by Dani Amore
His fingers tightened on the gun.
With his left hand, he gently closed her eyes.
And then he left, wiping away any of his prints, erasing any signs of his presence.
39.
The Spook stood before the full-length mirror in his suite at the Fox Hotel. His Fender Telecaster was slung over his shoulder, its cable trailing out behind him to the small Pignose amplifier propped up on the bed. He had the guitar’s distortion on a medium setting, the juice turned to the first pickup. The settings were designed to create a dense, fuzzy sound that was tight enough to sound like a raucous bouncing romp when he pounded down a blues shuffle.
The Spook put an unlit cigarette in the corner of his mouth and looked at himself in the mirror again. He saw a pale man in his late thirties, early forties with thick black hair and a slightly pockmarked face. He was thin and his face was pinched. He had on dirty blue jeans, cowboy boots, a long-sleeved untucked blue shirt and a bone necklace.
On his right ring finger was a large skull ring.
The Spook had two loves in the world: the ecstasy of a perfect kill and Keith Richards.
In fact, he longed to be like Keith. Keith’s riffs spoke to the Spook. The sexy wail of “Honky Tonk Women,” the anthemic call of “Satisfaction.” They all kindled a flame in the Spook’s soul. He could relate to those riffs. To those sudden bursts of inspiration.
Keith Richards was a god to the Spook.
Now, in his hotel room, he slid the fingertips of his left hand slowly up the fretboard of his Fender. The little Pignose responded smoothly and quietly. As much as the Spook would have loved to crank it up, it wasn’t the time nor the place. In his apartment in London, he had a soundproof studio in which he would sit for hours and play Keith’s riffs, his riffs, over and over again, until he had a welt on his chest from the Fender digging in.
What a thing, the Spook thought. To be born to do something. That was the ticket. Keith had been born to write and play music. God had opened his brain and poured in all the ability he could handle.
The Spook had a born talent. Killing people was his reason for existence. Each and every one had been a virtuoso performance. He knew this instinctively. It wasn’t arrogance or boastfulness. He was the best there was. He knew it. And those who were in the know, knew it, too.
That’s what had pissed him off so much about the black woman. “We’re both professionals,” she had said. The Spook had an ego. It wasn’t huge, but it was there. In his profession, you had to have one. You had to believe you were better than the other guy. You were there to kill him, after all. If there were even the tiniest smidgen of doubt that you might not be better, how could you go through with anything?
So it had pissed him off when the little ebony femme had put herself in his league. It hadn’t been that brutal, though. Once, he’d sharpened an eight foot tent stake and put it up a fat Israeli banker’s ass until it came out the side of the man’s neck, then hung the stake lengthwise in the bastard’s living room. The banker had died a slow, humiliating death.
The press said it took him several hours to die and that when the cops had come, they initially thought someone had skewered a pig in their living room.
It was the executionary equivalent of Keith’s incredible bridge on “Sympathy for the Devil.”
The Spook bowed his head and slipped into the rhythmic chords of “Beast of Burden.”
As he played, his boots tapped the thick carpet of his hotel room. He paced around the room, lost in the beauty of the evocation. In his mind, he was on stage at Wembly. Mick was in front, strutting across the stage. Ronnie was to his right, smiling, strolling. Wyman was in the back, trying to not be noticed. And Charlie was playing with intensity, his face a mask of indifference.
The Spook’s fingers slid carelessly along the strings. His right hand tamped the strings, creating a playful syncopation.
His mind slowly turned to the problem of Jack Cleveland. The Spook had been given two targets, the second unnecessary if the first panned out.
Well, the first hadn’t panned out.
Onto the next, the Spook thought. His laptop computer caught his eye. All he needed to do was log on to several networks which he still had access to although he was no longer employed by the CIA. With a few well-placed bribes and a few more veiled threats, his contacts had remained, and so had his access.
It wouldn’t take him long to track down the target.
In the meantime, the fans were clamoring for an encore.
40.
“How’s the ravioli?” she asked Liam as she came into the kitchen. When she’d picked him up at her Mom’s, she found out he’d been eating nothing but Frosted Flakes and Pop-Tarts. It was time to get him back on some kind of routine. “Routine” seeming like a terribly strange word to her at the moment.
Liam sat at the end of the table. His fork was in his little hand, an orange plastic cup full of milk next to his plate. There was tomato sauce on his chin, milk on his upper lip.
The All-American boy, she thought.
With the Totally-Messed-Up mother.
She’d had enough, though. It was time to get her shit together. In the short time that this life crisis had started, she’d started doing some serious thinking. And it was time for a drastic overhaul. Loreli watched her son eating his ravioli and she had a heart swoon kind of moment.
She was wasting her time as a legal secretary. She was smart, capable and confident. It was time to do better.
She was going to start taking classes again. She was going to be a lawyer.
But more importantly, she was done with losers forever.No more drinkers. No more drug users. No more losers. Period.
She was going to find the world’s most boring man and marry him. What she really needed, she thought, was an impotent handyman. A guy with a tool belt who would fix everything in her house and then have no desire to get her into the sack.
Yes, that was perfect, she thought.
She turned and went into the bedroom where she’d put the suitcase. She undid the zipper and pulled back the nylon cover.
Her breath momentarily left her.
The money was packed in tightly. Loreli couldn’t believe how much there was. She ran a hand over it and felt the paper lightly scratch the palm of her hand, the rubberbands catching on her palm.
Suddenly, a shaft of fear drove itself into her stomach. She drew her hand back as if it had brushed against a flame. This money was dangerous. But she’d been desperate. What to do now? Take it to the cops? She couldn’t do that. Someone had been shot at the hotel room. She still needed to find out what had happened. Maybe it would be in the papers or on the news. She checked her watch. It was almost five o’clock. She reached across her bed and grabbed the remote control, turned on the television to channel 62. CBS.
She looked back at the money. So much was here. Loreli wracked her brain, trying to think what she should do.
There were really only two options.
One. Keep the money. In that case, it seemed the safest thing would be to rent a bunch of safety deposit boxes and stash the money there. She would have a key and the bank would have a key. That seemed like something that was done in the movies. Not in real life.
But if she did that, she could just go in and grab some money here and there when she needed. She would have to keep it in small enough increments so as to not draw the attention of the IRS. It would be enough to where if she wanted to start her own firm, there would at least be enough there to keep her and Liam from starving.
The second option was to give the money back.
But this option, unbelievably, had even more pitfalls than the first. Number one, to whom was she exactly supposed to return the money?
Was it the mob?
And if it was, how do you go about giving money back to the Mafia, if that’s what it was? You can’t exactly look them up in the yellow pages.
She was kidding herself if she thought this money was come by honestly.
It was bad, tainted, dirty money.
And it was in a suitcase on her bed. In her bedroom. In her house.
With a chill, she realized that someone was going to be coming for it sooner or later.
But no, she stopped herself. How could they? She’d been to the hotel room as a hooker. A part-time hooker, granted, but still, a hooker. She hadn’t checked into the room. No one knew who she was.
Someone had possibly been following her but she’d ditched him on the ramp to the freeway. And unless it had been the cops, they wouldn’t be able to trace her license plates or anything like that. And she was sure no one had followed her home from Ann Arbor.
But she still couldn’t shake the fact this was wrong. Here she was talking about turning over a new leaf and in the meantime, she had a suitcase full of stolen money.
But the fact was, she hadn’t intended to steal so much of it. She’d only really needed about five grand. How was she supposed to have known that there was all this? She started to count it, but gave up.
There was at least a hundred thousand here.
Maybe there was a statute of limitations. After a year or so it would just be hers.
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the handsome head of her favorite news anchor. She reached for the remote and saw the little icon next to one of his rugged shoulders.
It said “Homicide,” with a chalk outline next to it.
She thumbed the mute button and caught: “in the Prescott Hotel in Ann Arbor. The unidentified male was found shot to death early this afternoon. She thumbed the mute button and caught: “Again, we have just learned the identify of the victim. His name was Dominic Abrocci, he was forty-one years old and found shot to death early this afternoon.”
“Well, well,” a voice said behind her. She whirled, her heart in her throat.
Dexter smiled at her. The gun in his hand was pointed nonchalantly at the center of her chest.
His eyes lifted and gazed over Loreli’s shoulder.
“You did have a little bit more,” he said.
41.
Loreli was stunned. This couldn’t be happening. She stared at Dexter. He was here. Standing in her house. It was like her life couldn’t get surreal enough.
And Liam.
Where was Liam?
This couldn’t be happening, she thought. It absolutely could not be happening. Please, she thought, not Liam. Not again. As if by telepathy, the little boy squirted through the opening between Dexter and the doorjamb, and raced behind Loreli, clinging to her legs.
“Take it,” she said. She gestured with a tilt of her head. “Take the money.”
She looked into Dexter’s eyes. They were greenish with a slight blue tint. They were twinkling at her. He was clearly enjoying this.
“Take it all. Just get out of my house. Right now.” She moved away from the money, giving Dexter a straight shot into the room.
“You’re right, honey,” he said. “I will be taking that money.”
Loreli heard Liam sob. She reached down and clutched his shoulder. “It’s okay,” she said.
Dexter stepped into the room and pressed the gun against Loreli’s forehead. “How do you know everything’s going to be okay? You can’t give the little shit a distorted view of the world when he grows up, it’ll be a giant disappointment to him. When he’s fifty years old, single, broke, with a drinking problem, he’ll hear your voice saying, ‘it’s all going to be okay,’ and then he’ll curse your memory.”
He smiled at her, and brought the gun down to his side.
“Just take the money and go.”
“Why don’t we put the boy in the living room and have some fun?”
“Go to hell,” she said.
“What was such a nice bitch like you doing with Ted? Jesus Christ, the generosity of women overwhelms me at times.”
“Ted and I are done.”
“About time, babe.”
“He’s got nothing to do with me and I’ve got nothing to do with him. Any future problems, I’ve got nothing to do with them, do you understand?”
“Honey, the problem you should be worrying about is standing right in front of you. You really shouldn’t be thinking about problems in the future, because you’ve got a big one right now. And it’s fixing to bust right out of the front of my pants. You understand?”
Loreli saw the bulge at Dexter’s crotch. For the first time since all of this had happened, she really wanted to cry. Just throw herself on her bed and bawl like a baby. But she couldn’t do it. She had to get this man out of her house first. And to do that, she knew what she had to do.
“Liam, go in the kitchen and finish your ravioli.”
“I already did.”
“Then watch some t.v. in the living room.”
“Can I watch a video?”
Jesus Christ, she thought. “Yes, you can watch a video, now go.”
But suddenly, Dexter was gone. He landed a few feet away. Before her, stood Ted. The remains of a kitchen chair were in his hands.
“You knew I couldn’t just leave, babe,” he said.
***
Loreli found her legs and got to her feet, albeit unsteadily. She turned around and hugged Liam tightly to his chest. This insanity had to end, she thought. She was calling the cops. It didn’t matter at this point if she got into trouble, lost her job, whatever. None of that mattered, in the end. She had to protect Liam, and she had to protect herself. Liam was counting on her.
“Good thing I did, too. I’ve been meaning to get even with that dick for duct taping me to the chair. Hey, I wonder if this is the same chair?” he looked at it in his hands. “What do they call that? Ironic?”
“Moronic,” Loreli said. She walked to Ted and put her hands on his shoulders. “Ted, thank you. I owe you that. But that’s it. I want you out, right now.”
He started to protest, but Loreli said, “I’m going to call the cops. Unless you want to explain this whole mess in person with the cops, and have them search you and your car for any drugs, I suggest you get out of here right now. And no, I’m not kidding.”
“But,” Ted started, then stopped abruptly.
“I’m sorry. Thanks again, but we’re through. Leave,” she said. She stepped back, pointed at Dexter’s inert body and said, “And take him with you. It’s because of your bullshit he’s here, so he’s your responsibility. Get him out of here.”
Ted looked soberly at Dexter, his arms spread out to either side. “Okay, but I’m going to need your help.”
Loreli nodded, then said to Liam, “Let’s go put a video in for you, okay, honey?”
“Little Bear?” His young face was pale, and Loreli could see tears pooling, about to come streaming down his face.
“Little Bear it is.”
Loreli took Liam into his bedroom and put the video on, then came back to her bedroom where Ted was standing over Dexter.
“Put the money back,” Loreli said.
“What?” Ted’s eyes were wide. Innocent.
“Put the money back. It’s not yours.”
Ted hesitated, then pulled a thick bundle of bills from his pocket. “I don’t think it’s yours, either.”
“I’m giving it back to who owns it. Trust me. You don’t want to get messed up with it. My life has gone to shit.”
“Are you sure you want me to go?” Ted asked.
Loreli looked at him.
“Okay, okay,” he said.
They each took a leg and dragged Dexter to the front door. He was heavy, and both of them felt the strain of lifting his body. Loreli was scared he would wake up and start getting violent, but Ted had apparently cracked him at the base of the skull, because she could see the blood that had seeped down his back and stained his shirt.
She had a feeling he wouldn’t be waking up real soon.
“What should I do with him?” Ted asked.
“Dump him out on the freeway. When you’re doing about seventy-five.”
He straightened up. “I ca
n’t do that!”
Loreli looked at him evenly. “I was kidding. Take him back to his house and dump him on his front step. If the neighbors see you, say he’s drunk.”
Loreli opened the door.
Tommy Abrocci smiled at her. Showed her the gun in his hand.
“Hi, honey,” he said. “Mind if I come in?”
42.
They were calmly sitting in the living room, the suitcase full of money on the coffee table. From the back bedroom, they could hear the t.v. going, sounds of Little Bear and his friends learning the lessons of life.
The adults were learning, too.
“You shouldn’t have screwed with me, bitch,” Tommy said.
From behind Tommy came the rustling of a plastic shopping bag. Ted’s eyes glanced behind Tommy and then widened.
Tommy caught the expression but it was too late.
Dexter slammed the plastic bag down over Tommy’s head and pulled it tight, then wrapped his muscled forearm around his neck. He reached for the gun with his free hand.
Tommy clubbed Dexter’s face with the gun. When it hit Dexter’s face, his finger tightened convulsively.
He pulled the trigger.
Ted flew backward, a blossom of red staining his shirt. The slug took him dead center in the chest.
For a brief moment, Dexter froze, looking at the inert body of Ted on the floor. Tommy slid down the couch, out from beneath Dexter’s arm and his face slid out of the shopping bag.
He was getting to his feet when Dexter leapt from the couch and landed on top of him. They rolled on the ground, Dexter’s superior strength briefly giving him the advantage, before Tommy’s extra fifty pounds got it back.
Loreli raced from the kitchen, past the struggling duo on the living room floor, into the bedroom. She found Liam sitting on his bed.
“Come on!” she screamed.
Liam jumped as if he’d been poked by sharp needles. “We’ve got to get out of here!”
“Where are we going Mommy?”
“Come on!” she yelled.