Cool Heat

by Richter Watkins

  Rouse had that panic twang in his voice as he whispered in Thorp’s ear, “This is an emergency. Come out on the deck.”

  “Gentlemen,” Thorp said, “make yourselves at home. The bar tabs are on me. I’ll be right back.”

  “What now?” Thorp uttered with a low hiss as he followed Rouse down the hall and out past the bar. He’d been back from the funeral less than three hours and in the midst of an important tour for a small group of big investors and wasn’t in the mood for interruptions. But he could see it was serious. Maybe the body of Cillo or Shaun had been found and there was a police investigation or news reports.

  Rouse led him outside on the patio above the swimming pool, his face all tight, a weird, frantic look in his eyes.

  Thorp stopped. “What?”

  “Your boy is back,” Rouse said in a low voice. “He’s down there in his cabin, and he’s in bad shape. Got his face broken.”

  “What in hell—?”

  “Happened at Shaun’s place,” Rouse said.

  “I thought Corbin was out of the picture?”

  “He is. You’re not going to believe this. He was there going through some of Corbin’s stuff when Jesup and Cruz showed up.”

  Thorp couldn’t believe that. He was stunned. “What the hell are you talking about? Speak up, for Christ’s sake.”

  Rouse said, “What I could get from him, he got into a fight and he got the worst of it. Got hit hard in the head with a steel bar or maybe a dumbbell.”

  Thorp couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Something like this was impossible. Insane. Sydney Jesup and the criminal nephew of Cillo’s still in Tahoe, and they beat up the pro? It was beyond comprehension. It couldn’t be true.

  Thorp asked, “He sure it was them? How does he know it was them? I don’t understand.”

  “Ask him yourself who beat the hell out of him. He was lucky to escape. He wants to see you. And he wants painkillers,” Rouse said. “I sent for some and a gun. No way I’m going down there again.” He pushed a package at Thorp.

  “What’s this?” Thorp, in a daze of disbelief, took the package.

  “He wanted OxyContin. What he needs is an X-ray or MRI and medical treatment, but he’s not interested in that right now. He’s crazy. He’s mumbling about broken bones in his face. They got everything.”

  “Everything what?”

  “Corbin’s computer and files and whatever he had. He’s nuts right now. Threatening to kill half the people in Tahoe. He wants a replacement for his gun. It’s in the bag. If I were you, I’d consider shooting him. Bring in somebody to clean up.”

  “He lost his gun?” Thorp couldn’t believe this. It was unacceptable. The idea that Jesup wasn’t all that shot up—that she had this Cruz with her and they were on the move and had gone after Corbin—was just not what he needed right now. The whole deal could blow up in his face.

  Rouse said, “Yeah. This greatest of all”—he lowered his voice—”hit men got his ass kicked in a fight and lost his gun. This guy you want on retainer, or to run all your security operations, is waiting for you.”

  “I don’t believe this.”

  “Believe it. This Cruz she’s hooked up with could be real trouble. He needs to be dealt with soon. You want, I’ll get them to open the Sinatra tunnel.”

  “No. He said he’d kill anybody who came through there. He didn’t like it when I did it the first time.”

  “You have the gun,” Rouse said. “He’s incapacitated.”

  “Then maybe you should deliver this.”

  “No. He wants to see you.”

  Thorp looked down at the Celebrity Cabin. Going down there wasn’t something he wanted to do. He glanced up at the veranda and saw concerned faces looking at them. He turned to Rouse. “Go entertain them. Tell them I have to deal with a relative. This is a fucking nightmare.”

  39

  On the way down the hill, Thorp glanced toward Incline across Crystal Bay. At this moment on the main lawn of his estate, though he couldn’t see anything from where he was, the band platform for the weekend Gatsby Gala was under construction. Already one of the big tents was laid out and ready to be raised.

  Thorp swore bitterly, his blood pressure maxed out. He struggled to breathe, his chest tight as a fist, his mouth clenched. He wasn’t happy at all about going down there to meet this greatest hit man of all time, this top of the line, this crème de la crème who got his ass kicked.

  He knocked on the cabin’s side door and heard a mumble. He went in.

  “—took long enough,” the killer, sitting on the bed, muttered in a thick whisper, his jaw not moving when he talked, like a ventriloquist.

  Thorp, trying not to shake, to show fear or weakness, handed him the bag.

  The face of this greatest of all hit men was a bloated mass of distorted flesh around the mouth, eyes, and nose. Just looking at him made Thorp extremely uneasy. Something really nasty had happened to this guy. Thorp shook his head, all kinds of terrible scenarios whirling around.

  The killer clenched and unclenched his left fist, his right hand at his face. Then he rolled his neck. A man in terrible pain.

  Out on Ogden’s lake, as Thorp liked to think of Lake Tahoe, sailboats and speedboats darted about at play, awaiting the next big thing to hit Tahoe.

  The suicide specialist stared at Thorp, right eye bloodshot, swollen. He was holding an ice pack against his face. Up close, he looked like a freakish, inflamed gargoyle.

  “Goddamn!” Thorp said.

  “Pills,” the killer muttered, fishing around in the bag. He came out with the OxyContin.

  “Richard said they hit you with a dumbbell. Jesus, that’s like getting hit with a damn sledgehammer.”

  Leon took the bottle, dumped a couple OxyContin tablets out, and slipped them one at a time between his teeth, apparently not able to open his mouth. He picked up a drink he had sitting on a table to wash them down, but most of the water fell down his chin.

  “The woman with him—definitely Sydney Jesup?”

  Leon nodded.

  “You need to get your face looked at. I can get you someone who won’t ask questions or remember the visit. Take a look and see if you have broken bones.” Thorp thought as he spoke of getting more guys up here fast to deal with this mess.

  Leon shook his head. Waited a minute before whispering, “Later.”

  Blood bubbles formed at the corners of his mouth like the froth of someone with rabies. He said, “I got work to do tonight. One of your girls…”

  “One of my girls?”

  “Kor…ah…Kora North.”

  Thorp had to lean in, get uncomfortably close just to make out what he was saying, the noise of a powerboat all but drowning him out. “What about her?”

  “Showed up,” the killer said with a tight grimace, swearing under his breath. “At Corbin’s…they took her. I need address. Find out why.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “…kidnapped. Or working with them.” His eyes flashed in rage.

  Thorp backed off. He saw the killer in the guy just then. That look in the eyes like a cobra.

  “Kora North,” Thorp said. “Are you sure?”

  “Address,” he whispered. “Give me her goddamn address.”

  Thorp, so buoyant a few minutes ago, now began to feel cracks developing everywhere around him. He saw a massive conspiracy rising. At the root of it, this insane woman who’d linked up with this criminal nephew of Cillo’s. That he hadn’t killed her a long time ago…the biggest mistake of his life. Rouse’s fault. The nervous fool had counseled against it. Weak. Pathetically weak.

  “Look,” Thorp said. “We can get you help. But you don’t look in any condition to be doing much of anything. We can bring up a couple of Vegas boys to deal—”

  “You bring nobody,” he whispered in a guttural snarl. “You just do what I ask. You hear me?”

  Thorp stared at the killer’s eyes. Like looking into gun barrels. He nodded.

  “Her
address?”

  Thorp said, “She lives in the Tahoe Keys in South Lake. You want the speedboat?” Thorp said, “I have a guy who can get you over there fast.”

  The killer shook his head. “Last thing I need is to be slamming across water in a fucking boat.”

  “I don’t want her dead,” Thorp said. “Get this settled. This girl is my Daisy, playing the Mia Farrow role at my party. Don’t mess her up.”

  The killer’s expression grew reptilian cold.

  “Look,” Thorp pleaded, scared of his guy, “she’s worth too much. One of my best assets.”

  The killer stared at him.

  Thorp had to make the guy understand. Kora was important. She got men to do things they wouldn’t ordinarily do. The best films, the best arm twisting came from her. Men fell in love, went nuts, did what they did, and paid the price. Thorp controlled himself. He was famous—and had been all his life—for his tantrum-like outbursts when frustrated. But not with this guy.

  Thorp said, “She’s too valuable to me. Find out what you need to find out, old sport, but I need her. She’s a favorite of some very powerful people. She’s expected at my party.”

  The guy waved him out.

  This top professional in the business had gotten the shit kicked out of him by Marco Cruz. Thorp thought about that as he left, and it didn’t improve his mood. He wished Corbin was alive. He’d take the son of a bitch down into the tunnel and feed him to George.

  Thorp stood for a moment looking at his lake. The black ring of mountains. His world. His family’s world. They had cleared the Indians out of here. Built the railroads. This was Thorp’s world on the verge of greatness, but now on the verge of destruction if things continued downhill. And he was about to expand that legacy, that birthright, to include the greatest vacation resort on this earth.

  And on the verge of the biggest, most important weekend of my life—the Great Gatsby Gala—now this.

  ***

  Leon took another pill. He waited. Finally, after long minutes, he felt some change. Some relief.

  He checked the replacement gun, a Glock 23-40 with concealed clip holster and two 17 round mags. Nice weapon.

  The hunt had taken a turn, and now it was war. He could get his face fixed later.

  40

  Sydney and Marco drove back into South Lake a little after ten that night, using back streets to keep off the main boulevard. They’d spent the afternoon and evening in the Range Rover thirty miles from Tahoe up in the mountains, seats back, trying to get some sleep. Marco didn’t know how Sydney was holding up. She kept saying she was fine, but he could tell that wasn’t exactly true. He’d taken some big shots from the guy he’d fought and was feeling the effects now, putting him in a grim mood.

  Something seemed to be bothering Sydney.

  “Maybe the guy who killed Shaun lived long enough to call whoever his contact is,” she said. “Maybe he told them about us, about Kora.”

  “Not likely. I head his skull crack and I saw him drop. That boy survived long enough to make a call, would be something, especially since he left this behind.” Marco pulled out the cell phone. “Forgot in all the rushing around that I’d picked it up. So quit all this worrying.”

  She nodded. Sydney had made contact with her reporter friend, and he’d called back and told her where to find Dutch Grimes. A watering hole called Pop’s, two blocks off the main drag. Sydney said she knew the place from having passed it many times but had never been inside.

  “Been a long, strange day,” Sydney said as they drove into a back parking lot of Pop’s Place. “From Gatts to Corbin and now Dutch Grimes. I don’t know if we’re moving up the social ladder.”

  Marco drained the coffee they’d stopped for, nodding to that. He put the cup in the holder and prepared to go get their target. She’d given him a description of Dutch. He got out and left her to watch for anybody coming into the parking lot they might not want to encounter.

  He entered the bar through the rear door. He wore sunglasses and the wide-rim hat, an Airflow Tilley that he’d borrowed from Shaw.

  The place was moody—no music, dark, one of those old joints that hadn’t gotten upgraded. A place where you expect to see sticky flypaper dangling from the ceiling. No Monday-evening crowd here, no dancing girls. No Bada Bing. A low-end joint for the pool players and serious drinkers.

  In the center of the establishment stood two pool tables getting some action. Players, bottles, cigarettes, and a couple of over-the-hill girls still trying to get around the block a few more times, but with lesser dudes to choose from. The place had that end-of-time look and feel. The last hurrah.

  Sydney had described Dutch as a geeky-looking guy, tall and skinny. Marco picked him out at one of the pool tables, then went to the far end of the bar. At a booth, three other guys silently worked on their drinks.

  Marco, being a stranger in a local watering hole, was put on hold by the “busy-in-conversation” bartender, a guy who looked like he’d fallen off a prison bus, weighed down by excessive tattoos. Marco took the time to write a note in the small notebook he always carried, then ripped it out.

  Finally having decided to wait on the big-hat stranger, the bartender ambled over, cleaning a glass as he did. “What can I do for you, partner?”

  Marco handed him a note, told him it was important. “Give it to the tall dude playing pool. The one in the blue shirt. He needs to see this.”

  Before the bartender could react one way or another, Marco placed a twenty on the note, turned, and walked out. The note he’d left was simple: Message from Incline. Next week’s Gatsby Gala. Come out back. Now.

  ***

  Sydney sat in the Range Rover fiddling with the .38 and watching everything and everyone who came near the parking lot. The bar was a couple blocks from the casinos.

  This has to work out with Dutch or we have no chance, Sydney thought. Marco would be out, and she would be on her way somewhere.

  She wondered how long it would be before somebody found Corbin’s body. And what was Kora thinking, maybe doing? So many things could go wrong.

  Finally, she saw Marco come out and walk back to the SUV. He leaned in the open window on the driver’s side. “He should be coming out.”

  “You talk to him?” Marco looked on edge, as stressed out as she was.

  “No. Left him a note he couldn’t turn down. He brings trouble, comes out with some friends, it won’t be good.”

  “He’s coming out,” she said, her eyes shifting to the bar’s back door.

  Dutch emerged, tucking in his blue, short-sleeved shirt and hitching up his pants over his skinny hips like maybe it was Thorp himself he was going to meet. Dutch stopped, looked around. Didn’t look like a guy who thought his enemies were closing in on him. More like a man who thought he had life by the balls, and it was about to get better.

  “Over here.” Marco said.

  Dutch looked his way. “What’s up?” he asked, glancing left and right.

  “I got something for you from the man. Something he wants you to do.”

  Marco held up the small pocket notebook and held it out.

  “What’s that?”

  “Read it and celebrate your next gig. It’s a Mexican subpoena,” Marco said with a smile.

  “A what?”

  Dutch, curiosity getting the best of caution, reached for the notebook. As his hand closed on the notebook, Marco, apparently in no mood for pleasantries, came up under it with a short, quick left hook powered by a strong push off his left foot. Got his whole body into the punch, the fist deep and hard into Dutch Grimes’ unprotected liver. It took the air out of the man’s lungs and dropped him like he’d been shot with a heavy-caliber bullet.

  The man looked really hurt. He got slowly to a sitting position. Marco ran a quick weapon’s check and found none. He retrieved the notebook, then helped Dutch to his feet.

  “You’re alive,” Marco said, standing over the guy, looking around to make sure they were still alone.
“Stay that way.”

  Marco opened the car door, pushed him into the back seat, and climbed in with him, a gun stuck in Dutch’s ribs. He then tapped the boy lightly on the head, enough to keep his attention. “Relax. We’re not here to kill you.”

  Sydney pulled out. “I know your address,” she said. “Show me the easiest way.”

  “Take Ski Run to Needle Park and go left.” He was having a hard time adjusting to the pain. He hesitated a moment, then said, “Needle to Keller and go right to Regina. Couple blocks on the right.”

  “Now that we’ve been properly introduced,” Marco said, “let’s have a conversation. Here’s how it goes. You play it my way, you’ll benefit. And there’s no other way.”

  Recovering slowly, the security expert looked past Marco. His eyes lit up with shock when he finally realized who was driving.

  “What,” Sydney said glancing in the rearview mirror, “you thought I was dead?”

  He didn’t reply.

  “How are you, Dutch?” Sydney smiled. Then she said, “I’d answer all this man’s questions if I were you. He’s a really nasty mother when he’s not angry. Right now, he’s angry, and that just makes him crazy mean.”

  Dutch’s eyes shifted from one to the other. He looked sick. “What is this? What do you want?”

  Marco nudged him with the gun barrel. “No me jodas. Which, translated, means don’t fuck with me. Don’t ask questions. Just provide answers to the ones you’re asked. Got that?”

  Dutch stared at him and nodded.

  Marco said, “You didn’t answer me. I hate killing people who don’t need killing, but I get over it. Are we communicating?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good.”

  Whatever testosterone the guy had went underground with the liver shot, Sydney thought.

  “Give up a name,” Sydney said. “You don’t, he’ll take your balls. You know how these half-Italian, half-Mexican killers are. They like to cut. You should know the difference between a civilian and a condottiere.”

  Marco gave her a smile. Bad cop, worse cop.

  “Who’s at home?” Marco asked.

  “Just my mother. She’ll be asleep. Uses heavy sleeping pills. She won’t wake up.”