Lucky Bang

by Deborah Coonts

  "Who?"

  Silence.

  "Okay." I filed it away as something to hit the Big Boss over the head with. Either him or Jimmy—one of them had to know. "Anything else?"

  "Yeah, it's about your father and it supports Boogie's position."

  "Really? How so?"

  "Your father told the police he got a call as he was on his way to the restaurant to meet you and your mother. Someone claiming they worked at the hotel—he didn't say which property, but I can get that for you—called and said he was needed, that there was an emergency. He said he knew the person who called by name but would not have recognized her voice."

  "So he was deliberately called off?" To be honest, I was glad to hear that. It was far better than being left with the thought he stood us up. I don't know why it mattered after all this time, but it did.

  "That's what he told the police."

  "Was there really an emergency?"

  "Not one that hit the papers."

  "And it was a woman who called him?"

  "Ah, you were listening." Flash laughed, her voice returning to her normal bantering tone. "What do you think?"

  "I think it's time to have a father–daughter chat."

  ***

  My mood was heading south. The wound in my forehead starting to throb when the private elevator deposited me in the middle of the Big Boss's living room. A huge expanse of hardwood floors, leather-covered walls, hand-knotted silk rugs, and furniture fashioned with exotic woods and the hides of African animals, this apartment had been the closest thing I had to a place I called home—except for a whorehouse in Pahrump called Mona's, which really didn't count. The Big Boss and I had broken bread countless times, with me none the wiser at the secret he kept—he hadn't told me he was my father until recently…when he thought he might die. Apparently the man was pretty adept at harboring secrets.

  With the overhead lights off, the only light to hold back the darkness shone from the pinpoint lights illuminating the artwork on the walls—lesser works by the Grand Masters—and the lights of the Strip filtering in through the wall of floor-to-ceiling windows.

  A figure silhouetted against the window turned as I strode further into the room. Not the Big Boss.

  Mona.

  "Lucky!" Worry nagged at the edges of her voice. "Just the person I wanted to see."

  I hurried toward her, propelled by the worry in her tone. "Mother. Are you okay?"

  She motioned to a small side table. "I'm trying to read this note. I need your help."

  I leaned over it and squinted in the half-light. "This has been burned."

  "I know that." Mona sighed as if barely able to shoulder the burden of having a stupid child. "That's why I'm having trouble reading it."

  "Where did you get it?" I kept my voice even—Mona was not going to get under my skin. Not today, anyway. I needed to focus.

  "I found it smoldering in that moveable fire pit thing your father has." When she looked at me, her eyes had that deer-caught-in-the-headlight look to them. "I think it's the note he got the other day."

  "Really?" This time I looked at it more closely. The sheet was almost intact—only one corner was missing. "Bring me a spray bottle, some water, and some glycerin."

  "Glycerin?" Mona tried to frown, but her brows wouldn't move.

  "Check the medicine cabinet. A lot of treatments for constipation use glycerin. Maybe we'll get lucky."

  Without a further question, she charged off across the room.

  "If the Big Boss gets wind of this, our collective asses are grapes," I called after her, knowing she'd ignore my feeble attempt at humor. At least I amused myself.

  "I'm not really worried about that right now," Mona said as she disappeared into the hallway leading to the private rooms. "Besides, that man is putty in my hands." She tossed off the line with bravado that had a hollow ring to it.

  Mother never did have a firm grip on reality, but now was not the time to point it out. Besides, she'd just argue. I tried to make out the writing as I waited, but it just looked like dark squiggles, tightly woven on the crinkled paper.

  Amazingly, Mona was back in a flash and with the items I'd requested. "What are you going to do with this stuff?"

  I busied myself combining the water and glycerin in the spray bottle, then tightening the cap. As I shook it to combine the contents, at least briefly—water and oil weren't known to stick together long—I glanced at her. "You know all those notes from admirers you used to burn in that barrel behind the house?"

  Mona gave me a narrow-eyed look. "You didn't."

  "It was Miranda's idea, actually." Miranda, once my closest friend, had gone on to a stellar porn career and now made boatloads by producing the trash. Just thinking about it made me sad. "We were just kids. It was something she saw on that TV show, MacGyver. We tried it. It worked."

  Mona stepped back as I began spraying the paper with the mixture. "And you've been using it ever since."

  "I'm a woman of many talents." After wetting the ashes, I carefully tried to smooth out the paper. In theory, the water made it easier to flatten and the oil held it together. "Turn on that lamp." I nodded my head toward a reading lamp bending over the back of the couch.

  Mona scurried to do as I asked, then stepped out of the way. Carefully, I eased the now flat paper off the table, holding it up. Amazingly, it stayed together. Holding it up to the light, I worked to make out the writing. The ink or pencil lead, whichever, was not soluble, so it would stay dark.

  Unfortunately, I could only make out a few words. "It looks like a name," I said, thinking out loud.

  "What is it?"

  Chewing my lip, I narrowed my eyes and concentrated through the headache pain. "Eugenia, I think." I rested my eyes then looked again. "Yes, Eugenia. Eugenia Somebody. I can't read the last name. And something about a… " I lowered the paper and looked at Mona.

  She paled and sank to the couch, a hand clutched to her chest. "Oh my."

  Alarmed, I paused in my reading—it took a direct hit to rock Mona back on her heels. "Are you okay?"

  She nodded, then appeared to regain composure. "Keep reading. Something about a what?"

  "A child."

  "A child," Mona whispered, her face ashen as she sunk further into the couch.

  I lowered the paper and sat next to her. "What is it?" I grabbed her hand. It was cold and clammy.

  With a trembling hand, she brushed at a tendril of hair that had escaped and now tickled her eyes. "I need to talk to your father."

  "Okay." Unable to think of anything that would help, I patted her hand. "Where is he?"

  When she looked at me, she didn't try to hide the fear in her eyes. "That's the problem. Your father has disappeared."

  Chapter Five

  Back in my office, I rallied the troops. Miss P, Romeo, Flash, Brandy, and Dane perched expectantly on the meager furnishings, all of us gathered around Mona. Jimmy G leaned against the wall in the corner.

  "Where's Jeremy?" I directed the question at Miss P.

  "On his way. He said he had to pick up a package first."

  The question quieted the group.

  Jerry, our head of security, poked his head in through the makeshift doorway, then stepped inside. He took the other arm on the chair holding Dane. At my glance, he shook his head. "The Big Boss is not on the property."

  "His cars?"

  "He took Matilda." Matilda was his beloved fire-engine red Bentley.

  I started to tell Romeo to put out an all-points bulletin, but the kid was a step ahead, speaking quietly into his phone.

  I glanced around the group. Everyone waited expectantly. Even Mona sat quietly, looking as worried as I felt. "Okay." Pressing my palms to the top of the desk, I leaned forward. "Mother, the floor is yours. Give us everything you know."

  She worried with the end of a peach scarf tied jauntily around her neck. "Your father…" Her eyes held mine, seeking comfort. I gave her a warm smile. "He hasn't been himself since he got that
letter. It dredged up a lot of very old memories. All the way back to when he was a young man on the town, before he met me."

  "Who was Eugenia?"

  A gasp of surprise escaped Jimmy, and Mona gave him a look I couldn't quite read. "Eugenia Campos?" he whispered like he was summoning a ghost.

  Mona gave him a curt nod that had 'shut up' as the subtext—even I caught that.

  "Eugenia Campos?" I asked anyway. "That last name sure rings a bell."

  "Let me continue," Mona said, not even trying to hide her exasperation. "She was a cigarette girl at the International," Mona explained. "Young, beautiful, the 'complete package' the men used to say. And she had a nose for money."

  "And a knack for extortion," Jimmy G added, his voice flat and hard.

  "You knew her?" I asked him.

  "We all passed her around." His eyes skittered from mine. He looked uneasy as he stared at the floor.

  "Passed her around?" My voice was as cold as the meat locker in the basement.

  Finally, he took a deep breath. When his eyes met mine, they held. "Yeah, we each took our turn with her, until she met your father."

  I leaned back. Surveying the group, I couldn't shake the feeling I was about to learn something I didn't want to know. "And then…?"

  "They coupled up pretty good." Jimmy glanced at Mona.

  She delivered the punch line. "Until he met me."

  "You broke them up?" I asked.

  Mona looked uncomfortable. Jimmy came to her rescue. "It wasn't like that. Your mother didn't really know. But once Albert caught sight of Mona, he was done. There hasn't been anyone else for him since."

  "How did Eugenia take all of this?"

  "Not well," Mona said, eliciting a whistle from Jimmy G.

  "That's an understatement. She threw a holy shit fit." Jimmy ignored Mona's pleading look and forged ahead. "Threatened all kinds of things. Made your father pretty hot under the collar, I can tell you that. He was just a punk starting out. She coulda derailed him big time."

  A cold dread bloomed in the pit of my stomach. "I see. Did she happen to be pregnant?"

  "Oh, she claimed she was. But it was an act of desperation, we all thought so."

  "So nobody believed her?" I looked at both Mona and Jimmy G. They glanced at each other and shrugged. "Sorta coincidental we're dealing with a bomber named Albert Campos, isn't it? And Albert? Interesting choice for a first name, don't you think?"

  "That doesn't mean the Big Boss is his father," Jimmy pointed out.

  "No. But that's easy enough to prove. And it certainly indicates young Albert's mother thought so, or wanted us to think so, anyway. What happened to Ms. Campos?"

  "She left town," Jimmy stated.

  "Anybody know where she went?" I glanced between the two of them. "Did anyone hear from her after the fact?"

  Silence.

  I fixed Mother with my best stare. "I need an honest answer here."

  "Honey, believe me. I wish I could tell you someone did." From the panic in her eyes, I could tell Mona and I were reading from the same page. "But as far as I know, she just disappeared."

  "There seems to be an epidemic of that going around, doesn't there?"

  Jimmy gave me a lopsided grin. "Hey, it's Vegas."

  I didn't think he was funny.

  All sound seemed to be chewed up in the gristmill of overactive imaginations, leaving an uncomfortable silence. Vegas lore was replete with stories of 'disappearances', of finding bleached bones in the desert decades later. What if the Big Boss… No. Not possible. A cool draft, as if a ghost whispered in my ear, sent chills racing through me. I didn't like it—in fact, I didn't like any of this.

  "Anybody have any ideas?" Uncomfortable with my own thoughts, I threw out the question.

  Seven sets of eyes stared at me.

  No ideas. No plan. The Big Boss had disappeared. And his self-proclaimed son wandered Vegas with a stick of dynamite, the knowledge necessary to put it to use, and an axe to grind. Silence echoed as I presumed we all pondered the imponderable.

  All heads turned as a raised voice, angry with a hint of fear, echoed in the hallway outside my office. "Careful. I paid a hundred bucks for this suit."

  "You won't be needin' it in the pokey, bloke." Jeremy! "But if you keep causing me trouble, I'm gonna shove this boot up your ass."

  Jerry sprang to his feet and bolted through the door—misbehaving was part of his bailiwick.

  Miss P shot me a grin. "He has a nice way with people."

  Before I could even cogitate on a clever retort, a man staggered unceremoniously into our group as if he'd been shoved from behind, which I suspected was the case. Jeremy loomed in the doorway behind him with Jerry bringing up the rear.

  Surprise flashed across the Aussie's face as he realized he had an audience. "Convenient that you're all here." His eyes singled me out as he gestured toward the man he held. "I brought you a present."

  "My birthday is coming up. Thanks for remembering. But what should I do with him?"

  I leaned my head sideways trying to catch the man's eyes, which remained fixed on his shoes. Short, balding, in a hundred-dollar suit that had brown stains splattered down the front, but with an expensive watch and shined shoes, he had a trying-too-hard air about him.

  Jimmy G pushed himself from the wall and stepped toward the man who now stood in the middle of the room, encircled by all of us. "Boogie? Is that you?"

  The man raised his head. As he did so and we got a good look at him, a collective gasp filled the room. The man had been savagely beaten—one eye was black-and-blue and swollen shut, the other, only slightly less damaged. His lower lip, twice it's original size and marred by an open red split, oozed blood, which he nervously licked.

  "Jeremy?" Miss P asked, her shock evident.

  "I found him this way."

  "Boogie, it is you." Jimmy G had stepped in front of the man, putting them nose-to-nose.

  "Yeah, it's me." Boogie Fleischman growled in a voice that was far deeper and resonant than expected from such a small human.

  Jeremy prodded Boogie's shoulder. "You want to tell them what you told me?" Even though it was framed as such, it was not a question.

  "Look, all I did was get to telling stories."

  Jeremy shot him a look. "Start at the beginning."

  Boogie started again. "Okay, maybe I talk too much, okay? The kid got me talkin' about old times, remembering like."

  "And…?" Jeremy prompted.

  Boogie waffled for a minute as I held my breath. From the intent looks around the room, it seemed everyone else was hanging on his words as well. "Okay, I got to bragging a bit."

  "And…?" Jeremy clearly had more patience than I did.

  "We got to rigging explosives, like I used to do." Boogie ground his toe into the hardwood flooring.

  "We?" I asked. "We who?"

  "Me and the Campos kid."

  "You son of a bitch!" Jimmy shouted as he launched himself at Boogie. The two men fell in a tangle of limbs with Jimmy on top. He reared back, as if in slow motion, then launched a haymaker at Boogie's head. Pulling his arms protectively in front of his face, Boogie shielded himself.

  With one fluid movement, Dane launched himself, straddled the tangled men, grabbed Jimmy by the shirt collar, and lifted him off Boogie. With a practiced motion, he set him on his feet, then held him there. "Enough, big guy."

  Jerry helped Boogie to his feet, then put himself between Boogie and Jimmy G.

  "But he blew up my place," Jimmy spluttered.

  "Not personally but, in a manner of speaking, you're right," I said, finally finding my voice. "You wouldn't happen to have mentioned the location of your old stash of bomb parts to the young Mr. Campos, would you?"

  Boogie ground the toe of his shoe into the carpet. "I said a lot of stuff."

  I took that as a yes. "And the papers in the briefcase?"

  "Letters Eugenia had given me. She wanted me to get rid of all of it."

  "Why?"
>
  He looked up. When he answered my question, he didn't look at me. Instead, he stared at Mona. "They proved Albert Campos wasn't the Big Boss's kid."

  Something tight loosened inside me. "Truth. Such a hindrance to blackmail." But Albert had to know that these days DNA could solve that issue pretty easily."

  "Crazy people do crazy things." That bit of wisdom came from Boogie—he should know.

  "It doesn't add up. Something's bothering me, but I can't put my finger on it." I looked at Mother. "We may know the truth, but Albert Campos is still operating under his mother's lies."

  "You gotta believe me! I had no idea he would do any of this." Boogie didn't even try to keep the beg out of his voice. "When Jimmy's place blew, I had a real bad feeling. I was on my way here to shut the kid down when that…guy," he tilted his head toward Jeremy, "waylaid me."

  "Why were you coming here? To warn the Big Boss?"

  Boogie looked at me like I'd lost my mind. "Albert? Of course not. I was coming to warn you."

  I leaned back as if I'd been slapped. "Me?"

  "This is the second time a Campos has tried to kill you." Boogie's eyes—okay, the open one—bored into me. "With you out of the way, he thinks he's Albert Rothstein's only heir."

  Mona gasped. "Kill Lucky?" Then her hand flew to her belly. It wasn't hard to read her mind.

  "Mother, relax, I don't think that's his game. He knows he's not the Big Boss's son, and he knows it would be easy to prove. No, he's after something else." I tried to see the whole puzzle—it was there—but I couldn't. "High math isn't my strong suit but, given Mother's age when she met Father, and my age when the first bomb blew, Albert Campos is only five years older than me, six max. I don't know too many nine or ten-year-olds who have the bomb making skill set. Do you?"

  "It wasn't the kid who tried the first time." Jimmy G glanced around the group. "It was his mother." His eyes locked on Boogie. "Tell 'em, Boogs."

  After a moment of vacillation, Boogie dove in. "Eugenia played all the angles." Dane rose and offered Boogie his seat, which I thought was gallant of him. Boogie did look a bit worse for wear. He accepted Dane's offer with a nod, then a cringe. Once settled in the chair, he began again. "Her best play was gettin' guys over a barrel, and then squeezing their balls until they screamed."