Tales of Chills and Thrills: The Mystery Thriller Horror Box Set (7 Mystery Thriller Horror Novels) (124 page)

Thorp pulled Rouse out of the game again. He was getting
killed anyway.

“What, goddamnit? I need to get back in there. There’s only
a couple hours left.”

“They broke something. Kora and Leon. Something valuable.”

Rouse, stared at him, a drink in his hand, and said, “I knew
it. Jesus!”

“Just get your ass over there. I want Kora back here now.
Everybody’s waiting for her to get naked and jump into the goddamn fountain with
her girls.”

“Fuck that, Oggie, I’m not going over there. You need to
send some security guys over there. No way I’m going—”

“It’s your house and you gave them your phone. You let them
do it without telling me. You damn fool, you really want me to send security?
Most of them are moonlighting sheriff’s deputies. You want them to arrest Kora
and Leon, or whatever the hell his name is? Wouldn’t that be nice?”

“Why is she with him, anyway?”

“Women love killers,” Thorp said. “C’mon. Faster you deal
with this, the faster you can get back to losing your ass.”

“I’m not going over there alone. No way. You’re coming with
me.”

“Take this,” Thorp said. He took out the Derringer.

“I’m not shooting anybody. That thing would probably blow up
and kill me. You want me to go over there, you’re coming with me.”

Thorp swore under his breath. He looked out over the crowd
gathered around the fountain.

“Alright, let’s get moving,” Thorp said, shaking his head.
He put the gun away and led his reluctant friend through the office and down
into the tunnel.

Thorp stopped at George’s cage. “He hasn’t been fed in a
while. Go on. I’ll take care of George. You go see what’s going on. What they
broke. I want all of you back here in about five minutes.”

“I don’t like this. This guy—”

“I don’t care if you like it. Go. Tell Kora I want to see
her now. If there’s a mess, you clean it up. It’s your fucking house.”

“You’re coming with me.”

“I’m feeding George.” Thorp pulled out the Derringer. “I’ll
shoot you. Don’t think I won’t. You’re such a pussy.”

The big old lion grumbled.

Rouse went off, mumbling incoherently.

The old lion, lying on a flat rock across the pool, made
another deep-throated growl. Thorp liked to believe he had a special bond with
George. That he and the old lion had an instinctual connection on some primal
level. “We’re going to have us a little party for you one of these days, old
sport. How would you like that?”

The big cat stared at him. “You and me, my friend, are the
kings. We’re the ones nature made to rule.”

The big cat again responded with a stunted growl.

Thorp, when he was drunk, liked to come down and talk with
George, and he thought George talked back to him in some special way. They had
an understanding, like Willett had possessed with his lion.

He stared at the old lion lying on the rock, the lion
staring back, the dim light on the ceiling of the cage casting a shadow on the
lion’s face, heightening the golden hue of his eyes, and the ragged state of his
thick, dark mane. Somewhere in the back of his mind, Thorp remembered some
animal guy telling him that the mane was what females looked at to see if the
guy was healthy and strong. As did the lion’s would-be male opponents. But, the
animal guy had said, big manes were going to go away because of global warming.
In places where it was really hot, the manes were shorter and less attractive to
females, as well as less intimidating.

“You still got that big mane,” Thorp said to George. “Scare
the hell out of anybody.”

Thorp laughed. He assumed the big cat agreed.

59

Looking at the large-screen monitor, using the gun as a
pointer, Kora said, “There they are in the tunnel. Mutt and Jeff. But looks like
Mutt is the only one coming. Old sport is talking to his lion.”

She turned to Leon, handing him the smartphone. “You two go
intercept our boy. Me and Sydney are gonna talk, look at files, and see what old
Tricky Dick has on the world.”

Sydney wasn’t sure how to interpret this, but she did
appreciate the time alone to deal with Kora, find out what the girl was really
thinking.

As the men started to leave, Kora said, “Careful, Leon,
alcohol and pain pills—”

“I’m good,” Leon said.

When the men were gone, Sydney said, “I gotta hand it to
you, you got that boy wrapped around your little finger.”

Kora sat behind Rouse’s desk, gun on the lap of her white
Daisy dress. “He’s a sweetheart once you get to know him. We girls both got our
Dobermans. Now we just need to get into that damn safe and get the hell out of
here. Let’s take a look at what we have in all these files and maybe you can get
into the computer.

“So, what are you and your stud thief gonna do once this
plays out? If you get what you came for, bring them down.”

“We’re thinking of Rio,” Sydney said.

Kora studied her for a moment. “I guess it’s true what they
say about cops, that if you scratch the surface, you’ll find a criminal waiting
to get out.”

Sydney smiled. “I guess so. Where are you going once you
leave here with all that money?”

“Around the world in style, for sure.”

“With Leon?”

Kora smiled. “We’ll see.”

“When you leave,” Sydney said, “just remember the mistake
the turtle made giving the scorpion a ride across the river.”

Kora chuckled. “The river of no return. Don’t worry about
me. I got a hard shell, but I’m no turtle.”

Sydney smiled and nodded. On some level, she had no doubt
that beneath all that sex kitten stuff, there lay a very dangerous woman.

***

Leon and Marco went into a room that had a huge bar. The
only light came from a wine cabinet and two dim lights from somewhere behind the
bar below a massive, etched mirror. The bar itself was made of leather and wood
with ivory railings. Marco figured it had to cost a fortune.

Leon put the smartphone down on the bar. “Puttin’ a lion in
an underground cage. That’s a crime against nature.”

“You’re right about that,” Marco said, looking to agree with
this guy as much as possible. Find some way to get at this crazy killer, get him
to relax and get careless.

“Take a load off,” Leon said pointing to one of the small
tables. “What can I get you?”

“Beer’s fine,” Marco said. “If he has beer?”

Leon reached under the bar yet never took his eyes off Marco
for more than a second. “The lawyer’s got three different little refrigerators
under here. Here we go—door number two. Man’s stocked up for all types. Let me
choose for you.”

Leon put a beer bottle down on the table. He went back
behind the bar and rooted around for a time, broke the glass of a locked
cabinet, and then came up with a bottle. “Glenfiddich.”

“Never heard of it.”

“Me either. But it looks like expensive whisky. Must be if
he has to keep it locked up in his own house.”

He opened the bottle, then took out a bottle of pills and
got one in his mouth. He poured some of the amber liquid into a glass and then
found a straw. He took a swallow and got the pill down. Then he said, “Better.”

He laid his gun on the counter, eyes behind his mask
watching Marco. Unfortunately, it was too dark for them to reveal anything about
what the killer was thinking or planning.

He said, “You and your girl messed me up bad.”

“We didn’t have a lot of choice; we didn’t want to end up
like Corbin. We thought you died up there in the woods. That a couple bullets
got you.”

“I’m not that easy to kill.” Leon made a sound something
like a wry chuckle, the light from the wine cabinet behind the bar reflecting on
his black plastic face mask.

“I’ll tell you what,” Marco said. “We broke your face. You
killed my uncle and then ended up with the most beautiful lady on the lake. On
top of that, we’re gonna make you rich and then, we get the dirt we’re after,
we’ll shield you. You’ll be home free. I’d call it about even, don’t you think?”

Leon leaned on the bar. He thought about that for a time.
“Yeah. Why not? Cillo was a tough old bird, I’ll give him that. I wanted to
stage it as a simple suicide, but he fought like goddamn angry gator in that
pool.” He paused. “Okay, we’re even. And I got rid of the idiot who shot your
girl. She should be happy about that.”

“She is.”

Leon nodded. “Those aren’t your average chicks for sure, my
man.”

Marco agreed. “They’re the kind can get a man to change
course in midstream. We’re both in that situation.”

Leon settled catty-corner at one small bar table over from
Marco, where the killer had a view of anyone coming.

This how it was with Shaun Corbin?
Marco wondered.
Sit, talk, get friendly, then a bullet to the brain?
He had no move but to
sit there and drink his beer and wait for something to develop he could use.

Even with a straw, Leon had a hard time drinking with the
face mask, so he took it off. Marco tried not to show the shock he felt seeing
the mess of purple and pink swelling on the side of the guy’s face.

“Ain’t real pretty, is it?”

“You’ll get back to being the handsome guy you were soon as
the swelling goes down.”

Leon said, “You’re a funny guy. I amuse you? I make you
laugh?”

“
Goodfellas,
right? Joe Pesci.”

“That’s right,” Leon said. “You like that movie?”

“One of the greatest ever,” Marco said, thinking, when
dealing with a sociopath, be one.

Marco took a swig of beer, then said, “You should see how
things are south of the border. No damn discipline. These
Sicario
Juarez
hitters, they just shoot up everything. It’s O.K. Corral day every goddamn day.
It’s chaos.”

“You do damage?” Leon asked.

“Time to time. Like this family I had to talk to. I walk in,
there’s this guy sitting back against the wall smoking his last cigarette,
wasn’t his turn to die. But he forgot to check if everyone was really dead. Got
himself shot. Still, he wanted to die like a man. But he was just a kid, and
he’d messed it up good. It’s not about the job to them. They never even know
why. And they paint the whole fucking neighborhood.”

“You put that boy out of his misery?”

“Yeah,” Marco lied, and did so with effect. “I give him
credit. He’s facing it, and he’s swearing at me like some street-corner badass.
His last words:
Me cago en la leche de tu puta madres!
You goddamn
motherfucker. I got a neat
coup de grâce
. Not quite as perfect as you did
with Corbin. How the hell close were you, you took out that ugly mole?”

Another partial smile formed on that ruined face. He liked
this—Marco making stuff up that fit into this guy’s wheelhouse, maybe got them
bonding a little more.

“I hear about all those crazy mothers down there,” Leon
agreed. “Fucking Mexicans, no offense, are trying to take back California, New
Mexico, and Arizona. Latinos already own Florida. We ain’t gonna lose the
country to the fucking al-Qaedas. While we’re fighting stupid wars over there,
your relatives are coming in by the millions to take it over.”

“I’m half-wetback and half-wop. The wops have been here
awhile, and the Mexicans used to own it. So I’m in the best of both worlds,”
Marco said with a grin.

“True. Badass on both sides.”

“You’re getting ahead of the game working with me.” Marco
smiled. The killer seemed to like that. Then he added, “You and Kora North seem
to have a real connection. Guys in our businesses sometimes have a hard time
finding women who can fit in.”

“Ain’t that the truth,” he said, then looked at the
smartphone. “He’s coming up into the back room.”

“How’d you get into the trade?” Marco asked.

“Not like you might imagine,” Leon said. “Happened by
accident. I’d killed my mother’s crazy boyfriend. But I knew right off I was a
true hunter. Then later on, this rich kid came to me. I had a rep by the time I
got out of high school. In and out of juvie. I don’t know how he knew about me,
but he had a problem with somebody trashing him on the Internet.”

“Happens a lot these days,” Marco said.

“Yeah. Making up shit about him. Nasty stuff. How he was
this fag and did all these things. He wanted the bastard located and killed. But
he wanted it done so nobody would do any investigation. Paid me more for it than
I’d earn in a couple years. I did the job, my second suicide. No links. And two
years later, he finds me again. He’s got this friend who needs help. Before you
know it, I’m in business. Been booming ever since.”

He checked the smartphone again. “What the hell’s taking
this guy so long? He’s walking like something’s gonna jump out at him.”

Marco said. “A suicide specialist is a pretty unique and
cool profession.”

“Hell, I turn down five for every job I take,” Leon said.
“First of all, I won’t do certain kinds of jobs. You do, you get sloppy. Thing
is, the usual guys aren’t in business so much anymore. Mob types. So now what
you got is freelancers. Some of them come out of the military. Can’t find legit
work. Try these contractor companies and then get tired of that and somebody
contacts them, makes an offer, and the rest is history. It’s a new world, my
friend. But then, good for guys like us. You aren’t an old-school, second-story
guy either, all that high tech. It’s a new age.”

Leon seemed to be feeling good now, sucking down the whisky,
chatting, watching the lawyer make his way through his mansion, the killer
talking about his kills. Next talking about his last job in New York. How the
guy wanted to die. Hardly needed Leon, except he wasn’t man enough to do
himself.

Marco wished they had a little longer. Get the guy drunk.
But it didn’t work out that way.

Leon put his mask back on. Then he got up and looked down
the hall. “Our boy has arrived.”