Paradise Burns (19 page)
FORTY-ONE
‘I’m assuming
that Jimmy’s recent issue with the police is your doing?’ asked Pellaggio.
‘Don’t know what you’re talking about,’
I replied.
‘Sure you don’t, kid. As things stand, I
figure you owe me. Big.’
‘Really? See, the way I figure it, you
need to piss off. Now.’
‘That mouth of yours is gonna get you
into trouble one day.’
‘I thought I told you to leave this
whole thing well alone?’
‘I want my goddamn land back!’
‘Oh, well seeing as you asked so
nicely...’
‘Don’t fuck with me, kid - I don’t care
who you are, I’ll see to it they find pieces of your body in all fifty states!’
I failed to suppress a chuckle at that
last threat, which I could tell did nothing to improve his already sour mood.
‘Listen, I don’t have the deeds any
more. I gave them away. Sorry.’
‘You can’t possibly be that stupid, kid.’
While I had nothing in particular to
hurry to, I still couldn’t be bothered arguing with this guy. I get that he’s
the head of a large and powerful mafia family. And yes, I appreciate there are
many, many ways in which he can come after me. But after the week I’ve had, I
just didn’t care.
I figured at this stage it was
irrelevant how much I told him. What’s he going to do? Threaten the U.S.
government?
I said, ‘You’re right, I’m not that
stupid. In fact, I’m probably one of the smartest people you’ll ever meet. But
that doesn’t change the fact that I don’t have the deeds any more.’
‘So get them back. They’re mine,’ said
Pellaggio.
‘Actually, that land is now property of
the United States Government. I spoke to the Secretary of Defense, and he
persuaded me to hand the deeds over to a private military contractor called
GlobaTech - who Ted Jackson worked for, in case you’d forgotten. They’re
handling the legalities of it all, but the bottom line is this: let it go - you’ve
lost.’
There was silence on the other end of
the line for a few moments.
‘Bullshit,’ he said.
‘I’m afraid not, sorry. See, it turns
out that underneath that little plot of land lies the only natural uranium
deposit in North America. I couldn’t let you keep it once I found out, and
since then, lots of things have happened that culminated in the Secretary of Defense
ordering me to hand the deeds over.’
‘You’ve cost me millions of dollars.’
There was an icy calm in his voice, that
I suspected meant that he was so angry right now, he didn’t know how to express
it.
‘If you’d known about the uranium and
started selling that as well, you could argue I’ve probably cost you billions,
being honest. If it’s any consolation, you did manage to get away without
paying me for the Ted Jackson hit. Although, I did kinda screw you over and
frame Jimmy for that, so we’ll call that even, yeah?’
‘You’re a fucking dead man, you hear me,
kid?’ said Pellaggio. ‘Dead!’
‘I think not, actually, Bobby old buddy.
See, you’re now a member of an exclusive club that consists of people who I’ve
warned more than once. There are two members. One of them has just been
arrested for a murder we all know he had nothing to do with. His nose is broken,
his pride is hurt and he’s fully aware that if I see him again, I’ll put a
bullet in his head. The other is you. So listen up and listen good: if you ever
see me again, you run. If I catch you, the last thing you will ever see will be
the image of my gun pointing at your face. I’m not threatening you, I’m simply
stating an irrefutable fact.’
‘You talk a lot, kid. And you seem to
forget exactly who the fuck I am. You’ve caused me a lot of trouble, and there
are countless bodies buried in the desert that can vouch for the fact that I
don’t take too kindly to people fucking with my business. You’re one man, and
you’re soon to be a dead one.’
He hung up before I had chance to say
any more. I looked at the phone for a moment and sighed. To be fair, I’ve probably
said enough. He’ll be on the phone to everyone he knows, rallying his troops
and showing them my picture. I suspect things will get interesting real soon.
So much for getting out of Heaven’s Valley.
I sat in silence, thinking things over
for a moment, then re-dialed Josh.
‘Hey, quick question - you got a number
for Robert Clark?’ I asked.
‘Yeah, I’ll text it you now,’ he
replied. ‘What’s up?’
‘I need a favor from our new best
friend.’
I heard Josh sigh on the other end of
the phone.
‘What have you done, Adrian?’
‘Josh, I’m sure I don’t know what you’re
talking about.’
Silence.
‘Okay, fine. Pellaggio just rang me and
demanded I give him the deeds. I told him about the uranium mine and that the U.S.
Secretary of Defense, ordered me to give them to GlobaTech. He advised me I won’t
be alive for long, apparently.’
‘And you said?’
‘I may have suggested that I was going
to shoot him in the head if I ever saw him again.’
‘So, not only did you essentially commit
treason by divulging classified military information, you succeeded in pissing
off one of the biggest mob bosses on the West Coast?’
‘He was already pissed at me.’
‘Yes, but now he’s going to be pooling
his vast array of resources and dedicating his every waking moment to killing
you.’
‘Well, there is that, I suppose.’
‘You did it on purpose, didn’t you?’
I paused. ‘Maybe.’
‘I swear, sometimes I think you’re
suicidal.’
‘Oh, it’ll be fine, stop being such an old
woman about it. We’ve dealt with worse.’
‘So what are you going to do?’
‘Can you get me his address?’
‘Pellaggio’s? Why? Do you intend
knocking on his door and saying Hi?’
‘Something like that.’
‘Can I have all your guns and money when
you die?’
‘Knock yourself out, but I’m being
buried with my Berettas.’
‘That’s fine. Where you’ll be heading,
you’ll need all the help you can get.’
FORTY-TWO
I decided to go
back to the hospital and check on Clara one last time. Josh had sent me Robert
Clark’s number, as well as the details of where Pellaggio’s house is. I figured
I’d pop over and see if we can’t sort this whole thing out like gentleman.
As I drove in Clara’s car, I turned the
radio on to find some suitable music. This car was one of the best I’ve ever
driven. The roar of the engine, the speed of acceleration: it felt like someone
had tried to tame nature itself - and struggled. For a true sports car like
this one, you had to drive it straight, drive it fast and have a helluva
soundtrack in the background.
I found a couple of local radio stations
playing up-to-date chart music, which was no good at all. After some
fine-tuning, I stumbled across a station that had an older-sounding guy
talking, introducing three tracks played back to back, all classic rock.
That’ll do nicely.
I cranked it up just as the introduction
to the first song came on. "
Since You’ve Been Gone
" by
Rainbow. Now you’re talking! I blasted down the street, windows down, music
loud.
For the first time in what felt like
ages, albeit for just under ten minutes, I felt relaxed and free. Away from all
the burdens and bullets that this city has thrown at me. Just me and the music
and the open road.
I almost didn’t want to get out of the
car, but as the saying goes: there’s no rest for the wicked. I pulled into the
hospital parking lot and turned the volume down to a reasonable, boring level.
There weren’t many cars parked nearby, considering it’s a hospital.
I walked in through the main entrance
and took the elevator up to the fourth floor. As I walked through the waiting
area, one of the nurses behind the desk looked up and smiled. I recognized her
from when I first came here in the early hours and met with Clark. I smiled
back as I headed to the right and down the corridor toward Clara’s room. The
doors with the keypad were propped open, which was a result, so carried on
until I reached her room. I knocked on the door and entered.
The bed was empty.
I wish she’d stop doing that. The woman
can’t stay still for more than a couple of minutes, it would appear. She
definitely can’t be trusted to seek medical attention when she needs it. I
walked back out to the waiting area and spoke to the nurse who smiled at me.
I said, ‘Excuse me, can you tell me
where Clara Fox is? She was in Room Five down the corridor.’
She checked the computer in front of her
for a moment.
‘I can see she checked herself out a couple
of hours after she came in,’ she said, apologetically. ‘We cleaned the wound
and stitched it back up, then she insisted on leaving almost immediately afterward.’
I took a deep breath.
‘Okay, thanks for your help.’
I got back into the elevator and headed
back down to the ground floor. Where the hell was she? Why would she check
herself out?
There’s nothing left for her to do. Dark
Rain will be handled by GlobaTech. Pellaggio was never her problem to start
with - that was my issue. Where would she have gone?
As I got outside, I took out my phone
and called Clark.
‘It’s Adrian,’ I said as he answered. ‘You
got a minute?’
‘I don’t know where she is either, if
that’s what you’re calling to ask?’ he said.
‘How do
you
know she’s not in the
hospital?’
‘I came by a couple of hours ago, hoping
to run into you, funnily enough. I went to check on her while I was there and
the nurse said she’d checked herself out.’
‘Well, with a bit of luck, she’s left
town with Jackson’s money, like I told her to.’
‘Ah, I did wonder where his briefcase
was. Technically, you should return that to me, y’know?’
‘Sorry. I gave it to Clara not long
after taking out Jackson. She was scared of trying to leave Dark Rain, so I
told her to take the money and run. I think she’s resourceful enough to
disappear for a while.’
‘How noble of you. Well, I’ll consider
it an investment for the future.’
‘How diplomatic of you. What did you
want me for, anyway?’
‘I wanted to thank you again for giving
up the deeds to the uranium deposit earlier today. Thanks to you, GlobaTech
have strengthened their delicate relationship with the U.S. military. Moving forward,
we’ll be working closely with them on a number of projects both domestic and
overseas.’
‘Glad I could help.’
‘Did you want me for something?’
‘Yeah, I was going to ask you for a favor.
But seeing as though I’ve just helped you secure lots of business and money,
look at it as more of a commission payment.’
Clark laughed.
‘Go on, what do you need?’
I proceeded to give him a list of things
I wanted, as well as details of what I intended to do with them. I figured he
deserved full disclosure, under the circumstances.
He was silent for a few moments. Then he
said:
‘Well, you’re officially certifiable.
You do realize that, right? I mean, I wouldn’t send an entire unit to do that.’
‘So, can you help me?’ I asked.
‘For what it’s worth, yeah, I can get
you what you need. I’ll text you an address to go and pick it up. I can get it
ready for you in a few hours.’
‘I appreciate that, thank you.’
‘Adrian, are you serious about this?’
‘Completely.’
‘And you think you can pull it off?’
‘No doubt at all.’
‘If you ever want a job, you call me,
okay? I could use someone as clinically insane as you.’
‘I’ve got a job, but thanks for the
offer.’
I hung up and headed over to the parking
lot. It still wasn’t very busy, with only a couple more cars in it from when I
first arrived.
I got within twenty five feet of Clara’s
Dodge Viper, then it exploded.
