Tales of Chills and Thrills: The Mystery Thriller Horror Box Set (7 Mystery Thriller Horror Novels) (105 page)

18

Sydney woke at noon on Monday and couldn’t believe she’d
slept so long. She was sore, it seemed, everywhere.

He’s gone,
she thought with a start. Of course. Why
would he stay? But would he tell them where she was? She looked for the gun that
had been on the nightstand; it was gone.

She started to get up when she heard a noise. Somebody
coming down the hall. Him or someone else? Again, she had no gun.

Suddenly, a figure appeared at the door. “You’re awake. How
do you like your eggs?”

She smiled.
Now that’s a better way to wake up,
she
thought. “Scrambled light is good. I can’t believe I slept that long.”

“How soon?”

“Give me ten minutes,” she said.

“How do you feel?”

“Like a truck ran over me.”

He smiled and left. She figured the longer they were
together, the more likely she had him for what she had in mind.

After breakfast, they talked about Gatts and decided to go
to Markleeville later that night and see if they couldn’t find the guy, then
figure out how to get his cooperation. Marco told her not to worry about that.

“Give the place a call,” he said, “and make sure it’s still
open. I’m gonna crash for awhile.” He pushed the Beretta across the table, plus
the clips.

After he was gone, she called her police-reporter friend and
asked him to run a serious background on Marco Cruz. “I need this pretty fast.
And check on the Mountainview Restaurant. Make sure it’s open and that Gary
Gatts runs the place. And if you can get me an address, I’d appreciate it.”

“And you won’t tell me anything about—”

“No. You’re a sweetheart.” She hung up and then went out to
look around, make sure things were okay. She decided to sit out on the side deck
so she had a good view of the water and of the feeder road that led to the gate.

Sydney felt better and better about her connection to Marco
Cruz. They had something powerful in common—guilt. It’s something that comes
with the territory for cops, soldiers, or anyone working tight with somebody who
ends up dead. There’s always the sense you could have prevented it, or should
have been the one to go down instead. It’s a big part of what drove her, and she
figured he had that in his backpack as well. Life’s load is much heavier after
something like that happens.

***

Marco stared at the band of light coming in from the side of
the curtain on the wall and, tired as he was, didn’t know if he’d slept or not.

He didn’t like that they had delayed. He’d wanted to get to
Gatts quick, before his uncle—whose suggestion it was—could use Gatts as a trap.
He didn’t know, under the circumstances, how far he could trust his uncle. But
in the end, he had no choice. Sydney had needed that sleep. He didn’t want her
in a weak state and now he was the one exhausted, who needed a few hours
himself.

Tahoe was a terrible place to be hunting somebody while you
were being hunted. The basin is surrounded by mountains with only so many roads
coming in and only one that circumvented the lake. The towns around the
lake—like Tahoe City, Incline, even the casinos in South Lake—were all basically
one-horse. If you traveled by car, you were always vulnerable, with no running
room. It helped that they had use of the Range Rover, but he still worried about
getting spotted.

The one big thing they would have had going for them, before
his decision to talk to his uncle, was that the logical thing for them to have
done was leave the area. He questioned his decision to meet Tony. And Sydney’s
decision to hang around.

But there was a big additional problem. He could handle the
terrain, the threat, the lack of resources and all that. But the woman was a
whole different deal. Girls, even beautiful, smart ones, never were a serious
threat to him. He had a good way with the ladies and never had a shortage of
opportunity. They were something he worried about when they were around. He
typically had a girlfriend for however long, then, when it was convenient for
one or both, he’d move on. So much other stuff was always going on that he just
never got into anything that might lock him down or send him in a direction he
didn’t want to go.

This was different. This lady wanted to use him in her
mission, her crusade, or whatever the hell it was. Under other circumstances,
when some hot little something started trying to drag him down her dark path,
he’d enjoy the quick fruits of his labor, then quickly shake free and get the
hell on down his own road, avoiding without regret some nightmare he had no hand
in making in the first place.

But right from the start, from her attitude, her whole deal,
and the way she was somehow so different, he felt a little overwhelmed.
Something about her was like a magnet to his inner deal. And now he saw really
serious trouble ahead and the escape hatch getting smaller and smaller. He
wanted the hell out of this before it grabbed him. And he didn’t want to get any
too close to her precisely because the not-so-bright part of him wanted just
that.

With that unpleasant threat looming, he did, in spite of
himself, eventually slip off into a ragged sleep that, as was common, was filled
with plenty of equally unpleasant activities related to combat, conflict, and
incarceration.

19

Leon, suffering jet lag from flying in from New York, lay on
the small, circular bed in the Celebrity Cabin Monday afternoon. The cabin sat
below the pool and on the edge of the lake. As he waited for the client to come,
he chatted with one of the loves of his life, Marilyn Monroe. He asked her who
did the deed—who’d murdered her—and was thinking about what her answer might be
when he heard the client coming through the tunnel.

First thing the client says—coming out of the closet, out of
the secret tunnel that Sinatra had built so he could go to and from the kitchen
of the Cal-Neva and Marilyn’s room in secret—was, “How are you?”

Leon was amused. Guy breaks all protocol just coming here.
Acting like a big shot. Right away, Leon knew what he was dealing with. He
nodded.

The guy strutted to the window, looked out, then came back
acting like he was some kind of mafia boss. Like he was Brando. Thing is, he
didn’t have the look, the voice, or the mannerisms.

“I’m glad you could get here on short notice,” the client
said. “We have a big problem out there and we need it resolved fast.”

Leon sat back against the pillows on the circular bed
beneath a picture of Marilyn Monroe and stared at his client. Unbelievable. The
man was breaking all the rules.

What he knew about this guy from his Vegas connection was
that this Thorp’s great-great-great-grandfather had cleared the Sierras of
Indians, hung gold mine thieves, and brought in Chinese for the rail line to
Silver City. So Leon was interested in the guy’s history. At least he was until
he met the asshole. The guy didn’t live up to expectations.

Great generations aren’t followed by even greater
generations,
Leon thought. And this guy was proof of that. So, somehow, this
guy manages to get the tunnel opened up and comes up through it like the old
days, like he’s a chip off the JFK, Sinatra, and Giancana block.
Yeah, right.

Leon never met clients, but this guy had insisted. What,
maybe they would be friends? Leon didn’t do small talk, so he just looked at the
guy. Listened to his rant. All the people he wanted dead. The guy was tall,
thin, tense, everything on his frame top of the line.

Listening to him jabber, Leon reclined on the bed propped up
by pillows, his amusement turning a little sour. The cabins had porches and
views of the lake. They were small. Not all that great, but this one had
history, and Leon liked history. But then the guy started this whining song and
dance about the big screwup he wanted cleaned up and how it had to be done and
done fast and how he’d make sure Leon was very well compensated above and beyond
his normal fees…and on and on the guy ranted.

Leon waited.

Finally, he got to specifics. Mentioned a guy named Cillo.
The uncle of some lowlife who had the girl they wanted dead.

“He’s the key. You get him to talk to you, he probably knows
where his nephew is holed up. You find the nephew, you find the girl. He’s got
her somewhere. I got a feeling they’re not all that far away. Then get rid of
Cillo.”

Leon said nothing, just listened. Multiple kills weren’t
normal, but money for these guys was apparently no object.

The guy rambled on about the woman, and then about the guy
she’d brought, some kind of ex-con. Then about his crazy cousin. Finally, the
client sat down, one leg up over the other. In the silence, on the lake, Leon
could hear the drone of a boat’s engine…still closer, the cry of some loud bird.

All the information the guy was giving him, Leon already
had. The lawyer had provided the details, and now he had to listen to numbnuts
repeat everything.

Then he started again. On and on this guy went about this
woman, the blogs, how she was hurting his family’s reputation, single-handedly
trying to stop Tahoe from becoming what it was meant to be. Then the maniac said
he’s got this old lion. Bought it from a place in Texas where they take in
retired circus animals. Said he wanted to get the bitch alive if that’s possible
and put her in the cage with his lion that he said is named George. Then he
wanted to know, by any chance, did Leon play golf?

Leon had been asked many things but never before had he been
asked about golf. He shook his head. Never had he run into a stranger cat than
this guy. He was nervous. That was it, Leon concluded. He’s nervous and excited
at the same time. Like a kid on a first date.

But instead of that being the end of it, the guy went off on
handicaps and how he met somebody on the Nullabar Links in Melbourne who may
have been in Leon’s profession. Guy hit the ball like a pro.

“It’s the damnedest golf course on the planet. Takes, like,
four days. You cross two time zones. All along this highway through the deserts
and kangaroo country, you have to drive your car from tee to tee. It’s eight
hundred forty-eight miles long. And nobody is sober after the first two holes,
and that’s when the guy told me about some of his wet work.”

He waited as if this was where Leon should jump in and join
the conversation. Leon wasn’t in the mood, so he just continued to stare at the
guy.

“I want constant updates,” the client said, a little bit
exasperated. Like Leon had disappointed him in some way. “You have my lawyer’s
throwaways. You let him know what’s going on every step of the way. You need
men, hookers, whatever, you name it. On the smartphone in the package he left
for you are the pictures and addresses. Everything you need. Keys to the car. If
you need men for casing or whatever, he’ll make sure you’re provided with what
you want.”

Finally, thankfully, the client finished, got it all off his
chest. He thought the guy’d be there till midnight yapping.

Leon hadn’t said a word until now. “You can leave now. Have
them seal the tunnel. Anybody comes through there, I’ll kill them.”

“Yeah, yeah. I understand,” the client said, vigorously
nodding his head. And then he left.

Leon bent his head back and looked up at Marilyn. “You
believe what you just witnessed? Because I don’t.”

He considered for a moment refusing the job. The client was
exactly the type he’d rather kill than work for. Still, all in all, Tahoe might
be fun. He’d never been to Tahoe before, and he appreciated the beauty of the
lake and how big it was. You couldn’t even see the south shore from the deck of
the cabin, it was so far away.

He said to Marilyn, “The bastards murdered you. I’m sorry I
wasn’t around then. I’d have taken care of all them. But at least you aren’t
around to deal with this crew.” He laughed and imagined her chuckling. He loved
the woman.

Leon had never actually had a woman since he was nine and
his mother’s boyfriend made him and the girl next door try and fuck so the
bastard could jack off watching. That guy turned out a few years later to be his
first kill, his first suicide creation. He forced the guy at gunpoint to call
the suicide hotline, confess his sins, and apologize.

Then he died in a fiery self-emulation. Died with lots and
lots of pain and regret. The suicide, much like those monks in Vietnam, got lots
of attention. Leon thoroughly enjoyed it and never regretted it for a moment.
Killing, he’d discovered, wasn’t just easy, it had a certain joy. He became a
philosopher of the hunt and the kill.

20

Sydney and Marco left after nine Monday night for
Markleeville. He had on a jungle-type hat, she a baseball cap. Very minimal
attempts at disguises in case somebody got a look in the car under a
streetlight.

He told her she looked cute in her safari outfit. “Women can
disguise up easy enough—change of hair, hats—but for men, it’s different.”

“Not many people have seen you in seven years. You probably
don’t have to disguise up much.” He’d gotten a bag of safari-look items from
Bernie Shaw’s closet—big jungle hat and wide sunglasses. “You look like a gold
prospector from the old days.”

They laughed. She was doing much better after the sleep. It
also helped that the entire Tahoe Valley was packed with tourists, and the drive
down Highway 89 and up into the mountains avoided all the towns around the lake.
Bikers, motor homes, and cars jammed the 89 and 50 intersections. It took them
nearly an hour to get out of Tahoe and up into the mountains.

“Maybe we’ll be sleeping in the car,” he told her.

“Tell me about you and Gary Gatts,” she said.

“I remember he was always into some con or another. One of
those guys who look at the world as something you’re always trying to hustle.”