Staley stared at me in earnest, but there really wasn’t much to say. “I know I haven’t been the standup guy I should be with you and Lo. I confess I was rolled by the crap your firm has been involved with over the last year. I trust you to be on the right side of whatever goes down on this, Rick. I promise to make the wheels of justice turn in that direction if it’s in my power to do so. I will not throw the two of you under the bus to save my own ass.”
I smiled. “I’ll take it. See you later, Bill.”
* * *
I laid it all out for our crew in Lo’s office. Every one of us was in danger, families included. When an entity like a third world cartel decides to assassinate FBI agents in the USA, they are one step beyond mental. This was a survival meeting. While we hoped Lo and I would be the main targets of retribution, we weren’t stupid enough to stick our heads in the sand about our employees.
“First off, I want you, Max, and your kids to take a Hawaii vacation right now, Shell. Get your stuff packed up. It’s an all-expense paid deal, so please don’t fiddle around. Make the arrangements. I want the four of you on a plane by tomorrow morning.”
My statement drained the blood from her face, but Shelly nodded her understanding. I have money. What I don’t have is a long list of people I care about. I grinned at Bone. “Put Carlene and your Mom on the Hawaii flight. You, brother are in for the war. Sorry.”
T-bone Griffin smiled. “Just so you don’t think to put me on some damn protection flight, I don’t care. I’m in for the duration.”
“Shell. Please get reservations for Bone’s Mom and Carlene,” Lo directed. “I’d send Frank too, but I know the geezer won’t go. Any delay can be deadly. When Rick and I tell you right now this is as dangerous as it gets. Please don’t hesitate in what needs to be done. Sometimes our work unravels to an extent where we have to send our loved ones to the bunker. This is one of those times. If there are no other questions, you go with Shell, and give her all info needed to get your Mom and Carlene to Hawaii on the next possible flight. I would like you to go with them all until you see them on a flight out, Bone. Get a limo to get it done.” Lo reached into her drawer and took out her .45 caliber Colt auto with two clips. “Take these and don’t hesitate to use them. You’ve been in the soup. You know this shit’s not some Hollywood movie. Don’t get in touch with Rick or me until everyone we want in Hawaii is on their way there.”
Bone took the proffered weapon and clips without comment. He grinned then. “I’ll be back. Let’s go do this, Shelly.”
“Wait… what about Trish,” Shelly asked.
Trish chuckled and went right over to hug Shelly. “I’m good, girlfriend. Go get your reservations with Bone and get the hell out of here.”
Tears streamed down Shelly’s cheeks as Trish released her. “Please… don’t get killed.”
“If I do… I won’t be the only one. When this is over… I say we have a big Madigan and Cantelli beach house barbeque.”
Shelly hugged Trish again before leaving without another word. Bone followed.
“Innocents will be in danger by us carrying out our normal routine, Rick. Any thoughts on how to minimize the danger?”
“Not unless you want to go to war.” No use sugarcoating this crap.
Lo smiled. “I wish we could, but to take the offensive in a situation like this, we’d have to know more about this new cartel than is possible to attain before an already launched hitter can strike. Any ideas, Skipper?”
Trish shrugged. “I got nothin’. I never defended against hitters. We’re a motley bunch. We don’t follow some template. Your workout at Jadie’s place is a safe one to show up at, and later on at the restaurant with the security guards you have stationed I wouldn’t give that a thought either. It’s the in betweens that a pro would hit. If they’re targeting you two, they already know your routines. To draw them out, we’ll go about our business with the workout and the Casablanca Night. I wish there was a way we could pinpoint something they have planned, but I wouldn’t insult your intelligence by professing any extra knowledge on some cartel’s plans. My guess would be when you exit Jadie’s gym. If it were me, I’d do it long range, and I’d have it scoped already.”
Shit! “C’mon, kid, you’re right. Let’s go scope out where we would take someone out from a distance. Once I’ve done the workout, I’ll get to a position that will have line of sight onto the position we figure they’ll be shooting from.”
Lo’s brows furrowed. “I wish there were a way I could get a piece of this, but I-”
“Lo! That may be a great changeup. Hell, you could nail the shooters in your sleep. I’m a better target. Once Trish and I agree on a nest they’re likely to pick, we’ll figure out the best place to get them.”
“I’m in. Let’s get the hell out of here and go down to the range. I need some quality time with the Draganov.”
“Yep. Let’s get ‘er done. Before we go, let’s tap into our security feed from Jadie’s place and see if we can spot any likely characters checking out the building. We have a state of the art setup at Jadie’s, Trish, meaning we have the approaches recorded in HD.”
We checked the recordings at three different desks starting from the morning after the warehouse bust. Lo suggested rotating the recordings each of us watched as a precaution against missing something. It never came to that. Lois picked up on a two man team in the parking lot not interested in the gym at all. They ambled up to the entrance, turned and scanned the buildings around Jadie’s place from different angles. After checking the entrance vista, the two men split up and took up different positions in the parking lot. Then we caught a real break.
The two men had parked their vehicle in the parking lot – not a very smart move, but definitely an over confident one. Their vehicle, a late 2000’s Black Lincoln MKX left the parking lot after giving our cameras a wonderful shot of the license plate. It only took minutes to find out it was rented. Fifteen minutes after that, we had the hotel these wise-guys were staying at from the Hertz place they’d rented it from when they flew in from the East Coast. The aliases they were using didn’t turn up any hits.
“It’s just us three, Lo. I don’t see any reason to allow these characters to draw a bead on us. A preemptive hit would be my vote. We can bring up my M107 from the depths. You can spot me, once we find a place with a view of their Lincoln. They don’t know Trish. She can get close to their hotel room - maybe even check her in right now. We set up, and when they leave to pull off the job, I double tap them.”
“That’s the safe way, but I think we need to take these wankers down in their room. We need them alive to make sure we’re not wrong about this hit, and secondly, we can take them somewhere we can find out about their employer.”
“Okay, Lo, but remember this has to be done when there’s still daylight. It can’t get any riskier than that. What do you think, Trish?”
“Lo’s right if you want to find out anything. There’re a lot of unknowns. I see my chances of being in Casablanca Night melting away like an ice cream bar in hell. On the helpful front, I can put on a maid’s uniform with a bunch of towels in my arms, and a Taser in hand. When I make the guy answering the door go snap, crackle, and pop, you two bust in to take the second guy. It’s dangerous as hell. These guys will be pros.”
“I like it, Skipper. Rick can take the second guy. I’ll have my silencer to cover you both in case the second guy is too fast.”
I didn’t like this at all. “You two are nuts. I can think of a hundred ways this can turn bad. Why not play this safe. Then, if things don’t work out, we can abort, and get them another day.”
Lo makes her game show buzzer sound for wrong answer. “Man up, Rick. This is the perfect day for it. If we’re quick getting answers, we can set the scene, and head for Jadie’s place to work out. Staley will be hard pressed to put us at that scene too.”
“Just a walk in the park… except for one thing: the park’s in Cantelli Land.”
* * *
We moved into position at nearly three in the afternoon. The sky was darkening. It probably knew something we didn’t. Trish had on a maid’s outfit I would have given a thousand dollars to be at my house with her in it instead of here. She smiled over at me with the stack of towels covering her Taser. Lo clipped me in the back of the head.
“Keep your head in the game, Hooterville!” Lo hissed like a snake. “You can strip Skipper down later for the booby prize.”
Trish knocked on the door, staying in sight of the room peep hole with a big smile, towels in hand. The door opened, and a guy in jeans, t-shirt, and blonde flowing hair smirked out at Trish. “Sorry to disturb you, Sir. I was told to bring extra towels.”
“Sure, baby…” then the needles hit him.
I threw a forearm into him, busting past, scanning for his partner. Only one problem as Lo came up behind me, ready to shoot - nobody else was visible in the small two-bed room. Then the toilet flushed. I aimed the Taser in my hand at the bathroom door. The sequence progressed in obscene slow motion for me. Every detail in the room stuck in my head with crystal clarity. The blonde pretty boy on the floor with Trish kneeling on him, his hands already plastic tied behind his back, the drab furnishings, the bathroom door opening. Patience… it’s just a word… but means so much. The ebb and flow of life revolves around it. The scowling dark haired hitter emerged from the bathroom, saw everything in a glance, and tried to avoid what he knew was coming. The needles hit him, and I cranked him up to the max for a moment. He flopped on the floor in front of the bathroom like a big bass on the deck of a fishing boat with the hook still lodged in his mouth.
We restrained them in chairs, side by side. They became coherent at varying degrees as the next half hour passed. They were screwed, and they knew it. Lo lit her propane torch with a nearly negligent bored expression. “You guys are pros. Let’s not make this into something it’s not. We want to know who hired you. My partner will duct tape your mouths for a few minutes while I toast a few revealing spots on you. We want you two knowing we mean business. We are not the regular federal authorities, so forget about arrests, lawyers, and cuddly judges. That ain’t happenin’.”
Then the unexpected happened. These two looked at each other and chomped down. Cyanide ain’t a pretty death, but it is quick. In moments our hitters were dead.
“Well shit!” Lo did the final checks. “Damn it, Rick! Could you have held off Cantelli Land for another ten minutes?”
Trish laughed, but I failed to see the humor in any of this. We had no idea who in particular ordered us killed, and it was certain beyond a shadow of a doubt this cartel ordering the hits were bad people. When pros kill themselves rather than give up their employers, that’s old school. These guys knew this cartel all too well, and had people they cared about within the cartel’s reach. Our dead hitters had guts. I’ll give them that. We didn’t know about the new cartel, but I was already praying the FBI was hitting the East Coast branch hard and heavy.
“Well, Lo… this is another fine mess you’ve gotten us into.”
“Let’s skip the light humor and fix this up. I say we put these two in chairs facing each other with their guns on the table. Who the hell knows what the cops will think, but chaos is our friend on this one. Think of it this way, Hooterville: you still have time to steam the trolley out of the station after that tasty piece of Skipper the maid. Then we show up for the Jadie work out, and our Casablanca Night.”
“That works for me,” Trish added with a smile.
I took a deep breath of Cantelli Land anxiety. “Let’s do this.”
Chapter Fifteen
Grudges
I sure called it right for who should remain out of sight for a while. Because of the headlines, I was besieged by my workout companions. Nothing deterred them as I adroitly described the Doc Stuart arrest in general terms, refusing to answer anything specific because of a case in progress. The absence of Lo, Shelly, and Trish caused a stir. Karen and her husband, Danny Tilson arrived at practically the same time as Temple. Jadie and Ken had already assumed their places at the front of our workout group. I gave Karen and Temple a quick hug before shaking hands with Danny.
“You’ve been absent without leave, you slacker!”
Danny laughed. “I was here on Wednesday. Where the hell were you?”
“In the wind. Congratulations on the new edition to the family.”
“Thanks,” Danny hugged Karen to him. “I am blessed. Where’s everyone else?”
“Lo had something to deal with. She and Trish will be in shortly for the workout. We’ll all be attending Casablanca Night. Shelly and Max took the kids to Hawaii for vacation. It looks like you’re stuck with the old coot and my movie star protégé until Lo and Trish get here.”
“Stuck with?” Temple was not going to play along on that angle. She closed her eyes as if in séance with my thoughts. “I know the geezer here has something planned or is covering up for something.”
“Hey… lay off, kid. As I’m sure you’ve seen in the headlines, I’m in Cantelli Land. Don’t play it out too far. I’m on a binge again of unknown consequences.”
Temple deciphered my meaning without added verbiage.
“Oh… nothing to see here folks.” Temple waved away the amused audience. “The geezer is just playing this workout practically solo for now so cut him some slack.”
Some lighter hearted comments circulated, but nothing of a revealing nature. Temple kept glaring at me, thinking to decipher what malady was afoot. Moments before Jadie started the class, Lo and Trish threaded in next to me, on the other side of where Temple was. Trish waved.
“Hey, kid. How’s it hangin’.”
“Ah… hi Trish. Is this mysterious something you’ve all been up to fit in the category that ‘you could tell me, but then you’d have to kill me’?”
“See, Lo, I told you the pixie knows her place in the world.”
“Drop and give me twenty you little stinker,” Lo demanded.
“Bite me, Harpy!”
Lo cackled. “Best kiss all your little special acquaintances goodbye, Shortcake. I’m going to make you into a lab experiment.”
Temple’s facial features immediately lost all semblance of rebellion. She dropped into a plank position and did twenty pushups. “You’re mean, Lo!”
“That’s just a warm-up if you decide to be the town crier of speculative smartass remarks. Besides, I have a Cantelli story so good, it’s already immortalized in Madigan and Cantelli Security lore. Rick dubbed it the ace of all time.”
Temple leaped up from her prone position, hands on hips. “What did you do this time?”
“Can’t say,” I replied. “Class will be starting in a few moments, and the story is in the Gorgon’s domain. She gets to tell it.”
There were groans from the people around us too. Gossip here is like gold, especially if it’s confirmed by the victim. “I’m sure if you all hang around for a few extra minutes after class, Lo will be happy to hold me up to ridicule for you.”
There was even a smattering of applause at the announcement along with the laughs. The women in our class have never been real fond of my breezing through workouts. I guess it was time to pay the piper. The light hazing took my mind off our adventure earlier. There had been no witnesses, and each of us had worn one of those signal disruptors. If there had been any cameras I missed seeing, the only thing on video would be luminescent lights where our heads should be. Temple eyeballed me all the way through the beginning of class, I’m sure conjuring up many scenes I could have been involved in for Lo’s targeting radar. Although, the promise of evil Cantelli tales had drawn only a smile from Danny, Karen wanted to know what her stepsister had on tap for me.
Three quarters of the way through the workout in the usual spot Temple gets rubber band arms in the pushup position, Jadie made her way around the class giving out equal parts criticism and encouragement as always. She saves her jaundiced eye unhappiness for me, and the boot in
the ass for Temple. Timing it perfectly, Jadie arrived just as the wobbly Temple neared collapse.
“Don’t you dare fold up again, Temple,” Jadie warned with a shaking finger in Temple’s face as she was about to do exactly that.”
“This… damn place… is getting to be like… young adult boot-camp,” Temple gasped out. “Get outta my face… you… you… shrew!”
Jadie laughed, patting Temple on the back. “You’re in shape. You just need to get your head into workout discipline.”
She moved over to where Trish was breezing through everything without even breathing hard, even with the shoulder wound. Trish had worn low cut black spandex shorts, and a strapped black spandex top. Even with the small bandage I’d changed, she looked good… very good. It had been something of a death scene incongruity that we did indeed adjourn to my house and play Cantelli meets the maid.
“I’m surprised to see you here, Trish. Doesn’t that shoulder wound bother you?”
“It’s okay. If I don’t do anything, it’s worse,” Trish answered without missing a beat on the workout. “I love your workout class. You and Ken seem to be doing better.”
Jadie nodded. “Yeah, we’re working out stuff, but ever since Rick clocked him, Ken’s been different. I’m remembering why I was attracted to him. You being in Rick’s life has helped. I hope you count me as a friend.”
Trish grinned up at her from the prone position. “I’m game if you are.”
The set ended. Jadie shook Trish’s hand. “Getting close to Rick taught me I don’t do well in actual life threatening situations. I can tell by that bullet wound… you do.”
Trish shrugged. “I would have cried like a girl, but Hooterville would have laughed at me, so I sucked it up. You need to hear Lo’s Hooterville story at the Doc Stuart office, and how she plucked me right along with her to witness it.”
Rick Cantelli, P.I. Deadly Liaisons (Rick Cantelli, P.I. Detectives Book 2) Page 20