Sin City Assassin (The Bill Dix Detective Series Book 3)

by Swinney, C. L.

  “Make the damn calls. Four grenades in twenty-nine minutes or I keep you alive long enough to torture you, and then kill you.” Blass shook his gun at the man.

  “All right! Please, don’t do this!” The supplier frantically fished out his cell phone and began calling people to find more grenades. He called several people who either didn’t answer or didn’t have what he needed. He sent out a flurry of text messages and left frantic voicemails. The pain in his leg reverberated through his body and it projected in his voice. He desperately hoped someone had a few grenades laying around.

  Blass looked at the man, his watch, and back at the supplier. “You’ve got twenty-five minutes.”

  “Please! I’m trying; you can see I’m trying! No one is…” the supplier’s cell phone rang. He grinned as he noticed the number belonged to his brother who was an ATF Agent. His family had no idea what he did, but he and his brother had always had an agreement. Don’t ask and don’t tell. And, if either of them needed something badly, like a life or death situation, they’d call the other one and use the code word ‘Larry’ indicating they were being held hostage.

  “Hello! Yes, Larry, listen, I’m a dead man if you don’t bring four of them right now behind the abandoned building off of Lamplite on the east side of town,” said the supplier. He listened intently as the man on the other end of the phone replied.

  “Try to calm down, can you speak freely?” asked the supplier’s brother.

  “No! Just bring me four grenades, damn it.”

  “I’m going to do what I can. Sit tight and we’ll be there as fast as we can,” replied the supplier’s brother in a calm voice. The supplier caught that he said ‘we’ and hoped his brother was bringing a whole team to save him.

  The supplier nodded. “Okay, and hurry, I’ve only got twenty minutes or I’m dead, this guy ain’t playing, Larry.” The supplier’s brother caught that it was one male who was holding his brother hostage. He hung up, hoping he’d see his brother one last time.

  “Well?” asked Blass.

  “He’s coming, man. Please, I’m going to bleed out by then. Please let me go.”

  “No can do, pal. Your guy gets here in twenty minutes with the grenades and you live. He can drive you to the hospital. He fucks up, and he’s dead too.” Blass had a sick smile on his face. He retrieved the supplier’s handgun and started unloading the stuff from the Mercedes into his car. The supplier moaned in pain and writhed on the pavement.

  Blass couldn’t have cared less. All that mattered was rescuing Marie and killing everyone else, including Bill Dix.

  He finished loading his car and noticed a Chevy Tahoe slowly coming around the corner toward his location. He’d never seen the vehicle before and noticed the windows were completely tinted, even the windshield, making it impossible to see who was inside. Blass looked at the supplier and back at the Tahoe and grinned.

  “Well, looks like it’s your lucky day. I get my four grenades and you get to live,” Blass said as he noticed the Tahoe take a defensive position and stop well short of his location. Blass resisted an urge to walk toward the vehicle. He looked on the front seat of his car and felt comfort seeing his AR-15 rifle and extra magazine within his reach.

  He noticed the supplier had calmed down tremendously and wondered why. It was like he saw the Tahoe and thought his nightmare was over. It bothered Blass. He sensed something wasn’t right, but couldn’t know what it was since he couldn’t see into the Tahoe.

  A man opened the driver’s door and poked his head out. “Everyone okay?” asked the driver.

  Before Blass could reply, the supplier answered, “Just drop the grenades off and get me to the damn hospital, Larry!”

  The driver noticed his brother had been shot and there was quite a bit of blood on the pavement.

  “Jesus, man,” he looked at Blass, “I don’t know who you are, but here,” he pulled out a wooden box and pushed it out away from the Tahoe, “here’s your damn grenades!” Blass recognized the box from his time in the military and assumed it was genuine. Even though it looked good, he needed to see the contents.

  “He’ll go when I see inside the box. Step out, show me the contents, and you can take him to the hospital,” Blass demanded.

  The man looked back inside the Tahoe and appeared to say something. He slowly looked back at Blass and exited the vehicle and began opening the box. He tipped the box forward. Blass could see what looked like four genuine grenades. At the same time the supplier slumped over. His body made a thud as it hit the pavement.

  The man the supplier called Larry could see his brother was likely dead and yelled, “Now!”

  The doors to the Tahoe burst open and four men jumped out with automatic rifles. They began firing on Blass as the driver’s head exploded from a sniper round. Blass heard the loud boom and chuckled as he popped up firing wildly at the men using the Tahoe for cover. He grabbed one of the grenades and lobbed it at the Tahoe. It rolled toward the Tahoe and exploded, sheering off the front end of the vehicle and launching it into the air. Two torsos also flew in the air as the grenade exploded. Two shooters remained. One turned to run toward a dumpster for cover and was shot and killed by the sniper. The last guy saw he was beat and dropped his gun and put his hands in the air as though he was giving up.

  That was a mistake, thought Blass. He lined the guy’s heart up in his scope and squeezed off three rounds. They slammed his chest and his body contorted and blew apart before falling to the pavement. Blass calmly walked over to what remained of the Tahoe and scanned it for remaining threats and did not locate any. He retrieved the box of grenades and looked at his man on the rooftop. He smiled at him and gave him the signal to clear out.

  Blass loaded the box containing the grenades into his vehicle and slammed the trunk shut. He walked over to the supplier and kicked him to see if he was alive. The man groaned and tried to lift his head but was too weak.

  Blass knelt down next to the man’s head and whispered, “You’re a smart mother fucker, but now not only will you be dead, but so too will the rest of your family.”

  The supplier opened his eyes and stirred when he heard that his brother was dead. He looked at Blass and realized he wasn’t going to heaven because he was staring at the devil himself. He did not see angels or a white light. His soul levitated over his dead body and watched as Blass picked up a large rock.

  Blass slammed his head repeatedly with the rock. Blood splattered on his face and he finally quit when the lifeless skull lay shattered on the pavement. I do this for you, Marie. Hold on my love, I’m coming.

  Chapter 36:

  Dix started to turn the doorknob to Marie’s room as he felt his cell phone vibrating. He didn’t want to look at it to see who was calling him, but he retrieved it anyway. He stopped short of entering the room when he saw it was his good friend and retired Sergeant Andrew Snead. He realized he had been so engrossed reading files, making phone calls, analyzing data, and thinking about how to catch a mastermind that he’d completely forgotten he’d called him when this case started.

  “Hey Andrew, I completely forgot I even called you. How are you?” Dix motioned with his fingers to Frazier that he was tied up on the call and pointed to the interrogator.

  Frazier gave Dix a puzzled look.

  Dix covered the receiver of his cell phone and told Frazier to send the kid in and see what he could get from Marie.

  Snead replied, “I’m great. Sorry it took me so long to get back to you. My friend in Canada was on vacation and she gave me a number to a guy, who told me to call another guy. You remember how it feels to get the blow off?”

  Dix laughed. “I sure do. I recall you doing that more than a few times to me.” The two laughed as they caught up. Snead explained that the Roy family was a notorious criminal family in Toronto.

  Snead continued. “Apparently the whole lot of them is bad. Generations of assholes raising havoc in Canada and along the U.S. border. Anyway, after I felt like I was getting the run aro
und, my friend called me with a whole file on the family, everything from relatives, locations, rap sheets, and even previously used cell phone numbers.”

  Dix whistled, “Wow. I guess your friend came through.”

  “She sure did. It’s a real gold mine.”

  “Okay, send the digital files to my email. I’m about to interview the ‘Praying Mantis.’ She’s the most sadistic killer I think I’ve ever come across.” Dix second-guessed his ability and really did not want to engage the assassin. He reasoned that unless Frazier’s guy was successful, he was going to have to talk to her.

  “Well, near as I can tell, you have no other options right now. Somehow you’ll get something. Go over the file I just sent you before you talk to her. You’re gonna need every piece of information you can get.” Snead wished Dix would not be stubborn and just go talk to the assassin. He hoped the training and insight he provided Dix during his career would be good for something. From what he read of the Roy family file, they were merciless and the entire family had served prison time.

  “I don’t have much time, but I’ll look at it. Anything you think I definitely need to know?” Dix asked.

  Snead nodded. “My friend in Canada, and the case notes, suggest another person assumed not to be a family member, is actually calling the shots. The Canadians suspect that a prominent business man in Toronto, a fella named Roger Laurin, may be involved.”

  “Wait what? Did you say Roger Laurin?”

  “You heard me, I said Roger Laurin. Does that mean something to you?” Snead shuffled the paperwork in front of him to locate a pen and pad to write down whatever Dix had about Roger Laurin.

  “Yup. We found paperwork in the burned out Range Rover in Pahrump with the company name ‘RL Associates’ on it. Apparently it’s owned and run by a man named Roger Laurin. We need to dig up everything we can on this guy.”

  “Don’t get too excited. I’m already looking at him. He’s fairly well insulated because he donates time and money to groups and seems pretty clean,” Snead replied with a huff.

  Dix grumbled. “Just keep looking into him, please.” Dix didn’t like the sound of it on the surface. He figured Roger Laurin was probably a little dirty; most businessmen need to be to move ahead of the competition, but the odds that he was the mastermind everyone was looking for seemed small.

  “Okay, I’ll see what I can find. Keep me posted and good luck with the Mantis,” answered Snead.

  “Thanks, but I’m going to need more than luck I think.” Dix replied.

  *******

  Dix met back up with Frazier and updated him. He began forwarding the emails from Snead to Frazier. He printed out a driver’s license photo of Robert Laurin and added it to Marie’s file. He had Pierre quickly create a fake photo of a dead man with Robert Laurin’s face. Then he and Frazier discussed a ruse to use in case Dix was getting nowhere with Marie.

  “When I say ‘hmm,’ come in to the room and bring me Robert Laurin’s doctored photo. I’ll ask you a few questions in a whisper, and you’ll tell me this guy was just killed in a shootout with cops where Petersen is,” Dix said to Frazier. He nodded, and the trap was set.

  *******

  Dix was sure he would have his hands full with Marie. Her file screamed of anger, and she clearly had no regard for other humans. It was not the sort of interrogation he wanted to deal with.

  He reached for the door handle to Marie’s room and heard a thump inside. Dix casually opened the door and found the rookie on the floor and Marie smiling with a small trickle of blood coming from her forehead. He assumed she’d just head-butted the agent.

  He turned and called outside the room, “Get me an ice-pack and a couple fellas to take junior to the infirmary to get his head looked at.”

  Two agents rushed in the room. They assessed the situation and rightly figured Marie had just attacked the interrogator. One man started to move toward Marie. He had anger in his eyes and Dix was pretty sure he was going to do something he would regret later.

  Dix slid over and got in between the agent and Marie.

  “This bitch is gonna pay. Get out of my way or I’ll move you out of the way,” said the agent to Dix.

  Dix sized the man up. He was large and appeared to be in great shape, but he felt he could prevent him from doing whatever it was he wanted to do to Marie. He also noticed another agent enter the room and disable the camera and audio system.

  Marie snickered. “You’d be an easy one. I see how you look at me, how you lust for my body. I’d let you get a little touch of my skin and you’d quiver just before I jammed a knife in your heart,” she said to one of the agents.

  Dix glared at her and held his hands about waist high, “Fellas, this isn’t going down like this. Let me deal with her. I’m telling you right now, no one is hitting a handcuffed woman regardless of who she is.” He pointed to the camera. “You got rid of that, but you do something stupid and I’ll have to be a witness.” He hoped the little speech would give the agents more time to think about what they were about to do. Dix positioned himself in a way to protect Marie and have a tactical advantage against the two remaining agents by blading himself to them and standing between them.

  “Please, let them come closer,” she laughed, “Didn’t work so well for the last guy you dragged out of here.”

  The bigger agent looked at his friend, back to Dix, and over at Marie. Dix could tell he wanted to wring Marie’s neck. However, he looked back at his friend and shrugged as a wry smile developed on his face. “You can’t protect this bitch forever. Get what you need, then get the fuck out of our building.” The men exited before Dix could reply.

  After reconnecting the camera and audio, he slid back the chair and sat down looking at Marie. She really was a piece of work. He noticed she was in fact stunning, but her eyes were like a viper’s, and he could tell she used her body to seduce men before killing them. Somewhere someone really hurt you, he thought.

  Instead of talking to her, he pulled out her file and began reading it again. He’d only have a few minutes until the feds transported her to a high-risk facility. He assumed Marie was a control freak and wondered how to use that to interrogate her. Dix felt taking control away from her might cause her to slip up. He determined a standard interrogation would not work with her because she was intelligent, evil, and simply didn’t fit any textbook definition of a killer.

  One by one, he pulled out the gruesome photos of the people she’d killed or was suspected of killing. When he lined the photos all out in a row, even he was shocked. He counted thirty-six dead bodies, two of which were women. Dix assumed Marie had been hired to kill these people. But, what about the women?

  Each photo he placed in front of Marie caused her eyes to light up and her smile to grow wider. He watched her carefully, but the more he saw of her devious reactions to the dead bodies, the less he wanted to see.

  Marie nodded to a photo to her right. “That fat bastard deserved to die. I walked in on him having sex with a child. His head splattered all over the bedroom wall. It was glorious.”

  Dix did not reply and he didn’t acknowledge her.

  She raised an eyebrow and whistled. “That one,” she said as she nodded in front of her. “That arrogant prick actually thought I loved him. He was extremely cautious, though, so I had to let him get inside me before he dropped his guard and I killed him.” She watched Dix for a reaction and got none. The only thing she knew about Dix came from Blass and he’d written Dix off as a hot-shot detective with no intelligence. She studied his face, mostly his eyes, hoping to figure out what made him tick, but the more she pushed, the further he pulled away.

  He studied the pictures of the dead women. Both had burn marks and slices down their backs and he recognized they’d obviously been tortured. He figured Marie likely tortured them to find their lover or husband so she could assassinate them. The images and thoughts caused a shiver to run down his back, but he tried desperately not to let Marie see how her murderous life af
fected him.

  “Look asshole, you think sparing me a beating is gonna get me to talk? Fuck you, Dix. And fuck your soon-to-be-dead partner.” She lunged at him but the chains held her back.

  Dix resisted the urge to smack her himself and kept feigning to read her file. He was beginning to get under her skin, and although the thought made him sick to his stomach, he needed to push forward to break open this case.

  “Hmm,” Dix said without looking at Marie.

  On cue, Frazier knocked and came into the room. “Hey, we need to talk.”

  Dix slowly got up and the two huddled in the corner and began talking in a quiet whisper. Dix carefully spoke a few key words just loud enough that Marie might hear them. He grabbed Frazier’s arm and turned him away from Marie so they both remembered not to look at her during the ruse.

  “So Pahrump and RL Associates are connected to Robert Laurin?” Dix asked with a fake puzzled look on his face.

  “Yup, and now,” Frazier continued as he pulled the photo of Robert Laurin out, “this Robert Laurin guy was gunned down outside the hospital where Petersen is.”

  “Jesus, is Petersen okay?” Dix asked while doing his best to look concerned and worried.

  Frazier nodded, “A little shaken up, but he’s gonna be fine.”

  “Man, now what?” Dix continued with the ruse.

  “The feds are working with the Canadian authorities to grab people working for RL Associates… and some family, Roy, or something like that,” answered Frazier.

  “Roy? Who the hell are they?” Dix had a puzzled look on his face while internally hoping the ruse was working. He really didn’t want to battle Marie, so he was acting out the ruse while trying to get her to say something without even knowing she did it.

  “Beats me, but someone connected the dots somehow. Either way, it sucks to be them.” Frazier laughed. “They’re sending U.S. teams to hit all the locations with the Canadians, people are gonna die.”

  Dix turned and grabbed his file while Frazier left the room. He let the picture of Robert Laurin slip from his grasp and it waffled from side to side before landing on the floor face up. Pure luck, Dix mused, let’s see if this works.