The Killing Floor Blues (Daniel Faust #5)(87)
“Well,” he said, hanging up. “What do ya know. I just asked some of the guys if they wanna hang out tonight, around seven. Turns out Cesar has stuff to do. So do about five other guys. Everybody’s got stuff to do.”
“They’re meeting in the desert, about two hours along I-15. That means they’ll have to leave by five.”
“Yeah? So?”
“So,” I said, “at a quarter after five, call your entire set. Anybody who shows up is still loyal to you.”
“And anybody else,” he muttered, frowning, “anybody out in the desert, like that backstabber Cesar, is gonna get buried out there. I think we’re all gonna have to take a nice drive and see what’s what. Drop in on our homies unexpected.”
“Take it easy,” I told him. “They’ve got Jennifer, and if you go in hard, they might kill her.”
“You got a better solution?”
“I might.” I turned the phone over in my palm, weighing it along with my options. “Can we work together on this? Give me a chance to get her out safe before you curb-stomp these guys?”
“Hey, she’s a friend of mine too. If you got any ideas for getting her back in one piece, I’m down. Just say when and where I gotta be.”
He reached his hand over the pew. I half turned, and we shook on it. His grip felt like granite.
“So what about these fools from Chicago?” he added.
“We need to take them out before they get to the meet. Fewer bodies and less guns in the mix that way.”
Gabriel nodded.
“You know where they’re at?” he asked. “If you’ve got an address, let’s ride. I’ll round up some soldiers and we’ll light their asses up.”
Tempting, but brute force didn’t feel like the right play. This was our chance to send a serious message back to the Outfit, letting them know we were ready to dance. Bullet-riddled bodies were a message, all right, but they were also easy. There had to be a way to outclass them, to show we had more than guns on our side.
“I’ll take care of that part,” I told Gabriel, an idea forming. “Just one thing…can you get me some pot, real fast?”
He patted his shirt pocket. “Sure, like what, a dime bag?”
“Oh,” I said, “I need a little more than that.”
46.
“Problem,” I texted the Outfit contact, “Rockahoola is hot, cops sniffing around. Gotta move the meet.”
“When and where?” came the reply.
I put some thought into that. Nicky Agnelli owned a half-built and vacant subdivision out in Eldorado, in North Vegas. Eventually he’d been planning to flip the lots and make a bundle on legitimate real estate, but for the time being he mostly used the display homes as kill-houses and body dumps.
Someday, some suburban pioneer was going to dig out a swimming pool in the wrong spot and unearth a whole bunch of nasty secrets.
“Eldorado,” I typed and gave him the address. “Let’s do this ASAP, don’t wanna wait until tonight.”
“On our way,” he replied.
Two model homes stood at the tail end of the subdivision, gathering dust in the autumn heat. Caitlin and I crouched on pristine carpet the color of desert sand, watching through the window in an empty living room.
A black Mercedes with tinted windows and Illinois plates rolled up slow. It pulled into the driveway across the street.
Four men got out of the car. I couldn’t tell which one was supposed to be the “Doctor.” I knew muscle when I saw it though, all hard eyes and bulges under their tailored pinstripe jackets. They marched up the walk and the man in the lead, a wispy blond, rapped his knuckles on the front door.
It swung open under his fist.
Terse conversation. Two of them drew pistols, holding their guns close to their chests as they peered inside. The blond took out his phone and sent a quick text.
“Where are you?” flashed across my phone.
“I’ve got her in the basement,” I replied. “Come on in when you get here, I can’t hear the front door from down here.”
Across the street, the blond shrugged and tucked his phone back in his jacket pocket. He followed the others inside and shut the door behind him.
That was my cue. I bolted out the front door just as Bentley’s silver Cadillac rumbled down the street. As I ran past his open window, he passed me a pair of latex gloves, a rubber doorstop, and a long, slender metal rod with a cherry-red tip. I felt like an Olympic sprinter in a baton race as I ran up on the Mercedes, keeping low and watching the house. I’d have five minutes—maybe—to get this done, and no room for mistakes.
I tugged on the gloves and studied the driver’s-side door, thinking fast. The sedan was an older model, but it came standard with automatic locks. I could work with that. I jammed the thin end of the doorstop into the top of the door, rocking it back and forth, working it into place one centimeter at a time. The door bulged, buckling on its frame. After a minute of work I’d opened a hair-thin crack.
Next step, the metal rod. I slid it through the opening, biting my bottom lip as I fumbled the tip back and forth, feeling for the lock-release button. A new wave of nausea hit and I fought through it, struggling to keep my focus. After three near misses, and a harrowing second where the rod nearly slipped from my fingers, the lock released with a gratifying click.