Tales of Chills and Thrills: The Mystery Thriller Horror Box Set (7 Mystery Thriller Horror Novels) (115 page)

In the center of the establishment stood two pool tables
getting some action. Players, bottles, cigarettes, and a couple of over-the-hill
girls still trying to get around the block a few more times, but with lesser
dudes to choose from. The place had that end-of-time look and feel. The last
hurrah.

Sydney had described Dutch as a geeky-looking guy, tall and
skinny. Marco picked him out at one of the pool tables, then went to the far end
of the bar. At a booth, three other guys silently worked on their drinks.

Marco, being a stranger in a local watering hole, was put on
hold by the “busy-in-conversation” bartender, a guy who looked like he’d fallen
off a prison bus, weighed down by excessive tattoos. Marco took the time to
write a note in the small notebook he always carried, then ripped it out.

Finally having decided to wait on the big-hat stranger, the
bartender ambled over, cleaning a glass as he did. “What can I do for you,
partner?”

Marco handed him a note, told him it was important. “Give it
to the tall dude playing pool. The one in the blue shirt. He needs to see this.”

Before the bartender could react one way or another, Marco
placed a twenty on the note, turned, and walked out. The note he’d left was
simple:
Message from Incline. Next week’s Gatsby Gala. Come out back. Now.

***

Sydney sat in the Range Rover fiddling with the .38 and
watching everything and everyone who came near the parking lot. The bar was a
couple blocks from the casinos.

This has to work out with Dutch or we have no chance,
Sydney thought. Marco would be out, and she would be on her way somewhere.

She wondered how long it would be before somebody found
Corbin’s body. And what was Kora thinking, maybe doing? So many things could go
wrong.

Finally, she saw Marco come out and walk back to the SUV. He
leaned in the open window on the driver’s side. “He should be coming out.”

“You talk to him?” Marco looked on edge, as stressed out as
she was.

“No. Left him a note he couldn’t turn down. He brings
trouble, comes out with some friends, it won’t be good.”

“He’s coming out,” she said, her eyes shifting to the bar’s
back door.

Dutch emerged, tucking in his blue, short-sleeved shirt and
hitching up his pants over his skinny hips like maybe it was Thorp himself he
was going to meet. Dutch stopped, looked around. Didn’t look like a guy who
thought his enemies were closing in on him. More like a man who thought he had
life by the balls, and it was about to get better.

“Over here.” Marco said.

Dutch looked his way. “What’s up?” he asked, glancing left
and right.

“I got something for you from the man. Something he wants
you to do.”

Marco held up the small pocket notebook and held it out.

“What’s that?”

“Read it and celebrate your next gig. It’s a Mexican
subpoena,” Marco said with a smile.

“A what?”

Dutch, curiosity getting the best of caution, reached for
the notebook. As his hand closed on the notebook, Marco, apparently in no mood
for pleasantries, came up under it with a short, quick left hook powered by a
strong push off his left foot. Got his whole body into the punch, the fist deep
and hard into Dutch Grimes’ unprotected liver. It took the air out of the man’s
lungs and dropped him like he’d been shot with a heavy-caliber bullet.

The man looked really hurt. He got slowly to a sitting
position. Marco ran a quick weapon’s check and found none. He retrieved the
notebook, then helped Dutch to his feet.

“You’re alive,” Marco said, standing over the guy, looking
around to make sure they were still alone. “Stay that way.”

Marco opened the car door, pushed him into the back seat,
and climbed in with him, a gun stuck in Dutch’s ribs. He then tapped the boy
lightly on the head, enough to keep his attention. “Relax. We’re not here to
kill you.”

Sydney pulled out. “I know your address,” she said. “Show me
the easiest way.”

“Take Ski Run to Needle Park and go left.” He was having a
hard time adjusting to the pain. He hesitated a moment, then said, “Needle to
Keller and go right to Regina. Couple blocks on the right.”

“Now that we’ve been properly introduced,” Marco said,
“let’s have a conversation. Here’s how it goes. You play it my way, you’ll
benefit. And there’s no other way.”

Recovering slowly, the security expert looked past Marco.
His eyes lit up with shock when he finally realized who was driving.

“What,” Sydney said glancing in the rearview mirror, “you
thought I was dead?”

He didn’t reply.

“How are you, Dutch?” Sydney smiled. Then she said, “I’d
answer all this man’s questions if I were you. He’s a really nasty mother when
he’s not angry. Right now, he’s angry, and that just makes him crazy mean.”

Dutch’s eyes shifted from one to the other. He looked sick.
“What is this? What do you want?”

Marco nudged him with the gun barrel. “
No me jodas
.
Which, translated, means don’t fuck with me. Don’t ask questions. Just provide
answers to the ones you’re asked. Got that?”

Dutch stared at him and nodded.

Marco said, “You didn’t answer me. I hate killing people who
don’t need killing, but I get over it. Are we communicating?”

“Yes.”

“Good.”

Whatever testosterone the guy had went underground with the
liver shot, Sydney thought.

“Give up a name,” Sydney said. “You don’t, he’ll take your
balls. You know how these half-Italian, half-Mexican killers are. They like to
cut. You should know the difference between a civilian and a
condottiere.
”

Marco gave her a smile. Bad cop, worse cop.

“Who’s at home?” Marco asked.

“Just my mother. She’ll be asleep. Uses heavy sleeping
pills. She won’t wake up.”

He sounded very cooperative.

Dutch’s small, neat house stood in the pine trees on Regina
Street below the Heavenly Valley ski area.

She glanced at him in the mirror. “You have a problem
gambling? That why they have such a good hold on you?”

He seemed unsurprised.

“Yes.”

They parked and went inside, greeted by two cats.

Marco, a gun in the man’s back, said quietly, “You’re going
to show us everything you have on the electronic security system Thorp’s lawyer
uses at his place. All that high-tech stuff. You were the principle installer,
if my information is right. What company?”

He didn’t like looking at Marco. He looked down and off to
the side. “I worked with a company from San Francisco. Secure Systems
International. SSI. I did the installation for a lot of high-end homes.”

“I want the layout of the lawyer’s house. You can provide me
with that?”

“Yes.”

Once Dutch got into this thing, he was very thorough. He
explained in detail how it all worked and how it could be taken down. He was a
man proud of what he could do with security systems.

“You’re being helpful,” Sydney said. She showed him the
recording she had of his cooperation.

He didn’t like that. “You’re going to get me killed.”

“Not if this never happened.”

“They’ll know.”

“They might not be in a position to do anything to anybody,”
she said. “Just hope we’re successful. If we are, your debt problems will
vanish. I’ll put this with a good friend of mind. He’ll know to destroy it when
I tell him to. In the meantime, best stay sober. You get talking, you might not
like the consequences.”

Marco studied the laptop file with the security info. He had
Dutch show him how to deal with the iControl System Interrupter and the code
sequencer. Strangely, Dutch began to show some enthusiasm, more than just his
pride in a job well done. He was gaining some interest in the caper. He
displayed no great love for Rouse or Thorp.

“Sorry about hitting you hard like that,” Marco said. “I
thought you’d be more resistant.”

“I think I’ll survive it,” Dutch said.

Sydney said, “This works out the way we anticipate, we’ll
have what we want and a hell of a lot of cash. You have gambling debts? House
debts?”

“I do.”

“Maybe a few hundred thousand will help you out?”

“Do more’n help me out. My mother needs some medical stuff
done. It’ll help her out as well.”

“We get what we’re after, well make sure you get reimbursed
for your help. You won’t have to worry about anybody finding out or being able
to do anything. You just have to handle the money with some discretion.”

“I’ll do that.”

He gave them night binoculars, meters, and a commo set so
they could walkie-talkie each other without using the cell phones all the time.
For the torch work he added welding glasses and a powerful torch kit.

He dug out printed Google shots, then made a few notes with
some suggestions how he would approach it. He gave them the control system,
putting it all in a large work bag he used when out on a job. Twice he wondered
out loud if Marco was some kind of ex-soldier or agent or something, given all
he seemed to know. He didn’t get an answer but he seemed intrigued by the idea.

After assurances and warnings, they thanked Dutch for his
cooperation and left.

41

When they pulled away from Dutch’s place well after
midnight, Marco now behind the wheel, Sydney said, “I never saw a man go down so
fast from a single body shot like that. You do some fighting?”

“You don’t fight, you don’t live long in a Mexican prison.
I’m sorry I did it now—he was really helpful. Nothing humbles a man and commands
his attention like a liver shot,” Marco said. “Dutch wasn’t in any kind of shape
to take a punch. It hurts bad, closes the lungs, cripples the will. That was the
shot Bernard Hopkins used to take out Golden Boy, De La Hoya, out in the ninth
at the MGM in Vegas. Another great body-shot-maker was Ricky Hatton. A jaw shot
can knock a man out, but a liver shot cuts a man down.”

They headed up the eastern side of the lake on 50. Marco had
said he wanted to drive past the Thorp and Rouse estates, see what they would be
dealing with.

“How are you doing?” Marco asked.

“I could use a bath, a massage, and a glass of wine.”

“I think we can handle that.”

Sydney felt worse than she was letting on. The fight at
Shaun Corbin’s had aggravated the wounds.

Even with Marco with her, she couldn’t shake the feeling of
being vulnerable. The windows of the SUV were lightly tinted and at night they
were invisible, which helped. But she figured Thorp would bring in all kinds of
security and who knew what else. And she didn’t like his relationship with the
police and sheriffs, especially on the Nevada side—where they were now. Marco
wanted to see if access was feasible by land. If not, they’d have to go in by
boat, which was definitely Sydney’s preference. She wouldn’t have security to
deal with on the lake. And the noise of the party, and the lights, would provide
cover out on the dark lake.

They drove past Zephyr Cove, up past Glenbrook, and through
the tunnel, leaving 50 and heading up 28 past the Ponderosa Ranch turnoff, into
Incline Village and Crystal Bay.

Sydney said, “If we come in by boat, it’ll be right out
there.”

“They really think they can get hold of George Willett’s
Thunderbird Lodge and all that property?”

“They think they can do just about anything. You have the
right friends here, in Vegas, and Washington, there’s no limit to what you can
get away with. You just make deals. Build everything Green to placate the
Greens, and who knows? But they aren’t going to get the chance if I have
anything to do with it. The plan is, they’ll start with the old casinos around
the Cal-Neva. Work from there. I’ll show you the piece of land he wants as his
starter property when we get over there.”

He turned down Shoreline Boulevard in Incline Village.

“Half the homes along here were in foreclosure,” Sydney
said. “Thorp and Rouse ended up with many of them. They’ll be worth a lot more
money once the resort is in place.”

He slowed down on Lakeshore Boulevard. Now they were passing
the big Incline estates. Grand houses behind trees, gardens, gates. No lights on
the street, the residents not wanting the ambiance disturbed by streetlights.

“We have a checkpoint,” she said, “better pull over and
douse the lights.”

A limo passed. “Guests arriving already,” she said.

“They block off a whole street?”

“No, they’re just checking. That gate, that house—what you
can see of it, anyway—is Thorp’s. The next one is Rouse’s. They actually have a
tunnel that connects the two. Rumor has it, he keeps a lion down there just like
the guy who built the Thunderbird Lodge did back in the thirties. George
Whittell brought in Hughes and the movie stars of the day. That’s Thorp’s game
plan. He wants to be George Whittell. The man couldn’t carry Whittell’s piss
bottle. He was the real playboy of the Western world.”

He stared at the houses partially hidden back in the trees,
prime lakefront. They switched places, and she got them back on the road. They
went a few more blocks down Lakeshore Drive, turned up to the next street,
Southwood, and started going back.

“The help they use, Mexicans mostly, live in these apartment
complexes,” Sydney said. “They cut the lawns, do the gardening, run the
households, kitchens.”

“What’s with the satellite dishes?” Marco asked. Every
apartment seemed to have one. They looked like a vertical field of mushrooms.

Many Mexicans were out and about, lots of kids in the street
playing.

“No streetlights?” Marco said.

“No. They city doesn’t allow them. It takes away from the
ambiance.”

They headed back to the Shaw house. Going through the
Cal-Neva highlands, she slowed. “Right up there. Used to be a big casino, then
it was torn down and was going to be rebuilt, but it never was.”