At Their Own Game

by Frank Zafiro

  I let him think about that for a few moments. Then he said, “The heat was everywhere at Marconi’s, then?”

  “It was like the Copper’s Ball.”

  Brent sighed. “I never would’ve figured him for it.”

  “People surprise.”

  “I guess so.” He peered at me more closely. “So you ran a game on me, too.”

  “I had to know who was talking to the cops. Is this going to be a problem for us?”

  He was quiet a moment, then shrugged. “No. I see your point.”

  “Good. Can we move on, then?”

  He hesitated. “When you say you fired him…”

  “Relax,” I said. “I took his cell phone and smashed it. I told him to leave town. Yeah, I threatened to kill him if I ever saw him again, and I think he may have even believed me. He got in his car and drove away.”

  “Where do you figure he’ll go?”

  “What the fuck do I care?”

  “I’m just curious.”

  I shrugged. “He’s got an aunt over in Helena. Maybe there.”

  Brent nodded slowly. “So you didn’t kill him?”

  I affected a surprised look. “No! I already told you that. Jesus, Brent. What’s your problem?”

  “He ratted us out to the cops. It’s a big deal. I just thought –”

  “We’re not bad guys,” I said forcefully.

  “Okay.”

  “We’re not.”

  “I know.”

  “So he’s out. Right now, it’s just you and me.”

  He smiled slightly. “I guess my cut just got bigger.”

  “Mine, too. Now here’s the plan.”

  I told him what I’d worked out with Falkner. He listened carefully, nodding his approval at times. When I’d finished, he said, “Sounds good to me. We get rid of Ozzy and get Falkner off our back, too. What’s not to like?”

  “I still have to figure out how to get in a room with Ozzy.”

  “Hell, Boss, that’s easy,” Brent said. “Just tell him you’ve got some information about the cops or something. He’s such a paranoid bastard, he won’t be able to resist.”

  I thought about it, then nodded. “All right, I’ll try that. You bring your piece?”

  He patted his back pocket. “Yessir. Got the baby nine right here. Now, when are we doing this?”

  “No time like the present.”

  Ozzy answered on the third ring.

  “You calling me is the same as us running into each other, as far as I’m concerned,” he said. “You want me to send Damon to come see you?”

  I ignored the threat. “Remember that cop who was after me?”

  “No. And I don’t care.”

  “Well, you should. He hauled me in for an interrogation a few hours ago. You know what he asked me about the most?”

  “Where you bought your purse?”

  “You. He asked me about you .”

  Ozzy was quiet for a moment. Then he asked, “What did you say?”

  “I didn’t say shit. But he did. And you’ll want to hear it.”

  “Then fucking speak.”

  “On the phone?” I asked, my tone incredulous. “A goddamn cell phone?”

  He sighed. “No.” Then, “All right. Fine. Meet me at The Livermore. I’ve got an office here. Ask the bartender.”

  “I’m bringing my guy with me.”

  “Fuck do I care? But move your ass. I’ve got other business to attend to.”

  “Fine. See you in thirty minutes.”

  “Make it twenty. And God forbid you don’t have something important to tell me, you dickless fuck.”

  “It’s important. Trust me.”

  “I don’t trust anyone.” He hung up.

  I pressed cancel and looked over at Brent. “We’re on.”

  The Livermore Tavern on Perry Street had always been a dive. Even though some gentrification had occurred in the surrounding neighborhood, it hadn’t reached the Livermore yet. A few highbrow patrons were in the place, obviously slumming, but the majority of the people there would have fit right in up in Hillyard.

  My kind of people, in other words.

  Brent and I didn’t raise any eyebrows, though I caught a couple of guys and one waitress watching us with sidelong glances. That’d be part of Ozzy’s information network. I had to give the son of a bitch some credit. He kept himself in the loop.

  The bartender was a gaunt man with a fading eagle tattoo on his skinny forearm. “What’re you drinking?” he asked.

  “Nothing. Ozzy’s expecting us.”

  He stared back at me, his eyes narrowing. “Ozzy who, officer?”

  I smiled. “Can’t lose the look, huh?”

  The bartender’s hard stare didn’t waver. “Maybe undercover ain’t your gig.”

  “It never was,” I conceded. “But I’m not a cop, at least not anymore. And me and my partner here have an appointment with the man in charge.”

  The bartender cast a glance toward Brent, registered a hint of recognition, then came back to rest on me. “Like I said, I don’t know no Ozzy.”

  “Fine,” I sighed. “Two draft beers, then.”

  He shrugged, drew us two drafts and plunked them in front of me. I dropped a ten on the table, and Brent and I took a table in the corner.

  The bartender ignored us, and didn’t make any move to notify Ozzy. I sipped my beer and decided to wait. Brent did the same.

  “That bartender is a dick,” I said.

  “Kind of a job requirement in this neighborhood.”

  “Probably.” I took another sip. “He seemed to know you.”

  Brent nodded while he took a long pull from the mug. When he set the mug down, he said, “I grew up ten blocks from here. And…” He motioned to one of the waitresses on the other side of the tavern. I followed his gaze. She was the one who’d been watching us since we came in.

  “Really?” I asked.

  He gave me a slight smile. “I worked on her for three weeks straight. Every night. Dropped twenties on the table like I was Andrew Jackson’s biggest fan.”

  “Was it worth it?”

  His smile broadened. “Oh, yeah.”

  “Let me guess. After that, you stopped coming around.”

  His smile faded. “Kinda. After that, I met the girlfriend. And I have a rule about that. One at a time, you know?”

  “Not like Matt.”

  He snorted slightly. “Yeah, not like Mister As Fast As I Can As Often As I Can With As Many As I Can.” Then his expression darkened a little. “You know, I hate to admit it, but I’m going to miss him.”

  “He was a fucking rat.”

  “I’m going to miss that fucking rat.” He took another long drink of his beer. “But you know what, Boss?”

  “What?”

  “You should’ve clipped him.”

  I didn’t reply.

  We sat and drank our beers. For a guy who was in some kind of shit-fire hurry, Ozzy sure didn’t seem to mind making us wait. My beer was down to about half an inch remaining and Brent’s was finished for five minutes before the watchful waitress came by. I expected her to offer us another round, but instead, she pointed at a door to the left of the bar.

  “Through the door and down the stairs,” was all she said, before casting a glance at Brent. He gave her a neutral nod.

  I stood and drained my mug. The weight of my gun in the small of my back suddenly felt good. Even better was the small recorder in my pocket. I reached into that pocket, flipped the recorder on, and pulled out a pair of one d
ollar bills.

  “You got any twenties?” I asked Brent.

  He gave me a sour look. “Har-de-fucking-har.”

  “No? Well, this’ll have to do.” I dropped the ones onto the table. “Let’s go meet the big guy.”

  We went through the door next to the bar. Kegs of beer and cases of liquor lined one wall. Fifteen feet past the door was a stairway that led down. I made for it without waiting. Brent followed.

  At the bottom of the staircase was a heavy door. I knocked. A few moments later, there was the sound of a latch being thrown and a bar sliding aside. Then the door swung open.

  Damon met my eyes, showing no sign of recognition, though his handiwork was still evident on my face. He stepped back and let us both enter. Then he closed the door and latched it behind us.

  Ozzy sat at the only table in the room, a small round one that was extra from upstairs. Randall stood back and to his left, his arms crossed. Damon remained at the door.

  A single chair sat across from Ozzy. He pointed at it wordlessly. I unzipped my jacket, pulled out the chair, and sat down. I made sure not to lean against the back of the chair, leaving myself room to reach for my gun if things went to hell, which I figured at even odds, at least.

  Brent moved off to my left, putting his back to a wine rack. I couldn’t see a better position for him to be in order to cover me.

  Ozzy spread his hands. “Okay, mister fucking mysterious. What’s so important you couldn’t tell me over the phone?”

  I glanced around the basement room. In addition to the stacks of booze, chairs and a couple more tables piled in a corner, I noticed that while the back wall was exposed earth, the ceiling was finished. I couldn’t hear any of the bar noise above.

  Ozzy noticed my gaze. “Oh, it’s safe, cowboy. The finished walls have sound dampening material behind them, and where it’s not finished, the dirt does the job. No way anyone is going to overhear our conversation.”

  “Good.”

  “Yeah, fucking good.” His stare bored into me. “Now what do you have for me? And it better be good.”

  “The detective knows all about your operation,” I lied. “From the questions he was asking me, he knows more than I do.”

  “Knows or guesses?”

  “Some of both, I’d say. Right now, he’s probably guessing more than he knows, otherwise he’d be knocking down your door with a search warrant.”

  “Like he did at your house?”

  I eyed Ozzy carefully. Then I said, “Yeah, like that.”

  Ozzy considered, nodding his head while he thought. “I did a little research on this detective,” he said. “Know what I found out?”

  “I can imagine.”

  “Can you now? Well, since we’re all sitting here, how about I tell you anyway?” He didn’t wait for me to respond. “I found out he’s a robbery/homicide dick, for starters. He’s not no narco. So he shouldn’t give much of a fuck what I’m up to.”

  “Detectives aren’t limited to just—”

  Ozzy ignored my interruption “Then I found out you and he had a little bit of a dust-up a few years back over what got you kicked off the force. I got things right so far?”

  “Yeah,” I admitted.

  “Then I find out that what it really had to do with was some cooze that turns out to be his wife, who you were banging behind his back.” He gave me an evil smile. “Still on track?”

  I shrugged.

  He continued. “So I asked myself, why would this detective give a shit about me and my dope operation? And I come up with the answer that he probably doesn’t. He is just looking for a way to get back at you over you throwing the coals to his wife all those years ago.” He pointed his finger at me. “Which really means that you are my problem, not him.”

  “It doesn’t matter how he got onto you,” I said. “The fact is, that’s where he’s at now. And I’m bringing you this information so we can figure out how to handle this. For both our sakes.”

  “Yeah? You’re worried about my welfare?”

  “No. But your welfare is tied to mine on this, and I’m worried about my own ass here.”

  “You should be,” Ozzy said.

  There was a short silence. The tension in the room buzzed like an electric current, just under the surface of everything we said or did. I tried to keep calm. I thought about what to say next to salvage this situation.

  “He’s wearing a wire, Boss,” Brent said.

  A wire? My mind scrambled to make sense of what he said. Why the fuck would Ozzy be wearing a wire? Could he be working for the cops? Was that what I’d been sensing that was so off about this entire situation?

  In that split second after Brent spoke, I examined that possibility but immediately rejected it. Ozzy an informant? Not a chance.

  And how did Brent know?

  My eyes shot toward Brent a moment later, and I realized the truth.

  He wasn’t looking at me.

  He was looking directly at Ozzy.

  Son of a bitch .

  Ozzy glared at me. “You came in here wired ? You rat fuck piece of shit!” He reached for his waistband, pulling out a small gun and pointing it at me before I could react.

  I moved without thinking. First, I grabbed the edge of the small table between us as the gun in Ozzy’s hand barked. A burning sensation creased across my ear.

  I hurled the table upward. It crashed into Ozzy, knocking him backward. Without hesitation, I stood up and drew my gun. I scurried backward, away from the chair and the overturned table.

  I pumped five rounds through the table at Ozzy. The gun bucked in my hand and the concussive force of the rounds bounced around the small basement room.

  In the corners of my vision, I saw Randall and Damon reaching for their weapons. I wheeled toward Randall first and fired twice. He let out a cry and both hands flew to his leg. He toppled to the ground with a grunt. Then I trained my gun on Damon. He’d managed to get his hand wrapped around the handle of his pistol, but it was still in the holster.

  “Don’t,” I growled at him.

  He released his hand and slowly raised both of them in the air.

  I turned my attention to Brent, who had been fumbling for the gun in his back pocket. He froze when I pointed the muzzle at him.

  I stared at him, trying to figure it all out in the heavy silence of that basement room, amidst the smell of cordite and blood. I waited for him to say something, but he only stared back at me.

  “Why?” I finally asked him.

  He didn’t answer.

  I decided it didn’t matter. I slapped the trigger twice, sending two bullets into his chest. He fell backward into the wine rack and slid to the ground, dislodging merlot bottles as he fell. The bottles shattered on the floor, splattering red wine all around his body.

  Damon twitched slightly when I fired. I brought my gun back to him. “Listen carefully,” I said, my voice low and deadly. “Use your left hand, and only two fingers of that left hand, to take out that gun on your hip. Slowly.”

  He hesitated for just a moment, then reached slowly across his body with his left hand. He unsnapped the gun and pulled it from the holster.

  “Drop it,” I instructed.

  He let it clatter to the floor.

  I motioned with the barrel of my gun for him to stand near Randall. He kept his eyes on me, calm and appraising, but he walked slowly across the room. Next to him, Randall pressed hard on the wound to his upper leg and grunted heavily in pain.

  “His gun, too,” I instructed Damon.

  He reached down slowly, pulled Randall’s gun from its shoulder harness and held it up for me with his thumb and fo
refinger.

  “Throw it over.”

  Damon gave it a light toss toward me. It clattered and slid most of the way to my position. I left it there.

  Keeping my gun pointed at the two of them, I sidestepped toward the overturned table. My ears were ringing and the right side of my head burned. When I reached the table, I stopped. On the other side, I could hear a gurgling noise. Carefully, I peeked over the top of the table.

  Ozzy stared up at me with a weak, hateful glare. His hands twitched slightly and his breath came in gurgling rasps. Blood coated the front of his body, and I could see ragged, torn flesh at his throat.

  He was finished.

  But I wasn’t.

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  I stepped away from the table, focusing my attention on Damon and Randall. “How’s his leg?” I asked.

  “Shot,” Damon replied, his voice flat.

  I turned to Randall. “What’s it to be, Randall? Are you going to die on me?”

  Randall glared up at me, grunting in pain. “No. Not from this.”

  “Help him,” I told Damon.

  “Why?” Damon asked. “If you’re just going to kill us –”

  “I don’t want to kill either of you,” I said. “So don’t be a stupid fuck about it, and help him.”

  Damon stared at me for a moment longer, then turned to care for Randall.

  I kicked both of the guns to the opposite corner of the room, then watched Damon as he worked on Randall.

  It turned out Randall was right. The bullet wound was going to need some serious treatment, but he wasn’t going to die from it. After about ten minutes of working the wound, Damon reached for Randall’s belt to snug the bandage down on the injury.

  “Don’t make that too tight,” I said.

  “I know.”

  “If you make it too tight, he’ll lose his leg.”

  Damon looked up at me. “I said, I know. I was in the Army. I know first aid.”

  I shrugged. “Then carry on.”

  He finished bandaging Randall. Randall looked pale but he didn’t have that sickly look that people tended to get when they were close to dying. It looked like he was going to make it.