He laughed at his own joke. The guy on the left just kept chewing the straw and staring at Carter. Carter held his gaze.
“You know Linc Pluto?” I asked anyway.
Moreno arched an eyebrow. “Nope.”
“I think you do.”
“Well, then you think wrong, white boy.”
“Sometimes,” I said. “But not this time. Met a guy who says you know him.”
“Oh, yeah?” he said, raising both eyebrows. “Who’s this guy that says I know Linc Pluto?” He smiled again. “Or whatever you said his name was.”
“Doesn’t matter,” I said. “I don’t care about the guns. I just wanna know about Pluto.”
“Goodie-goodie for you,” Moreno said, then laughed to himself again.
“Pluto work for you?”
He sat up a little in his chair and motioned to the guy next to him. “This here is Wesley. He handles all of our human resources shit.” He grinned. “Whyn’t you ask him?”
I looked at Wesley. “Pluto work for Moreno?”
Wesley ignored me, pulled the straw out of his mouth, and pointed it at Carter. “How’s your jaw?”
“Fine,” Carter said, his voice flat. “How’re your ribs?”
“Fine.” Wesley put the straw back in his mouth and started back to work on it.
They both tried to give off the feeling that their dialogue was casual, harmless. It seemed anything but that to me.
“Damn,” Moreno said, looking back to me. “I guess human resources is closed today.”
My irritation grew with his arrogance, but there wasn’t much I could do. We were on his turf and I had to be careful. I couldn’t just throw him to the street like I had Carlos.
“Maybe I should just go back and ask Rudy and Reg,” I said.
The grin on Moreno’s face flickered down for a moment, but he caught himself quickly and tried to stay nonchalant.
“They’re probably still lying in the street where we left them,” I said. “Urine stains will be embarrassing when they stand up.” I paused. “They promised us you’d be here, and damn if they weren’t right.”
The grin dissolved slowly this time and Moreno didn’t bother trying to stop it. “That right?” He tilted his head to the side again. “I think it’s time for you and the Great White Hope next to you to go.”
“I’m not done yet,” I said.
“Yes, you are,” a voice said behind me.
Carter and I both turned. The guy matched Carter’s height of six-nine and probably outweighed Carter by a hundred pounds. His skin was a deep black and wraparound shades hid his eyes on his boulderlike head. The white golf shirt and navy pants were funny attire for a guy aiming a TEC-9 machine gun at us.
A dark blue Ford Excursion with blacked-out windows and rims that shone like new money was idling quietly at the curb in front of my Jeep. The rear passenger door was open.
“Later, fellas,” Moreno said, then laughed to himself one more time.
“Wizard’s waiting,” the huge man said.
I turned to Carter.
“Wizard’s waiting,” Carter said, and I thought I detected a small spark of excitement in his voice.
As we walked to the Excursion, I could find nothing exciting about going to meet Wizard Matellion.
Twenty-eight
The interior of the Excursion resembled a mobile nightclub. Instead of the standard passenger seats, there was a leather bench running along the walls. A square oak table filled the middle, a bottle of Crown Royal sitting inside the brass rails that rimmed it. Pungent cologne permeated the air like it was being piped through the vents. The stereo system, even turned down, sounded expensive and ear-busting. The windows were blacked out and theater lighting dotted the ceiling.
Carter and I slid onto the seats that faced the rear of the vehicle, a dark partition behind our heads preventing us from seeing who was driving. The Jolly Black Giant with the TEC-9, who had patted us down and removed our guns before we got within ten feet of the car, climbed in behind us and occupied the space next to Wizard Matellion.
Wizard sat in the back corner. He had dark chocolate skin with closely cropped black hair. Around six feet tall, athletic build, and a friendly smile on his dark face. He wore a bright blue nylon Adidas warm-up suit zipped up to his chin. White high-tops covered his feet.
He extended his hand toward me, thick gold bands on his fingers flashing. “I’m Wizard.”
I shook his hand. “I think you know my name.”
He nodded and extended his hand toward Carter. Carter didn’t move, keeping his eyes on the giant. Wizard’s smile tightened a little as he withdrew his hand and sat back in his seat. He motioned to the giant. “This is Ollie.”
Ollie didn’t move, keeping his eyes on Carter.
The engine hummed a little louder and we glided away from the curb.
“Sorry to have to meet like this,” Wizard said. “But I gotta be careful going out in public.”
“So many friends,” I said.
He laughed. “Yes. So many friends.” He waved a hand in front of him. “I don’t want to keep you for too long. For future reference, it might be better if you contacted me before you came down to this neighborhood.”
His casual tone made him sound like a Realtor speaking to potential home buyers. But that tone didn’t make me forget that he killed people for a living.
“We’ll remember that,” I said. “But to be honest, we were just looking to talk to Deacon.”
“Deacon works for me.”
“I know that.”
His smile widened. “Then you probably know the game, so you knew you were gonna have to talk to me first anyway before Deacon would talk to you.”
“Nothing goes down without your approval?”
“I’m like the CEO.”
“So did you order Moreno to take me out?”
The grin didn’t falter. “Sometimes Deacon likes to pretend he’s management, going and doing his own thing. It’s called initiative.” His white teeth gleamed in the dark interior. “So I’m not sure what you’re talking about. I’ll have to talk to him about that.”
I nodded. “Sure.”
He leaned back in his seat. “Is that all you wanted with Deacon?”
The rhythm of the wheels on the pavement came through my seat. “No.”
“What else, then?”
“I wanted to know if he knows a kid named Linc Pluto.”
Matellion crossed one leg over the other. “Name doesn’t sound familiar to me.”
“Deacon was working with him.”
“Deacon say so?”
I shook my head.
Wizard shrugged. “Then maybe you’re wrong.”
I glanced at Carter. He and Ollie were smiling at one another, each silently daring the other to do something.
I looked back at Wizard. “Let me put this another way. Deacon Moreno was working with Linc Pluto, who I think is a white supremacist.”
The grin finally faltered and the charming facade that Wizard Matellion worked so hard at began to crumble.
