Rick Cantelli, PI: Into the Darkness (Rick Cantelli, P.I. Detectives Book 3)

by Bernard Lee DeLeo

  “No time, kid,” I replied with a grin, “just a short time to enjoy it all. Lo and I realized we were fading off into geezer land, where the crickets chirp and young low life punks insult us. We’ve decided on an alternate route where we damn well will settle scores, and teach the punks that life actually begins at sixty.”

  Lois turned her Gorgon stare onto Carl. “All of that, Carl, and we pay special debts back in our own way. You will have to walk away when we have Largos. Will that be a problem?”

  Carl shrugged. “Largos who?”

  * * *

  I loved the feedback from Carl as he traced Largos’s journey to the airport he would never reach.

  “No caravan of minions, no traffic, no anything… what the hell… did you two call down the forces of darkness on this op?”

  “Focus, you canker sore,” Lois ordered. “Rick and I don’t play verbal games during ops.”

  “Good thing you weren’t in Sana’a when Dead-shot here was acing bad guys, women in robes, and even Al Jezeera dupes, not to mention the ambulance attendants. He eloquently discussed the matter of those poor blasphemers of Islam trying to murder us all, and getting a nice big shit sandwich instead. I was of course shocked at his tone.”

  You can imagine how Lo was enjoying Carl’s riff on me. “You…you’re alright, Carl! To tell the truth, there was no way we’d have done this without you, at least not in this manner. We would have tailed him until he was alone. I bet you didn’t know you would have been found dead in the wreckage, described later as the hired killer who perished during the capture. Don’t think about that now though. You’re in with us so you don’t have to contemplate how the only one who would have shown up at your funeral service is your mamma.”

  “That’s cold, Lo. You and Rick wouldn’t frame me for the fall.”

  Lo sighed. “Sorry Gumby, but when we get forced to alter a plan, we have to make sure there are no loose ends. You would have been in the know, even though you refused to go along with it. Who better to nail with the killing?”

  “That’s just hurtful. After all we’ve been through together.”

  “One bad op does not a family make,” Lo pointed out. “Don’t sweat the small shit, Carl. You’re in full bore with us on this one, right – or would you like to join Largos’s crew on the side of the road?”

  Carl grinned. “I’m in, Lo. I love this plan.”

  * * *

  We picked a beauty of a nest, camouflaged it perfectly into the loose ground past the short route railing, and made the small checks with range finders on our target spot. The night stayed a sniper’s dream with hardly a breeze. Temperature dropped to the high fifties, with only a quarter moon. I didn’t need no stinking moonlight with my night-vision scope. Lois and Carl established their quadrants for sighting our target, followed by the necessary occupant targeting after I stopped the vehicle. Largos didn’t own a late model GM product, so no worries about an OnStar instant call when his ride crashed. The occupants would be a little busy checking their own body parts to reach for their phones, especially if what I had in mind worked. I hadn’t shared my new vision of the coming Largos crash yet with my compatriots. They would worry and whine, distracting my most excellent thoughts.

  Only two vehicles passed us, heading in the opposite direction. We waited comfortably in silence, with Carl and Lois doing whispered time checks as our target arrival drew near. Lo and I had waited in many places at all hours on the clock. She had spotted for me nearly as many times as Dan, my spotter in the Seals, when we could spare one back then from the combat team. Carl had been more than adequate in Sana’a. This would be a bit tricky trying to keep Largos alive while taking out the hired help; but hell, if this was easy, anyone could do it. Then we saw the lights, which would make my targeting a real problem with the night-vision scope, but one I’d handled before. I had a slip over lens to pinpoint targets away from the glare.

  “Incoming, Rick,” Carl announced. “I’ll let you know when to begin sighting. Here we go.”

  Lo and Carl counted down from five together in harmony to lock me in with them once this began. “Watch this, folks.”

  “Cantelli!” Lo managed to squeeze out a last call out of my name as if it were a four letter slur.

  I sighted while Carl called out range with the vehicle coming straight towards us three hundred yards away and closing. The same frosty chill swept through me from toes to head like many other times I had taken a life. Being a sniper isn’t a learned skill once proficiency was proven. A sniper ended life like those techs did when guiding a Reaper drone. It wasn’t a kill or be killed situation, although in many times it saved the lives of my Seal team members back in the day, or took out a murderous asshole when Lo and I worked it for the Company. There were also many times I killed on order. I squeezed off the first shot with a smile, my .50 caliber Instagram smashing through the windshield, and pulping the driver’s head. My next shot as the vehicle stayed on a straight line while the driver’s brain stopped directing body motions was to the passenger side front tire with a three round burst.

  The tire blew in spectacular form, jerking the vehicle steering into the railing, launching it over the railing and onto its top. “Oh yeah.” Neat-o.

  Lo cackled, while she and Carl zeroed in on the upside down inhabitants. Largos never had an opportunity to duck behind anything. Front and side airbags had all deployed, blasting into the occupants with disorienting force. I didn’t need a spotter to put one through the front passenger’s head. He wasn’t Largos. We waited. There was no use in hurrying this. There were no indications of fuel rifts.

  “Largos is passenger side rear,” Lo stated.

  “Confirmed,” Carl echoed.

  I fired twice more, before his minions in the back with him could move other than to flail their arms in stunned form. “Want me to graze him, Lo?”

  “Nope. Run and get the Jeep, Carl. We have it from here.”

  Carl shouldered our gear including the Barrett, “That was hell-a-sweet, Rick. I’ll be by for pickup shortly.”

  Carl headed for the Jeep, while Lo and I went to retrieve Largos. We reached his upside down Volvo. Inside was a mess with victims of .50 caliber hollow point sniper rounds, very little of the interior wasn’t coated in blood and brains. I slit the seatbelt straps off the groaning Largos, allowing him to freefall headfirst into the roof. That quieted him while I dragged his ass out. Lo then grabbed one arm, and I grabbed the other. We dragged him to the other side of the railing. Lo returned to the Volvo, making sure we didn’t have a survivor. By the time she returned to my side, Carl arrived with the Jeep. We stuffed Largos into a body bag with his wrists and ankles plastic tied. I spread a piece of duct tape covering his mouth, leaving the body bag open at his head. After all this, we didn’t want poor old Largos to asphyxiate. We were on our way from the scene moments later.

  “You two are very bad people,” Carl said. “I am going to drive us into Prescott, where I will depart from your company. When would you like the fly-out for from Love Field?”

  “How much time do you need to get something ready?”

  “If you could give me an hour, Lo, that would be fine. My same guy with the Turbo-Prop will be flying us the hell out of here. Is that okay?”

  “Perfect,” Lo said.

  I saw her hands clasping and unclasping as she leaned back, planning for Gorgon retribution. I remembered Ava, and I knew Lo thought back to the last time she held our little bird in her arms, entrails seeping out. Yep… the Karma machine was starting up for our buddy Largos, and it would be a bitch.

  * * *

  Largos had been moaning through his duct tape for a while now. I had stripped down to the waist while preparing his final resting place. We had carefully tested the Jeep’s off-road capabilities, after traveling across town to the sparsely populated, and very rough wooded area bordering the city on the other side a couple of miles away from the nearest house. I made it deep, enjoying the ability to do so while talking
with Lo, and remembering Ava. For a very long time we never spoke of her, or the casualties we suffered on the op, who we knew very well – stars on a wall now in D.C. – forever anonymous, except to the loved ones who missed them.

  “Ava was a know-it-all young one until you tuned her up,” Lo said, handing me a bottled water. “It was funny, you thinking I didn’t suspect a thing with the change that came over her. She had skills, and she really embraced the training after that, especially you.”

  “She was the worst, until I put Adina down,” I admitted. “The hole’s ready. Is there anything else to do for the recording part?”

  “Nope. We’ll have video, sound, and I have the tools to make memories. Are you sure you don’t want any, Rick?”

  “You’re the best. I’d rather savor the moment while you work this, Sis.”

  “No problem. That was one very impressive plot you put into effect without breathing a word to Carl and I. Thought we’d screw your concentration up, huh?”

  “Maybe. It was a time for doing rather than discussing. Once we had the nest, and I saw that long straight run, I knew it was doable. Ready?”

  Lois smiled, jingling her bag. “Oh hell yeah.”

  * * *

  I transported Largos by dragging his bag across the Jeep back, and onto the ground. Then after I dragged his high pitched, whining ass next to his grave, I kicked him in the nuts. That lit his face up, even in the darkness. “Largos… my old friend, it’s very good to have you here. I’m going to remove the duct tape. If you make a sound other than to speak intelligibly, I will kick you in the nuts again. Are we clear?”

  Energetic head shakes indicated he was most definitely understanding of my conversational parameters. I removed the duct tape.

  “What is this all about?” The whine was there, but nothing else.

  Lois came into his darkened view, crouched down, and pinched his cheek. “He’s so cute. You have competitors, Largos, and a United States government that is very unreceptive to your ongoing manipulations in this country. They called us, my friend. We don’t play at home often, but when we do, it’s not to make friends, cutie.”

  Largos suddenly became more animated. “You must listen then. This is all a mistake! My CIA contact would never order my death. I have so much on her, she doesn’t take a piss unless I give my permission. Please… you have to believe me. Let me call her. I can prove it.”

  “What the hell do we care?” Lo is the best. “Let’s get him in the ground, Rick. We have the cameras in place to record his living insertion into mother earth. We’ll get this shit done, and I’ll buy you a cold one for digging the grave.”

  I moved to do her bidding.

  “Wait! Don’t do this! Let me make a call. It’s all a mistake!”

  Lois leaned in close to Largos’s face with her own game face on. “If it’s a mistake, we get paid anyhow. Leaving you alive would cost us money.”

  “I…I’ll double whatever you’re getting. You won’t regret it. I can transfer the funds immediately! Think about it! It is an error I will gladly pay to correct.”

  Lo glanced at me with professional indifference. “What the fuck? Okay… give me a name and a number. I’ll call for you. You’d best not be screwing with me, because that’s when I get my tools out.”

  Largos brightened. “Carrie Andros!”

  “The CIA assistant director?” I saw Lo’s mouth tighten, nearly locking her jaw. We knew that bed crawling bitch very well from her condescending handlings of everything we did back in the day. She wrote down the number Largos gave her, because she needed to do something with her hands, in spite of the recording.

  Lo walked away from him, phone in hand. She was calling alright, but not where Largos thought. She returned, bag in hand. “I called Van, the contact who signed us on for the contract. He’s on speaker right now. My advice is to make your plea concerning Andros believable. The underside of this business is a dangerous one. Once we get the call, the deed is done. Be convincing.”

  Largos was very convincing. He spoke convincingly for nearly half an hour.

  “There… trace what I have said,” Largos insisted. “I’m not lying. Carrie can clear this misconception in minutes.”

  Lois again walked away with the phone. Now, we get to see how the second phase of this private plan works out. She rejoined us. “Okay… there has been a mistake. Sorry about that. Unfortunately, Rick and I don’t deal in mistakes. We know you can make another fortune in a heartbeat with the shit you’re involved in. That means my partner will show you an online access. You will then transfer everything from your account to ours. We then part ways with no one the wiser. We’ll even find a place to drop you off.”

  While Largos stuttered out protests regarding his soon to be lost account, I opened our satellite laptop for the transaction, enabling the feed to our own offshore account. I positioned the laptop where he would be able to work the keys, while drawing my newly acquired .45 Colt. I put the barrel against his head, and released him.

  “Get busy, or Rick puts a .45 round through your head, mistake or no mistake.”

  Largos, sitting up sweating in the body-bag, activated the link to his account with me overseeing the operation. I stopped him after he entered the transfer of funds. I took over from there. Oh my. Some families of the fallen were in for a real windfall. It was indeed a day of retribution, vengeance, and restitution. I bound his hands behind his back once again. When he struggled, I gave him a quick no nonsense poke on the side of his head. I nodded at Lo. Let the fun begin.

  “I’ve given it all over,” Largos stated, his arrogance returning. “Let me go this instant! You two should never have overstepped your bounds on this.”

  Lo smiled. “At our age, we have no bounds.”

  “Fine! Let me loose, and let’s get the hell out of here!” Largos turned to have his restraints removed.

  Lo sighed with real feeling. “Sorry, Largos, there’s been a change in plan. Rick and I know you from long ago. You killed and mutilated a Company team we had in place to watch you. One of those people, a young woman named Ava, Rick and I trained from the time she graduated college.”

  Largos’s eyes widened to the point I figured they’d pop out of his skull. “You…you made a deal!”

  Lo had retrieved her pliers from the bag she had brought. “I lied. See… I held that girl I had trained in my arms as she passed from this life. You had tortured, mutilated, and eviscerated her, so when I held her in my arms, her entrails leaked out as I spoke to her. I knew she was gone, but I asked her if there was anything on earth I could do for her. She stared at me, little screams of pain erupting from her mouth. Ava grinned at me in the last seconds of life, when all pain and anguish pass. She asked me if I could make you scream for death. Then she clutched my hand one last time. I didn’t get to say anything at the time.”

  Largos screamed out in anguish. He realized nothing on earth would save him from these moments between his life and death. I gritted my teeth, not in revulsion, but in the psychopathic embrace of a dish best served cold. I had hidden the image of Lo holding Ava in her arms with her entrails leaking outward for so long, that I now had to fist my hands to the point of drawing blood in anticipation. Yep… Lo and I may not enter heaven, but it would be a mistake if they ever put us together in hell.

  Lo clacked the jaws of her pliers together a few times. “What I wanted to say was… yes baby… I’ll make him scream for you to hear in heaven or hell.”

  I moved in over Largos, pinning his head down. I pinched his nose off so his mouth opened for air, and Almighty Jesus, Lois did exactly that.

  * * *

  Carl couldn’t keep quiet any longer after we boarded, and were on our way back to North Island. “Aren’t you two going to say anything of note to a family member?”

  “What’s there to say, kid? Rick and I simply took care of business. We’ve stayed incommunicado until we finished. How’s the fallout so far?”

  Carl shrugged. “Just a
s you suspected it would be – a cartel hit for unknown reasons, especially after the identities of the people with Largos were unveiled… thanks of course to Van feeding the right folk with the right information. Largos is considered missing, and may be in the hands of the rival Cartel. The big deal in D.C. is of course Carrie Andros. You really hooked a big one there. Van found out she was the driving force behind abandoning us in Sana’a. Her accounts they tore apart this morning revealed money from a number of sources, none of them good. I don’t think they know what to do with her.”

  “If they need help figuring that out, Rick and I are available for a hands on consultation. We owe that back stabbing, traitorous bitch. God in heaven, she’s likely compromised who knows how many missions.”

  “Let them figure what to do with Andros,” I told her. “We need to enjoy what we have. We can deal with her if she ever gets loose. At least we’re getting home in time for me to direct the movie idea I have for Cheech. My young buddy Don at the restaurant is going to play Je T’aime tonight with the kids singing. I’m going to be a director.”

  “You are too much, Rick,” Carl stated. “I have no idea what you’re talking about, but I’m certain it will be a hit. If you can cause a wreck to perfection like the Largos hit, I’m sure you can do pretty much anything with a movie gig. Besides, I read all the time you are the P.I. to the stars.”

  “Quit sucking up,” Lo ordered. “His damn head’s already swelled up to bursting now. If you want to see what’s happening at the restaurant, stay for dinner, and we’ll feed you on our dime.”

  “I wish I could,” Carl replied. “We’re only laying over at North Island for a couple hours. I’m heading to D.C. for debriefing. I used Company resources without authorization, but it’s a closed door meeting Van will be hosting. When what has been uncovered in the Andros case is revealed, I’ll be golden. He’s backing my spin that because of the Andros investigation, I had to do this op in secret. It helps you two are wild cards, so we can claim no Company operatives were involved on USA soil.”