Justified, page 13
“Yeah? Did you catch me on the radio this morning? I was on with Mike Ryan, addressing Kong’s ridiculous accusations.”
Charlie shook her head and lied. “Nah, sorry. I’ve been, um, pretty busy.”
Ramsey laughed. “That’s one way of putting it.”
The hair on the back of Charlie’s neck rose.
“I caught the news. You’ve been a naughty girl.”
Silence.
“We need to talk.”
CHAPTER 22
King Kong stared at the texted images from his connect within the police department. He’d been played. Ramsey hadn’t jacked him. The cops did.
“Muthafuckas.” He set his phone down next to his plate of barbecue, leaned back, and braided his fingers together as his gaze swung to his cousin Alexis. “It looks like you may be right about the pawn shop heist.”
Alexis crossed her arms. “I told you. Now, you call this whole war thing off before more bodies drop.”
Kong shrugged.
“You are going to call it off, right?” Alexis needled.
“Maybe—in time.” He gave her another careless shrug. “What can I say? Gorilla Beats has had a surge in a music streams, CD sales, and even selling out bigger arenas. You couldn’t buy this kind of publicity.”
“David!”
Kong rolled his eyes at the use of his government name. “I’ll get back to you.” He glanced over to his man by the door, who then moved behind Alexis to let her know her time was up.
Alexis got the message and shoved her chair back before bouncing to her feet. “I’m warning you, David. Don’t ruin this for me.”
“Or what? You’re going to call my grandmother?” He laughed.
“Damn right.” Alexis turned on her heel and shoved Kong’s man out of the way.
Kong laughed as he watched her go, knowing it pissed her off. But once she was out the door, his attention returned to his phone. He picked it up and reviewed the picture of his money again.
“Problem, Unc?” Birdie asked.
“Always.” Kong sighed. “But it’s nothing a few bullets can’t fix.”
“Are there any particular names on these bullets?”
“A couple of cops.”
* * *
“Are you Detective Nelson?”
Karl turned away from Caruso. “I am.”
“You’re with me,” Bennett informed him. “Let’s roll.”
“Right behind you.” Karl slapped a hand on Vic’s shoulder. “It was good while it lasted—catch you later.” He pushed up a half smile and rushed to catch up with Bennett, who was already heading out of the door. By the time Karl caught up with Bennett, the detective was behind the wheel with the engine revving.
Karl’s butt had barely touched the seat before Bennett shifted into DRIVE.
“Whoa!” Karl shut his car door. “Where’s the fire?”
“Paulie’s Auto Shop. The owner may have captured something on the surveillance tapes after all.”
“That’s good news.” Karl secured his seat belt.
“The sooner we get this maniac off the street, the sooner a lot of our guys can sleep easier—especially the guys on your strike team,” Bennett added.
“Yeah.”
Bennett pulled his gaze from the road for a few moments to glance at him. “Any idea who may be behind this?”
“Nah, but the guys are shook up, though.”
“Yeah, I don’t blame them. They’ve stomped on plenty of toes out here.”
Karl frowned. “I keep hearing that.”
Bennett laughed. “Thank your lucky stars you were only on the team for days—or you’d be looking over your shoulder constantly.” They arrived at the crime scene.
Bennett killed the engine, and together they climbed out of the car.
Quickly, they maneuvered through the crowded street, ducked under the yellow tape, and entered Paulie’s Auto Shop. Given the size of the place, the forensics team was still there, snapping pictures and dusting for prints.
Karl followed Bennett to the auto shop’s office. There were already two cops posted by the door when they entered.
“Mr. Williamson?” Bennett inquired.
Paul Williamson pulled his large, bearded face from an eight-inch screen on the corner of a banged-up metal file cabinet. “Yeah?”
Bennett slapped palms with the owner and introduced him to Karl as an addition to the case.
“I finally remembered the password and pulled the digital file from last night,” Williamson said.
“Mind if we take a look?” Bennett asked.
Instead of answering, Williamson moved away from the screen and plopped down into a chair behind the desk.
Bennett’s smile tightened. “We’re going to need some privacy.”
“Oh.” Williamson sprang to his feet. “Sure, sure. I’ll, um, leave you two alone.”
Karl met the man’s gaze for a fraction of a second, then looked away. The man was hurting.
“All right. Let’s see what we have here.” Bennett took Paul’s place before the eight-inch screen while Karl leaned against the corner of the desk for a better view. Bennett hit the PLAY button.
On the screen, Detective Thomas Graham crept into view.
Karl frowned as he craned his head. “Where is this?”
“The back of the shop.”
“And he had a key?”
Bennett bobbed his head. “Williamson and Graham are brothers—stepbrothers. Graham used to come in and work on his days off, fixing up and pimping out motorcycles as a hobby.”
Karl’s gaze scanned outside the office and over to a distraught Williamson, who looked like he didn’t know what to do with himself.
“Now, who do we have here?” Bennett asked.
Karl returned his attention to the small screen and zeroed in on a second figure moving in the shadows. He squinted and moved closer. “Who is that?”
“That’s the million-dollar question.” Karl hit the PAUSE button and then rewound the tape.
Onscreen, Graham removed loose cement blocks from a wall, then removed a large duffel bag. Meanwhile, the shadow in the background grew closer.
“He doesn’t see or hear the guy behind him,” Bennett noted and cocked his head. “Or her,” he corrected.
Karl nodded in agreement and leaned in close. The killer lifted a gun toward the back of Graham’s head, bringing part of the killer’s coat and hand visible to the camera.
Karl froze. I know that coat.
CHAPTER 23
After arguing with her sisters that they didn’t need to come with her to meet with Ramsey, Charlie settled into the back seat of the Escalade. As Dominic pulled out of the driveway, her sisters lined the porch, waving with worried lines grooved into their faces. She wanted to shout that they would see her again, but the words caught in her throat behind a stone, which then sank to her gut.
How the hell could she assure anyone of anything? The night she crept through Detective Wallace’s window, her fate was sealed.
“This isn’t the way to the Gold Coast.”
Dominic glanced into the rearview mirror. “We’re not headed out there.”
Charlie tensed. “Where are we going?”
“Relax.” He smiled. “With the heat being what it is, my man got a crib off the grid for such special occasions.”
The explanation didn’t calm Charlie’s nerves, but she sat quietly as Dominic traveled south. Twenty minutes later, Dominic arrived at an old brownstone in Riverdale.
“This is it?” She frowned.
“This is it.” Dominic winked.
A large, at least four-hundred-pound man stomped across the cracked sidewalk and opened Charlie’s door.
“Tiny will take you in,” Dominic informed her before nodding for her to get out.
Charlie slipped her hand into the pocket of her leather coat, reassuring herself she still had Henny’s gun for protection before she climbed out of the back seat. As she marched in front of Tiny, eyes from around the dodgy neighborhood followed her.
“Downstairs,” Tiny ordered.
She followed the command despite her gut twisting into knots. As she descended, a foul smell rose up to greet her. Halfway down, she stopped, but Tiny’s gut bumped her from behind and propelled her forward. She kept moving until she reached two more men standing outside of a metal door. To her relief and surprise, she was ushered in without a pat down.
However, the interior of Ramsey’s off-the-grid crib was different from what she expected. In fact, it was an extension of the Palazzo Versace style from his Gold Coast apartment. Only, instead of marble floors, Charlie’s shoes sank into a white shaggy, deep-pile carpet.
Ramsey rounded a corner and stretched out his arms. “Ah, if it isn’t the lady of the hour. You’ve been busy.” Ramsey smirked, handing Charlie a drink.
“Am I supposed to know what you’re talking about?” she asked coolly.
“This may surprise you, but sometimes I catch the news and learn stuff.”
“You’re right. It does come as a surprise,” Charlie volleyed.
“Please have a seat.”
Charlie hesitated and looked around.
“Don’t worry. It’s just the two of us.” He grinned.
“Is that supposed to make me feel better?”
Ramsey’s smile dimmed. “Of course. We’re friends, aren’t we?”
Charlie held his gaze, then took the offered drink without answering the question and sat down.
“I see.” He eased down onto a strategically placed donut on the couch next to her. “Anyway, I’m on to you.” He leaned close.
Charlie leaned away. “What are you talking about?”
Ramsey’s smile stretched. “Don’t worry. Your secret is safe with me. After all, we’re family.” He went for a kiss.
Charlie sprang from her seat. “What the fuck? Where’s Alexis?”
Ramsey chuckled. “Where else? Shopping.” He patted the empty cushion next to him. “Sit.”
“I’ll stand.”
“C’mon. I don’t bite.”
“No? I do.”
Ramsey grew excited. “Oh, tell me more.”
Charlie frowned. “What are you doing?”
“Nothing.” He leaned back and stretched his arms across the back of the couch. “I just wanna talk.”
“We have nothing to talk about. This is never going to happen.”
“No? Don’t even want to talk about how you plan on getting away with your murder spree?”
She lifted a brow.
“Enough with the cat-and-mouse game. I know it’s you. And if I can connect the dots, so can the cops—especially Caruso. He’s an evil muthafucka, but he’s not stupid.”
“This may come as a surprise to you: I’m not stupid, either.” She met his gaze head-on, and it took him a moment to notice she’d leveled a gun at him. When he did, he laughed.
“What are you going to do? You shoot, and my boys will run in here to mow you down.”
“You’ll still be dead.”
Ramsey’s cocky smile melted as he eyed something on the table.
“You’ll be dead before you reach it,” she warned.
He turned the charm back on. “What’s this, Charlie? I thought we were family?”
“Nah.” She shook her head. “I’ve been playing Kong’s radio interview over and over in my head—”
“Kong?” Ramsey laughed. “You gotta be fuckin’ kidding me.”
“The thing is, Ram. He was making an awful lot of sense. I mean, look at you, living Henny’s dream.”
“Our dream,” he corrected. “Henny and I built this shit together. We were like brothers.”
“You keep saying that.”
His brows collapsed in confusion.
“Henny wanted to be the music mogul, and you wanted to run the streets—even when the music popped off, you didn’t want to let it go. Just like Kong. God.” She shook her head. “It was in front of me the whole time. You didn’t love Henny. You hated him. You were jealous.”
Ramsey laughed. “Jealous? Who? Me?”
Charlie nodded, convinced she was on the right track. “The guys were loyal to Henny—not you. The label was nothing more than a convenient way to launder the drug money. When Henny wanted to start the next chapter of his life with me, he wanted out of the drug game, didn’t he? That’s what you guys fought about that night.”
“Okay, now you’re talking crazy.”
“Am I? You two disappeared together for a while. When Hennessey returned, there was blood on his cuff, and when I saw you again, you had a busted lip and eye. After Hennessey whupped your ass, you called your dirty cops on the payroll, didn’t you?”
Ramsey’s mask fell for the first time. “You believe Kong over me?” Ramsey asked. “You believe I could have turned on my brother?” His eyes hardened. “You don’t know me at all.” Emotion thickened his voice.
Charlie regarded him again.
“I loved Hennessey. Him and his mother. I’ve made sure Mrs. Rawlins hasn’t wanted for anything since his death. I show up for every birthday and holiday and reminisce about the old days.”
Charlie said nothing.
“At Henny’s wake, I, um, didn’t choose my words right when we talked. I didn’t mean to give you the impression that I didn’t support your fight against those asshole cops. It’s just—I knew the bastards would get away with it. It’s how the system works.”
“And how does the system work for you?”
“That’s not fair.”
“Since when the fuck is life fair?”
Ramsey lifted his chin and chewed on his words instead of spitting them out.
“They’re dirty cops,” Charlie pressed.
“They are hardly the only ones,” Ramsey snapped.
“You do business with them?” she asked.
“Of course.” Ramsey looked up. “Hennessey did, too.”
Charlie’s heart dropped to the pit of her stomach.
“That surprises you?” A corner of Ramsey’s mouth curled. “Ah, that’s right. Hennessey Rawlins could do no wrong in your eyes. He never bent the rules, lied, or crossed over to the dark side to get what he wanted. He pinned it all on me. You think I could tell Hennessey what to do—talk him into shit that went against his principles? He was the brains behind everything. Always had been.”
Charlie kept shaking her head.
Ramsey laughed. “Hennessey had been a drug dealer since we were in junior high. You were too blind to notice. But your father had his ass pegged. That’s for damn sure. He knew what was up the moment Hennessey figured out he could do more than pee with his dick. I never saw a man happier than when you told him you were enlisting and heading out to war instead of sticking around for my man’s slick-talking ass to put a ring on it. But it was temporary, wasn’t it?
“You never wondered how Henny and his mother were able to live so well out of the hood after his pop died? Sure, he hid the money he was making at first. He stashed money everywhere. And when the bills stacked up, Momma Rawlins asked fewer questions.”
“You’re lying,” Charlie snapped, even though her gut said he was telling her the truth. How had she ignored what was right in front of her all this time? “But Caruso—”
“Caruso and Hennessey had an arrangement,” Ramsey filled her in. “They had been business partners for years—until Hennessey wanted out.”
Charlie lowered the gun and dropped into the chair behind her.
“Hennessey knew wifing you and having a kid meant he had to clean up his act. Go legit.”
“So, everything they said at the trial . . .”
“Was mostly true,” Ramsey confirmed. “Except that his drug partners were the police. Hennessey used the profits from the streets to put himself through college and launch RawDawgs. When he opened the Moonlight Club, he used it to launder money. When he wanted out, Caruso somehow caught wind of it before he finished devising an exit plan. Caruso and his guys didn’t want the money train to end.”
“What about you?”
“I had my man’s back,” Ramsey said. “Whatever he wanted to do, I was down with it. When Caruso and his gang showed up at the engagement party—”
“He was there that night?”
Ramsey nodded. “They had a brief disagreement. But I guess Caruso wasn’t finished making his point.”
A long silence lapsed between the old friends.
“And now you’re doing this crazy thing.” Ramsey leaned over.
Charlie stiffened and leaned away.
“C’mon, you have to know how crazy I am about you. After all these years?” He erased another inch. “If there was anything I was jealous of Hennessey having—it was you.”
She laughed.
The hope in Ramsey’s eyes dimmed. “What’s so damn funny?”
“You.” Charlie continued laughing, swinging a finger between them. “This right here will never happen.”
“What the fuck is wrong with me? I’m rich, successful—and pretty damn good-looking.”
“And engaged.”
He waved off the comment. “Forget about that. Alexis is—wrong for me. I realized that when you returned. When you stepped into the Emperor’s Club, all these feelings I have for you came rushing back. I was about to make the biggest mistake of my life.”
“I . . . see.” Charlie stood again.
“Do you?” Ramsey groaned and climbed to his feet. “I can protect you.”
“I don’t need your protection.”
“Like hell you don’t.” He laughed. “Like I said. It’s a matter of time before the police connect the dots—especially that pig you’re fucking.”
Charlie froze. “What did you say?”
Ramsey’s grin returned. “That’s right. That Hennessey lookalike you’ve been dicking down is Detective Karl Nelson. He’s one of Caruso’s new boys.”
“You’re lying.”
Ramsey cocked his head. “Am I?”
CHAPTER 24
At the first chance he had, Karl crept away from Paulie’s Auto Shop’s crime scene and called Charlie. Once again, the call went to voice mail. “Charlie, it’s me—um, Karl.” He glanced around and ensured no one was ear-hustling in on his conversation. “We need to hook back up today. It’s important I talk to you. Call me as soon as you get this message.” He wanted to say more but didn’t know where to begin. “All right. Talk to you soon.”
