Shot of Tequila (25 page)

Luckily, he didn’t have to. With one final cry, Happy fell over, kicking its three legs out like pistons. Gradually, the kicking slowed down, and then stopped.

Tequila left it there, exiting out the front door of the house. The cold air invigorated him, and the walk back to his car went quickly. Once inside, he popped two new clips into his .45s and then headed back to Slake’s house. He parked in the driveway, popped the trunk, and went to the front door.

Happy, the hound of hell, lunged at him as he entered, the knife still embedded deep in its head.

Tequila shot him seven times, and the dog went down for good. He loaded the suitcases into his trunk, and then left Slake’s house, somewhat surprised that his gunshots hadn’t drawn police. Either the houses were too far apart, or everyone was at work, earning the money needed to live in such a nice suburb.

Tequila drove for a while, looking for a place to rest and a place to stash the suitcases. He realized two things during his wandering. The first was that he had to get some new clothes, because these were so ripped up and bloody he wouldn’t last thirty seconds in public before being arrested.

The second was that he never, ever, under any circumstances, wanted to own a dog.

S
lake headed home for the evening, leaving Marty in the hands of his newest golden boy, that asshole Royce. The way they looked at each other Slake wondered if they were in love. He wished he could end this stupid charade and just take off with the money, but his plan required him to stay with Marty for two more months. Then he could leave, with the Maniac having no idea it was Slake who took the Super Bowl cash.

The whole plan had gone perfectly. He’d set Tequila up, cleared himself, killed his partner, and hid the money without any problem at all. The only loose end was Tequila, but that little son of a bitch would get his soon enough. Once Tequila was dead, Slake had no more worries. Even the witnesses had been eliminated. That moron Matisse had taken care of Tequila’s retard sister, and Slake had killed Tequila’s nosey doorman early this morning, along with the dumb prick’s wife.

When Slake had gone back to Tequila’s apartment to grab his sister, as dictated by Marty, he ran into the cop party going on. Something had gone wrong. So Slake waited, and when he saw Frank the doorman leave with a police escort. Slake followed them home.

Then, when the cops left, he simply knocked on their door. When the woman answered, he cut her throat. Her husband gave him a bit of a chase around the kitchen table, but in the end he caught him too. All the while the coon was pleading with “Mr. Collins” not to hurt him. Slake smiled at the memory.

He drove his silver Monte Carlo at three miles an hour above the speed limit down the expressway, exiting on Route 53 to Palatine Road. Slake liked Palatine. He liked being the snake in a town full of mice. But he had no plans to stay when his two months were up.

Slake was going to Mexico, to a little town called Frendes near the southern border. It was a very poor town; so poor, Slake knew, that families would sell their adolescent children if the price were right. Slake had enough money to buy hundreds of kids, to use and dispose of at his whim. He’d live the rest of his life a happy man.

He pulled into his driveway, opening his garage door with the electronic box on his visor. As the light came on, Slake was hit by a wave of panic. The remaining body parts of his ex-partner were spread out over the workbench, and Slake was positive he’d left them wrapped in a garbage bag.

Slake got out of the car and closed the garage. He took out his 9mm and forced the panic back. If someone had broken in, they’d be dead. His dogs would have taken care of them. There wasn’t a problem.

He went into his house and called.

“Bashful! Doc! Dopey! Grumpy! Happy!”

No dogs came.

Slake called again, but they didn’t run up to greet him as they always did when called.

Full blown fear enveloped Slake, but even stronger than that was the urge to know what was going on. He crept cautiously into the house, his ears peeled, his pistol on full cock.

When he saw the first dog’s body, he went ice cold.

When he saw his attic porthole open, he began to scream.

J
ack Daniels lay awake in bed, staring at the ceiling, mad as hell.

They’d taken her off the case.

At first, she couldn’t believe it when Captain Bains told her. Jack had been pulled from cases before, but only to be put on a more important one. Never, in her entire career as a police officer, had she been yanked because of politics.

Bains had orders from high up. Really high. Jack could see how much her boss hated to pass them along, but the man had a family to feed just like everyone else.

Good old Marty the Maniac had made good on his threat after all. Not only was Jack off the Billy Chico case, she was off the related Binkowski case and the Tequila case.

At first, Jack had raised a proportionate amount of hell. She demanded to know where the order came from. Bains stayed stoic and wouldn’t say. Recognizing futility, Jack relented and chose to take her yearly vacation starting tomorrow.

The ramifications sunk in later that evening. After the obligatory fight with her husband about her long hours, Jack became paranoid. Not about her marriage falling apart, but about the Outfit’s obvious hold over the Chicago Police Department. There was some deeply embedded corruption in the CPD, and no one was trying to stop it.

Well, that ended tonight.

Daniels, like her mother, became a cop because she wanted to make the world a better place. To serve the public. To protect the innocent, and arrest the guilty. She didn’t become a cop to work for mobsters, or to work alongside others who did. This situation needed to be fixed. And the key to fixing it was finding Tequila.

She’d been thinking about it all night, trying to guess what Tequila would do next. Tequila’s stay in the shelter last night proved he wasn’t going to run. He was going to stick around. To avenge his sister’s death. And to do that he’d have to go after the king pin himself. Tequila was going to try for the Maniac.

Let the cops stake out the homeless shelters, waiting for Tequila’s return. Jack was going to stake out Marty Martelli’s place. Maybe it would take some time, but Daniels knew Tequila would make an attempt, and the best place to try for him was at home. At
Spill
, Marty was surrounded by bodyguards, guns, and people. But killing a bear was easy if you got him while hibernating in his cave.

Jack assumed Marty was aware of this as well, and would take appropriate measures. So Jack’s plan was to nail Tequila before he put a foot on Marty’s property.

And once she found him, she’d go to the Feds. They loved being invited to any party that had the faintest whiff of police corruption. Tequila would talk—after all, he wouldn’t have any allegiance to employers who killed his sister and were trying to kill him. Arresting Marty the Maniac would be sweet, but Jack’s real agenda hit much closer to home. She wanted the bad cops. She wanted them so bad she could taste it.

Jack tossed and turned and tossed some more, and sleep and Jack kept orbiting around one another like two sparrows in a death duel. Finally, the Homicide Detective gave up and went to get dressed.

If she was going to stake out Marty the Maniac, she might as well start tonight.

After all, it was her vacation, and she didn’t want to sleep it all away.

She was pulling on a pair of slacks when the phone rang.

“Daniels.”

“Hi, Jack. It’s Herb. Hope I didn’t wake you.”

“You can’t sleep either?”

“Mandatory vacation sounds like it should be heaven, but I feel like my balls were just lopped off.”

“I don’t have balls and I feel the same way.”

“Call me paranoid, but I don’t know who to trust anymore. Except for you.”

Jack was honestly touched. “Thanks, Herb.”

“Don’t take it personally. It’s because you’re a woman and pretty much everyone excludes you from everything. It’s called an
old boys network
, not a
unisex network.
”

“So no one would trust me with mob payoffs.”

“Exactly.”

So much for being touched. “Why should I trust you, then?”

“Because I’m naturally honest. And because I keep you in the loop with all the dirt.”

Jack grinned. “Tell me you’ve got something.”

“You didn’t hear this from me. And I can’t pursue this with you, because the wife got all excited once she heard I had time off and already booked us on a flight to California tomorrow to visit her parents.”

“Spill it.”

“You know district gossip. Well, actually you don’t, because everyone is tight-lipped around you.”

“No one likes me. Got it. Move on.”

“Well, after we got yanked, I made a few
inquiries
.” Herb lowered his voice. “It’s possible the Outfit has the assistant police superintendent in their pocket.”

Jack grunted. “That’s ridiculous. They can’t own someone that high up.”

“This Tequila guy is being charged with not only the Chico murder, but the Binkowski murders, and the murder of his own sister.”

Jack shook her head. “That can’t be right. The evidence—”

“The evidence is
gone
, Jack. And it gets worse. Frank Michaels, the doorman at Tequila’s place, was just found dead in his apartment. His wife too. A neighbor was complaining about the smell and the landlord went in. It happened sometime early this morning.”

“How?” Jack was stunned. They’d been trying to get in touch with Frank all day, to ID Hector Slake’s picture. But Jack hadn’t guessed the man was dead.

“Knife. Probably the thin guy who killed China Johnston and Mitch Comsteen.”

“Hector Slake.”

“Could be. We’ll never know now, without a witness to ID him. We should have put someone on him right away.”

“Especially after the Binkowski murders. Goddammit, Herb, why weren’t we thinking?”

“We did think. We had men on Frank Michaels, but just too late. Who would have figured they’d go after the doorman, Jack? This is turning into a 1930’s gangster movie.”

“They charge Tequila with this one too?”

“No. They’re calling it a murder/suicide. But I talked to the Homicide dick in charge. Woman was stabbed eighteen times. Man was stabbed through the
eye
. How many people off themselves with a knife through the eye?”

Jack felt her stomach drop. “Maybe you’re right to get out of town, Herb.”

Herb laughed. “I’m leaving because of Bernice, not because I fear for our lives. I think we’re safe, Jack. Cops may turn a blind eye for some cash, or cover up some Outfit business, but I can’t picture boys in blue killing one another.”

“How about girls in blue?”

Herb was silent.

“Thanks for the word, Herb. If you hear anything else, let me know.”

“I’ll keep my ears open. And… be careful, Jack.”

Daniels hung up, the weight of two more souls heavy on her conscience. Frank must have been killed shortly after coming up with the Identikit drawing of the thin man calling himself Mr. Collins. How could Jack have known they’d get to him that quickly?

But she should have known. She should have put a watch on him.

Not that it would have mattered. If the corruption went that high up, there’s nothing she could have done.

But there was something she could do now.

Jack found a shirt and worked her way into it. She put on her heavy coat, grabbed her gun, some extra speed-loaders, and her stake out kit, which was a bottle of water, three candy bars, and a coffee can to piss in. Then she left the apartment.
.

The cold, freezing night welcomed her as she got on her way.