Dead Cat Bounce

by Norman Green

  “How long have you known?” Stoney asked him.

  “I suspected as soon as I found out someone was trying to look into my background,” Prior said. “I thought I had it taken care of. Then you people showed up at my broker’s office. It made me wonder. It was me you were after all along. Right? There was nothing with XRC.”

  “It was you,” Stoney said.

  Prior shook his head, looking disappointed. “How about that,” he said. “Why didn’t you rob me, earlier today?”

  “That didn’t come off entirely the way I wanted it to,” Stoney said.

  “Too bad for you. That Oriental kid was good, though. Little bastard really got to me. That’s how it was going to work, wasn’t it? Nothing ever changes, I guess. All of these schemes work on sleight of hand, when you get right down to it. I’m so engaged with him that I forget to watch the rest of you.”

  “Something like that.”

  “And there was never any breakthrough at XRC,” Prior said. Stoney laughed, and Prior’s eyes glittered with anger. “And you went through all of this just to get to this point? Just to get me alone? You should have brought some backup. Why this way? I don’t understand your angle. Unless you simply suffer from overconfidence.”

  Stoney watched him. “You remember the power company bucket truck on the street outside your house a few nights ago?” There had been no truck, but Stoney saw a flicker of doubt in Prior’s eyes. “Fifty-caliber with a telescopic sight, I could have just shot you then and there, it would have been the smart play. Would have taken your head right off your shoulders. But I didn’t like how it felt, you know what I mean? I wanted to give you the chance to walk away.”

  “Walk away?” Prior stared at Stoney. “From you? Or from that little bitch you used to set me up?”

  “I needed to give you a choice,” Stoney told him.

  Prior stared in incomprehension. Just then, the door to the room opened, startling him, but he calmed down when he saw that it was just Tiffany. She had put her costume back on. Prior glanced her way. “Ten minutes, honey, you were going to give me ten minutes, remember?”

  “Sorry,” she said. “I need to run your credit card.”

  Prior nodded. “Always get the money first.”

  Stoney watched Prior. The guy is good, he had to admit it, he never let himself get too distracted. He did keep glancing Tiffany’s way, though, and she was certainly easy to look at. I could try when he reaches for his wallet, Stoney thought, I could probably kick him hard enough to take him down if I caught the meridian on the outside of his thigh…. Prior stood up, though, walked over and stood next to Tiffany, faced Stoney while he took out his wallet. “Why don’t we do this in cash?” he said.

  “Works for me,” she told him. They agreed on the price, and she accepted the bills.

  “Just give me a couple more minutes,” Prior told her. “My friend will be leaving soon.”

  “Okay,” she said. “I’ll go pay the house.”

  “All right,” Prior said, and he peered out into the hallway, checking in both directions. Then he closed the door, walked back over, and sat in his chair again. “I’m not walking away from anything,” he said.

  “Your call,” Stoney said. “I didn’t really think you would. It’s always your appetites that take you down, isn’t it?”

  “I wouldn’t know,” Prior said. “I’m not like you, I’m just a soldier, I’m not a con artist.”

  “You haven’t been a soldier for a while. What are you now?”

  “I am the winner, and you are the loser.” Stoney could see it in the man’s posture, he had made his decision, and now he was moving on it. “Here’s how this is going to work. I have a man in the outer room. I’m going to call him on his cell phone, he’s going to come in here, and he’s going to escort you out to my car. I’m going to stay here and take my pleasure with the young lady. After that, we’re going to go somewhere where you and I can have an extended conversation. Now, I need to warn you, my man taught hand-to-hand at Quantico, and he is very, very good. He’s almost as good as I am.” Behind him, the door opened up again and the waitress entered carrying a tray with the wine and three glasses.

  Prior stared at Stoney. “Stay where you are.”

  “Whatever you say,” Stoney said. Prior took out his phone, made his call, murmuring briefly into the mouthpiece

  “This won’t take a second,” the waitress said. She was the same girl who’d been working the front of the room, the strawberry blonde with the terrycloth shorts, halter top, and the fanny pack that kept trying to pull her pants down. Stoney actually found her more attractive than the other women in the place because she looked more like a real person than they did. She crossed the room, put the tray down on the end table next to the couch. She took one of the champagne bottles and opened it, firing the plastic stopper across the room with a loud pop, then poured two glasses full, carried one of them over to Prior. “Anything else?” she said.

  Prior’s guard opened the door, stepped into the room, and closed the door behind him. He was smiling, his attention split between Stoney and the waitress.

  “Why don’t you pour one for yourself?” Prior said.

  “Against the rules,” she told him, but then she reconsidered. “You know, I could use a belt.” She crossed back over to the tray, stood between Stoney and Prior, leaned over for the other glass. Her halter top was right in Stoney’s face, and her fanny pack slid low on her hip. The zipper on the thing was open. She picked up the other glass, stood back erect, and chugged the wine. The sweet, slightly acrid smell of the stuff filled Stoney’s head. “God, I needed that. Thanks,” she said. She pulled her shorts back up again.

  “Why do they make you wear those stupid pants?” Prior asked her. “They look like they’re more trouble than they’re worth. You ought to just lose them.”

  “I’m not a dancer,” she told him, doubt in her voice. “I’m really just a waitress. I got two left feet. I don’t know how to, you know…” Her voice trailed off as she watched Prior reach for his wallet. “What do you, um, want me to do?”

  “You really don’t need to do a thing,” Prior told her, and he smiled. He handed her a hundred, and she stuffed it in her fanny pack. “My friends, here, they’re both leaving, and maybe you could just keep me company until Tiffany gets back.”

  “Sure,” she said. “But you really ought to get something for your money. I hate to see anyone get gypped.” She stepped over in front of the television, hooked her thumbs on the waistband of her shorts, and slid them artlessly down over her hips. Prior glanced at Stoney, then leaned back in his chair, smiling. He had his hand on his pistol, inside the jacket pocket, but the jacket was unbuttoned and it hung open, exposing the shirt beneath. That’s where Stoney pointed the .22, the one he had taken out of the waitress’s fanny pack when she was pouring the wine.

  Prior saw it, his mouth dropped open as he struggled to comprehend, but then he jerked his body sideways out of his chair, the hand holding the silver automatic coming out of his jacket as his body hit the floor. “Down,” Stoney said, and the waitress dropped straight to the ground. Stoney adjusted his aim, and the .22 spit three times, then three times again when he shifted his aim to Prior’s bodyguard, who, transfixed by the half-naked woman on the floor, hesitated for one fatal second before groping for his own weapon. Hit by a head shot, he was dead before he hit the floor. It wasn’t luck, Stoney thought, not entirely, but the other two shots he had fired at the bald man had gone through the ceiling and out into the night.

  Prior was hit twice high in the chest and once through the neck. His eyes and jaw both gaped wide, then he struggled to swallow the blood that began filling his mouth. Stoney held the .22 on him, steady as Prior looked once at the gun in his own hand, but a few seconds later, his grip relaxed, his fingers went slack, and the gun lay there in his open hand. Prior’s mouth worked, as though he were trying to say something, but his airways were filling with blood. He coughed a red spray of it o
ut onto the rug. He looked up at Stoney as the waitress got back up off the floor, pulling her terrycloth shorts back up. “You all right?” Stoney asked her.

  “I’m fine,” she said, and she watched Prior. “The only part of this that bothered me was that Brazilian wax job Tiff made me get. Hurt like a bastard.” She glanced over at Stoney. “Tommy says he’ll help us get Tiff’s daughter back. Can he really do it?”

  “If anybody can,” Stoney said, “it’s Tommy.”

  She nodded, then stepped over a puddle of champagne on the floor, around the lifeless bodyguard, and walked out of the room. Prior coughed again, weakly, tried to swallow the blood. His eyes never wavered from Stoney’s face. How quickly you become a footnote, Stoney thought. One minute you’re invincible, the next minute the waitress doesn’t even see you anymore. He watched silent as Prior died, marshaling his justifications for what he had just done. The man killed a security guard whom he could have just as easily spared, he murdered Tina Finbury, who surely deserved better, and he was stalking your own daughter. And those are just the ones you know about…But he was sorry, still and all, he regretted the pain he saw in Prior’s eyes even as it faded to a cold gray. It’s on you, he wanted to say that to Prior’s lifeless face, but whether it was true or not, it didn’t seem to matter anymore.

  The truck was so big it shook the ground when it drove around to the back of the Jupiter. FINBURY CONSTRUCTION, the sign on the door read. HOMES OF DISTINCTION. There was a huge container on the back, it was filled with rubble that had recently been a house. The house had been a knockdown, a nice building whose crime had been its exclusive location, and Finbury had bought the place and torn it down to make way for another McMansion. Prior and his bodyguard were both in the container on the back of the truck, rolled up in the carpet from the VIP room. Finbury had his arm out the driver’s window, his face silver in the glare of the parking lot floodlights. He said something to Stoney, but Stoney couldn’t hear him over the clatter of the big diesel. Finbury declined to shout, he clambered down off the truck. “Watch the news,” he said. “Couple days from now, someone will find him and his rocks somewhere down in the Meadowlands.” Then he climbed back up, jammed the truck into gear with a grinding thump, and roared away.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  It was a new rule, proposed, vetoed, overridden, debated, finally agreed to with reluctance by both parties: no smoking in the house. Donna, having lived in a smoke-free environment for the better part of a year, did not want Stoney smoking anywhere, at any time, while he had done his best to explain why that was not possible, maybe not even desirable, not here, not yet. There was a small screened porch at the back of the house, now home to a ratty couch and an ashtray. He came out of the house, sat down in the dark, shirtless, night breeze cool on his skin, the only light the glow at the end of his cigarette.

  It had been well past midnight by the time they’d gotten everything sorted out. Stoney wondered if Finbury would really leave Prior’s little velvet bag with the body. Not that it mattered anyhow, the stuff was only ice. Cubic zirconias, switched for the real thing by Moses Wartensky and his sons during the little dance they had done in his office. Wartensky had agreed to liquidate Prior’s diamonds, for a cut, of course. Stoney wasn’t sure he trusted the man, but the guy was Tommy’s problem now. Maybe the hand is quicker than the eye after all, Stoney thought. Even when you’re looking for the play, you miss it….

  Jack Harman was sleeping in the spare bedroom, and Tuco was sacked out on the couch. Prior’s Doberman ws curled up next to the sofa. Tuco and Jack had made one last trip throught the woods up in Alpine, and they had found three more velvet bags, just like the one Prior had carried to Wartensky’s. So far, no one but Stoney and the two of them knew about it. Tuco had brought the Dobie back with him. Kids, Stoney thought. What could you do? At least he hadn’t brought the Rottweiler, too.

  Tuco and Marisa were locked into a mutual orbit, Stoney could sense the pull of gravity between the two of them. Tiffany and her sister, the strawberry-blond waitress, had both gone home with Fat Tommy. Stoney shook his head. I don’t know how the man does it…He thought about calling Benny, but it would wait. No use waking him up, they would probably see each other later in the day.

  Somewhere in the trees behind the house, a frog cried out for a mate, his metallic croak sounding like someone hitting a galvanized pipe with a hammer.

  Pank.

  Pank.

  I’m here. Is anybody there?

  The door opened behind him, she came out into the night. “Are you okay?”

  “Yeah, I’m fine.” That old lie came smoothly: I’m all right, really. Leave me be.

  “Why don’t you come back inside?”

  “Nice out here.”

  “Yes, it is,” she said. He felt her hands soft on his skin. He was surprised, because he could still sense the vague and unspoken resentments that lay between the two of them. Tell me, he wanted to say, tell me what you want me to say, what you want me to be, but he held his tongue.

  “Tell me we’re not keeping that dog,” she said.

  He chuckled. “It’s Tuco’s.”

  She ran her hands through his hair, rubbed his bristled cheeks, kissed him. He touched her, hesitant, because it was no longer second nature to have his hands on her, he wanted to be sure of his welcome first. A moment later, she drew away from him, and he heard whatever she’d been wearing slip to the floor. For the first time in his memory, it seemed that she was the aggressor, and he was left to wonder what he really wanted. He didn’t know what to think, and presently he quit trying, went with his gut instead.

  Pank.

  Pank.

  The frog was still searching.

  Stoney felt for him.

  It’s hell, being alone.

  About the Author

  NORMAN GREEN is the author of Shooting Dr. Jack, The Angel of Montague Street, Way Past Legal, and Dead Cat Bounce. He lives in New Jersey with his wife. For more information, visit him on his Web site at www.normangreenbooks.com.

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  PRAISE FOR

  Shooting Dr. Jack

  “Norman Green sketches such indelible portraits…the reader is drawn in.”

  —New York Times Book Review

  “A self-assured debut…will invite comparisons to Elmore Leonard.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “A heart-catching novel of perception and intelligence. The language is fresh and poignant. With its moody underpinnings and subtle redemptions, Green’s book is a powerful and emotional story.”

  —Perri O’Shaughnessy, New York Times bestselling author of Move to Strike

  “A powerful debut from a gifted new writer. It’s got the narrative drive of a thriller, the unflinching reality of a literary novel, and characters that come alive and stay with you after the story is finished. You get the feeling that Norman Green could go anywhere from here.”

  —T. Jefferson Parker, bestselling author of Laguna Heat and Silent Joe

  “Gritty, dark, and totally original debut.”

  —Harlan Coben, author of Tell No One and Darkest Fear

  “Shooting Dr. Jack is a stunner. Like Richard Price, Norman Green brings an uncanny bare-knuckle vivacity to his portrayal of life on the streets. Compelling.”

  —Jeffery Deaver, New York Times bestselling author of The Blue Nowhere and The Empty Chair

  “Can this guy write! Fast-paced with complex, interesting characters, this is one terrific debut novel.”

  —Ridley Pearson, bestselling author of No Witness

  “Should not be missed.”

  —Robert Crais, New York Times bestselling author of Hostage

  “Green tells an emotionally provocative story while keeping readers on edge with suspense.”

  —South Bend Tribune

  “An indelibly etched mood piece.”

  —Kirkus Reviews

  “Fast,
stylish, and morally centered, Shooting Dr. Jack is an auspicious debut from a gifted writer who wears his rough edges proudly.”

  —The News-Press (Florida)

  “Crackles with enough good lines to have been saved up for a lifetime…Even considering the sharp New York scene setting and fast-paced plotting, the best thing about Shooting Dr. Jack is the characters.”

  —Tampa Tribune

  “This novel mixes elements of The Sopranos and Traffic and comes up with the best qualities of both…. Green’s greatest triumph is the development of three realistic characters readers can relate to.”

  —Associated Press

  “With his debut novel, Shooting Dr. Jack, Norman Green eloquently puts into words the struggle we all face: getting through the day, getting one step closer to love and happiness, and if possible making a few bucks along the way.”

  —Sun Herald (Biloxi, Mississippi)

  “This gritty urban tale is a strong debut.”

  —Seattle Times

  PRAISE FOR

  Way Past Legal

  “Writers with criminals for heroes have problems on their hands, the greatest being the question of how one makes the criminal sympathetic without seeming to side with the psychopaths. Green…solves this problem by giving us a hero with a credible backstory, wry self-awareness, and a compelling problem to which he responds with heroism…. Tension and suspense abound…. Way past terrific.”

  —Booklist (starred review)

  “[Way Past Legal] starts like a gritty crime yarn, told in slangy, crackling first-person prose by its tough but likable hero…. But early on, the story takes an unusual detour into something more like a coming-of-age tale…. By breaking with formula conventions, Green creates genuine suspense and richly rewards the reader.”