he was getting closer. . closer.
“One thing I remember-”
“Yes? His eyes? His nose?”
“His neck,” Jack said. “I remember the guy’s neck. The back of it, anyway. He was heavyset, lots of folds on his neck. You know what I mean?”
“I think so. But I’m not sure where this will get us-”
“His neck. You understand what I’m saying? It looked like a pack of weenies.”
Jack opened his eyes. Guido stared at him, suddenly as expressionless as Freddy G had been during the interrogation. Then Guido looked down at his stencils.
“Does that help any?” Jack asked.
“I’ve got to be honest with you,” Guido said, looking over the noses and lips and eyes. “I’ve got a lot of stuff here. But I don’t have any weenies.”
Jack didn’t like the way Guido took his leave. Stalked off was more like it-the artist tucked the pad with the empty bald head under his arm and went through the big polished doors muttering about packs of weenies. His last words to Jack were: “I think maybe we’d have had some luck if I’d brought along a Mr. Potatohead.”
And the hell of it was that Guido was right. Really. Because Pack O’ Weenies
Describing the dognappers hadn’t gone any better. Jack did okay with the first woman, the one he’d punched out. He remembered those lace-covered wrist braces she wore, and he remembered her sunglasses and those determined lips that were the color of blood oranges. But when it came to remembering the other women-in particular the older one he’d begun to think of as “Grandma”-well, that was tougher. He did okay with Grandma’s white snow-cone helmet of hair, but when he started describing her wizened grapefruit-sized breasts and that cantilevered S amp; M black leather brassiere, Guido threw up his hands and made some crack about bringing in a comic book artist.
That was when Jack gave up on the whole thing. He sure wasn’t going to mention the old guy with the beef jerky face and the top hat, let alone the fact that the guy wore a rattlesnake for a necktie.
Man, it was really something. The only face he remembered really well belonged to the dead limo driver. The poor kid. Jack didn’t think he’d ever forget her. Staring at him with that one hazel eye, a scarlet hole blasted where her other eye should have been. .
Jack went over to Freddy G’s bar, opened the fridge, and grabbed himself a beer. He didn’t open it. He sat down on a plush leather sofa that ran the length of the window facing the Strip. He ran the cold bottle back and forth across the knuckles of one hand, then the other, watching an animatronic British frigate do battle with a pirate ship at the casino across the street.
A little less than a year ago he sat on this sofa, listening to Freddy rave about two million in mob money that had disappeared along with a mob courier somewhere between Las Vegas and Dallas. Freddy had asked Jack to find that money. And Jack had found it. He’d had some help from Kate Benteen, but he’d brought Freddy’s money back all by his lonesome.
Freddy was impressed. Sure. Anyone would be. He’d used Jack a couple of times since then, when he needed a guy he could count on. Used him in “situations,” which was Freddy double-speak for trouble.
But “situations” didn’t come along every day, even in Vegas. Freddy liked having Jack around. Jack liked being around. He didn’t sweat the little stuff.
Not usually, anyway.
But this last thing. This Chihuahua thing. It had grated on him. Just that Freddy would ask him to do something like that hurt. Like he was an errand boy. Sure, Freddy’s granddaughter was involved, and maybe it was just that Freddy didn’t want to send some tacky little half-a-mozzarella to his daughter’s house in Palm Springs, some gumbah he couldn’t trust around a young thing like his granddaughter, but still-
Jack shook his head. That last part was a laugh, anyway. After all, Jack Baddalach was the guy who had started the day with his tongue in Angel Gemignani’s mouth. He didn’t figure that particular performance met anyone’s definition of “trustworthy,” especially not Freddy Gemignani’s.
But Freddy had sent him after a Chihuahua, for Christ-sakes. And Jack Baddalach was the former light- heavyweight champion of the world. And you just didn’t send the former light-heavyweight champion of the world after somebody’s dog. Not even if that somebody was your granddaughter.
You didn’t send a champ after a mutt.
Jack shook his head. No. You wanted that mutt to come through in one piece, you had to send someone a lot smarter than a champ. You had to send someone who knew how to do something besides get hit in the face, because a champ would fuck things up. He’d get strung along by a guy with a pack of weenies for a neck, and he’d roll over for a bunch of leather girls with machine guns, and he’d end up locked in a limo trunk with a pissed-off rattlesnake and a dead Mafioso-ette.
Jack’s foolish pride had its ass down on the canvas. He counted ten over it. If he wanted to make things right with Freddy G, he’d better straighten up.
If it wasn’t already too late for that.
Jack rolled the cold beer bottle back and forth across his aching knuckles. Across the Strip, the frigate’s cannons spit blinding gouts of flame. Then the pirate ship returned fire, and very shortly great belches of fire and smoke poured from the frigate’s belly.
The frigate began to sink. Jack watched it disappear into the concrete deep, the British captain standing proudly on the deck, going down with his ship.
Freddy’s hand closed over Jack’s shoulder, and the former light-heavyweight champion nearly jumped out of his skin.
The casino boss sat next to Jack on the sofa. “You’re in the clear, champ. None of the boys think you had anything to do with it.”
“Okay,” Jack said. “But I don’t really care what those bastards think. I care what you think, Freddy.”
“C’mon, Jack. You and me go back a ways. I’ve known you since you came out of the amateurs. Most of your title fights were right here at the Casbah. I never figured you’d go dog on me.”
“Good. I just want to know where I stand, is all.”
“Now you know.”
“So what’s next?”
“We wait for a ransom note or a phone call. We wait to find out what some crazyass dognapping crew figures a Chihuahua is worth to the mob.” Freddy threw up his hands. “Christ on a cross. This business. Sometimes it drives me nuts. Sometimes it makes me wish I could call in the fucking cops.”
“Look,” Jack said. “I know I messed up-”
Freddy’s harsh laughter cut him off. “Yeah. You really screwed the pooch on this one. Jack. Or maybe I should say you wished you’d screwed the pooch. That would have been better than letting the little fucker get dognapped. You should see my Angel. Oh, man, is she pissed. She takes after her grandma, that one. Only difference is her grandma carried a razor.”
“As the French say, vive la difference.”
“Viva shit, Jack. Angel carries a gun.”
The beer was getting warm in Jack’s hands. He realized that he was sweating. “What I’m saying is that there has to be a way to track these idiots. The cops do it all the time. So can we.” Jack stood up and paced in front of the big window. “Now, it’s pretty obvious these guys knew what was going on. I mean, the whole thing was a complete setup. That means they know something about you-”
“Or about Angel.”
“Right. Now, if we can figure out how they set up the snatch-”
Freddy G waved Jack off. “We’re way ahead of you, champ. My boys are on it. We’re checking out the limo right now. The limo company, too. If the driver left a trail, we’re gonna find it.”
“Like I said before, the driver talked a lot. He told me about a stretch he did for murdering a guy. In California, I think. There’s got to be a way we can trace him.”
