Secrets & Lies (32 page)

I eyed Frankenstein—he was seconds away from finishing his reload. I glanced at the fallen cops. One was dead and the other unconscious. The rest of the bank employees and hostages were prone on the floor. I was all alone, although I heard police sirens in the distance. Help was on the way, but not quickly enough.

The risk I took was a serious one. An inch off-target would have been a disaster. With the speed I'd practiced for years, I threw the stiletto, flinging it like I did when Fiorello taught me how to hit a bull's-eye without thinking about it. In a split second, the blade was imbedded in the Bride's right shoulder, causing her to flinch and release the woman. I followed through by charging her. Grabbing the hostage, I flung her out of the way—perhaps a little too roughly—and then walloped the Bride with a series of
Seiken
fist attacks. The hilt of my knife wobbled grotesquely from her wound as she attempted to defend herself, but I now had the upper hand. I desperately wanted to reveal her face, but the Bride mask was secured tightly.

Frankenstein fired his newly reloaded weapon at me. He missed again; the bullet ricocheted off the wall behind the hostages and hit a man lying on the floor. His cry convinced me to back off as
Frankenstein yelled, “Freeze or I start killing people!” I raised my hands and stood still, panting.

Two men appeared out of the smoke. One wore a Dracula mask and the other wore the Wolf Man.

“We have it!” Dracula shouted. “Let's go!”

They joined their colleagues, but Frankenstein kept his gun trained on me. The Wolf Man noticed the Bride's shoulder. “Oh, my God!”

“Shut up and pull it out!” she ordered him.

“We have to—”

“Pull the damn thing out!”

So he did. She jerked in pain as blood spurted from her shoulder. The Wolf Man dropped the stiletto on the floor.

“We have to
go
!” Dracula commanded.

The four robbers made their way to the Cahuenga side door, Frankenstein moving backward while continuing to point his gun at me. Dracula peered outside and said, “The van's here! Move!” Then I sensed that Frankenstein was going to try one last time to put me down. I leaped for the floor just as he squeezed the trigger. The round hit the wall somewhere behind me, and then the foursome was gone. I got up and ran to the door, opened it, and saw a black van zooming up Cahuenga. It took a quick right on Yucca. The police sirens were louder; the cars would be at the bank in seconds. I returned inside, retrieved my knife, and went to the woman I had rescued.

“Are you all right?”

“Yes, thank you. Please, help him.” She pointed to the man who'd caught the wild bullet in his leg. He writhed on the floor, moaning in pain. There was nothing I could do for him but say, “We'll get you help, sir. Try to stay calm.” By that time, hostages were standing shakily. Bank employees sprinted to their stations and immediately picked up telephones.

“Call an ambulance!” I called out to them, stating the obvious. “The police are already on the way.”

The cop who had been knocked out started coming to. I helped raise him to a sitting position and asked if he was okay, calling him by the name on his uniform—

Garriott. He was still dazed, but he had the presence of mind to thank me.

“I have to go,” I told him. He nodded and gave me a little wave.

I rushed to the door I came in, broke through the mob gathered outside, and dashed east to the corner of Cosmo and Hollywood. I kept running, past my parked car, until I found a safely concealed alcove, where I removed my mask, jacket, and belt. From there I walked as calmly as possible back to my Ford, threw the items inside, and went back to the corner to see what was happening at the bank. Three police cars had arrived and an ambulance was just pulling up. There was nothing more to do, so I got in my Sunliner and drove home.

I called Barry to tell him what happened and asked for a rain check on our meeting. I'd had enough excitement for one day.

T
HE
P
AST

DeAngelo always throws a big New Year's Eve party at his place in Vegas. Like the birthday party, sometimes I've been invited. This year I'm pretty sure I will be. Both Christina and I should get invitations, especially after what we did for him and what my sister went through. I'll have to drop a hint to Maria next time I talk to her and suggest that she makes sure her daddy puts us on the list.

Christina had to get several stitches in her shoulder and was in bed for two days. She lost a lot of blood, and Marco, Tomás, and I had to scramble to get her medical attention after that bitch the Black Stiletto threw a knife at her. Luckily, Marco knew Sal Casazza's doctor, a guy who did patch-up work under the radar. He lived in goddamned Venice Beach, so I had to keep my hands pressed on Christina's wound for half an hour or more in the back of the van while Geraldo drove like crazy. He had to take side streets to make sure we weren't spotted. The police were out in droves looking for us. The doctor had a garage, though, and we made it there safely. It was a damned good thing the man was home. Marco persuaded him to get to work on my sister immediately.

She's a tough girl and is going to be fine. She'll have a sore shoulder and arm for a few weeks. A major muscle was cut a little, but it could have been much worse. Physical therapy and exercising will help build up strength again. Christina's worried that it'll affect her
aim. I told her she would have to learn to compensate for her injury, and her brain would do it for her with practice.

It's been nearly two weeks since the robbery, and she's now resuming her normal routine. She came back to work at the office the other day with her arm in a sling. At first I was concerned that someone might report it to the police—it was on the news they were looking for a woman with a knife wound in her shoulder—but Christina told everyone who asked that she tore a ligament. We went to the range for the first time over the weekend and she was disheartened. She only made bull's-eyes three out of ten shots. I tried to tell her most people never hit the bull's-eye at all, and that she was still a first-class sharpshooter.

We're going to get the Black Stiletto. If it's the last thing we do, we're going to hunt her down and feed her to rabid dogs. It's
unbelievable
how that masked freak of a woman has messed up everyone's business. Casazza and DeAngelo are completely fed up with her. They want her dead, top priority. There's no question that she's had an impact on their livelihoods. I don't have anything to do with their gun selling, but I know all about it. Since several of the distribution points in L.A. have been busted, the flow of product and money has stopped. I think the police are using questionable search-and-arrest tactics, and good lawyers and honest judges will surely throw the cases out of court, but at the moment the Heathens refuse to run the merchandise. DeAngelo thinks they'll get back on board if we stop the counterfeit operation with Los Serpientes, which is one of the MC's beefs. There's no way I want to do that. It's just getting started and it's going well. Mookie's new plates are outstanding. The funny money is passing smoothly here in the States. Big bills, too. So far the Black Stiletto hasn't bothered me in that regard; she and the D.A. seem to be concentrating on the guns. Maybe they don't know about the counterfeit currency that's circulating.

Still, I couldn't believe that she showed up at the bank, right in the middle of the heist. Christina and Tomás were doing a great job
taking care of the tellers and customers. They even dispatched two cops who happened to come in. Marco and I were in the safety deposit box room, oblivious to what was going on out front. Once we were inside, it was easy to find the correct box. Marco had to figure out how much explosive to use—too little wouldn't work and too much would blow up the whole thing, including the diamond.

Well, there was a reason that Marco had the reputation he did, because his calculations were perfect. We opened the box and lo and behold, there it was, inside a large black velvet jewel case. Both of us gasped when we saw the size of the thing. The Florentine Diamond was the most beautiful object I'd ever set eyes on. The yellow color practically glowed like the sun.

And I knew then and there I had to have it.

But the diamond is now in DeAngelo's hands, and he was going to give it to Maria for Christmas. What a goddamned waste. Four or five million dollars with the right fence, according to DeAngelo. I'm sure I could find a fence of my own who could sell it. I know plenty of those guys.

It's crazy, but as we stood there and gaped at that magnificent jewel for a few seconds, a plan started forming in my mind. It involved New Year's Eve and Maria.

Of course, stealing it from DeAngelo—or his daughter—would be suicide. I tried to put it out of my head.

He paid us all well for the job. He also took care of paying the doctor for Christina's patch-up. That was nice of him, but afterward he told me that the operation was messy. I said that if the Stiletto hadn't shown up unexpectedly, everything would have gone more smoothly. How did she know the robbery was going down? The newspapers speculated that she just happened to be in the area because two photos taken of her in the bank revealed that she wasn't in complete costume. The incident sure added to her mystique. Of course, there were some newscasters who believed she was part of the heist team all along, which was a goddamned joke.

As a result of our actions, banks in Hollywood and Beverly Hills were beefing up security. That's all right with me, because I'm out of the bank-robbing business. That was enough for me. I hope it was plenty for Christina, too. What happened was too close to being a disaster, and my sister would have gone back to prison had she been caught. Hell,
all
of us would have gone to jail.

I told my sister about the counterfeiting operation, so she wanted to help me with that. I could use her assistance. It was getting complicated. Last week we had to kill one of my men. Executed him in cold blood. A bullet in the head. Casazza's guys caught him embezzling some of our dough from the funny money. Sal said to me, “You're the boss of this deal, right, Leo? Then act like the boss.” He handed me a gun. But I couldn't do it. I don't know why. I aimed the goddamned thing at the man's head, but I couldn't pull the trigger. Casazza jerked his head at Shrimp, so he came over, took the gun out of my hand, and did the dirty deed. Casazza told me afterward that I'd never be a part of the “men's club” if I couldn't act like a boss. That pissed me off, but he was right. If it ever happened again, I'd show him what I'm really made of. At any rate, Christina would be able to spot inconsistencies in the books. She had a good sense when it came to numbers and records. I thought she'd be an asset. She wanted to be useful, have some kind of purpose. Jail taught her that life was too short to be idle.

Judy didn't have an idleness problem. I hardly ever saw her. She now went to a gym and exercised with men—she claimed it was what she did in New York, too—and she worked at Flickers a lot. Her attitude toward me has cooled, and I know why. She wanted me to make more of a commitment to her, which I can't do. This thing with Maria, it was heating up. The other day when I was talking to her father about something, he said something like, “—and after you and Maria get married then we'll get you involved.” Hell, we weren't even engaged and he was talking about marriage? I thought he knew he'd made a slip, because a minute later he actually
said, “I didn't mean to imply that you and my daughter were, you know.” Well, if he said it, then it must have been on his mind.

I'm not giving up on Judy, though. As long as she'd see me in L.A. and I kept Maria in Vegas, everything should be fine. I'd have to start putting on the Kelly charm again and convince Judy that what we had was for real. I mean, it
was
for real. I am addicted to her.

She is like a goddamned drug.