Dead Ringer

by Michael A. Black

  “My wife . . .” Hal said, his voice breaking, “I gotta see my wife again. You can’t kill me. Please.” He started to blubber, real tears streaming from red-rimmed eyes.

  Bayless backhanded him across the face with his gun, making him cry out, splitting the side of his face open. “Shit,” Bayless said, stepping backward, his attention taken by the sudden appearance of blood. “That’s a new couch. Candy just ordered it. Get your ass up before you drip.” He looked ready to hit him again. “I said, get up, asshole.”

  Ross took advantage of the moment. He arched back, shouting my name as he angled himself to shoot a quick kick into Bayless’s knees. The bigger man dropped to the ground. In the same second, I wrenched out of my seat and dove for his gun. I had to. There was no alternative.

  My fingers grasped the cool, elongated barrel as my knees hit the floor. I tugged, but the gun didn’t come out of Bayless’s grip. “Let go!” I screamed as I pulled with all my might. I was vaguely aware of Nicky shouting. Ross attacked, still bound, doing his best to keep Nicky from shooting me.

  Bayless leaped to his feet, gun in hand. He pointed it down at me and shouted. “Any one of you moves and she’s dead. You get it, assholes?”

  Hal stood, swaying. I froze in place. As did Ross.

  I turned to him. “I’m sorry,” I mouthed.

  He shook his head in dispensation, but his eyes gave away his despair.

  Bayless took a deep breath. “You see?” he shouted at Nicky. “I told you they were tricky. Why the hell did you think I gave you the gun? So you could wear it in your panty waist?” He kept the firearm trained on me even as he dusted off his slacks. He twisted his neck, the way men do when their collars are too tight. “Let’s get them loaded.”

  He gestured for me to stand, which I did. Hal shuffled in front of me, his head bent, his shoulders shaking. Dear God, I thought. How were we ever going to get out of this alive with him as baggage? I turned to check on Ross.

  Nicky had the Glock out now, like an obedient little criminal. He pushed Ross forward with it.

  “Eyes front, bitch,” Bayless said to me. “Move it.”

  We did.

  The garage held only Ross’s van. As we approached, Candy opened the passenger side sliding door and said, “I put our car on the street. Nobody’s going to think twice about me getting in, and I wanted you to have as much room as you could in here.”

  Bayless beamed. “You’re a treat, Candy.”

  The silly smile she shot back told me this was a private joke between them. Like plotting our murders was some sort of twisted foreplay.

  Hal got in, still whimpering and talking about how much his wife would miss him, how much he needed to see her, just one more time. My heart broke for him, but I couldn’t let my compassion cloud my thoughts. I needed to think. I needed to communicate—somehow—with Ross. He’d have ideas. A plan.

  My hopes of Shade returning were fading fast. He wasn’t coming back. No one was coming to save us. It was up to Ross and it was up to me.

  They sat me next to Hal, our backs up against the van’s surveillance equipment. Bayless again warned us not to move. He went around the front of the van and got into the driver’s seat. The curtains separating the compartments were pushed aside, which allowed him to watch my every move.

  Next to the wide-open side door, Nicky prodded Ross with the gun. “Move it, you asshole,” Nicky said to Ross, but the power with which Bayless commanded was missing from his directive. “Get in before I belt you.”

  Ross started to boost himself in, but with his hands still bound behind him, he had no leverage. Nicky took that moment to shove him for emphasis, causing Ross to lose his footing. He fell backwards into Nicky, who stumbled.

  The sudden explosion made me scream.

  Ross’s mouth twisted downward, then slackened into a blank-faced expression as he toppled sideways.

  I screamed again. Ears ringing, I scuttled forward.

  From the front seat, Bayless thrust his arm out, whacking me center chest. With a whoof, I fell, but even as I dropped to the floor, I still kept moving forward. It was do or die. Maybe . . . if Nicky had been hit . . .

  Bayless grabbed the back of my collar and yanked. My throat caught, and not just because of the sudden attack.

  I saw Ross.

  Nicky grappled to his feet and now stood above him, gun smoking. Ross lay on the cement floor, a crimson hole burst out the front of his chest. I recognized it as an exit wound. “Please,” I said, “let me check him,” even though I was sure it was too late.

  “Shut up,” Bayless said. He swore for a full minute, calling Nicky every name in the book, before finally speaking through clenched teeth. “We weren’t supposed to kill them till we got them onto the table,” he said. “Are you so stupid that you can’t remember simple directions?”

  “It was an accident,” Nicky said, with no remorse, only embarrassment. “It went off by itself.”

  “Guns don’t go off by themselves, you stupid fool. Now go over there—there’s a tarp somewhere in the corner. Go get it.” He pulled his own gun out and fixed it on us, directing Nicky’s efforts.

  Bayless tapped me with his gun when Nicky produced the tarp. “You were able to get your hands free, smart-ass. You spread it out,” he said.

  I laid the tarp in the van’s back compartment, as ordered.

  “Now, load the body into the van,” he told Nicky. “We can’t leave him here and he’ll come in handy. We can use him.”

  Nicky threw Ross in, facedown. When his body hit the van floor with a sickening thump, my stomach catapulted. I reached out, searching for a pulse in Ross’s neck. Nothing.

  “Roll him up. I don’t want to have to clean up another mistake,” Bayless said to me.

  Biting my mouth to keep from retching, I complied.

  We drove for twenty minutes, with Hal and I sitting on the van floor, Ross’s body at our feet.

  Hal kept his head down between his upturned knees.

  I avoided looking at Bayless or Nicky. I was afraid that my fury would goad me to do something reckless, and I needed to keep my wits.

  But as Ross’s body shifted at a left turn, I knew I was bereft of ideas.

  When we first took off I’d tried desperately to keep my bearings. I wanted to maintain a sense of where we were headed so that if the opportunity to call for help presented itself, I’d be ready. But we sat too low, and we turned too often. I couldn’t see any landmarks at all. Bayless kept to mostly residential streets, and my view out the van’s windows were of streetlights—and an occasional glimpse of the moon.

  I knew Candy followed us because Bayless kept checking his rearview. “Atta girl,” he said once.

  Yeah. Some girl. Cold as ice, just like the rest of them.

  When we stopped, Nicky got out of the van. Bayless kept it running, and I stretched myself to see. Nicky was opening a garage door by inputting a code in a wall-mounted unit.

  I tried to see around Bayless’s head. Were we at another home? If so, this was a huge one.

  A sign out front gave me the story.

  Sunset Manor Funeral Home, Las Vegas.

  Bayless caught me watching. His mouth twisted into a maniacal smile. “Perfect place to salvage healthy parts from unnecessary reporters. Wouldn’t you agree?”

  Ron Shade

  Despite making a couple of minor wrong turns, I made it to Paradise and Sahara in good time. I wanted to drive around and see if I could spot Bayless, but there were a million places to hide in plain sight. I decided to stick to his instructions, for the time being, and pulled into the rear parking garage of the Arabesque. It was one of the older hotels on the Strip. I remembered photos of Elvis Presley posing by the front when he was making some movie. Still, the place had held up pretty well. Across the street was the elevated monorail station, which almost reminded my of the el back in Chi-town. Except this was way too new and not half as rickety. Maybe Bayless was up there, ready to hop on a southbound tram
if he thought I was trying to double-cross him. I was more than a little worried about leaving Alex back at the house, too. With Ross there, I was sure Candice wouldn’t be any trouble, but I still had that uneasy feeling as I dialed the number Bayless had given me. It rang three times before he answered.

  “I’m here,” I said. “Where are you at?”

  “Never mind where I’m at. You come alone like I told you?”

  This made me think maybe he wasn’t as much on the ball as I thought. If I’d given someone specific instructions where to report to, I would have been waiting and watching.

  “I’m alone.”

  “All right. Park your car and go down to the first level,” he said. “Come outside and stop at the sidewalk. I’ll stay on the line here.”

  “You going to meet me down there?”

  I heard nothing but silence. He was either doing a good human-clam imitation, or he had his hand over the mouthpiece. I tried to listen as I drove up the winding hotel parking garage aisles. I had to go up four levels before I found an open spot. When I did, I pulled in and did a quick check of the area. I wanted to be sure of where I parked in case I had to get out of here fast. The view between the concrete floors showed me a panorama of bright lights spreading out across the cityscape. And under each one was probably a thousand suckers losing their money. I hoped that I wouldn’t turn out to be one of them. I had a lot more to lose right now.

  I tried speaking to Bayless again as I went down the stairwell but realized the connection was dead. I assumed he’d either call me back, since he must have had my number on his caller ID screen, or I’d redial him. I’d kept Ross’s snub-nose in my right pants’ pocket, but while I was still out of sight in the stairwell, I transferred it to my left hip, sticking it nose-down so the handle rested facing outward along my belt. I could easily grab it with a cross draw if I needed it in a hurry, and with my T-shirt out nobody’d be the wiser.

  The night was cool and dry, and almost reminded me of Chicago. But the strangeness of the surroundings made me feel a long way from home. My cell phone rang.

  “Shade?”

  “I’m here. Where are you?”

  “Are you on the sidewalk yet?”

  That most likely meant he still couldn’t see me. I scanned the area trying to spot a guy talking on a cell phone, but nothing.

  “Shade?”

  “I’m right where you told me to be.”

  “Okay, good.” His voice sounded a bit more confident. “Start walking south. That’s toward the Hilton. You see it?”

  Directly south I saw the huge, monolithic sign with the immense block letters. “Yeah. You that far?”

  “No. Stay on this side of the street, understand?”

  That was all he said. I began walking, feeling more and more uneasy. The street looked almost desolate along this section. The monorail track ran parallel on the other side, and the only thing directly across was one of those high-rise condominium buildings under construction. Farther down a few blocks a quartet of completed high-rises stood across from the Hilton hotel. I was beginning not to like this arrangement very much. It looked like a great place for an ambush, but I didn’t have much bargaining room until I spotted his location. Then his ass was gonna belong to me. I walked down the sidewalk. As I came to the end of the parking structure a gap appeared. To my right was a cyclone fence enclosing an unlighted field-like area. A big red-and-white No Trespassing sign was wired to it. I’d taken a few more steps when Bayless abruptly told me to stop. I looked around.

  “You see that fence next to you?” he asked.

  I reached out and brushed it. “Yeah.”

  “Keep walking. There’s a gate about twenty feet down. It’s wide enough to slip through.”

  I looked beyond the fence. It wasn’t a field. It was a large abandoned area with sporadic sections of tall palm trees, dying scrubs, and metal railings. I could see some kind of structures . . . small, single-unit buildings from the vague outlines visible against the distant ambient lighting, as well as more trees and a few low walls . . . Remnants of an old strip mall maybe?

  “What the hell is this place?” I asked.

  “It’s an abandoned property. Used to be a water park and a line of stores. It’s got pools and bridges, so don’t trip.”

  “Where are you at?”

  “Hang on a second.” More silence, then a tiny flash of light—a flashlight being switched on for an instant, shone about fifty yards inside. It was near one of the buildings in the center. I could see the silhouette against the faint glow from the rest of the Strip. An island of darkness in a sea of fluorescence. Or was it neon? “I’m over by what used to be one of the snack bars. I’m flashing my light. Do you see it?”

  He wasn’t flashing it anymore, but I had an idea where he was.

  “I saw it. I’m on my way.”

  Now it was my turn to hang up. I got to the loosely affixed gate and edged through. The ground was mostly cement, covered by a layer of fine desert dust, with a sprinkling of gravel in some parts. Iron frameworks formed a lattice of barriers around deep empty cement trenches where glistening swimming pools had once entertained kids in the desert heat. Now the pits were filled with a detritus of garbage and dirt. Luckily, I had my minimag flashlight with me. I never left home without it. The little halogen bulb was powerful enough to illuminate the immediate area quite well, but wouldn’t reach all the way to where he was. Plus, I didn’t want him to know I had it just yet. Just like the gun. Keep ’em in reserve. I concentrated on maintaining my visual purple and cut on an angle toward him. I moved in a zigzag pattern, dodging loose cement blocks and avoiding patches of high scrubs. Mesquite, from the looks of it. Some of the palm trees were pretty big and afforded cover. Crude gang graffiti decorated the walls of the remaining cement-block structures I went past. My phone rang and I pressed the button to answer it.

  “Where are you?” he asked.

  “Relax, I’m heading straight toward you. It’s tricky walking in here in the dark.” I ducked low and said, “Flash your light again.”

  “All right, just a minute.” I heard the muffling sound again. At least five seconds passed. Maybe he wasn’t alone. The flashlight came on. He was about thirty yards away now.

  “You by yourself?” I asked.

  “Of course.” He sounded more indignant than surprised. “Why?”

  “Just want to be sure.”

  I heard him breathing, then silence. “Shade, I’ll tell you what. I’ll keep the flashlight on and start walking. Come to meet me.”

  I saw the flashlight bobbing in his hand as he began moving in a straight line from the side of the building. I stayed put and watched. Nothing moved in the vicinity, which made me feel a little more secure. My best plan was to move on an oblique intercept course, scarf up this asshole, and get back to the Escalade. I could call Alex and we could meet someplace and sort this out.

  “Shade, where are you?”

  I let him get a few more feet before I answered. “Just keep coming. I’m almost on top of you.” I saw his head swivel, but he didn’t say anything.

  I darted around a patch of dry bushes and almost tripped over a discarded cement block. Using my minimag would have made the trip smoother, but I didn’t want to give away my position just yet. I still had about fifty feet to go before I’d be able to put the arm on Bayless.

  “Shade, you there?”

  “I’m here. Just keep coming.”

  He was moving cautiously. We were maybe twenty-five feet apart now. Twenty . . . Fifteen. He was heavier than I expected. Not formidable looking. More like an oversized pear. His feet were making little scraping sounds in the dust, and as he swung the arm with the flashlight, his face became slightly visible. Although I’d never seen the man in person, I had studied the photo that George had given me, and this guy didn’t look anything like Bob Bayless. I was getting ready to rush over and deck him and figure out what exactly was going on when I heard someone from behind me say, “Don�
��t move, Shade. I have a gun trained on your back.”

  And he’d said it with a Russian accent.

  Chapter 22

  Alex St. James

  Bayless shot a sharp elbow to my head. “Get down.”

  I fell back, landing on top of Ross.

  With a yelp, I rolled off.

  I rubbed my forehead, scooting backward, as far away as possible from the tarp-covered body. Bayless’s crack wasn’t hard enough to knock me out, but it hurt. My eyes watered.

  He pulled into a cavernous garage. Big enough for five vehicles. A limousine took up the far bay, and a hearse sat next to us. Candy pulled the BMW next to the limo, and I stared at the now-closed overhead doors trying to figure out a means of escape.

  Hal sniffled.

  I knew I’d have to leave him if I got any chance to run. But could I actually do that?

  Head down, he shuffled behind me as we made our way through metal double doors that led into the funeral home itself. Just before we stepped in, Bayless grimaced at the van as he addressed Nicky. “When Viktor gets here, have him and his guys bring the body in. Then have them ditch the van.”

  “Viktor?” I said. “The same one from Chicago?”

  Nicky started to say, “Yeah, as soon as he’s finished taking care of your friend Sh—”

  “Shut up, you idiot,” Bayless said.

  “Why?” Nicky sounded petulant. “What difference does it make?”

  “Just keep your mind on the job. Every time you get distracted, you screw up.”

  Nicky had been about to say “Shade.” My heart sank. They’d gotten us both. They’d divided us and they’d conquered. Shade was walking into a trap, just like I had. But . . . at least he had a gun. That gave me hope, though it was small consolation—these guys had everything orchestrated. Perfectly. They were clearly in control.

  I closed my eyes for a moment, praying he wouldn’t be killed. Praying we wouldn’t be killed.