Beautiful, Naked & Dead (Moses McGuire) (24 page)

“See what I mean?” Sabatini tapped her skull with the pistol, causing her to wince. “After all she and I have shared, now she wants you to kill me.”

“He’s lying, Moses, kill him.”

“Truth? Shall we talk about the truth?” Sabatini said, “She came to me, offered where I could find an associate who had strayed from the pack.”

“I didn’t.” Cass was losing gas.

“I paid her ten large to rat out Stolloti.”

“It was my sister.” Cass’ voice was becoming a hissed whisper. Sabatini slapped the pistol up under her chin, she let out a high gasp.

“Hurt her again, and it’s over,” I said, starting to tighten on the trigger.

“Even if it means my men kill you, which you have said you don’t care about, interesting problem we have here.” He turned it over in his mind looking for the angle.

“I just figured it out, I’ve been looking at it backwards all this time,” I said smiling at him.

“That’s a bit cryptic.”

“I was wondering why go to all this trouble to take out one girl. So what if she saw Gino get whacked. Get rid of the hitter, cover your tracks, then who cares who she tells. You kill all of these yourself? Huh, killer?” I motioned to the trophies hung on the walls .

“Yes. Hunting is where a man discovers his true nature.”

“And what did you discover when you killed Gino?”

“Always wear a raincoat when you use a shotgun at close range.”

“That’s funny, wear a raincoat huh? I’ll have to remember that.”

“I don’t think you will be around long enough to have to worry about remembering anything,” he said, his smile fading.

“Really, I wasn’t planning on going anywhere. You getting hungry, want to order a pizza?” I said, flashing him a shit eating grin. Cass’ eyes fluttered slowly closed. Blood had soaked through her makeshift bandage and was staining the sofa in an ever widening red blotch.

“I don’t know what game you think you are playing,” he said, “but I can assure you, you will not win. Your kind never do, so perhaps you would like to discuss a fallback plan? One where you don’t necessarily die, maybe even keep the girl if I get certain assurances.” He was treading water, looking for my chink.

“Here’s what I think, pal, I think you’re a dago pussy who kills defenseless animals and people your goons hold down.” His face went red, veins popping in his forehead. I let the .45 drop and hang at my side as I taunted him, “I think you’re a weak freak, a ball-less bastard who should have been stepped on at birth. You’re a spineless little…” Before I could finish he whipped the pistol off of Cass’ head swinging it toward my face. Arcing the .45 up we fired at the same moment. I could see flame spitting out of the barrel of his pistol, flying at me, then I felt a hot burn on my head that spun me backward.

“Moses,” Cass was whimpering as I pulled myself up, crawling to the sofa. My left eye was covered in a stream of free flowing blood. Sabatini was flopped back moaning. The slug had taken a chunk the size of a small apple out of his right shoulder and smeared his chest and face in blood and meat chunks. I ran my hand up my scalp looking for the hole, half expecting to find gray matter leaking out. What I had was a three inch gash, a lot of blood and a headache, but nothing that was going to kill me today. Fastening my trusty bandana around my head to staunch the flow, pirate Moses took a seat on the sofa next to Sabatini. I grabbed his chin forcing his face to look at me.

“Pay real close attention, you are hanging by a fucking thread here, and I’m the fucking thread. Got that you arrogant fuck?” I said, when he didn’t answer quick enough I slapped his face hard enough to knock out a loose filling. Slowly he nodded. “Who did her sister? And don’t even think about lying or I’ll make this slow.” His eyes focused on me.

“Johny B…” he gasped.

“The prep school boy I killed?”

“Yes…” he said.

“Leo? Was he in on it?”

“No, they sent him later.”

“Did you tell them to do her rough, maybe even have them take snaps to prove it?” He just looked at me, fear filling his rabbit eyes, he knew it was over. Slowly a new strength came into his face, as if he had known this day would come and now that it was here maybe it wasn’t that bad. Maybe fear of death is worse than death itself.

“Get it over with,” he said, closing his eyes, settling back into the sofa cushions.

“You think it’s over asshole? It’s just begun. Some hillbilly named Bubba’s gonna make you his wife, bitch,” I said. In the distance I could hear the wail of sirens. “Game’s over pal. I’m taking my pieces and going home.” I picked Cass up into my arms, she was weak and drifting, she nuzzled her face into my neck. I pushed the door open with my foot. Leo was standing guard. He looked into the room at Sabatini’s sunken form, shook his head like it was the outcome he expected. He stepped out of our way giving me a nod that told me he was no threat. From outside tires skidded to a stop and sirens screamed. There was a brief burst of gunfire then none at all.

“Let him walk,” Leo said to the panicked mobsters in the shattered living room. From the porch I could see a Lexus was on fire. The sky was pale blue as dawn broke soft and gentle over the violent scene. Three black Suburbans full of Feds in SWAT gear swarmed over the lawns and into the house. A baby faced officer pointed an assault rifle in my face demanding I get face down. I just kept walking, luckily Sanders arrived before I was shot.

“Jeffery Sabatini just admitted to the murder of Gino,” I said and handed him the digital recorder from my pocket.

He took the recorder and looked at Cass. “Will she make it?”

“She better.”

“Medivac is five minutes out. Your big guy was hit bad.” I turned away, holding Cass to me, her breathing was shallow against my neck. I looked down over the pond, its water mirror still. I didn’t feel flushed with victory, I felt small and helpless against a world that let its most amazing flowers get trampled. A world that ate the young and spit out the bones and left the children of the battle zone to stumble blindly on searching for answers. Answers that never came, or came too late.

Over the hills I could hear the familiar thump thump of a chopper. They set down flattening the grass around them. I ran with Cass to them, lifting her into the waiting arms of the paramedics. She didn’t want to let go of my neck, I had to pull her arms free. I wanted to kiss her goodbye but was pushed aside by a woman bent on saving her life. Two paramedics ran up with Gregor on a stretcher, his chest and left leg were tore up and bled wildly. He looked up as he passed and grinned. “Hell of a party boss, hell of a party,” he said and then closed his eyes. I stood, staring until the chopper was over the hill.

“You were the one who turned Cass onto Sabatini,” I said. Sanders looked past me and didn’t deny it. “Your computer pimp told you about her and you saw an opening.”

“I may have opened the door, but she walked through it willingly.” He still wasn’t meeting my eyes. “And an innocent girl died so you could make a collar. You sleeping well at night?”

“Like a baby. There are no innocents in this game, only differing degrees of guilty.”

“Bullshit, and you know it. So what now, are you going to keep your word and let us fade?”

“Your tape may be enough to get Sabatini to plea out, but if it goes to trail the D.A. will want you and Bette to testify.” His face was still and emotionless, just giving me the facts.

“That wasn’t the deal.”

“So sue me.”

“I don’t think so. Here’s how it’s going down, if any of my people hear from you again, the LA Times gets a package, the recording of you allowing a known felon to plant drugs and kill gangsters. I’ll give them the porno boy you let operate and tell them how you sold out a government witness you were sworn to protect.” I was guessing he had tipped Cass to Gino’s identity, hoping she would witness Gino’s death. Then to keep from being killed herself she would have to turn Sabatini in. Only she had outsmarted them all and run. The twitch developing in the corner of Sanders’ eye told me I had hit the mark. “The marshals aren’t going to be too happy that you screwed up the witness protection plan.”

“You’ll never make it stick.” He wasn’t sounding too sure.

“I don’t have to, the suspicion will be enough to derail any career plans you have.” I had his balls in the ringer. He could either kill me or let us walk clean. He shook his head slowly and walked past me, I followed him down to the house.

The party was over. Sabatini was being loaded into the back of an ambulance, his face covered by an oxygen mask and his hands cuffed. His eyes locked on me for a moment and seemed to say I’ll get you yet. I just shot him the smile of a man who just didn’t give a rat’s ass. The goons not being treated were sitting down in handcuffs.

Bob brought Leo over to Sanders, shoving him forward with a pistol in between his shoulder blades. Leo took it calmly as if it was only a speeding ticket he was facing.

“Says he needs to speak to you,” Bob said.

“He’s one of mine,” I told Sanders, “My inside man.” Sanders looked Leo over with undisguised disgust.

“Fine, take the cuffs off him Bob.”

“If you say so.”

“I do.” Bob told Sanders about the accountant they found in the bathtub who was pleading to sing his heart out. That put the first smile I had seen on Sanders’ face.

“This is turning out to be a banner day,” he said as he and Bob went off to talk to the accountant.

Pulling out onto Skyline the Crown Vic rattled like a mother and the wind whistled through the broken windows, but it ran. God bless Detroit iron.

“Where can I drop you?” I asked Leo as we rumbled along.

“The airport, I think I would like to go home and take a very long bath.”

“You weren’t part of that crew, so what’s the deal.”

“No, I wasn’t part of that mess. My employers sent me out to sweep up, after those idiots bungled a very simple job.”

“When you get home, tell your bosses I’m through. If they want to come after me or mine, then buckle your seat belts, I will not go down lightly.”

“No, that is clear as crystal. From my perspective the less mentioned about you the better. I plan to forget your name the minute I leave this car. As for Mr. Sabatini, after this and what he lost in tech stocks, I suspect he is due for an unfortunate accident while in custody.”

I dropped him at the airport and drove down to Palo Alto. Cass and Gregor were taken to Stanford Emergency. I was told the Justice Department was picking up the tab for the hospital, so maybe Sanders wasn’t a total waste of DNA. Around eleven a young doctor came into the waiting room and told me Cass had lost a lot of blood, the bullet entered above her right breast, but missed the lung. She might lose some strength in her arm but she was going to pull through. Gregor was still in surgery when I finally passed out.

CHAPTER 18

T
he sun shot golden rays out across the bay, white caps danced on waves below as we stood on the Golden Gate Bridge. Cass was in the hospital for eight days, I stayed with her, sleeping on a cot at her side. She woke crying at night and I would hush her back to sleep. Gregor did three days in the I.C.U. and was still laid up with tubes running in and out of him, but he was recovering quicker than any of his doctors expected.

Cass lifted the Marilyn Monroe cookie jar onto the railing, tears filling her eyes. “She always loved this city,” she said.

“It was you Cass, the whole time, Kelly didn’t do any of those things,” I said in a soft voice.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about baby, Kelly…” she drifted off looking out to sea.

“Hell Cass, Kell didn’t even like stripping. You talked her into it. You slept with Gino and then Sabatini. You saw the murder go down. You, not Kelly. She was the soft one, in LA she chose to be a waitress instead of stripping. You chose hooking. She wasn’t hard like you. The girl in the porn, the girl with the fairy tattoo, that wasn’t Kelly, was it?”

“Fuck you Moses. How dare you, here, now? You choose now to pull this?”

“Has to be now, Kelly deserves the truth.” She slapped my face hard, but it didn’t hurt, nothing hurt anymore. I had been through hell and I had finally found Kelly. I couldn’t bring her back, but I had found her. She was the girl I had known, our friendship wasn’t an act or a manipulation. She hadn’t played me, but I had been played. “You ready for the funny part Cass? Your big dark secret is out, and I don’t care.”

“But it’s not true, Mo,” she pleaded.

“You didn’t have to play me… I’d have laid down my life for you, all you had to do was ask.” I pulled her to me kissing her forehead. I let her cry against my chest. When she was done we opened the cookie jar and let the ashes drift out over the bay. The sun was dropping down and city lights were winking on giving the skyline that magic wonderland Oz feeling.

Gregor spent three weeks in the hospital, they would have kept him longer but as soon as he could walk he disappeared from the ward. I left a new black great coat with $5,000 in the pocket for battle pay, on his apartment stoop. Ringing the bell, I walked away. I was proud to have gone to war with him and hoped I never had to do it again.

I combined what was left of the porno boy’s money with that from the Cow Palace parking lot and split it with Cass. Paid off my heartless ex-wife and my debt to the Pope, who on the word of a Chicago lieutenant decided to forgive and forget my fronting him. It might not ever be easy with him again but at least I didn’t have to worry about him clipping me. Eddy The Mechanic still had a place on his dance card reserved for me. Maybe old age would take him before he got to me. Stranger things have happened.

Cass and I loaded up Angel and went down to San Blas for a vacation. We lay on the beach and made love in the moonlight and we never talked about the lies she had told me. For the time it lasted she made me feel young and powerful and good. And on the rainy December night when she left, my little house felt empty and sad. You don’t really know what you’re missing until you’ve had it, like kisses and waking up next to a pretty girl who tells you you’re her man.

I’ve stopped putting guns in my mouth and whiskey in my gut. Somewhere on the road, I had traveled from suicidal to homicidal, not much, but it’s growth. All in all, I have a good life, a dog who adores me, a friend to drink coffee with and another day above ground. For children of the battle zone that’s called winning.