He whispered, “Oh, come on, Uncle Bruno. Really?”
The cart sped up. The men made some inaudible derogatory comment and sped off. When they rounded the first corner, Bruno pushed me off. “I think you liked that a little too much.” He grinned.
I took his hand. He didn’t resist.
“Listen,” I said. “If you have to go hands on with one of these guys, or even later on as a cop with a suspect, you take him fast, down and dirty. You don’t mess around. Forget the sheriff’s policy. Forget using the escalation of force that they’re going to teach you in the academy. You understand what I’m telling you here?”
“Yes, I think I do.”
“Good. Okay, now, let’s say you go hands on with one of these guys we’re about to confront. You go hands on and try and take him down and dirty, like I just explained to you in how to use the slungshot, but for whatever reason it doesn’t work ’cause he’s a bad ass. And you have to fight him. What are you going to do?”
“I’ll take him, Uncle, don’t worry about me. Okay?”
Ah, the wonders of youth, and again with the false bravado.
“No, this is important. Say you’re goin’ all out for sixty seconds and you’re not getting the better of him, what do you do?”
“Well, if for some reason something like that does happen, given the circumstances you described, I would disengage and run. He who lives to fight another day lives to fight another day.”
“That’s exactly right.” He’d surprised me again.
We came to a fork in the path and went right.
“Up ahead,” he said, “there’s a bottlebrush and a big bird of paradise. The first security officer will be standing back in the shadows between both of those bushes.”
“We can handle one, maybe two, but if there are three, we’re gonna have a problem.”
“Then I guess we’re going to have a problem, Uncle.”
“Ah shit, you’re kiddin’ me.”
CHAPTER SIXTY
“ARE THERE THREE of them, really? You know this for sure? We have to back off and think about another approach. We can’t take three.” My whispered tone turned more desperate toward the end of my rant.
“Here we go,” my nephew said. “Twenty feet. Ten—”
He didn’t say the next number; I did. “Five.”
Out stepped a large man, ex-military, in great shape, wearing a blue blazer and gray slacks, his hair cut close to his scalp. “Hold it right there,” he said.
This guy was going to hand us both of our asses and laugh about it.
Bruno broke away, not like the plan. I was supposed to, not him. He took two more steps, with a pronounced sway in his gait, before the security officer grabbed his shoulder and spun him around.
Bruno used the man’s own momentum and stepped in close. He slugged the guy in the throat with a strike so fast I almost missed it. The man bent over, gasping and choking. Bruno took a half step back and kicked him in the groin. He gave him a third blow, a side kick to the knee. The man went down.
The second man jumped Bruno from out of the dark. Bruno sidestepped and gave him a palm strike to the face just to get the guy off him. The second man recovered fast and came right back in. Bruno swung the slungshot and caught the man behind the head. The strike thunked like a watermelon hitting the ground. The second man went down, lights out.
The third man hit me from behind. The blow rocked my world. I flew face first and slapped the concrete walk in a belly flop.
“You okay, Uncle?” Bruno helped me up.
“What happened to the third guy?” I looked around; all three men had disappeared.
“I dragged them into the brush.” He held up the slungshot. “Man, this thing really works. I like it.”
I rubbed my head where a goose egg was already starting to rise. The guy had hit me with something. “You didn’t tell me you’ve been training. What is that, jujitsu, karate, what?”
“Aikido.”
“Black belt?”
“Come on, I got the key.” He held up the card key he must’ve taken from the lead security officer.
I pointed my finger at him, “You’re dangerous, you know that? You’re dangerous. Twenty years old and you can do that. That’s just not normal. That’s weird.”
“Twenty-one in three months, Uncle, then I’m in the Sheriff’s Academy.”
He moved away. I hurried to catch up. “Hey, hey?” I said. “Let’s talk about what we’re going to do.” I caught up to him as he entered a recessed entry to the bungalow.
“What’s to talk about?” He swiped the card key, his hand on the door handle.
“Talk, as in is there anyone else in there with Brodie?”
He shrugged and pushed his way in. I pulled the Sig nine and followed. As I crossed the threshold into the building, I looked up and caught a small camera pointed at the door. Brodie knew we were coming. “Bruno?”
I went deeper into the lush bungalow. The thick carpet underfoot dampened all sound of movement. I passed Carmen’s pink angora sweater on the floor as I entered the main living area.
Across the huge living room, Brodie sat on a couch, clad in a maroon satin robe with black lapels. He had his legs up on the low living room table, unconcerned by the intruders who’d just taken out his security and entered his lodging without permission or authority. His hands rested across his stomach, his eyes on us. Every hair on his head was in place and perfectly coifed. His skin tanned brown to leather. I put him at about sixty-five, maybe seventy.
Off to the right, a leggy redhead shimmied into her thong, unhurried and unabashed. She picked up her black-lace bra and slipped into it in one of the most sexy moves I’d ever seen. She finished dressing, picked up her black heels, and walked by us as if we’d never existed. Her scent, feminine and exotic, followed after her. The door opened and closed behind us.
“Sit,” the man said, “please.”
I looked around and didn’t see anyone lurking in the corners or over by the bar.
Brodie held up his hand. “Please, make yourselves at home, have a drink.”
“Where’s my father?”
The smile left Brodie’s face and, when it did, I recognized him. “I don’t have your father,” he said.
“Don’t play games with us,” I said. “Too much has happened, too many people have been hurt, and if you don’t tell us you’re going to be next. And please don’t take that as a threat; it’s a fact.” The anger over what this man had caused rose up and threatened to flip that switch inside me that I hated. I gripped the gun tighter and resisted pointing it at him. Not yet.
“Listen, I openly admit to borrowing your kids for a time, but that was just business. You have your children back safe, and I’m out two of my best operators. If anything, you came out ahead in this botched little fiasco. And let me give credit where credit is due. I definitely underestimated you, both of you. But I’m telling you as a businessman that I do not and never did have your father.”
My nephew stood two steps closer to Brodie and one step to the right. He looked back at me for help. Tactically, he shouldn’t have taken his eyes of his opponent. He didn’t know what to do. I stepped forward, brought the Sig up, and shot the lying bastard in the foot.
CHAPTER SIXTY-ONE
BRODIE YELPED, GRABBED his foot, and leaned over on his side. He gritted his teeth and sucked up the pain. Blood spread between his fingers.
I moved in closer and sat on the table in front of him, keeping the gun out of his reach. “Who are you?” I asked.
“I told you, just a businessman.”
“A businessman who fishes on the pier to oversee a hostage exchange?”
He stopped writhing. “You are good,” he said through clenched teeth. “I could use you. You want a job? I’ll pay you five hundred thousand a year to start, along with a generous profit-sharing package.”
“Don’t get off topic. Who are you? Tell me what’s going on.” I pointed the Sig at his other foot.
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“Okay, okay. What do you want to know? I don’t know what you’re asking me.”
“Those people working for you aren’t street thugs, they’re pros.”
“You’re right, you get what you pay for. I pay for the best. Hey, Son, can you get me a towel? I need to stop this bleeding or you’re not going to get all of what you think you came for.” I nodded to Bruno. He didn’t move. He didn’t care if Brodie lived or died. He didn’t have enough years in life to be so cynical or without empathy.
“I don’t believe you,” I said. “If you really don’t have my brother, then you have to know where he is.”
I watched his eyes for a deceptive answer. “I was only in it for the diamonds, that’s all. I thought this would be an easy caper, a piece of cake with a nine-million-dollar payoff. Well, as you can see, it didn’t turn out that way. I misjudged you.”
“There aren’t any diamonds,” I said. “That’s a myth, a rumor of pirates’ lost treasure and nothing more.”
“I’m not a fool,” he said. “You think I’d be in this thing just based on rumor and supposition? Over there”—he took his bloody hand off his foot and pointed—“on the bar, in that cigar box. Jesus, you didn’t have to shoot me. We’re all civilized here.”
“Yeah, kidnapping two innocent little kids, that’s civilized. Watch what you say, you have no idea how pissed off I am.”
I didn’t have to tell him. Bruno moved over to the bar. I kept my eyes on the evil that sat in front of me. “What’s he going to find?” I asked.
“A letter someone sent me anonymously, but I knew who it was from just like you will.”
“What’s it say?”
“Read it for yourself. Now get me a towel.”
I still didn’t take my eyes off Brodie. Behind, and to the side, my nephew opened the cigar box. The hinge creaked a little. After several seconds I said, “What’s it say?”
He said nothing.
I got up from the table and backed up a little to see Bruno and, at the same time, keep my eye on Brodie. Bruno stood at the bar with the letter in his hand. “Well,” I said, “what’s it say?”
Bruno looked up, his expression one of shock.
I resisted the urge to go over to him and instead continued to hold the gun on Brodie. “Tell me.”
“It’s a letter from my father,” Bruno said.
“And?”
Brodie spoke. “It says, ‘you help me get out and I’ll give you nine million in diamonds.’”
“My brother played you. He doesn’t have any diamonds.”
Bruno walked over, his open palm extended. The light caught the facets of a two-carat diamond. The sight shook me emotionally. “What the hell?”
“Ah,” Brodie said. “You really didn’t know, did you? Huh, that is interesting. I had it appraised. It is what it appears to be and is worth twelve thousand dollars. No one just mails you twelve grand like that. Not unless they have a lot more. Not unless they have another nine million. Don’t you agree?”
I’d been played by my own brother.
For all those years I thought him a crook who deserved to be in prison. And then, after I got to know him again, through his valiant actions in the jail when I’d almost been shanked, and mostly through his son Bruno, I began to believe I’d been wrong about him all along. Now this.
Anger rose up hot enough to flush my face. The bastard had played me right from the gate. Worse, he’d played Dad, and that was unacceptable.
I reached down and took the edge of the coffee table, flipped it over onto Brodie, and jumped on it. He yelled, the first fear and emotion he’d shown. He couldn’t move his arms, and the edge of the table pressed down just under his chin.
“Professional operators,” I said. “Ex-special forces, silenced high-end weapons, you tell me the rest of it. And you tell me right now. Why would my brother send you a diamond and ask you to get him out? Why would he think you could get him out? I think I know, but you have five seconds to tell it.”
He grunted and tried to get enough air. “I don’t know—”
I stuck the gun barrel flush with the table and pulled the trigger. The gun kicked. The high-velocity nine millimeter went right through the table in the area of his leg.
“Aaahee. You son of a bitch.”
“Next one goes in higher. Tell me.”
“Okay, okay. There’s a jeweler’s loupe over there on the bar. Jesus, you black bastard, get off me. Get off.”
Bruno got the loupe and put it to his eye. “What am I looking—”
“That’s right,” Brodie gasped. “The diamond has a serial number. That was state of the art back in the eighties.”
I stuck the gun, with smoke still curling out the end, right on his nose. “So. Finish it, tell the rest.”
“All right, I can’t breathe, get off the table.”
“Tell it.”
He gulped. “All right, all right, no one will believe you anyway, and I’ll only deny it if you tell anyone. In his book, that asshole brother of yours laid us all out. I was in the CIA at the time and made the deal with that corrupt asshole, Papa Dee. I brought the dope and Papa Dee never showed with the diamonds. He showed us half of the diamonds before the deal, gave us the serial numbers so we could check them when we made the exchange. Then, the night of the trade, he left us on that dock holding our dicks. He never showed.” He gasped again. “Come on, man, get off.”
“The rest of it.” I shoved down harder on the table.
“Your brother wrote that book and sent me that letter to prove his bona fides. He wanted me to go to the government, to my old contacts, tell them he had evidence to hang the government out on that Iran-Contra bullshit.”
“Did you do it?”
“Yeah, I did. I thought I’d have a chance at getting the diamonds once he got out. Nine million is still nine million.”
“And what happened?”
“The State Department told me to go fuck myself. Said that the Iran-Contra shit was old news. They had that embassy thing in Benghazi they were trying to whitewash.”
“So,” I said, “you used some of your old cronies to kidnap my nephew’s kids to force us to get my brother out. Is that it?”
“Yes.”
“Then you rammed our Cadillac and took my brother Noble.”
“No, I didn’t. I thought he was with you.”
“Bullshit.”
“Think about it, why would I lie when I just told you all that other shit, huh? Why?”
CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO
“YOU RUN YOUR dope operation like some kind of spy shop with all the cells isolated and unable to communicate with each other so the cops can’t get a foothold on you. You’re smart. That means you have to have an intel branch feeding you information. Information is power. You have all the money you can possibly spend, so your thing is power.”
“Aaah, come on, and your point is?”
“You have to have some idea who has my brother.”
“I don’t. I swear I don’t.”
I stuck the hot gun barrel in his eye socket and pressed down. “Then what good are you?”
“Wait. Wait. Okay, okay. Take that gun out of my eye, you damn nigger.”
My finger almost went rogue and pulled the trigger all on its own. I eased up the pressure but didn’t remove it.
“If I had to guess?” he said.
“I don’t want a guess.”
“That’s all I got and, if it’s not good enough for you, go ahead, pop me. Because that’s what you’re going to do anyway.”
“What’s your guess?”
“Get off me.”
I got up. He pushed the table, his arms weak. The table slid off to the floor. The couch’s soft ivory upholstery acted like a giant sponge and accepted all the blood Brodie’s body offered. The cushion down by his leg swelled up and turned red. Brodie looked down at the same time I did and knew the truth the same as I did. “Ah, damn, now look what you went and did.”
Th
e color left his tan face all at once as the light in his eyes switched off. His lifeless body continued to stare at me.
From behind me, Bruno said, “Come on, Uncle, we have to jam. The cops will be here soon. Someone had to have reported those gunshots.”
“I didn’t mean to kill him.” But in reality, I had. The man kidnapped my brother’s grandchildren. He’d given the orders that ultimately caused my good friend Barbara to be shot. He also ruined tens of thousands of lives dealing his white powder. And the worst part was that the law worked in his favor, and he would have never been brought forward to answer for any of it. Dead on the couch, he’d received payment in full.
“I know,” my nephew said. “Come on, let’s go.” He’d moved up close and had me by the arm.
“The round hit his femoral artery,” I said, still half in a daze. I’d been hit in the head too many times recently, and my words didn’t have the same impact as they should’ve had.
“Come on.”
He moved us to the door, then stopped and scooped up the pink angora sweater. At least he kept his good sense about him. I’d just shot a man in cold blood. Right at that moment I realized I’d find Noble and do everything in my power to help him evade the law, even though he’d lied to me.
The night air helped clear the cloud of guilt obscuring logical thought. We moved along the path in between the other bungalows and made it halfway to the Dodge when the answer just bubbled up. My subconscious had known all along, had seen all the clues and put it together but had hidden the answer from me, the real reason Noble wanted out of prison.
And it wasn’t just to get out of prison, or to recover the diamonds.
When we made it to the car, Bruno took the keys from me, got in, and fired up the Charger. “Where to?” he asked.
I reached over and shut off the car. “Tell me about your mother.”
“Now? You need to know this now?”
“Yes, it’s important.”
“What do you want to know?”
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