Gil Mason/Gunwood USA Box Set

by Gordon Carroll

  Sarah shook her head, grinned. “Rook, you’d better make it as a cop, because a shrink you ain’t.”

  “I don’t want to be your shrink; I want to be your…husband.”

  She jerked in her seat. “Oh please, don’t tell me you just proposed to me here, in a patrol car. You did not just do that.”

  “I’ve given it a lot of thought,” said Dominic, feeling a little panicky at her reaction. “I know you’re probably not ready for that big of a step, but I want you to think about it.”

  She sat back, slapped her forehead. “Are you serious?”

  “Of course I’m serious.”

  She shook her head. “You just said you thought I was crazy and now you’re asking me to marry you?”

  “I didn’t say you were crazy.”

  “But you are asking me to marry you?”

  “Yes — well — no — not exactly — not officially.”

  “Not officially? What’s that supposed to mean?”

  Dominic’s mind floundered; he hadn’t wanted it to come out like this. He just wanted to help and to let her know how serious he really was.

  “I mean I do want to marry you, but I’m not officially asking you right now. When I do I’ll do it the right way.”

  “The right way, and what exactly is the right way to ask a crazy broad to marry you?”

  “You’re not crazy and you’re not a broad. Don’t be nasty about this. I’m sorry it came out the way it did. I was trying to reassure you, to let you know that I’m here for you and I always will be.”

  “Oh, is that all? So, do you have a ring? Let me see it.”

  “What?”

  “A ring? An engagement ring? When you ask a woman to marry you you’re supposed to have a ring to offer her.”

  Dominic saw two men fighting on a corner near Elephant Guns. He ignored them and drove on past. “Yes, I know about the ring. And no, I don’t have one. I told you I wasn’t officially asking you right now. I just wanted to show you how serious I am about this.”

  “This? What this?” she asked.

  Dominic’s head spun, he saw a three-car accident on Denver’s side of the street, it didn’t look too serious, but one older guy stood outside the car rubbing his head. Dominic continued on as though oblivious; just one of those days when nothing went right. He was making a total mess of this.

  “About us — about our relationship.”

  “Relationship?” she parroted. “What relationship? I tried to have a relationship with you, remember? But you said oh no, not until we’re married. What a load. If you didn’t want to hook up with me why didn’t you say so and be done with it. I’m a big girl I can take it. Now you start all this crazy crap and you want to help and you want me to marry you only not officially.” She air quoted the “crazy”, “help”, “marry”, and “officially”.

  A prostitute took money from a john and the two of them started walking to the back alley behind The Dirty Derringer. Dominic didn’t even slow down.

  “You’re taking this totally the wrong way, Sarah.”

  “I don’t think I am.”

  Three cars rushed past them, overflowing with teenage boys hanging out the windows, honking and screaming and flipping each other off. Dominic did not give chase.

  “I’m…I’m just trying to be there for you.”

  “Be there for me?” Sarah laced her voice with sarcasm. “Are we talking crazy or marriage here? In which respect are you trying to ‘be there’ for me?” She air quoted again. That air quoting was really beginning to bother Dominic.

  A fire engine, lights, siren and air-horn blaring rushed up behind them, swerved around almost hitting oncoming traffic, swerved back in front of them and continued on. One of the firemen made a rude gesture at him.

  “Both,” he said.

  “BOTH? Oh, so you do think I’m crazy,” said Sarah, throwing up her arms and flopping back in her seat.

  Dominic saw a cab pulled over, the rear door open, a pregnant woman’s legs splayed wide as the cabdriver looked on ringing his hands; the fire engine screeching to a halt halfway in the road a few cars ahead, fire fighters already running back toward the cab. Dominic drove on.

  “Noooo,” groaned Dominic, smacking the steering wheel with the palm of a hand. “I don’t think you’re crazy. How many times do I have to say that? You’re twisting everything all around.”

  “Oh is that what crazy people do — twist things around? Is that what your ‘shell shocked’ friends used to do?” He almost reached out to grab her fingers as she quoted again, but held back with a supreme act of willpower.

  A homeless drunk staggered across the street, weaving between rushing cars, swigging from a bottle loosely concealed in a brown paper bag. Dominic deftly swerved around him without missing a beat.

  “Look, the important thing is that I love you and I will be here for you no matter what. Okay? That’s the bottom line. I love you.” He turned off Colorado Boulevard to the east, between two businesses down an alley. A ragged looking cat ran through his headlight beams and over toward a dumpster.

  Without warning Sarah grabbed the steering wheel and jerked it hard to the left straight at the cat and the dumpster.

  Dominic stomped the brake pedal with one foot and the emergency brake with the other, sending the cruiser into a power skid and fishtailing the rear end so that it spun them ninety degrees before squealing to a smoking stop.

  They both sat there, breathing hard; the cruiser parked a couple of paint layers short of hitting the dumpster. The cat ran out from under the car, hissed at them and disappeared into the dark.

  Sarah licked her lips, smoothed back her hair, sniffed and sat back, not looking at him. “I thought you were going to hit the cat.” She looked out her open window at the dumpster. There wasn’t room to open the door. “Well, no harm done.” She looked back at Dominic, raised her chin. “I’m not crazy.”

  “No — no of course not,” said Dominic. But for the first time, in his heart of hearts, he wasn’t so sure.

  57

  Sammy Rothstein

  * * *

  Cursed

  * * *

  In the past week Detective Sammy Rothstein had slept for less than a total of nine hours, none of it in a string longer than twenty minutes. He sat at his desk, eyes red and sunken, dark semi-circles ringing them. His usually pale cheeks were gray, the color of ash. He hadn’t shaved or showered in three days. His hair lay greasy and uncombed; his clothes wrinkled, tie loose and skewed. Not that he hadn’t tried to sleep, he had, but Cinnamon wouldn’t let him. He couldn’t stop thinking of her. His mind drifted back to the voodoo case he’d investigated. It felt like that — like a curse — cursed by love.

  He sat looking at the only picture of the assassin known to both the criminal and law enforcement worlds as Death. Sammy had snapped it with his high-powered lens just this morning. The killer had been on the roof of Cinnamon’s building with a high-powered rifle, scanning the area. Sammy had barely been able to take the picture and duck back out of sight without being seen. The picture was of excellent quality and made the man easily recognizable.

  Yes, he loved her — but did she love him?

  She wanted to kill him and run away with an assassin — or maybe she didn’t. Maybe she loved him and wanted to kill the assassin. His incredible brain, usually such an asset, worked the problem over and over — non-stop — hour after hour — so confusing — but there was more. At the same time his mind sorted and resorted the bits and pieces of information he had on Cinnamon and Enrico, putting together possible scenarios — playing them out the way a chess master plays out an entire game before ever coming to the board — that same brain also computed the variables of the John Doe case and the patchwork investigation into Dominic Elkins’ Marine Corps history and the list of names Chuck Creed had given him of possible old timer sap owners — and a dozen other minor cases he still worked on. He tried to dismiss all but Cinnamon’s plight but found himself incapable of
shutting down the process. His psyche ran like a runaway locomotive, the furnace stoked constantly higher.

  Pages and pages of John Doe’s case snap-flashed across his mind’s eye and he felt himself slipping off to that faraway place that was really everywhere and every-when. The pages shifted into colors that sounded beautiful but slightly off key. He saw the print, that single bloody print from the handle of the chainsaw, watched as it rotated a hundred and eighty degrees, broke apart into a thousand equations whose sum measured exactly 72 inches, minus the vibrations from Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s 5th Symphony, but why — why? That made no sense! The distance — exactly 72 inches.

  A pain shot through his right temple almost pulling him out of the trance-like state, but he ignored it and allowed his mind to sink ever farther into that wonderful place where all questions were answered. Diagrams of the unfinished nightclub spun past, the electric powered chainsaw severing the carotid and spraying blood in wild arcs. He saw a floating hand that stabbed its fingers down on the keys of a grand piano, playing a perfect melody that vibrated his teeth and the bones of his face. Yes — yes! Something about the hand — the hand held the secret — the hand and the vibrations — no — no — not the vibrations — minus the vibrations — the vibrations needed to be subtracted — that’s the point — that’s the missing piece — that’s…

  “Man, you look like a zombie,” said Vinnie, stopping by his office with a cup of coffee. “You got the flu or what?”

  Sammy looked at him, his mind instantly shifting from the John Doe case to the man before him taking in a myriad of details — height, weight, hair color, eye color, clothing, shoes, right handed, egg on tie, miss-matched socks, hangnail on right pinky, razor burn on right side of jaw — cataloguing and analyzing, throwing the useless chunks of data into the endless stream that looped helplessly inside his skull. Oh please make it stop! He’d been so close — so close, but now it was gone.

  “Yes,” he replied. “Flu or maybe a cold. I’m not sure.”

  “Man, if I felt like you look I’d take a sick day. Want some aspirin?”

  Forget aspirin, he thought, Valium or maybe Thorazine. “No, thanks. I already took something.”

  “Okay, boss. Need anything let me know.” He mercifully left and went to his cubicle.

  Tomorrow Gatling Gams opened. Tomorrow he would either kill Enrico Da Vinci and begin his new life with Cinnamon or be betrayed and killed by an international assassin so the two of them could be together.

  Cinnamon stated her plan simply. She’d been contracted as one of the openers for Gatling Gams. Chuck Creed was in charge of the security detail and had briefed him on the million dollar prize. He mapped out all measures concerning transport and security. Sammy saw the flaws in the security measures instantly. He’d almost pointed them out to Chuck, but something made him hold back; perhaps his subconscious had already picked up on the idea that he might need to exploit them. In any case the solution to his problem was obvious. The setup would go without a hitch. As far as the robbery itself — Sammy would not allow that to happen. Either things would go as planned with Cinnamon and he would kill Enrico in the attempted robbery or Cinnamon would betray him and his backup plan would still ensure that he killed Enrico; then he would have to decide what to do about her.

  The simplicity of the plan only accentuated its brilliance. It combined Cinnamon’s original idea with the security knowledge Sammy had learned from Chuck Creed as well as playing to the assassin’s competitive and capitalistic nature. Add to that the prize of taking Sammy out of the picture and Enrico wouldn’t be able to resist.

  As for killing the assassin, Sammy had no fear that he could and would best him. The killer, although an accomplished marksman with keen senses and excellent skills, had his limits. His expertise ran with the long rifle, not that he wasn’t versed in handguns, his killing of the two men outside Cinnamon’s apartment proved otherwise, but he couldn’t possibly be on a par with Sammy and Sammy would have surprise on his side.

  No, going one on one against Da Vinci at close range with pistols held no fear for Sammy. The danger was betrayal. How could he go on living if she betrayed him?

  Dangerous yes, but he decided to go ahead with it. He supposed he could just hit her apartment with a dozen cops or a number of multi-jurisdictional agencies and take the assassin out, but then how would he know if Cinnamon loved him or if she was just using him? It would be the ultimate test. Cinnamon had the chance to be done with him and collect a million dollars in the bargain; an incredible temptation. If she held true, then he could believe that she did love him, despite all the reasons for her not too. If she didn’t, well — at least he would know.

  For any of this to work he had to be able to think and to function at peak performance.

  There remained only one element missing. He needed the rookie, but his savant mind, taxed as it was, solved that as well.

  He made a call to the chief. When he hung up he knew that everything was perfectly set and would play out as planned. The only thing he didn’t know for certain was which path Cinnamon would choose, but soon, even that would be known.

  58

  Enrico Da Vinci

  * * *

  The Canvas

  * * *

  Ten in the morning, Gatling Gams would open tomorrow night at eight. The sun would just be setting. The Rocky Mountains swallowed the sun quickly in Colorado, but right here, right now, the beautiful yellow ball stood as king, riding high with no cloud cover, set against a brilliant sea of blue that stretched from horizon to horizon. Gatling Gams was closed to the public, but aswarm with construction workers, carpenters, painters, electricians, stagehands and lighting technicians, making last minute adjustments and finishing touches.

  Enrico attached a detonator, plunging the thin rod-like electronic devise into the middle of the C4. He twisted the two ends of bare wire, capped them with a wire connector and buried it in the clay of the explosive as well.

  A short, stocky man with thick hairy arms and a barrel chest and belly walked past him carrying several strips of wood molding. He tipped his hard hat at Enrico in greeting. Enrico smiled, gave him a “thumbs up” sign and tipped his own hardhat in return. The man continued on at a fast pace.

  Enrico set the last of the explosives. The pattern called for a lot of C4, even more than he’d used in Chicago, but the result would be nothing short of spectacular; a work of art worthy of both Enrico’s talent and Cinnamon’s praise.

  Thinking of Cinnamon brought up her plan for killing the detective and stealing the money. The explosives had nothing to do with her plan. They were in case her plan proved a lie. It wasn’t that he didn’t trust her — not just that anyway — but Enrico had not lived as long as he had by believing in people.

  He would wait, not inside the establishment as planned, but instead across the street, up high, with his rifle and scope — and his detonator.

  A million dollars was a lot of money, but he didn’t need it, and neither would Cinnamon if she betrayed him. The money would go up with the building, a testament to his love for her and his sadness at her death.

  If she were true then he would kill the detective; steal the money and escape with Cinnamon. If not, he would wait until the club filled with people. He’d placed the C4 at each of the exit doors so the trap would be complete and inescapable, with the final charges taking out the support beams so the building would collapse inward, crushing everyone inside; a fitting end for those who would pay to see his Cinnamon’s private treasures.

  Cinnamon and the detective would either be killed in the explosion or he would shoot them as they fled.

  Outside he again marveled at the perfection of the day and the brilliance of the sun and sky. Here, a mile above the sea, the air was crisp and clear. He’d read somewhere that baseball pitchers could throw faster and football kickers kick farther. He wondered if his bullets would travel faster on their mission of death. The idea of it made him smile.

  A
shadow chilled his exuberance. The thought of living without her was hard; as hard as the world going on if all the great paintings were destroyed, but better destroyed than to belong to someone else.

  If Cinnamon was not true and he could not have her heart — no one would. His rifle could kill two as easy as one.

  59

  Cinnamon Twist

  * * *

  Double Cross

  * * *

  She finished her last routine and headed for the dressing room. She’d pulled an early shift so she could be with Enrico for the night. It was also her very last performance at Elephant Guns. Tomorrow she would open at Gatling Gams and after that she would be through with stripping for good. Hard to believe, but a part of her would actually miss it. Not all of it, but some of it. The hot look in the young men’s eyes; the greedy way they lusted after her. The knowledge that she could make most of the men in the room do anything she wanted. The power of it all. She would miss that, but she was gaining so much more; freedom, true freedom, emotional, physical, psychological and best of all…financial.

  By tomorrow, if all went well, both Sammy and Enrico would be…out of the way…and she would be free with over four million dollars and the rest of her life before her. The very idea, so intoxicating she could hardly contain herself.

  Rick, the biggest of the club’s bouncers smiled at her as she brushed past. He was nice and madly in love with her. She would give him free peeks every once in a while, she’d learned early on it was wise to keep the big boys on your side, but she never let him touch her. There was that fine line that had to be kept between lust and obsession. With the one she could control him, but let it slip into the other and he might one day kill her. So she was careful.