by Robert Greer
“D-d-don’t really know. B-b-been asking myself that all evening. Let’s just say I like your tenacity. It’s a lot like that classmate of mine. But to be truthful, right now I’ve got n-n-nowhere else to turn. It’s you or an FBI agent who cuts against my grain. Else could have me out of his hair in the blink of an eye. All he has to do is turn the right screw. I either go with him or I go with you, and g-g-going with him’s not an option.”
“It’s your career, man. But I’d think a decision like that over long and hard.”
“Oh, I h-h-have. Over and o-o-over, and every time I get to the point that I’m about to play ball with Else, I end up with this i-i-image of him staring down at me and laughing.”
“Fine by me. Like I said, it’s your career. But I need to get something outta this arrangement too.”
“Shoot.”
“Lay off Mario,” CJ said bluntly. “He’s eighty-two years old, and he’s wearing down. He didn’t kill Ducane or McPherson, and he damn sure didn’t have anything to do with the JFK assassination.”
“You’re p-p-positive about that?”
“As positive as you are that that police academy classmate of yours is the one big reason you made it over the hump. Mario did the same thing for me once, helped me over the hump. Just after I’d lost almost everything I owned in a business venture that went south. I owe him.”
“Like I said, sometimes enlightenment requires walking in another man’s shoes. I’ll do my b-b-best.”
There was a long silence as the two men took long sips of coffee. “So where do we go from here?” CJ asked finally.
Cavalaris, who seemed to have already thought through at least a rudimentary strategy, said, “Since b-b-both you and the sheriff here confirmed that Lucerne has left that bed and breakfast she manages for the night, I’ll have to wait and have my talk with her tomorrow. After that I go see Ornasetti.”
“And my job is?”
“Your j-j-job is to talk to Satoni. F-f-find out if he knows or remembers anything special about Ducane. And while you’re at it, ask him if he’s aware of any, uh, h-h-hit men who happen to know their way around heavy equipment. In other words, scratch the dirt for anything we might’ve overlooked.”
“And Mario gets a pass,” said CJ, determined to pin Cavalaris down on the issue.
“He does from me. I can’t s-s-speak for Else or his FBI crew.”
“Okay,” said CJ, feeling a twinge of guilt over withholding information about Sheila Lucerne from Cavalaris.
“We’re set, then,” said Cavalaris, reaching for his wallet. “I-I-I’ve got the coffee.”
“Thanks,” CJ said. Wondering as they rose to leave whether he could really trust a cop, CJ was convinced that Cavalaris was wondering the same thing about him.
Proud that he and his attorney had stonewalled Mr. Ronald T. Else, the insipid FBI agent who’d hauled him in for a two-hour midday interrogation, Rollie Ornasetti had spent the rest of the day gloating, smoothing things over with Carmine Cassias, and trying unsuccessfully to locate Randall Maxie. As a last resort, he’d called the sexy little Latina he knew Maxie was poking. All he’d gotten was a cheerful message on her answering machine saying that she wasn’t in. When he’d mentioned Else’s escalating probe into the JFK assassination during the second of two calls to Cassias, he’d been told to keep his mouth shut.
It was close to 1:30 a.m. when Ornasetti pulled his BMW into the parking lot beneath his Lower Downtown Denver townhouse and office. After enjoying an evening at his favorite jazz club, Dazzle, he was drifting along on a margarita-induced buzz and feeling no pain. Easing into his parking stall, he shut down the engine and opened the door to get out. He’d barely taken a step toward the elevator when, still dressed head to toe in black, Napper stepped out from behind a concrete support beam, looped a choke wire around Ornasetti’s neck, and tightened it until, gasping for air and with his fingers clawing at the wire, Ornasetti dropped to his knees, unconscious. A few droplets of blood, the result of his clawing and the noose breaking skin, splattered onto the floor as Ornasetti slumped to the concrete.
Looking around to make certain he hadn’t been seen, Napper slipped a syringe and a set of handcuffs out of his pocket. He jammed the needle into Ornasetti’s forearm and muttered, “Pleasant dreams,” before handcuffing the now slobbering mobster. Reaching into his pocket, Napper pressed the trunk-lid remote button on his car keys, checked to make certain Ornasetti was still breathing, slipped his hands under Ornasetti’s arms, and began dragging him toward his own vehicle.
He hadn’t exactly followed Cassias’s orders to kill Ornasetti. But what did that matter? Cassias’s orders had been preempted, and preemps were a way of life in his world. Lifting Ornasetti by his belt and shirt collar, he bulldogged the Denver don up onto the car bumper and into the trunk. In a final effort, he looped Ornasetti’s legs into the trunk, took a short breather, closed the trunk lid, and called it a day.
Chapter 25
“So, who’s the group?” Damion asked, swaying to the beat as the Coasters broke into their classic 1950s hit “Yakety Yak.” Damion and his girlfriend, Niki Estaban, had been listening to old R&B tunes, Damion’s musical passion, and playing a game of name-that-record-artist to the point that Niki was bored.
“I don’t know, Damion. It was before my time.”
“It’s the Coasters. You’ve gotta try harder, Niki.”
“Okay, okay. But I’m pooped, just like your mother. In case you missed it, she waved the white flag and headed for bed an hour ago. Game’s over, Damion. You win.”
Realizing he’d driven both his mother and Niki to the point of frustration, Damion frowned, shook his head as if to say, I’ve done it again, and said, “All right.”
Recognizing that she’d offended him, Niki jumped out of her chair, rushed to Damion’s side, kissed him on the cheek, and whispered, “Just try being a little less competitive. It’ll do you good, Blood.”
Damion smiled and mulled over the fact that it was as much his competitiveness as anything else that had saved his life at the Pawnee grasslands. Even so, he knew Niki was right. He needed to strap a governor on his overwhelming need to win. “Let’s call it a night.” He slipped an arm around Niki’s waist and eyed her quizzically.
“Something wrong?”
“Nope. Just thinking about the future.”
Niki smiled. “Ours, I hope.”
“Ours, mine, yours, my mother’s. I wonder if I’m really cut out to be a doctor.”
“Come on, Damion. Shandell says that’s all you’ve ever talked about becoming since the third grade.”
“People change.”
Looking him squarely in the eye, Niki said, “You’re tired, Damion. I can see it in your eyes. People’s thoughts turn crooked when they’re tired. Let’s call it a night.”
Damion winked and slipped his hand down onto Niki’s hip.
“No, you don’t, Damion Madrid,” she said, her response clearly meant to tease. “Your mother’s a criminal lawyer. I don’t want her coming after me for orchestrating a late-night seduction of her son. Besides, I’m tired, babe. You all right with that?”
Damion nodded and kissed Niki softly on the lips. “And she’s a hell of a good one at that. Who knows, maybe I should give the legal profession some thought.”
Niki smiled and squeezed Damion’s hand supportively. “Wouldn’t hurt, Blood. Wouldn’t hurt one bit.”
“I made a bad choice. You ever done that?” Napper said to Carmine Cassias. Frowning and shaking his head, he shifted his weight to the back of the unstable toilet seat he was seated on and switched his cell phone from his right hand to his left. Fifteen minutes earlier he had checked into a $29-a-night motel on the outskirts of Denver. The bathroom had turned out to be the most livable space in the filthy, foul-smelling room he’d been given.
“A real bad choice,” Cassias said, disapproval ringing in his voice. “You should’ve dealt with Lucerne first. Why the shit would you go after some
bail bondsman who’s peripheral to every fuckin’ thing?”
“I thought Lucerne might’ve told him somethin’. Spilled her guts to him about what she may have known about the Ducane killing. I knew I could always come back and deal with her. I wasn’t so certain about him.”
“Well, you fucked up, Einstein. Now we’ve got ourselves three loose cannons to deal with—Willette Ducane, Ornasetti, and your bail bondsman.”
Napper, dressed in a white T-shirt and baggy, coffee-stained boxers, glanced across the narrow strip of carpet that separated him from the bathtub. Inside the tub, and looking like a corpse, a thoroughly drugged Rollie Ornasetti sat propped up. “I’ll deal with them,” Napper said, eyes locked on Ornasetti.
“You bet you will, and fast. Have you been able to get a line on Willette Ducane?”
“No, but she’s here. Got confirmation that she came in on a flight out of Dallas yesterday. I’ll find her.”
“What about Ornasetti?”
“No problem there,” Napper said, smiling.
“You sound awful sure of yourself for someone who just bought himself a whole set of problems. Just remember, I’m one of the few people around who can still yank your chain, my friend. Tell people your whole foggy history, let ’em in on who the hell you really are.”
“You wouldn’t want to do that,” said Napper, his tone meant to be searing.
Cassias laughed. “You threatenin’ me, smartass?”
“No.”
“Good. ’Cause I’ve got shit on you that’s a whole shit-stained roll of toilet paper long.”
With his eyes still locked on Ornasetti and his jaw muscles twitching, Napper held the phone out in front of him at arm’s length and shook his head as he tried to calm himself. Speaking in a whisper, he said, “Wouldn’t be smart.”
“What was that?”
“Nothin’.”
“Didn’t think I heard anything,” said Cassias, sitting up in bed, and eyeing the wall-mounted antique school clock in front of him. “Just do what we agreed on. You got that?”
“That’s what you’re payin’ me for.”
“You’re right,” Cassias said authoritatively. “Call me back when you’ve got better news. Later.” He cradled the phone, let out a sigh, slipped out of bed, and headed for the kitchen, hoping a glass of orange juice would help settle his nerves.
Rubbing his hands together as if to warm them, Napper remained seated. He stared at Ornasetti, who’d begun to drool and wheeze. “Hope you’re a good negotiator,” Napper said, as if he somehow expected Ornasetti to respond. “’Cause you’re sure as hell are gonna need to be one.”
Rising from the toilet seat, he dusted off the back of his boxers and walked back into the darkened motel room, clutching his cell phone. He could hear the sound of eighteen-wheelers thumping along the industrial highway outside. By his calculation, he had twenty-four hours, maybe thirty-six tops, to handle his problems. If he didn’t settle them in that time, he’d have more than Cassias, Willette Ducane, some jig of a bail bondsman, and third-tier mafia don Rollie Ornasetti to deal with. He’d have his own life to worry about.
As he stretched out on the bed to think, a mournful groan erupted from the bathroom. The sound told him Ornasetti was drifting back into the real world. Shaking his head and mumbling, “Shit,” he reached down, slipped a large, cumbersome phone out of a tooled leather case that sat on the floor next to the bed, and dialed ten quick numbers. The response he got was a busy signal, the signal that the rest of the world recognized as a reason to hang up. His response, however, was to steady his nerves and immediately begin talking.
CJ and Pinkie Niedemeyer met at the same place they usually did when they had business to discuss—Denver’s High Line Canal. It was close to 2 a.m. and drizzling when Pinkie, speaking in a whisper as they stood on the earthen shoulder of the sixty-six-mile-long artificial waterway that snaked through the Mile High City, said, “I’m tellin’ you, I don’t think it was Maxie who took out that guy McPherson. Mario’s had me checkin’ on who mighta popped the guy, just to make certain fingers don’t start pointin’ his way, and you know what? My contacts say it wasn’t Maxie. And I gotta agree. Drive-bys ain’t Maxie’s style. He’s always been more inventive, less in-your-face, if you know what I mean. Like that stunt he tried to pull off up at the Pawnee grasslands. Now, that’s Maxie.”
“Then who the heck killed McPherson?” asked CJ.
“Beats me.”
CJ stared out into the misty haze, slipped a cheroot out of his pocket, lit up, and took a long drag. “Think maybe that Watson guy I told you about could’ve dialed up the McPherson killing? Nobody saw the shooter’s car but him. Maybe Watson lied.”
“Possibly. But if he did, he woulda more than likely pulled some gang-banger off the street to pop McPherson. And from what the cops and everybody else is sayin’, the job went down way too professional for that.”
“Then I’m stumped.” CJ tapped a bullet of ash from his cheroot.
“Makes two of us,” said Pinkie. “Let’s forget about McPherson for a sec. What’s your game plan for dealin’ with that Lucerne woman you mentioned and the shooter somebody’s got doggin’ your ass?”
“I think I’ll give Lucerne a little more time to think things over before I contact her again. My guess is, right now she’s busy trying to decide whether to run or not. I’m thinking she’ll stay put because this time around, I don’t think she’s got anybody to help her disappear. Whoever helped her out before would more than likely kill her on a second go-round.”
Pinkie nodded. “That’s the way they do it in my neighborhood.”
CJ dropped his half-smoked cheroot onto the canal’s equestrian path and stubbed it out with the heel of his boot. “You got Mario covered?”
“Got somebody watchin’ him right now. He’d be real unhappy with me if he knew that, though. Thinks he’s twenty-two instead of eighty-two. Better fill you in on somethin’.”
“What’s that?”
“Mario gave me the okay to settle up with Maxie if need be.”
“What?”
“He told me I could settle. He ain’t Santa Claus, for God’s sake, CJ. In case you forgot, he was head of a family once. And he’s nervous. Thinks maybe Maxie has orders from Rollie to take him out. He’s gotta protect himself.”
“How the hell does he expect me and Julie to keep him out of jail if he’s out there acting like it’s fifty years ago?”
“He’s a proud man, CJ. And believe me, he ain’t never forgot what it’s like to give orders.”
“Well, would you please ask him to bank those smoldering coals?”
“I’ll do what I can.”
“Afraid you’ll have to do more, Pinkie. Otherwise Mario’s gonna turn the clock back. We both know he’s that stubborn. I’ve been thinking about how Maxie’s tangled up in this Ducane, McPherson, JFK mess all day long. That story he told you and Damion about Ducane extorting money from Ornasetti for all those years after the JFK assassination is only the tip of the iceberg. I’m sure of it. Right now we need to see the whole damn thing. You’re gonna have to have a talk with him, Pinkie. There’s no other way.”
Pinkie smiled. He was a dog with a bone.
“I know what you’re thinking, Pinkie, but whatever you do, and regardless of Mario’s okay, don’t push it to the point of no return.”
“I’ll be gentle.”
“You do that,” said CJ, suppressing the strange urge to remind someone who was a hit man that there was a fine line between a kill and a near kill.
“You got any more business for me to attend to?”
“No. Just keep me up to speed on Maxie.”
“Will do,” Pinkie flashed a confident smile. It was the kind of smile CJ remembered seeing on the faces of more than a few American soldiers and sailors who’d lost their humanity in Vietnam, and the lead-in to CJ’s fitful night of sleep.
Ashen-faced, Willette Ducane arrived at the Peak to Peak Bed and Breakfast a
little after 8 a.m. She’d never had occasion to drive in the mountains, and the trip up Poudre Canyon along a road rife with hairpin curves and storm-generated rock slides had her palms sweating and her heart beating full bore.
As she stepped out of her rental car into the crisp mountain air, she thought about whether or not to carry the .38 police special she’d purchased at a gun shop in Boulder the previous afternoon. Deciding that’s what she would do under the circumstances if she were back in New Iberia, she leaned back into the car, swept the .38 off the front seat into her oversized purse, and headed for the front door of the bed and breakfast.
Entering the building without knocking, she stood briefly in the entryway listening to the sounds of people talking and silverware clanking. Tightening her purse strap on her shoulder, she limped down the hallway until she reached an open archway. Beyond the archway was a room filled with five linen-draped tables and nearly a dozen people.
When Sheila Lucerne looked up, coffee pot in hand, to see Willette enter the room, she smiled confidently. “Can I help you?”
“Sorry to interrupt,” said Willette, as every eye in the room gravitated to her. “I have a reservation.”
“For breakfast or lodging?”
“Lodging. I called yesterday for a reservation. It should be under the name Ann Reed.”
“Certainly. I’m Lydia.” The name rolled off Sheila’s tongue as if she’d been born with it. “I’ll be with you shortly,” she said, filling a balding man’s cup with coffee. “Why don’t you sign the guest book up by the front door and take your key out of one of the slots above the book? You’re in number eight.”
“Thanks. I’ll settle on in, then.” Willette turned to head for the guest register as a pimple-faced teenage girl clutching plates in both hands rushed past her.
As the girl entered the dining room, Willette heard Lydia say, “Right on time,” stringing out the words in a drawl that had unquestionably been honed in her neck of the woods.
Except for a couple from Iowa standing in the hallway, getting directions to Fort Collins from Sheila, the bed and breakfast had cleared out by the time Willette reappeared after settling into her room.