug lord who had somehow become my confident, of sorts, about Marcos, Ibiza, and his disappearance.
“If I find anything I’ll let you know.”
He hung up.
I trusted that if anyone could tell me about Marcos it would be Anthony Bibbione. God bless my soul.
“SOMETHING’S FUCKING WRONG. Damn it. Call me back”.
Hitch didn’t particularly like being stirred away from his morning turmeric tea and honey he sipped as he watched the winter’s orange and blue waves of sunlight give way to dusk.
He certainly didn’t like the tone of voice that Hunter presented in rage, while he knew the boys and their mama had some financial difficulties to discuss.
Hitch wanted to be called by his birth name again. He wanted to be Manny. He still wanted his vituperative wife to be dead, but he wanted him to be alive. Him. Manny. Manny Childs.
Meditation pleased him, and so it was he returned Hunter’s call in a little over an hour.
“You fucking didn’t do th-thhh, this, did you, brrroooo?” Hunter’s syllables lingered as if caught up on an assembly line gluing squirrel assholes to coyote eyeballs with intentions of selling them on a stick. Nothing made sense. No sale to be made.
Deep breaths. Spirit in. Stress out. “What’s the current thorn in your ass, Hunter?” Manny asked.
“Red flag. We said we’d never fly a red flag with all this transfers of funds shit. Let me tell you, three-hundred thousand dollars siphoned from the Scorpions will erect a red flag bigger than your personal torpedo when you have a diamond pussy calling for you
with all of its juicy textures.
“What the fuck were you thinking? The money is in our account. Fucking red flag.”
The silent pause could have laid turtle eggs. Nothing.
“Zone out. I have no idea what you’re talking about. I came clean with our Queen Mom Isidora and told her the truth. Pissed. God. “Was she pissed. But I laid it on the line. I told her Bibbione owned Tucson, Phoenix, and the Sedona markets. As we discussed, we are already making big money in the little towns. Same users as anywhere else. Brilliant. We need one guy in any little village. Simple. Clean. Low cost. Big.”
“Listen to me! Then why, this money transfer? You’re the MBA guy. This is fucked.”
FINALLY, I WOULD be released from the hospital three days after my admission, and only after my ugly insistence. The diagnosis was a mild traumatic brain injury rather than a head concussion as I had been unconscious. I would be dizzy and get unusual headaches. Also, I had damaged my olfactory nerve. I had absolutely no sense of smell. The prognosis was anosmia.
One of my body-building surveillance guys, along with Breecie, helped check me out of the hospital and get me into my own fluffy bed.
I had called in a favor and asked my brawny shadow, who lived on the south side, to pick me up some of Bibbione’s favorites, the trapizzinos, on his way to collect me.
We laughed. We talked. And inspite of the great food and my lack of smell, the dense air stunk.
My mind did wander but now it became bombarded and I had to spit it out. “Breecie, do you play pickleball tomorrow morning?”
“I sure do. Love that game. I mean, if it’s okay for me to leave you,” Breecie said.
“I want you to be extra careful tomorrow on the court.”
“Why?”
“On second thought, would it be too much to ask you to skip it this week. I’d feel better knowing you are nearby in case I need you.”
It was then that I realized I might have lost my sense of smell and hopefully, maybe, it would return, but I had totally regained my sixth sense. I didn’t want her playing pickleball that day. While we talked about my accident, my guts told me to take it slowly, and then later drill Breecie about the bruises on her wrist, of which I knew there were many more, and her new reserved personality did not become her.
Lethal Trust Page 21