Almost immediately she started to squirm under his weight. The mob godfather rolled off her and onto his back, then used the sheet to wipe the sweat off his face. Priscilla Zello scooted away from Old Man Carlos’s mountain of sweaty flesh.
Ray reached out and grabbed the door handle. He had been ready to kick the door open if it had been locked, but it wasn’t. He just pushed it back and stepped inside.
The bed was to Ray’s right, centered against the wall, a nightstand on either side. Mrs. Zello was sitting up on the far side of the bed. Carlos Messina lay on the side nearest Ray, the mob boss on his back, eyes closed, his furry chest bathed in sweat.
Priscilla saw Ray first. She screamed, a high-pitched, piercing shriek that made the hair on Ray’s arms stand up. The scream was real this time, not like when she was taking Carlos inside her. Like a frightened cat, she backed against the headboard and froze. The Old Man’s eyes popped open and he rolled onto his side, facing Ray. His expression went from shock to anger.
Ray held out his free hand, palm first. “Mr. Messina, I need to talk to you. It’s an emergency.”
Priscilla screamed again. Carlos Messina jerked around and looked at her. Too late, Ray realized the Old Man wasn’t looking at her; he was looking past her, to the nightstand on the other side of the bed, at a Beretta 9mm lying on top of it.
Ray dropped to one knee and let Tony’s leather carryall fall to the floor. He jerked open the zipper and snatched the Smith amp; Wesson pistol from inside. Carlos rolled across Priscilla, one arm stretching toward the gun on the nightstand. Ray ran around the foot of the bed to the far side. Priscilla rolled to her left, out from under her overweight lover, away from the nightstand and the Beretta. With the gun thrust out in front of him in a two- handed combat grip, Ray aimed the Smith. 40 caliber at Carlos Messina’s head. “Stop!”
Carlos looked to his left, stared into the muzzle of Ray’s gun, just four feet from his face. Ray saw the Old Man’s hand freeze less than a foot from the Beretta.
“I just want to talk,” Ray said.
“Kill him,” Priscilla screamed from the other side of the bed. “Kill him!”
Carlos looked at the pistol lying on the nightstand, and then again at the gun pointed at him. Ray sensed him running through the geometry, figuring angles and distances. Evidently, he realized he was going to come up on the short side of the equation, so the Old Man sighed and sat up.
Priscilla looked at Carlos like she had never seen him before, her eyes wide, her mouth open. “What are you doing?” she demanded.
He turned to her and with a calm voice said, “Shut up.”
“What?”
“You heard me.” Then he turned his attention back to Ray. “What do you want?”
Ray relaxed the death grip he had been holding on the gun. “Just to talk. I’m not going to hurt anybody.”
“You expect me to believe that you broke into my bedroom and pulled a gun on me while I was getting a piece of ass just so we could talk?”
Priscilla Zello snorted at the piece of ass reference.
Ray took a deep breath. “I had no choice.”
Carlos stared at him.
Ray moved back around the bed and picked up Tony’s bag. “I want you to look at this.”
“What is it?”
Priscilla Zello’s eyes narrowed. Ray thought he saw recognition in them. He tossed the bag onto the bed. It landed slightly on its side, across Carlos’s outstretched legs, the unzipped top angled toward Ray. Nodding at Priscilla, Ray said, “It belongs to her husband.”
“That’s a lie!” she said.
Carlos gave her a look that shut her up. He left the bag across his legs but otherwise didn’t touch it. From his angle he couldn’t see inside the bag. “What is it?”
Ray glanced back and forth between the two of them, both sitting with their backs against the headboard, both naked, neither making any effort to cover themselves. “Money,” he said to Carlos. “I didn’t count it, but I figure it’s somewhere around three hundred thousand.”
Carlos bent forward, grabbed one of the handles, and rolled the bag closer to him. He looked inside. Then he nodded, as if his practiced eye agreed with Ray’s guess about the amount. Then he looked at Priscilla.
She shook her head. “That’s not Tony’s bag.”
Ray said, “Look at the tag.”
Carlos turned the bag around so he could read the luggage tag tied to one of the D-rings. He looked at Priscilla again. “It’s got his name on it.”
Priscilla looked at Carlos, but jabbed a finger at Ray. “I can’t believe you’re listening to him.”
Carlos said, “He’s got the gun.” His voice was calm, like he didn’t have a care in the world.
She nodded toward the nightstand. “You’ve got a gun, too. Why don’t you use it?”
The Old Man glanced at Ray, giving him a can-you-believe-I’ve-got-to-put-up-with-her look. Ray shrugged, and for a second they were just two guys sharing a little joke. Then Carlos said, “Where’d you get it?”
“That’s not Tony’s bag,” Priscilla repeated. “I’ve never seen that-”
“I’m not going to tell you again.” Carlos raised a finger in front of her face. “Keep your mouth shut.” He nodded at Ray.
“I got it from Tony’s house,” Ray said. “My guess is, that’s the money from the robbery.”
“What were you doing in my house?” Priscilla demanded. Carlos didn’t say anything to her for disobeying his order to keep her mouth shut, didn’t say anything to Ray, just let the question hang.
Ray understood. It was a good question. From the corner of his eye, he saw a chair against the wall near the bathroom door, shaped aluminum tubing and cushions. He pulled it over and sat down. “I went in there to get a gun.” He turned the Smith over in his hand. “This gun.”
Since Priscilla got away with it the last time, she tried it again. “He’s lying. That’s not Tony’s gun.”
Old Man Messina ignored her.
Ray said, “I didn’t say it was his gun. I said it was his bag. He had the gun, and I needed to get it back.” Ray pointed to the bag in Carlos’s lap. “I found that in the bedroom closet.”
“You went in my closet!”
Ray used the. 40 caliber like an extension of his finger, pointing it at Mr. Messina. “You’ve got people in the Eighth District. You’ve got the captain in your pocket. You’re putting his kids through school. You didn’t need me looking for those guys.”
“It was my brother’s idea.”
“I bet if you check, you’ll find out it was really Tony’s idea.”
“Why?”
“To frame me. The money was in his…” he jabbed the Smith at Priscilla, “In her closet.”
Priscilla turned to Carlos. “He admitted breaking into my house. He stole that bag and put the money in it to frame Tony.”
Looking at Carlos, Ray said, “The money was already in the bag.”
“Liar!” She pulled her legs under her and scampered toward him.
Ray pushed the muzzle of the gun toward her and she stopped. “You can’t have it both ways,” he said. “Either you’ve never seen that bag, or I stole it from you to frame your husband. One or the other.”
Carlos shoved her down in the middle of the bed. “Sit down.”
Priscilla covered herself with the comforter.
Messina looked down at the money again, then stared into Ray’s eyes. “You got some balls coming in here the way you did. And I don’t think it was just to tell me a bullshit story.” Carlos pointed to the bag. “Why didn’t you keep it?”
“It’s not mine.”
“You could have run. A lot of guys would have.”
“I thought about it,” Ray said. “But I don’t like running.”
The Old Man nodded.
“The doorman,” Ray said, “a kid named Hector, got caught up in it and Tony killed him. Two of the mopes on the crew, the one who shot your nephew and another guy named Sylvester, turns out I arrested both of them when
