Big Money (Austin Carr Mystery)
Page 19
Mr. Vic’s coming at me slow, but he’s obviously heard what I’ve been up to. If I know Vic, he’s getting ready to jump me. Go ahead, pal. I’m ready.
“Business is real good,” I say. “Like the publicity was good for us, not bad. We lost five accounts the first day, but that was pretty much the end of it. We’ve opened one hundred fifty new accounts since.”
Mr. Vic nods unconvinced. Here it is. His eyebrows pinch. Oh, yeah. Here it comes.
“I hear Rags is trying to sell you his seventeen percent interest in Shore,” Mr. Vic says. “You know those shares are supposed to be Carmela’s. What do you think you’re doing?”
“Not trying to sell, Vic. Sold,” I say. “Escrow closed today.”
The frown deepens, like he wants to punch me. “What?”
I stand up. “Come out back with me, Vic. I have something to show you.”
Mr. Vic stares and hisses. “Carmela’s supposed to get those shares in the divorce agreement.”
I show Mr. Vic my most delicious, full-boat Carr grin. “What divorce? Carmela’s decided she’s still in love with crazy Rags. She’s down in the Caribbean with him right now, sobering him up at Eric Clapton’s gold-plated rehab. Glad my money’s going to such a good cause.”
“You’re not getting away with this,” he says.
I turn and hit the TV’s off switch, then reach up over the bar and cut the dance music, too. The sudden absence of loud noise makes everyone in the restaurant stare my way. Or maybe it’s the fact that I am now standing on Luis’s bar.
“Everybody come outside,” I say. “I have a special surprise for Vic and all you Bonacellis.”
Lots of murmuring, but nobody wants to comment on what’s tied down on the flatbed of the giant white truck I had parked in Luis’s lot.
“Is this a freaking joke?” Vic says finally.
“No,” I say. “In addition to Rags’ shares, I also closed today on Walter’s seventeen percent interest in Shore.”
Mr. Vic’s face turns white as fresh snow. “What? You bought Walter’s stock, too?”
“Yes, sir. As of noon today, I own fifty-one percent of Shore. You work for me now.”
Dazed, Mr. Vic glances again at the white truck’s heavy load, a giant rectangular sign. The bright, red-lettered plastic will tomorrow take its place above Branchtown’s busiest street. I think it might take Vic and his mother a long time to get used to Shore’s new moniker.
Our new sign reads Carr Securities, Inc.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Thanks to Lawrence C. Sylvia, M.D. (Deceased), Chairman of the Department of Pathology, Monmouth Medical Center, Long Branch, N.J. for helping me create this fictional story's autopsy summary. Any inaccuracies are mine, not Dr. Sylvia's.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Former Los Angeles Times reporter Jack Getze is Fiction Editor for Anthony nominated Spinetingler Magazine. Through the Los Angeles Times/Washington Post News Syndicate, his news and feature stories have been published in over five-hundred newspapers and periodicals worldwide. His screwball mysteries, BIG NUMBERS and BIG MONEY, were first published by Hilliard Harris in 2007 and 2008. His short stories have appeared in A Twist of Noir and Beat to a Pulp. He is an Active Member of Mystery Writers of America’s New York Chapter.
http://austincarrscrimediary.blogspot.com/
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Other Books by Down and Out Books
See www.DownAndOutBooks.com for complete list
By J.L. Abramo
Catching Water in a Net
Clutching at Straws
Counting to Infinity
Gravesend
Chasing Charlie Chan
Circling the Runway (*)
By Trey R. Barker
2,000 Miles to Open Road
Road Gig: A Novella
Exit Blood
By Richard Barre
The Innocents
Bearing Secrets
Christmas Stories
The Ghosts of Morning
Blackheart Highway
Burning Moon
Echo Bay
Lost (*)
By Milton T. Burton
Texas Noir
By Reed Farrel Coleman
The Brooklyn Rules
By Tom Crowley
Viper’s Tail
Murder in the Slaughterhouse (*)
By Frank De Blase
Pine Box for a Pin-Up
Busted Valentines and Other Dark Delights (*)
By A.C. Frieden
Tranquility Denied
The Serpent’s Game
By Jack Getze
Big Numbers
Big Money
Big Mojo (*)
By Keith Gilman
Bad Habits
By Don Herron
Willeford (*)
By Terry Holland
An Ice Cold Paradise
Chicago Shiver
By Darrel James, Linda O. Johsonton & Tammy Kaehler (editors)
Last Exit to Murder
By David Housewright & Renee Valois
The Devil and the Diva
By David Housewright
Finders Keepers
By Jon Jordan
Interrogations
By Jon & Ruth Jordan (editors)
Murder and Mayhem in Muskego
By Bill Moody
Czechmate: The Spy Who Played Jazz
The Man in Red Square
Solo Hand (*)
The Death of a Tenor Man (*)
The Sound of the Trumpet (*)
Bird Lives! (*)
By Gary Phillips
The Perpetrators
Scoundrels: Tales of Greed, Murder and Financial Crimes (editor)
Treacherous: Griffters, Ruffians and Killers (*)
By Gary Phillips, Tony Chavira, Manoel Magalhaes
Beat L.A. (Graphic Novel)
By Robert J. Randisi
Upon My Soul
By Lono Waiwaiole
Wiley's Lament
Wiley's Shuffle
Wiley's Refrain
Dark Paradise
(*) Coming soon
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Here’s a sample from Robert J. Randisi’s Upon My Soul.
PROLOGUE
The day Sangster woke and discovered he had a soul after all, everything changed.
But along with the soul came a conscience, something else he had never experienced in his thirty-seven years. He was not awake five minutes when he began to weep. He wept not only for the people he’d killed over the years, but for their families, who had been deprived of their loved ones. He wept uncontrollably, and it was a day of firsts, for he had never cried before, not even as a child.
Sangster was a new man, but the question became...was he a better man?
He left his apartment that day and never returned. In fact, no one in California ever saw him again, and for many years he was presumed dead. Those who knew him figured that his line of work had finally caught up with him.
It seemed logical to assume that a man who was an assassin for hire would fall prey to an assassin, himself.
But that was not the case...
ONE
Three years later...
Sangster looked up from the chessboard at the man who had appeared at the end of his front walk. In the almost three years he had been renting this house on Algiers Point—one of the neighborhoods left dry by Hurricane Katrina located across Lake Ponchatrain from the French Quarter—the only person who had ever come up that walk was his neighbor, with whom he played chess at least three times a week.
“Know ’im?” Ken Burke asked.
Sangster glanced across the table at the older man, who had not looked up from the board.
“Yeah,” he said, “I know him.”
The man advanced up the walk carefully, as if he expected somebody to take a shot at him at any moment. He probably would have felt better if he knew Sangster hadn’t touched a gun in three years.
When he reached the porch he stopped and stared at Sangster before he spoke.
“Hello, Sangster.”
“Primble.”
Burke looked up at that, eyed Sangster, who could only shrug his shoulders.
“What do you want?”
“A lot of people think you’re dead,” Primble said.
“That was kind of the idea, Eddie.”
“It worked pretty well,” Eddie Primble said, “until now.”
“Well, you didn’t find me,” Sangster said. “I know that much. Who was it?”
“Top secret,” Primble said. “Is there someplace we can talk?”
“You don’t want to talk in front of my friend?”
Primble looked at Ken Burke, who continued to eye the board intently.
“You have a friend?” he asked. “Things have changed quite a bit in three years.”
Sangster looked at Primble.
“Yes, “he said, “they have.” He looked at Burke. Primble had aged badly in three years. Sangster knew Primble must have been forty, but much of his hair had receded and he’d put on weight. He looked fifty—healthy enough, but fifty. The cut of his suit also bespoke of some progress financially. He was sweating. It was February, but that didn’t mean much in New Orleans. It was still nearly ninety degrees.
“I have to talk to this man,” he said to his chess opponent.
“Go ahead and talk,” Burke said. “I’m concentratin’.”
Sangster looked at Primble.
“He won’t listen, he’s concentrating.”
“I intend to talk very plainly,” Primble warned.
“Talk as plainly as you want,” Sangster said. “I have no secrets from Burke.”
“Your friend,” Primble reiterated.
“And neighbor,” Sangster said. “He lives in the house next door.”
“How much does the old timer know?”
“Everything.”
“Everything?” Burke asked. He ignored the “old timer” remark. After all, he was seventy. If that didn’t qualify as an old timer, what did? “If I knew everything, this game would’ve been over a long time ago.” Sangster knew—Primble did not—that Burke was not only talking about chess.
“Eddie,” Sangster said, “you found me—or somebody found me for you. What do you want?”
“I need you,” Primble said, “to...to do what you used to do.”
“He wants you to kill somebody,” Burke said, eyeing the board, chin in hand.
“That’s what I used to do,” Sangster said. He looked at Primble. “I don’t do that anymore.”
“You don’t—come on, Sangster,” Primble said. “What else does a man like you do?”
“I’m retired.”
“Retired?”
“I don’t kill anymore,” he said. “I haven’t killed anyone in three years. I don’t even own a gun, and I haven’t held one in all that time.”
“You expect me to believe that?” Primble asked.
“I don’t care what you believe, Eddie,” Sangster told him. “It’s the truth.”
Primble thought a moment, put one foot up on the first step. It was warm, and he was sweating. He loosened his tie, undid the top button of his shirt.
“All right,” he said. “For the moment let’s assume that you haven’t killed anyone in three years.” He adopted a look of complete puzzlement. “Why not?”
“That’s not important,” the ex-assassin said. “All you need to know is that I don’t do it anymore. You need to find someone else.”
“Do you know how long it took me to find you?” Primble demanded.
“Let me guess,” Sangster said. “Three years?”
“I’m not just gonna take no for an answer, Sangster,” Primble said. “That’s not what I do, remember?”
“I remember very well.”
“In fact,” the man went on, “when you walked out you left behind an unfinished assignment. I had to have someone else do your job for you.”
“Luckily,” Sangster replied, “you hadn’t paid me in advance.”
“That’s not the point.”
“I know,” Sangster said. “I’ve been trying to get you to see the point, Eddie.”
“Sangster,” Primble said, “you were the best I ever ran.”
“I’m out of the business, Eddie.”
“You can’t get out of this business, Sangster,” Primble said. “Why don’t we just call the last three years a vacation?”
Sangster looked at the chess board. The old man hadn’t made a move yet. He had his chin in his left hand, and his right hand was down out of sight.
“Eddie—”
“You don’t think I came alone, do you?” Primble asked.
“I don’t really care if you came alone or not, Eddie,” Sangster said. “You’re leaving, either way.”
“There are two guns trained on you right now. If I nod, you’re dead, and your chess buddy, too.”
It got quiet, and suddenly they all heard the sound of the hammer being cocked on a gun.
“I thought you said you didn’t own a gun,” Primble said.
“He don’t,” Ken Burke said. “I do.”
Burke brought his right hand into sight. He was holding a big .45 Peacemaker, the kind they used to carry in the old west.
“You so much as twitch, let alone nod, and it’ll be the last thing you ever do,” Burke told Primble.
“Easy, old timer,” Primble said. “That thing’s pretty old. It might explode in your hand.”
“I guess you don’t really know much about guns, do ya, Mister?” Burke asked. “That probably comes from havin’ other people do your killin’ for ya. This here’s a collector’s item, and I keep it in pristine shape. It’s the pride of my collection, and believe me when I tell you it’s in fine workin’ order.”
That was the most Sangster thought he’d heard the older man say at one time in the almost three years he’d known him.
Primble was sweating even more, but it wasn’t from the heat.
“Is he serious?” he asked.
“Dead serious,” Sangster said. “Show him, Burke.”
With his left hand Burke took his wallet from his pocket and flipped it open to show Primble his badge.
“You’re a cop?”
“Sheriff,” Burke said. “Retired, but I keep my hand in.”
“Sangster,” Primble said, “I just wanted to talk.”
“Then you should have left the threats at home,” Sangster said. “Come on.” He stood up, as did Burke.
“Where we going?” Primble asked.
“You signal your boys to put up their guns,” Sangster said. “We’re going to walk you to the ferry, so nobody decides to take a shot at me.”
“Look, I—”
“We’re done talking, Eddie.”
“I need you, Sangster!”
“You heard the man,” Burke said. “Now give whatever signal you arranged so your men know to put up their guns.”
Primble frowned, and for a moment looked like a man about to cry. Finally, he turned his body partially and waved his hand in disgust.
“They’re leaving,” he said.
“Good,” Sangster said, “they’ll be on the same ferry you’re on. Let’s go.”
“I don’t know why—” Burke prodded Primble in the back with the barrel of the Peacemaker and the man almost jumped out of his skin. They made the walk to the Algiers ferry in silence.
Sangster watched the ferry start across the lake back to New Orleans.
“You sure his men were on there, too?” Burke asked.
“I’m sure,” Sangster said.
Sangster looked at the Peacemaker is his friend’s hand.
“I’m glad you brought that over here today to show me.”
“Yeah,” Burke said, with a grin. He took it off cock and lowered it to his side.
“Would it really have fired?”
“To tell you the truth,” Burke said, “I
don’t know.” He waited a beat, then added, “Maybe if it’d been loaded.
TWO
On the ferry, Silk Guiliano and Jimmy O’Malley walked over to where Eddie Primble was sitting.
“What the hell happened?” Silk asked.
“Yeah,” Jimmy said. “He run us off?”
“He did,” Primble said. “He’s still as good as ever. Wants me to believe he hasn’t pulled the trigger—hell, even held a gun—in three years, but...” Primble shook his head in admiration. “He had that old man hold the gun. It was...brilliant.”
Silk looked at Jimmy.
“He ran us off, and Eddie’s impressed.”
“I ain’t so impressed,” Jimmy replied. He looked at Primble. “Is the bet still on?”
“It’s still on,” Primble said. “I fingered him for you, didn’t I? You both get a good look at him?”
“I did,” Silk said. He was in his early thirties, dressed completely in black. He had christened himself “Silk” years ago, liking the name and all its connotations. “Smooth as silk,” that’s what he told women, and he also considered himself to be smooth as silk with a gun.
O’Malley, on the other hand, was just the opposite. Late twenties, he was rough, crude, but effective when it came to killing.
One of these men wanted to take the place of Sangster in Eddie Primble’s operation, but Primble wouldn’t pick one until he knew that Sangster was dead and not coming back. So a wager had been put in place, between Silk and Jimmy. Whichever man managed to kill Sangster would get his spot. The other man would be relegated to second banana, and neither man wanted that.
“So,” Primble said, “you both know him on sight, the rest is up to you.”