Not sure if the car that squealed away carried Tony and his two goons, or if maybe one or two of them had stayed behind, Ray didn’t want to swim out into the marina where he could be seen. He had to get out of the water-it was sucking the heat out of him-but he had to stay inside the boathouse.
As he dog-paddled around the bow of the Rampage, Ray found a half-inch line hanging off the bowsprit. Gripping the line, he pulled himself up until the water was at his waist. Then he pushed his feet off the boat’s hull and swung toward the dock. He let go of the rope with his left hand and grabbed for the dock, catching the tips of his fingers between two planks. For a second he hung suspended between the dock and the boat. One more push against the hull with one foot, he let go of the line and made a desperate grab for the dock with his other hand, and got it.
Ray’s ribs screamed in agony as he dangled from the wooden planking. The goons had done a number on him, and it took him a while to muster enough energy and courage to try to pull himself up. This was going to hurt.
He managed to hoist himself high enough to get his right elbow on top of the walkway and the fingers of his right hand all the way across the dock to the far edge. Then, after swinging his legs from side to side a few times, he built up enough momentum to use his elbow to leverage one foot up onto the dock. From there he clawed his way up until he was lying facedown on the wet wood, panting like a dog.
Every bone in Ray’s body felt broken, every muscle felt torn, his head felt the size of a Fourth of July watermelon. Cigarettes and booze were out. He was giving them up. Join a gym instead. Just as soon as he got himself out of this mess. First thing he had to do was find out why Tony Zello was trying to kill him, but to do that he had to first get off this dock.
From inside the boathouse door, Ray peeked out at the street. It looked clear, but what was he really looking for? There were no gun-toting thugs waiting to blast him, but even Tony had enough sense to hide. He’d already done a good job ambushing Ray inside his own apartment. Ray scanned the street again, then stepped out of the boathouse. It wasn’t until he had hobbled four or five steps and reached the foot of the stairs leading up to his apartment that he realized he was holding his breath, waiting for a gunshot.
Halfway up the stairs, the sound of an approaching police siren stopped Ray dead in his tracks. Someone had heard the shots and called the police, but the cops were a day late and a doughnut short. They couldn’t do anything for him now.
His apartment door was so close, only a few feet away, and he needed dry clothes. He was freezing. Suddenly, he remembered something. Ray patted his left front pocket and felt nothing. His keys were inside. He remembered them hitting the floor. The siren was getting closer.
He turned and limped away.
“You still want me to drive?” Joey asked over his shoulder.
Tony was wobbling down a driveway in Old Metairie, just outside the city, the home of the guy they called Dr. Feelgood. Tony was several steps behind Joey. He couldn’t straighten up. His swollen balls forced him to walk stooped over like an old man. “Do I look like I’m in any condition to drive?” Tony said. “Of course I want you to fucking drive.”
Feelgood was an old juicer who had his medical license pulled years ago. Since then he’d been practicing without one and was the doctor of choice for people who didn’t want the cops to know how they had gotten hurt. Rocco was inside having his legs sewn up.
Inside the Lincoln, Joey asked Tony, “Where we going?” Tony had to think about that. He wasn’t sure. Shane had most likely gotten away. Unless one of Tony’s bullets had hit him. Replaying the scene in his mind, Tony was pretty sure that had not happened. Bullets hardly ever killed instantly, unless you hit a man in the head. Most of the time the guy flopped around for a while before he died. So if Tony had hit Shane, he probably would have popped to the surface, at least for a few seconds, and tried to grab onto something and get some air.
Joey started the car but left it in park.
Tony turned to the big man. “You got a car?”
“Yeah.”
“What kind?”
“A Camaro.”
“A Camaro? Big as you are, why the fuck you drive a little car like that?”
“It’s one of the new ones. Chicks dig it.”
“But you can’t get comfortable in a goddamn two-door.”
“Yeah, but it’s fast.”
“Where is it?”
“At Shorty’s.”
“Fuck,” Tony said, and pounded the dashboard with his fist. “Just get moving.” He jerked his thumb over his shoulder at the blood-soaked backseat. “First thing we’re gonna do is clean up this mess. Then we’re going back to Shane’s apartment.”
“What about my car?”
“Forget it.”
Joey shifted into reverse and backed toward the street. “Why we going back to Shane’s?”
“I want to see if his car’s there. It’s a lot easier to find a man if you know what he’s driving.”
“Why did you want to know what kind of car I drive?” “Someone might have seen us driving away from the marina and given the police a description of my car.”
“But you took the license plate off.”
“It’s a big green Lincoln. It’s not hard to spot, especially with blood splashed all over the backseat.”
Joey scratched his head. “So what are we going to do?”
“Clean up the backseat and put the license plate back on.”
“What about the cops?”
“Fuck the cops. I pay half those motherfuckers anyway.”
Joey drove out of the neighborhood. He hit Metairie Road for a couple miles, then made a left turn onto Pontchartrain Boulevard and headed back toward the marina. “Where do you think he’s gonna go, Shane I mean?”
Tony was thinking that he didn’t have a clue where the ex-cop might go. Then he realized how little he knew about Shane. He didn’t know if Shane had family in New Orleans. Family was always a good place to start when you were looking for a guy on the run. He didn’t know if Shane had any friends, or a new girlfriend. Maybe after so much time in prison, he had a boyfriend.
Tony slipped his cell phone out of his pocket and called the House. Someone there must know something about Ray Shane.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Jenny Porter’s apartment was a one-bedroom walk-up on the third floor of a four-story building, and on mornings like this she hated those two flights of stairs with a passion.
It was 4:30 AM.
A weather front had come in late last night and it was cold, wet, and miserable. The only security was a self- locking iron door across the building’s front entrance. Behind that was a wooden door with a busted lock. Its only purpose was to keep the weather out of the foyer.
Jenny stood in front of the security door, keys in hand, when she realized it wasn’t locked. Looking more closely at the dead bolt, she saw the bolt still extended from the cylinder. The door had been pried open. The spring hinge had pulled it shut, and the protruding bolt rested against the frame, leaving a narrow gap between the door and jamb.
She dropped her keys back into her purse and pulled the iron door open. One of the hinges gave a tortured squeak. She pressed her hand against the wooden inner door and pushed it open. A wide hallway ran down the center of the building with four apartments on each side. At the far end of the hallway was the stairway leading to the second floor.
