A Plain-Dealing Villain

by Craig Schaefer

  “In that case, Crown and Coke. Pour one for yourself, too.”

  “Now you’re talking,” she said. She didn’t get a chance to serve it up, though; the door at the end of the hall rattled and swung open. Out came Nicky Agnelli, hair greased back, dressed in a Hugo Boss suit and rimless Porsche Design titanium glasses, looking like a Hollywood producer. I didn’t recognize the man with him, but that didn’t stop the back of my neck from prickling.

  He was unassuming, a short Indian man in a black suit and blood-red tie, but a vortex of power that shone like emeralds in my second sight swirled around him. He wasn’t a demon or a halfblood cambion like Nicky for that matter. Demons felt like barbed wire and black diamonds when my psychic tendrils brushed past them. His essence was all jungles, fertile black peat, and charred meat roasting on an open fire. Symbols and textures and emotions rushed through my mind like I was riffling through a deck of cards, taking his measure.

  He wasn’t human, I knew that for certain, and I’d only sensed a creature like this once before.

  Naavarasi.

  At first I thought it was her. The rakshasi hunger spirit was an adept shape-shifter, as she’d been all too happy to demonstrate in the past. Then I realized the man’s aura was subtly different, like a set of fingerprints that didn’t quite match.

  So, I thought, she isn’t the last of her kind after all. Great. One was bad enough.

  Juliette and Justine, Nicky’s twin bodyguards and personal mayhem squad, filed out behind them. Their usual relentless bubbly glee was gone, replaced by grave silence and unblinking stares. They were scary when they were manic. This was worse.

  “So please, give Mr. Mancuso my regards and my thanks,” Nicky told the man, “but we’re doing just fine out here. You let him know I said that, okay?”

  He held out his hand. The Indian just gave him a stone-eyed glare. “A pleasure meeting you,” he replied, but his tone made it sound like a death threat.

  He walked past me, trailing power in his wake. For a moment, our eyes met. I could feel him reading me, brushing up against my psychic walls like I’d done to him, but his face was a blank slate. He left without another word.

  “Follow his ass,” Nicky snapped at Juliette and Justine, his voice low and hard. “Don’t let him out of your sight for a second, and make sure he gets on the next plane out of town. If he tries anything funny, leave him dead in a fucking ditch.”

  The twins stalked off, silent. Nicky turned to me and put on a big, friendly smile. I almost believed it.

  “New friend?” I asked.

  He waved his hand, playing it off. “Liquor distributor. Club business, no big deal. C’mon in back.”

  I followed him into his office. Between the cigarette-burned carpet, the cheap wood paneling, and the car calendar two years out of date, you’d never guess half the dirty business in Vegas was cooked up in that very room. Nicky dropped into the tall-backed chair behind his desk and gestured for me to take a seat.

  “Club business, huh?” I said.

  “Forget about it.” His gaze flicked away for one guilty second. “So how’s tricks? Hey, how’s Jennifer doing?”

  I sat down and tried not to roll my eyes at him.

  “Really? That’s your lead-in? Real subtle, Nicky.”

  “Then you know why I’m asking.”

  “Maybe yes, maybe no.” I shrugged. “Why don’t you tell me?”

  “The envelope was light this month, Dan.”

  Jennifer was family. Not blood, but blood didn’t matter to people like us. She was my sister where it counted. She was also one of the last members of Vegas’s occult underground still doing business with Nicky Agnelli. She didn’t have much of a choice, given that she was running her little narcotics empire on his turf.

  I figured he was going to ask me about her new deal with the Cinco Calles gang or the tenement by the airport she’d turned into an urban fortress. Apparently he didn’t know about that. Small favors.

  “The envelope,” I repeated flatly, playing dumb.

  “Look.” He rested his palms flat on his desk. “She knows the deal. She operates in my city, I get to dip my beak. Just a little. You know me, I’m not a demanding guy, but I do insist on dipping my beak. That’s not unreasonable.”

  “She pays you for protection, Nicky. Given Harmony Black is doing her best Elliot Ness impression and rattling cages all over town, I’m thinking Jennifer doesn’t feel too safe right now.”

  “I’m handling it.”

  “Says you.” I crossed my arms. “But seeing as Black just busted up my score and hauled me into an interrogation room, call me a skeptic.”

  “Hey, you’re the one who pissed her off, not me. I’m her job. You’re her hobby. Know what the difference is? People care about their hobbies.”

  I hated to admit it, but he had a point.

  “Was the envelope light?” I asked. “Or was it empty?”

  “Light. By one G.”

  “You have to try and see it her way. As far as you’re concerned, your cut is something you’re entitled to. As far as she’s concerned, she’s paying you for a service you aren’t rendering. She’s making a point. If the envelope was empty, that’d be a whole different deal.”

  “I can’t let anyone short me, Dan. I can’t have it. You know how many people in this town pay out to me? You know what would happen if they found out I let Jennifer get away with this?”

  “Which is why,” I said, unfolding my arms, “I guarantee she hasn’t said a word to anyone about it. You need to make things right with her. That’s what she’s telling you.”

  Nicky scowled. The whites of his eyes swirled behind his glasses, turning runny-egg yellow as the stress brought his demon blood to the surface. Faint red veins like bloody spiderwebs pulsed under his temples.

  “She needs to get right with me. I’m the general. She’s a goddamn soldier.”

  “She’s more than that, and you know it.” I leaned forward and rapped my index finger on his desk. “Meet her halfway, Nicky, that’s all I’m saying. You want my advice, there it is. Don’t get pissed if it isn’t what you wanted to hear. You want a yes-man, go hire one.”

  He leaned back and pressed the heels of his hands to his eyes, taking a deep breath. His thin lips twitched, silently counting to ten. When he lowered his hands, his face was back to normal, human disguise firmly in place.

  “Yeah. Yeah, okay. See, that’s why I like you, Danny. You never bullshit me.”

  Wish I could say the same about you, I thought, but I kept my poker face on.

  “That why you called me out here?” I asked.

  “Nah, that’s side business. I hear you’re looking for a job.”

  I tried to unclench my jaw. Nicky knew exactly how hard up for cash I was, and he loved nothing more than bending me over a barrel.

  “I’m freelancing now, Nicky. You and me, we’ve got a truce, but that’s all we’ve got. Especially while Agent Black is dogging both our footsteps. I shouldn’t even be in the same area code as you until this all blows over.”

  He waved his hand like he was shooing away a fly. “I’m strictly a middleman on this. Nothing that’ll connect you to me or give the feds anything to chew on. You think I want them to get any dirt on you? We know each other’s secrets, Danny. I need you quiet, just like you need me quiet.”

  “I’m listening.”

  He smiled like he had me right where he wanted me. I suppose he did.

  “Forget this nickel-and-dime stuff. I’ve got a line on a score that requires a man of your talents. A real score.”

  4.

  Nicky got up and wandered over to his wet bar. He held up a bottle of Canadian Club and a glass, giving me a questioning look. I nodded.

  “The name Cameron Drake ring a bell?” he asked.

  “Don’t know him.”

  He poured three fingers of whiskey and slid the glass across the desk to me. “Guy was a nobody, a roofing contractor or something. Then about a year ago, he
bought a lottery ticket on his way home from work. Won the Powerball. Forty million bucks, and he took it all in a lump sum instead of spreading it out. Paid out the ass in taxes, but he just couldn’t wait to get his shopping spree underway.”

  “Fool and his money. Drake’s the mark?”

  “Drake’s the client,” Nicky said, pouring himself a glass and sitting back down. “He’s got a taste for more than Italian cars and fifty-foot yachts. He’s a collector. And the stuff he’s been collecting lately, well, it’s the sort of thing your crowd is into.”

  I sipped from my glass. The whiskey burned its way down my throat, just like it should, and spread a little cloud of warmth in my stomach.

  “And how do you come into the picture?”

  “He came out to Vegas a few months back, looking to party like a rock star. I hooked him up with some grade-A blow and a couple of former Penthouse pets. I’ve been on his speed dial ever since, whenever he needs something…exotic.”

  I turned my hand slowly, watching the amber liquor roll against the sides of the glass.

  “How exotic are we talking?”

  “I don’t know.” Nicky shrugged. “All I know is the score’s locked up inside a hard target. Security’s part physical, part occult, and he needs a pro with a foot in both worlds. Naturally, I thought of you.”

  “Naturally. And what do you get out of the deal?”

  “Matchmaker’s fee, that’s all. Three percent of your cut.”

  I could live with three percent, but I wasn’t sure I could live with doing business with Nicky again. We’d burned too many bridges between us.

  “I’ll think about it,” I said.

  “C’mon, just meet with the guy. Hear him out, see what he’s offering. The job’s not in Vegas, I know that much, which means you’ll be out from under the feds for a little while.”

  I didn’t let my temptation show. Instead I tossed back the rest of my drink and slapped the empty glass down on his desk.

  “Said I’d think about it,” I pushed my chair back.

  “Yeah, well don’t think too long. You’re not a unique and beautiful snowflake, Faust. There are other guys who can do this kinda work.”

  “I’ll call you,” I said and saw myself out.

  Nicky was up to something. His “liquor distributor” guest looked like a storm cloud of trouble just waiting to rain, and there were only two reasons for the twins to be more than ten feet away from Nicky: somebody was about to get hurt, or somebody was about to get dead. I tried to tell myself none of this had anything to do with me or mine, but those were long odds.

  Agent Black’s little war on the underworld hadn’t made a lot of arrests yet, but everybody saw the writing on the wall. Nicky was cleaning house. He’d already made an object lesson out of a disloyal lieutenant, bringing me out to an abandoned house in the sticks and making me watch while the twins tortured him to death. Nicky wanted the underworld to know he was still the King of Vegas, ready and willing to fight for the throne.

  We know each other’s secrets, he’d said. I need you quiet, just like you need me quiet.

  The idea of leaving town for a few days looked more and more attractive.

  * * *

  Sheets of gray satin swirled around me, and the weight of the comforter pressed me against the supple mattress. Warmth and pleasure beckoned me down into sleep, weighing my eyelids despite the spreading glow of sunrise behind the venetian blinds.

  The pale woman in my arms wriggled back against my chest. The faint scent of musk perfume clung to her scarlet hair. I held her close, our naked bodies breathing in unison.

  “This is nice,” Caitlin whispered.

  I held on to her for a while. Lying together like this, I could forget that anything existed outside her bedroom walls, forget the problems waiting for me right outside the door.

  Most people wouldn’t take solace in the arms of a demon, but I wasn’t most people.

  “How did it go last night?” she asked. The question I was dreading.

  “Didn’t,” I said. “Harmony Black broke up the party. Don’t worry, she didn’t get anything she could use.”

  “She didn’t this time, you mean. The woman has it in for you, Daniel. I think you should take a break. Go into hiding for a few weeks until things run their course.”

  “Can’t do that. Winslow’s already fixing to break my kneecaps over the cash I owe him. He’s not going to wait much longer.”

  Caitlin rolled over, turning so we were nose-to-nose, sharing a feather pillow. She poked me in the chest with a sharp fingernail.

  “I have money, you know,” she said.

  “I can’t take your money. Not to pay a debt.”

  Four more fingers joined the first, nails pressing lightly over my heart.

  “And why not?”

  I tried to answer without seeing my father’s face in my mind’s eye. The old man sleeping in front of a television tuned to static, empty beer cans littering the stained carpet. Another six-pack in the fridge but not a damn thing to eat.

  The first time I stole anything, I was eight years old, snatching food for me and my little brother.

  “Because I need to know,” I said, pushing away the memory. “I need to know that I can provide for myself.”

  Caitlin arched an eyebrow. “That’s not all of it. What?”

  “You know what I did when I worked for Nicky Agnelli. Helping his crews out, pulling down scores.”

  “Mm-hmm,” she murmured, her nails digging into my chest a little harder.

  “I was good. I was really good. Then, one night…” My voice trailed off.

  It’s strange, the things you remember. The ear-splitting klaxon of an alarm. The rotten smell of the blood from a buddy’s gut wound, the way it made my hands slick and hot. The sound as he shrieked, biting down on a ballpoint pen, as I tried to shove his intestines back inside him.

  “The intel was bad,” I said, “and the whole thing went sideways in the blink of an eye. I brought a four-man crew on that job, two of ’em friends of mine, and I was the only one who got out alive. That was the end of working for Nicky Agnelli.”

  “Was it his fault?”

  I looked up at the ceiling. I’d asked myself that question a thousand times. Usually around two in the morning, when the memories were the loudest.

  “Doesn’t matter whose fault it was,” I said. “Point is it knocked me off my game. I floated around after that, pulling a few small grifts and selling vengeance for hire.”

  “Which is how you met me,” Caitlin said, swinging up and straddling my waist. Her curls draped down, framing her face as she leaned in close. “So I’d best not hear any complaints.”

  I craned my neck to kiss her. Her lips tasted faintly of cherries.

  “None. But then Lauren Carmichael and her cult came along. It feels like we spent so much time and energy fighting them—”

  “Horseback riding,” Caitlin said.

  “Huh?”

  “You were an accomplished horseman. Then you were knocked from the saddle, and you didn’t get right back on again. Any teacher will tell you that’s when the fear sets in. Making you wonder…can you still ride at all?”

  I clasped my hands around her hips and looked up at her.

  “You get it,” I should have known she would.

  She ran her fingers through my hair, grazing my scalp with her nails.

  “Then ride, horseman.” She brushed her lips against mine. “Find the reassurance you seek. But be swift. I’m going on a business trip in a few days, and I want to see you before I leave.”

  “Business trip? Where?”

  “Home. My prince is having a celebration, and I’ve been asked to make a personal appearance. I won’t be gone for long, just have to make a few courtesy calls, stand at his side and look imposing, that sort of thing. I’d invite you along, but…well, for you, that would be a one-way trip.”

  “Give my regards to your family,” I said, half joking.

&nb
sp; “Oh, I will. My sisters keep asking when they get to meet you.”

  I forced myself to chuckle, ignoring the chill in my spine. “What do you tell ’em?”

  Caitlin flashed a toothy smile. “That depends entirely on you, pet. Do be careful out there.”

  * * *

  I crashed in Caitlin’s bed until noon and then myself up with a groan, staggering off to get cleaned up. She’d already headed out, leaving me a note on the bathroom sink written on a sheet of primly lined violet paper: “Hound business to attend to, call me later. Food in fridge. Don’t eat out of the red Tupperware.—Cait.”

  While the twin heads in her shower pounded the soreness out of my chest and back, clouds of steam clearing my head, I weighed my options. No matter how attractive the offer was, I didn’t want to do business with Nicky. I’d find another way.

  I wasn’t lacking for choices either. All professional heisters carry a list in the back of their minds: places they’ve always wanted to hit, weak targets that look like a quick and easy payday, that sort of thing. Call it a thief’s rainy-day stash, just waiting for the day we might need them.

  Now felt like a good time.

  An hour later I was cruising the streets of Vegas in my black Barracuda, fingers strumming the steering wheel in time with a Muddy Waters song. The sun rode high and kissed the dusty roads with a dry autumn heat. I followed the map of my memory, scouting my way across town, figuring out which of my old rainy-day scores were still good and which ones were busts.

  Around three I found myself sitting in an outdoor cafe, nursing a paper cup of black coffee and pretending to read the Vegas Sun. The currency exchange across the street had my real attention, that and the two chuckleheads in tan uniforms who were taking their sweet time loading the armored car out front.

  With that fence it’s a total blind approach to the back door, I thought. Anyone could be hiding around that corner. Guards don’t care. They’ve run this route a thousand times for a thousand days; they can’t manage to stay alert. Company should mix up their shifts better—

  “It’s embarrassing, isn’t it?” Harmony Black dropped into the chair beside me. She set down a cup of coffee and ruffled her own copy of the newspaper. “No operational discipline, not looking out for each other, it’s almost like they want to get hijacked.”