by Michael Kerr
Harold closed his eyes and took three or four deep breaths, then looked up at Logan and nodded.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
NICK dozed off and at some point experienced a vivid dream, of falling through the rotten stair tread and then fleeing from the out-of-the-way observation tower. Only seconds before he had been at the top of it, and had heard the bullet that had been meant to kill Logan whine past, to drill through a post. It had probably only missed him by a fraction of an inch, but a miss was a miss. Instead of the problem being solved there and then with Logan’s head being blown apart, he was now running for his life through thick, long grass, the muscles in his back tensed as he waited for a bullet to bring him down. And in his dream it did, and the bullet emerged from his chest, followed by a stream of blood. He was thrust forward by the force of the impact, to be lifted up on to his toes before falling face first into the sawgrass, which parted beneath him to reveal a black, deep fissure that consumed him like a hungry mouth, gathering speed as it began to rotate. He had time to feel pain, and to be simultaneously both outraged and terribly afraid as he waited for death to claim him. Everything that he had been, all that he had done, and the wealth that he had amassed suddenly amounted to absolutely nothing at all.
The dream fall jarred him awake. He had slumped forward off the sofa to hit the floor on his knees. He cried out, before the nightmare melted away and he became aware of where he was. Jesus Christ, that had been too real. He climbed to his feet and groaned as his swollen ankle and jaw complained with spiking pain. The empty glass was on the carpet next to him, where it had dropped from his fingers as he had fallen asleep. He reached down and picked it up and limped across to the bar to refill it.
The malt whiskey was as smooth as silk. He drank it in two gulps and refilled the glass, or charged it again, as the Scots would probably say.
Hobbling over to the patio doors, needing some fresh air, Nick opened them a couple of feet and breathed in the night air. There was a breeze. He could hear the water lapping against the side of the Karen, which was the name that he had christened the motor yacht. He needed to make things right with his daughter. In the world he lived, most of what he did was not only illegal, but downright evil. He had accommodated his life of violent crime and didn’t give a flying fuck about any of the seven billion people on the planet other than Karen and Gina, and wasn’t too concerned about Gina if he was honest with himself. She was a woman with a cold heart. They were alike in many ways, and that was not what a side of him that he thought of as romantic desired. But Gina knew him, understood him, and was a habit that he was not about to break.
The intercom buzzed, and so he went across to the panel on the wall near the living room door, pressed the button, said, “Yeah,” and released it.
“It’s Harold, sir. Mr. Moran is on his way over to the house.”
“Is everything okay?” Nick said.
“Yes sir. All quiet.”
Nick went back to the sofa and sat down. He was frustrated. If Logan was planning to make a move against him, he wanted him to do so sooner rather than later, so that he could be taken out. Not knowing the man’s intentions was grinding him down. He liked everything to be cut and dried, and hated waiting games.
The lock on the main door made a loud click as it disengaged. Nick waited. Nothing. His facility to sense danger ‒ due mainly to mild paranoia ‒ cut in. Ace always entered and shouted, ‘It’s me, boss’. Always. So why hadn’t he this time?
A second after Harold had finished speaking to Cady, Logan tipped his and Elmore’s chairs over on to the floor, taped their mouths and hurried back down the stairs and jogged over to the front door of the house. He swiped the card through the slot, opened the door, entered a wide hallway and kept to the side of it with the Glock held two-handed as he strode purposely to an open doorway. He was done talking; had nothing more to say to the gangster, and intended to shoot Cady on sight and then make a speedy getaway from the property.
Gina woke up. She needed to pee, and wondered where Nick was. It was late, and as a rule he liked to get a solid seven hours’ sleep each night. Perhaps he had drunk too much Scotch and fallen asleep downstairs. She would go to the bathroom and then check on him.
The sound of the lock opening on the front door caused her to stand still and listen. Only Vince Palmer and Ace Moran had keycards. Why would either of them be entering the house at this ungodly hour? And there were no voices. Something was wrong. Retracing her steps to the bedroom, Gina took a Charter Arms .38 special from the drawer of her night table. It was a ladies’ gun with a two inch barrel and only weighed twelve ounces. It was bright pink, like something you’d expect a life-size Barbie doll to pack.
Back at the top of the stairs, Gina began to tiptoe down them barefoot. The man’s legs came into view first through the gaps between the oak spindles. Two more steps and she could see up as far as his hands, and he was standing at the side of the living room door and holding a gun.
One more nervous, tentative step. She had taken lessons and put in a lot of practice at a popular range on Fowler Street, but firing at a paper target was a world away from shooting at an armed human being. She should have held off for a couple of seconds and moved down one more step, but impulsively pulled the trigger.
Logan spun round as a bullet crashed into the wall next to his left hip. He looked up at the staircase and fired at the legs of the armed woman crouched above him.
Gina screamed, dropped the pistol ‒ which fell through a gap between two of the spindles to land on the hall carpet ‒ and fell forward, to roll down the stairs and come to a stop in an ungainly heap with her nightie up her back displaying her still cute ass. The bullet had hit her in the thigh, but her femoral artery had not been compromised. There was a lot of blood, but it wasn’t pumping out in rhythmical spurts.
Nick heard the first shot, quickly followed by another. When Gina screamed he knew that somehow, against all odds, Logan was here in the house, and all the security had been totally inadequate. He picked up the Ruger from the coffee table and limped over to the patio doors, to go out and stand to the left-hand side of them. Only then did he realize that he had forgotten to pick his cell up. He was on his own. Perhaps Logan would think he was running and would just charge out in pursuit. Then again, that would show impulsiveness, and Logan had proved over and over that he approached things in an extremely calm and cautious manner.
The motor yacht was the nearest and safest place to head for. He knew every inch of it, and could hide and wait for Logan to come on board. The advantage would be wholly with him. Logan would pass him by on the yacht, and he would be able to strike from behind, to empty the gun’s magazine in his back.
Logan slid around the edge of the door, just in time to see Cady staggering up the gangway of the boat. He slid the patio door back a little more and went through it on the run.
Nick made it up onto the deck, opened a cabin door and went inside it.
Logan had no doubt that Cady would be armed, and perhaps have a cell phone. He would have other contacts that he could call to summon help. The surprise element of this assault on the property was over. He now needed to wrap it up and quit the scene. Every second counted.
Gina was crying, and thought that she was dying. There was so much blood. The oyster-gray carpet was sodden with it. And the pain in her now badly injured leg was far worse than any she had previously experienced. She needed to get to a phone and summon help. But could she move? Should she even try to? And if she could reach a phone, who should she call? Nick would not want the authorities involved. But he had an ex-doctor, Manny Silver, on his payroll. If she could find Nick’s cell, then Manny’s number would be in it.
She couldn’t kneel, much less stand, and so used her elbows and her uninjured leg to propel herself along the hallway and into the living room. There was no sound, and the patio doors were open. Nick and the man who’d shot her were out in the grounds somewhere. Her husband was being hunted. She noticed t
hat the lights in the main saloon of the boat were on. Nick must be on board, and if he was, then the stranger would most likely be too.
Taking deep breaths, due to feeling dizzy, Gina bit her bottom lip and kept going. Made it to one of the large sofas, grasped a thick, padded arm and hauled herself up high enough to be able to see that Nick’s phone was on top of the coffee table in front of it, before passing out.
Nick went through the main saloon of the yacht, hesitating to switch on the lights before entering a short passage that led to the master cabin at the stern, where he took the time to open a closet, take out a black weatherproof jacket and slip it on. Logan would be drawn to the now lit up vessel.
Opening a large window at the rear of the cabin, Nick climbed out through it, keeping low, crouching down as he slowly made his way along the non slip deck on the starboard side. He stopped and held his breath as he heard the heavy footfall of what he now thought of as his quarry on the gangway.
Logan headed for the prow, to climb up into the wheelhouse. He would search the two decks of the yacht from the top down, as fast as he dare, hoping that Cady had not just taken refuge in a concealed place. But he didn’t think that the man would hide. He was not a coward. His nature would compel him to make a fight of it, on what he adjudged to be his terms. He had chosen the venue for the endgame.
Stepping through a door in the rear of the wheelhouse, Logan walked along an unlit corridor and stopped outside the first cabin that he came to. He thought it through. What would he do if he was Cady? Just wait in a cabin and hope that the door opened and he would be able to finish it? No. Cady had obviously switched on the lights of the main saloon to lure him in. He would be outside now, thinking that Logan would at some point make his way through the saloon and be lit up like a gator by a flashlight; an easy target.
Walking down the first short stairway he came to, Logan reached the open door to the saloon, ran his free hand up and down the inside of the jamb and found a row of three circular light dimmers. He didn’t rotate them; instead he pushed each of them in, and darkness consumed the light.
Nick swore under his breath. Logan was wily like a fox and didn’t miss a trick. But eventually he would come back out on deck, and he would be ready for him.
Logan moved through the long, wide saloon, keeping to the side of it and ducking to pass the windows. He paused once to pick up an ornament. It was a jade figurine of a samurai warrior. Apt, he thought, for the battle for life between two adversaries was gladiatorial.
Slowly sliding open a set of glass doors at the stern end of the saloon, Logan dropped to his haunches as he moved out at a height that would not be expected. Cady was anticipating the appearance of a figure of six-foot-four, not someone hunkered down and half that height.
The contour of the yacht was smooth. There were no unattractive projections to mar the beauty of the craft. Logan looked around the edge of the cabin he had left and immediately saw Cady kneeling down next to a window no more than fifteen feet away from him. He was holding a pistol, pointing it at the glass, presumably hoping to get a glimpse of the man he intended to shoot.
Logan threw the miniature warrior and watched as it pin wheeled in the air, up and over Cady, to land on the deck ten feet beyond him with a loud thunk.
CHAPTER THIRTY
GINA came to and cried out because of the throbbing pain in her leg, and then steeled herself and crawled across to the coffee table and picked up the cell phone. She scrolled through the contact list. There was no number for Manny Silver. She found Ace Moran’s number and rang it, but there was no answer. Now what? There was a number for the security room above the garage block. She hit the call button and it rang and rang, but no one picked up. The man that had shot her had no doubt dealt with everyone at Casa Cady. She didn’t know what to do. If the stranger killed Nick, then he may come back and finish her off. She was alone and unarmed. Could she make it back to the stairs and find her gun? There was no choice, she would have to. But there was one more person that she could try to contact.
Lieutenant Bruce Tucker woke up and reached for the cell on his night table. He saw the caller ID on the screen and answered.
“Nick,” Bruce said.
“No, Bruce, it’s Gina. Someone hit the house, and I’ve been shot. I need help.”
“Where’s Nick?”
“I don’t know. I think he got out of the house. But the guy that shot me has gone as well, and I can’t raise Ace or anyone else.”
“I’ll be there in twenty minutes, Gina. Hide somewhere and hold on. How bad are you hit?”
“In my thigh. It’s pissing blood. I phoned Manny, but there was no answer.”
“Put a tourniquet on it. I’ll pick Manny up on the way.”
Bruce ended the call, got up, dressed, slipped his backup gun into a pocket and left the house. His wife didn’t wake up. She had joined him in drinking a few vodkas that evening and was out for the count.
Manny had put his cell on vibrate, but had not heard it. But he heard the pounding on his door and got up and opened it after asking who it was.
“Grab your bag, Doc,” Bruce said. “We’ve got an emergency. Gina Cady just took a bullet. We need to get out to Cady’s place.”
Lieutenant Bruce Tucker was, as Manny, on Nick’s payroll. He had ‘worked’ for Cady for more than a decade, since back when he had been a sergeant; short on pay and long on wanting a far better life than being a cop would ever offer. He’d been approached way back and propositioned to ‘lose’ a piece of evidence that would have put Cady in a courtroom. Having made the decision to add some gravy to his paycheck, Bruce had subsequently been rewarded with twenty grand for his trouble. That made him a bought and paid for man, and he was soon on a retainer, supplying information and, with the extra power of promotion, able to concentrate the main thrust of investigations in the direction of black and Latino outfits, and basically ensure, to a degree, that Cady was free to operate without undue hindrance.
Stopping in front of the gates to Casa Cady, Bruce thumbed the rocker switch to open the window of his late model Hyundai Sonata, and reached out to press the button below the aluminum speaker grille set into a concrete post. The place was like a prison, but its purpose was to keep people out, not in.
Nothing. No one answered him as he held the button in and announced who he was, three times. He flashed the car’s high beams through the steel mesh gates, to cut through darkness that should have been lit up by security lights.
Climbing out of the car, Bruce walked up to the double gates, to find them closed but not locked. He pushed them apart, got back in the car and drove up the broad sweep of driveway, to stop again outside the front of the house.
Manny followed Bruce up the blue limestone hand dressed steps. The door was ajar. Bruce shouted, “Are you inside, Mrs. Cady?”
“Yes, help me,” Gina replied.
Bruce stepped to the side of the door and aimed his gun at it as he pushed it wide open with his free hand. Gina was sitting up at the bottom of the stairs, holding a small pistol and pointing it at the door, only lowering it when she recognized him.
Manny went to her, set his old, scuffed medical bag on the carpet and began to examine the damage.
“Anything else happen?” Bruce said.
Gina shook her head and said, “I made it into the living room to find Nick’s phone, and I noticed that the boat’s lights were on, and then I must have passed out. When I came to the lights were off. I crawled back into the hall to get my gun.”
“So you think that they’re on the boat?”
“Yes. And I haven’t heard any gunshots. Nick is probably hiding, and the man that shot me is searching for him. Do something, Bruce. Don’t let the bastard kill Nick.”
Bruce went into the living room, turned off the lights and made his way over to the patio doors, to venture out and set off in a wide arc towards the motor yacht, keeping low and wishing that his phone had been off and that he’d never got the call from Gina Cady.
He was not a gung-ho kind of cop. To risk getting shot or stabbed to death by some lowlife had never been on his bucket list. But whoever was gunning for Cady didn’t know that he was here. If he got the chance to shoot the guy, he would. Cady was funding his lifestyle, and so he would protect his interest if possible, if he could do it without putting himself in the firing line.
Nick turned and fired. And in the moment he pulled the trigger he knew that he’d been duped. He saw the foot-high samurai bounce, and the arms holding the miniature sword snap off and come away from the body. The figurine rolled off the deck under the safety rail, but there was no audible splash, due to the strengthening breeze and the chop of the river rocking the yacht’s hull against the Polyform fenders along the port side.
Logan fired as Cady turned. The bullet entered his torso at the right side; hit a rib at an oblique angle and was deflected, to exit his body without causing mortal damage.
Nick was knocked back and down. He lost his grip of the gun, which clattered onto the deck and disappeared over the side to join the armless Samurai in the thick mud on the bottom of the river.
Logan advanced on Cady. He fully intended to finish him off, even though the gangster was now injured and helpless. All that Logan had done up to this point in time would have been for nothing if he spared the man. Given the chance, Cady would just regroup and carry on as he had done before, and that would put countless other people at risk from him, including Debbie, Kelly, Gail, Tom, and even Boo. It had to end here, and now.
“Is that what you’re worth, Logan?” Nick said as the tall man stopped just in front of where he was now sitting up and clutching his side. “I’m defenseless. This will be an execution that will make you as bad as me. Hand me over to the police. I deserve justice.”