Quarterback Trap (A Carlos McCrary novel Book 3)

by Dallas Gorham

  I dragged a matching burgundy leather side chair up against the paneled exterior wall ten feet away from the mob boss. Behind the paneling was a solid concrete wall with reinforced steel bars as required by Port City Beach’s strict building codes. No one could fire an ordinary pistol bullet through that wall.

  “I know Graciela visited you here last Saturday, just before she disappeared. I know you passed her an envelope full of cash in an elevator in the Port City Palace. After you kidnapped Graciela, I know you placed a large bet on the Cowboys to beat the spread.” I sat down. “After I rescued her, I know you had Graciela’s dog killed and dumped in her car. Bob got your message and the text you sent from Graciela’s phone. See, Vic, I know all about you.”

  He stared at me with lizard eyes, but said nothing.

  Why wasn’t he nervous? Was his robe bulletproof? Maybe he was as tough as people said. Maybe he was just crazy. I hoped he was tough. I know how to deal with tough. Crazy is a different matter.

  Downstairs I heard the second Chinese gong fall. Not much time.

  I reached into a pocket and pulled out a set of photos. “I have a message too.” I walked over to Vidali and dropped the candid pictures of his wife and his children on the carpet in front of him. I sat back down and kept the Glock leveled on his forehead.

  He peered at the pictures, some of which had fallen face down. His eyes widened in recognition. He started to lean forward.

  “Left hand only,” I said.

  He scooped up the pictures, studied them, and glared at me. “You goddamn bastard. You don’t have any idea what kind of shit you’ve stepped in. You come into my home—my home—and threaten me in front of my mistress. You’re a dead man if you ever get close to my family. There are rules. Family is off limits, capisce? We Italians invented the vendetta. You touch me or my family and my people will kill you, your parents, your brothers and sisters—even your grandparents. There won’t be anybody named McCrary left alive when they’re through with you.”

  I hadn’t told Vidali my name, yet he knew it. He had researched me.

  “Oh dear. I was hoping we could be friends. Look, Vidali, I won’t harm your family unless you do something really stupid and go after Graciela Perez or Bob Martinez. Then all bets are off. I’ve got no family,” which was not true, but maybe he didn’t know any better. “I’m not in your so-called business. I’m not part of any mobster vendetta code to keep me from a hit on your family. My code is simple: I will protect my friends Bob and Graciela from your threats. I’m here to see if we can come to an understanding before your men arrive.”

  “What sort of understanding?”

  “You take your losses, leave Bob and Graciela alone, and let the Super Bowl game play out with no interference.”

  “That’s a hundred million dollar loss, McCrary.”

  I shrugged. “When you gamble, sometimes you lose.”

  “And what do I get in return for my hundred million?”

  I let my face turn to stone. “I let you, your wife, your children—and your girlfriend—live.”

  Vidali scoffed. “I looked you up, McCrary. You’re a boy scout, a former cop, a war hero for crissakes. You’d never kill my family—my innocent family who are not involved in my business. As for my girlfriend, she’s a plaything—a throwaway bimbo. Her main talent is that she can suck a baseball through a garden hose. I’ll give her to you when I’m through with her.” He tossed his family photos across the carpet in my direction. “You got no leverage, McCrary.”

  I felt as much as heard the double doors to the sitting room crash in.

  In a blinding flash of the obvious, I realized Vidali was right. I had misjudged his motivations completely. I had thought of Vidali as a rational businessman, even if his business was illegal. I’d figured he would cut his losses when circumstances changed against him. I would make him back off, then ride off into the sunset on my white horse. People would say “Who was that masked man?” But Teflon Vic was not rational. He wasn’t just tough. He was also crazy. And he was certainly no businessman. The normal market has rules: You can’t threaten people to make them buy your products, and you have to tell them the truth about what you’re selling. These rules didn’t apply to Vidali. He cheated, lied, and coerced when it suited him. He used people like his girlfriend and threw them away when he was finished. And no one had ever stopped him.

  He had basically said, “You can kill me, but I won’t give in.” That was how he rose through the mob ranks to grab the top position. But I had hurt Vidali’s pride. I had invaded his home. His honor was at stake. If it became known he had backed down to me, his reputation would be garbage. He would lose the ability to intimidate people. He simply could not afford to surrender to me; it would destroy him.

  My fallback position was to steal into his room and, if he wouldn’t accept defeat, slit his throat. Vidali had ordered Gordo’s throat slit. That would be poetic justice. I would disappear and no one would suspect I’d been there. Home free. Except, now that I had him at my mercy, I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t force myself to kill him in cold blood. He was a killer and a man who employed other killers, but he wasn’t trying to kill me at that particular instant. He wasn’t a Taliban sentry that I could sneak up behind and slash his throat with official U.S. Government blessing. No, right now he was a middle-aged, unarmed man dressed in a silk robe. It wouldn’t be self-defense. I couldn’t live with it if I killed him, no matter how much he deserved it.

  I hadn’t thought this mission through all the way. Rookie mistake. I’d projected my own values and beliefs onto Vidali.

  “No leverage? I’ve got you.” I smirked. “Who knows, Vidali? You might win your bet honestly. The Cowboys could surprise you.”

  “I own two casinos. I only take bets where the odds are with me. You’re crazy if you think I’m gonna risk a hundred million bucks on a real gamble. Ain’t gonna happen, McCrary. You say Graciela is your friend? That I threatened her? Bullshit. It was her idea to disappear. You think Graciela loves that quarterback? Puh-leese. The only one Graciela loves is Graciela.” He punched the air with a finger. “She put this whole deal together, McCrary. She approached me in Atlantic City two days after the Jets won the AFC Championship. Told me she could fix the Super Bowl for a cut of the action. She’s in for thirty points. And she’s almost as good a piece as Jasmine. Maybe a little skinny for my taste.”

  “Who’s Jasmine?”

  “The bimbo you sent to hide in the closet.”

  I heard someone knock on the door to the bedroom. “Vic, you in there? Sorry to bother you, boss, but we heard the dogs bark. Everything okay?”

  I pressed the Glock to his forehead and put a finger to my lips. The message was clear. He nodded. I kept the pistol pointed at him as I went to close the study door.

  When I started to swing the door, I noticed its weight. I examined the edge of it. The door was armored. I smacked the walnut-paneled wall with my palm. The wall was armored too. I closed the door and threw the deadbolt. I knew the whole room would be soundproof.

  “The bitch and I planned this thing together, and I never threatened her. She was supposed to drive to Naples and hide in a hotel until after the Super Bowl game. I would text Bob using her cellphone to get him to shave a few points from the score. The Jets could still win the game. Hey, McCrary, I’m a Jets fan myself. I just can’t let them cover the spread is all.”

  “How’d Graciela wind up on your boat?”

  Vidali spread his hands. “I didn’t trust the crazy bitch to stay hidden. Turns out she’s a druggie. You never know what a junkie will do—too unpredictable. And her face is too well known. I gave it some thought and figured out I was better off if she was on the Double Scotch. So I changed the plan.” He shrugged. “Things kinda got out of hand. Now I got too much money invested in this, and I gotta see it through to the end. You back off right now, and I let you walk out of here. In fact,” he added, “I like to recognize a young man with talent—a guy like you. I’ll c
ut you in for three points—that’s three million dollars, tax free. You walk away—now.”

  The sound of the bedroom door splintering came faintly through the study door. The gunmen were now in the bedroom trying to figure out what to do.

  I pictured at least two men with guns drawn barging in to see… what? The bed was unmade. The candles were lit. The balcony doors were open. The room was empty. All they knew for sure was that someone—maybe a practical joker—had placed Chinese gongs in front of their doors. And that the girlfriend’s dogs had started barking. I had left no sign of forced entry to the boss’s sitting room.

  They would have found the boss’s bedroom door locked, but it was natural that the boss would lock his bedroom door when he was with his mistress. We had both heard them knock discreetly on the bedroom door and wait a respectful couple of minutes. The thugs would have discussed it among themselves before breaking the door.

  Once they broke the door, then what? They had no evidence their boss was in trouble. I had frightened Vidali’s Barbie doll enough to keep her quiet in the closet. No doubt Jasmine would keep the dogs quiet too. I doubted she would open the safe room door to anyone but Teflon Vic.

  They would check the bathroom and find it empty. They would walk gingerly onto the balcony to see if their boss and his lady had stepped onto the balcony for a night-cap, or to watch the moon, or maybe to get it on under the stars. I had seen two chaises on the balcony when I’d opened the French doors.

  I knew the balcony had an outside stairway that went down to the pool deck. One gunman would have walked down the stairs to check around the pool. He would come back up the stairs and shrug.

  I pictured the above in a few seconds. I had five minutes or less before they figured out by process of elimination that Vidali was in the study.

  I felt like the dog who chased a car and caught it. What the hell could I do with Vidali now?

  Chapter 54

  I leveled his own Glock at the mobster. “The second the study door fails, the first bullet goes between your eyes. You might want to call them off before that happens.”

  “That door ain’t gonna fail. It’ll withstand a two-hundred-mile-an-hour hurricane. It would take a bazooka to blow a hole in it. You’re stuck in here.”

  “That’s good to know. Your guys aren’t sure where you are. We’ve got a while until they figure it out.”

  “Don’t be too sure of that.” Vidali smirked. “Whaddya gonna do now, hotshot? You can’t kill me ’cause I’m the only leverage you got. And there are four guys out there.”

  Vidali was right. We were at a stalemate. The only door had at least two armed men waiting on the other side. Or four, if Vidali told the truth.

  But was it the only door?

  Vidali’s contractors had pulled several building permits for improvements to the mansion when he had first bought it. Statistically, Mango Island has the highest probability of any place in the United States to get hit by a hurricane. It’s the bulls-eye in the target of Hurricane Alley. The island is seven feet above sea level in an area where a storm surge can reach fifteen feet. The town of Port City Beach, of which Mango Island is a part, had the strictest building codes in Florida. Every significant change to a building required a permit, with blueprints. A building inspector signed off when the repairs were underway and again when they were complete before the town would issue a Certificate of Occupancy.

  I racked my brain to remember everything in the building permit files Flamer had sent me. Now I wished I had studied them better. I thought like a mob boss. If I had hundreds of millions of dollars at my command and wanted to make a house safe, what changes would I make? I wouldn’t build a safe room with only one way out.

  I moved to the wall behind the desk and studied the paintings hung on the walnut panels. From the corner of my eye, I watched Vidali’s body language. I found the hinged painting in a few seconds. There was a wall safe behind it, but I had no interest in that. I wanted the secret door.

  I turned to Vidali. “How do I open it?”

  He stared at me like a basilisk and shook his head once.

  I pointed the Glock at his legs. “The first one goes into your left knee. The second goes into your right knee. You don’t want to think about where the third one goes. You have three seconds. Three… Two…”

  “Turn the knob three times to the left—”

  “Not the safe. I don’t want your money. I want to open the secret door. Where’s the latch?”

  “Next to the bottom hinge. There’s a button. Push it.”

  I did and a section of walnut paneling four feet wide and eight feet high swung out into the room.

  Chapter 55

  Shoving Vidali ahead of me, I stepped onto the bare concrete floor behind the walnut paneled door. Before leaving the study, I had closed the hinged picture. Maybe the hoods didn’t know about the secret exit. When they got into the study, everything would look normal.

  I pulled the door closed behind me and felt the thunk as it latched. Wire-caged light fixtures hung from the ten-foot ceiling and cast yellow light on the concrete steps. Now I remembered the blueprint I had seen. The stairs ended in the five-car garage.

  I pushed Vidali ahead.

  “Not so fast, McCrary. I’m barefooted.”

  The industrial type stairway was built like a fire escape in a high-rise building. Aluminum scuff bars were fastened on the edge of each step to improve traction of escaping people. But they were designed for people in shoes; the edges were sharp.

  “Okay, you set the pace,” I said. I kept him at arm’s length as he stepped gingerly down the stairway.

  He stopped when he reached the six-foot square concrete landing at the bottom. “This door leads to the garage, McCrary. You can escape that way. I’ll give you five minutes before I give the alarm. This is your best chance to get out of here alive. If I were you, I’d take it.” He reached for the steel fire door.

  I pulled him away from the door. “Quiet. Not a word. Sit on the steps… Not that one. Move two steps higher.” I wanted a little more distance between him and the door.

  I moved to the door and pulled the stethoscope from a pocket. I placed it against the door and listened for long seconds. Nothing.

  I motioned Vidali to stand. I grabbed the back of his robe again and steered him to the steel door. “Slowly, slowly. Push it open.”

  He put his hands shoulder width on the crash bar and pushed it down. The bar groaned. In the humid subtropics everything metal corrodes sooner or later. The bar thunked at the bottom of its motion.

  “Okay, now open the door—easy.”

  He leaned on the steel door. It began to swing open. The garage beyond was dark. The hinges creaked from disuse. The door swung wider.

  Vidali leaped into the darkness. “Shoot him! Shoot him!” he yelled as he rolled to one side.

  I didn’t stop to think. I rapid-fired three times into the garage. At least Vidali’s Glock worked.

  Automatic gunfire sprayed through the open door and ricocheted off the door and the concrete walls. Concrete dust and steel shavings filled the air, scraped and pounded off the hard surfaces by the steel-jacketed slugs. I heard two distinct weapons: an AK-47 and a hand gun. Only two.

  Several slugs hit my armored vest first on the front and then on the back as I turned and bolted up the stairs three at a time.

  I heard the steel door thunk closed behind me. I prayed it didn’t have a door handle on the other side.

  As I reached the landing at the top of the secret stairway, the lights went out. Vidali must have pulled the fuse box from inside the garage. It was as dark as the inside of a black cat’s stomach.

  I pushed where I thought the backside of the study door was. It opened soundlessly.

  The power was off in the study, but a slight light came through the window from the landscape lighting in the gardens. It must have been on a separate circuit and Vidali had forgotten about that.

  I moved to the window and looked
out. The master suite balcony extended from the side of the mansion for fifteen feet. A man in black stood guard with an M4A1 gun, its distinctive silhouette visible in the dim light. He divided his attention between the French doors from the master bedroom and the window where I stood in the darkness. I was above the pool deck. A large patio umbrella sheltered the poolside table right below the window.

  If I opened the window, the gunman would see or hear the motion and spray me with a burst of bullets. My vest wouldn’t protect me in a case like that. One lucky shot to the head or neck and I would be as dead as last year’s eggnog.

  I stepped back from the window and sighted through the glass at the lone gunman. The first shot should break the glass, and the glass would deflect the slug enough to miss the target. But the second shot… and the third…

  I took a calming breath. Easy squeezy, nice and easy.

  I rapid-fired four times and dived through the window. I bounced off the umbrella and landed off balance. My ankle popped and a sharp pain shot through it. I leapt into the heavy landscaping around the pool. The sharp thorns of bougainvilleas gouged my face where it wasn’t covered by the watch cap. Thorns ripped my rubber gloves and cut the backs of my hands.

  I listened. Silence. There was no return fire.

  I had moved too fast for the two guys from the garage to get to where I was. That meant that the man I shot on the balcony was at least a third man they had left on guard. Maybe there were only those three, plus Vidali himself, to contend with. If so, it was now “only” three against one. Maybe. Or maybe four to one.