stealing?'
'He betrayed me,' Mesa said, coldly. 'Pop was a fool. After I made it, I called him, set up a meeting. He let me get close to him again all those years later. I formed Creative Solutions and bought Huntington House when he ran out of money in the mid-nineties. All the time I was helping him, he never realized all I ever wanted was to pay him back for what he'd done.'
In that instant, I could see Eugene Mesa the way he was as a nine-year-old, full of hatred and fear. He had been exactly like me.
'I feel sorry for you, Gene,' I said softly.
'Don't,' he said. 'As it turned out, I never needed anybody anyway.' Then he opened the slider and left me.
Chapter 59
I watched Mesa talking to Rick O'Shea out on the deck, just outside the pool-house window. As soon as I was alone, I began trying to get the Swiss Army knife out of my right front pocket. I had my hands around to the side as far as they would go and thrust deep into my jeans. My fingertips could just barely touch the knife. I moved over to a barstool, and by rubbing on the edge of the seat, managed to shift the knife up half an inch inside my pocket. I hooked my little finger through the metal loop on the top of the handle and finally fished it out.
I was holding it in both cuffed hands behind me as O'Shea came back inside the pool house. He was now dressed in his fight trunks and wearing a white silk robe that had RICOCHET embroidered on the back. He closed the door and walked directly over. As he crossed, I managed to open the small blade behind my back and turned it in my hand so I could start sawing on the plastic band that bound my wrists, while trying to conceal my body motion as I worked.
'What makes you think you can prove I killed Walt?' he asked.
'We've got the motive, the accounting work papers Pop had, your bank transactions that match the exact amounts you embezzled. All the stuff you were trying to get from him when you accidentally beat him to death.'
I was about halfway through the plastic cuffs when he suddenly stepped forward and hit me. The knife flew out of my hand and clattered on the floor behind me. I instantly tasted blood in my mouth. He hit me again, and I went down hard.
As soon as I hit the floor, the half-sawed plastic cuffs snapped and my hands came free.
I scrambled to my feet, with my fiberglass cast and one good fist in front of me, ready to defend myself for the third time. If I lost this round, it was going to cost me my life.
'This is gonna be fun,' O'Shea said as he went into a fighting stance, 'just like before, you got no chance, Scully.'
I slammed the cast down hard on the bar top. It hurt like hell, but the scored end cracked and immediately exposed the little Bobcat. 25 in its protective baggie. I transferred the gun into my good left hand, ripped the baggie off, flipped off the safety, and fired.
I pulled the shot slightly and the bullet hit him high in the right shoulder.
'Fuck,' he said, looking down at the wound. Blood began spreading out, blossoming on the white silk robe around the bullet hole.
It looked like the. 25 caliber slug had gone clean through without hitting a bone or doing any major damage.
Then O'Shea charged me, knocking the gun to the side as I fired a second shot, which missed him completely. In seconds he had me by the throat, and threw me to the floor.
It was the Torrance Airport all over again as he wrapped me up in some kind of bone-breaking, martial-arts hold. I managed to retain the Bobcat, got it up between us, and fired again. This one hit him in the groin and did a lot more damage. He screamed in pain, then let go of me as he grabbed his stomach with both hands.
'Hey, Scully. My turn.'
It was Jack. He had rushed through the door at the sound of the first shot and was standing directly behind O'Shea with a pool cue he'd picked up off the center table. He swung from the heels and caught O'Shea behind the ear. Rick slumped on the floor, out cold.
I untangled myself and slowly stood. 'We gotta tie him up. See if you can find something.'
Jack picked up my Swiss Army knife and used it to cut down a drapery cord to bind O'Shea's hands, then handed it back to me.
'Somebody must ve heard those shots,' I said. 'We gotta get outta here. Call the hotel desk. Ask to be connected to Captain Thomas Ironwood at the tribal police. Tell him to get some people out here fast, and tell him the FBI should be arriving any minute. They need to be included. Then get that maintenance truck and park it by the back gate behind the pool.'
'Whatta you gonna do?'
'I'm gonna find the others and meet you out back in five minutes.'
I headed out of the pool house, clutching Alexa's tiny Beretta in my left hand.
Chapter 60
Once I was outside, I realized that, despite the gunfire, miraculously, nobody was running out onto the pool deck. I sprinted across the pavement into the main house and started looking for the most logical place where Calabro would take the others. I saw a door leading to the subbasement and bounded down the stairs.
I was running recklessly down a narrow basement hallway, throwing open doors, looking for Alexa and the others when I turned a corner and suddenly collided with Kimbo Sledge and Gary White. They were also decked out in silk fight robes, their MMA ring names stitched on the back.
I raised the Bobcat and pointed it in their general direction. Its such a small weapon, it didn't seem to worry them at all, because they both simultaneously attacked me. I was trapped in close quarters and had just enough time to fire once. The. 25 caught Gary White in the forehead. 'The Great' White was off the ride and dead before he hit the floor.
I didn't have time to shoot Kimbo Sledge, who was instantly on me. His silk robe said SLEDGEHAMMER, and he began to prove it. The man was pretty much finishing up the job O'Shea had started on me five days ago.
Suddenly a corridor door flew open and Sabas Vargas came charging out and hit the pile. He'd somehow gotten his hands untied. All three of us were rolling on the ground. Both Vargas and I were pummeling Sledge, who had curled up and become a very difficult target composed of nothing but elbows and forearms. We weren't doing any damage when Alexa came through the same door, also untied. She held a heavy metal floor lamp in both hands. Without hesitation, she swung the base at Kimbo's head. He went down and out.
'How'd you get loose?' I asked them as I picked myself up off the floor.
'Jack came back a minute ago. He slipped me a kitchen knife,' Vargas said.
'We've gotta find Vicki and Diamond, then get out of here fast,' Alexa said. 'I counted ten security. God knows how many more he has.'
We left the 'Sledgehammer' unconscious on the floor next to the late Gary White and ran down the basement corridors, throwing open doors until we reached a utility room, where we found Vicki tied to a water heater. Using my Swiss Army knife, I cut her loose.
'Where's Diamond?' I asked.
Nobody knew.
We spent another five minutes searching until we heard cars pulling up outside. Doors were slamming and men were shouting orders.
'We gotta go now or we're not gonna get out at all,' Alexa said.
We took off running up the basement stairs to the main floor.
