Strip

by Thomas Perry

  Rogoso looked down at the pile of reddish-brown paper, some of the bills stuck together and some not. “It’s just a little blood. You’re supposed to be the money launderer, aren’t you? Wash them.”

  Kapak sat quietly without moving for a few seconds. “There’s no such thing anymore as just blood. It’s somebody’s blood. As soon as they do a couple of tests on it, they know who it belongs to. I’m assuming the cops already have the body this came from.”

  “Could be.” Rogoso appeared bored and uninterested.

  “I’ve already deposited all the bills that were clean in the bank, but not these. If this makes you short for the week, I can help you out. And I’ve already made out the check for the rest.” He took it out of his coat pocket and held it out to Rogoso.

  Rogoso reached out and took it, then tore it up. “Don’t act like I’m some small-time guy. I can make my payrolls.”

  “Do I need to know whose money this was?”

  “He was my brother-in-law.”

  Kapak had asked no more questions. He had simply passed over the topic and taken the first opportunity to go home.

  Kapak knew he was being watched, so as he walked through the club past the surging crowd, he looked up at Takito the DJ in his glass booth and waved, and Takito waved both his arms and grinned. Takito was an almost unnaturally skinny Japanese man of undeterminable age. Each night he took off his shirt to reveal his stringy muscles and the impression of bones, tied a headband around his forehead, and began to play a selection of music that the customers seemed to think could not be heard anywhere else, all the while dancing behind the glass and shouting down at the customers. Takito already had enough notoriety to get lots of other jobs at after-hours clubs and parties, so he probably would be moving on before too long. For this moment—these few seconds—he and Kapak were useful to each other. Takito looked good, and Kapak looked brave.

  Kapak stepped out the front entrance into the line of young people waiting to be admitted and made his way around to the back. The two girls were leaning against the hood of his car, waiting and smoking cigarettes.

  He pushed the remote control on his key chain, and the buttons popped up and the door locks opened. The two girls dropped their cigarettes on the asphalt, opened the rear doors, and got in, so Kapak had to sit alone in front like a chauffeur. “All right,” he said. “Where are we going?”

  The one over his left shoulder said, “We have to go the long way and make some turns to be sure your people aren’t following us. Okay?”

  “I guess it’s all right, but I don’t want to be out all night, because I have things to do. You tell me where to turn, and I’ll do it.”

  “Left up at the light.”

  He glanced in the rearview mirror to find her. She was looking straight ahead, but the girl beside her was on her knees on the seat staring out the rear window, watching the traffic behind them. The taller girl had him make three turns in rapid succession, then told him to head west.

  “Are my people following us, Maria?”

  “My name is Ariana, not Maria.”

  “Well, hello, Ariana. People call me Manco.”

  “We know who you are, Manco,” she said irritably. “We came to pick you up.”

  “Oh,” he said. “That means you two like me, doesn’t it? Do I make your hearts beat faster? Do you get butterflies in your stomachs when you see me?”

  The two girls laughed, and then the other one said, “Stop making fun of us.”

  “Oh!” he said. “What voice is that? Ariana, aren’t we alone?”

  “You know we’re not. That was Irena.”

  “Is Irena your imaginary friend? A lot of children have imaginary friends.”

  “No, I’m not her imaginary friend,” Irena said. “I’m just as real as she is and more real than you are.”

  Kapak took his hands off the wheel, pretended to knock his right fist on his head, but made the loud rapping noise by tapping the dashboard with his left. “Hear that? It seemed real to me. How could you be more real than I am?”

  “Nobody’s taking me to see Rogoso. Pretty soon you could be a ghost.”

  “Irena!” said Ariana. “That’s not funny.”

  “Are you both afraid of Rogoso?”

  “Yes.”

  “None of the people who work for me are afraid.”

  “Why would you say that?”

  “I’m just making conversation,” said Kapak. “A lot of the time that means comparing one thing with another, or talking about the way things could be if they weren’t the way they are. How far do we have to go to find Rogoso? Remember, I said I have some other things to do tonight.”

  “He’s at the beach.”

  “What beach?”

  “You know, the beach. Malibu.”

  “That’s quite a drive.”

  “Irena! We weren’t supposed to tell him that ahead of time.”

  “Oh, who cares?”

  “What if he decides he doesn’t want to drive out there? Rogoso will have Alvin and Chuy beat the shit out of us. At least.”

  “Oh my God. You have a gun. Nothing has to happen that you don’t want,” Irena said.

  “It’s not very smart to say that either.”

  “Well, it’s true.” Irena sat facing forward. “Manco. Drive west to PCH and go north. Ariana will tell you where to stop. Okay?”

  Manco shrugged. “I guess it’ll be okay. I hope you were kidding about me being a ghost, though. I don’t think I’d like that much.”

  “She was kidding.”

  Kapak drove toward Santa Monica, and when he got there he took the exit down the incline onto Pacific Coast Highway. To his right was the high bluff and to the left was the ocean, shining black at this time of night. “See the moon?” he said.

  He heard the two moving around to see it. “Beautiful,” said Ariana. “I love to see it shining on the ocean like that.” Almost immediately after she said it, the first of the houses cropped up on the left. After that, for a time the view consisted of a succession of garage doors and high gates, the houses shoulder to shoulder as though they were trying to hide the whole Pacific Ocean.

  “Sometimes I don’t think anybody ought to be able to own something like that—put something up so he can see the ocean, but nobody else can,” said Irena.

  “I wouldn’t say that if I were you,” said Ariana. “You know who owns a house here.”

  Irena sighed.

  “Okay, Manco,” said Ariana. “We’re almost there. When we go by it, you’ve got to hang a U-turn and pull forward to stop in front of the garage. There’s no other place for a car.”

  “Okay, but watch for cops.”

  “See the big white place up there, the one that’s about three stories?”

  “Yeah.”

  “That’s it. Now go past. Turn around. There. Nice. Now pull up there.”

  Kapak stopped the car, looked into the rearview mirror to be sure nothing was coming in the right lane, and then got out and stood at the back of his car and watched the two girls get out. He studied their bodies closely while they weren’t aware of it and decided there was no place for a gun on either of them except their purses. When they came closer, Ariana said, “He’s waiting.”

  She went to the front door and opened it, and Kapak followed the girls inside. Rogoso came into the foyer from a brightly lighted living room. He was not as tall as Kapak. Although he was at least forty-five, he looked no more than thirty-five years old, with thick dark hair that seemed to sprout from halfway down his forehead, just above his bushy eyebrows. He wasn’t smiling.

  Kapak said, “Nice house, Rogoso. How are you?” and held out his hand.

  Rogoso kept his hands at his sides. “I’m not happy, Kapak.”

  “Why not?”

  “I’ve been hearing all kinds of stuff about what’s going on with you.”

  “What?”

  “This Joe Carver guy is robbing you blind and killing your men, and you’re too scared to go t
o the bank to move money around, and there’s a police lieutenant downtown making a full-time job out of watching you.”

  “Who told you that?”

  “Everybody!” he shouted. “Every-fucking-body!” He spoke more softly. “The whole town knows all about it like they were all there at the time and saw you get robbed, and people are saying that you’re too old to do this anymore. That you’re weak.”

  Kapak laughed. “I don’t feel weak. Do you want to arm-wrestle?”

  “Don’t be stupid.”

  “Well, none of my men has been killed. One of them got clipped by a ricochet off the sidewalk. It was a girl just firing wild all over the place, and she managed to get him a flesh wound down by his calf with like ten shots. He’ll be fine. I got lots of other guys. And Joe Carver is nothing. There are guys like him all the time. Always have been. They come from some unknown place that they’re goddamn glad to get out of, and they show up here and cause trouble for a little while, and then it gets too hot for them and they go away. I’m putting some pressure on him right now, and he’ll either turn up or go someplace else. Don’t worry. He can’t hurt you. He doesn’t even know about you.”

  “But he’s got the cops watching you all the time.”

  “Not really. I just drove out here, and your girls can tell you that nobody followed us.”

  He looked at Ariana and Irena, standing a few feet to his right. Their dark, heavily mascaraed eyes watched Rogoso warily, waiting for him to turn to them.

  “They’re just a pair of drug mules. What the fuck do they know?”

  “Probably more than we do. If they had ever let themselves be followed, they’d be dead or in jail.”

  “That’s not proof of anything.” He extended his arm and looked around him. “Take a look at this place. I just bought it a month ago. You know who owned it? Nick Criley.”

  “The singer?”

  “The fucking legendary singer,” he said. “It cost me eighteen million bones. Do you see what I’m saying, Manco?”

  “You have an expensive house.”

  “That I’m building an empire. And let’s talk straight here. I’m not a nightclub owner, and I don’t have a few chicks pole-dancing and wiggling their asses to pay my bills. I’ve got over three hundred dealers on the street. If the cops get something on you, they’ll fine you. At the worst, they’d take your liquor license so you’d have to retire. You know what happens if they get me?”

  “I didn’t find you and tell you to become a drug dealer. You were already doing everything you’re doing now when I met you.”

  “You’re missing the point, Manco. I’m not surprised, because your thinking is old-fashioned, like you were still dancing around a gypsy campfire in some part of Europe that God forgot a thousand years ago. I’m an important man, and that puts me in the center of the target. I can’t have somebody who handles any of my money making this kind of spectacle of himself. You’re attracting little small-time guys to come and steal from you, and that’s a sign that they know you’re weak. And when you try to fight back, you don’t even win. All you do is attract the cops. Alvin, Chuy? Come in here.”

  Out of the living room came the two big bodyguards who went everywhere with Rogoso. As always when he’d seen them at night, they both wore lightly tinted shooting glasses to cut the glare from headlights and floodlights, and black sport coats that covered their weapons.

  “Hello, Alvin. Chuy.”

  The two bodyguards nodded at him and waited in the doorway.

  Rogoso said to Kapak, “I’m sorry I have to do this, but you and I can’t do business anymore. You’re too old and soft, and you’re putting everybody in danger. Take him somewhere and get rid of him.”

  Kapak had been studying the two girls for the past minute—their exact positions, the clasps on their purses, even their breathing patterns. Kapak’s left hand shot out and grasped Ariana’s thin arm. He tugged her to him, reached around her into her purse, and pulled out her gun. He fired once into the center of Alvin’s chest, twice into Chuy, and pushed Ariana away from him. He was already moving fast into the living room.

  Rogoso was only about ten feet ahead of him, sprinting for the staircase. Kapak wasn’t as fast, but he fired once, hitting him in the back. As Rogoso’s dash became an uneven stagger, Kapak ran him down and shot him in the back of the head.

  Kapak turned and moved to the wall of the living room, hurrying back toward the foyer. He reached the portal and stopped to listen, then spun around into the open marble space. He fired one round into Chuy’s head and one into Alvin’s. Then he took out his handkerchief and carefully wiped every surface of the gun.

  The two girls were cowering in the corner of the room, their eyes wide and their mouths open. “Please don’t,” said Irena.

  “I won’t hurt you,” he said. “I wouldn’t have hurt them either. I just couldn’t let them kill me.” He stepped close to Irena so he could watch her expressions. “Is there anybody else in the house?”

  “No. He thought he might decide to kill you, and he didn’t want anybody but Chuy and Alvin to be around.”

  “Do you know where he kept his books?”

  “Books?”

  “The papers where he kept track of his business—the money that came in and the money he paid to other people.”

  “He would never let us see anything like that,” Ariana said.

  “All right. Do you two have a car?”

  “No.”

  “Those two cars along the highway in front of mine. Whose are they?”

  “Alvin’s is the black BMW.”

  Kapak stepped to the spot where Alvin’s body lay on its back, bent over, reached into the jeans pocket, and produced a set of keys. He tossed them to Irena. “I’ll give you two ten minutes to get as far from here as you can. If you ever say anything about this to anyone, you’ll have to die too.”

  “We know that,” said Irena. She and Ariana backed their way to the door. As Irena opened it, she said, “And thank you.”

  “Thank you,” he said. “For telling me about the gun.”

  They both went out, and a moment later he heard the sound of a car pulling away toward the city. Kapak looked at his watch. It was 12:36. He began to search the house, moving from room to room, but he could see that the task was hopeless. There were too many spots to hide something important, and too many reasons not to keep searching. He looked at his watch, and it was 12:45. He found an office on the second floor, but he had seen nothing in it that might contain the records he wanted. He went to the desk, pulled the drawers out, and piled them up on the floor against the big wooden desk. He threw all the papers he could find around them. He opened the windows so the breeze from the ocean blew in and ruffled his hair. Then he moved on.

  In the kitchen Kapak found the stairway down to the garage beneath the house. Two cars—a Maserati and a Bentley—were parked in the narrow space facing outward. He sighed. How could Rogoso have been foolish enough to buy such visible, obvious cars and drive them to this ridiculous house? Did he think the Internal Revenue Service wouldn’t wonder where all the money was coming from? How could Kapak not have continued to check on him and found out about it? He was ashamed. He looked around the garage, found a can of paint thinner and a can of charcoal starter, and set them aside. He found a length of hemp rope, cut it into two twelve-foot lengths with a hedge clipper, then opened the two cars, popped the fuel doors, opened both gas caps, and stuffed the ends of both ropes into the tanks. Then he soaked the rest of the ropes with charcoal starter and left them trailing across the floor to meet near the steps.

  He took the two cans with him as he climbed the stairs to the top floor. It was furnished as a recreation room, with a pool table, video games, a telescope on a tripod, an aquarium with three little spotted sharks gliding over lighted sand, and a full bar. He put a few bottles of liquor on the floor beneath the bar, poured some paint thinner over the wood, and opened the window. Then he lit a match to start the fire. When the f
lames went upward and began to lick the ceiling, he hurried out and descended the stairs into the office. He poured the rest of the paint thinner on the desk and empty drawers, lit another fire, and moved on. When he reached the bottom of the stairs to the garage, he splashed the last of the charcoal starter over the walls, lit the two ropes that led to the two cars, then tossed a match against the nearest wall. In a second there was a sheet of orange flame rolling up the wall. He turned and ran up the stairs, went out the front door, got into his car, and drove.

  He kept listening for the two explosions that might occur when the fire reached the gas tanks, and he thought he heard a thud, but he was already a half mile away with the wind blowing and the car windows closed, and he thought it might be his imagination. As he drove back the way he had come, toward the start of the Santa Monica Freeway, he looked at his watch again. It was 1:10. He had given the girls plenty of time—much more than he had promised.

  It wasn’t until he was on the Santa Monica Freeway and moving into the right lane for his exit, climbing up on the elevated half-loop to swoop down again onto the northbound San Diego Freeway, that he felt the lightness in his head and the fullness in his lungs that he had known would come. In sixty-four years he had felt it many times. The fear-induced adrenaline that suddenly flooded the bloodstream eventually burned itself up with the exertion—the fighting and running—and then left him feeling weak and shaken.

  He was an old fighter, a man who had arthritic knuckles because he’d fought with his fists, three long knife scars on his arm, chest, and back, and light-colored spots on his body where fire had turned skin into scar tissue, because this was not the first house he’d been in that was no more. Tonight had been a near thing, an unwarranted, unexpected attack that he had fought off, and he had known that his body, the animal self, would need to take these deep, sweet breaths to recover and reassure itself that no harm had been done to it. He opened the car windows a few inches and deeply inhaled the night air that rushed in.

  But almost immediately his mind began to bring down his pulse, slow his breathing. He had not died. But the futility of this night’s work, the stupid wastefulness of it, was impossible to forget.