Velda made no suggestion. She wore a little self-satisfied smile that was telling me the future was right ahead and for the time being she would play the game. We were in a bind and she wouldn’t make it worse with the things an engaged woman can do to a man when the chips were down like this. She showered, put on another one of those wild jump suits that meant she was ready to move out in a hurry if we had to, then jumped into bed.
I took the lounge chair. My .45 in the shoulder holster I draped over the back of the small chair, took the inch shorter Combat Commander and tucked it in the cushion beside me, then tilted the back toward the wall and put my feet up.
One thing, I wasn’t expecting to fall asleep.
But I did.
There are some things you simply can’t control. Snoring. Falling asleep. While I was thinking it dropped on me like a blanket.
It wasn’t the feel of cold metal at my temple that brought me awake. It was the light from the lamp beside my chair. It was dull and yellow, but lit the room enough so I could see Velda in the bed, a tight gag wound around her mouth, her hands and feet cinched by strips of tape. There was a contusion on the left side of her forehead from where she had been knocked unconscious while she slept.
She wasn’t unconscious now. Her eyes were wide open, hatred and fear spilling out of them at the same time, staring at the person holding the gun to my head.
I turned just enough to recognize who it was and said, “Nice trick, Ugo.”
“No trick,” he replied. “I’m just smarter than you.”
There are times when there is nothing to say. I watched Ugo walk up beside me, the nose of his gun still against my head. I could see just enough of him to catch his smirk at my gun slung over the chair. The way I was slumped in the lounger meant it would take at least three seconds to get on my feet under the best of conditions, which would be two seconds too long. He could put a half dozen shots in me without any kind of trouble in that time span.
All I could do was sit quietly and play the hand out. As far as he was concerned I was no more than cold meat and so was Velda. What he didn’t know was that I had on body armor too and a .45 Combat Commander where I might get a chance to use it. He kept thinking that I was a dummy for letting my piece get so far away from me.
I had to get him talking, enough so that the .45 in the leather holster would keep him focused in on that, letting him enjoy the moment. I said, “You didn’t know we were coming here, Ugo.”
“Didn’t have to. I was behind you all the way.”
I let an amazed expression cross my face. It was forced, but he didn’t know that.
“You think I didn’t know you’d come back to Harris’ place? Man, that Dooley wouldn’t go to all that trouble of stashing the families’ money without leaving a roadmap. It’s right up there on that mountain.”
The hatred in Velda’s eyes had given way to resignation—utter, hopeless resignation. This time I could read her mind. We were so close. She had her big ring, we had a license to marry. One more day and the union would have been solidified. All she knew was that we didn’t have that one more day. Briefly, the hatred came back, then sank down in despair again.
“The feds had teams of experts up there. They didn’t find a thing,” I told him. I tried to keep a flutter in my voice.
“So they didn’t look in the right place, did they?”
“They looked everywhere. Go check it out.”
“I don’t have to. You did it for me. You know where Dooley hid it all. That’s why you took that digger up there and you found it too. Don’t give me any crap about not knowing where it was. Those numbers came together right inside that cave. So he had to bury it right there.” He paused and grinned. “Now that was pretty smart, digging a hole in a cave.”
Ugo Ponti decided to move a little so he could see me better and when he moved I did too, just enough to position my hand so I could make a grab for the rod at my side. He raised the gun in his hand, a short-barrelled .38. If I took a head shot I’d be out of it instantly, so if he decided to shoot I was hoping I would be hit in the chest. Knowing Ugo’s mentality, I didn’t expect him to try for a fast kill. He’d want to see me hurting before he tagged me for good. He’d want Velda to see it too before he laid one on her.
“How’d you get in here, Ugo?”
The question seemed to insult him. We both knew I would have heard the door opening if he had picked the lock. Hell, I felt the change of temperature in the room when I first woke up and knew how he’d gotten in.
He answered me anyway. “Hammer, I was doing window jobs with the edge of a carborundum sharpening stone when I was a kid. I got class now. I used a real glass-cutting tool, a suction cup and a small tap to break out a hole in the window. Then I reached in and opened the lock. You should know about those things. You’ve done the same thing yourself plenty of times.”
“Why, Ugo?” I asked him. “This won’t get you anyplace. The local soldiers that broke you out up here have a contract on you already.”
“When I get that money I’ll buy their soldiers. But you, Hammer . . . you I’m going to kill. You won’t die too fast. You’ll have time to see me put one in your girlfriend and she won’t die too fast either. You might even have enough time to say good-bye to each other. How do you like that?”
As long as he was standing in front of me I hadn’t taken my eyes off him. I was riveted on his face, his mouth and his eyes. I didn’t look at the gun at all. Then suddenly my head moved, my eyes widened as I looked at Velda and he half turned to see what had happened behind his back and in that instant of time when situations change he realized that it was a ruse and he screamed with rage and let a shot go at me that slammed me back into the recliner, but the shot I snapped off caught him square in the sternum and he went down on his back, the .38 clattering from his hand.
The one that had hit me was like a monstrous blow from a giant’s fist and for a few seconds I couldn’t get my breath. I slammed the footrest down and half stood up. The slug had given me one violent punch, but it hadn’t pierced the weave of modern technology.
Nor had my .45 destroyed Ugo. He was looking at me, the daze coming out of his eyes to let sheer amazement show through. I walked over and picked up his gun and shoved it in my belt.
He was getting his breath back now.
I grinned and shot him a little lower down in the chest. His eyes bugged out and he gave a couple of violent jerks.
Velda was watching the tableau unfold, her eyes hardly believing what she saw. I walked over and pulled the tape off her arms and legs, letting her handle the muffling gags.
The pain hadn’t started on Ugo yet. It would be another minute or two before the brutal impact of the .45 round against his rib cage would make the agony sweep up like engulfing fire. I said, “That body armor only stops the penetration, kid. This rod of mine is loaded with standard army cap and ball ammo, nice soft lead slugs that won’t get inside you but will break every bone you have. You’ll be screaming to die after the sixth shot and you’ll remember all the reasons this is coming at you.”
I didn’t have to emphasize it. He knew I was going to do it and the dread was plain in the expression on his face.
“Mike . . .” She said it very softly.
I frowned, watching her.
“Don’t end it for us.”
You could count the seconds going past while I let it all run through my mind. When I looked down at Ugo I knew the pain was almost there so I told him very calmly, “It was a wild-goose chase, Ugo. There was no money. There never was any money at all. The big bosses in the family had blown it. They never said why or how, but they didn’t want to go down at the hands of their kids. That’s why they dreamed up this wild story. Dooley just faked it out for them and I was part of that fake. No money, Ugo. No big crime family of your own. But the contract is still out on you and it won’t go away.”
His breath was coming in wheezes, but he was understanding me.
“I’m taking
you back to the city with us. I can drop you with some police who won’t let the word go out that you’re in custody. If you play your cards right you might get put in a safe cell where you’ll stay alive for eighty or ninety years. Or I can drop you off outside a certain storefront in Manhattan where the club members will be happy to boil you in oil while they watch.”
I got three pairs of handcuffs out of the car and snapped them on Ugo Ponti. He fit on the floor beside the backseat making pitiful sounds as he thought over his options. Halfway back to New York he told me where he preferred to go. I picked up the cellular phone, called Pat and made arrangements for the transfer.
It was all done very neatly.
In the east it was getting light, a soft warmth trying to get through the cold, damp mist.
Velda said, “Where do we go from here?”
I knew she wanted to go park outside the courthouse until the judge got there. Women are like that.
“Your choice, kitten,” I told her. Then I turned and threw up. She looked at my face and I knew I was pale. My knees were shaky and there was a blaze in my chest where Ugo’s slug had hit me. But the black alley wasn’t there this time.
“I’m taking you home, Mike. I’m calling Ralph Morgan and you’re going to do what he says as long as he wants.”
I wiped my mouth. “I thought you wanted to get married.”
“That will come,” she told me.
“Then let’s go home,” I said.
Black Alley Page 21