Unmarked Man

by Darlene Scalera

  “How did Lester, a civil service clerk from the suburbs, get caught up in an international counterfeiting ring?” Nick asked.

  “Everybody’s got their jones. Phil’s was gambling. He was into some sharks in a big way and a payment short of losing a limb. He didn’t have the money, so he decided to make it. He gave his payment to one of the collectors, who spotted the funny money. The collector takes it to his boss, but instead of turning Phil into fish food, the boss sees a way to expand his business. He offers Phil an opportunity.”

  “When did Saint-Sault come in?”

  “I’d ‘borrowed’ some cash from Eddie. Saint-Sault recognized the phony money, tells the guys he works for down south about the operation. They moved in, took over.”

  “So Lester kept the accounts and dealt with the big boys?”

  “Pissed Jacques off. He’d practically handed them the operation, but the boys at the top knew he fooled around with drugs, didn’t trust him. Like I said, Phil was a gentleman and educated. They liked dealing with him.”

  “So you sleep with Lester—excuse me, Mrs. Vitelli—” Nick apologized, “to get information for the Lords.”

  Jo Jo stared at Nick.

  “Eventually you found out where the accounts were recorded and who really ran the show, but you were in trouble now. Whoever was at the top knew Eddie and Saint-Sault were working with the Lords, and you were in on it. You call Eddie, tell him to tell the Lords you have everything they need and they can have it for two million.”

  “Madonn’,” Louisa exclaimed.

  “Quite a story.” Jo Jo neither confirmed nor denied.

  Nick rubbed the side of his head. “I just have one question. The neighbors, they were shocked when they learned of Lester’s death. Said he was such a nice guy, used to print fliers and signs, newsletters for different community organizations. In fact, one of the neighbors—sweet old lady, Cissy here has met her—said that the day Lester died, a nun had visited him that very morning. Come to find out, she visited him within the time frame the autopsy revealed Lester had been shot. So my question is did you get the information you needed before or after you killed Lester?”

  Cissy thought about the day she’d followed Eddie and seen a nun on the river walk. “That was you,” she said to her sister. “The other day, by the river. The back brace.” She stared at Jo Jo. “The Lords were never going to give you the money. Eddie was trying to hold you off by supplying you with drugs until they could figure out where you were hiding. The drugs were sewn into the back brace.”

  Jo Jo look at her sister, her face closed.

  “Lester never gave you any information, did he, Jo Jo?” Nick said. “It was the other way around. You were giving Lester information. You were the one who told Lester about Saint-Sault and Eddie working with the Lords. That’s why the ship was clean on the New Orleans bust. Lester treated you nice. He had manners. Not like Saint-Sault and Big Bill and the rest of the bums.”

  Jo Jo’s face was expressionless. Her gaze stayed on Nick, challenging him to continue.

  “Saint-Sault wasn’t dead that night you went to his place. Only when you left. He’d heard the rumors he was going to be blamed for tipping off the southern network about the New Orleans bust, and he planned to say you were the snitch and then become a hero by taking you out.” Nick paused. “There was a struggle, you shot him instead. Witnesses see a red 1950s Thunderbird. Now your mother was in danger, too. The two of you come here. The next day, dressed up as a nun, you go to Lester’s house. He says he’s sorry, real gentlemanly, and then tells you to beat it. You realize he’d been using you like all the others. You panicked. Withdrawal has begun to set in. You’ll be damned if you’re going to live in a convent the rest of your life. You need cash. You forced Lester to give you information on the operation. When you had what you needed you killed Lester and offered the information to the Lords for two million cash.”

  Jo Jo’s face stayed defiant, but her hand reached for the Bible beside her on the bench.

  Nick pinned her with merciless eyes, his expression inscrutable, his tone matter-of-fact. He was on the job now. “You called Eddie to set up the deal. You learned your sister’s in town and she’s driving around in the Thunderbird, a sitting duck. You told Eddie any police, anything happens to Cissy, the deal’s off. You get scared for her. Plus you want to score. You went into town, saw Cissy go into the Golden Cue. After she left, you went in to see what she might have learned. Cissy had tipped the bartender with some of the old stuff she’d found in the car seats. Definitely not the quality being produced now. The bartender recognized the funny money, was going to call the cops. If the ring was shut down, the Lords wouldn’t need your information. You make something up, tell him you needed assistance and got him out by the Dumpster. After all, you’re a nun. And a habit is perfect for hiding a gun.”

  Cissy and her mother stared at Jo Jo.

  The insolent curve of Jo Jo’s lips did not cover the haunted look in her eyes. “What about Eddie? Why’d I kill him?”

  “Better question would be why didn’t you kill him? He was an abusive son of a bitch. And you’d told him no cops, but when you picked up the drugs, you spotted the plainclothes who was following Cissy. You think Eddie set you up. You were getting paranoid by now. You could have been made. Eddie might have already put two and two together. You shot him before he could cry ‘fore.’”

  Jo Jo’s hands clutched the Bible in her lap.

  “Nice work, Detective.” Tommy Marcus stepped from the bushes, yanked Cissy off the bench and pulled her to him to shield his body. Louisa screamed. A shot rang out, but Nick was forced to aim high to avoid hitting Cissy. Louisa screamed again. Blood flowed from Marcus’s shoulder, crimson against the crisp white of his shirt.

  “You do the old neighborhood proud, Fiore. Now throw down your weapon.” Marcus pressed a gun to Cissy’s temple.

  “You’re hit, bleeding, Marcus. You need help. Let her go, and we’ll get it for you.”

  “You barely grazed me, Fiore. Lucky shot.” He pressed the gun harder into Cissy’s temple. “Throw down the gun unless you want to see your girlfriend’s brains here spoil this peaceful setting.”

  Nick tossed the gun onto the ground. Marcus moved Cissy to where the gun had landed, kicked it out of reach. The blood oozed from Marcus’s shoulder, seeped onto the cream silk of Cissy’s blouse.

  “You?” Cissy asked. “You ran the counterfeit ring?”

  “I try to remain behind the scenes. Unfortunately sometimes I do have to get my hands dirty. Where’s the books and the other information you were going to give to the Lords, Jo Jo?”

  Jo Jo gripped the Bible.

  “Little late for prayers, Jo Jo.”

  “Shame on you, Tommaso.” Louisa spit on the ground. “Your mother turns in her grave right now.”

  “Shut up, old woman, or you’ll be the first to go.”

  “Go ahead, bastardo. Shoot me. This is a beautiful place to die.”

  “What are you going to do, Tommy? Kill all of us?” Nick asked. The stain of blood was spreading down Marcus’s sleeve from his shoulder. “And what about the nuns? What are you going to do? Ask them to pray for your sorry soul?”

  Marcus exerted pressure with the gun, tilting Cissy’s head. He leaned his mouth to her ear. “Your boyfriend talks big for someone who’ll have nothing in thirty years but a pension and the memory of seeing his girl blown away.” He flicked his tongue across her earlobe. Nick’s expression didn’t slip. His gaze stayed cool and murderous.

  Jo Jo opened the Bible and snatched a gun from its hollow center. “Let her go.” She aimed the gun at Marcus.

  He chuckled. “Good God, Jo Jo, you can’t even hold the thing steady.”

  A shot rang out. Nick threw himself forward, taking both Cissy and Marcus down. Another shot sounded. Nick kicked at Marcus’s wrist, knocking the gun loose. Marcus rolled for it. Nick hit him with both hands in the lower back, lunged for the gun, slashed it across the side
of Marcus’s head. Marcus lay face-down in the green grass. His howling stopped. Nick wrenched his arms behind him, handcuffed him, and called for backup. He turned.

  Cissy cradled Jo Jo in her lap. She’d ripped off her blouse, pressing it against her little sister’s chest to stay the flow of blood, but there was so much blood. Too much blood. Her mother knelt beside them, her hands atop Cissy’s, adding pressure. The bloodstain widened, spread, a sea about to swallow her little sister. Cissy stared down at Jo Jo’s paling face, saw still the little girl she’d once been.

  “I’m sorry, Mama. I’m sorry, Cissy.” Jo Jo began to shake in Cissy’s arms. “My mistakes.”

  “S-s-s-h-h.” Cissy stroked the hair off her sister’s white forehead. “You’re going to be fine. Just fine. Help is coming.”

  The gunshots had brought several nuns running into the garden.

  “It’s all right, sisters,” Nick assured them. “Help is on the way.”

  “Mama?” Jo Jo asked. She was a child now, trembling and her eyes wide. “Please ask the sisters to come and say a prayer?”

  The sisters had already knelt by the girl’s wounded body. They began to pray, and Cissy prayed with them.

  “It’s so cold. I’m so cold,” Jo Jo said as the ninety-degree heat beat down on them. Cissy felt the sticky pull of blood soak her palms.

  “Hang on, Jo Jo. Hang on,” she pleaded. “You’re going to be okay.”

  Jo Jo’s body calmed. Her face became peaceful, as if any prayers her little sister had asked for had been answered. Jo Jo closed her eyes.

  Cissy clutched her. “Jo Jo! Jo Jo!” She heard the siren in the distance. “Hang on.”

  As if answering Cissy’s prayer, Jo Jo opened her eyes and smiled. Cissy looked down into eyes the same color as hers and smiled back. Her sister’s lips moved, but the words were too weak. Cissy bowed her head to hear her.

  “The funny part is,” Jo Jo whispered, just like the secrets they used to share as children, “I never had anything. No information on the accounts, the organization. I never found it.”

  Cissy was still holding her when the ambulance arrived. The attendants gently eased her away, lifted Jo Jo’s lifeless body onto a gurney, her face to be covered by a sheet once pronounced. The nuns clustered around Cissy and Louisa, comforting them. Cissy looked past them. Nick handed Tommy off to another officer, his gaze on her. She broke away from the women, walked toward him. He met her halfway.

  She looked down at Jo Jo’s gun he had recovered. “A .22?”

  He nodded.

  She looked away, watched Tommy being led out of the garden. “You finally got to use those cuffs.” Her voice shook.

  He wrapped his arms around her, and she wept.

  Chapter Seventeen

  The newly-dug dirt smelled rich, fertile, like life.

  “We should join the others back at the house,” Nick said softly.

  Cissy stared at the turned earth, the sprays of flowers. “Yes.” But she did not move. She did not cry. Nothing. There was nothing. Nick put his arm around her shoulders. There was Nick. She leaned on him. She had learned to lean this past week.

  Attempted murder charges had been filed against Marcus, but with the bills Cissy had found in the Thunderbird the only evidence, no witnesses coming forth and Marcus not giving up a thing, it was unlikely any indictments on counterfeiting charges could be filed. For Nick, it was a case of the bar bombing all over again. The police knew the crime, knew the criminal, but without solid evidence, no convictions.

  Cissy was staying with her mother. She’d moved out of Nick’s place as soon as they’d found Louisa, but had still been subjected to a daily ‘they-don’t-buy-the-cow-if-they-can-get-the-milk-free’ maternal diatribe. She didn’t bother to explain that she and Nick weren’t the cow-buying types. Their mating was free milk and fine.

  Louisa was selling the business and the house and moving to a golf cart community in Boca Raton to make a fresh start. Cissy had gone with her to the bar to meet the real estate agent and spied Gentleman George on the corner. Staying true to her resolutions, she’d gone over to give him a few bills. When she’d gotten up close, she’d noticed the toupee cockeyed on his head. She’d given him twenty dollars for it, checking to make sure the bill was legit. When she found a key inside the hairpiece’s hem—a key identical to the safety deposit box key she had from First Trust—she said another of the prayers that were becoming much more frequent lately. A court order was issued and the box opened, but it was empty except for the deed to a cemetery plot. Phil really had loved playing games. With the Lords closing in and Marcus getting tense, Lester must have been getting nervous. He needed an insurance policy to prevent any harm coming to him. He must have hidden information on the operation, but where? Some place where he could get at it if necessary but others could not—especially if something happened to him and his mother’s financial well-being became suspect, possibly even confiscated should it be determined the money was ill-gotten gains.

  “We should go,” Nick reminded again gently.

  They headed toward Cherry. Pauline had driven her mother back to the house with the others. The Thunderbird had become like an old friend to Cissy.

  “When are you going back to New York?” Nick asked.

  It was the first time either of them had brought up the subject of Cissy’s leaving.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Does your job expect you back soon?”

  Time to come clean. “Actually I’m in between careers at the moment.” Close enough.

  Nick glanced at her. “You quit your job?”

  “Company went under. I wouldn’t have lasted much longer anyway. I was a lousy stockbroker.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “I’m exploring several options.”

  “Haven’t a clue, have you?”

  She smiled for the first time in several days. Past Nick’s shoulder she saw a woman tending to a potted geranium in front of a gravestone. It was Mrs. Lester. Her caretaker stood nearby. Cissy had seen the signs announcing that the bingo hall on Armory would soon be under new management. Lester’s Lucky Palace Coming Soon. Phil would have liked that, Cissy thought.

  “There’s Mrs. Lester.”

  Nick looked in the direction Cissy indicated.

  “I’m going to say hello,” Cissy told him.

  The couple walked toward the old woman kneeling before her son’s grave. Another headstone stood next to Phil’s, two brothers buried beside each other. Cissy looked down at the woman’s stooped back.

  “Mrs. Lester, it’s me, Cissy Spagnola. How are you?”

  The woman squinted up at them. “You’re dating the cop?”

  Nick glanced at Cissy. “We’ve had several conversations the last few days,” Nick explained. He took the woman’s elbow as she got up, and steadied her. “How are you, Mrs. Lester?”

  The woman shaded her eyes. “I keep waiting to be manhandled.”

  Cissy swallowed a grin. “I see you got your bingo hall.”

  “Grand opening in a month. You and lover boy come on in. I’ll give you a couple cards on the house.”

  “Thank you. I’ll do that.”

  She eyed Nick. “And don’t be sending no patrols for a shakedown. I run a clean establishment.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  The old woman looked at the graves, her face suddenly older and wistful.

  “Beautiful stones,” Cissy commented.

  “When Phil’s brother died, Phil designed the headstone himself, had it custom made. About a month ago he had his own…” The woman stared at her children’s graves. “Let’s go,” she said, turning to her companion. “I’ve got to pee.”

  The woman tottered off with her caretaker. Cissy stared down at the marker. “One look inside Lester’s medicine cabinet and you knew he was organized, but designing your own gravestone, that goes beyond anal.”

  “Lester knew things were heating up, that his luck, which had let him down in
the past, would run out again.”

  “I suppose.” She studied the marker. “Where’s the evidence, Phil? What’d you do with it?”

  “Afraid that answer went with Lester to the grave. Come on.” Nick gently turned Cissy away.

  They were almost to the car when Cissy stopped, released a laugh.

  Nick looked at her with concern.

  “He took it to his grave. He took it with him to his grave.”

  “Are you okay?”

  “All right, Lester was a little on the retentive side, but maybe he had another reason for having his gravestone made?”

  “Such as?”

  “Lester wanted to hide the evidence, right? Hide it where he could get to it, but should something happen to him, others would never find it.”

  Nick smiled. “I’ll call the manufacturer tomorrow, see if Phil’s special design included any special features.”

  “Hide-and-seek.” Cissy’s smile slipped into sadness. “Jo Jo loved that game when we were little.”

  Nick put his arm around her. They started toward the car again.

  “This detective work isn’t too hard. Maybe I’ll just hang out a shingle, open up my own private investigation agency.”

  “Here?”

  Cissy slanted a glance at him. “I don’t know. Maybe. Maybe not. I was kidding, really.”

  They walked a little farther.

  “Or maybe I wasn’t,” she said.

  “Cissy?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Stay.”

  She stopped short, stared at him. She didn’t expect more. She hadn’t even expected this.

  His fingers hooked inside her belt loops, pulled her to him. “Stay.”

  She studied his face. “Damn.” She had to turn away, not wanting him to see how much she wanted to say yes. He curved his hand to her cheek, turned her toward him.

  “Damn.” But she was smiling now. Hell, she never could say no to a dare.

  He lowered his mouth to hers. They came together. The way she liked it. The way he liked it. Simple.

  Yeah, right.