Corsican Death

by Marc Olden

  Oh Christ, Christ, my hand! Carlos cupped his right hand in his left, feeling the crushed, misshapen fingers, his body rigid against the savage pain eating into his hand and making its way up his arm. Oh Jesus, Jesus!

  Bolt backhanded the .45 across Carlos’ face, hearing the dull thud of metal on bone, seeing Carlos’ eyes turn up and back in his head as he flew to the side as though diving into a pool. Carlos hit the floor unconscious, his crushed right hand an ugly purple and lying palm-up, curled near his head.

  Bolt spun around quickly, seeing Staggers crawl around, moving from the light coming from the hallway into the darkness, dragging his injured knee behind him. He was looking for his piece, his gun. Got to get it, got to get it.

  John Bolt kicked him in the ass, hard, putting his weight behind the kick, sending Staggers shooting forward, landing flat on his stomach, arms straight out in front of him. In a second Bolt was over him, .45 pressed hard against his skull, breathing hard and hearing every pounding beat of his own heart as it told him he was still alive this time. This time.

  “Move once, sucker, just once, and I’ll open your fucking head!”

  Bolt’s chest heaved from exhaustion and nerves. He knew the statistics, he knew the numbers. He hadn’t wanted a gunfight, not only because of the noise but also because of the statistics. Most gunfights between cops and hoods lasted under five seconds and took place less than five feet apart. Five fucking feet. Not even that much space between you and the bastard shooting at you. Bad odds.

  Seconds later, the lights were on and the door locked. Bolt sat on a chair, looking down at Jesse Staggers, who still lay on the floor, his ass burning from Bolt’s kick, his knee throbbing and aching and Staggers trying like hell not to show how shook he was. Shit, the dude had been waiting for them, man, fucking waiting for them.

  And he was bad, real bad. Tough. Wiped them out, just like that. Carlos with a broken, bleeding face and Barkley lying there like a damn drunk, face-down and not moving. This Belli was a bad-ass, but Jesse Staggers had to show how tough he was even if he didn’t feel all that tough at the moment.

  “You can’t go to the cops, man, you can’t turn us in, that much I know. What the hell you gonna do?”

  He lifted his head up from the carpet, and Bolt, sneering down at him, put his foot on Staggers’ head, pressing it back down to the floor. Keeping his foot on Staggers’ head, Bolt said, “You’re right about that, but then again, none of us can go looking for the gendarmes, now, can we? Anyway, that’s not the point. You tried to rip me off, schmuck, you know that? Back home, guys try that and they wind up d-e-d. That’s dead.”

  Staggers fought against trembling, lost, and shook in fear of his life. Jesus, this guy wasn’t playing around. He was talking about blowing him away.

  “Hey, man, come on—”

  “Come on, my ass.” Bolt pushed his foot down harder. He was enjoying this.

  “Hey, look, you want stuff, I can get it for you, man. Hey, take it easy, that’s my head, hey, that hurts!” Staggers frowned, feeling his skull hurt and grow tight as a heel dug into his cheekbone. Jesus, this Belli was a prick.

  “That’s what you said a couple of hours ago, and all I got was amateurs trying to get rich in a hurry.” Bolt turned as Barkley moaned, bringing both hands to his swollen, painful head and rolling from side to side. Bolt turned back to Staggers. “Go on, I’m listening.”

  “O.K., O.K. Hey, ease up on that foot, huh? I tried to take you off, O.K., O.K. But I ain’t lyin’, I can help you. I know people, big people, I work for them, and—”

  “You’re small-time, you’re nothing but a handful of shit. You take orders, and you think you’re a big man. I ought to blow your fucking ass away right now, you know that?” Grinding his foot down on Staggers’ head, Bolt leaned forward in the chair, twisting his foot left and right, getting the message across. Staggers could help him, help him a lot, but first he had to learn something: Bolt was the boss, the man, and if Staggers thought Bolt was a bastard of a hood, he would be more likely to believe him and jump when the narc said jump.

  Psychology. Hood psychology. The tougher a guy is, the more of a hood he’s supposed to be. Let Staggers think that way. Because if he did, John Bolt was going to learn a lot about where Alain Lonzu might go when his ship came in.

  “Why should I trust you, you creep.”

  “Hey, man, shit, my head, my head, come on, please, huh?” Staggers’ voice sounded as though he were hiding in a closet under a pile of pillows. A man’s foot pressing down on your skull and twisting your mouth out of shape could do that to you. His head hurt, his jaw hurt, his teeth hurt, and it was hard to breathe.

  Bolt took his foot off, leaning back in the chair. Barkley was in a sitting position, shaking his head, feeling the pain hang on and darkness take its own sweet time pulling away from his brain. What the fuck had hit him? He never even saw it. Wow!

  “Hey, you … yeah, you, lover,” Bolt yelled at Barkley. “Lie down, lie back. Come on, come on, you need the rest. If I have to come over there, I’m going to put my foot up your nose, and you’ll understand me better, won’t you? Yeah, that’s it. Back on your crack, my man. Go beddy-bye while me and the big man here talk us a deal. Now, you, Mr. Staggers, suppose you tell me about how you can get me what I asked for. Who do you do business with, or rather, who does Alain Lonzu do business with? I’d like to hear about his friends and associates, and by the way, you remember this one little thing. Get cute one more time, just one, and I am going to end all of your earthly cares and woes forever. A promise, my man. You bet on it. Now, let’s talk, and talk nice. I’m in a listening mood.”

  Bolt relaxed, sighing and leaning back in the chair. Carlos hadn’t moved, and Bolt knew he wouldn’t be moving for a while. Barkley was lying there, hands over his eyes like he was coming out of a bad dream; and Staggers—he was belly-down, looking up at Bolt with a new respect.

  Staggers would talk differently now, because he had to save his ass. He would come up with names, places, and the kind of stuff he would never have come up with if he still felt he was a big man and on top of things. Now he had to stay alive, and that’s the way Bolt wanted him to feel. Under the gun.

  “I work for people besides Lonzu. I mean, if you want some good stuff, you gotta go where the action is, right?” Staggers was in pain, and scared, and he knew he had to talk some talk with this dude or he was in trouble. “I drive for other people.”

  “Like Remy Patek?”

  “Yeah, yeah. Alain tell you that?”

  “I ask, you answer. Can I get shit from Remy?”

  “Yeah, yeah, sure. I can put you in touch with him.”

  “I’m listening.”

  “What else did he say?” Remy looked up from his fried fish and clams, his knife and fork held delicately in his small hands. Putting the fork down, he reached for the glass of chilled white wine and took a small sip.

  Staggers looked around at the men sitting near Remy, and swallowing hard, he ran a finger nervously along the side of his nose, “He didn’t say who he was buying for, except that the guy’s a black.”

  Remy put the glass of wine down, staring at it. He could speak French to Staggers, but he had to speak slowly, because the American’s French was poor. Also, Remy didn’t like the American’s hair. Long hair in a ponytail, tied with a black ribbon. Fucking stupid Americans.

  “Blacks are the future, my friend. They’re taking over American cities, which means they will soon be our best customers. Do you think he knows much about Alain?” Alain. And Claude. Remy inhaled, exhaling slowly. Claude. It was even too dangerous for Remy to go to America for Claude’s body.

  “Mmm, no. Well, at least he didn’t say. All he said was that he wanted some stuff, a lot of it. Said he had talked with Alain in Washington. Guess blacks stick together or something, so when one guy’s got a good source of supply, he tells everybody else, huh?”

  Remy looked at him, holding his gaze. Staggers looked away. “A foolish
statement. Blacks in dope do not stick together. They cheat and kill each other as whites do, and for the same reason—money. Money, my friend. Is that how you got that limp, trying to take this Joe Belli’s money?”

  Staggers leaned back sharply in his chair, as though Remy had discovered one of his very private secrets. How the hell did this little frog bastard find out about that?

  “Never mind,” said Remy. “It is of no importance. This Joe Belli. I would like to talk to him. I would like to know how much he learned from Alain. I want to know if Belli knows anything about my brother’s death and about …”

  Remy was going to mention the four million dollars but decided not to. It wasn’t Staggers’ business. “Set up a meeting with Belli here. “Here” was the Blue Cat, a Paris nightclub owned by Remy.

  “O.K., O.K., but he says he’s a busy man. He says he’ll be running around, checking out things for his man. He—”

  Remy’s arm swept across the table, clearing it of dishes, glasses, wine bottles, sending them crashing to the floor. He stood up, hands on the table, leaning his small body forward toward Staggers, his eyes bright with anger. “Find him! My brother is dead, and I want to talk to this man. You find him, you understand?”

  Staggers, frowning in fear, hands balled into fists and resting on his lap, flinched, leaning as far back in his chair as possible. Oh shit, oh shit. He didn’t want Remy Patek pissed off at him. No way. Remy was a sadistic prick.

  Staggers spoke through a tight throat, forcing the sound out. “O.K., O.K., Mr. Patek, I’ll find him. I’ll find him. I’ll find him, you can count on it.”

  “No, Mr. Staggers. You count on it.”

  CHAPTER 9

  ALAIN LONZU WAS HAVING a nightmare. In a tortured, troubled sleep, he relived an awesome fear, and it was real, so goddamn real. He moaned, mouth open and pink tongue flicking in quick, nervous motions as he tried to form words but couldn’t. He rolled from side to side on the small bunk bed, but in his nightmare he couldn’t move.

  All he could do was lie on the hotel floor and cringe, paralyzed with fear as the man with the scar came at him, his foot raised high and ready to kick Alain in the head. Christ! Alain lay there, unable to scream or get off the floor, and the huge foot came down on him, the foot getting bigger and bigger and bigger. …

  The man with the scar on his forehead laughed, throwing his head back, his laughter loud and roaring, a horrible echo that swallowed Alain. In his nightmare, his fear was so strong that it pressed down on him with huge, powerful hands, keeping him in place. He couldn’t move! Couldn’t move!

  Now his body snapped from side to side faster on the bunk bed, and his face was contorted with the horror of what was to come. When the foot filled his vision, turning everything black, Alain screamed and screamed, coming awake and sitting up quickly, eyes open wide in the night, face shiny with sweat, his heart pounding.

  A nightmare! A goddamn frightening nightmare! Mother Mary, blessed Virgin! Jesus, oh Jesus! He sat there, alone in the darkness, thin, pale light coming through a porthole from the moonlight. He sat up in the bed, head down on his chest, breathing deeply and loudly with exhaustion, mind ignoring the physical pain in his back, arm, and head.

  There was other pain, pain worse than anything you could feel in your body. It hid in your mind and came out to attack when you were at your weakest. Alain knew that now; God did he know it. Blame that on the man with the scar, that American son-of-a-bitch. He even follows me into my sleep. I owe him this special pain. He gave it to me. The pain, the nightmare. He gave it to me, and right now there’s nothing I can do about it.

  Still breathing deeply, head bowed and shaking from side to side in frustration and pain, Alain Lonzu wept silently in the darkened room, his tears thin silver streaks down his sad face.

  “New York,” said John Bolt. “Got the scar in New York.” He played with the tiny puppy resting comfortably in his lap, fingers toying with the animal’s long brown ears. Edith—Roger Dinard’s chubby wife—had just asked Bolt about the scar running from the corner of his left eyebrow diagonally across his forehead and up into his hairline.

  As soon as she asked about it, the fleshy woman wished she hadn’t. She had noticed the scar before, months ago, when her husband had first introduced her to the American narcotics agent, and it had intrigued her. But now, God, why couldn’t she have kept her mouth shut? John Bolt was an agent working in narcotics, and that meant he had gotten the scar when someone had tried to kill him.

  She wasn’t sure about that, but she was pretty sure, because when you’re a policeman’s wife, you sense things. You know, you just know. And because she was a policeman’s wife, she didn’t want to hear about a policeman—any policeman—getting shot.

  It reminded her of what could happen to Roger.

  The four of them—Bolt, Roger, Edith, and Jean-Paul—sat outside in back of Jean-Paul’s small house, enjoying the cool morning sunshine and blossoming green trees of a Paris April. Dogs were everywhere on the small patio—French poodles, cocker spaniels, a dachshund, a Saint Bernard. And puppies. Small, warm, cute, and friendly. Bolt, eyes picking out the puppies, gave them a half-smile. Enjoy it while you can, fellas. The older you get, the tougher it gets.

  He let the subject of his scar drop. His green eyes went to Edith’s face, and he understood why she didn’t ask him more questions. I can dig it, baby, and you’re right. Why be reminded? You’re right about something else, too. I did get it trying to stay alive.

  Two New York cops on the pad, greedy little hands grabbing every dollar they could get from dope dealers, got tired of hearing me tell them I didn’t want in. And when they heard I was going to drop their names before a federal grand jury investigating police tie-ups with dope dealers, they paid me a visit at my apartment and things got hairy.

  Shooting. A gun battle in my living room, and when it was over, they were dead and I was almost dead. Two bullets in my gut, one across my forehead. But I lived to tell the tale, and it hurts only when I laugh, which ain’t too often.

  Jean-Paul came out of his house, croissants piled on a plate. “Voilà, as we French say. They’re hot. Watch your fingers, everybody.”

  Setting them down on the small glass table, he stepped back, looking down at the plate. He nodded once, pleased with his own cooking. The big French policeman said nothing else, waiting for the verdict.

  John Bolt, mouth full, shook his head from side to side. “Mmmmm.” Fucking incredible. Best croissants he’d ever tasted. Fresh taste, soft, still hot, and just fucking incredible. Jean-Paul was some cook.

  “In America when something’s good, we say it’s bad. And Jean-Paul, these are some bad croissants.” Bolt smiled at him.

  “Crazy, you Americans are crazy.” Edith was not fond of America or Americans, though she tolerated Bolt because her husband and Jean-Paul did. She was a short woman, somewhere between cute and all right in the face, outspoken, chubby, and she made her own clothes, which tended to make her feel more virtuous than anyone else around her.

  Roger Dinard was something of a puritan, too, principled as hell; but in him it was believable, and it didn’t bother Bolt, at least. Maybe it was because Roger—short, fat body, moustache, and all—was putting his life on the line for what he believed. At almost any time, crooked cops, Corsicans, hoods from a dozen countries, could blow Roger away and he’d be lying naked on a marble slab in the morgue, an identification tag around his big toe.

  But what the hell, Edith was all right. Why not? She wasn’t married to Bolt, was she?

  “Staggers,” said Dinard. “Some of those names he gave you we didn’t have. Maybe it’s good that you came to France, Johnny, even if you stay only a short time.”

  “Yeah. I like Paris, but like you say, it’s a short time. Counting today, I got four more days, and that’s it. I come out in the open after that, and France and America remain friends.”

  Jean-Paul, who loved his own cooking, stuffed three-fourths of a croissant into his mo
uth, licked his fingers, chewed, then swallowed. Taking another from the plate, he broke off a small piece and fed it to the collie who had both front paws on Jean-Paul’s huge thighs and an expectant look on his thin tan-and-white face. “You’re going to see Cloris Carroll.”

  “Yeah. Staggers says she’s the gal Alain’s been with the most lately. What the hell, he might come back to her, hide out until he can square things with his brother about the killing and the four million.”

  “Not just his brother,” said Roger, reaching for another croissant. “Remy’s the one. He’s a bad one, and I don’t mean bad like Jean-Paul’s cooking. I mean bad like sick in his mind. He hasn’t done anything in the past twenty-four hours, at least that we’ve heard of. But you watch. Soon, real soon, he’s going to strike. Claude was his brother, and Remy’s a Corsican. It is a matter of honor to do something about that He has no choice.”

  Bolt nodded. Roger was right. Corsica. An island 105 miles off the southern coast of France, and nothing special about it except that Napoleon Bonaparte was born there over two hundred years ago and what was left of the French Foreign Legion was currently stationed there. A tough place, rugged, bare, populated by people who didn’t like outsiders, who were clannish and damn quick to kill in “defense of their honor.”

  On Corsica men kill each other in an argument over one sheep. God help your ass if you touch somebody’s virgin daughter; and politics on Corsica, Bolt knew, involved a lot of plastic bombs and gunshots in the night. To make matters worse, the island was having trouble with deserters from the foreign legion. And the Corsicans, who had a Mafia attitude toward life, namely, trust nobody but each other and let’s-settle-our-differences-among-ourselves-to-hell-with-outsiders, kept that outlook when they left the island and went to France.

  Hard-asses, all of them. In France, most lived in Marseilles, over more than half a million out of a population of a million. They ran the city and they ran France’s dope trade, doing whatever was necessary to keep that business operating smoothly.