by David Archer
Nobody noticed he was looking at Chance as he spoke, but then Josephine started talking about the upcoming wedding and demanding that the detectives bring their wives. All three of them agreed, and then they all claimed to have other duties to attend to. Each one shook Dixon’s hand, and then they left the three of them alone once more.
Dixon looked at Chance. “You can’t let her get away with this,” he said. “All she’ll do is set up shop in another location, and she probably has enough contacts to get somebody like Finnigan to back her again.”
Chance didn’t say anything, but he nodded. A moment later, he shook Dixon’s hand and gave Josephine another hug before leaving the room.
The thought of letting Elizabeth Cardwell get away with what she had done was eating at him, and he knew he couldn’t leave Las Vegas as long as she was still alive. Her ability to turn innocent, everyday people into killing machines was simply too evil to allow. By the time he got out to his pickup truck, he already decided that it was time for her to meet a very timely end.
The question was how to go about it. Jensen had said she was being interrogated by the FBI agents, but they weren’t likely to be able to make any charges stick. Like the detectives, they would come away certain that she was guilty, but without the evidence to counter any alibis she might have, there was no way they could be certain of the conviction. The only hope for stopping her, Chance knew, lay in putting an end to her, just as he had done with Finnigan.He put the truck in gear and headed downtown, back toward the Empower Counseling office. Josie had said she lived in an apartment on the top floor of that building, and he wanted to do a quick recon. He parked the truck in the parking garage two blocks away, then walked the rest of the distance.
He froze less than half a block away. The front doors were crisscrossed with crime scene tape, and men wearing jackets marked FBI were going in and out, carrying boxes.
Of course, he thought, they would naturally raid her offices. Those boxes probably contain files on everyone she ever had as a patient.
His initial thought of trying to get into the building and wait for Cardwell in her apartment vanished instantly. There was no way he was going to get past all of those federal agents, and he wouldn’t be surprised if they posted someone to keep her under surveillance. He wanted to get to Elizabeth Cardwell, but he was going to have to do it somewhere other than her home or office.
Chance retraced his steps back to the truck, then got in and drove to yet another of the smaller, cheaper hotels in the city. He got a room and checked in, then sat down on the bed to think about a plan of action.
After several minutes, he took out his phone and called Josephine. She answered on the second ring, and he could hear the caution in her voice.
“Bill?” she asked softly. “Everything okay?”
“Hoping to ask for a bit more help,” Chance said. “Are you still at the hospital?”
“Yes, but Pete is sleeping, and they’ve got security guards on the door to his room. What do you need?”
“Well, I was hoping you had your computer. Any chance you could find a way to get me Elizabeth Cardwell’s cell number?”
“Is that all? Sure, let me call you back in a minute. I don’t need a computer to get that, I can do that on my phone.” The line went dead, and Chance laid back on the bed as he waited.
The phone chimed an incoming text message less than two minutes later, and Chance picked it up to see a phone number in the message. It rang as he was looking at it, and he put it to his ear.
“Thank you,” he said. “Now, do me the same favor and forget about this conversation.”
“What conversation? I’m sorry, I think you have the wrong number.” The line went dead once more and Chance grinned at the phone. He reopened the text message and put his thumb on the number, telling the phone to dial it.
It went to voicemail, just as he had expected. “You have reached the voicemail of Dr. Elizabeth Cardwell. I’m sorry I’m not available to take your call at the moment, but if you leave a name and number and the reason for your call, I’ll get back to you as soon as it’s convenient.”
Chance waited for the beep. “Dr. Cardwell,” he said, “I need your help. Finnigan told me to call you if anything went wrong, if anything happened to him. I know you’re a little busy at the moment, but when you get a chance, I have three names that need to be dealt with in a hurry. Please call me back as soon as you can.” He added his phone number and then ended the call.
With nothing left to do but wait, Chance turned on the television and flipped it to a local news station. There was a lot of talk about political issues, a mention of Dr. Loftin’s murder and a short story about the FBI investigating a series of unusual homicides that indicated people were being brainwashed into committing murder. There was no mention of Dr. Cardwell, and Chance shook his head as he realized that she was powerful enough to keep her name out of the news.
The news program ended and a movie began, but he didn’t bother to change the station. It was an old comedy about high school in the seventies, but Chance wasn’t really paying attention. He let the movie drone on in the background while he thought about what to do if Cardwell didn’t take the bait, but then his phone rang.
“Hello?”
“This is Elizabeth Cardwell,” he heard a familiar voice say. “Don’t say anything over the phone, because I don’t want to take a chance on confusing the issue. I’ve been tied up all morning and feel like having some lunch. Could you meet me at Donnelly’s Restaurant?”
Chance had seen the restaurant while he and Dixon were running around town, and remembered roughly where it was. “It’ll take me a little while to get there,” he said. “Probably thirty-five, maybe forty minutes. Is that okay?”
“That’s fine,” Cardwell said. “It’ll take me almost that long to get there, but they have a special private dining room I can use so we won’t be overheard. I’ll see you there. Just tell them you’re coming to meet me, they’ll know where to bring you.”
“That sounds good,” Chance replied. “I’ll head there right now.”
He ended the call and got off the bed, checked all four of his guns and strapped them on. Two minutes later, he was in the truck and on the way toward the restaurant, kicking himself for not thinking of getting a different vehicle.
Cautious, he parked the truck around the corner from the restaurant and walked the rest of the way. A quick glance around didn’t show him any obvious security, but he was sure that there was some around. He hadn’t decided on a plan of action, but simply wanted to come face-to-face with his nemesis.
He walked into the front door and told the hostess he was there to see Dr. Cardwell. The girl smiled and nodded, then led him to a door that was down a small hallway off the main dining area. She knocked briefly, then swung the door open and let him step inside.
Elizabeth Cardwell, he decided instantly, was an extremely overconfident woman. She was meeting alone with a man she didn’t know, based simply on a telephone message claiming to have information from her former benefactor. She was tall, probably five foot eleven, and what Chance’s grandmother would’ve called a “handsome” woman, the kind who almost looked like she could pass for a man with short hair and a business suit. She looked at Chance as he took a seat at the table across from her.
There were plates of spaghetti in front of each of them. Cardwell had already started on her own, and pointed with her fork at his plate. “I ordered for you,” she said. “Eat up. I haven’t seen you before. What’s your name?”
Chance started to give her the name he’d been using, Bill Simmons, but suddenly changed his mind. “Raguel,” he said. “Angelo Raguel. Vinnie Fratello brought me in a few weeks ago, and Mr. Finnigan took a liking to me.” He picked up his own fork and took a bite of the spaghetti.
She looked him over. “Raguel,” she mused. “Doesn’t sound Italian. Greek, maybe?”
Chance grinned and shrugged. “Heinz fifty-seven,” he said. “I think I�
�m a lot of stuff all mixed together.”
Cardwell nodded. “Nothing wrong with that,” she said. “Now, what’s this about names that need to be handled?”
Chance grinned at her around his next bite. “I got three names,” he said, swallowing quickly, “a bunch of police detectives. There’s no big rush on them, but he told me that if anything happened to him, you should know that they have a lot of information about what you can do. He thinks you ought to get rid of them, and wanted me to make sure you knew about them.”
Cardwell looked into his eyes for a long moment. “Police detectives? They won’t be easy. They’ll be suspicious of anybody new trying to get close to them, especially women, after all the publicity over these last two cases. I may have to use some of the men. Who are they?”
“First one is a guy named Bobby Jensen,” Chance said. “He’s been leading the investigation on the Martinez girl, and that private eye got him a lot of information about you. Since then, he’s been working with two other detectives, Harper and Schmidt. They know they can’t make a charge stick against you, but they’ll be harassing you every chance they get. Mr. Finnigan felt like you should know about them, but he was expecting something bad to happen and told me to make sure you found out if anything did.” He lowered his eyes. “Pity about what happened, isn’t it?”
Cardwell blinked. “A pity? Daniel Finnigan was one of the most ruthless men that ever lived, I’m not really surprised that somebody decided to get rid of him. Although, I’m not sure I believe the story about a jealous husband. Daniel was a little more cautious than that, he didn’t mess around with somebody else’s wife. We live in the land of legalized prostitution, he wouldn’t have needed to take any kind of risk that way. No, I think it was a hit, and I think it was the Italians. A lot of people think the Mafia is gone from Vegas, but you just have to know where to look. They’re still around, and they want things back under their control.”
Chance shrugged. “Could be,” he said. “Me, I don’t care who’s in charge as long as I’m making money.”
Cardwell cocked her head to one side and looked at him closely. “Really?” she asked. “You’re an interesting man, Angelo Raguel. Maybe you and I should be doing business together. Interested?”
TWENTY-FIVE
Chance took a second to realize what she was proposing, and it occurred to him that he might have blundered into the perfect opportunity. “I could be,” he said. “All depends on what you have in mind.”
“Isn’t it obvious?” Cardwell asked with a chuckle. “I have the means to get rid of a lot of the opposition, but I need somebody who knows his way around the world of the mobs. Maybe you were with the Irish, but I’m sure you know a lot about the rest of them. The Italians, the Russians, the Lebanese? Am I right?”
Chance shrugged and pushed his plate away. “I know names and faces,” he said. “You thinking we could rearrange the playing field a little bit?”
She grinned, and it was particularly evil. “I’m thinking we could stack the deck in our favor. Finnigan put David O’Donnell in place to take over for him, but O’Donnell is an idiot. He’s already called me and told me to lay low, when what we ought to do is move quickly to eliminate the remaining witnesses. These detectives, they can wait a few days; I’m a lot more worried about these women they’re letting out of jail right now, the ones who are starting to remember things we don’t want them to remember.”
Chance studied her face for a moment. “You think we should take them out? You got people ready to do that?”
She laughed. “I’ve got almost a hundred people here in the city, ready to kill anyone I send them after. All I have to do is send them a message, and tell them who the target is. We tell them the target is a danger to them or their loved ones, and they are more than happy to do the deed. Do you know Connor McGregor? He was one of Daniel’s nephews, I think. He’s the one I send out to activate them, now. I had another fellow, but he started to think he was more important than he was.”
Chance forced himself to smile. “That would have been Vinnie,” he said. “I heard about it. Mr. Finnigan, he liked to talk when he knew what he said wasn’t going to be repeated, and he told me about Vinnie getting wasted.” He shrugged. “Vinnie was no big loss. I’m just glad he got me in with Mr. Finnigan before he got himself killed. Mr. Finnigan, he found out pretty quick he could trust me, which is why I was the one he told to get the word about these detectives to you. I gotta admit, though, the thought of you and me running things, that definitely has some flavor to it.”
Cardwell laughed again. “You’re a little young, but you’re smart. I like that in a man, both the young and the smart. Tell me, Angelo, what would it take to get you firmly in my corner?”
Chance leaned back in his chair and looked her in the eye, smiling. “Just a good understanding,” he said. “I know I’m smart, but I’ve been smart enough to keep that quiet. Some of the older bosses, they don’t like it when a young guy like me comes up with good ideas. If we’re going to do this, I want to know that you’re going to listen to what I got to say, and I want to know who you’ve got working with you already. Some of the guys Finnigan had are likely to be more loyal to O’Donnell than to us, and I want to get rid of them.”
Cardwell looked closely at him, all the laughter gone. “I want an understanding, too,” she said. “I want you to understand that if you ever doublecross me, there’s nowhere you can go where I can’t get to you. And the beauty of it is, you wouldn’t even see it coming. A perfect stranger walks up to you on the street, and bang! A split second and it’s all over. Are we clear?”
It was Chance’s turn to laugh. “Lady, I figured that out as soon as we started talking about this. Finnigan trusted me, and so can you. So, we got a deal or what?”
The woman looked at him for a few more seconds, then her smile began to return. “I think we do, Angelo,” she said. “Tell me something: are you a trigger man? Are you one of the people Daniel had ready to kill on a moment’s notice?”
Chance shrugged and smirked. “I might’ve left a few bodies laying around,” he said. “When I think it’s necessary, I can do it.”
“Well, you won’t have to anymore. We use my people for that, and we make sure to tie up all the loose ends. If we go about it carefully, we can wipe out any trail that could lead back to us.” She pushed her own plate away. “You ready to get out of here? Go somewhere a little more private?”
Chance broke into a big smile. “I thought you’d never ask,” he said. “Where would you like to go?”
“I don’t really care,” Cardwell said. “Someplace quiet, where we can be alone for a little while.” She leaned forward and reached across the table to drag a fingernail across the back of his hand. “Someplace we can cement this partnership. Maybe your place? Mine is full of federal agents at the moment.”
Chance slid his chair back and got to his feet, then held out a hand for her to take. “I think I know just the place,” he said. “Shall we?”
They left the private dining room and Cardwell whispered something to the hostess, who smiled conspiratorially as she glanced at Chance. “I’ll just put it on your tab,” the woman said, and then Cardwell began leading Chance toward the door.
“Did you bring a car?” Cardwell asked suddenly.
“No,” Chance said. “I rode down here in a taxi. Hang on, I’ll get one.”
“No, no,” she said, tugging on his arm. “We can take my car, it’s just over here.” She led him off to the right, toward the parking lot. She took a set of keys out of her purse and pushed a button on a remote, and a sparkling blue Cadillac flashed its lights.
“Nice ride,” Chance said. He followed her toward the car, then opened the driver’s door for her. She slipped behind the wheel and pushed the button unlocking the passenger side. Chance walked around and got in, then quickly clicked on the seatbelt.
“So, which way?”
“Head out toward Henderson,” Chance said. “You’re gonna
love it out there.”
For the next twenty minutes, he gave her directions. They were still talking about their impending partnership, and Cardwell was making coquettish comments about Chance’s youth and good looks. He smiled through it all, keeping himself focused on his destination.
It was the same place where he had hidden the guns the night before, and he directed her to drive up the road that led into the little parklike area. When he was sure they were well concealed from the surrounding streets, he told her to stop.
She looked around. “Here? I don’t see a house.”
Chance opened his door and got out, then walked around to open hers. She took his hand when he offered it, and stepped out with him.
“I’ve always found there’s nothing like nature,” he said. “Look around, we’re all alone. How much more private could it get?”
She looked around for a moment, then turned a stern expression toward him. “I’m a little old for splendor in the grass, Angelo,” she said. “I realize you might be trying to be romantic, but I’d really prefer a nice hotel room.”
Chance smiled at her. “I’m sure you would,” he said, “but then, you were also hoping for some sort of romantic little evening, right? I’m afraid you’re going to be disappointed in both regards, but don’t worry. Your disappointment won’t last long.”
He let go of her hand and stepped back, then pulled the Maxim out of his shoulder holster and held it pointing downward at his side.
“I have a little confession to make, Dr. Cardwell,” he said. “This whole thing about working for Finnigan, that was just my way of getting close to you. And my name isn’t Angelo, it’s Chance. Chance Reddick, but don’t worry about trying to remember it. The only name I’ve given you that you need to remember is Raguel, because the truth is that Raguel is the Angel of Justice. Now, I’m no Angel, but I’ve come to understand that sometimes, Raguel needs a little help down here in the world. A while back, when my little sister was murdered by a drug cartel, I decided to answer that call. These women that you’ve been brainwashing into committing murder? Those were innocent people, Cardwell, people with lives and hopes and dreams. The people you had them murder, some of them were innocent, as well. Now, it may be true that the police can’t make a case against you, but I’m not with the police. I don’t care about evidence, or proof or witnesses. What I care about is justice, and that’s why I brought you out here tonight.”