“What…?”
“You must do it, Ted Fell,” she said. She reached under her mattress and came up with a tiny .22 caliber automatic pistol. “I’m too weak to do it. If he comes back for me, he’ll kill me, I know he will.” Vega let the remains of her blouse fall away, revealing her breasts to him, and she noticed with a tiny smile that, despite her face and the beating she took, he was admiring her chest. A typical male, she thought, wanting to suck tits and screw pussy without one single thought regarding the woman. He was going to do just fine, she thought — this little tit-sucking weasel was going to pull a gun on Henri Cazaux, and when he did she was going to watch Henri, Townsend, and Ysidro chop him up into fish food. She pressed the gun into his hands. “You must do it, Ted… for me. You want to help me, don’t you?”
She brushed her breasts against him, averting her eyes and letting a few wisps of hair fall innocently across her face — and he was hooked. He took the pistol, hefted it, then set his jaw and stuck the pistol in his pants pocket. Even if he never pulled it oufi Vega thought, someone would notice it. She would be listening, and the first sense of commotion she heard, she’d rush downstairs and hopefully be just in time to watch. “Go, Ted. Save me — please!” She pushed him off the bed with surprising strength, but Fell didn’t need too much prompting — he was already racing for the door. “Do not stop!” Her voice was cut off by another fit of coughing, but by then Fell was taking the steps three at a time, landing on each step on tiptoes.
He reached the first floor without anyone seeing him. He glanced back upstairs, wondering if any guards were chasing him or had heard him stomping down the stairs, and had just walked past the double doors to the billiards room when he ran headlong into Thomas Ysidro. The Mexican executioner pushed him away, but held him tightly by his jacket. “Where the fuck did you go, asshole?” Ysidro growled.
Fell’s mouth flapped open and closed like a dying fish— he was so scared he couldn’t answer. Ysidro’s expression went from suspicious to angry to murderous, and he grabbed Fell by the lapel and pulled him closer, shaking him like a dirty throw-rug. “I said, where the fuck did you…?” Then he noticed the green and yellow stain on Fell’s shirt, then sniffed at the same smell coming from the billiards room. With Fell still in his grasp, he peeked around the comer and saw the mess on the carpet. “Shit, bean-counter, you barfed on my fuckin’ rug!”
“I… I couldn’t help it…”
“Well, clean it the fuck up!” Ysidro said, pushing Fell onto the floor in front of the vomit. Fell waited for the follow-up kick, but all he heard was another “Shee-it” as Ysidro left. Fell found some rags in the cue rack on the wall, and used his hankerchief to mop up the rest and take out as much of the stain as he could. He stayed on his hands and knees after cleaning up the mess, thinking hard.
Could he do it? Could he kill Henri Cazaux? No doubt the world would be better without that psychopathic woman-beating bastard, but certainly Ysidro and the others would execute him right away… or would they? It did not take a genius to see the power struggle going on in Cazaux’s organization. Maybe he’d be doing them a big favor… yes, maybe…
“Hey, asshole, on your feet,” Fell heard a voice say behind him. He struggled to his feet, feeling his knees wobble and his fingers shake. The guard had a small, mean-looking submachine gun in his hands, held at port-arms in front of him. He noticed the vomit on Fell’s jacket and sneered. “Back in the other room, the others are leaving.”
Fell was prodded back into the foyer outside the den where the meeting was held, only to find the meeting breaking up and Cazaux’s officers putting on coats, preparing to depart. Fell caught Cazaux’s gaze on him, a mixture of hatred and suspicion. Jesus, does he know I made contact with his captive upstairs? But Cazaux’s eyes only glanced down at the vomit stain, and his eyes told Fell that he was being dismissed as too weak to be a threat to him. He was so smug, so confident, ignoring the little weak guys simply because they were smaller and less imposing. Cazaux was an animal, a human animal. He deserved to die, the bastard, he deserved to die, long and hard and painfully. Ysidro might even reward him for daring to do something that he obviously wanted very badly to do himself.
But even more fearful than Cazaux’s questioning stare was Harold Lake’s face — he looked horrified, shocked* as white and colorless as if he had been dead for several hours. He nearly stumbled into Fell as Fell tried to help him on with his coat.
“Harold, what is it?” he whispered as they headed outside. “What’s going on?”
“Just go,” Lake said. “Out.”
“My briefcase,” Fell said, hesitating as long as he could. “I’ll get it.”
Fell went back into the conference room for the briefcase and picked it up. He was alone. The nearest guard was back in the hallway, almost completely out of sight, and Henri Cazaux was standing on the opposite side of the room, his back turned to him, looking out the window. The perfect opportunity. There was an inside slit in his raincoat that allowed Fell to access his pants pocket. Fell reached into the slit, then into his pants pocket…
“Look out, Henri!” he heard a voice — a female voice- shout behind him. “Look out, he’s got a gun!”
Cazaux spun, crouched, a knife appearing in his hands as if by magic. Fell turned. It was the woman, dressed in a red silk robe, the blood cleaned off her face, even wearing makeup. She was pointing toward him. Cazaux hesitated, seeing who it was threatening him, then he chuckled softly and lowered the knife from its throwing position. Fell was confused — why was she doing this?
Three guards pounced on Fell, wrestling him to the ground, pinning his arms behind his back so hard and so high that Fell thought they’d snap off. Hands were all over him, searching him, then dragging him up to his feet before Cazaux. The big Belgian mercenary looked at Fell with an amused expression.
“Nothing, Captain,” the guards said. Ted Fell had lost his nerve after rushing downstairs and had placed the gun underneath a large tree planter in the second-floor hallway. The guards released Fell, then turned toward the darkhaired woman. She looked momentarily confused.
“He is not armed, Madame Vega,” Cazaux said. “Why did you think he had a gun?”
“I… I’m sorry, I guess I’m just too keyed up,” she said. “I’ve never seen this man before. He scared me.”
“He was just leaving,” Cazaux said. He gave Fell one last menacing look, and Fell felt sweat pop out on his forehead and felt urine uncontrollably rush out of his bladder. He barely caught it in time before he wet himself. Fell was escorted out of the house by the two guards and virtually dumped into the duallie with Lake.
Lake refused — or was unable — to say anything until they were outside and back into the six-passenger pickup with the security glass between the front and rear seat closed. Fell waited several minutes for his heart to start hammering in his chest. The damn bitch tried to get me killed, Fell thought. Who in hell is she? But soon the curiosity of what was happening with his boss, Lake, finally took over. “Harold, what happened? What’s going on?”
“We’re folding up shop,” Lake said finally. “First thing tomorrow morning, we put stop orders on all outstanding contracts, negotiate for cash closings. We need to arrange for a cash-asset transfer — probably use Win Millions Casino again.”
“Sure, sure, Harold, they’ll give us whatever we want,” Fell said. “So we’re bugging out? Time to see what Brazil is like in the wintertime?”