A Cougar's Kiss, page 15
He said nothing. I was talking to a corpse.
“What the hell’s going on?” I demanded. “What happened to you, what happened to Lucky Lenny?”
Lucky Louis sat back a little, and scratched his chin like he was trying to figure what to say.
“You’re a nice boy, Frankie,” he said. “Why’d you go and get mixed up in all this? From what I hear you were set up nice in California.”
“I’m your—I was your friend. I was looking for your killer, ya jerk.”
“I had no killer. I ain’t dead.”
“No kidding. But what about your brother. Killed and made to look like you?”
He cracked a sinister smile.
“That’s what happens when you’re an inexperienced fifteen-year-old homicidal genius,” he said, hooking his thumbs in imaginary suspenders.
It made no sense. It was as if he were speaking pig Latin. Uky lay could ense say my onffusion cay. He sat there twirling his hat on his finger.
“It all comes down to this,” he said. “Love and money, Frankie. Love and money and a cougar’s kiss.”
“What’s a cougar’s kiss?” I asked.
“Poison, my boy, poison. Perhaps my stepmother here would care to elaborate.” It’s then that it hit me how this all looked. A dinner date with his stepmom at a semi-swanky joint.
“Yeah,” I said scrambling for the words. “About that...”
“Don’t sweat it, Valentine,” he said. “I know all about it.”
I needed some air. I stated something to that effect, wiped my mouth with my napkin and began to stand up. That’s when Lucky Louis stuck a gun in my ribs and changed my mind.
“There’s plenty of air in here, jack,” he said. “Sit down and listen if you want to know that badly. Then we’ll go get that dough-re-mi.”
Lucky started in on the sad tale and the sordid details.
“My father was hip to the fact that Alice and Maggie were here on strictly financial motivation and knew it was only a matter of time before they found his money. He married her anyway. Why not? Look at her she’s still a knockout. Word was it was inheritance of my mother’s from a rich maiden aunt in New York City who passed away. When my mother died, it all went to my father. Me and my brother didn’t really know anything about it until Maggie and Alice came to town. They apparently got wind of it from my dad’s nurse—who claimed to be my mother’s sister—who was also after it, after overhearing a clandestine conversation about it in the joint.”
I interrupted.
“Nice dame,” I said. “I’ve met her. Judith.”
He paused to glare at my interruption.
“Well, her sniveling junkie son found out and leaked it to one of his low life buddies, who let it leak to Mascero. Everyone wanted the money which thrilled my father, the sadistic bastard. Like I said, everyone wanted the money...including me. It was my ticket—and my brother’s—out of this jerk-water burgh and away from our father’s abuse and bullshit. And if we hadn’t have been young little perverts snooping around his girlie mags, I never would have set into motion what would end with Lenny getting killed.”
I was to the point that I needed to know.
“What do you mean? Who killed him?” I asked.
Lucky softened his tone a bit.
“Frankie, it doesn’t matter now. When I found him—his body—in the basement he was already dead, his head caved in. Alice here convinced me that my father had done it. She stopped me from going upstairs and killing him right then. She convinced me to help her get rid of the body in a way that would frame my father and that she had found the money and we could leave and finally be together.”
“Together?” I said. “You two?”
“Yeah, smart guy, the two of us. She convinced me there actually was a two of us. That was lie number one—I’m sure she told you one or two. Lie number two: she didn’t know where the money was. I knew this because I had found it, but I didn’t let on...even to my brother.”
“We just had to take care of the body while my father was passed out upstairs. We took off his braces with pliers. And put my cowboy boots on him and put my pocket knife in his pocket and stuffed him in an old Navy foot locker. We figured people would think it was me in the grave, and I could start a new life with a bunch-o-money and a new gal.”
I was confused.
“But she lied to you man,” I said.
“Like I said, Frankie. A cougar’s kiss.” He got back to his story while I half-listened, wracking my brain for a way out.
“We drove him—what used to be him—to a dry cleaning plant on the north side where the company my father worked for had dug a deep hole to remove some tanks or put some in or something like that. Whatever it was, Alice knew. My father must have mentioned something. Either way, Alice was the mastermind. She played me like a saloon piano.”
“Wait a minute,” I said. “You mean Alice killed Lucky Lenny?”
He scratched his chin, chuckled, and shrugged.
“It’s entirely possible.”
“You bastard,” she said with a whispered hiss. “Bastard! liar!”
Lucky put his finger to his lips and looked down at the gun to remind her just who was driving this train.
“Shhh.” She figured they’d find the body the next morning. And since Louis, Sr., was a classic black-out drunk, had few friends willing to stick their necks out to give him an alibi, and we had thrown the bloody hammer—his hammer—in the hole, things weren’t going to go well for dear old Dad. It was a good plan except Mother Nature screwed it up real nice.”
“Let me guess,” I said. “It rained like hell the next day. And by the time they came to finish the job a day later, enough mud had washed over the box at the bottom of the hole, you couldn’t see it. It got covered up when the hole was filled in. So it wasn’t discovered.”
“You always were a smart kid, Frankie,” Lucky Louis said.
This whole scene had me on edge. I kept nervously picking at the potatoes on my plate until they were gone. I couldn’t finish my steak if I’d wanted; Lucky Louis had snagged my knife and fork when he sat down. I considered stabbing him with my spoon.
I pushed my plate back. Archie noticed and came over to see if we needed anything else.
“Be cool,” Lucky Louis warned before Archie was in earshot. He stuck the gun harder into my side for emphasis. I winced. I already knew better than to be anything but cool.
“All’s copasetic, Arch,” I said and waved him on before he got too close or curious.
Lucky Louis picked up where he left off.
“The second half of the plan,” he said. “I packed up a few things and hopped a train to New York, where Alice had some people, friends she made in the joint, I could hide out with while she took care of business in Rochester, pouring it on as the grieving stepmother of two missing boys, got the money, and joined me happily ever after.”
“Where’d you go all this time?” I asked.
“Nowhere,” Lucky said. “I just waited on ice in the city so nice they named it twice. One month, two months, three months and so on until it began to dawn on me something was up.”
He started to raise his voice. I was in no position to suggest he keep it down, besides drawing attention to the situation—the gun in my side and all—wasn’t an entirely bad idea. I was in a tight spot.
“I was helping an old black cat named T-Bone on some B&E capers to make some bread and kill time,” Lucky said. “We were scoping out a potential spot one evening when I caught him eyeballing me funny. ‘Wanna tell me what you see, Bone?’ I ask him. So he kinda chuckles and pats my arm and says, ‘I like you kid and I hate to see you get hustled. ’ Hustled? Me? Whadaya mean?”
Lucky sat forward in the booth, getting a little red in the face.
“And you know what he told me?”
He pointed at Alice.
“‘She ain’t never coming to get you, there ain’t no dough, and you can’t ever show your face up there again or they’ll tie you in on it. So you might as well forget it.’ So I ask him, ‘How do you know all this? What makes you so goddamn smart?’ ‘I know women like her,’ he said. ‘Look, when was the last time you spoke to her?’ So I thought about it—it hadn’t been since I left roughly six months ago—and figured I’d better give her a jingle. But who answers the phone? Not Alice. Not ‘Miss we’re-gonna-be-so-happy-together.’ No. It was a woman, says she was my father’s nurse, and that Alice had up and split with her daughter months ago, to where, she hadn’t a clue. That’s quite a hard lesson to learn for a love-struck teenager, huh, Frankie?”
“Yeah, gosh. Look, I’m sorry, Luck,” I said. And I meant it too, hoping sympathy would buy me time to get out of this mess. “But this isn’t the way to go about things.”
“I supposed you’ve got a better way,” he said. “Look, you don’t have to be sorry, Frankie. Just do what I say and I’ll be out of your hair before you know it. You know where the money is stashed?”
“You know I do. It’s the same place it always was. But that’s not why I’m...”
“You didn’t move it? What’s wrong with you? What’s to stop anyone who figured where it is finally from going there and cleaning it out?”
“I didn’t realize it was my job,” I said. “The first time we were shot at—by you—the second time me and The Gent had to dodge the bulls that stormed the place. So I wasn’t really thinking about re-stashing the bread. Besides, now there’ll be cops sitting on the house after the last two nights of fireworks. I’m pretty sure we can’t get past them.”
“And you haven’t told your pal Rossi, have you?”
“No, I haven’t.”
“Well, we’re going to take a little trip down to my old house and get the money...then you’ll get Maggie back safe.”
“What...you kidnapped her?”
Lucky Louis said nothing. Alice sat bolt upright.
“What have you done with her?” she demanded.
This complicated things some. But I wasn’t all that concerned for Maggie. She could take care of herself.
It didn’t feel right but I copped a hard line.
“So? What’s she to me?” I asked.
“Maybe nothing,” Lucky Louis said. “Maybe nothing. But she does mean something to your sidekick.”
Mickey, the sidekick that lately wasn’t kicking by my side. But I was hoping he’d be smart enough to put together where I was if I didn’t meet up with him at the hotel. He’d definitely liven up the party. He’d be glad to see Lucky Louis and then he’d want to kill him.
I winked and motioned to Archie for the check so I could put dinner on my tab.
He asked; I answered, yes, everything was perfect. I signed my name and wrote in a nice tip.
CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR
The three of us got up to leave and headed nonchalantly through the exit with no funny stuff as instructed. We walked over to where I had parked my car by the hotel after one of The Gent’s boys dropped it off. I kept scanning up and down the street. Nothing. Christ, where’s a beat cop when you need one? I opened the door to my jalopy and Lucky Louis slid into the back seat, Alice got in the front. She looked at me nervously, but I knew better than to shoot back a reassuring glance. She was as dangerous as Lucky Louis, and well, I wasn’t feeling all that reassured myself.
We rolled slow and silent to the Sullivan house in Irondequoit. We got there to find the place quiet and dark. There were no patrol cars out front. Lucky Louis motioned with his gun for us to get out. I asked before I grabbed a flashlight out of the glove box; I didn’t want him blowing my head off. We walked to the back of the house and to the metal basement doors. It was foggy and the ground was damp. It smelled nice. It’s funny how you appreciate things like nature when your clock is running out.
“Open sez me,” Lucky Louis said, pointing at the doors.
I complied and pried them open once again.
“You first,” he said. Alice and I crouched down and cautiously went down the steps and into the basement.
“Give her that flashlight,” he said to me, before turning to Alice.
“Hold it over there,” he said, pointing in the direction of the coal hopper.
“It better be there,” he said. “Or we’re gonna have trouble.”
I silently seconded that sentiment.
“C’mon,” Lucky Louis said. “Gimme a hand.”
He and I pulled the heavy iron door open and peered inside. There was the foot locker. We slid it out and Lucky Louis shouldered me out of the way.
“Move, Valentine,” he said. He opened the lid and started pulling out the few remaining magazines, roughly, tearing them, bending their covers, tossing them aside. It was a crying shame, but it was his party, a party that didn’t last too long. He got to the fake bottom and pried it up with his bare fingers. He stood up quickly and just stared into the box. I leaned over to sneak a peek.
The box was empty.
No jackpot.
No payday.
No windfall.
No money, honey.
Lucky Louis just stared down at the empty box. When he finally did speak it was in a low, hollow voice.
“Where’s the money, Valentine?” he asked.
“I don’t...how should I...you don’t think I took it, do you?” I stammered.
He repeated the question a little slower and a little louder.
“Where is the goddamn money, Valentine?” he asked. He cocked his pistol and raised it towards me.
I could see all the way down the barrel to eternity. This was it.
“I’m gonna give you one last chance to come clean, Frankie, or you and your girlfriend are headed for the bone orchard.”
I looked around trying to stall for time all the while cursing Mickey under my breath, wondering if he’d seen my note and concluded there was trouble when I didn’t show up in the lobby.
It wasn’t so much a bang as it was a sharp crack. I winced at the pain in my ears, instinctively looking for holes...again. But it wasn’t me. Lucky Louis just stood there with a blank expression and a hole in his forehead. He let out two grunts and fell face first on the basement floor. Dead. Alice stood there with a little silver .22 in her still upraised hand. She was beginning to cry.
“Frankie,” she said pointing the gun at me. “Where’s the money? C’mon, huh. Don’t make me do this.”
I answered as calmly as I could, knowing she had her finger on the trigger.
“I don’t know, Alice,” I said. “I don’t know.”
“I don’t believe you.”
A voice came from the shadows by the stairs said, “I believe you.” It was Maggie, un-kidnapped and with a gun. Just swell; more unhinged dames with guns.
“How do you propose we split it now, mother?” Maggie said. “Half of nothing is nothing.”
“Honey, you don’t understand,” Alice said. “They were going to take it. I did it for us. It’s our money, we earned it.”
“Is this what you call earning it?” Maggie said pointing to Lucky Louis lying dead on the floor. “Now you’ve killed them both. And there’s no money.”
“Unless you know something about it, Valentine,” yet another voice said. It was Mascero, The Gent standing in the shadows behind Maggie. Things were getting crowded in this basement—gangsters, grifters, hustlers, a stiff , and me.
I considered my options. I could fall to my knees and beg, no, that wouldn’t be pretty or constructive. I could try and disarm one of them, but that would just wind up raising the kill count. I could try and logic with them, but laughed inside when I realized how stupid that sounded.
The Gent addressed me.
“Frankie, you’re a smart boy,” he said. “And granted, I owe you for last time, but this money situation is only gonna work out one way. Me and my girl are leaving with it, you understand.” That brought a shriek from somewhere deep inside Alice she turned to point her pistol at her daughter.
“Traitor!” she said to either Maggie or The Gent. I wasn’t sure.
The Gent instinctively drew his gun and fired from the hip, hitting Alice dead center in the gut.
“No!” I shouted and ran to her, catching her before she fell. She was in shock, gasping for air, a wild look in her eyes. I looked up at the Gent.
“Why?” was all I could manage to get out.
Alice was struggling to breathe.
She kept repeating, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”
“Don’t try to speak,” I said.
She was slipping away, we needed help, but no one knew we were down here; no one except Detective Rossi and his crew. I had left a note on our dinner check with scrawled instructions for Archie to send up an SOS to Rossi. So where was he, goddammit? Mickey and Detective Rossi. Two guys I’d come to rely on were now coming up short.
I had been looking for my friends’ killer and now she was dying in my arms.
“We need help,” I yelled. “She’s dying!”
Her breathing was labored and the bloodstain on the front of her blouse was getting bigger and bigger. Alice was dying and she knew it.
I just stared at her.
“Why?” I asked. “Why?”
“I loved them both,” she said. “I convinced Lucky Lenny to help find where the money was stashed. He found it alright, but changed his tune, said he planned on keeping it and leaving town with Maggie. I confronted him...I didn’t mean to kill him, but he was going to take the money...and my daughter.”
Alice continued making her peace, when Maggie lunged at her. It was more than she could take as she landed on both of us, punching wildly at her mother. The Gent jumped in and tried to wrestle Maggie free. I looked up at him, acting as if I cared what happened to him or Maggie.
“Look, man,” I said while still trying to fend off Maggie. “The cops are gonna be here any second. There’s a body down here. You’d better scram.” I crossed my fingers, hoping I was right.
No sooner did I say that, when the tiny basement windows were lit up from all sides. A bullhorn barked orders along with the blinding illumination.
I managed to shove Maggie off her mother and me. The Gent had a panicked look on his mug.
