In Too Deep: A Romantic Suspense Novel (60 page)

"Who is this?" Fernandez replied, his voice sharpening immediately.

"Relax, Mr. Fernandez, I'm a friend," I replied. "I ask because I just left a little present for you taped to the monitor of your computer in your office. Nice desk, by the way, but I'd get rid of the Patriots coffee cup. At least in this town." I added the little tidbit to convince him I'd been there. The cup wasn't actually on his desk, but on a small bookshelf next to his desk, right next to a copy of the Abridged Federal Rules of Evidence. "There's two data cards and a note. Go ahead and have them verified if you want, but keep one for yourself."

"Why?"

Instead of answering, I asked another question. "I asked you earlier if you were honest. I have another one. Do you have any guts, Mr. Fernandez. Any
cojones
?"

Bennie Fernandez may have been a well educated Federal prosecutor, but he was still Latin at heart, and calling a Latin man's balls into question is going to get a reaction, regardless of who it is. "Give me a chance, and you'll find out."

"Good. Because if you do have guts, then you're going to make a career. I'm going to give you a name. Owen Lynch. Have a good evening, Mr. Fernandez."

I hung up, then put the phone on the roof before bringing my boot heel down on the phone, shattering it before I pulled the battery. I'd throw the whole thing into the ocean later, but I had another delivery to make before the night was up.

L
ouis the Frog
, despite being the second most powerful man in Sal Giodano's crime syndicate, lived like a poor man. I had never understood why, although I could understand why he lived alone. He was the closest thing I'd seen outside of fiction to a true sociopath. It wasn't that he didn't have a code that he lived by, just that his rules were almost the antithesis of what every other person lived by.

He was loyal to only one man, Sal himself. Other than that, dealing with Louis was kind of like fucking around with a jar of nitroglycerin or maybe nerve gas. One wrong move, and you just might end up dead. He'd killed plenty of people, far more than I had, and had no rules at all as to who he killed. Man, woman, child, innocent or guilty, he didn't give a damn.

The scariest part about Louis though was that he was smart, smarter than a lot of people gave him credit for. They were so intimidated by his propensity for violence that they overlooked just how smart he was. While Sophie often called me a genius for what I'd been able to pick up through just the Internet and my own thinking in terms of business, I think Louis may have been even smarter than me. He just wasn't interested in legitimate business, but instead in making Sal Giordano the most powerful man in the city. Why, I never did figure out.

Louis and I had, for the most part, a respectful relationship prior to the time he'd visited my old Mark Snow apartment. Part of it was that I gave Louis the right amount of respect, which mainly meant I never lowered my guard around him. For his part, Louis recognized that I knew he was dangerous, and I was a touch faster and perhaps more skilled than he was.

So I guess that Louis living in a cheap hotel room made perfect sense, in his own way. The hotel, one of those down on your luck places that catered to illegal aliens that would cram a family of eight into a two person room, desperate to make a new future for themselves in a new country. I had to respect them, considering the guts it took. Or just down on your luck losers who usually checked out via gunshot or hanging rather than by credit card,. The hotel took payment in cash only, paid a week in advance.

Louis had what I guess you could call the penthouse, if a flop house like that could have anything that could be considered a penthouse. The top floor, due to the manager's apartment being next door, had fewer rooms which were just a little bit larger than the normal spots. Still, the bed was sagging, and the walls rattled with the scratching and clawing of rodents as I stepped through the window. I was quite sure that below me, in the rooms below, there were more than a few mothers who were engaged in their nightly battles with the rats and the cockroaches to keep them from feasting on their babies.

To be honest, I was tempted to burn the whole damn place down after pulling the fire alarm. The only thing stopping me was I knew that for many of the other residents of the hotel, the only other option was living on the streets, or in the netherworld of the homeless that congregated in the storm drains and sewers. I'd been down there on missions for Sal, and I never wanted to go there again. It was the sort of place you carried a gun for protection from the wildlife, or at the minimum a machete.

If Louis the Frog had one indulgence, it was scotch whiskey. He was practically a connoisseur, and had in fact gathered bottles from every medal winning producer, from Scotland to North America to the more recent Japanese winners. Still, he had a favorite, forty year old Glenfarclas Scotch at over four hundred dollars a bottle. A single malt, he had once told me in an unexpected moment of introspection that he never went to bed without having a glass.

I found his bottle, which was only had a few shots left in it. Perfect, I didn't want somebody killing themselves by accident after Louis.

Taking the vial from my small pack, I emptied the contents into the scotch. I had crafted it from some of the nastier little tricks that I had been taught during my so-called education as a hitman, and knew that the flavor of the Glenfarclas would cover the chemicals I had used. The poison itself was totally colorless and odorless. I had, in fact, learned the basic recipe from a Japanese teacher of mine, whose family had developed it for mixing into Japanese
shochu
rice wine during the feudal period. With a few tweaks, I'd made it more powerful, and knew that as soon as Louis took even a small drink, he'd be counting the minutes to his death. There was no cure.

Still, I wanted to make sure, so I took up a position on the roof across the street. Using a periscope, I was able to see Louis' room while still staying behind the low brick wall that ringed the roof. I stayed there for hours, making sure to move around enough to keep myself from getting stiff, as the night wore on. Louis was a night owl for sure, and it was nearly three before he came home.

He was dressed in his trademark coat and fedora, which kind of made him look something like a comic book character or something. He just needed to wear crimson lensed glasses and be bald to really cross the line from frightening to nightmare inducing, in my opinion.

Taking off his coat, he hung it up on the hook behind his door along with his hat, rolling his shoulders. Without taking off his jacket, he immediately went to his scotch, pouring himself half a tumbler, no ice. I watched, a grim smile on my face as he tossed it back in two swallows, sealing his fate. Finding his bottle empty, he went to his cabinet and pulled another out. He cracked the seal and was pouring himself another tumbler before the first tremors hit his hand, and the rim of the bottle chattered against the glass.

Louis set the bottle down and looked at his hand, before looking down at his feet, which I was sure were also tingling and losing sensation. Staggering back, Louis tried to go to the door of his place, but his legs lost all feeling before he could reach the knob, and he collapsed on the floor. I turned away, not needing to see anything else. Reaching into my pocket, I pulled out my old cell phone, the one that Mark Snow had used, and dialed a number I hadn't used in a very, very long time.

As I expected, it kicked immediately to voicemail. "Sal, it's the Snowman. I think you and I should talk. How about the Park near the duck pond like last time? This time though Sal, you come alone. I see anyone with you, or even suspect it, and you'll be sitting on that park bench when the cops come to arrest you. You do, and we'll have a chat, and then go our separate ways. You have my word. I'll see you for lunch at noon."

Hanging up, I checked my periscope one last time. Louis lie on the floor, not moving. I knew from descriptions that the poison was supposed to be relatively painless, and that after losing control of his limbs Louis would have felt a creeping numbness spread throughout his body. While he would have been awake the whole time, in my opinion it was a gift for a man as evil as him to die the way he did. He'd done far worse to others.

T
he duck pond
was as quiet as it had been the day that Sal had told me I had to kill Sophie. I'd observed the bench for thirty minutes, since before Sal had arrived. He had followed my instructions, arriving alone with no bodyguards.

It was amazing how much a year could change a man. When I'd last laid eyes on Sal, he had been healthy looking, even if he had been older. His clothes had fit him well, although the stomach of his shirts swelled out a bit much for a man of his age.

A little over a year later, his pants hung baggy on his hips, and his shoulders were stooped and broken. His weight loss had been rapid too, from the jowly, hangdog way it looked on him. If I had to guess, most of it had come in the past six weeks or so. He looked like a sick man.

Making my way across the short distance between us, I kept my jacket collar turned up and my baseball cap on. I wasn't wearing sunglasses, but it didn't matter. In my left hand I carried a bag from Burger King, and my right was tucked in my pocket. For all the world I looked like a man just going to have some lunch by the duck pond.

"Hello, Sal."

Sal almost jumped out of his skin, and I knew in an instant his empire was crushed. The early daytime news had been filled with movements on all sorts of fronts. Bennie Fernandez was even more ambitious than I'd thought. Not only had the FBI already arrested Owen Lynch, as well as brought in over two dozen members of the city's police department for questioning, but members of the ATF, the FBI, and the state police had swept through much of the Confederation as well. Hell, even the IRS was getting a piece of the action, and once those buzzards were in on you, it was just a matter of time. I'd planned on them, at least, and was as secure as I could be.

"Hello, Marco. Well, as you can see, I'm here."

I sat down next to Sal and looked out on the pond. "You know why I did all this, don't you Sal?"

Sal nodded sadly. "I knew that the day would come where I'd be having a conversation like this with someone, Marco. I didn't think it would be you, honestly, nor did I think you would do as much damage as you have. Can I ask you something?"

"Of course. Like I said, we're here to talk."

"Was all of this because of the girl? The one that I sent those men after?"

I shook my head, and opened the bag. Sal flinched as I reached inside, but relaxed when I pulled out two Double Whoppers with cheese and bacon. I offered both of them to Sal, who took one, then waited for me to unwrap the other and take a bite. "Don't worry Sal, it's clean," I said, chewing my lunch. "If I wanted to kill you, I wouldn't do it the same way I did Louis this morning."

Sal shook his head and took a bite of his Whopper. "I suspected it was you. The timing was too close to the time he died. Hey, how'd you pull of Petrokias? His shooting was too close to Han's for you to do it, and the clerk said you weren't there. Just a girl."

"I've had help, I'm sure you suspected."

Sal nodded and took another bite of his meal. "She really that good?"

"Better, even. She's a better person than I am, that's for sure."

We watched the ducks for a while, both of us finishing our burgers before I shared out Cokes and fries. Sal sighed, thinking. "I guess an apology is useless right now, isn't it?"

"A little late in coming."

"Marco, when I said 'was it all about this girl', you shook your head. What else?"

I took a sip of my soda and looked over at Sal. "I've always hated you, Sal. I respected you but I hated you, too. Not that I blame you, my father would have most likely ruined his life regardless of if it had been in your card games, or maybe Faoxin's father's gambling dens, or if he'd gone down to Atlantic City and done it legally. But he did it in your places, Sal. So as much as he screwed up, you get a good portion of my hate as well."

For the first time ever, I think I actually hurt Sal's feelings. Betrayal he could understand, even the killing of the other Confederation members. But to know that I hated him was somehow too much. The old man gaped, tears forming in his eyes, and he set the rest of his French fries aside. His throat worked, and he blinked a few times before looking out at the duck pond. "So what now, Marco?"

"You have a choice, Sal. The Feds might be kicking down your door any day now. Even I'm surprised at how fast this Fernandez guy is sweeping through down at DOJ. So, you can sit back and enjoy the last few hours with your family before they drag you off to prison."

"Or?"

"Sal, I said I hated you, and that was no lie. But I've met your family. Your granddaughters don't deserve the hell this could be. Your children neither. You did that part right at least."

I saw a tear trickle down Sal's face, and he nodded his thanks silently. "Look in the bag, Sal. Inside you'll find something you could use. Let's face it, if you're dead, the DOJ is going to let it go. They're going to be too busy dealing with the living to worry too much about the dead. I assume you've hidden at least some of your assets out of their sight?"

"Yes. Not all of it, but about three million in what they'll think are life insurances. Tell me Marco, will it hurt?"

I shook my head. "Not much. If the coroner doesn't look very carefully, he won't even suspect a thing."

Sal nodded, and looked over at me. "Thank you, Marco. And for what it's worth, I'm sorry. I'm sorry it came to all this."

"Me too, Sal." I handed him the bag, then dusted off my hands and got up. "Go easy, Sal."

"Have a good life, Marco."

I walked away, not turning back as I heard the brown paper sack open up. I walked to the end of the duck pond, before turning and taking some crackers out of my pocket, feeding the ducks while watching Sal. He saw me, and nodded once before putting the two white tablets into his mouth and taking a sip of his soda to wash them down. I finished my crackers and walked away, Sal still sitting on the bench.