SHANK (A Wilde Crime Series) (11 page)

Clair and Frankie both
laughed.

Burgess turned red.
“You all think you’re so fucking smart. Once I gather enough evidence to arrest you, I’ll be back, and it won’t be just you taking the fall. Your little partners in crime here,” his eyes flashed to Frankie and then to Clair, “will be taking the trip downtown too.” Abruptly he turned on his heel and slammed out the door. It closed with a thud that echoed in the silence.

“I don’t know what’s going on, but pissing that man off is a bad idea
.” Clair shook her head, blonde curls danced around her face.

“He’s n
ot the one I’m worried about.” My gaze fell on Frankie.

She closed her eyes.
“Sal.”

I n
odded. As soon as Sal found out Nick was dead, we were fucked.

“You’re fucked, my boy.” Billy took a long swallow from the Coors longneck in his meaty palm.

So much for paternal conc
ern. “Thanks. I hadn’t realized.”

“Smartass.” Billy smacked me in the back of the head. “
No wonder why everyone wants you dead.”

“Sorry,” I said
with even less sincerity but Billy chose to ignore it.

“A long vacation to Grand Cayman doesn’t seem like such a bad idea.”

“How did you know about that?” I wasn’t that surprised. Billy knew everything that went on in the Kitchen. When I was growing up that sixth sense had cost me a few belts whips across the back, but it had also saved my ass a few times too. 

He
glanced around the bar. “Where’s that redhead? You have to keep an eye on women like her, son.” Billy had been and always would be a ladies man. At sixty-two, he had no desire to slow down, even with my mom’s constant nagging. She worried over his cholesterol, drinking, and stressful lifestyle but Billy just laughed her off. He claimed good genes, Cuban cigars, and Irish whiskey kept him young. He hadn’t dropped dead yet, so I didn’t argue the point.

“When
are you gonna marry Frankie? It better be soon before she realizes she’s too good for the likes of you.” He waggled his thick black eyebrows. 

“It’s not like that.” I took a swig of beer
, hoping to end the discussion of marriage or Frankie. She already was featured in way too many of my thoughts, usually of the late at night, naked variety.

Billy scratched his chin.
“She’s living with you, ain’t she?”

“For a while.” I paused
. “She’s had it rough the last few days.”

“Way I hear it
she ain’t the only one.” He slowly placed the brown bottle on the tabletop. “Do you have a death wish? Didn’t I raise you better than that?”

My m
om had raised me, but I let it pass. “I’m going to say this once,” I said, my eyes boring into his. “I did not kill Nick DeMarco, but I’m not sorry he’s dead.”

He nodded.
“Sal will come after you, boy. I can’t protect you no more.”

“
Let him come.”

Billy shook his head with what I guessed was disgusted.
“He’ll come at you sideways. It’s his way.” If anyone knew how Sal would react, it was Billy. They’d spent the last forty years in the same gangster circles, building criminal enterprises under each other’s watchful gaze. Until Chris’s murder and my incarceration, some might have mistakenly called them friends. They weren’t but neither had wanted an all out gang war. Bad for business.

“I’ll watch my back,” I
said.

“It’s not
your back that needs watching.” He gestured around the bar. “You’re Typhoid Mary, boy. Anyone who gets too close is gonna die.”

I thought of Frankie’s battered face. “I won’t let that happen.”

“You ain’t gonna have a choice.”

T
he blast of AK-47 fire cut Billy’s words off. Bullets smashed into the wood above our heads. The front windows exploded. Bits of glass showered us, puncturing the thin cotton of my t-shirt. I threw myself at Billy, knocking him from the barstool, as another volley ripped apart the table where we’d sat moments ago. We hit the floor with a thud. Pain tore across my chest as Billy landed hard on top of me. I scrambled across the floor and around the bar. The shotgun hidden on the other side was my intended target. If I could get to it, we had a chance. Not a good one, but I was willing to risk it.

My fingers curled around the stock of the sawed-off
. I hoped like hell Frankie had remembered to load it. I pumped it once, listening for the telltale ping of a cartridge sliding into the chamber. Another round of automatic fire echoed through the bar, ripping apart the staircase. A few feet away, Merv and another regular, Paul, huddled under a table. Their bloodshot eyes filled with fear. I motioned for them to stay low, and peeked over the bar. A haze of smoke and dust flooded the room. The burning stench of gunpowder floated through the missing windows.

Through the
cloud I saw three of Sal’s goons approaching, each carrying a high-powered rifle. Fuck. The outline of the first man appeared in the doorway, and I fired. The roar of the shotgun deafened me. The buckshot caught him in the midsection, leaving an ten-inch hole. The momentum forced him backward through the door. He landed dead, face up on the pitted sidewalk, blood leaking into the gutter next to him.

“Watch your back,” Billy yelled
from the side of the bar. He fired his weapon, a snub-nosed .38. A man behind me screamed and dropped to the floor with a loud crash. I didn’t bother to look. I pumped the shotgun again, waiting for the last two goons to make a move. Sirens sounded in the distance. Another round of bullets smashed into the bar. Bottles exploded and the jukebox took a few rounds before blowing up, glass and sparks shooting from it. Outside the air crackled with a new sound. Tech-nines. Tires squealed and then everything went silent. Eerie silent. Dead silent.

I
sat behind the bar with the shotgun at ready.

“Ian? You alive
, man?” A small, dark head peered around the corner of the door.

“Joey Dean?”

“Yeah, it’s me.” He took a step inside, glass crunched under his undersized feet. “Man, they really shot the shit out of this place.”

I stood
, wincing at the destruction surrounding me. The front windows were gone. Glass and plaster covered the floor. Black bullet holes creased the walls in various shapes and random patterns. I stepped through the piles of broken beer bottles and busted tables toward the front door and the dead guy in the street. Outside Joey Dean, his brother and ten other gang bangers stood around with enough firepower to take over a small country.

“Thanks.” My eyes
focused on the face of each kid. A bunch of sixteen-year-old drug dealing, dropouts had saved my ass. It was humbling.

“Nobody fucks with my ‘hood,” Joey Dean’s brother spat and walked away. The rest of the g
roup followed, tugging at their sagging pants.

Joey Dean stayed at my side.
“Frankie really ain’t going to like this.”

“What she doesn’t know won’t hurt her.”
Or me for that matter.

“I think she’ll notice.”

“I think you’re right.”

Billy walked from the bar as I finished that statement. A
trail of blood ran from a cut on his forehead down his cheek. He wiped it away with the edge of his flannel shirt. “I hear the islands are nice this time of year.”

******

The next day Frankie stood in front of Drew’s car and stomped her foot like a child. “I won’t go.” I ignored her, as I had the last three times she said it. I wasn’t in the mood to argue. She would do as I wanted, simple as that. I grabbed her suitcase and loaded it into the car before shutting the trunk with a loud bang. I opened the passenger side door and gestured for her to get in. She shook her head. I took a menacing step toward her.

“Back off,” she warned. “I mean it, Ian. I am not going into hiding.”

“I don’t have time for this shit, Frankie. Get in the fucking car.”

She shook her head. “No.”

Without another word I hefted her over my shoulder while doing my best to avoid her flailing fists and feet. I crammed her into the car. Once she was stuffed inside, Mickey held her shoulders as I slid into the driver’s seat. Her shrieks of outrage reached ear-splitting levels.

“Sis, please,
” Mickey begged as she continued to struggle. “Ian and I have to go out of town until this blows over. If we don’t leave he’s going back to the joint. Do you want that?” She was too busy fighting us to call Mickey’s bluff. It was true. The cops were looking for me, but not too hard. Billy had deep pockets after all and bribery was a second language in the Kitchen.

She blew out a harsh breath.
“Of course not, but what does that have to do with me?”

“You’re in danger and we can’t be here to protect you.”

“So your
brilliant idea is to hide me at Colin and Zoë’s, endangering both of them while you two geniuses skip town?” She snorted. “Some plan.”

I laughed
, swinging to the left lane to pass a mini-van packed with kids. Traffic on the 495 was heavy, but it usually was at this time of day. I turned up 11th Avenue and gave Frankie a sideways look. “We’ll be back in four days. Try not to kill anyone while we’re gone.”

“Look who’s talking
,” she mumbled under her breath. So far we’d avoided talking about Nick, but it was like a bad omen surrounding us. She rested her head against the passenger side window. “Does Colin know what’s going on?”

“No.
” I grinned at her calculated expression. “He knows you’re in trouble and that under no circumstance are you allowed to leave his loft.” Without taking my eyes off the road, I took her chin in my hand and gave it a gentle squeeze. “I’m not fucking around, Frankie. Stay inside and out of trouble.”

Fifteen minutes later we arrived uptown at Co
lin’s newly purchased loft. Zoë greeted us at the door, her face drawn and pale. Yet it lit up with a genuine smile when she saw our rag-tag bunch. Zoë pulled me into a hug. “It’s so great to see you. Come in.”

“Sorry about the short notice.
” I shoved Frankie through the door. “My place is being exterminated and Frankie needs a place to crash.” The look of disgust that crossed Frankie’s face was laughable. 

“No problem.”
Zoë gestured for us to sit. “You’re welcome to stay as long as you need.” Hell if I was Frankie I’d have jumped at the offer. Their loft was much nicer than my cramped apartment. I glanced at Colin’s fender guitar and the mess of books still packed in their shipping boxes. Guess Colin had better things to do than unpack. My eyes fell on Zoë’s limber body, and I smiled. Yep, better things. “Colin home?” I asked, hoping that he wasn’t. Colin could see right through me. If he knew what I was after he’d try to stop me. To him that money was tainted with evil, and my going after it would end in disaster.

Zoë gave a small cough.
“No, he’s at the studio. He’ll be sorry he missed you.”

“I’ll check in with him later,” I lied.
Frankie would be safe here, and that was what mattered.

“By the way,
have you seen Clair?” Zoë asked, her face tight with concern.

“No, have you?
” In my book, lying to Zoë sure as hell trumped telling her the truth. Frankie gave me a dirty look, but kept quiet. Too quiet. Alarm bells rang in my head, and I felt like my house of cards, so careful built, was about to crumble.

“I was sure Clair would have called by now.” Zoë gave a vague wave.

“Don’t worry about her. She’ll turn up.” She had better turn up at the airport. Our plane left in less than two hours. Clair was our one shot at getting the cash. If she flaked out the whole deal would be off.

Zoë gave me a
hard look. “I’m sure she will.”

“I hate to cut this short,” I glanced at my watch, “
but I have to meet with the exterminator.”

“Good luck.
” Zoë smiled, coldly. “Roaches have a way of showing up when you least expect it.”

What exactly did she mean by that? My eyes stared in
to hers, but she didn’t flinch. A hell of a poker face. I opened the front door and glanced back at Frankie. “Behave.”

“Be careful,” she answered.

“You have a lot of faith in women. Much more than I do,” Drew said to me an hour later. We were sitting in the airport bar waiting for the rest of the gang. It was crowded and noisy, even for the mid-afternoon. I took a sip of an eight-dollar longneck and glanced around. Executives in cheap suits drank vodka martinis, bloodshot eyes glued to the ticker at the bottom of the television screen. Every so often their eyes would drift to where we sat. I’d smile and they’d flinch and look away.

“
Faith? What are you talking about?” I hadn’t been paying much attention to what Drew was saying. A mistake to be sure, but Clair was late, and that put me on edge. I glared at my watch.