by Dani Amore
There was low talking in the room next door. Loreli peeled the top twenty off and studied it. Was it a fake? She had no way of knowing. But it had clearly been used. She knew that they could make fake money looked aged, but this seemed real.
Her heart was pounding inside her.
She had to go.
She put the money back.
Loreli thought again that she was no good to Liam dead. She stood and that’s when she heard the two angry spits from the next room.
Her heart stopped.
Her breath caught in her throat.
The sound took her back a few years. Liam’s father had been a gun nut of sorts. He’d fooled around with all kinds of weapons. Liked to strut around their apartment with him like he was John Wayne or something. Once, he’d showed her a small handgun with a silencer. They’d gone out to a state forest once and he’d shot beer cans with it, or more accurately, attempted to shoot beer cans. He could only hit them when he was about five feet away. Now, Loreli remembered the sounds the gun had made. Remembered them vividly.
It wasn’t the quiet sounds you saw and heard on television or at the movies, it was more like the sound of a Chihuahua with a sore throat barking.
Now, in the hotel room, the sound reverberated in her memory. The Italian was dead. He’d taken a gun, yes, but no silencer. And he’d only had on his bathrobe. Doubtful there was a silencer in the pocket of his bathrobe. So, the Italian hadn’t been shooting.
The Italian was dead. And she knew that no one with a silencer would shoot to wound. Cops would shoot to wound. But cops didn’t use silencers. Crooked cops, maybe. But not real cops. Not the good guys. The bad guys used silencers. And they used silencers for one reason and one reason only.
To get away with murder.
She knew she had to run. She knew she would be next if the killer came into the room looking for the money. Her brain screamed at her to run. Instead, she looked again at the money in the suitcase. The sight of all that cash took her breath away, and as if she’d opened Pandora’s Box. The killer probably had no idea she was here. Which would mean that he might come in here expecting the room to be empty. And he would have to kill her of course, because hired killers generally didn’t like leaving a lot of people around who could identify them.
All of these thoughts flashed through Loreli’s mind in a brief instant, and they all added up to one decisive conclusion. She needed the money for Liam. For his freedom. Loreli grabbed the suitcase, opened the door quietly, and made a beeline for the back stairs.
Loreli shut the door silently and raced down the hallway soundlessly. She got to the door at the end of the hallway and opened it silently. Not until it was closed did she step into the stairs. Her stiletto heels click clacked on the grimy cement steps. She twisted around a stairwell and her ankle nearly rolled over. Her breath came in ragged gasps. Her mind alternately fought between running back upstairs and chucking the suitcase back in the room, or to just keep running. Whoever killed the fat Italian bastard was probably in the room right now, looking for the precious item of luggage that was now gripped in her rapidly sweating palm.
She reached the bottom stair and gripped the exit door. She was about to throw it open when she forced herself to stop. She couldn’t very well run across the parking lot with a suitcase. If anyone was out here, they’d remember her. She stood still for a second, sure that at any second she was going to hear a door bang open upstairs and then footsteps coming down to get her. No, she wouldn’t let them. She thought of her son then. The boy had been through enough already. If the little guy wasn’t permanently scarred it would be a miracle. He couldn’t stand to lose his mother now. That would be the straw breaking the camel’s back. He’d never recover from that and she would never get another chance to do at least one thing right in her life.
She set the suitcase down, reached up and pulled her hair together in a ponytail. She dug a clip from her skirt pocket and pinched it together, then tucked the length of the tail inside her shirt. There was nothing she could do about its color, and there was nothing she could do about her clothes. She buttoned her shirt up to her neck and then slipped off her high heels and held them loosely by the strap.
It would have to do for now.
She steeled herself, picked up the suitcase and walked out into the parking lot. One foot in front of the other she went. Her Toyota Camry was in the middle of the lot. She walked slowly. Purposefully. Neither hiding her face nor advertising it. She wanted to look like any other hotel guest who’d spent the night and was now walking out to her car.
Suddenly, from behind her came the sound of a door banging against the wall as it was thrown open from inside.
She stopped.
This was it. One desperate greedy move had now left her son without a mother. His father was as good as dead anyway. She turned to face her executioner.
“Good morning,” the man said.
Loreli took in the man. Near fifty, Hispanic, with a stained white apron and a bag of garbage.
Her mouth moved but no sound came out. The man turned and walked to the alley then turned left. A few seconds later, she heard the sound of a dumpster door being thrown open.
She turned and walked to the Camry. Her heart was threatening to blow open her chest. Her throat was dry and tears were coming to her eyes. Don’t lose it now, Loreli, she told herself.
She put the key into the lock, or tried to. Her hand was shaking and it took her three tries to get it in. The trunk popped open and she threw the suitcase in. She was about to shut the door when something caught her eye. She reached in and pulled out the Detroit Tigers baseball cap that her son had gotten at the game. She put it on, then went around to the driver’s side and got in.
The Camry started on the first try and she pulled out of the parking lot onto Cass Avenue.
It was hard for her to get her mind straight. Suddenly, away from the hotel, it sunk in that a man had just been killed. Images of the police, of bloodstained carpet, of sirens and screaming filled her head. She wanted to pull over and sit and think, but she knew that was out of the question. She took two more lefts then gunned the car onto Broadway. Already, the hotel was more than a mile away. If someone was following her, they were staying way back, because she could see all the way down Broadway and there were no other cars coming in the same direction.
Slowly, she let the rational part of her brain take control. It was a feat she had had to master. Turn off the emotion. Like when she’d slept with her first client. That had been bad. He’d been slapping her ass, calling her names. Deep down, she hated it. But she turned off her mind. She retreated inside herself to the place where she kept her strategies, her logic. No one could touch her in there. No one could control her in there. And that’s where she went now.
Number one. There was no trace of her in that room. She’d left with everything she’d brought. Her small purse and her clothes. That was it. There was nothing in that hotel room they could trace to her. No blood on the sheets, not even any hair in the shower. She hadn’t drank from a glass and as far as she could remember, she hadn’t even touched any of the doorknobs. The closet had had a rectangular latch. Not a whole lot to get a print from.
So, no trace of her in the room.
That left only two people.
One: The big guy.
Two: Her pimp, a.k.a. Big Fat Rhonda.
A force to be reckoned with, certainly. But she wasn’t omniscient. There would be no mention of the money in the newspapers. This was drug money. Or stolen money. Or whatever kind of money the mob guys carried around. It wasn’t known to the IRS, that’s for sure. She was positive there would be no mention of the money. The murder would get plenty of press coverage, though. Loreli was glad for that. She would be able to follow the case and learn a thing or two just like everyone else.
She would lie to Big Fat Rhonda. She’d done the Italian and left, money in hand. Whoever killed them must have come after she’d left. Simple as that. She would gi
ve Rhonda the typical amount after a job and wouldn’t say anything else. Rhonda was tough. But she couldn’t intimidate Loreli.
Loreli steered the Camry over the Third Ward Pier and onto Second Street. From there, she followed the winding road as it curved past the trendy new condos into the edge of the ghetto.
She would take the money and pick up her son.
She couldn’t wait to see him.
There was a part of her that was threatening to lose it; to go absolutely bonkers over what was happening. Turning a trick. Then the john being murdered. Stealing a suitcase full of money.Loreli wanted to pull the car over and scream and cry and wail. She wanted to go to the cops.
But she knew she was doing the right thing.
Keep it together, she told herself. Just get Liam back and then cool off, figure out what to do later. Just get Liam. She held on to that; focused on the image of Liam in her arms. Her eyes welled up with tears but she blinked them away. She had to be strong.
Besides, as she looked in the mirror to will herself strength, she noticed that she was being followed.
And suddenly she knew she was in trouble.
24.
Tommy couldn’t stop thinking about the hooker. She’d been a good one. High class. Long blonde hair. Taut, sun-tanned body with big tits and a firm, highly spankable ass. He’d had her every which way before sending in his twin brother.
He congratulated himself again on the genius of his little charade. As boys, he and his twin brother Dominic had constantly played tricks on friends and babysitters. It’d been a shame when they’d been split up during the messy divorce when they were six years old. Dominic forced to stay in Pittsburgh, Tommy taken to Detroit.
Tommy got off the bed in Room 916, went back to the adjoining bathroom, and listened. It had been a clever move on his part, booking a double room so that he and Dominic could both do the hooker and not get charged double. Sure, he had a suitcase full of money, but he was still very frugal at heart. He stifled a giggle.
It had only been fifteen minutes or so, but Tommy figured that was more than enough time. Dominic probably came twice. Besides, Tommy wasn’t comfortable being apart from the money for much longer. But in order to trick the hooker, he’d had to leave the suitcase in the room. But he wasn’t worried. It was only fifteen minutes. And the hooker, well, Tommy figured Dominic could keep her busy for at least fifteen minutes.
He listened, but didn’t hear anything. He opened the door and stepped inside. The silence continued. The door shut behind him.
“Dominic?”
Silence.
Tommy reached around behind his jacket and pulled out a .38. He jacked a round into the chamber.
“Dominic? Where are you?”
Tommy’s eyes took in the room. The sheets were rumpled. A pillow lay in the middle of one bed. There was some loose change on the dresser. Tommy moved silently to the edge of the door. He listened closely, standing just out of sight, then whirled around, gun pointed at chest height.
The room was empty.
He went back into the bathroom. A shaving kit sat on the bathroom counter. Water dripped slowly from the faucet. A damp towel was on the floor. Someone had showered after Tommy left the room. Had it been Dominic or the whore?
“Shit!” Tommy hurried back out to the main part of the room. He looked around. Had Dominic paid the hooker and then taken off himself? But where? Did he leave with the hooker and go out the back way? Down the steps? And if, so, why?
Tommy stood in the room. Frozen. And then his heart leapt to his throat, his stomach clenched.
He raced to the closet, threw open the door.
Gone.
The suitcase was gone.
Tommy felt a chill run through his belly. Could Dominic have taken the suitcase? No. It wasn’t even a remote possibility. The dumb bastard had no idea what his brother was doing. Didn’t even know what was in it or why it was important. The hooker? No way. He’d chosen one at random. There was no way his boss could’ve gotten wind of where he was. If he had, Tommy would be dead. Vincenzo Romano would never hire someone to steal the suitcase from a rat. He’d have the rat squashed and then the suitcase taken.
Tommy let out a slow breath, tried to gather himself. His lungs were still exhaling when the phone rang.
Tommy snatched the receiver quickly. “Dominic?”
“Hello,” the voice said. “This is the front desk.”
Tommy cursed under his breath. “Yeah?”
“I just wanted to check and make sure the disturbance next door was taken care of to your satisfaction, Mr. Abrocci.”
The wheels in Tommy’s mind turned quickly. He seemed to see the picture developing before him.
“Yes, yes, that was Room Number...” he said.
“912,” the man at the front desk said. “We called there after you complained and the party agreed to quiet down. I hope your stay was not diminished in any way.”
“No,” said Tommy. “It was fine.” He hung up the phone as the front desk was still in the process of saying good-bye.
Tommy opened the door to his room and peeked out in the hallway. It was empty. He held the gun down by his side and quietly stepped in front of room 912. Nothing.
He knocked gently on the door, scanned the hallway. Still nothing. He tried the door, but it was locked. Adrenaline coursed through Tommy’s veins. Something had happened to his brother. The extremely important contents of his suitcase were gone. The likes of which if put into the wrong hands, would guarantee his death. And the answer was somewhere on the other side of a hotel door.
Tommy slipped the gun into his coat pocket. He placed both hands on the door handle and reefed. He heard a splintering from within. He relaxed, checked the hallway. Still empty. He placed his weight in his shoulders and slammed down on the door handle. Another crack. He turned the handle until he was sure the catch was free. He put his shoulder to the door and slammed against it. The door gave but remained in place. Down the hall, he heard a door handle begin to turn. Tommy slipped into his own room and waited. Footsteps passed by, and a few seconds later, he heard the ding of the elevator. He stepped back out and pulled on the door handle again. Finally, his blood boiling, he stepped back and kicked the door as hard as he could. The handle sagged and he kicked again. This time, the door swung open.
Tommy’s breath went out of him like he’d been kicked as hard as he’d kicked the door.
Dominic lay on the ugly beige carpet, a menacing pool of blood spread around him. The room was empty. Tommy went to his brother and turned him over. He took in the sight of his brother’s blood-stained robe, the ugly hole in the middle of his forehead. The dull blank stare, not entirely different than the look that was there when the poor bastard was alive.
Tommy’s hands were shaking as he turned his brother back over. He sank to his knees and slumped his shoulders, his gun hanging loosely from his hand.
Tommy thought then of the early years, when he and Dominic were kids in Philadelphia and it became apparent to everyone that Dominic was slow. During those years, Tommy had protected him from the other neighborhood kids who, being kids, targeted anyone who was different and heaped abuse. Tommy, when he wasn’t picking on Dominic himself, protected his brother. It had been a full-time job.
And now, not only had he failed to protect him, he’d gotten him killed.
No! That wasn’t true! Tommy shook his head. Admittedly, trying to trick the hooker might not have been the greatest idea in the world. Saving a grand was probably stupid considering he had a half-mil in a suitcase. But it was just a joke, really, nothing major.
It was the hooker’s fault. It had to be her. There was no way Romano could have found him. No one knew where he was. Sure, he’d used his stolen credit card, knowing that Rierdon could probably use it to track him down. But there was no way Romano could have gotten the same information. And there was absolutely no way Romano could have beaten Rierdon to the punch.
It was the hooker.
> She was a smart one, all right. She must have sent Dominic to the bathroom. Maybe to start the shower. Or maybe Dominic went in there to take a shit or something. And when he was gone, the hooker had snooped. She’d probably found the suitcase, then gotten a gun, probably hidden in her purse, and blasted Dominic when he came back out.
But how did she get him into the next room? And why?
Tommy thought about that.
It didn’t make sense, but there had to be a reason. What if the hooker was working with someone else? Maybe her pimp had been in the next room and the hooker had sent Dominic over there.
That might be it.
Tommy’s mind cycled through the possibilities. He wasn’t sure how it had happened, but he knew one thing: the hooker had killed his brother.
She was going to die.
He slipped back out of the room, paused at the door to take out his handkerchief and wipe the handle clean of any prints. Tommy went back into his room, picked up his other suitcase and left via the back stairway.
He walked quickly across the parking lot to his rented Cadillac, threw the bag in the trunk.
As he drove with no destination in mind, the images rolled through his mind. The scenarios, possibilities and dead-ends, played out in his mind like previews before the feature film.
He pulled to the curb and dug through his wallet for a phone number and address then brought out his gun. He made sure the magazine was full and there was a round in the chamber.
Cocked and locked.
25.
Jack Cleveland looked down at the dead body on the carpet.
He felt no remorse. He simply saw a contract fulfilled.
Or at least, the first part of a contract fulfilled.
Jack quickly buttoned his shirt and watched Betty put on her blue jeans. Her hands were steady and she didn’t rush. She moved with no wasted motion. The reason he trusted her, was impressed with her, was because of the bookie in L.A.
The bookie’s name was Croghley and he’d burned down his own bar, which was just an IRS dodge, and taken all of his money to L.A. Unfortunately for him, some of that money belonged to Romano, so the Mob boss had sent Jack after him.