BLACK to Reality (29 page)

“You want a snack, too?” she asked, her voice professionally interested in his needs.

“No, just the beer. Bring the cooler. It’s next to the refrigerator. Put some ice in, too.”

Maria stood and secured her bikini top. After a glance down the deserted beach, she padded up the sand, animating the tattoo of a scorpion on her shoulder as she moved.

A minute later a shadow fell across Simon’s face, and he opened his eyes. A man wearing khaki slacks and a tangerine resort shirt stood blocking the sun, the silenced barrel of the small-caliber pistol pointed at Simon’s head.

“Simon, I presume,” he said, his voice flat.

“What…no. Wait. This is a mistake.”

“Sure it is.”

“I had to leave town and let the heat blow over. They were right behind me. But I was planning to send you money…”

Even to Simon’s ear, his words sounded hollow.

“I’ll bet.”

Three seagulls flapped into the sky down the strand, the muffled pops from the gun startling them aloft. The gunman studied Simon’s corpse in silence before sliding his weapon into the waist of his trousers and pulling his shirt over it. He turned to face the jungle across the road and trudged back to where his car was parked behind a grove of trees, out of sight from the few hillside dwellings, the license plate obscured with mud.

When Maria returned from the house, her scream echoed off the water like the shrill cry of a wounded animal. In the near distance a lone pelican skimmed six feet above the surf line, riding an updraft off the water, its form distorted by the heat waves rising off the beach, its endless quest for sustenance untroubled by the human drama playing out on the sprawling stretch of baking tropical sand.

Chapter 43

Black trudged up the stairs to his office, the hall’s musty smell strangely reassuring. When he came to the door, he could still see the faint outline of the cheap lettering that had adorned it before the move, and noted that Mugsy’s cat door was still working. He pushed it open and came face to face with Roxie, who was unpacking a box of office supplies.

“Good morning, Roxie.”

“Morning, boss.”

“How does it feel to be back in the old digs?”

“Like having to wear the same underwear again the third day in a row.”

“It was for the best. I never want to have to worry about making a huge rent payment again.”

“It wasn’t luck that nobody had leased this pit. Who in their right mind would want it?”

“It’s not that bad.”

“That’s like saying VD isn’t that bad.”

He looked around. “Where’s the Mugster?”

“Hiding under my desk.”

Black glanced at the base and nodded. “How are sales going?”

“Mugsy Inc. is still going strong. Although now he’s off the air, it’ll probably slow.”

“Still. It’s got to be throwing a ton of cash.”

“After taxes, we’re seeing a few grand a day.”

“A day! Hell, I’m going home. Why work?”

“Exactly. Probably cuts into your drinking time.”

“Damn right it does.” He smiled. “Anyone call?”

“Stan said he’d be by. And a couple of new clients Bobby referred.”

Black’s face registered surprise. “Really? You aren’t bullshitting me?”

“It’s totally true. I put the numbers on your desk.”

“That’s awesome. Between the Mugsy money and the twenty-five grand from the show, we’re fat again. I’m going to go buy a new computer.”

“You don’t know how to work your old one.”

“Exactly. Did Stan say what he wanted?”

“Probably to talk about the case. I told him I pieced together what I think Simon was doing. He had a disguised interest in a songwriting company that his management company controls. It wasn’t obvious: that management company, from the outside, appears clean, but if you look at the ownership, you find a shell company in Delaware that his production company owns. It’s convoluted, but once you know what to look for…”

Black nodded slowly. “So Bend in the Creek was effectively signed to him. He wanted them to win so he could pocket most of the songwriting money.”

“And I’ll bet the management company has the rights to the merchandising.”

“What about last year? Alex? Do the same companies own the rights to his stuff?”

“No. I’m way ahead of you. But Alex is still getting taken to the cleaners. A different company owns his rights. A bunch of guys with Italian last names are the shareholders.”

“Ah. So it starts fitting together. There’s the mob connection.”

“Yeah. My guess is he did those guys a favor last season, and this year decided to pocket the real money himself.”

“But he had to be making bank off the show.”

“You’d think. But his car’s leased, he’s got a second mortgage on his house, and not a lot in his personal account.”

“I’m not going to ask how you know that,” Black said.

“That’s probably best.”

Black moved toward his office door. “At least it doesn’t smell like a sewage treatment plant in here from Mugsy yet.”

“How can you bag on a cat that’s paying the rent?”

“I know. Talk about turnaround.”

“Maybe we should call it Mugsy Investigations. He’s got the name recognition now.”

“It would mean new business cards. And you’d have to remember to answer the phone correctly.”

“Oh. Right.”

Black turned to Roxie. “How’d it turn out with Alex?”

“Okay. I mean, he’s still walking on eggshells because of the kidnapping thing, but all in all…he’s back in Denver today for a show.”

“It’s going to be tough to maintain a long-distance romance.”

“Where there’s a will.”

“That’s the spirit. How did telling the old lady you weren’t going to be working for her anymore go?”

“She called me an ungrateful whore and demanded her wrist phone back.”

“So it went well.”

“As expected.” She studied him. “When are you getting those extensions removed?”

“This afternoon. Why?”

“Oh, nothing. It’s just with that suit and the hair…it’s even douchier than usual.”

“Is that even a word?”

“Douchiesque. Douchier. Whatever. If the douche fits.”

“I missed your compliments.”

Black entered his office, hung his jacket on the door, and moved to his desk. He glanced at the two message slips. “Roxie, there’s no name on one of the messages.”

“Crap.”

“Do you remember who it was?”

“No. Just call and find out.”

Black sighed and looked through the grimy window at the street below. On a whim, he pulled up YouTube, searched for
Rock of Ages
, and found the final show. Wavering for a moment at his decision to leave the band, he clicked on the clip and watched his swan song with a racing heart.

By the end of it, his resolve was back.

For once he’d done the right thing.

Maybe not for everyone.

But absolutely for him.

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The Geronimo Breach

Excerpt from
The Geronimo Breach

Chapter 1

Bullets peppered the dirt around Al and his partner. They instinctively returned fire, the barrels of their automatic rifles pulsing hot from burst after burst of armor-piercing slugs. Thick smoke belched from a crippled station wagon lying on its side by the mouth of the rural alley where they’d taken cover. The glow of burning fuel intermingled with the unmistakable stench of seared flesh, creating a nauseating haze. A slug ricocheted off the peeling wall, gouging a chunk of brick from the dilapidated surface.

A flickering of illumination from ancient streetlights succumbed to the gloom of late evening, casting otherworldly shadows over the rustic thoroughfare – now transformed into a killing zone.

White noise and static shrieked from their radios – not that they could distinguish anything in the cacophony of the firefight. The concussion of gunfire had devastated their hearing, and the ringing from tinnitus obliterated all sounds besides the percussive chatter of their guns.

Squinting down their sights at the blurs of motion on the rooftops of the bombed-out buildings across the street, they paused, turning to give each other a knowing glance before returning their attention to their assailants and squeezing off their last rounds. They weren’t going to make it. This was a deathtrap; they’d been boxed in with no hope of escape. Help was at least fifteen minutes out, assuming their base had received the solitary frantic distress call before the radio had been taken out. It didn’t look good.

The incoming fire escalated to a hail of screaming death. Rifle ammo depleted, they un-holstered their army-issue Beretta pistols and fired intermittently in the direction of their attackers, to no obvious effect. They exchanged panicked looks – this wasn’t supposed to happen; just a routine patrol in a secure area with no reason to expect hostiles, much less heavily-armed ones intent on slaughtering them. It was supposed to be a cakewalk.

Dave’s gun jerked as he reflexively squeezed the trigger, again and again, even after his magazine was spent. Al glanced at him with alarm and then elbowed him back into the fight. Dazed, Dave stared at the useless weapon in his hand, before dropping the Beretta and frantically fumbling for the scarred knife handle protruding from his belt. He almost had the serrated edge free from its sheath when his head exploded in a blast of bloody emulsion.

Al spat out fragments of his mutilated partner and expended his last rounds in a defiant salvo, squinting at the shadows in an effort to make each shot count. Cursing silently when his ammo ran dry, he tossed the handgun aside and bared his trusty blade for the final reckoning.

Shouts in an unfamiliar tongue drifted from beyond the dense smoke at the alley’s mouth. A bright flash momentarily blinded him as a flare bounced down the length of the cobblestone passage before coming to rest a few yards from his trembling body.

Four figures emerged from the gloom, cautiously approaching the soldier’s hiding place through the fog of burning oil, their rifles trained on his blood-spattered profile. Pointing at the ludicrously inadequate combat knife clutched in Al’s shaking hand, the tallest of the bearded, turbaned warriors barked a guttural cackle. He handed his firearm to the figure beside him and from beneath his filthy robe withdrew a gleaming, viciously curved blade as long as his arm. He sliced at the air with it, savoring Al’s horrified gaze as it whistled its grim tune. The turbaned warrior grinned maliciously and moved forward.

The angel of death had arrived, and it was time for Al to die.

He shielded his head with his arms, all thoughts of attacking with the knife now gone.

The bearded executioner smirked.

Sobbing, the last thing Al registered as the scimitar descended to sever his head was a bloodcurdling scream from his executioner; a victory yell as old as the god-forsaken hills of the foul dustbowl that had claimed his mortality.

Al bolted awake, the image of the flashing blade still vivid, even as the specter dissolved into a muddy, waking awareness.

What the hell?

His chest heaved from the adrenaline rush triggered by the nightmare, his heart trip-hammering in his chest as he shook off the bitter remnants of the dream state. He sluggishly scanned his surroundings; dimly visible silhouettes of furniture offered a quiet reassurance he wasn’t anywhere near a gunfight in some non-specific shithole, or being decapitated by a malevolent mullah straight out of central casting.
Damn, that had been realistic
. He cleared his throat, wiping the sweat from his face with a damp hand.

A battered air conditioner wheezed from its position on the wall, barely denting the heat and humidity in the squalid room. The bed sheets beneath him exuded an odor of sour perspiration and years of marginal laundering. A car’s un-muffled exhaust roared down the street outside the window; the moth-eaten curtains providing slim insulation from the racket.

Still, it was better than being beheaded in a mud-hole.

Al tried to sit up but was sapped of energy. Pausing to muster his strength, he registered a tickling on the skin of his right leg, as though ghostly fingers were brushing at the hair just below his knee. He groped for the small bedside lamp on the table by his head and after several seconds found the power switch. A weak yellow light flickered on and he gingerly pulled the threadbare sheet off his naked lower body.

He froze.

Two claws gnashed at the air over the greenish black carapace of a highly agitated scorpion. The arched tail lashed at Al, its venomous stinger fully exposed. He went rigid, his skin instantly covered in a film of clammy sweat. The poisonous insect became more agitated by this physiological change and, enraged, it scurried up Al’s thigh and plunged its deadly barb into the soft, exposed flesh of his groin.

Al thrashed to full wakefulness, clutching his calf in agony, expunging the scorpion dream as he dealt with this all-too-real distress. The pain was blinding as the large muscle of his lower leg cramped into a rigid ball, taking his breath away as he pawed at it, trying to persuade it to release. His back shuddered with spasms from the effort of bending nearly double – he wasn’t exactly in prime shape for gymnastics, and the effort of stretching to loosen the knot had pinched his sciatica, compounding the excruciating discomfort from his traumatized lower leg.

Harsh experience had taught him to maintain a grip on his toes no matter what and exert steady pressure on the Achilles tendon, pulling and coaxing the contracted muscle until it relaxed. If he surrendered to his back’s protestations the cramp would worsen and the ordeal would go on seemingly forever – either way there would be pain, garnished with even more pain.

He groaned with anguish. What kind of fresh hell was this anyway? Why him?

A blurry flash of the prior evening’s debauchery intruded into his labored calisthenics. He vaguely recalled lurching up the stairs to his dingy apartment swigging the last of a cheap bottle of coconut rum after many hours of drunken gambling at the neighborhood watering hole, and a loud argument with the bartender about soccer, transvestites and how the Chinese were Satan’s henchmen, but the rest was a blank, with the exception of copious quantities of alcohol. The memory of the rotgut triggered his gag reflex, filling his mouth with bitter saliva as he choked down vomit.