Lucky Bang (11 page)

A cold dread bloomed in the pit of my stomach. "I see. Did she happen to be pregnant?"

"Oh, she claimed she was. But it was an act of desperation, we all thought so."

"So nobody believed her?" I looked at both Mona and Jimmy G. They glanced at each other and shrugged. "Sorta coincidental we're dealing with a bomber named Albert Campos, isn't it? And Albert? Interesting choice for a first name, don't you think?"

"That doesn't mean the Big Boss is his father," Jimmy pointed out.

"No. But that's easy enough to prove. And it certainly indicates young Albert's mother thought so, or wanted us to think so, anyway. What happened to Ms. Campos?"

"She left town," Jimmy stated.

"Anybody know where she went?" I glanced between the two of them. "Did anyone hear from her after the fact?"

Silence.

I fixed Mother with my best stare. "I need an honest answer here."

"Honey, believe me. I wish I could tell you someone did." From the panic in her eyes, I could tell Mona and I were reading from the same page. "But as far as I know, she just disappeared."

"There seems to be an epidemic of that going around, doesn't there?"

Jimmy gave me a lopsided grin. "Hey, it's Vegas."

I didn't think he was funny.

All sound seemed to be chewed up in the gristmill of overactive imaginations, leaving an uncomfortable silence. Vegas lore was replete with stories of 'disappearances', of finding bleached bones in the desert decades later. What if the Big Boss… No. Not possible. A cool draft, as if a ghost whispered in my ear, sent chills racing through me. I didn't like it—in fact, I didn't like any of this.

"Anybody have any ideas?" Uncomfortable with my own thoughts, I threw out the question.

Seven sets of eyes stared at me.

No ideas. No plan. The Big Boss had disappeared. And his self-proclaimed son wandered Vegas with a stick of dynamite, the knowledge necessary to put it to use, and an axe to grind. Silence echoed as I presumed we all pondered the imponderable.

All heads turned as a raised voice, angry with a hint of fear, echoed in the hallway outside my office. "Careful. I paid a hundred bucks for this suit."

"You won't be needin' it in the pokey, bloke." Jeremy! "But if you keep causing me trouble, I'm gonna shove this boot up your ass."

Jerry sprang to his feet and bolted through the door—misbehaving was part of his bailiwick.

Miss P shot me a grin. "He has a nice way with people."

Before I could even cogitate on a clever retort, a man staggered unceremoniously into our group as if he'd been shoved from behind, which I suspected was the case. Jeremy loomed in the doorway behind him with Jerry bringing up the rear.

Surprise flashed across the Aussie's face as he realized he had an audience. "Convenient that you're all here." His eyes singled me out as he gestured toward the man he held. "I brought you a present."

"My birthday is coming up. Thanks for remembering. But what should I do with him?"

I leaned my head sideways trying to catch the man's eyes, which remained fixed on his shoes. Short, balding, in a hundred-dollar suit that had brown stains splattered down the front, but with an expensive watch and shined shoes, he had a trying-too-hard air about him.

Jimmy G pushed himself from the wall and stepped toward the man who now stood in the middle of the room, encircled by all of us. "Boogie? Is that you?"

The man raised his head. As he did so and we got a good look at him, a collective gasp filled the room. The man had been savagely beaten—one eye was black-and-blue and swollen shut, the other, only slightly less damaged. His lower lip, twice it's original size and marred by an open red split, oozed blood, which he nervously licked.

"Jeremy?" Miss P asked, her shock evident.

"I found him this way."

"Boogie, it
is
you." Jimmy G had stepped in front of the man, putting them nose-to-nose.

"Yeah, it's me." Boogie Fleischman growled in a voice that was far deeper and resonant than expected from such a small human.

Jeremy prodded Boogie's shoulder. "You want to tell them what you told me?" Even though it was framed as such, it was not a question.

"Look, all I did was get to telling stories."

Jeremy shot him a look. "Start at the beginning."

Boogie started again. "Okay, maybe I talk too much, okay? The kid got me talkin' about old times, remembering like."

"And…?" Jeremy prompted.

Boogie waffled for a minute as I held my breath. From the intent looks around the room, it seemed everyone else was hanging on his words as well. "Okay, I got to bragging a bit."

"And…?" Jeremy clearly had more patience than I did.

"We got to rigging explosives, like I used to do." Boogie ground his toe into the hardwood flooring.

"We?" I asked. "We who?"

"Me and the Campos kid."

"You son of a bitch!" Jimmy shouted as he launched himself at Boogie. The two men fell in a tangle of limbs with Jimmy on top. He reared back, as if in slow motion, then launched a haymaker at Boogie's head. Pulling his arms protectively in front of his face, Boogie shielded himself.

With one fluid movement, Dane launched himself, straddled the tangled men, grabbed Jimmy by the shirt collar, and lifted him off Boogie. With a practiced motion, he set him on his feet, then held him there. "Enough, big guy."

Jerry helped Boogie to his feet, then put himself between Boogie and Jimmy G.

"But he blew up my place," Jimmy spluttered.

"Not personally but, in a manner of speaking, you're right," I said, finally finding my voice. "You wouldn't happen to have mentioned the location of your old stash of bomb parts to the young Mr. Campos, would you?"

Boogie ground the toe of his shoe into the carpet. "I said a lot of stuff."

I took that as a yes. "And the papers in the briefcase?"

"Letters Eugenia had given me. She wanted me to get rid of all of it."

"Why?"

He looked up. When he answered my question, he didn't look at me. Instead, he stared at Mona. "They proved Albert Campos wasn't the Big Boss's kid."

Something tight loosened inside me. "Truth. Such a hindrance to blackmail." But Albert had to know that these days DNA could solve that issue pretty easily."

"Crazy people do crazy things." That bit of wisdom came from Boogie—he should know.

"It doesn't add up. Something's bothering me, but I can't put my finger on it." I looked at Mother. "We may know the truth, but Albert Campos is still operating under his mother's lies."

"You gotta believe me! I had no idea he would do any of this." Boogie didn't even try to keep the beg out of his voice. "When Jimmy's place blew, I had a real bad feeling. I was on my way here to shut the kid down when that…guy," he tilted his head toward Jeremy, "waylaid me."

"Why were you coming here? To warn the Big Boss?"

Boogie looked at me like I'd lost my mind. "Albert? Of course not. I was coming to warn
you
."

I leaned back as if I'd been slapped. "Me?"

"This is the second time a Campos has tried to kill you." Boogie's eyes—okay, the open one—bored into me. "With you out of the way, he thinks he's Albert Rothstein's only heir."

Mona gasped. "Kill Lucky?" Then her hand flew to her belly. It wasn't hard to read her mind.

"Mother, relax, I don't think that's his game. He knows he's not the Big Boss's son, and he knows it would be easy to prove. No, he's after something else." I tried to see the whole puzzle—it was there—but I couldn't. "High math isn't my strong suit but, given Mother's age when she met Father, and my age when the first bomb blew, Albert Campos is only five years older than me, six max. I don't know too many nine or ten-year-olds who have the bomb making skill set. Do you?"

"It wasn't the kid who tried the first time." Jimmy G glanced around the group. "It was his mother." His eyes locked on Boogie. "Tell 'em, Boogs."

After a moment of vacillation, Boogie dove in. "Eugenia played all the angles." Dane rose and offered Boogie his seat, which I thought was gallant of him. Boogie did look a bit worse for wear. He accepted Dane's offer with a nod, then a cringe. Once settled in the chair, he began again. "Her best play was gettin' guys over a barrel, and then squeezing their balls until they screamed."

"A real peach," I groused. "The Big Boss would never fall for that."

"His first and last time," Jimmy G added. "He always did learn things the hard way. Guess we all did."

"Boogie, finish your story," Mona prompted.

He shifted uncomfortably in the chair. "As I was sayin', Eugenia could get pretty much anybody to do pretty much anything."

As I looked at him, the light dawned—just a glimmer, but it was there. I leaned toward him and lowered my voice. "You taught her how to make that bomb, didn't you?"

Boogie's eyes wouldn't meet mine. A bead of sweat trickled down the side of his face.

"You taught her, then you took the fall. Why?"

Finally, he looked up. Licking his lips, he glanced around the room. "I loved her."

"Even when she loved someone else?"

"Hey, love ain't some two-way street you know."

"Pretty profound for a two-bit hood," I spat, I don't know why.

"Life has a way of grinding stuff into you." Boogie pulled himself up, regaining a bit of bravado. "I loved her. And back then, I wasn't above letting her erase my competition. I'm not proud of it. Stupid and shortsighted, I know. Love does crazy things."

I couldn't keep the sarcasm out of my voice. "This is like a B movie."

Mona reached over and patted my hand. "Honey, back then, Vegas
was
a B movie."

"Boogie may have tried to kill you, sorta secondarily-like, but he had noble motivation," Jimmy added, as if love was an exoneration for attempted murder which, between you and me, was an interesting premise. If it was, the gene pool would be whittled down significantly.

"And that makes everything fine," I countered. "So no one knows what happened to Albert's mother?" I caught a glance between Jimmy and Boogie.

"What? Tell me."

"Eugenia had the baby while Boogie was in jail," Jimmy explained, his voice strong with the story. "She hung around for awhile, but ten years was a long time to wait."

Boogie jumped in. "Eight. I got out early on account of good behavior."

"So she took her shot at killing Lucky or Mona—either one, I don't think it mattered." Jimmy continued after silencing Boogie with a look. "Then she took the kid and disappeared. She'd taken a shot at Albert Rothstein. She wasn't no fool. She ran and she ran fast."

"Did you try to find her?" I asked Boogie.

"I thought about it. But if she'd wanted me to find her, she woulda told me where to look." Heartbreak hung heavy in every word.

God help me, but I felt sorry for him. "And young Albert? How'd he come into your life?"

"About ten years ago, he came knocking on my door."

"Just like that?"

"Yeah, weird, isn't it?" Boogie tried to grin, then thought better of it when the skin on his lips stretched the split already there. "I took him in. No questions."

I glared at Boogie. "And you filled his head with stories…and instructions."

His smile fled. "Like I said, the kid got me talking."

I leaned back and closed my eyes, trying to think—pretty hard to do when all I saw was red. The past—no matter how far you run, it'll always catch you and bite you on the ass. But if all this was true, it supported the facts Flash had ferreted out of Crayfish Crider. Opening my eyes, I surveyed the group. "So Albert is from a short line of petty hoods and extortionists who want me out of the way so he can move higher on the food chain. How clichéd."

"Honey," Mona said, in that irritating, placating tone she sometimes adopted. "It's Vegas."

"Would you people stop saying that? It is
not
Vegas, at least not the Vegas I know." I looked around the group for support. Finding a few nods but little else, I forged ahead, building steam. "Look, the bottom line is, we need to find Albert Campos before he blows up something, or someone else."

"We know he's after you," Dane added quietly.

I knew he would only offer me as bait if no other alternative presented itself, so I didn't hold it against him. From where I was sitting, I thought we were out of options, too.

Boogie nodded as his eyes bored into mine. "He's right. If you want to find Campos, I'd be looking over my shoulder, if I were you."

"Lucky, where're you supposed to be tonight?" Dane asked, his eyes intense, his voice hard.

"On the roof with the VIPs." Like a kill shot from a sniper rifle, the ordinary part of my real life hit me between the eyes. "Shit, what time is it?"

"Almost nine," Miss P answered with a worried edge to her voice. "You better hurry."

"Sending me into harm's way?" I kidded.

"You'll do it anyway. Arguing about it would waste time we don't have." She turned and grabbed Dane with one hand and Jeremy with the other. "If anything happens to her…"

"Boogie," Mona said, her voice soft. "Who did that to you?"

"I had it comin'." Boogie squirmed as he looked at her.

She cocked an eyebrow at him. "No doubt. But I need to know."

"Your husband, ma'am."

"The Big Boss did this to you?" I don't think I kept the awe out of my voice.

"He doesn't cotton to anyone comin' after his own." That was probably a gross understatement, but I didn't think I needed to point that out.

Mona swallowed hard. Her internal struggle bloomed across her face when she looked at me. "He'll kill him, Lucky."

"Over my dead body." Okay, perhaps that wasn't quite the quip I was reaching for, but I didn't have time to correct it. I squeezed Mother's shoulder as I moved to step by her. "Don't worry. We'll both be fine. And I won't let him kill Albert Campos."
If I could find him in time
, I thought, but didn't think Mona needed to hear that part.