It was the same way she stared when she was trying to run a bluff!
“... Dima’s next.”
From behind me I heard the double-click of a revolver’s hammer pulling back.
Oh shit, I thought. I grabbed Rebel by the shoulders, ducked, and twirled around, holding her in front of me. Then came the explosion of a shot, the acrid smell of cordite, the blinding muzzle flash. The bullet that had been intended for me took her square in the chest, knocked her into me, came out her back, and hit me in the belly, but its momentum spent, didn’t penetrate. The slug clattered to the ground. Blood seeped out Rebel’s back all over my clothes. Dmitri stood in front of me, not ten feet away, a shocked look on his face that quickly turned to rage. It happened in seconds, but took forever.
He lunged toward me, screaming in Russian, pointing the pistol at my head. I pushed Rebel’s limp body at him, dropped, and threw my weight at his knees; the three of us rolled to the ground in a tangle of arms and legs. The gun went off again, near my ear, the explosion deafening me. I grabbed Dmitri’s hair, wrapping my fingers in tight, and smashed his head into the parking lot pavement with all my strength, and again and again and again and again, until he stopped moving.
I lay there covered in blood, entangled in two bodies, with no clue what to do next, where to turn. My head throbbed. How would I explain this to the cops? How did I know these people who had just reported a brutal rape? Any investigator worth a damn would toast me. Focus, I told myself. Think, don’t react. Breathe deep. What are your options? What’s the best play here?
I called McKool on his private cell. “McKool. Two-ways,” I said. “What’s that Explorer you drive worth?”
McKool started to say something, then started over. “Maybe 25, 30k. Why?”
“The Explorer and 25 for the T-bird,” I said.
McKool hesitated a second. “Twenty.”
“Deal. But I need your help with something right now...”
Less than ten minutes later he was there, with Cartouche. They quickly surveyed the scene. “Fine mess, Bobby,” McKool said, as he tossed me his keys.
I pulled the keys to the T-bird from my pocket, pulled off my apartment key, then handed them to McKool. “She set us both up.”
“Chicks can be that way,” McKool said.
Cartouche bent over, felt Rebel’s neck for a pulse. “Mort,” he said. Then he checked Dmitri and shook his head. “Il n’est pas tout a fait mort.”
“She’s dead. He’s not quite dead,” McKool translated for me. “This costs me. Rebel filled some seats.” He thought a moment, then made a small flick of his finger across his throat.
Cartouche took a handkerchief from his pocket and picked up the pistol, stuck the barrel in Dmitri’s ear, and pulled the trigger, then handed McKool the gun.
“He was near-dead anyway, and now he can’t mention your name before he goes,” McKool said. He stuffed the gun in his pocket. “We’ll dispose of the bodies. Go home and get rid of those clothes.”
“Thanks.”
“Come before gin tomorrow,” McKool said. “We’ll do the car titles and talk.”
I got the gas from the T-bird’s trunk, then drove the Explorer home. I disconnected my apartment’s smoke detector, threw my clothes in the bathtub, poured in the last of the gas, and burned my bloody clothes to ash. After making sure not a speck of fabric remained, I washed the ash down the drain, then stood under the shower until the hot water ran out, and fell into bed without even bothering to dry. I missed my T-bird.
Sunday afternoon, after a fitful sleep, I knocked on McKool’s door. The peephole darkened, and Cartouche let me in. Lilith stood at the stove making dinner for the crowd to come, and one of the dealers, Lefty Louie, sat at a poker table making up decks.
“Step into my office,” McKool said, and we went into one of the back rooms. He handed me the local section of Sunday’s Herald, opened to page five. A story halfway down the page read:
POLICE SUSPECT RUSSIAN MOB HIT
Two dead bodies were found early Sunday on a bus bench off Brickell Avenue, near S.W. 10th Street. Dmitri Ribikoff, a Russian national in the U.S. on an expired visa, had been brutally beaten and shot in the head, execution-style. The victim was a distant cousin of Russian oil oligarch Sergei Petrov, and a spokeswoman for Miami PD said Russian organized crime might be responsible. Police are withholding the name of the other victim, a woman in her twenties, shot through the heart and also badly beaten, pending notification of her family.
“They won’t find any family,” McKool said. “She had nobody.” There was a gentle tapping on the door. “Come.”
Lilith stuck her head in. “Luckbucket and Bumper are here.”
“We’ll be right out,” McKool said. He handed me a manila envelope full of hundreds rolled in rubber bands. I didn’t need to count it, knew the twenty grand was there. “You understand you owe me,” he said. “And last night never happened.” He signed the title to the Explorer and handed it to me with the pen.
“Never happened.”
“Make it out to Jean-Luc Cartouche.”
I looked at him, puzzled. “Cartouche? Why?”
“He wants it. I’d rather he have it and me want it. Ready for gin?”
I signed the title over to Cartouche. “Yeah.” Who knew wanting and having were so complicated?
We stepped into the main room, where Bumper and Luckbucket sat leafing through back issues of Card Player. Luckbucket’s was opened to an article by Roy Cooke headlined: Some Hands You Just Don’t Play!
Life is like the game, I thought. It’s supposed to be the fish who play the trap hands.
“Let’s gamble,” Bumper said.
McKool turned to Lefty and said, “Shuffle up and deal.”
And that’s exactly what happened.
Part IV
Chasing the City
Swap out
by Preston Allen
Miami-Dade Correctional Center
How’d the phone call go?
She ain’t much of a wife no more. Tha’s for sure.
You’re inna joint. Whaddaya expect?
I’m inna joint one day. Less than one day.
One day, one hundred days, it’s all the same ta them out there.
It ain’t like I’m in prison.
It’s all the same ta them out there. Out there is Miami. Here is here.
It ain’t like I’m even guilty.
What you ain’t is, you ain’t out there. Tha’s all that matters ta them.
We been married eighteen years. I was her firs.
Her firs what?
Firs, ya know, firs lover.
Oh. A virgin. Tha’s nice. I didn know they made them anymore.
I doubt she even hadda boyfriend before me.
Well, aleast tha’s what she told ya.
Whaddaya talking about? She was pure.
I’m not gonna argue with ya. You say she wuzz pure, then she’s pure in my book. All I’m sayin is ya never really know with women.
Well I know, I can tellya that. My Merly was pure.
Merly. Tha’s a nice name. Kinda like my wife’s name. Kerly.
Your wife’s name is Kerly?
My wife’s name wuzz Kerly. She’s dead now.
I’m sorry.
Yeah, me too. She wuzz a beaut. She woulda been a old lady now, but she wuzz the greatest gal in the world.
Wuzz she pure when ya married her?
Ya want me ta smack ya?
Want me ta smack ya back?
The trustee said, Ya got in a cheap shot this mornin, don’t forget that. Had I been looking, I woulda nailed ya.