Reckless (22 page)

Lou came to his feet as fast as his ample
weight would allow and gripped Viper by the lapels. “We gotta make
sure, you little twit, because of the girl! If Nicky's a cop, then
you can bet your skinny ass she ain't dead. She's still out there
and she's got more on us than any cop does. We gotta find out for
sure.”

“She saw my face,” Viper ground out, jerking
himself from Lou's hands. “And so did he. I'm on the line here, and
I'll deal with it my way.”

“Don't cross me, Viper, or I—”

“Don't you worry, Lou. I'll handle it. You'll
thank me before this is over.” Viper spun and left the room. Lou
opened the door and bellowed after him, but he kept on walking. A
moment later his car left the lot outside the Century.

A bulky man with a crew cut loomed over Lou a
moment later. “Cops are on the way, boss. Our insider says they got
warrants to search the place. What do we do?”

Lou looked at the limp, bruised man in the
chair. “Cop or not, Nicky didn't know who that broad was until I
told him, I'd bet my life on it.”

The overgrown hulk in front of him puckered
his brows. “Huh?”

Lou turned, paced away from him, muttering to
himself. “If he's a cop, he'll go to her apartment to see what she
had on me. If he's loyal, he'll go because I told him to.” He
stopped in front of Carl and lifted the lax head by a tuft of hair.
“What do you suppose he'll think when he finds you there waitin'
for him, huh Salducci?”

“I don't get it, boss.”

Lou yanked a small notepad from his shirt
pocket and scribbled three letters onto the first sheet, then tore
it off. “Here, pin this to his chest. Then take him to the Rio
broad's apartment and dump him there.”

“But how can I get him in there without
somebody seein' him?”

“How the hell do I know? Roll him in a rug
for all I care, just do it! We'll soon find out just how loyal Nick
Manelli is to the family.”

Harry Anderson shook his head slowly and
tried to see it again in his mind. The way that small woman stuck
her chin in Nick's face and told him what was what—the way he
let her!
He'd finally met his match, the big jerk. It was
about time.

He drove Nick's car toward the gloomy mansion
they'd set him up in. He'd retrieve the backup drives with the
surveillance footage on them, just in case the del Rio girl
couldn't produce what she said she could. They'd be better than
nothing. At the very least, they could be used to identify Viper.
Then he'd head back to headquarters and get a team together to back
Nick up when he went to the woman's apartment. Taranto would be
watching, if Harry's opinion was worth anything.

He was within sight of those ridiculous iron
gates, rounding a bend in the curving road, when he heard glass
shatter and felt searing pain at his left temple. He clenched the
wheel reflexively, jerking it to the right, and felt the front
tires leave the pavement. Then he was airborne and heading down the
steep drop alongside the road. He prayed the bullet that had hit
him would kill him before he hit bottom.

Nick circled the block twice, then turned to
enter the parking garage. He drove slowly beneath the fluorescent
tube lights on the low ceiling, scanning every vehicle, peering
around every support column. The place seemed as still as a
graveyard. The hair on the back of his neck bristled in
anticipation. He could feel that he was being watched. His fear
made him more careful than he'd ever been. Not fear for himself,
but for the woman in the seat beside him, crouched low as he'd
instructed. He was afraid he’d lose her. The cycle had repeated
itself again today, just in case he'd forgotten the way things
worked. Taranto had Carl. There was a grim certainty in Nick’s gut
that he wouldn't see his best friend again.

He nearly drove past the stairwell, he was so
focused on seeing into every shadowy recess. He pulled up close to
the heavy door, shut the car off, pocketed the keys. It'll be all
right, he told himself. Harry must have a half-dozen men in the
building, a dozen more outside, if he was true to form. Nothing
could happen to Toni. He wouldn't let it.

He opened the door and stood for a moment,
every sense attuned. He saw no one, heard nothing but the normal
traffic noises and a car squealing on a level below. The place
smelled of exhaust and hot pavement. He glanced down at Toni,
nodding once. She slid across the seat and got out his door,
staying bent low, just the way he'd instructed. With his body
blocking her from view on one side, the car on the other, she
hurried to the open door of the stairwell. Her running shoes made
no sound. She moved through the doorway, pressed her back against
the inside wall and waited. Nick closed the car door and moved in
beside her. He pulled the heavy stairwell door closed. The place
echoed like an empty church. If anyone opened the door, he'd hear
them. Then again, anyone already here would hear him, too. Any
sound would echo through the cool, hollow stairway. He pressed a
finger to his lips to remind Toni of that.

He pulled his weapon from the holster under
his left arm, held it barrel-up, and began to move up the stairs,
keeping Toni close behind him. His caution doubled when he reached
a landing. He pushed her flat to the wall behind her and peeked
around to the next flight, taking his time to be sure it was safe
before urging her to come along. It seemed to take forever to reach
the fourth floor. In reality, it took less than ten minutes.

Nick glanced through the small square of
glass, criss-crossed with wire between the panes, before he opened
the door and stepped into a tiled corridor. Toni came out behind
him. Her tug on his jacket brought his gaze around fast. She
frowned at the gun in his hand and shook her head. Okay, she was
probably right. He'd draw some attention sneaking through the
corridors of an apartment building with an automatic in his hand.
He slipped it back inside his jacket.

Trying to walk causally through the hall was
the toughest thing he'd done in a long time. Moving steadily
beneath the lighted ceiling panels, between the doors that lined
both sides—doors that might swing open at any second to reveal a
hard-faced man with an automatic.

He swallowed. It wouldn't happen that way.
Taranto still trusted him. Carl wouldn't talk, no matter what they
did. Besides, Harry was here, somewhere, with an armed
entourage.

They came to a T and went left. Three doors
down, they stopped in front of Toni’s apartment. Their gazes locked
for a moment, and that unspoken
thing
passed between
them—that connection he couldn't acknowledge and didn't
recognize.

He pulled his gaze away and looked at the
door, taking out his gun. Toni was quicker, already lifting her key
to the lock. But when she touched the door, it fell open without a
sound, and she jerked away from it, eyes wide. It hadn't been
locked. It hadn't even been closed properly. Someone had been
there. Maybe they still were. He pushed her to the wall and mouthed
the word, “Wait,” then let his gun lead him into the apartment.

His stomach clenched when he saw Carl in the
middle of the floor. He wasn't sure he'd have recognized him except
for the familiar clothes he wore. A slip of paper on his jacket had
the word “Cop” penciled on it. His face varied in shades of
crimson, blue and purple. His eyes looked like two fat grapes. From
the looks of it, he would never open them again. There was no doubt
in Nick's mind that Carl was dead. His training helped him push his
paralyzing grief aside, allowing only the cold certainty that Lou
Taranto would pay dearly to remain. He let the experience of years
on the job take over and quickly checked each room of the
apartment. When he was certain no one else was there, he went back
to tell Toni it was safe to come inside.

She already had. She was on the floor beside
Carl, tucking a blanket around him. Nick recognized the throw that
had been on the couch and then the matching pillows she'd placed
under his friend’s feet.

“We have to get him to a hospital, Nick.”
Toni's voice trembled.

Nick looked to see that she'd already closed
the door, then he knelt opposite her, over Carl. He couldn't
believe his eyes when Carl shook his head slightly left and right.
“No...hospital.”

“Jesus, he’s alive.”

Nick’s gut twisted and guilt flooded in,
right behind the rush of relief. This had been
his
obsession. It should have been
him
lying on the floor,
his
face encrusted with dried blood, barely able to form a
single word. It should have been him, not Carl.

The battered lips moved again. “Nick?”

Nick gripped his friend's shoulders to let
him know he was there. Carl couldn't open his eyes to see for
himself. “I'm right here, pal.”

“Lou... watch—watching,” Carl managed. His
slurred speech had Nick more worried about brain damage than about
Lou.

“To see if I help you,” Nick finished for
him. A white rage unfurled inside him.

“We should call an ambulance,” Toni
whispered.

The tightness in her voice brought Nick's
gaze back to hers. There were tears brimming in her eyes. She
leaned closer to Carl, keeping her voice soothingly low and soft.
“We're going to take care of you,” she was telling him. “You'll be
okay.”

It reminded Nick of the way she'd spoken to
him the night before, when the fire in his thigh had burned bright.
Funny, he'd barely felt the pain since arriving in this building.
Adrenaline was a great anesthetic. “If Lou's watching, Toni, he
doesn't intend to let Carl out of here alive. There's no way he'll
let an ambulance crew into the building.” Frustration gnawed at
him. He had to think! Carl needed serious help and he needed it
fast.

“Didn't...tell...him,” Carl stammered,
“anything.”

“I never thought otherwise. And I know what
you're getting at. My cover's intact. You're thinking I should
leave you here and keep it that way. I'm not going to do that, so
shut up and let me think.”

Nick felt Carl's hand close around his with
surprising force. “He'll...kill you...both.”

“Not if I can help it, he won't. And if we
can get out of here in one piece, he's going down. Turns out Toni
had the goods on him all along.” He glanced up at Toni. “Get that
evidence, will you?”

Nodding, she got up and hurried into the room
that was her office. He heard her moving around in there at the
same time he heard the apartment door opening. He yanked his gun
out. The door swung open and Nick saw the barrel of a .44 Magnum
staring him in the face. There was a small blond woman attached to
it. She seemed vaguely familiar.

“What the hell—”

“Put that gun down and tell me what you've
done with my sister, or I’m gonna splatter you to hell and
gone!”

Nick realized who she was. Somehow he wasn't
surprised. He lowered his gun slowly and laid it on the carpet.
“Come on in and close the door.”

Toni chose that moment to emerge from the
office with a thick folder in her hands. The two women spied each
other at the same moment, and a second later both the .44 and file
folder were on the floor as they embraced.

“You've had me worried to death,” the blonde
accused. “Are you all right?”

“Fine.” They pulled apart, and Toni seemed to
drink in her sister's face. “I'm so glad you're okay. When they
said you didn't get on that flight, I—”

“You didn't expect me to just fly off and
leave when you were in trouble, did you?”

Toni shook her head. “Not really. Where on
earth did you get that cannon?”

Joey glanced down at the gun on the floor,
then at the man who lay barely alive a few feet past it. “My God,
what happened?”

“He's a federal agent, sis. They both are.
Taranto found out.”

“How did you get into the building?” Nick
asked when there was finally a long enough break.

“Through the front entrance. Why?”

Nick blew a sigh and shook his head. “This is
a real high-security place you picked, Toni. What the hell do you
do with all that money your books earn you?''

“She hoards it away like a pack rat,” her
sister inserted with a mock scowl. “Saving it for some rambling
Victorian house and a sheepdog.” She glanced at Nick and offered
him a tremulous smile. “Thanks for keeping her alive to spend
it.”

There was affection in her pretty eyes. “Nick
Manelli,” he told her.

“Josephine Bradshaw. Sorry about the gun
before.” Joey looked again at Carl on the floor. “Shouldn’t he be
on his way to a hospital?”

“Taranto is watching,” Nick told her. If we
try to take him out of here, there's a chance we'll get him
killed.”

She frowned and shook her head. “What are you
going to do?”

“I haven't figured that out yet.”