Agnes and the Hitman (29 page)

“Whaddya want?” the man asked.

“You speaking to me?”

“Yeah, I’m speaking to you.”

Shane shook his head. “You’re supposed to say: ‘I don’t see nobody else standing there.’“ “What?”

Shane sighed. No one watched the classics anymore. “The Torrentino brothers in?”

The man’s head jerked in what Shane assumed was a negative. “No, and you ain’t going in there.”

“Wrong,” Shane said, and hit the weightlifter in the throat with a quick strike of his fist, avoiding all the layers of muscles elsewhere on the body. Weightlifter’s hands flew up his neck as he gasped in pain.

Shane snap kicked into his groin, eliciting a squeal of pain, and the weightlifter went to his knees, curling over, his hands going from neck to balls. Shane did an elbow strike to the back of the man’s head and he was out, prostrate on the ground.

Shane checked the unconscious body for weapons and found none, but he did find a money clip, with “Rocko” picked out in rhinestones, holding twenty-eight crisp hundred-dollar bills. He flex-cuffed Rocko’s bulky arms behind his back just in case he came to before the business inside was done, and then went inside the warehouse, but the weightlifter had been telling the truth, the place was empty. He did a quick search and found evidence that the Torrentinos had been there, including two La-Z-Boys and a large-screen TV with an impressive collection of porn videos stacked to one side.

The Torrentinos as the masterminds behind the hits began to seem less likely than ever. But Rocko with those hundred-dollar bills ...

Shane heard cursing and abandoned the warehouse. Rocko was sitting up, moaning, for which Shane was grateful, doubtful he could toss that much unconscious weight into the Defender. It also meant Rocko had a very thick skull, which wasn’t surprising.

“On your feet,” Shane said, giving Rocko a quick poke in the back with the muzzle of the dock.

Rocko muttered something, but staggered to his feet. Shane guided him over to the Defender and shoved him into the passenger seat, his hands still awkwardly secured behind him with the plastic flex-cuff. Shane got in the driver’s seat. He threw the truck in gear and drove out of the parking lot. Then he remembered something. He dug in his pocket and pulled out Agnes’s To Do List.

Shane reached down and turned on the navigation system and punched in the address for the bakery in downtown Savannah. He was glad for the tinted windows as he drove into the city. Rocko was becoming more agitated as consciousness seeped into his brain, so after Shane double-parked in front of the bakery, he whacked him on the head again.

Then he walked into the bakery.

“Can I help you?” the woman behind the counter said.

Shane checked the list. “I need fifteen pounds of fondue and—”

The woman said, “Excuse me?”

“It’s for a wedding cake.”

“You mean fondant.”

“Whatever. And ...” He handed Agnes’s To Do List over to her. She squinted at it. “Is this the Agnes Crandall order?”

“Yeah.”

She handed it back. “She called it in. I thought she was going to pick it up later. Doesn’t matter. It’s ready.”

Ten minutes later, two bags of miscellaneous cake stuff and three five-pound tubs of icing heavier, the Defender was heading north.

He glanced over. Rocko was blinking the blood out of his eyes from the second whack. He had an incredibly thick skull.

“Try not to get blood on that cake stuff.”

“Fuck you,” Rocko said, shaking the blood off his face and onto one of the tubs of fondant.

Shane sighed. “You set up the Two Rivers hit. Who hired you and who was the target?”

Rocko turned his beady little eyeballs toward him. “Who are you?”

Shane sighed. “My name is Shane.”

Rocko spit on him. “Fuck you, Shane.”

“Rocko, we can do this hard or we can do this easy. You got paid five thousand for a contract You subcontracted Vinnie ‘Can of Tomatoes’ Marinelli two thousand to do the actual job. He subcontracted it to a dumbshit named Macy for five hundred. Both Vinnie and Macy are dead. I killed them. The job isn’t done. So whoever paid you isn’t gonna be happy. Who paid you?”

“Fuck you.”

Shane crossed an old turn-bridge over the Savannah River. He saw a sign for the Savannah National Wildlife Refuge and turned off, drove down a one-lane dirt road, then onto what could barely be called a track until he was pretty sure they were deep into the swamp. Then he stopped the Defender, got out, went around to the passenger side and opened the door, quickly stepping back, Glock at the ready. “Get out.”

“You going to kill me?” Rocko demanded.

“Not if you tell me what I want to know.” Shane reached into his pocket and pulled out an airline voucher. “Then you take this to the Savannah Airport, get on a plane, and no one around here ever sees you again. Got it?” He slapped the voucher down on the hood of the Defender.

Rocko’s eyes shifted from the voucher to Shane. “Bullshit.”

“Who gave you the contract and who was the contract on?”

A very large alligator basking in the sun about fifty feet away was eyeing them, perhaps sizing them up for a snack. Shane squinted. The gator had a scar where one of its eyes should have been. It was a hard life everywhere, even in the swamp. The one-eyed reptile slid into the water with a splash and began to lazily move toward them.

Rocko heard the splash and glanced over his shoulder. “I took an oath. I ain’t violating it.”

“What are you talking about?”

Rocko frowned. “To make my bones with the mob, I gotta stick with the oath, right? I can’t violate the contract. It’s like, ya know, that doctor-patient thing. Or when a lawyer talks to a client.”

Spare me from idiots,
Shane thought. “That’s movie bullshit.” A mosquito landed on his neck and took a bite. Halfway from its resting spot, the gator had paused, sizing up the situation with one eye. Shane figured it had more brains than Rocko.

Rocko’s head moved back and forth on his bull neck. “Can’t squeal. Mob oath.”

“Mob oath. You telling me Don Fortunato hired you?” Shane asked.

Rocko’s eyes widened. “You from the Don?”

“If I was from the Don, would I be asking you if the Don hired you?”

The furrow appeared in Rocko’s forehead as he tried to figure that out. “I’d like to work for the Don.”

Scratch the Don,
Shane thought. He saw the muscles in Rocko’s shoulders begin to bulge and he knew what he was doing and he also knew that the plastic flex-cuff probably wasn’t going to hold. The tattoos on Rocko’s arms were rippling now from the effort. A naked woman on the right bicep was swaying seductively.

“Rocko,” Shane said with a deep sigh. “I really don’t want to kill you. But I will if you come at me. Think, damn it. There’s no mob oath if you’re not working for the mob. So you can tell me.”

The flex-cuff went with an audible pop and Shane shot Rocko in the left thigh as he started to charge at him. Cursing, the weightlifter grabbed the leg and hopped about.

“I told you not to do that,” Shane said.

The gator was moving forward again, smelling blood.

Shane moved toward the truck. “Rocko, we need to get out of here.”

“Fuck you,” Rocko said, hopping away from the Defender. “I can’t believe you fucking shot me.”

“I’ll shoot you again if you don’t tell me who the contract was on. Agnes Crandall?”

Rocko was in too much pain to hide the look of recognition that flickered across his face at the name.

“Okay, got that. Now tell me the guy who hired you and I’ll get you back to the truck before the gator gets you,” Shane said, and when Rocko looked even more stubborn, he added. “I’m telling you, you dumb fuck,
there is no mob oath.”

“Hey, she made me take it, right there on the phone. I
took
the mob oath—”

“She?” Shane said.

Rocko glared at him. “Fuck you, I ain’t tellin’ you nothin’ and I ain’t breakin’ the oath, neither.” He turned and began a limping run along the edge of the swamp.

“Damn it, Rocko!” Shane yelled, but it was already over, the gator came out of the water, an explosion of green scales and big teeth, and closed the ground between them in seconds, its jaws snapping shut on Rocko’s leg. Rocko screamed, and Shane fired a couple of rounds into the gator, feeling bad for it, but the bullets seemed to have no effect as it rolled with Rocko into the dark water, dragging him into the depths.

The surface of the water boiled for a few seconds, then became still.

Shane waited to see if Rocko would reappear, but after a couple of minutes he knew Rocko was sleeping with the gator.

He got back into the Defender, pulled onto the dirt trail, and accelerated, heading for the refuge exit.
They don’t make ‘em like Rocko anymore,
Shane thought as he drove back toward Keyes. Darwin had pretty much explained why. He’d have felt bad except that Rocko’s next stop would have been heading to Two Rivers to drill Agnes in exchange for five large after having sent two assholes to terrify her two nights running. For that, the dumbfuck deserved the gator.

And now nobody else would be showing up to shoot Agnes.

One more stop at a jeweler Joey knew to cash in Agnes’s engagement ring for top dollar and then he could go home and see what was in the bomb shelter. First guess, Frankie’s body. Second guess, five million dollars. Third guess, a bunch of bad survival food and a dozen
Playboy
magazines from
1982.
The third one was the most likely—

Shane’s sat phone rang, the tone designating the cut out number he had used to call Casey Dean. Shane looked at the text message:

sorry i missed your call.

enjoy the wedding.

see you there. cd.

“Humor,” Shane said to the phone. “Har.” He punched the jeweler’s address into the GPS and wondered what Agnes was making for lunch.

“I know a little more than I did before I left,” Shane said as he drank the tall glass of lemonade Carpenter had brought out onto the porch after lunch. “I know the Marinelli/Macy contract was let on Agnes. I don’t know who let the contract, except that a woman made the call, and Rocko thought it was mob related. Whatever that means.”

“Well, that’s a help,” Joey muttered.

Shane turned on his uncle. “Don’t start with me, Joey. You called me into this mess and you’re still holding something back from me. I think the contract is defunct, given that I’ve taken out the food chain, but I still want to know who hired Rocko in case whoever it is decides to try again. Plus we’ve still got your old pal Four Wheels out in the swamp sending his descendants in here.” He looked at Carpenter, who was leaning back with his lemonade, smiling as he listened to Agnes and Lisa Livia talk in the kitchen. “And then I got this.” Shane handed his cell phone to Carpenter, letting him read the text message from Dean.

“Interesting,” Carpenter said.

“What’s the status of the hatch?” Shane asked him.

“The lock’s burned through,” Carpenter said. “I rigged a hydraulic jack to pull it open when you got back, so whenever you’re ready.”

“Who’s in there?” Shane asked, nodding toward the house.

“Agnes, Lisa Livia, and some woman named Kristy,” Joey answered. “Wedding photographer. A box came full of flamingo pens with pink feathers on their heads, and they’re lookin’ at ‘em.” He seemed bemused by that.

“Why—” Shane stopped when he spotted Xavier pull up to the bridge and park just short of it and Doyle come crawling out from underneath the bridge like some kind of troll. “What the hell is Xavier doing here?”