House of the Rising Sun (31 page)

Ray Shane sat on the floor, leaning against the back wall, his legs stretched out in front of him. Rocco and Joey stood next to him and had kept an eye on him while Tony had gone into the bathroom and cleaned up. His ear had stopped bleeding but the pain was almost unbearable. The only thing getting him through it was thinking about how much pain he was going to put Ray Shane through.

When he got back into the garage, sporting a wad of gauze
taped to his ear, Tony stared at the ex-detective, glad he finally had hold of the slippery son of a bitch. “Now that we got some time and some privacy, we're gonna have a little talk, Shane.”

Shane didn't say anything. He couldn't say anything with tape still around his head. He just stared back at Tony. His face—what Tony could see of it above the tape—looked like a prizefighter a couple days after losing a fight. The shiner Tony had put on Ray's eye was fading, leaving his skin that sickly yellow color of a healing bruise. Blood had drained out of his left ear, leaving a crusty trail down his neck and a stain on his shoulder. But there was no mistaking the look in Ray Shane's eyes—pure hatred.

Tony nodded to Rocco. “Take the tape off.” Then he told Joey, “He makes any noise, kick his fucking head in.”

Rocco eased himself down to his knees and grabbed Ray's hair. Using a fingernail, he peeled off some of the tape, just enough to get a grip, then ripped the long strip off Ray's face and head. A groan of pain slipped through Ray's clenched teeth but otherwise he said nothing.

Tony was a little disappointed. He had hoped for something more. “You think you're a tough guy, don't you, Shane?”

Shane just kept staring at him. It was making Tony a little uncomfortable. Shane was on the floor, he was beat to shit, and he was about to die. Did he know that? Did he care? Of course he did, everybody cared about dying, no matter what they said. So why was he just sitting there, doing nothing? Groveling, begging, crying—those were the things Tony expected, the things he wanted. Not this stony silence. But one way or the other, he was going to get what he wanted.

Tony strolled over to his workbench. He pulled Ray's Smith & Wesson from his waistband and tossed it into a drawer. He needed something more terrifying than a gun. Mounted to the wall behind the workbench was a three-inch-thick sheet
of wood. Carved into the sheet were a couple dozen custom tool cutouts, each designed to fit a specific tool, each lined with green velvet. Another piece of master carpentry by Johnny Four-Fingers.

Tony gazed around the board and finally selected a pair of Craftsman Robo-Grip pliers. With the pliers in hand, he turned and looked at Joey and Rocco, then pointed the Robo-Grips at Shane. “Pick him up.”

After the two muscle heads jerked the ex-cop to his feet, Tony held the pliers up and snapped the big jaws together a couple of times. “Take off his pants.”

“Nine-one-one operator,” a woman's voice said. “What is your emergency?”

Jenny had just circled the cul-de-sac and was stopped at the other end of Tony's street. She stared up at the street sign.

There was no time to explain the situation to the police; she needed help and she needed it right away. She spoke in a whispered panic, like a woman afraid for her life but afraid someone might hear her. “Help me! My husband's trying to kill me.” Her voice rose as she said, “I need the police.”

“Where are you calling from?” the operator asked. “Your address isn't coming up on my screen.”

“I'm on a cell phone. Send the police, for God's sake!”

“Calm down, ma'am. I need to know where you are.”

She had seen Tony's address on his mailbox. “Two thirteen Spruce Street, Kenner.”

“You said your—”

Jenny cut her off. “Are the police coming?”

Silence for a second, and then the operator said, “Help is on the way, ma'am. Please try to stay calm. Does your husband have a gun?”

A gun would probably make them come faster. “Yes, he has guns. They're all over the house.”

“What's his name?”

“Tony,” Jenny said. “His name is Tony Zello.” Jenny gasped into the phone. “Oh, my God! He's coming. I'm in the garage. I need help. Please, God, send help!” Then she broke the connection.

Jenny made a U-turn, then parked at the curb, facing Tony's house. Thirty seconds later she heard sirens wailing in the distance.

The more Ray struggled, the more Tony laughed.

Joey and Rocco were on the garage floor trying to control Shane. They had him on his back, but he was fighting hard and had almost gotten away a couple of times. “You girls need help?” Tony asked.

The two musclemen each had one of Shane's arms, and Rocco had a forearm against Shane's neck, jamming his head into the cement floor, while Joey tried to pin down his legs.

Tony snapped the pliers a couple more times, liking the sound of it, liking the look of terror on Shane's face. There was nothing he really needed to know from Shane. This was just going to be for fun.

The short blast of a police siren came from just down the street, followed almost immediately by the deep roar of a big engine getting closer.

Tony froze.

Tires squealed as a car braked hard in front of his house. Joey, Rocco, and Shane stopped struggling.

Two car doors slammed, a fraction of a second apart. There were voices just outside, and then another car screeched to a stop. More car doors, more voices. Pounding on the front door.

Tony leaned over Ray. He held the Robo-Grip pliers inches from Shane's face. “Keep your fucking mouth shut.”

More pounding on the front door. A man shouting, “Police officers. Open the door.”

Ray Shane's blood-streaked face broke into a grin.

Tony ran through the house to the front door and let the cops in. It was either that, or they were going to break down the door. There were five of them, four Kenner cops and a Jefferson Parish deputy. One of the Kenner cops was a sergeant. “What happened to your ear?” the sergeant asked Tony as the other cops fanned out through the house.

Tony raised a hand to it, conscious of what a mess it must look like. “Playing with the dog.”

“Where's your wife?”

“Shopping.” Wondering why the hell they wanted to know where his wife was. He sure didn't give a shit, as long as she was gone.

Two cops went straight into the kitchen. Pointing at the laundry room door, one of the officers asked, “Where's that go?”

Tony's heart felt like it was going to pop out of his chest, but he tried to keep his voice under control. “That's the laundry room.”

But the cop wasn't satisfied. “How do you get to the garage?”

Be cool, Tony thought. He couldn't bluff his way out of this. Even though they were just Kenner cops—NOPD gave out ass whippings just for looking at them wrong—these guys were still cops. Their laid-back style of policing was one of the reasons so many mob guys and dope dealers had moved out to Kenner.

The two cops in the kitchen went through the laundry room into the garage. Tony followed them in, holding his breath, with the sergeant trailing in right behind him. Inside, Rocco and Joey sat on either end of the sofa, sandwiching Ray Shane
between them. The TV was on, ESPN showing a college basketball game. Tony let out his breath.

The cops made everyone stand up and break out ID's.

The sergeant eyed Shane's busted face. “Dog got you, too?”

Tony's asshole was so tight he could not have farted if his life depended on it.

“I fell off a ladder,” Shane said.

“What's this about?” Tony asked. Stunned at Ray's answer, but thinking he needed to take control of the situation to keep from going to jail.

“Where's your wife?” the sergeant repeated.

“I told you, she's shopping.”

“We're going to look around and make sure she's not here.”

“Why?”

“Someone claiming to be your wife called nine-one-one and said you were trying to kill her.”

The other Kenner officer and the deputy sheriff walked into the garage. The deputy glanced at the sergeant and shook his head. An incredible situation, Tony thought, a house full of cops, a guy beat to hell, and so far no one had been arrested.

Just as the sergeant pulled a notebook from his back pocket, Shane flashed a grin at Tony, then raised his hand to his head. He buckled his knees and dropped to the sofa, moaning. It was the worst acting job Tony had ever seen.

One of the cops, a young kid with a fresh-from-the-academy look, sank down beside him. “Sir, are you okay?”

“I think I have a concussion.” Shane collapsed onto his side. “Do you think you can give me a ride to the hospital?”

The sergeant keyed the radio mike clipped to his shoulder and called for an ambulance.

Tony seethed.

“I saw the ambulance,” Jenny said. “I thought you were dead.”

Riding in the passenger seat of Jenny's car while she drove back to the hotel, Ray said, “I almost was. You saved my life.”

“I knew it had to be you in the ambulance. I didn't know what else to do, so I followed it to the hospital.”

His ear was bleeding again, so he pressed the wad of Kleenex against it that Jenny had dug out of her purse.

She said, “You should have stayed until you saw a doctor.”

“Tony's probably at the hospital right now looking for me.”

“What happened?”

“When the police started banging on the door, Tony had no choice but to open it. Joey stuck his head into the kitchen and saw it was cops. He ran back into the garage and told Rocco. Rocco was scared shitless. He told me if I kept my mouth shut, he'd let me go as soon as the police left.”

“Why didn't you tell the cops what was going on? You could have had all three of them arrested.”

Ray winced in pain as he shook his head. He thought about Dylan Sylvester dead in his apartment, dead from a bullet Ray put through his face. “There are some things going on that I don't want to have to explain to the police.” Just then he remembered the Smith & Wesson. It was still in Tony's garage.

Damn.

“They would have helped you.”

“They did help, and so did you. When they said why they were there, I knew it had to be you who came up with that scam.”

“It was the only thing I could think of.”

“I wasn't going to let them leave without me even if I had to punch one of them in the face and go to jail.”

“How'd you get out of the hospital so fast?”

“There's no law says you have to accept medical treatment.” He pulled the Kleenex away from his ear and saw the fresh blood. His eardrum had burst from the pistol-whipping. “Soon as the ambulance dropped me off, I told the triage nurse I felt a lot better.”

Jenny turned and looked at him. “They let you leave?”

“They wanted me to sign a form saying I was refusing treatment.”

“Did you sign it?”

“As soon as the nurse went to get it, I walked out.”

“When my cell phone rang, I almost jumped out of my skin.”

“I used the pay phone in the coffee shop,” he said. “I'm just glad you wrote your number on my hand.”

“I was walking across the parking lot, about to go into the emergency room to look for you.”

Ray laid a hand on her leg. “Thanks.”

Jenny dropped one hand from the steering wheel and rested it on top of his.