by Paul W Papa
“Did you forget something, Robert?” Jeannie said as she came around the corner.
She dropped the dish towel she had been holding and froze in her tracks. It was fair to say I was an unexpected sight.
“Surprised?” I asked.
“Max,” was all she could say.
“So this is where you’ve been hiding,” I said. “At your brother’s house.”
“It’s not what you think,” Jeannie said.
“It never is,” I countered. “Only this time it’s exactly what I think. You killed Bilotti and then played me for a patsy.”
“I didn’t kill Bilotti.” She said it with such confidence I almost believed her.
“Then why the hide out?”
Jeannie stepped toward me. Her movement was slow and measured, always a dancer. She cupped her hands to her face. “I came here that night you took me to your place,” she said. “I was afraid that he would find me and kill me. I never told him about Robert, I never told anyone about Robert, so I knew he wouldn’t be able to find me here until it all blew over.”
“And then?” I asked.
“And then I heard Bilotti had been killed, and I didn’t know what to do.”
“If you knew he was dead, why still hide out?”
“I’m afraid, Max,” she said.
“Why? Bilotti’s ticket’s been punched. He can’t hurt you.”
Jeannie moved even closer. “They’re going to think I had something to do with it.”
“Did you?” I asked.
Jeannie’s shoulders slumped. She wrapped herself in her own arms, her bottom lip trembling. “Of course not,” she said. “But they don’t know that and they won’t care.”
She had a point and I wanted to believe her, but there was still one thing I couldn’t work out, if she was innocent, why was she dating the man who killed her father? But right at that moment I didn’t care. All I knew was that she was my alibi and I needed out of this mess. I walked over to the phone and picked up the receiver.
“What are you doing?” she demanded.
“Calling the police,” I said. “I can get them here and no one will be the wiser. All I need is for you to get them off my back. You’re my alibi and if you didn’t kill Bilotti, I’m yours.”
“You can’t!” she shouted. The force of her words startled me.
I turned to her. “Why?”
She rushed over to me and took hold of my arm. She squeezed it tightly and shook her head so violently I worried for her neck. “Please,” she pleaded.
I put down the receiver. “What’s going on here?” I asked.
Jeannie began to sob. What was I to do? I took her in my arms.
She clutched my lapels. “It wasn’t my idea,” she said softly. “He made me do it.”
“Who?” I asked, but I already knew the answer.
“Robert,” she said. “We came out here for a fresh start. To get away from it all. Father was dead, and mother had drunk herself into oblivion. There was nothing left for us in Chicago, so we came here. We changed our names and began new lives. We didn’t tell anyone about each other. We didn’t want to be linked to Chicago. Then Robert saw Bilotti and he came up with a plan. I would get close to him and when the time was right…”
She didn’t finish her sentence. She didn’t need to. I had provided them the opportunity. All they had to do was take advantage of it. It was a pretty clever trick; I have to admit. I made a right perfect rube. I guess I’m just a weak sister after all.
“I’m calling the police,” I said, just as the front door opened.
Thirty-Five
“JEANNIE,” BOBBY SAID as he entered, “I told you not to leave the door unlocked. Anyone could have…”
It was about then that he looked up. He became a statue—a statue with a gaped mouth. Jeannie sprang into action. Before I could react, she had pulled my heater from its holster and stepped backward. We all know we’re going to die, but none of us really believe it’s true, that is, until we’re staring down the barrel of a loaded .38. It has a way of changing your perception.
Bobby broke free from his pose. “What are you doing, Jeannie?”
“He’s going to expose us,” Jeannie said. “He knows the truth.”
Bobby looked at me and sighed. “Enough, Jeannie,” he said. “There’s been enough killing. Put the gun down.”
Jeannie’s face hardened. “Don’t wimp out on me now,” she said. “Bilotti deserved what he got. He killed our father and our uncle and killed mother just as if he had slit her throat. He was a monster and he deserved to die. Do you think I let that man touch me all those times for nothing? Do you have any idea what it felt like to have his hands on me? To have to kiss him; make love to him? There isn’t enough soap in the world to erase that feeling. Slicing his throat was long overdue. We took care of Bilotti and we can take care of this one too.”
“You can’t just keep killing people,” Bobby said as he stepped closer.
“Just this one,” Jeannie said. “It’ll all end when he’s dead.”
“She’s right,” I offered. “You have to kill me. It’s the only way. Chicago will be satisfied and the police will just hang Bilotti’s death on me. Mobsters taking each other out.”
“See,” Jeannie offered. “Max knows. He’s the smart one.”
Bobby looked at me, and then Jeannie. “No!” he said wringing his hands. “You can’t! I never should have agreed to any of this.”
“Buck up,” Jeannie told him. “I’m just doing what you couldn’t do. You and those idiots you hired. How hard is it to kill a man anyway?”
I had a feeling Jeannie already knew the answer to that question. It was an answer I wouldn’t like. What I didn’t know was that it was Bobby who had tried to take me out; who had shot up my suite. That’s why he moved me there. Good ol’ Bobby.
“You put those kids in the hospital,” I said to him, doing nothing to hide my disgust.
“You weren’t supposed to give anyone your suite,” he said in his defense. “It was supposed to be only you. I didn’t know…”
His words trailed off and he looked down at the floor. I turned my attention to Jeannie. “Your only problem is what to do with the body,” I said. “You can’t hide it, because Chicago will need to know I’ve been taken out. But you can’t leave it here either, cause you won’t be able to explain why you killed me in your own house, with my gun.”
“I’ll figure all that out later,” Jeannie said. “Right now, its lights out for you, Max.”
Just like at the poker tables, you can always tell when someone’s bluffing, if you just pay attention. Their body movements. The look in their eyes. That certain hesitation that tells you they don’t have the stomach for it. But Jeannie wasn’t bluffing. I saw it in her eyes. She pulled the trigger. The bang was deafening.
“No!” Bobby yelled and threw his body in front of me, just as Tony had done to save his bride. The bullet hit him square in the chest and he fell with a thud. Jeannie stared for a moment, then she dropped the gun and screamed.
She rushed to her brother. I went to the gun. I picked it up and placed it back into my shoulder holster, the metal still warm from the shot. When I turned, Jeannie was kneeling over Bobby, sobbing deeply. She looked up at me with pleading eyes. “Do something,” she said.
I picked up the phone.
Thirty-Six
WITH THE HOSPITAL only minutes away, the ambulance got there fast. The police were right behind. Queeney arrived about a half hour later. I waited outside while he did his business inside. After a while, the paramedics came out with Bobby’s body on a stretcher, covered with a white sheet. The man had treated me like a king, then had tried to kill me, before jumping in front of a slug to save me.
I wondered how much was coincidental and how much had been planned. Had Bobby really not been able to spot that cheat? Or had he just used the opportunity to get me in good graces with management so he could upgrade me to a suite with a convenient sliding
door access from the back? As I was pondering it all, Jeannie was escorted out of the house in bracelets. Her head was down, but I could see her eyes and cheeks were blackened from mascara. I would have gone over to her and said something, but really, what was there to say to a woman so bent on revenge, she’d give her own body to a man just so she could kill him.
After a few minutes Queeney came outside. “I’m gonna need that gat,” he said.
I pulled it from my shoulder holster and handed it to him. “You’re welcome to it,” I said. “So long as I get it back.”
“You’ll get it back.” He paused. “Eventually.” He whistled to a bluebottle, motioning for him to come over. When the man got there, Queeney handed him the .38. “Take this to my partner, inside.” When the officer left, Queeney pulled out his notebook, clutching the pencil, as he had before, in his giant-sized fingers. “Spill it,” he said.
“What’s there to spill?” I asked. “You already know the story. Jeannie and Bobby were brother and sister. After their father was killed and their mother drank herself to death, they changed their names and started over.”
“But not in Las Vegas,” Queeney said.
“No. I imagine they tried New York first,” I said. “Virginia told me they were in a show together.”
“Jeannie confirmed that too,” Queeney said. “Told me her brother was a maître d’ at a fancy restaurant there. I guess when the show Jeannie was dancing in closed, she left town and Robert went with her.”
“Doesn’t surprise me,” I admitted. “He strikes me as the kind who went wherever she did. I’m guessing she was the older sibling.”
Queeney tapped his nose.
“Virginia contacted Jeannie and let her know about the search for Copa Girls,” I said. “When she got picked, Bobby must have come with her. His experience in a high-end restaurant would’ve helped him get the pit boss position. I don’t think they expected to run into Bilotti, but when they did, Jeannie devised a plan.”
“Jeannie?” Queeney asked. “She told me it was Robert who came up with the plan.”
“I’m sure she did,” I said. “But it wasn’t Bobby’s plan. He was just a lackey doing his sister’s bidding.”
Queeney raised an eyebrow. “But he was the one who tried to have you killed.”
“Sure, I handed them that on a silver platter didn’t I? Somebody got the better of Bilotti, all they had to do was finish what he started and everyone would look to that rube. Just like you did.”
“You can’t blame me for doing my job, Rossi.”
He was right, of course. But it didn’t make me any less sore about it. “I’m sure whoever was hired to take me out had no connections to New York or Chicago,” I said. “I don’t know how Bobby found them, but there are a lot of freelancers out there.”
“I’m sure his sister dating a mobster helped,” Queeney offered.
“You’re probably right,” I said.
“And the beat down?” Queeney asked.
“That was someone else,” I said. “Someone trying to get a message across to me.”
“And I suppose you’re not going to tell me who that was.”
I smiled and tapped my own nose.
“All right,” Queeney said. “Play it that way.” He wrote for a minute, then looked back up at me. “What was the message for?” he asked. “The one you left at the desk.”
“I had some information to give you, but it doesn’t matter now,” I said.
Queeney chewed his gums a bit and looked me over. “What tipped you off?” he finally asked.
“It was Bobby’s last name,” I said. “Hill. In Italian, Hill is Collina. I guess he kept his first name, but changed his last. I don’t know if he was trying to be clever or was just lacking creativity.”
“People tend to keep their real first names,” Queeney said. “It’s what they’re used to being called by and they don’t want to slip. Bobby’s close enough to Robert. They probably called him that as a kid. It makes sense.”
“Who do you think did it?” I asked.
“My money’s on the dame,” Queeney said. “She’s got the look.”
“Then you don’t believe her story?”
“It’s not up to me to believe,” Queeney said. “It’s my job to gather evidence and then present that evidence to the D.A. All I know is, I wouldn’t want to cross her.”
“Oh,” I said. “I almost forgot.” I pulled the note from my back pocket and handed it to Queeney. “I found this note in a hidden compartment on Jeannie’s desk.”
Queeney looked at me hard. “I thought you didn’t find anything at Jeannie’s apartment,” he said.
I shrugged.
He took the note and read it out loud. “I can’t do this anymore. There has to be another way.”
“At first I thought the note was from Jeannie to Bobby,” I said. “But the writing looked familiar and then it dawned on me. I had seen Bobby’s writing on comps. That note had come from him to Jeannie, not the other way around. I’m guessing sometime before they took out Bilotti, Bobby had second thoughts.”
“For all the good it did him,” Queeney said. He tucked the note in his pocket and turned to leave, then stopped. “You’re okay, Rossi,” he said. “Just keep your nose clean.”
I nodded as Queeney left. I guess he was okay too. It’s not easy living up to your family. I knew that and Queeney knew it as well. Somehow Bobby must have known it too. I thought back to the phone call Bobby had made outside the Sands and wondered who he was calling. He had arranged another room for me and had my bags moved there. He was surprised when I told him I didn’t need it because of my house downtown. I shook my head. Bobby was probably giving whoever he hired the information they needed to finish the job. Good ol’ Bobby.
The sun was coming up and I needed sleep, but Vic needed to go to the hospital more and I did too. I needed to know if Tina had made it through the night.
Thirty-Seven
I MET VIC at the front desk. “You look like hell,” he said.
“You have no idea. Come on, I’ll tell you about it on the way.” We piled into the Roadmaster and headed to the hospital. I told Vic my tale as we went.
“You’re a dangerous man to have as a friend,” Vic said when we got there.
I couldn’t argue the point.
We went upstairs to the ICU and were happy to find that Tony was no longer there.
“He’s been moved to the floor below,” the nurse told us. She was the same nurse from the day before with same disposition. I’d bet against a full house that she didn’t like me. I really couldn’t blame her.
“What about Tina,” I asked.
“She’s still in ICU,” the nurse said, addressing Vic. “If you hurry, I think the doctor is still in with her.”
We rushed down the hallway to find the doctor was indeed in the room. It was the same doctor who had fixed me up; the one who said Tina’s making it through the night would count as a miracle. He had what I assumed was Tina’s chart in his hand and he was concentrating on the machine she was hooked up to. The tubes were still there; still helping her breathe. She looked the same as she did every time I closed my eyes.
The doctor looked up and saw us standing outside. He gestured for us to give him a minute and we did. We watched as he took hold of her wrist to check her pulse, then placed his stethoscope on her chest to check her heart. He could probably hear mine from inside the room. He did other checks for other reasons, but gave no indication of whether what he found was good or troublesome, only writing in Tina’s chart after each check.
The temperature in the hallway seemed to rise quickly. Vic wrung his hands. The sight brought back unpleasant memories from the night before. My head was beginning to spin, so I leaned back against the wall for support. I could hear each tick of the clock at the end of the hall. The doctor took his time. I sopped my head with my handkerchief. We waited.
When the doctor finally emerged, he walked over to Vic. “You’re the brother
-in-law?” he asked. Vic assured him he was. “Your sister-in-law is still in critical condition,” the doctor said. He looked at me. “But she did make it through the night, and that’s something.”
Vic asked the question we both needed to know. “Is she going to make it, Doc?”
“It’s too soon to tell,” he said. “At this point, it could go either way. She took several hits and we had to extract a fair amount of glass from her chest, legs, and abdomen. But she’s lucky. The bullets didn’t damage anything vital and there was no spinal column injury.”
“That’s good news, right Doc?” I asked.
“As good as can be expected at this point,” he said.
“What about Tony?” Vic asked.
“We moved him out of ICU.”
“That’s good right?” Vic asked.
The doctor nodded. “That’s good,” he said. “I believe your brother will be just fine. We had to remove some glass, he was shot in the stomach, and his femur was shattered, but mostly he has only cuts and bruises. We will operate this afternoon to set his leg and put it in a cast. He will have to do rehabilitation, but he should come out of it all right. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have other patients to attend.”
Vic offered his hand and the doctor took it. “Thank you, Doc,” Vic said.
The doctor nodded, glanced at me, then left.
“That’s good news, right?” Vic asked.
“It’s good news, Vic,” I assured him. “Let’s go see Tony.”
We made our way down to the next floor and after checking with the desk nurse, we found Tony’s room. He was lying in bed, his eyes half-mast. Vic went to his side and took his hand. I stayed at the foot of the bed.
Tony gave Vic a weak smile and spoke his name. Then he mouthed something I couldn’t hear. Vic bend over, placing his ear near Tony’s mouth.