The car's front end rose and for a brief instant, Loreli nearly screamed, convinced that the little car was going to flip right over and turtle. But it didn't. Suddenly, she was climbing the embankment, accelerating rather than slowing. She flew over the curb and bounced onto the service drive. The Camry groaned. Loreli thought she heard metal popping, imagined all kinds of horrible damage being done to the underbelly of the car. But then she straightened out and caught up to the traffic ahead, blended the Camry into the middle of the pack.

  Only then did she take a quick look over her shoulder.

  The Taurus was nowhere in sight.

  Chapter 27

  “He’s dead and I’m still not happy!” Vincenzo Romano’s voice thundered through the great room of his mansion.

  “Easy, Vincent,” said Gloria. “You’re not supposed to get so upset after…“ She stopped short, but it was too late.

  “After what?’

  “Nothing.”

  Romano poured a glass of sherry from the bottle on the mantle. He was breathing heavily, the air leaving his nose in cottony gushes. He filled the glass, put the bottle back on the shelf, leaned his head back and took a long drink. He looked around the room, attempting to find solace, but seeing none. Gloria was sitting in one of the living room’s easy chairs. She was wearing black slacks and a white sweater that clung to her sculpted body. Her head was cocked to one side and she seemed to be observing him with feigned interest.

  Romano paced around the great room. It was big, nearly four hundred square feet. More so than his study, the great room was his room. A big space for big ideas. It was here that he hatched the thrillingly devious plan to whack a young, eager DA by having his guys dress up like hunters and follow the attorney into the woods on opening day of deer season. The .30-06 had blown a hole in the Yale grad big enough to hold the 400-page deposition he was planning against Romano.

  A deposition that never got filed after the "accident."

  Romano stood before the seven-foot fireplace, a roaring fire throwing flickering orange light on his thick face.

  He glanced up at the room's thick ceiling beams, the elaborate crown molding. Through the living room’s floor-to-ceiling picture windows, Lake Michigan could be seen. The water was rough today, he could see the whitecaps, could almost hear the pounding of waves on the beach a mere hundred yards away.

  He shook his head. It just wasn’t turning out to be a good week.

  “You’re not supposed to drink so much," Gloria said. Romano turned, ready to bite her head off, but she was there, with the sherry and refilled his glass. "But the circumstances seem to call for it, no?"

  Romano sighed heavily. Gloria produced a glass for herself and filled it to the halfway point. She returned the bottle to the shelf and came back to Romano's side. They stood side by side in front of the window. Though the glass was bulletproof and three inches thick, the quality of the view was excellent, breathtaking at dawn and sunset.

  Before them, on the lake, a freight ship slowly made its way across the vista. Vincent watched the outline of the ship, sketched in by its bow and stern lights. He felt a small satisfaction registering with him. He got a small cut on all Milwaukee harbor traffic, and there was a lot of it. Every ship that went by was a little bit of money in his pocket. It made the view a little bit prettier for him, a factor he’d taken into consideration when he bought the mansion several years ago.

  Romano took a small sip of sherry. He let the amber liquid roll on his tongue before swallowing.

  “Why don't you go powder your nose?"

  Gloria left.

  Romano needed to think. He crossed the room and took Gloria's place on the chair. It was still warm from her body, but Romano didn't notice.

  He looked into the fire and wondered, had Jack Cleveland crossed him? Or had it been the black woman Jack had checked into the hotel with? He hoped it wasn’t Jack. Jack was a pro, and not someone Romano ever wanted to tangle with. Had to be the bitch.

  Romano put his glass on the small table next to his Stickley club chair, picked up the phone. We'll start with her, he thought. If she doesn't have it....

  Romano thought back to the phone call. Jack had said it went off without a hitch, that he'd whacked Abrocci but there was no suitcase. No sign of the cash or the supposed evidence that Abrocci had gotten on Romano.

  He wondered if Jack had ever let the black bitch out of his sight. It was doubtful. Jack was just too careful, too smart.

  So did that mean Jack had taken the money?

  Romano didn't think so.

  Still, he thought, people have been known to change.

  He thought about it some more, wrestling with the sequence of events, visualizing the moves and countermoves, determining the end result he wished for, then planning the best route to arrive there.

  Ten minutes later, Romano punched in the numbers on the cell phone from memory. A dark blossom of fear had begun to burgeon in his belly. He didn't like what he was about to do, but he'd arrived at the only means of attack that would give him the results he wanted.

  Romano remembered the last time he used the Spook. It had been like a tornado tearing through a small town. Romano was surprised they didn't find livestock in trees, or someone's couch a mile from their home. It hadn't been a bloodbath, it'd been a goddamned blood whirlpool. Afterward, Romano had spent a week going to funerals. He shook his head at the memory of the Spook's handiwork. The man just didn't have one single goddamned ounce of restraint.

  He punched in the rest of the numbers, waited for a beep, then left the message that would be passed along to an anonymous intermediary before being delivered to the Spook. Romano guessed that's how it worked, the Spook was as mysterious as they came.

  After he left the message, he hung up the phone, poured another small glass of sherry and adjusted his bandage, wincing in pain.

  He imagined the message going to the Spook. Wondered at what kind of mess was about to explode.

  “Hold on," he said to the empty room. "We’re about to dance with the Devil himself.”

  Chapter 28

  Amanda Rierdon stood over the corpse in Room 912 of the Prescott Hotel. She gripped the cell phone in her hand with bone-crushing strength. Her face was red, her eyes blazing at full wattage. “Damn it, Macaleer!” she shouted into her cell phone. Her fingers wrapped even tighter around the phone, the plastic casing gave a slight pop at the pressure. Her knuckles were stark white, their seams a crimson red. “I’m tired of your pathetic excuses!”

  She bent her head to listen to the response coming from the other end of the phone, her shoulders stooped, her neck straining, as if she were directing every ounce of her energy into the phone's tiny mouthpiece.

  “Listen,” she continued, using the license plate information Macaleer had provided. “Her name is Loreli Carson. Here’s her address.” She read the information to him. “Drive there and wait.”

  She thumbed the disconnect button and started to slam the phone down on the room’s desk, but stopped herself in time. The people from the lab would be here soon and they would comb every inch of this place to get any kind of clue as to who had whacked Abrocci.

  Her hands went to her temples and she rubbed. Her face was red, but as she rubbed, it slowly turned pink. She heaved a deep sigh and turned to the slim black man waiting quietly with more printouts.

  “What do you have, Rupert? Please let it be good.”

  “Loreli Carson.” He read her address and social security number. “She works for Ryson, Butters & Mahoney, a local law firm. Makes $28,000 a year. Has a son named Liam. He was born eight years ago. She drives a 1986 Toyota Camry.”

  “Drugs?”

  Rupert shook his head. “No record of any recent criminal activity.”

  “What about not-so-recent?”

  “Five years ago, she was brought in for questioning regarding a prostitution ring.”

  Rupert hurried on. “She was simply questioned and released. No charges were brought against her. She was married seven years ago, divorced six years ago.”

  “Where’s her ex-husband?”

  Rupert looked over the papers in his hand. “We don’t have anything on him yet.”

  Rierdon paced around the room. She cursed her luck. She had an image of Vawter leering at her, holding up the newspaper featuring her exploits in huge block type.

  “She’s a part-timer,” Amanda said.

  “Part-timer?” Rupert asked.

  “She hooked in the past, quit, and now she needs money, or she got bored, so she went back to hooking. That’s what she was doing here.”

  “But-”

  “But why did she leave with the man who must have been the hitter?” She mulled it over in her mind. “Why didn’t he just whack her, too? And why did she run? Because she was hooking?"

  The room was silent. The three of them looked down at the dead man. The blood had pooled around his head. The hole was in the middle of his forehead like smudge from Ash Wednesday.

  "Tommy you are an idiot," Rierdon said.

  Chapter 29

  There weren't many pimps in Milwaukee, and Rhonda was known to the wiseguys in the Mob. Tommy had gotten her name from a buddy who'd told him if he wanted to score young, fresh college girls, this was the woman to see. Tommy had met her, but it had been a few years ago.

  He pulled up in front of a small house in the middle of a block that looked like every other block within two square miles. The only difference was this house had a lawn ornament. A bird feeder with one of those big balls on top that looked like a purple bowling ball. This was it.

  Tommy parked the car on the street to make it just a little bit more difficult for the neighbors to see the license plate, just in case things got a little messy.

  He walked up the brick-paved sidewalk and knocked on the door. While he waited, Tommy breathed deeply, taking in the scent from the shrubs hugging the house's foundation. A squirrel peeked around the corner of the house and looked at Tommy.

  "Piss off," Tommy said. The squirrel disappeared.

  “Good morning,” a voice said.

  Tommy turned, smiled easily at the woman whose face was smiling tentatively at him. She had watery blue eyes and sagging cheeks. Deep lines creased her neck and forehead. Even her chin sagged slightly.

  “I’ve come back for seconds.”

  She laughed and undid the chain. “Tommy, right?"

  "Guilty as charged."

  "Come on in. You want something to drink?”

  “No thanks."

  Tommy followed her into the house. She closed the door behind him and walked toward the kitchen. Tommy checked out the place. The living room was small with blue carpeting. The couch and armchair had matching floral upholstery. A bookshelf with mirrors held hundreds of tiny figurines. A grandfather clock stood silently in the corner, its pendulum swinging gently back-and-forth. It reminded Tommy of his grandmother's house. He shook that thought from his mind.

  Rhonda walked into the kitchen and gestured for Tommy to sit at the small table. It had a wood top with a natural finish, but the legs were painted white. Tommy noted that there was no dining room.

  "You don't want something to drink," she said. "What do you want?"

  Any thoughts of his grandmother left Tommy as he studied Rhonda's face. It wasn't a grandmother's face. The teeth were slightly stained. The mouth cold and hard. Her hands were meaty, products of a sausage factory. The house didn't smell like his grandmother's. It didn't even smell like a woman's house. It had a guy smell.

  "I want the blonde. Again."

  “Are you sure you don’t want to sample the variety of my product line? Unlike Baskin-Robbins, I’ve got a lot more than 33 flavors.” She smiled at him which meant her mouth moved, but her eyes showed not a flicker of warmth.

  "You know, when you find something you really like, you hate to take a chance on something else."

  "Spoken like a truly satisfied customer," she said.

  “Well, let me see what else you've got. Just for kicks."

  Rhonda retrieved a leather-bound scrapbook from the kitchen counter. She set it on the table in front of Tommy. She poured herself a cup of coffee as Tommy flipped through the pages in the book. The plastic sleeves crinkled with each turn of the page.

  “Yeah, baby. There she is.” Rhonda crossed the kitchen, stood behind Tommy, and looked over his shoulder.

  He was tapping a picture of the blonde standing in front of a bed. She had on high heels and a black mesh tank top. She was in profile, looking back at the camera, bent over slightly as if to pick something up. Her ass was round and smooth, the dividing line warm and inviting.

  “Man, she was good.”

  “Loreli does not disappoint,” Rhonda said.

  “Tell me more about her,” Tommy said.

  Rhonda gestured with her coffee cup. “Her vital statistics are right there underneath her picture. See?”

  Tommy nodded, then looked at the picture again. This was the bitch that killed his stupid brother. He still couldn’t believe it. And he couldn’t believe that he was getting hard just looking at her picture. Rhonda was right. Loreli does not disappoint.

  "After seeing this picture, I definitely want her again. She's just too damn good to pass up."

  “Okay,” Rhonda said. “You know how it works. Cash or credit card. You did cash, right?”

  “Right.”

  “I’ll set up a time and place, and she’ll be there, okay?”

  “You know,” Tommy said. “I was thinking. If I paid a little more, could I pick her up? You know, make it a little more like a date. Kind of like, what do they call that, role-playing?”

  “Sure,” Rhonda said. She crossed her thick arms over her midsection, sipped from her cup of coffee. “I’ve done that before. She’ll be at a hotel bar, you pretend to be a stranger. It’s fun. A nice touch. More romantic that way, too.”

  “Very romantic," Tommy said, struggling to keep his voice even. Smooth. "I like that. But you know what I was thinking? What if I picked her up somewhere a little more natural? Does she live around here?”

  “No, that’s against policy.” Rhonda drained the rest of her coffee in one big gulp and set the cup on the counter. "You understand. Most of these girls like to keep work separate from home. You know, leave it at the office."

  “Oh, sure," Tommy said. "I've been there. But would it make a difference to you or to her if I pay a little extra? You know, with a few hundred, maybe she would make an exception in this case. And I think it would be a lot of fun, make the whole play-acting thing a little more real.”

  “Sorry, I can’t do that,” Rhonda said. Tommy heard the iron in her voice. This woman was not going to be tricked or swayed.

  “Besides," she said, "I don’t give out–”

  Tommy lowered his right knee to the floor, twisted from his chair, and threw a left hook with everything he had. His fist flashed out, sunk into Rhonda’s ample stomach. Her breathed whooshed out of her body.

  Rhonda reached out toward the table to steady herself, but Tommy got to his feet and swung again. His right fist connected with Rhonda's chin and she crashed to the floor in a heap. Tommy stood over her. The effort from the two punches, from the adrenaline coursing through his body, left him slightly out of breath.

  “Listen. You tell me where Loreli lives or this is just going to be the start, do you understand?"

  Rhonda vomited onto the faded linoleum floor. Watery brown liquid shot from her mouth and splattered onto Tommy's shoes. He jumped back, looked in disgust at the puke on the hem of his pants.

  When he was sure she was done, Tommy stepped around Rhonda and planted a foot on her head.

  “We can do this the easy way, or we can do it the very, very, very hard way. Either way, you’re going to tell me where the bitch lives, got it? Now, if you want me to turn your ass into a pile of bloody hamburger, I can do it. In fact, I’ve got a shitload of frustration I wouldn’t mind working out on someone right now, understand? So tell me where she is.” He lifted his left leg and kicked her in the ribs with the point of his toe. “Now.”

  Instead, Rhonda lunged upward, her head wedged between Tommy’s legs. She lifted, her thick legs pushing up beneath her, her big veiny hands grabbing each of his ankles. Tommy, incredulous, felt himself being lifted up, up and up. She lifted him on her back, a loud grunting sound escaping her lips, and then she flipped him backwards over her. He crashed to the kitchen floor in a heap.

  Tommy felt shooting pains in his shoulder. He rolled to his knees, got his hands beneath him and began to stand up. He looked up just in time to see Rhonda, her arm pulled back behind her and then the coffee pot was coming at his head. He tried to duck, but was too slow. Lights exploded in his head and he felt scalding hot coffee cascade down his face. He let out a roar as the searing pain drove white-hot needles into his skin. His hands flew to his face. His mouth was open. He was screaming. Somewhere, in the distant realm of his conscious mind, he heard the sound of cast iron scraping. He knew that sound. It was the same sound his grandmother's heavy frying pan made when she lifted it off the stove-

  He lunged to his feet, bellowing like a wounded buffalo. He managed to get one eye open which afforded him the view of Rhonda stepping forward. He watched in disbelief as she swung the frying pan with all the grace and power of a young Ted Williams. The heavy pan caught Tommy on the bridge of the nose, and the cartilage squashed beneath the blow. He felt something give in his face. His mouth filled with blood and he sank to his knees. He saw black and fell to the floor.

  The linoleum cooled one side of Tommy's face and his vision returned. He rolled over onto his back, instinctively raising his arms to protect his face. Rhonda swung the pan again and it crashed into his arm, then slid down his elbow and triceps until it banged against his torso. Tommy clamped down on the pan, catching Rhonda's hands beneath his arm. She was off-balance, leaning over him when he rotated and threw a high left hook that caught Rhonda flush on the jaw. She staggered. Tommy let go of the pan. Before she could regain her balance, he brought his knees to his chest and drove his feet directly into Rhonda's face.

 

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