Kim Oh 3: Real Dangerous People (The Kim Oh Thrillers)

by K. W. Jeter

  “So what’re we going to do?” Foley leaned over his beer. “About Curt?”

  “Beats me.” Elton leaned back in the booth. There weren’t a lot of other people around. There never were, in that place. “Suppose we could just put a bullet through his head. Put the poor ol’ bastard out of his misery.”

  Foley nodded. “That’s an idea.”

  “You’d do as much for some dog.”

  “What?”

  “Well, I don’t know what you do here in the big city. But where I come from, we’d put down some old hound that was sick and couldn’t take care of itself anymore. It’s a kindness when you do that.”

  “I’m not talking about Curt’s hands,” said Foley. “That tremor he’s got going on. I’m talking about what’s happened between him and Falcon.”

  “Oh. Well, in that case, just shooting him wouldn’t solve the problem.”

  “No. It wouldn’t.” Foley took a long pull from his beer, then set it back down. “Because there’s a lot more going on than you’re aware of.”

  “That’s what you keep hinting around about. You’ve sang that song so many times, I pretty much know all the words from back to front.”

  “All right.” Foley kept his words mild and emotionless. “So – you want to know what’s really going on?”

  “Do tell. If you want.”

  “Here’s the deal.” Foley reached into his shirt pocket and took out a folded piece of paper. He spread it out flat on the booth’s table and slid it toward Elton. “What do we got here?”

  Elton looked down at it. “Looks like a menu.” He turned his head to one side, reading the words. “From an Italian restaurant, by the looks of it. What’s scungilli?”

  “Don’t worry about that for now. Know where I got this?”

  “Haven’t a clue.”

  “I took it off Johnny Dodd. After he got killed.”

  “Huh. How about that. From all this song-and-dance you’re going through about it, would’ve thought it was some kind of treasure map.”

  “Oh, it’s better than that,” said Foley. “A lot better. Did you notice this?”

  He pointed to one corner of the paper. Or what would have been its corner if it hadn’t been torn off.

  “Yes, I did, Sherlock. What’s it all mean?”

  “What would’ve been here, on this corner?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Think about it.”

  Elton heaved a sigh, then looked down more intently at the unfolded paper. “I suppose,” he said after a few seconds, “that’s where this place’s address and phone number was. Since I don’t see it anywhere else on here.” He looked again at the paper. “Hey, is this place really open twenty-four hours? ’Cause I could go for a pizza or something, right about now.”

  “Hold that thought.” Foley turned over the piece of paper. “Now what do you see?”

  The other man studied the markings and lines that had been hand-drawn on the paper’s blank side. “Well, I’ll be damned,” said Elton. “Actually is a map. I gotta hand it to you. ’Cept it looks like the inside of some building. That doesn’t sound too promising.”

  “You’ve been to this place.” Foley tapped his finger on the paper. “Here’s where you come in from the street . . . and this is where the tables are . . . kitchen’s back here.” An X was scrawled where the kitchen’s doorway was indicated. “And this is where Johnny Dodd had stationed himself, so he’d have a clear shot at us when we came in.”

  “Wait a minute.” Elton peered closer at the map. “This is the Lido? Where we took Mr. Falcon for that meeting he was supposed to have?”

  “Yeah – and where Heinz got killed instead. Remember it?”

  “Okay.” Elton shrugged. “So Dodd went over there and cased the place before we got there. Hell, I would’ve done the same if I’d been setting up a hit.”

  Foley pointed to the handwritten note at the side of the map. It read 2:30 p.m. “And that’s when we were scheduled to show up.”

  “So somebody tipped the guy off about Mr. Falcon’s plans. Big deal.”

  “Right,” said Foley. “Big deal. Now take a look at this.” He turned the paper back over to show the menu side. Then he took a smaller scrap from his pocket and placed it where the missing corner of the paper would have been. The edges of the two pieces of paper, the big one and the little one, lined up perfectly. He tapped the little piece. “Remember where I got this?”

  “Yeah . . .” Elton’s brow creased as he looked down at the arrangement on the booth’s table. “You picked it up from the dresser. Up in Falcon’s bedroom.”

  “Exactly.” Foley lowered his voice even more. “So why would Falcon have wanted this other place’s phone number?”

  “Wait a minute . . .”

  “One way to find out.” Foley took his cell phone from his jacket pocket and flipped it open. He punched in the phone number that was printed on the corner scrap of paper, then held the phone to his ear.

  Somebody answered.

  “Hey, who’s this?” Foley talked into the cell phone. “Doesn’t matter – I just wanna leave a message for Johnny Dodd. That okay? Just a second.” Foley handed the phone over to Elton. “Go ahead.”

  Elton took the phone and held it to his ear. He hesitated a moment before speaking. “Tell Johnny . . . tell him –” He suddenly shook his head. “Never mind.”

  He closed the phone and set it down on the table. He looked up at Foley, across from him.

  Who was smiling all smugly. “So what do you think?”

  “You really believe I’m gonna fall for this?” Elton’s gaze narrowed in anger. “You believe that?”

  “Fall?” That caught Foley by surprise. “Fall for what?”

  Elton didn’t care whether anyone in the lounge saw what happened. He reached inside his jacket and pulled out his gun. Holding it by the barrel, he reached over and clubbed Foley across the head with it. Foley landed sprawling on the floor. He pushed himself up on his elbows and found himself looking straight into the gun.

  “You dopey sonuvabitch . . .”

  “Pretty smart, aren’t you?” Elton jabbed the gun down toward him. “I don’t know how you cooked all this up, but I’m not buying into it.”

  “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “You want me to think that this is all something that Mr. Falcon arranged. Don’t you? You want me to think that Falcon’s the one who hired that Johnny Dodd guy. And he took the phone number of where he could reach the guy, then drew him a map of the restaurant where he was going to be. Are you crazy?” Elton poked the gun into Foley’s face. “Why the hell would Falcon arrange for somebody to come out and kill him?”

  “You dumb hick.” Foley glared back at him. “The guy didn’t come out there to kill Falcon. He came out there to kill us.”

  “You expect me to believe this shit? Why would Falcon pay a guy to do that?”

  “I don’t know –” Foley pushed himself back on the floor, then got to his feet. “But that’s what happened.”

  “Yeah, well, this is what I know.” Elton raised the gun so it remained pointed at Foley. “You’re trying to set me up. Feed me this line of crap, I fall for it – then what were you expecting me to do?”

  “You’re getting this all wrong, pal –”

  “Pretty smart,” said Elton. “You thought I’d go stomping off and whack Falcon, didn’t you? Only maybe you’d just happen to already be there with him. So you could take me out instead. What a hero, huh? And then Falcon would make you the next boss of the crew. Because that’s what you want, isn’t it?”

  “Yeah, that’s what I want, all right.” Foley shook his head. “But not like that.”

  “All right.” Elton studied him for a few seconds. “Why should I believe you?”

  “If you don’t,” said Foley quietly, “maybe somebody else will.”

  “Like who?”

  Foley reached over to the table and picked up his cell phone. “Let’s mak
e another call.”

  * * *

  There was only person left over at Falcon’s mansion. And that was Curt.

  He was sitting on the couch in the living room. His gun was lying on the coffee table in front of him. Leaning forward, his elbows laid across his knees, he sat looking at the gun. For a long time.

  Something finally seemed to click inside him.

  He raised one arm and slowly reached his hand out for the gun. An inch or so above it, his hand started to tremble. A little at first, then increasing. With a teeth-gritting effort of will, Curt forced his hand to close around the gun’s grip.

  He picked it up. His expression was even darker and grimmer as he raised the gun and looked at it.

  The gun didn’t tremble as much when he pointed it toward himself.

  His cell phone rang. He set the gun back down on the table, then fished inside his jacket for the phone and flipped it open.

  “Yeah?”

  He listened to the person on the other end for a few seconds.

  “Okay,” said Curt. “I’ll be there. But this better be good.”

  He flipped the phone closed and stood up with it still in his hand. He looked at it for a moment, then flipped it open again and punched in another number.

  ELEVEN

  I saw the stolen car outside the Diamondhead Lounge. Wearing his overcoat, Earl climbed out from behind the steering wheel.

  “Weren’t you supposed to get rid of this thing?” I set my helmet down on the seat of the Ninja. “You said you were going to.”

  “Yeah, but it’s a nice ride.” Earl slammed the car’s door shut. “I’ll be sorry to dump it off.”

  “Okay, but it’s hot. Right?” I pulled off my heavy gloves and tucked them inside my jacket. “You know you have to.”

  We headed toward the door of the lounge, the neon sign’s colors flickering on the dirty snow in the gutter.

  “Actually,” said Earl, “I was just about ready to head out with it, when Curt called me.” He pulled the door open for me. “You got a call from him, too?”

  “Yeah. I came over here from the hotel.” I had been happy for an excuse to get away from Karsh’s bodyguards. “What’s going on?”

  “Beats the heck out of me.”

  Curt must have taken a cab from Falcon’s place. He was already there, sitting in one of the booths with Elton and Foley. Their voices were raised, loud enough that we could hear every word they said.

  “So that’s it, huh?” Curt brought his gaze up from the piece of paper that was laid flat on the booth’s table. “That’s what you think it means.”

  “Yeah –” Foley nodded.

  As we watched from near the door of the lounge, Curt clenched his fist and landed it hard on Foley’s jaw. Foley landed sprawling on the floor.

  “Damn.” Foley wiped blood from the corner of his mouth. “I’m really getting tired of this.”

  On the other side of the booth, Elton looked smugly at what had just happened. “I knew he was a lying sonuvabitch –”

  “You idiot.” Curt swung his angry gaze at Elton. “He’s right.”

  The two of us had reached the booth. Earl reached down to help Foley to his feet.

  “What’s going on?” I looked across all of their faces. “Right about what?”

  His expression simmering, Curt filled us in on the restaurant menu on the table. Everything about it, including how Foley had found it on Johnny Dodd’s body – except for the torn-off corner that he’d found on top of Falcon’s bedroom dresser.

  “This is Moretti’s place.” Curt held the corner scrap toward me. “Up in Albany. You recognize the phone number, don’t you?”

  “Yeah –” I nodded. “It is.”

  “Moretti takes messages, doesn’t he? For a lot of guys.”

  “That’s right.”

  “Guys like Johnny Dodd?”

  “Well . . . you know how it is. Guys like that, they don’t exactly have regular habits. That’s the only way to get hold of some of them.”

  “So Foley must be right about what this means.” Curt turned around toward the others in the crew. “Falcon and Johnny Dodd must’ve been out there at the same time. Talking about something.”

  That puzzled me. “Like what?”

  “Like this.” Curt showed me the other side of the paper. “Talking about something that included drawing a map. Of the restaurant’s layout. Then Falcon tore off the piece with the phone number on it, so he’d have it if he needed to leave a message for Johnny. And Johnny kept the map.”

  It didn’t sound good. For any of us.

  “Okay,” said Elton. “But you don’t know if this is true. There might be some other explanation.”

  “Sure,” said Curt. “You have an idea about what that other explanation would be?”

  “No.” Elton shook his head. “But you’re saying something pretty ugly about the man we’re working for.”

  “That’s right. So we need to find out if it’s true or not.”

  “Well, you can’t ask Johnny Dodd. He’s dead. And I’m sure as hell not going up to Falcon and ask him about all this. Not while he’s got all those guys around him, that Karsh sent over. They’d kill you soon as they’d look at you.”

  “Then we need to talk to somebody else who might know.” Curt folded up the paper, both the big piece and the little piece, and stowed it in his jacket. “Let’s go.”

  He headed for the door. The rest of us looked around at each other, then followed after him.

  * * *

  They had to drive all night to get up to Albany.

  I followed after the car, on the Ninja. I didn’t care how much the freezing wind cut through my jacket and settled around my bones. I didn’t feel like being cooped up with a bunch of guys who were all in that bad a mood. I just kept myself tucked behind the bike’s windshield, following the car’s taillights. Any time one of my hands started to turn numb inside its glove, I’d take it off the handlebar grip for a few seconds, holding it down by the engine until I could feel the blood thawing out again.

  Must’ve been after 7:00 a.m. by the time we reached the outskirts of the town. In the gray winter light sliding over the hills, the place looked dismally familiar to me. I had been hoping that I’d never have to come out here again.

  Moretti’s place was in one of the shabbier districts, closer to the interstate than the tarted-up downtown, with its trendier, higher-priced restaurants and clubs. Across the street from it was a truck stop with a lot always full of eighteen-wheelers, their diesel engines murmuring while the drivers ate or napped with their heads down on folded arms. Sometimes, when I’d had more than I could take of my job and the lovely characters I had to deal with, I’d go over there and just try to decompress with a cup of coffee for a half-hour or so. It wasn’t much, but it’d helped keep me sane.

  “Hey, look at that! It’s my little girlfriend Kim.” Moretti came out of the kitchen when we walked in. That time in the morning, the place was empty except for us. “How ya been, sweetie?”

  “Fine.” I stayed behind the others, to lessen the chance of him wrapping me in one of his bear hugs. Old, bald, with about 300 pounds of fat that always seemed to be drenched with sweat, no matter what temperature it was. The thick hair on his arms must have been black at one time, but had turned gray as the wattles around this throat. “Can’t complain,” I said.

  He was carrying a hugely mounded plate of spaghetti in one hand. With his other, he gestured toward one of the booths. “Have a seat, gentlemen.” Our unannounced arrival didn’t seem to faze him at all. “It’s Curt, right? Long time, no see. Yeah, make yourselves comfortable.”

  I sat down on the side opposite from him.

  “You gents want anything?” He dumped the grated cheese from the bowl on the table, blanketing the spaghetti. “I’ll tell Carlo in the back to fix you anything you want. Don’t worry, it’s on me.”

  “That’s all right.” Curt folded his hands in front of him. “We’re not hungr
y.”

  “Suit yourself.” Moretti nodded toward his plate. “Best breakfast in the world, you know.”

  “Like I said. We’re just here to talk.”

  “Yeah? So talk. Don’t let me stop you.” As he twirled the spaghetti on his fork, he looked over at Earl, sitting next to me. “Whoa, Earl – what the hell happened to you?”

  One side of Earl’s face was purpled with the bruise he’d gotten when the staff door at the mall had been blown off its hinges.

  “Had an accident,” said Earl. “You know how it goes.”

  “Gotta be careful, man.” Moretti worked away at his plate. “Guys our age, we don’t get put back together so fast anymore.” He leaned toward me and Elton. “You gotta understand, me and Earl go back a ways. A long ways. He used to work for me, back before your boss Falcone cherry-picked him.” He turned back toward Earl. “Ain’t that right?”

  “Yeah –” Earl nodded. “We go back a ways.”

  Moretti stopped eating for a moment, looking around at our grim, watchful faces. Then he shrugged and returned to his food.

  “But times change, don’t they?” He wiped his mouth with the back of one hand. “Now I hear your boss is going in with that Karsh putz. Who woulda thought it? I guess everybody’s different, eventually.”

  He shoveled down several more mouthfuls, then gestured with his fork.

  “Just to show you that’s true – let me tell ya. That frickin’ Karsh sends me an invitation. To some fancy-shmancy Polynesian restaurant he’s openin’ up tonight. Can you believe that?”

  “Why not?” Curt kept his hands folded on the table. “He has all sorts of business operations.”

  “Yeah, but come on. A Polynesian restaurant? Is that some kinda retro thing, or what? I knew that tiki bars, like that place you guys’re always hanging out in, I knew those were popular with the college kids. We got a couple right here in town. What the hell – people want those fruity rum drinks, they can have ’em. But the food. I just don’t get it. You tell me, Kim – is that stuff any good?”