Vinnie snatched his envelope off the table. He glared across the table at Tony. “This is something you could’ve told me. I don’t need to hear this from him.”
Tony raised both hands, pleading for patience. “Just wait.” Then to the cop, “Tell him the rest.”
LaGrange nodded, then gulped down a couple swallows of air. “As I’m looking up the information Shane asked for, I see something strange.”
Vinnie laid the envelope on the table again and reached for his wineglass.
As the detective’s eyes tracked the white envelope, he continued, “Both these mutts I’m looking up are guys Shane already knows, guys he has a history with.”
The glass was halfway to Vinnie’s mouth. He brought it back to the table without taking a sip. “What do you mean, a history?”
“Shane arrested both of them a while back. Then later, when the feds arrested Shane, the two guys were in the parish prison at the same time Shane was. All three of them were in there together.”
Tony Zello couldn’t help but grin. Although the detective had gotten off to a shaky start, he was hitting on all cylinders now.
Vinnie asked Tony, “You check this out?”
Tony nodded. “There’s more.”
“What?” Vinnie asked.
LaGrange cleared his throat. “One of the guys Shane was looking for is now dead.”
Vinnie stared at Tony. “Is he saying Shane killed the guy?”
Tony shrugged. “If not, it’s a hell of a coincidence, don’t you think?”
Vinnie shook his head. “But it doesn’t make sense. If Shane set this up, why did he need help from a cop to find these guys? He would already know how to get in touch with them.”
Tony knew from long experience, you had to let Vinnie believe he was on the cutting edge, or at least close to the cutting edge, even if he were miles away. So Tony took his time before he answered. When he did answer, he made sure to sound as if he were just getting a grip on the idea himself. “That’s what I couldn’t figure out. Then I got to thinking about it. Shane’s a dumb fuck anyway. Say he gets these two guys . . .” Tony circled a finger at the cop, wanting him to supply the names.
LaGrange, taking the cue, said, “Michael Salazaar and Dylan Sylvester.”
“Salazaar and Sylvester,” Tony repeated. “Sounds like a law firm.” He took a sip of wine. “Okay, so Shane works out a plan with these two, then they either bring in two more guys, or Shane brings in two he already knows. Either way, Shane ends up with four shooters. Then he gets Hector out of the way, pays him, threatens him, maybe Hector doesn’t even know what—”
Vinnie’s eyes slashed at Tony. “Too bad we can’t ask Hector about it.”
Tony shot a glance at the detective sitting next to him. Crooked or not, he was still a cop and Tony wasn’t about to admit to a homicide in front of him. He also wasn’t going to let the conversation get sidetracked. “Maybe after the robbery, these guys get greedy, or Shane gets greedy, or they get pissed at each other. Whatever happens, they have some kind of beef and all of a sudden Shane can’t find them. Either that or he’s just trying to play us. Acting stupid, like he can’t do anything, and hoping his incompetence gets back to us.” Tony pointed at Vinnie. “Remember how he was when you told him you wanted him to find these guys?”
Vinnie nodded, then tilted his head back until he was staring at the ceiling. He stayed that way for almost a minute. Then he said to Tony, “Are you telling me Ray Shane is responsible for killing my son?”
Tony nodded, then realized Vinnie wasn’t looking at him. “I think so.”
“I hired him,” Vinnie said, looking down, his voice thickening. “I brought him into the House. It was me who introduced him to Pete.”
“There’s something else we need to discuss in private.” Tony nodded toward LaGrange.
Vinnie slid the envelope across the table to the detective. Tony saw that at least the cop had the class not to count it. Silently, LaGrange slipped it into the inside pocket of his cheap, dime-store sport coat. Then he stood up and left without a word.
Vinnie told Rocco and Joey to make sure Detective LaGrange left the restaurant and then to stop by the bar and have a drink. He needed a minute with Tony.
When he was alone with Vinnie at the table, Tony said, “Shane is trying to set you up.”
Vinnie stared at him, but his eyes were glazed over. Tony could almost see Pete’s reflection in them. When Vinnie finally focused on Tony, he said, “Why is Shane still here? Why didn’t he take the money and run?”
“Where would he go? He’s a federal convict on parole. He misses an appointment, his parole officer violates him and puts out a warrant for his arrest. But if he plays it cool, gets those other guys before they get him, he gets to keep all the money and stay straight with his P.O.”
“What do you mean he’s setting me up?” Vinnie asked.
Tony downed the last of his wine, then reached for the bottle. As he refilled his glass, he said, “Shane’s been asking a lot of questions.”
“What kind of questions?” Vinnie’s voice sharpened.
“About the money.”
“What about it?”
“Same kind of thing he was asking before, how come we had so much cash in the counting room.”
“That wasn’t my—”
Tony cut him off. “That’s not all.”
“What else?”
“He asked about Pete’s school.”
The sound was like a gunshot as Vinnie slammed his fat fist down on the table, rattling it so hard that Tony’s glass almost tumbled over the edge. Vinnie’s words came out like a bark. “He asked about my son’s fucking school.”
“He asked how much it cost.”
“What business is that of his?”
Tony shrugged.
Vinnie leaned forward. “What’d you tell him?”
Holding his hand up, Tony said, “I said he asked about it. I didn’t say I told him anything.”
“What the hell is he up to?”
“I heard he was in the Hog’s Breath talking to Charlie Rabbit.”
“He don’t even know Charlie Rabbit.” For a few seconds Vinnie furrowed his forehead like he was trying to remember something. “Right in my office, I think that was the first time they ever said one word to each other.”
Tony shrugged. “Then it’s funny them two being together, huh?”
Vinnie picked up his fresh napkin and wiped his face. “Maybe they were just having a drink.”
“Think about it. Shane talks to Charlie, convinces Charlie to go back and tell your brother he thinks you might have robbed the place yourself.”
Vinnie actually shook with rage. “He’s trying to backdoor me with my own fucking brother?”
Tony nodded. “That’s what I’m worried about. Way this went down . . . with nothing like this ever having happened before, and coming on our watch, so to speak, some people could say this makes us look bad. Some people might even lay the blame on us.”
Vinnie looked down at the table. “But if Shane set it up from the inside . . .” Vinnie was starting to warm to the idea. “There’s no way we could have known about it. There’s no way anybody could blame us. What we need to do—”
Tony raised a hand. “We’ve got to be careful. You don’t want to make another mistake.” Wondering how that line was going to fly. But Vinnie didn’t seem to notice. Tony pressed on. “Let’s wait, just a little while, so I can check out some things.”
Vinnie sat hunched over, staring at the checkerboard pattern on the tablecloth. He was lost in his own thoughts, mumbling to himself. “I was good to him. It was me gave him a job, and this is how he repays me. It’s always the ones you trust the most. He’s a fucking Brutus.”
“Vinnie,” Tony said, his voice soft, almost a whisper.
The chair creaked as Vinnie looked up and shifted his weight. “You really think he’s setting me up?”
Tony nodded.
The older man’s lip
s compressed into a thin line. “I want you to find Shane and bring him to me.” He pointed toward the bar. “Take Rocco and Joey with you.”
Again, Tony raised the hand of patience. “Vinnie, I really think we should—”
Vinnie pounded the table again with his pudgy fist, this time toppling his own glass and spilling wine onto the tablecloth. “You bring that traitorous bastard to the House.”
Tony watched the red stain of Vinnie’s wine spread out across the table as he thought about what Vinnie had just said. When his boss said things like that, it made Tony wonder if Vinnie had ever actually done any work when he was coming up, or if he had just ridden his brother’s coattails. “Bringing him in ain’t going to be that easy.”
“Why not?”
Tony cleared his throat. Like explaining something to a kid. “The guy’s dumb, but he’s not that dumb. When we find him, he’s not going to jump in the car with us and go for a ride. Not voluntarily. You’re talking about stuffing him in the trunk, driving him through the city, then sneaking him into the House—all without attracting attention.”
“So what are you saying?”
“I’m saying what if the feds are watching the House? What if they have it under surveillance or something? If we bring Shane in and he never comes out, next thing we know we got them going over the whole place with those black lights you see on TV, looking for traces of blood, matching DNA, all that shit.”
“What do you suggest?”
“Once we find him, it’d be easier if you came to us, instead of me bringing him to you.”
“How are you going to find him?”
“I’ll wait for him at his place. Eventually everybody goes home.”
Vinnie nodded. “Call me as soon as you have him. I don’t want you talking to him until I get there. I want to hear everything he has to say.”
Tony stood up. He was smiling.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Just past 11:00 PM, Ray wobbled up the flight of wooden steps that led to his apartment above the boathouse. At the top of the stairs he was a little unsteady on his feet and breathing hard, so he lingered on his deck, one hand on the rail.
After almost a full day of driving through parking lots in New Orleans East—and not finding the blue Buick he was looking for—Ray had stopped uptown at Cooter Brown’s to have a drink. One drink had turned into two, then three. There might have been a fourth.
Standing on his deck, Ray let go of the railing and dug out a cigarette and his Zippo. It took half a dozen flicks to get enough of a flame to light a Lucky Strike. As he took a long drag, a slight breeze drifted off the lake behind him. There was a chill in the air. The sky was clear. The stars were out.
Ray decided to grab a bottle of Jameson and a glass from inside. He would pour some whiskey over a couple of cubes of ice and sit on the deck and enjoy the night air.
A glass-top patio table stood on the porch with three plastic chairs around it. Ray grabbed the back of one of the chairs and tilted it forward, dumping the puddle of rainwater out of the seat. He would need to bring a towel out with him to dry it before he sat down.
Ray flicked his cigarette butt over the railing and into the lake. Then he dug his keys out of his pocket and walked across the deck. The inside of his apartment was dark. With his keys in one hand, Ray stood in the doorway and slid his other hand against the wall, feeling for the light switch.
Something heavy smashed against his head.
The blow sent a bolt of blinding white light through Ray’s skull. The thunderous clap of pain that exploded inside his head an instant later dropped him to his knees. Somewhere in the distance he heard his keys clatter to the ground. Then he pitched forward, facedown on the wooden floor.
The sound of voices came to him. At least two people. They sounded far away, too far away for him to understand the words, but he understood their menace. Someone grabbed his wrists and dragged him all the way into the apartment. The door slammed shut behind him.
A foot cracked against his ribs.
“Roll him over,” a voice commanded.
Someone kicked him over onto his back. The room was still dark. The shadow of a man stood near the door. “Get him up,” the shadow said. “He tries anything, crack him with that steel pot again.”
Two guys, one on each arm, pulled Ray to his feet. At least three of them in the apartment. Still he couldn’t make out any faces. His ribs felt like they were on fire. The pain sucked the air out of his lungs. With his head spinning and his lungs unable to draw a breath, Ray’s knees turned to jelly. The hands clutching his arms were all that held him up.
“He’s too heavy,” the one on the right said.
“I think we hurt him,” the one on the left said.
The shadow in front of Ray let out a sigh. He walked away from the door and dragged a chair over from Ray’s garage-sale dinette set. The two guys on either side dropped him into the chair.
The dark image walked back to the door and flicked on the light switch. As the light seared into Ray’s head, doubling his pain, he squeezed his eyes shut and tried to block it out. Something trickled down the side of his head and dripped into his ear.
After a couple seconds he opened his eyes, blinked them clear, then found himself looking at Tony Zello. Tony was leaning against the door, ten feet away, hands in his pants pockets, looking cool in a charcoal gray suit with blue pinstripes, a maroon handkerchief folded in the breast pocket, and a green paisley tie. “How you doing, Ray?”
“What the fuck do you want?” Ray croaked, his tongue thick in his mouth. When he glanced up to his right, he saw Rocco looming over him. Another big steroid guzzler named Joey stood to his left. Both of them were pushing down on his shoulders to keep him in the chair. On the floor lay a two-quart steel cooking pot. When he left this morning, it had been on the stove.
Tony Zello slipped one hand out of his pocket as he stood up straight. He jabbed a finger at Ray. “You’re stupid, Shane. You know that?” He stepped closer. “You’re just like every other cop I know. You want to be a player, but you ain’t got the balls.”
The chair in which Ray had been dumped was one of three he kept around his breakfast table, molded plastic with four aluminum legs and no arms. The weight of the two goons pressing down on his shoulders kept him planted in the seat.
As Tony got near him, Ray swung his right arm up and smashed it into Rocco’s forearm, but it was like striking a telephone pole.
“Hold him still, goddamn it,” Tony said.
Ray dropped his left shoulder and tried to squirm out from under Joey’s hand, but the two goons just drove his shoulders down harder and grabbed his arms with their free hands.
“You ain’t going nowhere, you dumb fuck,” Tony said as he stepped in and landed a solid punch just above Ray’s left eye. “You thought you were smart, huh? Thought you could take our fucking money.”
Ray had a sick feeling in his stomach, a fluttering, like being on a roller coaster as it plummeted down a steep drop. He could tell by the way they were acting, the set expressions on the faces of the two goons, that they were going to kill him. The fact that Tony thought Ray had done something wrong was enough to kill him. These guys had a very low burden of proof.
“Tony, what the fuck are you talking—”
The next punch almost knocked Ray out of the chair, despite the two goons. Blood ran into his eye, then down the side of his face.
Through his bloodied vision, Ray saw that Rocco and Joey were both staring at Tony, their mouths set tight. Both worked at the House, both were young. There was a good chance neither had ever made his bones, been directly involved in killing someone. Ray didn’t want to be their first.
He had always been a good talker. Once he had spent nearly an hour talking to an enraged Mexican who was brandishing a machete. The guy had come home from work, found his wife on all fours, the clerk from the neighborhood grocery mounted up behind her. Ray, still working uniform patrol, got to the scene first and cornered
the husband in the bedroom, the chopped-up bodies of his wife and the grocery clerk still in the bed. Every other cop wanted to shoot the guy.
Instead of shooting, Ray holstered his gun and walked into the bedroom. An hour later he led the man out in handcuffs, the two of them talking like old friends. He had a way with words. It was a gift. But when he needed them most, to save his own life, he couldn’t think of anything to say.
Tony raised one foot and stomped it down on Ray’s stomach. The kick doubled Ray over as he fought for breath. If it weren’t for the two bruisers holding him in place, he would have been curled up on the floor sucking wind.
“I figured it was you all along,” Tony said. “It had to be. Then, when I found out you knew those two guys . . .”
How the hell had Tony found out about Michael Salazaar and Dylan Sylvester? Ray had just learned about them himself, and he hadn’t even found Sylvester yet. In short gasps, he said, “I don’t know . . . who you’ve been talking to . . . but I don’t know those guys . . . I arrested them is all.”
He had explained the same thing to Jimmy LaGrange.
Tony kicked him again. “I take back what I said about cops ain’t got no balls. What you did took balls, but like I said, it was stupid.”
Ray tried to speak but only managed a dry heave. Finally, he got the words out. “It wasn’t me.”
Tony slid a small revolver from under his suit coat. Ray recognized it as a Smith & Wesson .38, the Chief’s Special model with a two-inch barrel, just like the one Ray had carried in an ankle rig while he was on the job.
“You fucked up, Shane. Now you got to fess up. This is going to go down one of two ways, easy or hard. It’s your choice.” Tony laid the muzzle against Ray’s knee. “Either way, you’re going to tell me everything.”
“I didn’t take your money,” Ray croaked.
Tony grinned. “That’s what I thought you’d say.” He cocked the hammer.
“Hey, Tony.” Rocco’s voice was nervous. “Ain’t you gonna call Vinnie? You know, like he said.”
Tony stared up at Rocco, his concentration broken. He lifted the gun off Ray’s knee and waved it around, gesturing with it as he spoke. “No, I ain’t gonna call Vinnie, you dumb fuck. I’m gonna straighten this out myself.”
House of the Rising Sun Page 14