Stone Kiss (50 page)

“Caldwell?” A pause. “Caldwell, are you there?”

Donatti and Decker mouthed the word simultaneously: “Merrin.”

“Caldwel—”

The smashing underfoot stopped. Donatti shifted his position until the police chief came into view. “He’s looking at the bodies.”
He turned to Decker. “He’s got your brother-in-law.”

“What do you mean?”

Donatti took his gun and put it at his temple. “I’ll take him down if you want.” A smile. “Or do you want to
warn
him?”

Decker’s brain was moving too fast to digest his thoughts. “I’m going to try to
talk
him down.” He got to his feet. “Stay back, all right?”

Chris shrugged indifference.

“Just be there to back me.”

Another apathetic shrug.

“What does that mean?”

“Time’s ticking, Decker. Either do it or let me handle it.”

Decker stepped out and aimed his weapon. “Hey, Virgil.”

Merrin jumped around, one hand holding a Smith & Wesson .32 caliber pistol with its bore buried in Chaim’s temple, the other
hand
clamped over Lieber’s mouth, muting his sobs and wails. Decker’s eye went from Chaim’s face, over the teenage corpses, then
came back to the chief. “Sorry about your boys.”

“S’right. I got others to take their places.” A piggish grin was plastered across his ugly face. “It’s mighty nice for you
to show up. Makes things easier all around.”

“I’m very tired,” Decker said. “Drop the gun—”

“You can’t be serious. Matter of fact, I was going to ask you to do that very thing.”

“Merrin, my nine millimeter is pointed at your chest. Your piece is pointed at Lieber’s head. That means I have the advantage.”

“You shoot me; I shoot him.”

“Then shoot him,” Decker retorted.

Merrin’s smile sagged, his face registering pure shock.

“So,” Decker told him, “either drop the gun or I’ll shoot you.”

“You’re bluffing—”

“Try me, Chief.”

Without warning, Merrin’s lips turned upward into a venal grin. “I suggest
you
drop the gun, Lieutenant, because I do reckon that the odds just shone in my favor.” His eyes went past Decker’s head, focusing
on something behind him.

No one spoke.

Then Decker said, “I don’t know, Virgil. Donatti’s a loose cannon.”

Donatti laughed. “That’s certainly true. Because neither one of you knows whose side I’m on.” A pause. “Maybe I’ll kill both
of you.”

No one moved.

“I’m about ten feet behind you, Decker,” Donatti said. “And, at the moment,
my
nine millimeter is pointed right at the base of your spine. I suggest you listen to the chief.”

Slowly, Decker turned around.

Chris wasn’t lying, except now the gun was aimed at Decker’s Adam’s apple. Donatti shrugged. “Nothing personal… well, maybe
a little personal. But primarily it’s business.”

Decker looked back at Merrin—at his porcine expression filled with malice and evil—then returned his attention to Donatti.
The gun remained on him—a fixed, permanent object.

“If you don’t do it now, Decker, I’ll shoot you in a five countdown. If you cooperate and
slowly
lower the gun to the floor, you stand a slim chance of talking me out of it.”

Decker weighed his options, two against one—the professional cop and the sharpshooter. Maybe if he ducked, they’d shoot each
other. He smiled internally, but found his body had been seized by the shakes. In the end, he bent down and placed the gun
on the cement floor. Then he straightened. He’d given the snub-nose and its one bullet to Jonathan. How he wished he had that
gun now.

“Keep your hands up and where I can see them,” Donatti said.

Decker raised his hands to his shoulders. “Is this the part where I try to talk you out of it?”

“No, this is the part where you shut up and listen. Kick the Walther over to me.”

Decker did as told.

Instead of picking it up, Donatti kicked the weapon at least fifty feet behind him, out of anyone’s reach. “One less firearm
to go off in my face. Now it’s your turn, Virgil. Put the gun in your holster. I don’t want any fuckups.”

“You don’t want me to do him? The Jew boy?”

“Why would you do him? You’ve got him precisely where you want him. He’ll shit on command for you. Learn to take advantage
when fortune shines on you.”

“Now, that’s a very good point, Mr. Donatti. A very good point.”

“And because I’ve been so generous with you, you’ll send something my way, huh?”

“You better believe it, sir.”

“Can I talk now, Chris?”

“No, not yet. And don’t you
dare
act familiar with me.” He shot the floor, an inch away from Decker’s foot, pulverizing cement into dust. To Merrin: “Didn’t
I tell you to put the gun away?” Donatti became suddenly impatient. “You’re pissing me off. Do it!”

Quickly, Merrin stowed the gun, keeping a firm grip on Chaim’s throat.

“Push him on the floor,” Donatti told him. “Let him feel what it’s like to crawl like an insect. Because that’s what he is…a
fucking bug.”

Merrin grabbed Lieber by the collar and pushed him to the ground, stepping on his back to flatten him out. Chaim was sobbing.

Merrin grinned. “I don’t know of any bug that cries, Mr. Donatti.”

“Everybody cries, Virgil.”

Three bullets in rapid succession—one in the forehead, one in the throat, and one in the groin. Merrin didn’t even have a
chance to react. He just stared out of vacant blue eyes, the same hoggish expression on his face, then collapsed onto Chaim,
a sprinkler of squirting blood. Lieber let go with ear-piercing screams—uncontrolled and at maximum volume—flailing his arms
and legs, pushing the body from his back. Freeing himself from the corpse, Lieber remained on the floor, heaving deep, big
gulps as if he were being choked.

Decker could hear himself breathing.

Donatti was speaking to him. “Back up and keep your hands up.”

“I don’t…” Decker shut himself up. He was trembling so hard, it took all his concentration to remain on his feet. He did as
instructed.

“Now go pick up your brother-in-law from the ground. He stinks. I think he shit in his pants. Can’t anyone take a little pressure
anymore?”

Shaking but trying to hide it, Decker went over to Chaim and lifted him to his feet. “Are you all right?”

Chaim was still sobbing.

“Shut him up.”

“He’s terrified—”

“He’s giving me a headache. Shut him
up
!”

Chaim clamped his trembling hands over his mouth, his body quivering and unstable on his feet. Tears ran from his eyes. Decker
slipped his arm around his shoulders. Chaim melted into his arms.

Donatti went over to Merrin’s body, still flowing with rich, oxygenated blood, and plucked the gun from the holster. “Guess
who has all the wea-pons,” he sang out. “Guess whose ass you’d better start kiss-ing.”

“What do you want?” Decker whispered.

“I’d like your wife, and probably the easiest way to get her is to shoot you.” He stared at Decker, his eyes filled with avarice
and hunger. “What do you think, Lieutenant? Her luscious lips around my cock, those gorgeous baby blues looking up at my face…
Good, huh?”

Decker felt his stomach churn. “You’ve got the gun. You’re entitled to dream.”

Donatti grinned. “Nice comeback. You can live another five minutes.” His eyes went to Chaim. “I just shot a nice piece of
my income.” He aimed the gun at Chaim’s head. “To make up for that, you’re going to work for me. I need details. You can start
now.”

Silence.

Donatti shot a bullet at Lieber’s feet, making him do a little hop. “Don’t keep me waiting, you stupid kike. Tell me about
the operation.”

“I…” Chaim cleared his throat. “I was helping…import. I was importing—”

“If you can’t stop stumbling over your words, I’m going to kill you. Now try it again. Go on, I’m getting testy.”

“I bring in the stuff…in my electronic equipment.”

“From where?”

“Europe… Israel… Asia… all over.”

“And Merrin was your distributor?”

Chaim nodded, breaking away from Decker. He tried to stand straighter, but his legs were still wobbly.

“What’s your cut?”

“It works out… to about…” Heavy breathing. But it was clear that Lieber was calming down. “I took about thirty percent of
street value.”

“Well, now you’re down to twenty.”

“Sure… yeah. Okay. Whatever you want.”

“Whatever I want, ‘Mr. Donatti.’”

“Yes, sure… Whatever you want, Mr. Donatti.”

“Who did Merrin sell it to?”

“The locals kids from the townships…
behamas
… beasts. Kids with nothing better to do than to go crazy.”

“These vermin over here…” Donatti pointed to the corpses. “They were locals?”

Chaim nodded.

“Merrin sold directly to the boys?”

“He had… others in the force to help him out.”

“Good to know. How’d you get into this?”

“Merrin… he was using dancers… him and the Israelis and the Arabs… but then they got caught in Miami. They… needed another
way to import the stuff.” He looked at Decker. “Weiss suggested me because I needed money.”

“You worked with him before?”

“I borrowed some money from him, yes. But I paid it back. I wouldn’t have done it.” Again a look at Decker. “But Merrin found
out that I was…I was doing things.”

Slowly, Donatti grinned. “I thought you looked familiar. Course all you kikes look alike when you’re naked.”

The videotapes from the whorehouse. Decker raised his eyes. Jen had told him she didn’t know Chaim Lieber. And maybe she hadn’t
known him. Maybe he had come under an alias. Or, just as likely, Donatti instructed her to deny knowing him. And, of course,
she’d follow orders. Stupid of him to believe anything she told him. She’d said it herself. She was a user, too.

“Merrin offered you an opportunity, then,” Donatti said.

Chaim nodded. “He told me it would be just a couple of times. But then… the money… the money was good.”

A quick glimpse at Decker.

“It’s not like you think. I didn’t
squander
the money… yes, a few massages—but mostly, I used it for business. For
my
business. I used it to feed my large family. I used it to take care of my elderly father. I used it for the local schools
and synagogues. Why should I care if I take from the pockets of thugs who crash cars, have sex like animals, and spit when
they see you walking down the street? Why should I care if they blow their brains out on drugs? And why should a self-righteous
prick like my brother ruin everything for me? Him…the moral do-gooder who has been on and off drugs for ten years. Who borrowed
money from me and from my father without ever paying any of it back. Who never raised a finger to help out with my father
or help out with the business because he was too stoned to get out of bed. Who had the
nerve
to tell me how to raise my children when he has never accepted responsibility for anything in his life!”

Indignation gave him a certain amount of ill-placed dignity, except
that Decker had heard it all before—the self-rationalization and situational ethics to help defend evil actions. “So you gave
Ephraim over to Merrin and his goons because you were resentful?”

“Not to kill!” Chaim spat out. “Just to talk some
sense
into him.” In a quieter voice. “And if they scared him a little, so be it.”

“They did more than scare him,” Decker said softly.

“I wouldn’t know… .” Chaim looked away. “Something went wrong.”

“A bit of an understatement,” Decker said.

“And who gave you the right to be my judge and jury?” Chaim snarled.

Donatti said, “What happened with your daughter? Did you set her up, too?”

“I didn’t set anyone up!”
Abruptly, Chaim’s eyes watered. “Especially my
daughter
. I loved Shayndaleh! She was my own flesh and blood. It wasn’t… She wasn’t supposed to be there.
I don’t know what happened!”

“What happened was they killed her.”

“It was an
accident
!” Chaim cried out. “They claimed they knew where she was. They were supposed to bring her back to me. She resisted. A gun
went off—”

“She knew them, Chaim,” Decker broke in. “They killed her because she could identify them. It wasn’t any accident.”

Donatti said, “They don’t call you lieutenant for nothing.”

“No, you’re
wrong
. It wasn’t like that at all!” Chaim protested. “They said they could rescue her.” He started sobbing. “They said she struggled,
that she was screaming. It wasn’t meant to
happen
that way.” He became hysterical. “I didn’t
kill
her. I DIDN’T KILL HER—”

Donatti’s gun spat three pellets of hot lead, leaving Chaim Lieber with three blood-filled holes in the center of his chest.
He was still forming words when he fell to the ground, his lips ring-shaped, mouthing the letter
O
.

The air smothered with its silence. Decker’s heart was pounding against his chest. “What… why’d you… why’d you do that?”

“Why?”
Donatti glared at him with stone eyes. “Because that bitch was
mine
, Decker. It would have been one thing if she left on her
own, but she
didn’t
. She was taken from me.
Nobody
steals from a Donatti and gets away with it.
Nobody!
Not even her father!”

He was panting like the dog he was.

“Besides, I dislike self-justifying bastards. Asshole’s worse than I am. At least, I’m honest about what I do.”

Donatti was holding two guns—Merrin’s Smith & Wesson .32 in his left hand, his own semiautomatic in the right. He went over
to Lieber’s body and tattooed the inert hand with gunpowder by firing off the rest of the magazine from the semiautomatic,
in various directions. When he was done, he left the gun at Chaim’s side. Several of the stray bullets had missed Decker’s
feet by inches. When Donatti got back on his feet, he was holding Merrin’s revolver in his left hand.

“If anyone had shot you, it would have been Merrin, don’t you think?”