Corsican Death (14 page)

Count Lonzu
was
planning to send Bertrand into Paris, first having him check security arrangements at the monastery. There
was
a special mission.

Bertrand was going to kill Remy Patek.

“Uh, sir, uh, something else. I …” Damn, Roman had almost forgotten to tell the Count about the American.

“Well?” The Count’s voice was icy, the annoyance not hidden at all. He had things on his mind, and there wasn’t time to cater to Roman’s fear.

“Uh, an American. A man named Joe Belli has been asking about heroin for an American black in Washington. Uh, Belli’s here in Paris, and—”

“Get to the point, Roman.” Stupid fool, thought the Count. Now we talk about tourists. Impatience was something you didn’t show to those under you, if you could avoid it. It was a weakness. But Roman was annoying him with this ill-timed thought on Americans.

“Uh, he says he’s buying for a black, and he mentioned Alain’s name, said he met Alain in Washington and—”

“Met Alain in Washington?” Count Lonzu turned around in the huge wooden chair, his body now completely facing Roman. His gray eyes dug into the small man, who shifted from foot to foot, dropping his gaze to the floor.

“Yes, sir. He said Alain told him to come here and make a deal. Told him to talk with some people. According to our policemen, the American’s been asking questions, talking to couriers, drivers, one of Alain’s girlfriends. Remy’s looking for the American, I’m told.”

The Count nodded. It made sense now. Remy kills Christian, weakening the Count, making it difficult to meet future delivery deadlines of heroin until a new chemist is found, an efficient, trustworthy chemist. And Remy declares his independence with this slaughter, because he’s got something important going for him. The American. He’s going to make a deal with the American to supply his Washington black.

Remy was breaking away. No more united front. The death of Claude had made it impossible for future united sales. Remy was his own man once more, killing Christian to get that point across, getting cozy with this American, Belli, this American who had used Alain for an introduction to Corsican heroin suppliers.

How important was Belli? The Count stood up, his back to the fire, feeling it warm him. How important was Belli? Did he represent big dealers in America? If he did, then Remy was in good shape for future sales. All he had to do was come up with the heroin and sell it to this Belli and his black in America.

One American, one dead chemist. And Remy Patek was in business. The Count walked around his huge chair, his footsteps echoing on the wooden floor. His back was to Roman, who was forgotten for the moment. Something else for Bertrand to do. Kill Remy and bring back this American.

The Count wanted to talk to him. Let’s find out how important he is, who he represents in America. If he was important, then better he should buy from the Count. If this Belli didn’t want to do that, then the Count would kill him. As simple as that. No sense letting Remy get what he needed to knock the Count down off his throne.

He walked, hands behind his back, lost in thought. Bertrand. Remy. The American, Belli. Claude, So much to do.

He heard Roman leave the room but didn’t turn around at all. So much to do.

“How do you find Paris?”

“Expensive.”

Remy Patek moved a corner of his mouth in what might have been a smile if he had finished the movement. But he didn’t. He leaned back in his chair, fingers drumming on the tabletop, keeping poor time to the band in the Blue Cat Club. Americans always said that. Paris was expensive. But they still came here every year.

This Joe Belli, with his calm face and scar on his forehead, didn’t talk much. Remy liked that.

“Where did you learn to speak French?”

John Bolt shrugged. “Let’s talk business.” Fuck you, little man, thought the narc. You want my life story, or do you want to get rich?

“Yes,” said Remy, leaning forward, both arms stretched across the table, fingers clasped together. “Business.” This Belli fellow was in a hurry, like all Americans. No small talk, just business. Good, good. Maybe he had to come up with heroin fast for his American employer. Good. Blacks were taking over in American cities.

Remy didn’t care. Green was the color that interested him. Green, the color of American money. White or black made no difference. Green did.

“Well, what do you want?” asked Remy, eyes on Bolt’s face.

Bolt gave him a half-grin. “Your boy Staggers phones me for a meeting with you. I’m here to buy what you’re selling.”

Remy nodded. A careful man. “All right, I can supply. You tell me how much and when. I assume Alain told you something about our operation. Alain and—”

“He did.” So did our files, and so did two French policemen I know. “Said his brother was calling the shots, and—”

Remy sat up straight, slamming his hand flat down on the table. On either side men turned around quickly to look, seeing only Bolt and Remy at the table and Remy’s face turning red with rage. “Lonzu, Lonzu, Lonzu. I am sick of hearing that name. I, me, Remy Patek—I run my
own
operation. You want stuff, you come to me, all right? You come to me!”

He leaned across the table, white flecks of spit in the corners of his small mouth, his eyes bulging, his voice loud in the club. To hell with the Count. Soon he would be dead, just like that fat chemist of his, Christian. Remy was on his own now, officially. No more Count Lonzu, no more joint sales.

Remy was going to make a deal with this American to supply his black, and from that he was going to make other deals, too. To hell with Lonzu.

This dude comes unglued easily, thought Bolt, his eyes moving from Remy to take in the club. He thinks he’s king of the mountain. He must have plans for the Count, some very haughty plans. Christ, what a hole this dump is. Four broads dancing on stage. An amputee can dance better. The band sucks—six guys and an accordionist who squeezes that thing like it’s his sex partner.

Bolt had sat through a magic act consisting of a magician who had dropped his props three times, smiling with embarrassment each time, shrugging and carrying on as though this was a command performance.

Jesse Staggers. He’d called Bolt’s hotel, not knowing the narc had changed hotels, leaving a number where he could be reached. A quick phone conversation between them and the meeting had been set for tonight at 8:30.

Two days gone now, but Bolt was getting closer. Maybe Remy could tell him something about Alain’s hideouts or the Count’s smuggling routes. Yeah, this was an opportunity to get ahead if Bolt didn’t lose his head. A few hours ago Bolt had spoken to Jean-Paul, who had given him the news about Christian Lombard’s murder.

“Remy’s handiwork,” Jean-Paul had said. “It’s on the street now. Grapevine’s shouting it. Remy’s breaking away from Lonzu. You be careful, Johnny. You got only one of those things between your legs. Don’t lose it.”

Bolt wasn’t going to lose it if he could help it.

He looked at the tables near him and Remy. At least eight of the men around them were Remy’s goons, muscle dressed in suits that didn’t fit, hair cut nice and neat, faces that looked as though somebody had backed a truck over them, and eyes that always seemed to be watching Bolt every time he looked over at them.

Some of these clowns had broads with them. Blonds with big tits, a favorite of hoods on both sides of the Atlantic. Everybody had drinks, and they smoked those stinking French cigarettes, which were enough to make Bolt puke.

The club was small. A bar in the front on the left side, then down four steps to some tables, and a dance floor, with the band on the right of the dance floor. Everything was in blue, walls, tablecloths, lamps on the tables, waiters’ jackets. Dark blue silhouettes of cats were everywhere, too. Walls, matchbooks, behind the bar.

All this pussy, thought Bolt, looking at cats on the walls, and not enough to eat.

“Staggers said you have money.”

That always impresses them, thought the narc. Show them green and they come in their drawers. “Yeah, I got money.”

Remy smiled. “I hear Staggers tried to take your money?”

“He tried.” And almost died.

Remy nodded his head, smiling more now, his tiny mouth spread wide. He liked violence, and any story of violence had his immediate, total interest. Besides, he didn’t like Staggers. Staggers wore his hair long in a ponytail, and Remy thought that was stupid.

But one good thing had come out of Staggers’ misfortune. Remy knew Joe Belli wanted dope and had money to pay for it.

The girls finished dancing and stood in a line, arms around each other’s waists, teeth showing in the customary insincere show-business smile. They bowed, waiting for applause. It came, thin, scattered, dying out quickly. Don’t quit your day job, girls, thought Bolt.

“Who’s your man in the States?”

“Wilson. He’s not known that much, but he’s known enough, if you understand my meaning. Going out on his own. Big money, but doesn’t speak French. That’s where I come in. Like I told Staggers, I’m making no commitments. I want to see a kilo first, run a test; then we talk.”

Don’t push ’em. Make ’em think. Come on slow, careful. Be cool, stay alive. Remy’s no fool, and the little bastard’s already shown that he can play tough if he has to. Cutting off a guy’s cock. Bad news.

“Fair enough. Tomorrow you shall have it. How much, I mean assuming everything tests out O.K., how much will your man buy?”

Bolt looked up at the ceiling in careful thought, playing the role to a T. I should get an Oscar for this performance. I’ll settle for staying alive. “Can you get fifty kilos to start with? You deliver. If that goes down O.K., we’ll come back for, say, two more buys in the next six months. Big buys.” Might as well make it look good.

Remy smiled, nodding at the same time. Fifty kilos. Very good. Delivery to America meant a higher price than delivering it to the black over here to smuggle it in—forty thousand dollars a kilo at least. That meant two million dollars, with more to come.

That meant Remy could go out on his own in a big way. Joe Belli was important to him. Joe Belli was Remy’s future—not all of it, but a big part of it. First Remy had to take care of the Count, kill that bastard, his stupid brother, and as many of Lonzu’s men as he had to. And with this Belli and his black American, Remy could make up whatever losses he would suffer from Alain’s betrayal in Washington three days ago.

He smiled at John Bolt. Bolt smiled back. You think you’re on top, little man, and I
hope
I’m on top. Which one of us is right?

The magician was back, changed into a silver suit and red top hat, a stupid grin on his pointed, bearded face, his eyes nervous as hell, a young-looking flat-chested blond in a yellow bathing suit pushing his props out on stage. Show business, thought Bolt. Sleaze with a capital S. Guess this dumb bastard’s going to keep coming back until he gets it right.

“You run your own operation,” said Bolt. “That means you come into the States on your own route, or will you be using the Count’s?”

Remy shrugged. “He comes through Canada. I will come another way.” No choice about that, thought Remy. Unless I kill the Count and take over his smuggling routes.

Bolt held his breath. Canada. That old bastard’s bringing his shit into Canada, then down into New York. But how? No sense in pushing it. Just sit here and try not to do cartwheels. Canada. Yeah, that was worth sitting around in this armpit to hear.

Remy leaned forward toward Bolt, mouth open to say something, and one of Remy’s men leaned over Remy to whisper in his ear, and Bolt heard the shot, heard a woman scream, saw the man’s head explode into blood as he fell forward across the table, part of his body still shielding Remy.

Bolt jerked his own arm back across the table, fighting shock and surprise, feeling warm blood on his fingers. Christ! What the hell!

Women screamed, high-pitched, shrill, nonstop. Men shouted, cursed, overturned tables, sending bottles, glasses, plates to the floor. People moved with the speed found only in mindless panic, smashing into each other and trying to shove tables, chairs, as well as human flesh out of their way.

A shootout! At least four guys on the stairway with handguns and shotguns, and the only reason John Bolt was alive right now was because whoever had tried to blow away Remy Patek had used a handgun. A shotgun would have sent Bolt
and
Remy flying across the dance floor in bloody pieces.

Shit! Bolt dived for the floor, hitting it fast, scared and angry too, angry because he didn’t have his .45 or the Beretta and ankle holster furnished him by Jean-Paul and Roger. Jesus, he was stupid for leaving his piece in the hotel, but damn, what else could he have done? He expected to be patted down by Remy’s boys—he was, and damn good—so why bring them?

But damn, he needed something now besides broken glass and a handful of carpet. Sure, his money was somewhere else, back in the safe-deposit box. The money had done its work well, priming Staggers’ greed and imagination. So who needed a gun tonight?

Bolt did. Right now.

He was on the floor, a glimpse still in his mind of the big blond-haired man in pink-tinted glasses who had stood at the top of the stairs and fired the shot that had taken off a lot of the head belonging to Remy’s goon.

That shot had been aimed at Remy, and it had come too goddamn close to John Bolt. Scary.

Someone stepped on Bolt’s hand. The magician. He was falling to the floor, colored handkerchiefs in one hand, the other hand pressing his red top hat down on his head.

Rolling his eyes, the magician looked at Bolt, then crawled closer to the overturned table, if you’re so goddamn good, thought Bolt, why don’t you make us both disappear, get us out of here?

More rushing, shouting, gunshots, and glass shattering. Men cursed, and the sound of guns going off was loud around Bolt. Someone was trying to kill Remy Patek and his friends, and right now Remy’s friends included John Devon Bolt, federal narcotics agent.

They were trying to kill Bolt, too, just because he was there. Like Mount Everest. Just because he was there.