Dead Cat Bounce (28 page)

“Works for me,” she told him. They agreed on the price, and she accepted the bills.

“Just give me a couple more minutes,” Prior told her. “My friend will be leaving soon.”

“Okay,” she said. “I'll go pay the house.”

“All right,” Prior said, and he peered out into the hallway, checking in both directions. Then he closed the door, walked back over, and sat in his chair again. “I'm not walking away from anything,” he said.

“Your call,” Stoney said. “I didn't really think you would. It's always your appetites that take you down, isn't it?”

“I wouldn't know,” Prior said. “I'm not like you, I'm just a soldier, I'm not a con artist.”

“You haven't been a soldier for a while. What are you now?”

“I am the winner, and you are the loser.” Stoney could see it in the man's posture, he had made his decision, and now he was moving on it. “Here's how this is going to work. I have a man in the outer room. I'm going to call him on his cell phone, he's going to come in here, and he's going to escort you out to my car. I'm going to stay here and take my pleasure with the young lady. After that, we're going to go somewhere where you and I can have an extended conversation. Now, I need to warn you, my man taught hand-to-hand at Quantico, and he is very, very good. He's almost as good as I am.” Behind him, the door opened up again and the waitress entered carrying a tray with the wine and three glasses.

Prior stared at Stoney. “Stay where you are.”

“Whatever you say,” Stoney said. Prior took out his phone, made his call, murmuring briefly into the mouthpiece

“This won't take a second,” the waitress said. She was the same girl who'd been working the front of the room, the strawberry blonde with the terrycloth shorts, halter top, and the fanny pack that kept trying to pull her pants down. Stoney actually found her more attractive than the other women in the place because she looked more like a real person than they did. She crossed the room, put the tray down on the end table next to the couch. She took one of the champagne bottles and opened it, firing the plastic stopper across the room with a loud pop, then poured two glasses full, carried one of them over to Prior. “Anything else?” she said.

Prior's guard opened the door, stepped into the room, and closed the door behind him. He was smiling, his attention split between Stoney and the waitress.

“Why don't you pour one for yourself?” Prior said.

“Against the rules,” she told him, but then she reconsidered. “You know, I could use a belt.” She crossed back over to the tray, stood between Stoney and Prior, leaned over for the other glass. Her halter top was right in Stoney's face, and her fanny pack slid low on her hip. The zipper on the thing was open. She picked up the other glass, stood back erect, and chugged the wine. The sweet, slightly acrid smell of the stuff filled Stoney's head. “God, I needed that. Thanks,” she said. She pulled her shorts back up again.

“Why do they make you wear those stupid pants?” Prior asked her. “They look like they're more trouble than they're worth. You ought to just lose them.”

“I'm not a dancer,” she told him, doubt in her voice. “I'm really just a waitress. I got two left feet. I don't know how to,
you know…” Her voice trailed off as she watched Prior reach for his wallet. “What do you, um, want me to do?”

“You really don't need to do a thing,” Prior told her, and he smiled. He handed her a hundred, and she stuffed it in her fanny pack. “My friends, here, they're both leaving, and maybe you could just keep me company until Tiffany gets back.”

“Sure,” she said. “But you really ought to get something for your money. I hate to see anyone get gypped.” She stepped over in front of the television, hooked her thumbs on the waistband of her shorts, and slid them artlessly down over her hips. Prior glanced at Stoney, then leaned back in his chair, smiling. He had his hand on his pistol, inside the jacket pocket, but the jacket was unbuttoned and it hung open, exposing the shirt beneath. That's where Stoney pointed the .22, the one he had taken out of the waitress's fanny pack when she was pouring the wine.

Prior saw it, his mouth dropped open as he struggled to comprehend, but then he jerked his body sideways out of his chair, the hand holding the silver automatic coming out of his jacket as his body hit the floor. “Down,” Stoney said, and the waitress dropped straight to the ground. Stoney adjusted his aim, and the .22 spit three times, then three times again when he shifted his aim to Prior's bodyguard, who, transfixed by the half-naked woman on the floor, hesitated for one fatal second before groping for his own weapon. Hit by a head shot, he was dead before he hit the floor. It wasn't luck, Stoney thought, not entirely, but the other two shots he had fired at the bald man had gone through the ceiling and out into the night.

Prior was hit twice high in the chest and once through the neck. His eyes and jaw both gaped wide, then he struggled to swallow the blood that began filling his mouth. Stoney held the .22 on him, steady as Prior looked once at the gun in his
own hand, but a few seconds later, his grip relaxed, his fingers went slack, and the gun lay there in his open hand. Prior's mouth worked, as though he were trying to say something, but his airways were filling with blood. He coughed a red spray of it out onto the rug. He looked up at Stoney as the waitress got back up off the floor, pulling her terrycloth shorts back up. “You all right?” Stoney asked her.

“I'm fine,” she said, and she watched Prior. “The only part of this that bothered me was that Brazilian wax job Tiff made me get. Hurt like a bastard.” She glanced over at Stoney. “Tommy says he'll help us get Tiff's daughter back. Can he really do it?”

“If anybody can,” Stoney said, “it's Tommy.”

She nodded, then stepped over a puddle of champagne on the floor, around the lifeless bodyguard, and walked out of the room. Prior coughed again, weakly, tried to swallow the blood. His eyes never wavered from Stoney's face. How quickly you become a footnote, Stoney thought. One minute you're invincible, the next minute the waitress doesn't even see you anymore. He watched silent as Prior died, marshaling his justifications for what he had just done. The man killed a security guard whom he could have just as easily spared, he murdered Tina Finbury, who surely deserved better, and he was stalking your own daughter. And those are just the ones you know about…But he was sorry, still and all, he regretted the pain he saw in Prior's eyes even as it faded to a cold gray. It's on you, he wanted to say that to Prior's lifeless face, but whether it was true or not, it didn't seem to matter anymore.

 

The truck was so big it shook the ground when it drove around to the back of the Jupiter.
FINBURY CONSTRUCTION
,
the sign on the door read.
HOMES OF DISTINCTION
. There was a huge container on the back, it was filled with rubble that had recently been a house. The house had been a knockdown, a nice building whose crime had been its exclusive location, and Finbury had bought the place and torn it down to make way for another McMansion. Prior and his bodyguard were both in the container on the back of the truck, rolled up in the carpet from the VIP room. Finbury had his arm out the driver's window, his face silver in the glare of the parking lot floodlights. He said something to Stoney, but Stoney couldn't hear him over the clatter of the big diesel. Finbury declined to shout, he clambered down off the truck. “Watch the news,” he said. “Couple days from now, someone will find him and his rocks somewhere down in the Meadowlands.” Then he climbed back up, jammed the truck into gear with a grinding thump, and roared away.

I
t was a new rule, proposed, vetoed, overridden, debated, finally agreed to with reluctance by both parties: no smoking in the house. Donna, having lived in a smoke-free environment for the better part of a year, did not want Stoney smoking anywhere, at any time, while he had done his best to explain why that was not possible, maybe not even desirable, not here, not yet. There was a small screened porch at the back of the house, now home to a ratty couch and an ashtray. He came out of the house, sat down in the dark, shirtless, night breeze cool on his skin, the only light the glow at the end of his cigarette.

It had been well past midnight by the time they'd gotten everything sorted out. Stoney wondered if Finbury would really leave Prior's little velvet bag with the body. Not that it mattered anyhow, the stuff was only ice. Cubic zirconias, switched for the real thing by Moses Wartensky and his sons during the little dance they had done in his office. Wartensky had agreed to liquidate Prior's diamonds, for a cut, of course. Stoney wasn't sure he trusted the man, but the guy was Tommy's problem now. Maybe the hand is quicker than the eye after all, Stoney thought. Even when you're looking for the play, you miss it….

Jack Harman was sleeping in the spare bedroom, and Tuco
was sacked out on the couch. Prior's Doberman ws curled up next to the sofa. Tuco and Jack had made one last trip throught the woods up in Alpine, and they had found three more velvet bags, just like the one Prior had carried to Wartensky's. So far, no one but Stoney and the two of them knew about it. Tuco had brought the Dobie back with him. Kids, Stoney thought. What could you do? At least he hadn't brought the Rottweiler, too.

Tuco and Marisa were locked into a mutual orbit, Stoney could sense the pull of gravity between the two of them. Tiffany and her sister, the strawberry-blond waitress, had both gone home with Fat Tommy. Stoney shook his head. I don't know how the man does it…He thought about calling Benny, but it would wait. No use waking him up, they would probably see each other later in the day.

Somewhere in the trees behind the house, a frog cried out for a mate, his metallic croak sounding like someone hitting a galvanized pipe with a hammer.

Pank.

Pank.

I'm here. Is anybody there?

The door opened behind him, she came out into the night. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I'm fine.” That old lie came smoothly: I'm all right, really. Leave me be.

“Why don't you come back inside?”

“Nice out here.”

“Yes, it is,” she said. He felt her hands soft on his skin. He was surprised, because he could still sense the vague and unspoken resentments that lay between the two of them. Tell me, he wanted to say, tell me what you want me to say, what you want me to be, but he held his tongue.

“Tell me we're not keeping that dog,” she said.

He chuckled. “It's Tuco's.”

She ran her hands through his hair, rubbed his bristled cheeks, kissed him. He touched her, hesitant, because it was no longer second nature to have his hands on her, he wanted to be sure of his welcome first. A moment later, she drew away from him, and he heard whatever she'd been wearing slip to the floor. For the first time in his memory, it seemed that she was the aggressor, and he was left to wonder what he really wanted. He didn't know what to think, and presently he quit trying, went with his gut instead.

Pank.

Pank.

The frog was still searching.

Stoney felt for him.

It's hell, being alone.