by Robert Greer
“Like I said, the world’s gone crazy.” Willette slammed a fist down onto her toast.
“Yeah,” Antoine muttered, rising from his chair and heading for his bedroom. “It sure has,” he called back to W. Thirty seconds earlier the entire JFK assassination puzzle had become crystal clear for Sugar Sweet Ducane. As he reached the door to his bedroom, his jaws clenched in anger, his temples began to throb.
“Where you go in’, baby?” Willette called after him.
Antoine didn’t answer. He was too busy imagining himself lying on a Chicago police station floor with a bullet in his belly, too busy thinking about playing what people in his line of work called “a dead man’s patsy.”
“Sugar Sweet!”
Before Willette could utter another word, Antoine stepped into the bedroom, eyed the suitcase on his bed, and slammed the door.
Lee Harvey Oswald was declared dead at Parkland Hospital just after 1 p.m. By 1:30 p.m. television news outlets worldwide were proclaiming his death to the world.
Jack Ruby, who was carrying $2,000 in cash, business cards with the names of several Dallas-area sheriffs, and numerous passes to his nightclub for the Dallas assistant district attorney, was slapped with a charge of assault with intent to kill a little before 3 p.m. Later, several people who were there would report that Ruby, on hearing the charges read, seemed smugly relieved.
Feeling anything but relieved, Antoine Ducane found himself speeding north, heading for Colorado at the same time that Ruby was being charged. He was an hour north of New Iberia, squeezing all the horsepower he could out of his near-showroom-new 1962 Ford Fairlane 500. The car, its trunk loaded down with cinder blocks, its rear bumper hugging the highway, as was the fashion, seemed to glide on air. Upset at having to leave a confused and despondent W behind, and uncertain how best to deal with Ornasetti, he tried to relax, telling himself that he had nearly half the width of a continent to sort things out.
Aware that his bizarre behavior couldn’t have done anything but signal to W that he knew something about the assassination, he’d left his mother with a kiss on the forehead, a chilling warning, and a request: If you don’t hear from me in a week, pack up all my stuff and lock it up. Willette had begged him not to leave, had even cried in an effort to get him to stay, but to no avail.
Antoine had $400 in his pocket, a full tank of gas, a suitcase full of warm clothes, and two long-barreled .38s in his glove compartment as he broke full speed for the Rockies. It wouldn’t take him long, driving day and night, to get to Denver, and it wouldn’t take but the cost of one bullet, if it came to that, to settle up with Rollie Ornasetti. There were no rules to follow now, and no protocols to attend to. Ornasetti had set him up, sold him a bunch of wolf tickets about making an impact on history, when in fact, if the whole Chicago assassination plot had played out as planned, he would have ended up playing the Lee Harvey Oswald role of a patsy.
He’d kill Ornasetti if he had to, if for no other reason than simply to even the score, but first he’d try to get his money. Ornasetti didn’t know him well enough to appreciate his distaste for playing second fiddle. Even better, the pompous Denver native had no way of appreciating the fact that the one thing on earth that made Sugar Sweet Ducane’s blood run cold was being made to play the part of a white folks’ fool, the very essence of the part he would have played in the Kennedy assassination had things gone as planned in Chicago.
PART III
The Rekindle
Chapter 8
Denver, Colorado, late August, the Present
Taking a break from sorting through cartons filled with antiques, CJ Floyd stood, stretched with a grunt, and glanced around his friend Mario Satoni’s dimly lit basement. Bending to touch his toes, he let out a silent sigh and eyed the dozens of remaining boxes that he still had to dig through. His hair, once jet black, was salt-and-pepper now, and although he felt as strong if not as quick as ever, he had the feeling that, somehow, something he couldn’t quite see, touch, smell, or feel was gaining on him.
He’d managed over the past year, with help from his fiancée, Mavis Sundee, to keep his ever upward-trending weight under control by moderating his intake of sweet-potato pie and fried-catfish dinners and restricting the ice-cold Negra Modelo beer he was so fond of to no more than two bottles per week.
His six-foot-three-inch frame hadn’t started to slump, his midsection was still firm, and he still wore his trademark riverboat gambler’s vest, Stetson, and jeans. Without benefit of a closer inspection, it was next to impossible to distinguish the fifty-three-year-old CJ Floyd from the always-full-tilt bail bondsman and bounty hunter he’d been ten years earlier. But there had been subtle changes that now defined him. His joints ached each morning the instant his feet hit the floor. His eyesight, 20/15 in one eye and 20/10 in the other for as long as he could remember, had faded in both eyes to a less acute level, and although he never felt winded in his rush from being a bail bondsman one minute to being an antiques and collectibles dealer the next, he had the haunting feeling that very soon he would. He knew that after more than thirty years of lighting up a cheroot whenever the urge hit him, one day he’d pay a price. For the moment he was beating back his cheroot addiction and the aging process as best he could, fighting to remain the same CJ Floyd he’d always been—a little older and wiser and still and always navigating a harsh and hard-edged world with a little help from his friends.
It was close to noon, and three hours of unboxing and cataloging inventory had just about stretched the limits of his attention span. Aware that he couldn’t possibly finish sorting through all the remaining boxes at his feet and still meet Mavis to take in the final game of a four-game Colorado Rockies home stand, he looked around the suffocating basement and shook his head.
The Rockies had lost two of three games, and he was hoping the team would be lucky enough to get a win and even up the series before they left for a three-game road trip against the Dodgers, the lifelong baseball dream team of Mario Satoni, who was sorting through boxes a few feet away from him.
Mario, once Colorado’s most notorious mobster, had turned eighty-two a few weeks earlier. Except for a noticeable loss of hearing in his left ear, an ill-fitting partial denture that had given him fits for years, and the unavoidable shrinking and frailty that came with living for more than eight decades, he was as mentally alert as when he’d controlled most of the organized crime in the state forty years earlier.
Eyeing the frustrated-looking CJ, Mario called out, “You ’bout done with that box, Calvin?” A stickler for formality and a man with an abundance of lingering Old World customs, Mario had called CJ by his given name, Calvin, since the day they’d first met.
“Close. I’d be further along if you’d ever pipe some AC down here.”
Ignoring CJ’s remark, Mario said, “Well, finish it, man, finish it. That way there’ll be one less thing on the agenda for tomorrow.”
CJ eyed his longtime friend sternly, looking disenchanted, shook his head, and dug back into the box at his feet.
The bond between the two men, not apparent on the surface, was in fact straightforward and quite simple. CJ’s late uncle, Ike Floyd, a bail bondsman, a lifelong alcoholic, and the man who had raised CJ, had saved Mario’s life back when he and Mario were in their midtwenties. More importantly, CJ and Mario shared a passion for Western collectibles and antiques that stretched back for years. They had gone into business together after CJ’s own short-lived antiques store on Denver’s famed Antique Row, named Ike’s Spot in affectionate memory of his uncle, had been bombed into oblivion on the orders of CJ’s longtime nemesis, Celeste Deepstream. Deepstream was a psychotic Acoma Indian and former Olympic-caliber swimmer who blamed CJ for the death of her twin brother. Luckily for CJ, most of the building’s contents had been spared, and Mario, itching to take a stab at a lifelong dream of owning an antiques store, had come calling.
Their new business and the new Ike’s Spot became a virtual antiques store that they operated
out of Mario’s basement with help from Damion Madrid, the computer-savvy college-student son of CJ’s former secretary turned lawyer, Julie Madrid. The store had mushroomed into a quick success—a win-win situation for everyone. Damion Madrid got the opportunity to earn money for college; Mario had what he’d always wanted—although he was disappointed that the store was in fact virtual—and CJ, much to Mavis’s delight and relief, now worked only part time as a bail bondsman.
“Less to finish or more, it really doesn’t matter, Mario,” CJ grumbled. “You’ve got a lifetime’s worth of stuff stored down here.” CJ waved an outstretched arm around the dingy, claustrophobic, cinderblock space and mumbled, “Fricking underground bunker.”
Recognizing that CJ had reached his limit for the time being, Mario smiled and said, “And it’s all ours. Now, go ahead and get outta here. Go watch those lousy Rockies take another butt-whippin’. I’ll finish up.”
“No need to offer twice.” CJ dusted off his hands. Suddenly feeling a twinge of guilt, he asked, “You gonna be okay on your own?”
“Of course,” said Mario, a widower for thirty-five years. “What else have I got to do? The Dodgers ain’t playin’. And you don’t see Angie, my sweet angel, standin’ around here waitin’ to tickle my fancy, do you?”
CJ didn’t answer, aware that other than a Denver-based nephew he detested, Mario had no immediate family. He had walked away from his role as Denver’s and the Rocky Mountain region’s crime boss forty years earlier, on the day his wife, and more importantly half his soul, had been diagnosed with breast cancer. For the next five years he’d watched Angie Satoni die, and in that time he’d lost the greater part of himself. Now only CJ, his antiques business, and his precious LA Dodgers kept Mario going.
At times Mario’s 6 a.m. phone calls to CJ, his late-night requests for CJ to come over and help him recheck inventory, their lengthy business planning chats, and the backyard wiener roasts that never seemed to end made CJ wonder if going into business with Mario had been the right decision. CJ, after all, had his own life to live. But it was Calvin Jefferson Floyd, the nephew of the man who’d once saved his life, whom Mario had come to depend on whenever he needed propping up, and things weren’t about to change.
“I’m outta here,” CJ said, heading across the basement. He was a few feet from the basement steps when the sound of a thud at the top of the stairs stopped him in his tracks. Aware that Mario had jerry-rigged a motion-detection alarm system that swept the perimeter of the house and that Mario therefore generally left the back door open so he could have quick access to his backyard, a virtual botanical garden, CJ reacted with surprise. “You expectin’ company?”
Mario frowned, rose from his seat, pulled a layer of newspaper from around the 1920s-vintage antique cookie jar he’d just unboxed, and tossed the jar to the startled CJ. Taking a half step backward, he popped the top on a vintage Saks Fifth Avenue hatbox that had belonged to Angie, reached inside, and pulled out a silver-plated, long-barreled .44 Magnum. He put a forefinger across his lips, warning CJ to be quiet, and called out, “Who’s up there?”
There was no answer except for the sound of footsteps descending the basement steps.
“That you, Boscoe?” Mario yelled, thinking that perhaps the only remaining member of his once large circle of mob-connected friends, Jimmy Boscoe, had decided to pay him a surprise visit.
The normally unarmed CJ slipped a .22 Walther out of a pants pocket. The gun belonged to his partner in the bail-bonding business, Flora Jean Benson. He’d picked it up from her that morning at her office, planning to deliver it to Mavis to give to her father, who refused to move from his house in an increasingly high-crime section of Denver’s historically black Five Points community. CJ kept the Walther aimed toward the floor, but Mario, who in all the years since Angie’s death had let fewer than a dozen people enter his basement to view the incredible stash of antiques it had taken him a lifetime to gather, had his .44 aimed at the middle of the stairwell.
“You down there, Mario?” a man’s voice finally called out.
CJ trained his gun barrel on the empty stairwell, and there was a moment of standoff silence before the man called out, “Dominico, you there?”
Responding gruffly to his middle name, Mario asked, “Pinkie, that you?”
“Yeah.” When Pinkie Niedemeyer stepped into sight, he found himself staring at two gun barrels. His eyes met CJ’s, then darted to meet Mario’s.
“Damn it, Pinkie! You lookin’ to get yourself killed?” Mario lowered his gun barrel and slammed the .44 down on the seat of his chair.
“Shit! I wasn’t expectin’ to run into the O.K. Corral down here.” Niedemeyer watched CJ stow the Walther before curtly saying, “CJ.”
“Pinkie.”
Incensed by the intrusion, Mario said, “You know I don’t let people come down here without an invite. This better be holy-damn-grail important, Pinkie. And when you finish spoutin’ off, I wanna know how you managed to get around my alarm system.”
“Wouldn’t’ve risked getting my head blown off if it wasn’t. And for the record, your alarm system, which any sixth grader could hop scotch, stinks.” Niedemeyer smiled, showing off two rows of gleaming white, perfectly aligned dental implants that had recently replaced his aging bridgework. He had lost all his front teeth, top to bottom, eyetooth to eyetooth, and the pinkie finger of his left hand during a 1971 New Year’s Eve firefight outside the village of Song Ve three days before he had been scheduled to come home from a year-long tour of duty in Vietnam. He’d received a Purple Heart and earned himself a nickname for doing his duty that day. For the last twenty years he’d been the Rocky Mountain underworld’s top “settlement agent”—“hit man,” a term Pinkie detested, to the rest of the world. Looking Mario squarely in the eye, he asked, “Read the papers recently?”
Surprised by the question, Mario frowned. “What?”
Niedemeyer shot an uneasy glance at CJ, a glance that shouted, Damn, I wish you weren’t here! Turning to Mario, he said, “The damn earthquake, Dominico. We need to talk. In private.”
Pinkie’s insistent tone and the second invocation of his middle name caused Mario to flush. Turning to CJ, he abruptly said, “We’re done here for the day, Calvin.”
“You sure?” CJ asked, standing his ground, his gaze locked on the intruder.
“Yeah. You go on and meet Mavis. I’ll wrap up.”
CJ stood his ground. He and Pinkie had had their share of skirmishes during CJ’s bail-bonding career, but months earlier, on orders from Mario, Pinkie had derailed Celeste Deepstream’s convoluted plan to kill CJ. By virtue of that intervention, CJ had thought that Pinkie had worked off a debt he’d long owed Mario. But the fact that Pinkie was standing there in Mario’s basement, primed to discuss an issue that needed to be handled in private, told CJ that Pinkie was still in Mario’s debt. Top-level hit men like Andrus Niedemeyer didn’t come slinking down basement stairways, hat in hand, peddling information and asking for an audience with a long-retired mobster unless they were looking to erase a heavy debt.
“CJ, weren’t you just leavin’?” Mario’s tone was insistent.
Recognizing that his continued presence was delaying the resolution of what he and Mario liked to call a Level I problem, CJ said, “Yeah, I’m outta here. I’ll call you later.”
“Take care.” Mario’s response was detached, almost hollow.
CJ offered the skinny hit man a departing nod as he headed for the stairwell. Niedemeyer nodded back understandingly, the way two men who’d shared a war experience tend to do. He broke into a knowing half smile as he watched CJ mount the stairs, aware that, given the proper circumstances, CJ Floyd was just as capable of killing as he was.
When Pinkie turned back to Mario, his face was expressionless. Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out a newspaper clipping from that morning’s Rocky Mountain News and said, “I think that earthquake we had yesterday mighta bought you some problems, Dominico.”
M
ario Satoni’s face slumped as he heard Pinkie use his middle name for the third time that morning. It was a distress code they’d shared for years. Rather than the third time being the legendary charm, Mario knew Pinkie Niedemeyer was more than likely delivering a universe of trouble.
CJ hadn’t been able to concentrate on the goings-on on the field for the entire game. Seated in Mavis’s father’s seats just above the Rockies dugout with Mavis and Damion Madrid, CJ had spent a distracted seven innings watching the Rockies blow a seven-run advantage over the San Francisco Giants. Now, as they rose for the seventh-inning stretch, the game was tied. Oblivious to CJ’s agitation, Damion, slim, athletic-looking, six-foot-five and still growing, and as diehard a fan of the Rockies as Mario Satoni was of the Dodgers, slipped the field binoculars that CJ had carried during Vietnam beneath his seat. As the crowd broke into a sorrowful rendition of “Take Me Out to the Ball Game,” he announced, “I’m gonna head up for another Rockie Dog. You want anything?”
CJ shook his head.
“Mavis?” Damion asked.
“Nothing for me,” Mavis said, frowning and patting her stomach. “One of those things is my limit.”
“Suit yourselves.” Squeezing past CJ, Damion stepped into the aisle and headed up the steps to the concourse.
“Youth,” said Mavis, watching Damion disappear into the crowd. “And he’s an athlete, no less. Julie says he’ll be the starting small forward for Colorado State this fall.”
“I heard,” CJ said, his tone noticeably distracted. “Always figured he’d be a point guard myself. Wouldn’t you know it, he grew a half foot.”
“You’ve gotta go with your strengths.” Mavis took in the bemused look on CJ’s face. “Sort of like splitting your time between being a bail bondsman and an antiques dealer.” She hoped she sounded supportive rather than judgmental of the man she’d had a crush on since his junior year in high school. Her father and Ike had thought she’d outgrow that puppy love, expecting that their six-year age difference combined with CJ’s obvious lack of interest would solve the problem, but after CJ returned home from two naval tours of Vietnam, the love spark that had always been there for Mavis had ignited in him too.