Only Child (29 page)

• • •

"M
ax, Giovanni. Giovanni, Max."
Giovanni extended his hand. Max shook it briefly, bowing his head a fraction of an inch.
"I heard about him," he said to me. "Max the Silent."
"He's in the room," I said.
"I'm sorry. I thought he . . .
you
couldn't hear," he said, turning to Max.
Max pointed to his lips, then folded his hands into a book, scanned it with his eyes.
"You read lips!" Giovanni said— delighted, like a kid who just got a present.
Max nodded.
"It's better to gesture while you speak," I said. "And you have to watch Max to hear what he's saying, okay?"
"Yeah, yeah," he said to me, impatient. To Max: "You're a karate expert, right?" stepping into a boxer's crouch.
Max held his thumb and forefinger close together.
"He says 'a little bit,' " I told Giovanni.
"I can
see
what's he saying, Burke." Giovanni took a coin from his pocket, held it out on his open palm. He made a gesture of snatching the coin away with his other hand, then extended the coin hand toward Max.
Max's lips twisted. He made a circle of his thumb and forefinger, held it to one eye, and mimed cranking a reel with the other.
"Only in the movies!" Giovanni laughed. "I love it. Your friend is some—"
The coin jumped off Giovanni's palm into the air. Max opened his fist. The coin was inside.
"Christ! How'd he—" Giovanni caught himself, turned to Max, said, "How'd you do it?"
Max handed the coin back to Giovanni. Opened his hand, tapped the palm. Giovanni nodded, replaced the coin in his own hand. Max moved his right hand, slow-motion, so we could see the middle two fingers welded together. He swept them beneath Giovanni's palm, touched the underside of that same hand. . . . The coin jumped up like his palm was a trampoline. Max's hand flashed, and the coin vanished again.
"Madonna mi!"
Giovanni said. "I never saw it. Not
any
of it."
"You never would," I told him.

• • •

T
he joint was a free-standing one-story building in the middle of a partly paved lot. It looked like a warehouse wrapped in neon.
"He's inside," I said to Giovanni. I pointed toward the back, nodded a "Yes" so that Max could hear, too. "It's him. Or, I should say, one of them. They've got him working the curtain."
"Lowlife skell," Giovanni muttered.
"We don't care what he
is,
" I told him. "Just what he
knows,
remember?"
"I'm ice," Giovanni assured me.
I turned to Max. Made a gesture of driving a ridge hand to the neck, shook my head "No."
Max nodded, patiently. We'd been over it a dozen times. One thing I learned as a kid— even if you hit someone a good shot, especially with something like a tire iron, you never know the result. One guy gets a headache; another one gets dead.
"It's a little after two," I said to Giovanni. "I don't know how long they keep a place like this open, but I figure we're in for a wait."
"Yeah. Maybe some of those hillbillies like to stay up late, catch the Grand Slam at Denny's before work."
"We're not that far from Trenton here."
"Far enough," Giovanni said. "This is like something out of fucking Kansas, all those farms and crap."
"If he lives close by, we'd have a lot of trouble tailing him, especially if it's off one of those back roads we passed on the way in. I don't want to spook him. So we're going with the original plan."
"You know what he's driving?"
"No. But there won't be many left in the parking lot after closing time."
"I don't see why we don't just stick a
pistola
in his mouth. He's a sex freak, right? I never heard of one of them that was a hard guy."
"You watch too many movies," I told him.
"What's that mean?"
"I've known baby-rapers who were cold as winter marble, and twice as hard. Stereotypes can get you killed. We're trying cash first."
"You're the driver," Giovanni said, settling down in the back seat to wait.

• • •

I
passed some of the time by taking a set of Velcro-backed New Mexico plates out of the trunk. They were handcrafted fakes— two different sets cut down the middle, with the mismatched halves epoxied back together. I slapped them over the New York ones that matched the Plymouth's registration, using a simple loop. I didn't expect anyone to be reading the numbers, but their sunburst-yellow color might stick in someone's memory bank, give us a little edge.
My watch said four-nineteen when the back door opened and he came out. By then, there were only three cars in the rear lot: a black Lincoln Navigator; a turquoise Thunderbird, one of the new ones; and a red Mustang drop-top resting on huge chromed rims.
"Three to one on the Mustang," I said to Giovanni.
"Go!" he whispered.
The target was wearing a waist-length white satin jacket, carrying what looked like a gym bag in one hand. I opened the door to the Plymouth. The dome light didn't go on. I slipped out, leaving the door slightly ajar.
I hadn't gone ten yards when I heard a sharp
chirp!
The Mustang sprang to life like something in a horror movie: the headlights snapped on, then the engine turned over. Was someone waiting for—? His arm was extended, holding something. Sure. One of those remote starter devices they sell to people in real cold climates, so they can warm up their cars without leaving the house.
I moved sideways until I was coming from behind him, as if I'd been inside the club all along.
"Mr. Heltman . . . ?" I called out, in a respectful tone.
He whirled to face me, pulling the gym bag behind his hip like he was cocking a right hook.
"Who're you?"
"My name is Casey," I told him, closing the space between us. "I wonder if I could buy some of your time."
"For what?"
"Just to talk. About a business proposition," I said, still moving.
"I don't know you," he said.
I was close enough to see the thick veins in his neck. "Well, let me introduce myself," I said. "As I said, my name's—"
"Cocksucker!" he grunted, driving his left into my ribs.
I was already spinning away from him when the punch landed, but it still felt like an anvil on a chain. I went down, rolling. He charged, the gym bag held club-high in his right hand. I X-ed my forearms for protection, brought a knee up to shield my groin, just as he . . . made a strangled sound and staggered back. Max had him in a one-arm choke. But when he shifted his weight to lock it in, the twin screamed— and launched Max over his back like a catapult.
Max landed on one knee, pivoted and came up ready to . . . But Heltman was already sprinting in the opposite direction.
The Mustang roared out of the lot, leaving us both on the ground.

• • •

M
ax beat me to the Plymouth by a couple of seconds, dived into the back. The motor was idling quiet, Giovanni behind the wheel. I shoved him over, stomped the gas, and plowed sideways across the gravel, the Mustang's lights still in sight. I took the hint, hit the rocker switch on the dash, and our own taillights went dead.
He had maybe a quarter-mile on us as he wheeled onto a stretch of two-lane blacktop. The Plymouth swallowed the distance in a gulp.
"He's heading for home," I yelled. "We don't stop him first, we're done."
"He's the one who's done," Giovanni said, jerking a chrome semi-auto out of an ankle holster. "Get alongside of him."
The Mustang's taillights were huge in our windshield. They went bright red as it skidded almost to a full stop before suddenly lurching off to the left.
"He knows he can't take us on the straights, so he's going for the twisties," I said.
"He's ours," Giovanni said, patting the Plymouth's dash affectionately.
Heltman knew the roads, but it wasn't enough. I held the Plymouth in second gear, barnacled to his rear bumper.
The Mustang slashed back and forth, trying to shake us loose. I had to end it before the noise woke up the wrong people. As he leaned into a long right-hand sweeper, I hit the high beams and the landing lights at the same time, flooding his mirror with blue-and-white fire. I dropped the hammer. The Mustang seemed suspended in place as the Plymouth came on like a rock from a slingshot, dead-aimed at his exposed right rear quarter-panel. I rammed the soft spot, and he lost it. The Mustang went into a wild spin as we powered on past.
I decked the brakes, threw it into reverse, and ripped back to the scene, Giovanni watching out his opened window. The Mustang was against a tree, crushed all the way into the windshield. Its airbag had deployed, but the driver's face was buried under blood— he hadn't been wearing a seatbelt.
Max hauled him out and laid him out on the ground.
"His wallet," I said to Giovanni. "Quick! We need an
address
."
I ran back to the Mustang, wrenched open the glove compartment. A pair of black leather gloves, some condoms, and the owner's manual. The gym bag was on the floor in front of the passenger seat. I ran back to where the others were.
"He's out," Giovanni said. "This was in his back pocket"— holding up an alligator billfold.
"We've got to split," I told him. "Even way out here, someone might have heard the crash, called it in. Don't worry about him; he won't be able to identify any of us."
Giovanni looked down at the sprawled body, said, "Any chance he was one of the ones?"
"Giovanni . . ."
"One of the ones that killed my daughter?"
"I don't know. Come on!"
Giovanni dropped to one knee, pinched the twin's nose closed with one hand, blocked his mouth with the other.
"Giovanni, no! It'll take minutes for that to . . ."
Max grabbed Giovanni under his arms, lifted him off the ground, and tossed him to the side. He looked at me. I nodded. Max rolled the twin on his stomach, mounted him, one knee against the spine. He took the twin's head in both hands, pulled it all the way back, and gave it a short, vicious twist.

• • •

"M
aiden Lane," I said, my mini-Mag trained on the driver's license we'd found in the dead man's wallet. "That's right around here, close by; I remember seeing it on the map. This
must
be a good address. Only I can't see asking for directions at this hour. Even a gas-station attendant would . . ."
"Maiden Lane," Giovanni said into his cell phone.
He listened for a minute, then said, "Drive, Burke. We've got a street map on the screen. Just go where I tell you."

• • •

T
he Plymouth's right-side low beams still worked, but they threw light at the same angle as the Mustang driver's neck. I couldn't feel any difference in the steering; it tracked straight and true. When you build a car to bounce off the wall at Talladega, nerfing a Mustang isn't going to change its personality.
The wood-frame house stood well back from the road. My flash picked up a "30" on the mailbox.
"This is the one," I said. "Let Max out," I told Giovanni.
I counted to a hundred in my head, said, "Some of the lights are on. He's not going to spook at a car coming up the drive; he'll be expecting his brother. Max is going to come in from the back. Ready?"
"Yeah, yeah. Come on!"
I motored up the long driveway, not trying to be especially quiet, but not making a show of it, either. As soon as I saw the pristine red Mustang convertible at the far end, I knew the dead man's driver's license hadn't lied.
We walked up to the front door, Giovanni behind me and to my left. I pounded on the door with the side of my fist.
Nothing.
I did it again.
Heard sounds of someone moving, somewhere in the house.
I pounded harder.
"Who is it?" An angry, guarded voice, slurred with . . . sleep?
"Fucking
key
!" I grunted, hitting the door again.
The door opened a little. "You asshole . . .," someone said. I hit the door with my shoulder, drove it open as Giovanni slipstreamed in behind me, his pistol up. The twin chopped at Giovanni's wrist, as panther-quick as his brother had been. The pistol hit the floor. I dived for it, took a sharp kick in the side of my neck. Giovanni was against the wall, his right arm dangling useless at his side. "Come on, pussy!" he offered the twin.
But Max had him by then. With both arms this time.

• • •

"M
ove the car around the back," I told Giovanni, urgently. "Make sure it's in shadow. I don't know how fast they'll find the wreck, but if they run its plates, they could be coming here, and we'll need the edge. Pull the dummy plates off the Plymouth. And take that white square off the driver's-side door. It's not painted on— just a piece of vinyl— there's a couple of pull-tabs along the top."
In the back bedroom, I found a woman. Naked, lying on her belly, head twisted to one side. She was breathing raggedly through a wide-open mouth, a thin line of drool trailing down her chin to her neck. A large blue dildo was sticking out of her like a freakish flagpole, anchored in what looked like dried blood.
"Filthy fucking animals," Giovanni said, over my shoulder.
"An address book," I reminded him. "
Anything
that looks like names and phone numbers."
I was expecting a computer. Hoping for a laptop.
Nothing
.
There was a big-screen TV and a VCR, but the tape collection was all commercial porn.
A sharp
crack!
Max snaps his fingers when he wants you to come and he's out of sight-line.
Even with handcuffs on his wrists, the twin looked dangerous. Giovanni held the pistol in his left hand. Max kept his forearm over the twin's Adam's apple.
"We came for the tapes," I told him, flat. His brother had taught me not to offer money, so I was groping, blind.
"I don't know nothing about no—"
"Then you're dead," I said, doing the math for him.
"Who sent—?"
"Vision, who else? Now guess how many times I'm going to ask you again."
"That little cocksucker. He said we could—"
"He changed his mind," I said, placing my bet. "This is simple enough even for you, wet-brain. Yes or no. Live or die."
"I . . . I got it hidden."
"It better be hidden
here
."
"You're gonna kill me anyway," he said, stalling. Thinking his brother would be home soon.
"We just want the tapes, you fucking moron," I told him, lying with my eyes.
"What for? I mean, all we got's a copy. He said we could—"
"He doesn't want it floating around no more," I said. "Come on. You give us what we came for, that's the end of it."
"You swear?"
"May my mother die," I said. The one statement I could always pass a polygraph on.
"Let me get up."
I nodded to Max, who changed grips.