Film Strip (20 page)

Packy looked back toward the waiting sedan, then out at the water. His eyes were slowly lowering, like he was maybe in deep thought. He was probably figuring out when and how to kill us both. I glanced over at Francis, stealing a glance from under the brim of my hat. I couldn't see his eyes, so I had no idea what in the hell he was thinking, but if he didn't come up with something fast, the North Florida Lavotinis would be history, bad history.

Finally Francis spoke. “We're not after the protection angle,” he said. “Frankly, that's small potatoes. We've never done much with protection. We look at that as chump change for losers, no offense intended.” Damn! Why didn't he just reach over and slap the boy?

“We had nothing to do with your guy taking a whack. That's not to say he didn't deserve it, or that he didn't piss people off, but we didn't see taking him out in such a public manner and with such fanfare as being worthwhile.”

Packy Cozzone was steaming, but perhaps out of respect for a larger family, he held his temper in check.

“Barboni was fucking with my sister's—cousin's—club. He was completely too high-profile.” Francis shook his head with distaste. “Very unprofessional. If you were looking to issue a warning, then killing the girls was carrying things way too far. You lose your valuables that way. If you got nothing to protect, then you got nothing to lose. You see what I'm saying here, Packy?”

Packy's face went from red to white to a bluish purple. Francis was slapping him publicly and it felt bad. I looked over at Francis, trying to warn him that he was getting a little carried away, but he wasn't taking his eyes off Packy.

“It is one thing to teach a lesson,” Francis continued, obviously warming to his role, because his tongue was stuck firmly in his cheek. “You scar a face, you cut up a body part, but you do not kill the girl, let alone two of them.”

Packy couldn't help himself. He was brimming over with his desire to set Francis straight, and that was just what Francis wanted.

“Alonzo Barboni did not button those two bimbos,” Packy said. “The Cozzone organization may be significantly smaller than you Lavotinis, but we are every bit as professional. We supply film producers and dance clubs with girls. We make sure the client gets quality entertainment and the girls get taken care of. To that end, Barboni was trying to figure out who was taking out the girls down here. It is our first venture into the Panhandle area, and we expected some resistance, but we didn't expect this kind of trouble. Barboni said he was getting a pretty good bead on the problem”—he looked over at me, long and hard—“but then he got killed. Makes you wonder, huh?”

Francis clearly took offense at Packy's implication. He stood up, towering with all of his Marine presence over Packy Cozzone. He leaned across the table, his knuckles biting into the wooden surface in front of Packy's empty martini glass.

This brought a response from the sedan. The two front doors swung open and two gorillas stepped out and turned to await a signal from Cozzone. Packy looked at them, looked like he wanted to ask for help but couldn't quite bring his vocal cords to act.

“You don't wonder about a Lavotini,” my brother said. “There is never any doubt about where we stand. If I tell you that we had nothing to do with your pissant operation and the loss of your goon, then you'd best believe it. If we wanted the business, we'd have it, and you and I would not be having this conversation.”

Francis gave this time to sink in, then continued. “Now, you owe my cousin an apology.” Francis backed up a little and waited, apparently oblivious to the muscle that stood touching bulges under their thin windbreakers.

Packy Cozzone fumed. He was about to kiss my ass. We all knew it. It was just a matter of swallowing enough bile to make the job possible. He gulped, looked over at me, and brought forth the most disingenuous smile ever shown on the back deck at Ernie's.

“I don't know what came over me, Miss Lavotini. I suppose I was overcome by the grief entailed in losing a cherished member of our organization. Whatever the reason, my behavior was inexcusable and I beg your pardon.”

Spoken like a boarding-school graduate, but his eyes told me how he planned to hurt me if ever given the chance, and I fought to suppress a shudder. I smiled right back, bigger and broader and much more genuine than his pitiful attempt.

“Apology accepted, Mr. Cozzone. We all lose our heads from time to time.” My look told him I was praying for the loss of his little head, just as soon as I had the opportunity and a dull knife.

Francis smiled. Packy's smile was still frozen in place on his face, and I was smiling too. We looked like one big happy threesome, but murder was the only thing on our minds. Packy pushed his chair back and started to stand. The muscle by the car moved imperceptibly closer to the deck and I started having a bad feeling. Once Packy was gone, what was to keep the goons from mowing us down, especially in light of Francis having pissed him off so bad?

I shouldn't have worried, though. Pat and Raydean were on the job. In the distance sirens began to wail, drawing closer by the second, joined by other sirens that seemed to converge on Ernie's all at once. A large ambulance pulled into the driveway, followed by a firetruck and three squad cars. It was a full demonstration of Panama City's fire-and-rescue capabilities.

At the sight of the police cars, the muscle quietly withdrew to the car. Packy seemed alarmed and looked anxiously at the exits from the parking lot. There was no way he was going anywhere. The EMTs rushed the deck, followed by a couple of burly firefighters and two cops.

“Just have a seat, sir,” the female paramedic said. “These things happen all the time. We'll take good care of you.”

Francis and I stood up and backed away from the table. Packy looked like a trapped animal.

“What are you talking about?” he asked. His voice shifted an octave higher. “There's nothing wrong with me!”

“Sir, we all want what's best for you. Now, if you'll have a seat and let the paramedics check your vitals, we can be on our way.”

“I'm not going anywhere!” Packy said. “I got a car right out front and I'm leaving with them.”

Francis stood just behind Packy, slowly shaking his head. The cops saw him and nodded ever so gently.

“Dr. Slayback said you might try that, but she assured us that the hospital is the best place for you.”

“There is nothing wrong with me!” Packy roared. “Now let me go!”

The smallest cop was a blonde. Her arms were thicker than Arnold Schwarzenegger's neck. She was beautiful, but she wasn't about to let Packy Cozzone go past her.

“You wanna go easy or hard?” she asked him softly. The rescue squad and the firemen backed away slowly.

“I'm not going fucking anywhere with you!” Packy said. “I'm going to leave this restaurant, get in my car and fly the fuck back to New York.”

The blonde looked at him and smiled. “So I guess that means we do it the hard way.”

Packy may have started to move. He appeared to move, but just as quickly dropped to his knees, then sagged forward onto the deck. The blonde had brought forth a stun gun from behind her back, and poor Packy lay in a stupor on the ground.

The blonde looked at me, her face screwed up with concern. “I'm sorry to have to do that to him, especially in front of y'all, but an order's an order. We've got involuntary commitment papers issued from a Dr. Slayback in Tallahassee, but I guess y'all know that, huh?”

Francis didn't miss a beat. “Well, we were just hoping to hold him long enough for someone to arrive and pick him up. I guess you'll be taking him straight to the state hospital, won't you? The sooner they get him back on his medication, the sooner he'll lose his delusions. I mean really, New York? Come now. He's a school maintenance worker from Wewahitchka.”

I started to laugh but bit the inside of my cheek. Packy Cozzone was about to take a one-way trip to Tallahassee, courtesy of the Panama City Police Department. They'd drive for an hour and a half, all the way to the hospital, only to find out that Dr. Slayback had no idea who Packy Cozzone was.

As I watched the police carry Packy to the waiting patrol car, Raydean's Plymouth drove past the front of the restaurant. A gnarled hand fluttered out of the passenger-side window in a mock salute. The team had accomplished their mission and were heading back to squadron headquarters.

“Well,” I said, turning to Little Moose, “our work here is done.”

“Yes,” said Francis, tossing another twenty onto the table. “I believe it is. Now we can go home and relax. It's vacation time!”

I let him have his fantasy. After all, his bubble of denial would burst soon enough. And when the golden moment arrived, I planned to have him too full of Pa's Chianti to care.

Twenty-six

The team was waiting when we pulled back into my driveway. They were already inside and, from the sound of it, were ready to party. We'd pulled one over, but I had to worry about the eventual cost of said maneuver. Inside, the coffee was perking, Pa's Chianti was sitting out in the middle of the kitchen table, and Pat was shuffling the deck of cards.

“Dr. Slayback?” I said. “I know I said come up with a distraction, but how'd you come up with that?”

Raydean grinned. Fluffy sat curled up in her lap. “Honey, by now you oughta realize that I know the ins and outs of the state hospital system.”

“Yeah, but when we talked about it earlier, you just said you'd call the police and have them pick him up.”

Raydean laughed. “The system don't work like that, sug. They gotta have their paperwork. They gotta call you back and double-check you're who you say you are. Otherwise, people'd be committing their neighbors and anybody what ticked 'em off.”

Pat and Francis reached for Pa's jug at the same moment and I could guess why. Francis reached because he dreaded what would come next, the obvious commission of a felony by an elderly woman. He didn't know yet how insane Raydean was. Pat reached for the jug as a matter of celebration.

Raydean's smile grew. “That's why I faxed them the papers earlier. I keep all the ones they done on me. You just white-out my name and put in any old thing. They don't really check. They just want the paper. Besides, can you read a doctor's handwriting? Then I called my friend Verna Slayback out at the hospital and told her to take the call when it came in. Told her to tell 'em the papers were on their way.”

Francis couldn't stand it. “You got a psychiatrist to commit someone she didn't even know? She lied to the police? She could lose her license.”

Pat smiled and took a deep swig of Chianti. Raydean turned to Francis and looked at him like he had to be either an idiot or an alien.

“You can't lose your license to be nuts,” she said. “Verna's grandfathered in. She's done been in the Big House so long they let her work in the kitchen. You try it. Call up there and ask for Dr. Slayback, extension four-twenty. They'll give you the kitchen every time. Everybody knows old Verna.”

Francis tossed back the entire tumbler of Chianti, shook his head like it hadn't done the job, and poured another glass.

“You got money?” Raydean asked him.

“Enough,” he answered, not knowing what was coming.

Raydean looked at Pat, nodded, and slapped the table as Pat began to deal the cards. “Then hit me, Little Big Man! I feel lucky tonight!”

I felt a little sorry for my brother. He played cards down at the Sons of Italy Social Club. He played with gentlemen. He never lost big because he was used to being the young son, the sharpie, the winner. Raydean and Pat were about to show him how the game of poker was played. Fluffy settled deeper into Raydean's lap, and Francis smiled at his two accomplices. If I knew him at all, he was thinking benevolent thoughts, like, “I'll be kind to the old bats,” or “I won't take all their money. Wonder where their penny jug is?”

I shook my head and wandered off to get ready for work. It was going to be a long night. I'd be working my tail off and Francis would be losing his.

I didn't bother putting on all of my makeup or curling my hair like usual. I figured it would only freak Francis out to see me in my glamour-girl getup. So I pulled on jeans, pinned my hair up in a twist, and walked back through the trailer with my gear bag.

“I've gotta head in,” I said to him, but it was wasted air. Francis was drinking Chianti and playing cards. His stack of chips had gone down significantly in the short time it had taken me to shower and change, and he looked worried. He kept glancing over at his Chianti glass like maybe it was responsible for his lack of luck.

“You guys keep an eye out for trouble,” I said. “You never know when the Cozzones will be back.”

Francis grunted and Raydean looked up. “Marlena will be on the alert,” she said, nodding to the shotgun by the door. “We've always got our guard up. You never know when the Flemish will choose to invade.”

“That's a roger,” said Pat.

“Jesus!” my brother said, under his breath. “What is it with these cards?”

I left, not even certain that they noticed.

*   *   *

Vincent Gambuzzo was waiting for me when I walked through the back door of the Tiffany Gentleman's Club. He stood there, his jaw twitching, his black wraparound sunglasses reflecting the backstage lighting.

“Thank God you're here,” he rumbled. “That would be all I'd need. This place is in a freaking mess, Sierra. There's no customers out in the house. I got girls calling off, right and left. They're spooked on account of we lost them two others. And with Marla not here, we got nothin'. I've got a call in to get another girl from off the circuit, but I don't got much hope. The agent wants an arm and a leg now anyway. You'd better get those other girls back in line.”