Whose SUV had vanished.
“That track was like a fox den,” Tanner said to Athena, “it split after the trailers and probably has a couple of exits, no telling where he’d gone. The locals are running a meth lab. Place stank like cat piss and chemicals. Maybe Agostino picked something up and kept going. “
“You think he’s dealing?”
“He has the history, and plenty of opportunity at Crave. Although Green said the cops have an eye on the place. They've dropped in a few times.”
“Cherchez la femme,” she suggested. “Women could be dealing for him.”
“Sure. He’d do anything. But I don’t think so.”
“Why’s that?”
“I’ve seen no evidence. But something’s funny; Green and Agostino have way too many intense talks for boss and bouncer. Could be ordinary but something’s off.”
“Whatever it is, dig it up fast,” she said. “Sooner or later Denton’ll decide Omega and its resources are too much of a risk. Given that he’s a spineless creep, I’d guess sooner.”
“Agostino needs to be put down.” Like a rabid dog.
“Hey, don’t get personally involved. You know things go to shit when emotions enter. Find out what’s going on, we’ll sort it out and move on.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
But Agostino needed to go down. And, hell yes, it had become very personal.
***
Maybe the meth lab he’d smelled had been Agostino’s only stop. Tanner eased the Infinity along the rutted track, trying to imagine what Agostino had been doing in this pasture. If he got this far. A football field away, a line of power poles disappeared behind a thick belt of ancient oaks. Even in the light of mid-afternoon, the trees’ heavy canopy shaded dark, gloomy undergrowth.
He pulled the car off the track, scooped up his handgun and opened the door. Standing, he slid the Glock in the back of his waistband, shut the door and stared around. Could Agostino have made a wrong turn? There was nothing to see here, save a weathered lean-to full of what looked like rusted-out farm machinery. But the Beamer had wheeled off the road with confidence. It hadn’t been a first hesitant probe.
Tanner examined the still-damp sand: his own tires were clear, as were the tracks of another vehicle continuing on. To his left a tumbledown fence marked the edge of a similar field. Just ahead, a track branched off to the right. Probably the only farmland left in the whole county.
He was a hundred feet from the car when a low growl sounded behind him and to the left. In stereo: another growl behind to the right. He turned slowly, politely, his right hand creeping back to his waistband.
The two dogs from last night. Big and heavy, ears pricked, tails low and still.
“Man, I hate moments like this,” he said to nobody, slowly pulling the pistol.
The larger dog gave a couple of barks and advanced. Tanner stared at the ground. Never challenge an unknown canine by looking directly at it. The dog barked again, three sharp noises. Tanner shifted to his left and the other dog lunged closer.
Standoff. For how long? He hated to hurt animals.
Motion at the trailers: a mixed group of watchers. A tall, skinny man in overalls came striding out of the huddle, a shotgun broken over one arm. Ex-military. His walk was easy, confident. Ought to be, he had the dogs and he had the firepower. Tanner tucked the pistol away, hoisted his hands. The man nodded approval. When he got closer, he stopped and snapped his fingers. The dogs trotted to his side.
“My compliments on their deportment,” Tanner said. “Why’d you sic them on me?”
“Deportment, hey?” He scratched one behind an ear. “They’re good girls. Mother and daughter. Mom’s a retired K-9. You’re on private property, sir. Best you walk back to your car and leave.” He shifted the shotgun. “Best you don’t come back.”
“Is there another way out of here?” Tanner gestured behind him and the larger dog got to her feet. “Does this track go anywhere?”
“Why d’you need to know that?” This time he closed the shotgun and shifted it so the twin barrels pointed directly at Tanner’s belt. “You’re never coming back.”
CHAPTER NINE
Wednesday, December 6
“Mr. Agostino, this is Valerie Shaw at Adamo Services calling again regarding your credit card processing. You must reset your units. The card numbers are coming in garbled. Please call me if you need help. Thank you and we’re sorry for any inconvenience.”
Over ninety percent of tabs were settled with plastic. It was more than mere inconvenience. Green had tried, with no success, to reach Agostino. Tanner decided to pick it up if she called again.
The phone rang. Green was probably back in the employee’s lounge chugging fortification. Tanner grabbed the phone just as Valerie Shaw identified herself.
“Hello. This is Carl Tanner. How do we reset the processor?”
“Mr. Agostino is not there?”
“No. He won’t be in tonight.”
“You could make hard copies of all the transactions and enter them manually when you’re back up. I am sure you have an old hand-validator somewhere in the club.”
“We don’t have time or staff to hand-process even if I could find a validator.”
“But Mr. Agostino is the only one authorized to—”
“I certainly understand, Ms. Shaw. But he’s got the flu. We’re risking thousands of dollars here for a mess that seems to have originated on your side.”
“We are of course most regretful that a virus got—”
“A virus? So your whole system is contaminated? Well,” he huffed, “this puts a different face on the matter, and on our relationship with your firm. We certainly can’t risk—”
“We’re fine now. Our excellent staff took care of it immediately.”
“Maybe you should send one of your excellent staff over here to rectify your problem.”
“Mr...what did you say your name was?”
“Tanner.”
“Shall I walk you through the reset process, Mr. Tanner?”
As Valerie Shaw gave him the third group of alphanumerics, Green showed up.
“The fuck you doing, Tanner?”
He held up one hand, asked for a repeat of the final set of codes. He wrote them down. In his best tomcat voice, he invited Ms. Shaw to visit Crave, all expenses paid. He really wanted to meet her. She twittered breathlessly about a boyfriend and hung up on him.
Green grabbed his arm. “I asked you something, Tanner.”
He stared into Green’s watery eyes. “Stan. Maybe you don’t realize you’re holding my arm. Take your hand away before I tear off your fingers.”
“Course I know,” Green said, peeling his fingers loose. “I know what I’m doing. What I don’t know is what you’re doing.”
Tanner explained. “So we’re not getting paid. I’ve got the reset codes and will enter them so we can get back to billing our guests. Or do you want to do it?” He offered the paper with the four strings of code. Green blinked; despite his scrutiny of charges, he was electronic-phobic.
“That’s a detail. I’m not big on detail. You can do it. I got other things to do. That fucking kid is back, bitching about her missing sister.”
“She's outside?”
“With fucking posters. Richie'd strangle her. So I'm busy. You do it.”
“If you insist.”
“I insist,” Green said. He glared at the two servers standing around. “Get back to work. You can’t find any, I got some brass needs polishing.” He turned back to Tanner, eyes hostile. “You,” he said, pointing a finger, “are more trouble than you’re worth. You’re not the manager when Agostino is out, I am. Don’t you forget it.”
Tanner bowed his head. “How could I? Everybody knows your Agostino’s honcho.”
“Just you don’t forget it, hotshot.”
Five minutes later the machines were up and running. Odds were good that Agostino would never suspect that Tanner had the codes to call up records. Unless
Green wasn’t as drunk as he looked.
***
Cries at the front door, a babble of voices – horrified? angry? – and one shrill scream. Tanner was at the door before the scream was repeated.
“Hit and run,” someone sobbed, stabbing wildly at her phone.
He shouldered through the half-dozen women. Saw a cluster of three figures out at the roadside. And Green, his bulky figure unmistakable, crouched down. The streetlights wiped out color making it took like an old noir movie.
Tanner sprinted to the road, dodged around the three women frozen like sculptures. Saw the girl, crumpled on top of a spray of flyers, her long, dark hair streaming out on the road like tattered silk.
Green looked up, his face professionally blank. “I've made the call. Get those three inside, they’re witnesses. Don’t let them talk about what they saw.”
“It was terrib—"
“Don't start, goddamit,” Green snapped. “Save it for the police.”
In the distance, sirens. Tanner herded the shaken women inside.
***
Tanner reported to Omega, gave a brief, useless statement to the police, and headed home. Grey called him as he headed south on Gulf Blvd. Tanner gave him details, ending with the most troubling.
The hit and run vehicle had been a late model silver convertible with a black top. It had been traveling too fast for witnesses to get any driver details. It could have been a man. Or a woman. But one of the witnesses thought the rear quarter panel was damaged.
Grey picked up on something in his voice. “That means something to you, Tanner!”
“I'm not sure, “ Tanner said. And he wasn't.
Not really.
***
“Something you said the other day intrigued me,” Athena said. “You said that Agostino didn’t come after you in the hall.”
Her Thursday morning news was that the hit-and-run killing of Luz Acero was, at present, being treated as manslaughter. And that Denton wanted to pull the plug but she’d talked him out of it. For twenty-four hours.
Tanner thought about Athena's unspoken question. The girl's death filled his mind and he had to force the memory of the confrontation in the back hall. “No. A lot was going on and I didn’t think about it.”
His first task was to do something for Agostino’s victim. The deeper truth was, he was used to intimidating people, it was one of his talents. Agostino’s non-reaction was entirely understandable.
But, what if it wasn’t?
“Yeah, there should’ve been something more physical. He’s got to be used to a high level of violence. It wasn’t much, compared to pro football.”
That bitch-slap was more humiliating than a punch. Agostino, a hyper-sensitive ego on two legs, should’ve gone ballistic. But, except for that idiotic knife thing, he hadn’t. How come?
“So,” Athena said, “our gal in Miami went out and found some of the famous quarterback’s former team mates. And hit pay dirt. Of a sort.”
Amused distaste in her voice. Nothing he’d learned about Agostino had been even remotely amusing. “What sort?”
“Agostino was the best quarterback they’d ever had. The guy had a laser in his throwing arm. Ninety yards was no sweat, even a hundred wasn’t impossible.”
“We knew that, right? Guy was a throwing machine.”
“Uh-huh. But what we didn’t know was that he could only do it during practice. Get him in a game, with a half dozen gigantic opponents coming at him, and he...freaked.”
“How do you mean?”
“He couldn’t do it. Failure to launch,” she snickered. “Far as we can tell, long as nobody threatened him, Richie Agostino could do magic. But the minute his skin was in any danger, he got scared. In high school, he was golden and everybody watched out for him, so it was never an issue. In the pros, with the offensive teams as big as draft horses and eager to take him apart? He choked.”
He hadn’t expected this. And maybe he should’ve, looking back on Agostino’s behavior. The tells had been there. I am not omnipotent.
“Why doesn’t the world know this? It’s big news.”
“Part of the deal. You gotta remember, pro football welcomed him with endless fanfare, a multi-million dollar contract. He was total eye candy. The season’s hottie. The team PR machine and sports media made him a god.” She gave a contemptuous snort. “He gave a tolerable performance his first season. You remember that game—”
“Save your breath, Athena. I don’t follow football. But when did it blow up?”
“Second season. He’d been sacked a couple of times at the start. They’d been real pile-ons. Imagine,” she said with the fervor of a football fanatic, “someone like DeMarcus Ware or Julius Peppers, Peppers is six-seven, weighs nearly 300, coming at you. Then imagine them knowing you’re afraid. Rest of his second year was merely mediocre. Third year, he wrenched a shoulder, then his back. And then the roofie scandal, women coming forward. And he was done. Out.”
“With his record whitewashed. A has-been at, what?, twenty seven?”
“Eight. Had a slick lawyer. Got the records sealed. Nobody knew what he was.”
“But we do.” He paused, wondered if Agostino’s cowardice was important, or just a factoid. “I have a favor to ask. It’s personal.”
***
Bunches of rain-drenched flowers lay where Luz Acero had been killed. Tires had crushed some, but the scattered stems were vivid, and soured Tanner's mood even more.
Agostino, apparently forgetting the back hall, nudged him. “See the bitch with the udders at table three?”
Overweight, late forties, a pile of blonde hair held by long picks. Her pink sweater matched her retro cat’s-eye glasses. Not the usual Crave demographic. Tanner nodded.
“I want the bitch outa here. March her fat ass to the door and tell her not to come back.”
Was he serious? “She’s not causing trouble.”
“My call. Get rid of the cunt.”
Tanner shook his head. “No can do. She’s being peaceable.”
“I’m ordering you to get her outa here.”
“Nope.” He smiled a wanna-make-something-of-it? smile. “You want her gone, you do it. She’s following club rules.” He raised an eyebrow. “Hey. You’re not afraid of the woman, are you?”
“Fuck you,” Agostino fumed, and marched off
Cobb was serving drinks again tonight. While Green welcomed at the door and Tanner worked the bar and lounge, he toted around a full tray, depositing drinks like Santa would hand out presents to all the good little girls. Even gave one to the blonde. He slipped a credit card through the machine, laboriously signed the chit. Like watching a kindergartner sign a work of art for mom. Did he have his own card?
The fuss started ten minutes later. The third table was the epicenter. Tanner threaded his way through the women and reached the table at the same time Green did.
The blonde clung to the tabletop, ankles canted so her feet splayed sideways. Her glass was half-empty, its little orange umbrella crumpled on one side as if she’d missed the rim and bit the paper. Her sparkly pink eyeglasses were askew, her eyes wide and puzzled.
Green put a meaty hand atop hers. She snatched it away, just missing the drink, and lurched sideways. She’d’ve fallen had Tanner not stepped forward.
“Ladies,” he said to the crowding women, “give us some room, please. The guest’s not feeling well.”
“Guest feels fine,” she slurred. “Jus’ some shoe trouble, is all...jusss...”
“Let’s help her out,” Green rumbled.
“Let me give you a hand,” Tanner said, cupping her elbow. She tried to move away, but Green held her other arm and had one hand at her back. They steered her toward the vestibule. She tried to wriggle away but had no coordination.
“You’re outnumbered,” Tanner said gently. “Just relax and keep your dignity, okay?”
“You’re kissing that fucker’s ass,” she hissed with a combination of alarm and outrage. “Y
ou c’n tell him that he ain’t seen the last of Cynthia Voight, nosiree.” She hiccupped and patted her bountiful chest. “What comes around goes around. I’ll get...”
Tanner glanced down the bar: Agostino stood at the far end, arms crossed. Triumph curved his lips. Fuck you, he mouthed.
“You got a coat, sweetie,” Green asked as they shuffled into the vestibule.
“Don’t you sweetie me.” She shook her head violently. Strands of hair came loose and hung like broken branches, stiff and unnatural, around her sweaty face. Her eye makeup was migrating. “Not leaving. He owes me...I did what he...” Green shook her and she cursed. “I did everything he...I did it...I want...”
“Dred, give me her jacket.” He scooped up the garment the bar-back doing coat-check duty passed over.
“Not leaving,” the woman said again. “Fucker owes—”
“Nobody owes you anything, you stupid cunt,” Green snapped.
“Hey,” Tanner said. “Watch your mouth.” Fucker owes me…I did what he...everything. Was this raddled woman the hit-and-run driver?
Green snorted and pushed a pink padded jacket into her hand. She stared at the smirking face pushed close to hers, and blinked. Green knew a thing or three about intimidation.
“Cynthia,” he said. “You’re too impaired to drive. We called you a taxi. Crave’s dime. Shut up, get in, and don’t come back except to pick up your beater. You’re barred. Permanently.”
They’d reached the front door.
“Not going,” Cynthia whispered, but the fight had gone out of her about the same time her hairspray failed. She could barely stand. Her eyes drifted shut and she wilted against Tanner, her face jammed against his chest, the pointy eyeglasses stabbing him.
“Cab’s here,” Green said, shoving open the door. The sound of rain rushed inside on a river of cool air. “C’mon, let’s get the bitch outa here.”
The driver rolled his window part-way down. Murmuring, Green bent close, while Tanner helped Cynthia into the back. The building’s neon signs shifted colors as he watched her try to stay upright, first with pale skin, then with pink, then a sickly green. Behind the smeared glasses, her eyes were wide and unfocused. Her mouth, curved in a pointless smile, trembled.
The Omega Team_IT COULD BE FUN Page 9