This late in the game, that would be okay, too.
But now the big greaser was spoiling the entire evening.
Izzy touched his left shoe to the ankle holster in which he carried a. 22 Beretta Model 71-a signature weapon of Mossad assassins.
Why not? Why not tap on the window, look into the guy’s eye. Say something fun, like “Remember me?” then pop him. Or “Do you really want to find Geoff Minster? I can arrange it.” Then pull the trigger.
Under the car bridge next to Cocoplum Plaza, Izzy put the boat in neutral, feeling the vibration of Friday-night car traffic rolling over him. He sat there thinking about it, smelling the exhaust fumes, wanting to do it, but not wanting to risk the noise.
But then he didn’t have to worry about it anymore.
He saw the lights of the pimpmobile go on. Then he saw Sally Minster’s blue BMW come through the electronic gate, then stop beside the pimpmobile. After a minute or so, both cars drove away, the pimpmobile following the Beamer.
Perfect.
The only trouble was, Izzy didn’t know how much time he’d have. So he couldn’t lie around on her bed, browsing through the new video. He’d have to snatch the cameras and recorders, then watch the tapes later in his apartment at Sawgrass.
Or maybe… maybe he would wait for her to come back. When the guinea was on the job, he always stayed outside in his car. So how could he know what was going on inside the woman’s house?
Izzy liked that idea. It made him twitch again, picturing it, imagining meeting the church lady in her bedroom, giving her a special farewell, seeing her naked in the flesh, the two of them together on the bed with the cameras rolling.
How nice would it be to take that back to Nicaragua?
And if the guinea followed her in?
Izzy could deal with that, too.
Wearing surgical gloves, Izzy entered through the pool area, jimmied the back lock, stopped and touched-in the security code.
He liked the way the house smelled. It smelled of woman; it smelled like her.
He’d been in the place so many times, he knew the layout as if it were his own home. He paused at the fridge, took an apple from the crisper. He walked up the carpeted stairs, munching away.
At the top of the stairs, Izzy stopped. Stopped walking. Stopped chewing. Stopped moving.
The door to the church lady’s bedroom was open.
Odd.
She was tidy, consistent in her habits. Sally Minster always kept her bedroom door closed. As if she didn’t want unexpected visitors to get a glimpse of where she lived her private life.
There was something else, too. A different odor? Maybe. Something new added to the mix of fresh linen, makeup, shampoo and perfume.
Izzy lifted his head, foxlike, and sniffed the air.
Yep. He didn’t know what it was, but it was different.
Izzy pulled at his trouser leg, squatted and unholstered the Beretta with his right hand. There was already a round in the chamber-the only way to carry a weapon. He cupped the little semiautomatic in his hand, and moved cautiously through the door into the bedroom.
He stopped again, eyes scanning, ears straining. He could feel his heart pounding in his chest.
The two micro-cameras and both VCRs lay in the middle of the lady’s bed, wires black on the yellow bedspread.
Shit.
Izzy had the Beretta up now, locked in both hands, combat-position, as he began to back out of the bedroom. He was almost to the stairs when he heard movement off to the right. He had just enough time to turn slightly when something massive hit him from the side.
It was like being hit by a car. Hands and feet flailing, Izzy felt himself go airborne, the gun tumbling from his hand and over the stairway banister, as he crashed into a wall.
Sitting, dazed, Izzy looked up to see the short Italian private investigator coming at him.
“Get on your feet, Mac. I’m gonna smack you around a little before I call the cops. You fucking little slimeball.”
Izzy rolled hard to his left and stood, backing slowly as the Italian approached. During his four years in Israel, Izzy had excelled at martial arts. He’d once almost killed a man in a bar fight by slamming fragments of nose cartilage into the guy’s brain.
Izzy crouched now, his right hand a fist, his left hand a blade, ready. When the Italian was close enough, he did a variation of a swing dance step, and kicked the man hard in the groin-or tried to.
But it was as if the Italian knew exactly what he was going to do before he did it. The man caught Izzy’s leg, somehow dropped to one knee, and then, like a fireman carrying a kid, he had Izzy up on his shoulders, off the floor.
Izzy was kicking and clawing, trying to gouge his way free as he heard the man say, “ Oh. You want me to put you down?”
Then the Italian hammered him back-first onto the carpet.
Izzy felt such a searing pain through his spine, he wondered if his back might be broken. But no, he could still move. He began to scramble toward the stairs as the Italian came at him again. The man grabbed him by the belt, lifting him off the carpet like it was nothing. Then the guy forced him to stand on two feet, and shoved him up against the wall, holding him by the throat with one hand. Izzy had to get up on his tiptoes to keep from being choked.
He’d been in five or six fights in his life, and done some amateur full-contact tournament stuff, but he’d never before experienced what it was like to be physically dominated by another man.
It was happening to him now. He was helpless.
Terrifying.
“You fucking little pervert Peeping Tom. On a lady as nice as her. What I maybe might do is break both your arms, then pull your kneecaps off.” The Italian was nodding, his expression crazed. “Yeah, both kneecaps. I’ll push ’em down by your ankles. Make it so you got to crawl around on your belly.”
Barely able to breathe with the man’s hand clenching his throat, Izzy was shaking his head desperately. In a rasping whisper, he said, “You’ve got the wrong idea. Geoff Minster… trying to find out what happened to Geoff. Investigating. Like you.”
The Italian loosened his grip slightly. “Sure, Mac. What the hell you guys care about Minster?”
“He stole money from us. A hundred… a hundred grand.”
Actually, Izzy had stolen the money; set it up to look as though Minster had done it.
The Italian seemed to be considering it, though; as if it might be true. His grip became even looser as he said, “Bullshit. You hid cameras in her bathroom to find out about her husband? How dumb you think I am, Mac?”
Izzy didn’t hesitate. He used the momentary lapse to knock the Italian’s hands free, then tried to slam the heel of his open palm into the big man’s nose.
Same thing. It was as if the man knew in advance what Izzy was going to try.
He blocked the punch, no problem, then slapped Izzy three times, very fast. The slow smile that then spread across the Italian’s face was chilling. He grabbed Izzy’s right wrist, saying, “Like those pigeons last Saturday. Let’s find out if you can fly, motherfucker.”
Then the man lifted him without effort, grunted and spun him over the stairway banister.
Falling toward the ground floor, Izzy screamed-a shrill falsetto-kicking wildly. He landed hard on his left side, and lay there, groaning, hearing the heavy footsteps of the Italian coming down the stairs, in no hurry now.
It felt to Izzy like his left shoulder might be broken. Like there was something sharp sticking out of his own skin. From the first-aid classes he’d taken during Mossad training, he knew the term. Compound fracture. There’d been a photograph in the manual. Sickening to see.
Experimentally, he touched his shoulder with the gloved fingertips of his right hand, expecting to feel bare bone. Instead of bone, though, he felt the checkered grip of his. 22 Beretta.