Bolt

by Bryan Cassiday

  “I’m not gonna name names.”

  “Because you’re making this crap up. Anonymous accusations without exception are bullshit.”

  “No. It’s because she’s afraid she’ll lose you as her manager and she won’t get any more auditions if she tells anyone about it.”

  She was afraid when she was alive, anyway, decided Brody.

  “I’m a happily married man,” said Lyndon. “Why would I coerce sex from anyone?”

  “You tell me. Maybe you can’t keep your hands off beautiful women.”

  “You’re jealous of me, so you think I have to force women to have sex with me. Some of them practically force me to have sex with them,” said Lyndon, gloating. “They’re begging for it. Why do you think I’m able to represent so many beautiful girls?”

  “You tell me.”

  “Because I get them jobs in the Business. That’s not easy to do. Ask anyone. I’m one of the best talent managers in Hollywood.”

  “If you’re so successful, why are you smuggling blow into the country?”

  “I got somebody else’s suitcase by mistake in Cabo,” said Lyndon, incensed. “Don’t put that on me.”

  “If the shoe fits, wear it.”

  “Who’s this actress who says I forced myself on her?” demanded Lyndon, advancing on Brody.

  “I’m not saying.”

  “I’m gonna sue her ass off. Tell me who she is this minute. I don’t want anyone slandering me. Stuff like that gets around. Hollywood is a small town with big ears. Nothing fills the rats in Tinsel Town with more glee than watching another guy’s career crash and burn.”

  “Don’t worry about it.”

  “My career’s at stake. I am worried about it.”

  “Enough to kill her?”

  “What are you talking about?” said Lyndon, getting in Brody’s face.

  “Are you so worried about her that you would kill her?”

  “Are you calling me a murderer? How about I sue you for slander?”

  Thunder rumbled and cracked, directly overhead. The living room shuddered with the explosion. Brody started.

  “Don’t go and have another heart attack on me,” said Lyndon, cracking a half smile.

  Why did Lyndon keep insisting he had a heart attack and insinuating with his sarcastic tone that it wasn’t a heart attack? wondered Brody. The idea dawned on him that Lyndon might be Caligula. Which would mean Lyndon knew Brody was an epileptic. But how did Lyndon get into the Elysian Fields chat room?

  “Did you hire someone to hack my computer?” said Brody.

  “What?” said Lyndon, dumbfounded.

  “Maybe you hired a PI to check up on me.”

  “Do yourself a favor and see a shrink. You’re paranoid.”

  “Did you or didn’t you?”

  “Think about it. Why would I?”

  “Because you found out I’m working for Deirdre.”

  “We don’t keep secrets from each other.”

  “That’s not what I heard. She told me you had blow in your blue suitcase.”

  Lyndon set his jaw. “It wasn’t my suitcase. There was a mix-up at the airport in Cabo.”

  “Was there anything else in the suitcase?”

  “A woman’s clothes.”

  “That’s it?”

  “Yeah, that’s it. And don’t go around giving me the third degree,” said Lyndon, jabbing his forefinger at Brody. “You’re no cop.”

  Was Lyndon covering up the fact that secret documents had been hidden in the suitcase or were the docs so well hidden he hadn’t found them? wondered Brody.

  He pricked up his ears at a bang like a firecracker outside.

  “Did you hear that?” he said.

  “What?”

  “It sounded like a gunshot.”

  “It’s just the storm.”

  “Where were we?”

  “Nowhere. This discussion’s over,” said Lyndon, leaving the room.

  “How do you plan on getting the blow back?”

  Lyndon halted in midstride. “I told Valerie to tell Nick to bring the suitcase back.”

  “And?”

  “She couldn’t get through to him on her cell.”

  “Did she try the landline?”

  Irritated at Brody, Lyndon left without answering.

  Brody spotted a phone on a bureau in the study. He snatched up the handset and listened for a dial tone. There wasn’t any. The storm must have downed a nearby telephone line, as well as a cell tower.

  Chapter 107

  A cigarette dangling from his lip, a MAC-10 in his hand, his worn python cowboy boot heels clacking on the cement deck, Arturo strode back to the hacienda’s pool where Gaetano was standing.

  “He’s dead,” said Arturo.

  “All of them?”

  “There was only one.”

  “A suicide mission.”

  The two of them stood watching Gaetano’s men hosing down the fire consuming the motorbike garage.

  “I can’t believe the scumbag Zetas attacked my property,” said Gaetano.

  “They’re animals,” said Arturo, exhaling a cone of tobacco smoke.

  “Cut off his head and send it back to the Zetas with a pink bow tied to it.”

  “I’ll take care of it myself, patrón. And I’ll enjoy every minute of it.”

  “Bueno.”

  “My son Michael Corleone wants to work for CJNG when he grows up,” boasted Arturo, with a smile.

  “Michael Corleone is a good boy.”

  “He wants to be a sicario.”

  “He’s a tough guy, huh?”

  “He never backs down from a fight, patrón.”

  “And neither do we. The Zetas will pay for their bad manners.”

  “When they hit us, we hit them back ten times harder. Like you always tell us, patrón.”

  “This is true.” Gaetano paused, inspecting his fingernails. “Your son has an interesting name. Why do you call him Michael Corleone?”

  “It was my wife’s idea. She’s a fan of the actor that played the character in The Godfather.”

  “Al Pacino.”

  “Sí, patrón.”

  “A good man.”

  Out of the corner of his eye, Gaetano caught sight of an abandoned inflatable raft floating in the pool.

  “My son wants to be the captain of a ship,” he said.

  “He’ll be a great captain when he grows up.”

  “He’ll be an admiral. He’ll have his own fleet of ships,” said Gaetano, making a sweeping gesture with his arm.

  “CJNG needs ships to move our products.”

  “Especially overseas. We need that deal with the ’Ndrangheta in Italy. We can’t afford to lose them as partners in our empire. We need to expand into Europe. There’s great demand for our products in Europe.”

  “And don’t forget the norteamericanos.”

  “How can I forget them? They want our products more than anyone, and then they have the gall to call us narcoterroristas for selling them what they want. Hypocrites.”

  “If there wasn’t any demand for our products, we’d go belly up.”

  “They ought to be thanking us, instead of calling us criminals.”

  “Phonies.”

  “The only thing they’re good at is lying to themselves.”

  “Did Jorge get the suitcase yet?”

  Gaetano withdrew his satphone from his trouser pocket and called Jorge.

  Jorge didn’t answer.

  “He’s not picking up,” said Gaetano, concerned.

  “Do you think he’s OK?”

  “Maybe he’s in the middle of an operation and on radio silence,” said Gaetano, his voice tentative. “I’ll try again later.”

  He idly watched a pillar of smoke rising like a genie from a magic lamp toward the moon from the charred, wet skeletal remains of the motorbike garage, as his men wound up extinguishing the smoldering fire.

  A twentyish lanky man in Gaetano’s gang with a long neck, a bullet
head, and three days’ growth on his face, clad in jeans and a black T with the white image of a Ferrari Portofino silkscreened on its chest, brought an ax from the tool shed to Arturo.

  Taking the ax, Arturo held up its head and scrutinized its edge, tilting the blade back and forth a few inches in front of his eyes, catching the wash of the overhead electric light, his cigarette in his mouth.

  “It’ll do. I’ll take care of the Zeta,” he said.

  “How?” said the lanky man.

  “He’s too big. I’ll cut him into pieces so we can fit him into a box to send gift-wrapped to the Zetas,” said Arturo, and struck out for the smoking garage, the ax haft in his hand, the lanky man in tow.

  “Wait a second, Arturo,” said Gaetano.

  Arturo halted, all ears.

  “After you’re done, take your son Michael Corleone and blow up a church in Tamaulipas when Zetas are attending mass there,” said Gaetano. “Use C-4 plastic explosives or Czech Semtex.”

  Arturo looked stunned, like a steer after compressed air in a bolt gun had discharged a steel bolt to its brain in a slaughterhouse cradle.

  “If Michael Corleone wants to join us as a sicario, it’s time for him to start earning his spurs,” said Gaetano.

  “Sí, patrón.”

  “Remember my dear mother’s wake. When they hit us, we hit them ten times harder. Remember?”

  “Sí, patrón,” said Gaetano, his voice steady with resolve. “We will do it. Michael Corleone will be proud to accept this assignment. It is a great honor for him.”

  Gaetano nodded with satisfaction.

  Arturo left to take care of the bomber.

  Life was a battleground, decided Gaetano, watching Arturo leave with the ax. If your empire wasn’t constantly expanding and conquering, it was shrinking and dying out.

  “The sky’s the limit,” he said.

  Chapter 108

  Brody entered the Foxes’ living room, where Deirdre and Valerie were sitting on the sofa. Lyndon stood behind the wet bar looking for another beer in the refrigerator.

  “Your landline’s out,” said Brody.

  “It must be the storm,” said Deirdre. “How are we supposed to get in touch with Nick to get the suitcase?”

  Brody heard another crack like a gunshot outside, followed by peals of thunder.

  “It sounds like it’s right on top of us,” said Valerie, cringing.

  “We’re lucky we still have electricity,” said Deirdre, gazing up at the lights apprehensively.

  “Do you have a generator?” said Brody.

  “No,” said Lyndon. “Why bother? How often does it rain around here?”

  A bullet plinked through the French window, spilling shards of glass on the floor. Brody almost didn’t hear it because of the rumbling storm.

  “Everybody down,” he cried, crouching and producing his SIG from his shoulder holster.

  Deirdre and Valerie scrambled behind the sofa. Lyndon ducked behind the wet bar.

  “What happened?” said Lyndon, who must not have heard the shot.

  “Somebody fired a bullet at us.”

  “Who?”

  Brody squinted through the French windows at the pool and the yard beyond it. He didn’t see anyone.

  “I don’t see anyone out there,” said Brody.

  “Where the hell’s your bodyguard Vincent?”

  “Victor.”

  Brody wished he knew.

  Another bullet spat through the French window and slammed into the wall opposite it crumbling stucco in a cloud of smoke.

  He heard more gunshots and kept peering outside.

  A dark hunched figure bucketed across the backyard and onto the pool deck. His raingear and the rain obscured his face. The figure bounded across the deck to the French windows, machine pistol in hand. Hiding behind a chair Brody trained his SIG on the approaching figure. As the figure made a beeline toward the French windows, more shots rang out.

  Cover fire for the attacking stranger, decided Brody.

  “Is the window locked?” he said.

  “I don’t know,” said Lyndon from behind the wet bar.

  Two more bullets slammed through the windowpane.

  His hood obscuring his face, the figure yanked open the French window and prepared to burst inside the living room. He groaned, stumbled, and clutched his leg, as a slug lodged in it. He whipped around and fired a burst from his MP5 into the gloom of the backyard.

  Brody held his fire.

  “Victor?” he said. “Is that you?”

  “Yeah. I took a bullet in my leg from a bogey in the yard.”

  Brody dashed to the French window, helped Victor into the room, and locked the window behind him.

  “What happened?” said Brody.

  Victor limped across the living room to hide behind a chair.

  “There are at least four bogeys out there,” he said, his face dripping wet, his clothes dripping on the floor. “I shot one of them.”

  “Then there are three out there?”

  “There were five, and I took out one of them. There are at least four others left,” said Victor, wincing at the pain in his wounded leg, which was bleeding onto the floor as he squatted behind a chair. “Next to zero vis outside because of the rain and the dark.”

  More shots popped in the backyard. Bullets perforated the French window. Brody rolled onto the floor onto his chest and belly-crawled behind the chair Victor was hiding behind.

  “Any idea who they are?” said Brody.

  Victor shook his head no.

  “We need to get that wound stanched,” said Brody. He raised his voice. “Do you have any tape or bandages we could use?”

  “I got duct tape over here,” said Lyndon, concealed behind the wet bar, rummaging through a drawer underneath the counter.

  “Toss it to me.”

  Lyndon stood up, pitched the roll of duct tape over the counter, and disappeared.

  The roll of duct tape fell short of Brody’s grasp, striking the floor and rolling. Brody stabbed at the tape with his hand and latched onto it. He unwound a yard-long strip from the spool, tore it off with his teeth, and wrapped it around Victor’s wounded calf to stop the bleeding.

  “What’s their firepower?” said Brody.

  “Plenty,” said Victor, grimacing. “MAC-10s and TEC-9s.”

  “They could be gangbangers.”

  “What do gangbangers want with you?”

  “It’s a long story.”

  Brody finished taping Victor’s leg.

  “I need to swap magazines,” said Victor. “I got more ammo in my backpack in the corner over there.” He nodded in the direction of his backpack.

  Keeping his head down Brody crawled to the backpack and retrieved it. Victor ejected his spent magazine, which clattered on the floor, and replaced it with a fresh one from the backpack. Brody glimpsed the hundred-round Beta C-Mag drum magazine in the backpack.

  “If we get into a firefight, I’ll get out the C-Mag,” said Victor, noticing the focus of Brody’s attention.

  “Do you have any other pieces in your bag?”

  “A SIG P226.”

  “Mind if I take it? I’ll need spare magazines, too. I have a feeling I’m gonna need them.”

  “Be my guest.”

  Brody found the P226 in the backpack, stuck it in his waistband, and stuffed spare magazines into his trouser cargo pockets.

  Gunfire erupted outside. A fusillade of bullets hammered the French windows, cracking and breaking panes, catapulting glass splinters and fragments helter-skelter.

  Chapter 109

  “If there’s at least four of them out there and they’re heavily armed like you say, I suggest we take the high ground and move upstairs,” said Brody.

  “Plenty of windows upstairs?” said Victor.

  “Enough of them overlook the backyard.”

  “What about the front?”

  “You think they’ll come at us from the front?”

  “Since there a
re four of them, they could hit us from all sides at once.”

  “The upper floor has windows all around it. We’ll be able to see on all sides. The problem is, there’s only two of us that are armed.”

  Another fusillade of bullets pelted the French windows, strewing glass fragments like so many teeth over furniture and the living-room floor.

  Brody had an idea. “Lyndon,” he called, “where’s your gun?”

  “I have one in my bedroom,” said Lyndon.

  “I mean the one you pulled on me the other day. It was here in the living room somewhere,” said Brody, cutting his eyes toward the whatnot.

  Grimacing, Lyndon shook his head. “It was fake. It was a prop I brought home from a movie set.”

  Brody felt annoyed a fake gun had cowed him earlier. It had looked authentic from where he had stood in front of its business end.

  “What about the one in your bedroom?” he said. “Another movie prop? We’re not playing games here. The gangbangers aren’t gonna bug out when they see you waving a fake gun at them. They’re gonna shoot back with real bullets.”

  “It’s the real deal. A Glock.”

  “Now we can protect ourselves on three sides,” Brody told Victor.

  “Three out of four is close, but close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades,” said Victor.

  Brody chewed it over. “I could give my piece to Deirdre.”

  “Does she know how to shoot?”

  “I’ll have to ask her—”

  Another barrage of slugs blew out more glass in the French windows and ripped into furniture.

  Brody peeked over the back of the chair at the windows. “The glass panes are shot to hell. The gangbangers could walk into the living room any minute.”

  Bullets thudded into the chair’s upholstery and sliced through it out the back, whizzing past Victor’s face.

  “I suggest we make our move to the upper floor,” said Victor. “The sooner the better.”

  MP5 in hand, he peeked over the chair back and unleashed a volley of rounds into the backyard, to keep the enemy from charging the French windows. He dropped behind the chair.

  Using Victor’s MP5’s burst as cover fire, keeping hunched over, Brody scrambled over to Deirdre’s hiding place behind the sofa, bullets singing over him. One grazed his left shoulder.