Chapter 42
I watched her car through the window as she drove up. While she shopped, I'd gone through the house, ensuring she had no roommates or other surprises that might pop up. Dimming the lights, I waited for her to come in. I'd easily bypassed the simple little tricks and traps she used to tell if somebody had intruded. The door unlocked, proving me right.
Upon entering, Sophia set down her purse and shopping bags. Just as she realized the lights were out where she'd left them on, it was too late. I shut the door behind her.
“Knew you'd miss me,” she said, noticing her purse, with whatever protection it held, was suddenly gone.
“You fucked me,” I said as I came up behind her, placing the barrel of the gun at the base of her skull.
“Yeah. And it was good, huh?”
“No. You
really
fucked me,” I said, pressing the barrel harder. “Why here?”
“You said to disappear, so I picked this place. As good as any. Rent's cheap.”
“Stockton? You live for the thrill. This ain't a thrill.”
“Got another reason for me being here?” she challenged.
“Yes, I do. Mule Creek,” I answered, referring to the California state prison she'd been visiting regularly in nearby Ione. I rattled her. Could tell from the way her neck tensed beneath the barrel.
“Never heard of it,” she said as calmly as she could. That's why I stayed behind her. I didn't want to look in the eyes of such a master, someone who could generate a variety of conflicting emotions in me while preying on all of them.
“That is why you're here, right? Waiting for him to be released? Waiting for him to come strolling out next week and sweep you up in his arms? Fairy tale sound about right?
Do I still make you cum harder than him
?” I taunted, recalling her admission back in Vegas.
“I . . . don't know what you're talking about. Have you been drinking, Truth?”
“Nah. I'm sober, Sophia. So when I say you're not going to see him walk out of prison, I mean it. At least . . . not out the front gate. He's dead. Killed last night. And from what I know, it was pretty painful.”
“You're lying,” she said, whipping around recklessly. I held the gun, still pointed at her, resisting the urge to drop her on the spot. It was hard not to because I kept seeing Collette's face, all that blood everywhere. “You don't know anything about him.”
“Ivan Dempsey's his name, right? Crackhead former model? I'm sure they
loved him long time
on the inside. Maybe I'm lying. Maybe he's not dead. Or maybe . . . just maybe I can see into the future. He's not being released anytime soon. Seems he's misbehaved and is being transferred to another facility. And if you try to reach him, try to see him or have any contact ever again, I will find out, and my vision of the future becomes a reality.”
“Why are you doing this to me?” she asked, erupting in a fit of sorrow and rage. Losing him meant more to her than her own sad life. I knew how she felt.
Flaring up, I put one in the chamber, sending her scrambling backward in a panic. She fell down as I advanced, knocking over a glass table. She brought her hands up over her face as she shrieked.
“You're lucky I don't just kill you, but you're not worth the cost of the bullet,” I snarled, standing over her. “Consider this payback for what you took from me.”
“What the fuck are you talking about?” she sobbed, her hands trembling and eyes bulging.
“All I did was swipe stuff off your computer, man! What other issues you have, don't you dare lay them on me!”
“Don't fuck with me, Sophia!” I yelled, wagging the gun at her. “You know you sicced Penny Antnee and them on me with those pictures! I hope you got enough money for that! Or did it give you satisfaction because I chose Collette over you? Huh? Well, now your cousin's dead because of it!”
“Dead? Collette? Wow.” Sophia chuckled inappropriately. She mused over my news, seeming to forget the gun pointed at her head. “Are you sure?” she asked, her pitch oddly rising.
“Yes, they killed her! And you want to laugh about it
?
What's your game, you sick, twisted bitch?”
“No game. I just appreciate irony.” She sighed. “Penny Antnee didn't pay me. Collette did.”
“What?”
“She's not my cousin, Truth. We're not related at all. She paid me to get close to you, you jackass!”
Sophia flipped a switch, causing a chain reaction of past events cascading through my mind.
“What you got to say now?” She smirked in as defiant a manner as I'd ever seen.
I replied by unloading the .45 until the clip was empty.
Chapter 43
With cash on hand from one of my accounts and another laptop, I was back in business with a reach that knew no bounds. With the issue of Sophia resolved and free of Collette's influence, I was locked on a singular priorityâpayback.
In a coffee shop similar to one I'd shared with Collette in days now gone, I scoured the Internet for any unreported, unsubstantiated rumors from the entertainment world. The aroma of the fresh ground beans didn't escape me. I imagined that awful blend I used to order simply to bond with her. Yet somehow I found myself longing for its taste.
Spin was in full effect. 4Shizzle had put its simmering exposé on me on hold, instead posting a blind item about a Florida rapper, obviously referring to Loup Garou, being shot in some rap feud. Shot, but not dead. The front of a “rap feud” be damned; I only hated that the fucker still walked the Earth. Despite Sophia's revelations about Collette, her absence hurt worse than anything I'd ever been through. With each passing day, that frigid chasm inside me grew. The only thing keeping the chill at bay was the white hot rage I felt for Loup Garou. I feared the depression that was to come once this was over. I remembered the despair that tore apart my mother after Hollywood. Was this what was inevitable after losing all one cared for?
Knowing the story being put out about Loup Garou, I began working contacts both near and farâa police officer who moonlighted as security in L.A., a woman in airline reservations for Continental, a parking lot attendant whose sister has a kid by someone in the music industry, a limo driver, a VIP concierge for American Express, and last but not least, a drug dealer with contacts throughout south Florida. With the most trivial and anecdotal evidence gathered, I sifted through the bullshit, piecing together an educated guess of where he was holed up.
The north side of Las Vegas. At a home leased by Penny Antnee's talent agency.
I figured him as wanting to return to the cradle. Back to Miami, his stomping grounds, where family protected him and he could recover in peace. Would've made it much harder to find him, more dangerous, too but apparently he didn't fear the man who'd shot him. Although I could be a rabbit if the situation called for it, he was about to have the rabbit turn and bite him.
I smiled as I booked my flight, knowing retribution was in order, whether I lived through it or not.
Â
Â
“You sure they're for us?” the red-eyed hanger-on asked, marijuana smoke evident in the air as he hung from the open door. Unlike my previous encounter with Penny's people, the tall, gangly man posed no threat.
The hired guns used in Dallas and back in T or C were still unsuccessfully combing the country for me, but Loup Garou chose to convalesce with his boys and the regular entourage while Penny Antnee did his mega-star thing. My guess was that Loup Garou was the only one in the posse privy to his boy's indiscretions or the lengths he'd go to silence people over it. For all the rest knew, Loup Garou really had been shot in some feud.
“Hey, my man,” I chimed in the nasally voice I'd rehearsed all day. “I just do as I'm told. I get paid either way, knowhutI'msayin'?”
“Who sent em?” he asked, leering at the voluptuous working girls I'd rounded up from around the city. I'd paid them cash up front, with the agreement that all tips were theirs with no split. Only one of them knew I was not what I seemed.
“You know I don't talk,” I replied with a smile and a wink from behind my dark sunglasses. “Not only do people take care of Penny, they also take care of his peeps.”
“Whoa. That's what's up.” He chuckled as he rubbed his hands together briskly.
“Now, can we come in?” I asked, gesturing wildly in my black tailored suit while steady smacking my worn chewing gum. “'Cause I don't think the neighbors would appreciate what these girls here are about ta do.”
“Right, right. Get yo' asses on in here then,” he urged with glee.
I spat out my gum then held the door open, gentlemanlike, as the seven ladies entered. The fool was so fixated on the women that he didn't bother to frisk me. A raucous roar erupted in the house as news spread of the visitors. Before things got out of hand, I held audience in the living room with the men, informing them of what they could and could not do. My instructions served dual purposesâto pretend I was really the girls' handler, and to get a head count of the house. When I was done, it was time to play.
“How do you want to do it?” the dancer called Fierce whispered to me as the festivities kicked off.
“When things go south, just say you saw somebody go out the back door. You remember the description?”
“Yeah, yeah. You drilled it into me,” she answered.
Before long, the boys remembered to be considerate to the ailing. Fierce was the one who volunteered to play Florence Nightingale. I watched where she went in the house, all the while playing bored sitter.
“Say, man, I'm going to take a smoke. Call my wife,” I rattled off to the closest person coherent enough to care, motioning as if the loud music might hinder my conversation. “Behave with the ladies, okay?”
I opened the back door, walking onto the patio for the briefest of seconds before reentering and heading straight for one of the bedrooms.
“What theâ?”
I cut off Loup Garou's exclamation with a wave of the silencer-tipped gun in my gloved hand. “Wait outside the door,” I calmly instructed Fierce.
“Who the fuck are you, man?” Loup groaned as Fierce left us alone. “I was about to get my dick sucked.” I got to see my desert handiwork, a bit of white gauze and tape on the upper part of his chest, near his shoulder. A little lower and to the left and I would've had his heart. Several bottles of antibiotics and pain pills rested on the tray next to his bed. Despite his weariness, he tried to keep his thug on for appearance's sake.
“Look at my face,” I said, coming closer.
“I've been shot. Don't feel so good. Man, go on with that shit,” he said, waving me away as if I were a minor inconvenience.
“I'm not in a caring mood. Look closely.”
He indulged me, looking once then looking away before quickly looking again. His groggy eyes flashed with brilliance. “That was you in New Mexico. You's a quick motherfucker. Shoulda had yo' ass.”
“And out here at the hotel Stratus that time, when you were following me and I got you popped by the cops. And in Houston.”
“Houston?”
“At that lounge. When the guy was messing with Natalia and he said I paid him to do it. I was the guy with the fiancée,” I said, making a poor attempt at faux eyeglasses with my free hand.
“You a real fuckin' Eddie Murphy or somethin' with the disguises 'n shit. But why you tellin' me?”
“Maybe I just need to feel appreciated.”
“Maybe you here to pop me for what I done to ya.”
“No. That's was just business. I put myself in
a position to get caught slippin'
,” I clowned with an ill attempt at rhyme. “You just took advantage of it. I'm here for the bonus shit.”
The Haitian Werewolf grinned, his gold fang fronts absent for a change. He looked away, taking a heavy, labored breath. “Go ahead. I ain't gonna scream. I ain't no bitch,” he grunted.
“Can I ask you something? Before Iâ”
“Shoot,” he said, irony intended.
“Why do all this for Penny?”
“Boy got talent by the pound. Can't let shit happen to him or his career, y'know. He takes care of a lot of people. Been rollin' wit' him since way back.”
“You and him . . . ?”
“Nah. That's my boy though. I love him, but not like that.” Loup broke down for the briefest of seconds, realizing the love he had for his boy Penny wasn't going to get him through the night. “Man, fuck the civilians. Shouldn't have let you get away in New Mexico.”
There was a thump as something fell over in another room. The party was escalating, heading to its natural conclusion. I'd kept Fierce waiting outside the door too long already. Somebody would eventually pass down the hallway.
“Give me closure, Werewolf. What did you do with her body?”
He stared at me, not giving up anything beyond a sly smile. “Little rabbit, you didn't come here to talk, no?” he taunted with as much diminished swagger as he could conjure up.
I counted off two seconds, giving him the briefest of chances to reconsider and answer.
“No,” I replied, as I put a single bullet between his cold eyes.