Cruz heard them approaching as he sat slumped and bleeding to death in the front passenger seat of a black car. He was shot, he didn’t know how many times. He looked over at Carmine the Nose, who had just crawled into the driver’s seat. The Nose was a bloody mess. His intestines hung out into his lap where Cruz had gutted him. His big hands caressed the steering wheel.
“Where to, old buddy?” the Nose said.
Cruz opened his eyes.
He stared up at the ceiling of the bathroom in his suite at the Portland Arms. His head rested on the marble apron of the tub. The water was hot. The jets were still going. Steam rose all around him.
The bathroom phone was ringing near his head. It echoed against the tiled walls and the marble floor. He reached back, brushed the gun to make sure it was still there, and picked up the phone.
“Yeah?” he said.
“Cruz.”
“Yeah.”
“You awake? It’s Moss.” Moss, the clown who didn’t like staying at the Holiday Inn. He wasn’t supposed to disturb Cruz tonight, not unless he got to the Guatemalan.
“Yeah, Moss.”
“Listen son, we got the wetback.”
Cruz stifled a yawn and sat up in the tub. “Tell me.”
There was a long pause over the line. “We got her.”
“What else did you get?”
Cruz could practically hear Moss’s lazy grin cracking ear to ear over the phone.
“We got all the keys to Dugan’s place.”
CHAPTER FOUR
Smoke left Lola’s apartment around eleven the next morning. Both Lola and Pam had gone to their day jobs, so Smoke lounged around for a bit before heading back to his own place. He was in no hurry, and it was a nice day.
He came down the stairs into his apartment, still with lingering thoughts of Lola and her body from the night before. Last night had been better, thank you. It was almost noon and she should be on a break soon.
Yessir, he was a lucky man.
A large pile of fur was heaped on the linoleum floor of his tiny kitchen. At first, he thought one of the cats was merely sprawled out there. It was Bubbles, a big lazy yellow tabby. Sprawling out on the floor was nothing new for Bubbles. In fact, Smoke barely looked at the cat.
Then he did.
There was something abnormal about the way Bubbles lay there. Smoke’s heart raced off in a wild tattoo. Rat-a-tat-tat. The cat looked almost like it had been broken, or even smashed. Smoke approached Bubbles cautiously.
His heart pounded in his chest.
Run, you idiot.
The cat was demolished. It was humped and bloodied, like it had been tortured and killed by a cruel and sinister child. A streak of blood stained the linoleum beneath its carcass.
RUN. RUN.
He turned and a man stood behind him. The man had just emerged from the bathroom hallway. The man was short and dark, in jeans and a white T-shirt, covered by a light autumn jacket. His face was pock-marked and scarred along the side. He looked to Smoke like a man in his mid-forties, maybe a little older. Behind him stood a much taller, much broader young man. The kid was huge. He wore a leather cap on his head. Greasy brown hair strung down from it. He had a cowlick on the front of his hairline and a wild light in his eyes.
Smoke had seen the look before. It was the look of a crazy kid who should have been locked up someplace, but instead was hired as muscle. It was the look of those guys who went on bank jobs, then suddenly started spraying civilians with gunfire. It was a bad, bad look. It was the look of murder for hire.
Smoke turned to bolt out the back door, but another young man stood there. This one was slim, clean-cut, not as crazy looking, nor nearly as big as the other one. This kid’s eyes said he had seen a few jobs, and did exactly what the bosses told him. This was the survivor type. The survivor type with a Colt. 380 in his hand.
The back yard was blocked, and the way to the stairs was blocked. Smoke couldn’t outrun these guys. He had his cane, but he couldn’t outfight them. He couldn’t do anything.
Damn! So stupid to wait and wait and wait. Now it was too late.
He had had a bad feeling, and here it was in the flesh. The bad feeling personified.
“Can I help you fellows?” he said.
The small, dark man lit a cigarette.
“That’s okay, go ahead and smoke. I don’t mind.”
The man shrugged. “James Dugan, right? That’s what you call yourself these days?”
“Who wants to know?”
The kid ambled out from behind the small man. He was big, even bigger than at first glance. Smoke watched him approach. It was like watching a dark and terrible storm move in across a valley. He angled toward Smoke across the dingy linoleum, taking his time, not hurrying at all.
“Son,” he said. “The man asked you a question. It ain’t polite to answer him with a question.” He cracked his knuckles.
“You guys are in my home. Ever think of that? That puts me in charge of asking questions.”
The big man feinted with his left hand, then delivered a hard right cross to Smoke’s jaw. Smoke stumbled backwards, crashed into the kitchen table and went right over it. Two cats scattered as he rolled over and fell to the floor.
The kid came, and smiling, stood over him. His huge hands, like the mechanical claws that sift through scrap metal at the junkyard, reached down and picked Smoke up by the shirt. The kid backed up and swung him around in a large circle, then let him go. Smoke felt himself crossing the room as if he were flying, his feet barely scraping the ground. He hit the far wall, plowed into it, then bounced off and stumbled backwards. He turned, pinwheeling for balance. He spilled and slid across the floor.
Then the small man was standing over him. Smoke looked up at that hard face. The scar stood out in sharp relief. Smoke thought of the old dueling societies in Germany, where the guys would wear the scars as badges of honor. The guy took a drag on his cigarette.
“Friend,” the guy said. His voice barely rose above a whisper. “I want to talk to you. And I want you to look at me when I do. Right here, in the eyes.”
Smoke did. The eyes. Somehow, this guy had eyes that were worse than the madness of the kid’s eyes. It was almost like there were flames behind those eyes, and the guy was burning in there, burning in a hell you would have to live through to appreciate. Smoke had also seen this look before, but maybe never this strong.
The eyes held him. “Do we understand each other?”
Smoke nodded.
More whispers from the little man. “Okay. Here’s the rules. I’m going to ask you some questions, and you’re going to answer them. You’re not in a position to act funny. You’re not in a position to ask me any questions. Do you still understand?”
Smoke nodded again.
“What? I didn’t hear you.”
“I understand.”
The scarred face smiled. “Good. Now, I want to show you something.”
He stepped aside and again the giant psychotic kid appeared. This time he was holding one of the cats. Melon was the cat’s name, so called because it was orange and as fat as a melon. Smoke’s heart sank at the sight of the kid with Melon. The kid stroked Melon’s fur, and even from the floor Smoke could hear the cat purring.
