A Song to Die For (6 page)

Outside, he paused to shake Boss's hand. “Boss, you wouldn't happen to have a hundred on you, would you?” He offered him a red chip. “Just to get me through till next week?”

Boss chuckled and took the chip. He pulled a wad of folding money from his pocket and peeled off a hundred-dollar bill. “I'll see you in the near future or the far pasture.”

“Thanks.” He shook hands with the rancher and trotted toward his Dodge. Creed rounded his van to the driver's side, startled to see someone standing there. He quickly recognized Gail. She had her arm draped over the side mirror, and she held an open bottle of whiskey, half-full, propped on her hip like a rifle. “Don't forget my number,” she said.

Creed glanced around. “Where's your car?”

“I rode with one of the other girls. She panicked and left without me, the bitch.”

Creed was slipping the key into the door lock. “Well, looks like I better give you a ride home.”

“My hero,” she purred.

 

6

CHAPTER

He had the familiar dream; the one where he was holding the photograph in his hand. The dream was always the same, except for the face on the photo. This time, it bore the likeness of his adopted cousin, Rosabella. In the white fog of the dream, he studied Rosa's carefree smile, the curve of her cheek. Then he slowly slipped the photo into the shredder and watched it come out in ribbons that blew into a hole dug deep into the desert ground.

In the seat of his Shelby GT, Franco woke with a start to see the gunmetal blue of dawn creeping across his windshield. He felt a seething rage fuming down in the pit of his guts. He controlled it, but did not smother it. He used it, found motivation and purpose in it. He had been schooled by his father not to let anger get the better of him. He had learned, instead, to funnel it into purposeful violence—well-planned and executed deeds of brutality and, when necessary, murder. This was what Franco did for Papa Martini. He cleaned up messes. He shredded documents.

The shredding of Bert, for example, had gone exactly as planned—or so Franco had thought, unaware that Rosa had witnessed the shooting at the ranch. Bert had been a useful wise guy without a criminal record, well spoken and amiable, the perfect figurehead to install as the supposed manager of one of the family's casinos. Then Bert got too wise and started skimming off the top of the skim. He had been warned once before, years ago, and had the permanent limp to remind him of his transgressions. When Franco figured out that Bert was back to his old tricks, he had taken him for a drive to the ranch and worked him over in the toolshed until he was convinced that Bert was telling the truth about having acted alone in the embezzlement. Then he disposed of the problem under the root ball of a pine sapling.

The next morning, still out at the ranch, he had gotten the frantic phone call from Lieutenant Harbaugh, who told him Rosa was sitting in his office. As Franco quickly dressed to leave, the second call came in. Rosa had disappeared. Leaving the ranch house, Franco had spotted the Jeep tracks where she had turned around to flee after witnessing the killing of Bert. He had cursed her name all the way to the ranch gate. He had always known that spoiled, little adopted bitch was going to be trouble someday. She was not even Italian! She was the half-breed daughter of a Mexican hotel maid who had sold her for five hundred dollars to Uncle Rob because that sickly wife of his just had to have a kid.

Now Franco was stuck here in this parking lot in Texas, hoping someone might return for Rosa's car—maybe even Rosa herself. The Corvette was still parked where she had abandoned it. Positive that he remained inconspicuous and concealed, Franco had a good view of the Chevy from the position he had taken behind some small trees at the far corner of the parking lot. But he couldn't wait here forever.

He admitted to himself that he had botched the attempt to deal with Rosa. Taking those two low-percentage shots from the end of the pier had been foolish. He had used the silencer on the muzzle of his twenty-two, however, and was sure that no one had witnessed the gunfire, other than Rosa and the driver of the boat.

Still, Franco was worried. He hoped Rosa had been scared badly enough at the Las Vegas Police Department to prevent her from going to the cops here in Texas. He felt his teeth grind when he thought about that idiot, Lieutenant Jake Harbaugh, letting Rosa escape from his office in Vegas. The plan had worked well to use Harbaugh, who was on the Martini family payroll, to intercept any damaging intelligence Rosa might accidentally collect concerning the family business. It was Franco who had told Harbaugh where to go to meet Rosa. He had coached the big lummox on how to approach her, charm her, and seduce her.

That the moron had left the team rugby photo on display in his office was almost more than Franco could bear to think about, so he forced it out of his mind for now. At least Harbaugh had had enough sense to get on the dispatch radio and put a squad car on Rosa's tail as she fled the station, and had, himself, taken up the surveillance pursuit outside of town in his own car. Harbaugh had experience tailing suspects, and knew how to keep his distance so he wouldn't be spotted. He had done a surprisingly good job of keeping Rosa in sight until Franco could return from the ranch, fire up his Shelby, and haul ass to the east to catch up. The fact that Franco had to pull over every hour to call into Papa Martini's office for updates, phoned in hastily from Harbaugh during his chase, had slowed Franco down, and almost prevented him from catching up to Rosa before she got to Austin. It had become obvious after a while that she was heading back to her old college town.

Finally, after some fifteen hours of driving, Franco pulled within CB radio range where he could talk to Harbaugh on a seldom-used channel. The Martini family had caught on to the growing citizen's band radio craze, and had found it a useful way to communicate and coordinate, provided everyone knew the family radio code. Harbaugh knew the code.

“Hey, Snake, you got your ears on?” Franco asked, using Harbaugh's CB handle.

“Roger that.” The reply was a raspy squawk.

“You got a twenty on your ex?”

“Roger. Not far ahead.”

“Meet me at seventy-one and twenty-nine.”

Franco had overtaken the exhausted lieutenant at a small town called Llano, at the intersection of the two highways he had mentioned on the radio. He saw Harbaugh's Malibu idling in a grocery store parking lot and pulled his driver's-side window up to the lieutenant's.

“Well?” Franco said, a scowl on his face.

“She's got about three minutes on you. Still heading east on seventy-one.”

“You better hope I catch her, you stupid puke.”

He spotted the Corvette's taillights on a lonely stretch of U.S. Highway 71 in the countryside. At that moment he thought he had her, but she had proven more adept behind the wheel than he had expected. The events that took place next were still confusing to Franco. Had Rosa planned to take that left turn to Sunset Shores? Had the man in the boat been waiting for her? Was it arranged, or just happenstance?

Either way, now Franco not only had to deal with Rosa, but whoever it was who had helped her escape in the boat. This was getting messier instead of cleaner, and that frustrated Franco. Frustration made him mad. Anger made him relentlessly, diabolically efficient. As he shifted and stretched in the car seat, he continued sorting through the late-night events in his mind.

He had seen Rosa jump into the boat. Running to the end of the pier, he had gotten a pretty good look at the boat by moonlight. It was a classic wooden vessel—perhaps a Chris Craft or a Correct Craft. He had seen plenty of that sort on Lake Tahoe, where vintage watercraft were in vogue, but in backwater Texas, that had to be an unusual boat in this day and age of cheap fiberglass and aluminum hulls. It should be easy to spot on this lake.

Thinking of the boat, he recalled the motor housing situated in the middle of the craft in such a way that passengers could walk around it. It had an old-fashioned flat glass windshield as opposed to the more modern, curved glass models. After taking those two ill-advised shots at the boat, Franco had stood, cursing, at the end of the pier as the boat cruised around a bend in the lakeshore. Refusing to give up, he had run back to his car, and sped away through the waterfront neighborhoods, trying to keep the boat in sight. Every quarter mile or so, he would kill the Shelby motor and listen for the growl of the marine engine. Once, between two lake houses, he saw the boat's wake silvered in the moonlight, pointing like an arrow out to the open water of the middle of the reservoir.

Then he had run out of neighborhood through which to pursue the craft. There were still big ranches along the lakeshore, separating the residential developments. Undaunted, he had sped back to U.S. Highway 71, where he had first caught up to Rosa, to find the next lake community on down the shoreline. Blue Cove, Horseshoe Bay, Marble Falls, Highland Haven, Granite Shoals, Kingsland … He had driven down to every boat ramp and marina he could find in his hasty search, in hopes that he might spot the old woody. But after spending hours circumnavigating Lake Lyndon B. Johnson, an impoundment on the Colorado River, Franco came full circle to Sunset Shores to find Rosa's car still there.

Using his shirttail to open her car door, wary of leaving fingerprints, he looked around the inside of the Corvette for leads. He found a name, Celinda, and a phone number scribbled on a receipt stapled to the top of a Jack in the Box bag. He yanked the receipt off the top of the bag to collect the phone number scrawled on it. This was his first lucky break since catching up to Rosa. He hoped this Celinda might lead him to Rosa, or the owner of the vintage woody that had whisked Rosa away. But he was also worried about how much this Celinda might know. How far had this thing mushroomed? He decided to conceal himself and watch Rosa's car until dawn, on the off chance that someone might come to collect it.

Now daybreak was upon him, birds were chirping in the branches, and Franco knew he should get to a phone and report to his father. His failure was not going to be easy to explain. He dreaded making the call. He was stiff from sleeping briefly in the car, and hungry, having eaten little on the mad drive from Vegas. Fishing boats could be heard motoring out onto the lake, and people in the neighborhood were beginning to stir. An elderly fisherman was walking down to the pier with a tackle box in one hand, rod and reel in the other. The old-timer paused a moment to admire Rosa's cherry-red Vette. An early-morning jogger ran by. Franco began to get nervous about his Nevada license plates being noticed by someone, and decided to find a pay phone.

As he reached for the ignition, he heard a siren. A police car came barreling down to the boat ramp at the marina, killing the siren as it stopped, leaving its lights flashing. Franco slid lower in the seat. Seconds later, a sheriff's department pickup truck pulling a police boat appeared, and backed down to the boat ramp. He saw the old fisherman with the tackle box talking to the deputies as they launched the boat. The fisherman pointed at the Corvette. What the hell was going on?

Nosey residents and tourists began to filter out of the lakeside condos and nearby houses, no doubt all atwitter over the sirens in this sleepy lakeside burg. Franco decided to join them. He considered himself an expert at blending in, able to operate within any given circle of society, and even circles of sociopaths. He was still dressed in his casual ranch attire—a pair of jeans, hiking boots, and a short-sleeved button-up shirt—so he would fit in well enough with these Saturday-morning lake rats. He pulled a ball cap over his shaved head and put on some sunglasses.

Strolling casually down to the boat ramp, his hands in his pockets, he watched as the police boat motored away. Sidling up next to the retiree with the tackle box—the one who had pointed out the Vette to the cops—Franco said, “What the hell's going on?”

The old-timer was excited. “Some guys out fishin' on the lake found a body. A dead girl!”

Franco did not have to fake his surprise. “You're shittin' me.”

“That's what I says to the deputy! I says, ‘You're shittin' me!' The deputy says she was from Nevada. Had an ID on her. Says, ‘You know anybody from Nevada around here?' I says, ‘No, sir, but there's a red sports car right yonder with Nevada plates on it!'” He pointed to Rosa's car.

Franco looked, and this time he did fake his surprise. “I'll be damned. Wonder what happened to her?”

“Don't know. Shame, though.”

“It's a damned shame.” Franco turned and walked away, shaking his head, working hard to conceal his joy. Now the phone call to Papa was not going to be so dreadful. He could claim he shot Rosa fleeing in the boat, and for all he knew that was true, but he would have to admit to his father that he still had the boatman and this Celinda to follow up on. He wondered what the hell had happened out there last night.

Franco guessed that Celinda had expected to see Rosa some time last night. Probably a former college friend who still lived in Austin, or someone local whom Rosa had met while attending UT. He would have to get to Celinda before word of a dead Nevada girl on Lake L.B.J. hit the radio and TV news stations. And it was only a matter of time until someone connected the dead girl's last name with a reputed Las Vegas mob family.

Now Franco knew he really needed to get his Nevada plates out of the area without being spotted. As he walked back toward the Shelby, he looked over his shoulder. The commotion around the boat ramp provided the perfect distraction to cover his departure. The police boat motored slowly back toward the ramp, and everyone wanted to see the dead body, including Franco. He got into his car and waited in the parking lot as the boat docked.

The local cops had forgotten to bring anything resembling a body bag on the boat, so they just handed the corpse up to the gurney waiting on the dock where an E.M.T. covered it with a sheet. Franco saw enough long black hair and familiar clothing to know that was indeed the body of his late, adopted cousin, Rosa.