The Living End (Daniel Faust #3)(28)
The joke was on her. The idea of learning the truth scared me more than not knowing.
Thirteen
I did my best to push Naavarasi out of my mind as I sat down at the table and took a sip from my glass. Perfectly mixed, as always, and strong on the Jack. Just what I needed to get my feet back under me. Bentley looked over and frowned.
“Daniel? Are you feeling all right? You look pale.”
I didn’t sugarcoat it. These people were my family. Not by blood, but blood didn’t mean a damn thing next to what we had together.
“Just came back from a little face time with Nicky Agnelli,” I said. “Jen, you ever do business with a guy named Clay Boswell?”
“Little bit,” she said. “He runs a B&E crew out of Summerlin. Sometimes he’d snatch my kind of merchandise and I’d take it off his hands for a cut. We’re gonna do lunch next week, why?”
“Cancel your reservations. Clay went looking to make a deal with the feds. Nicky found out and gave him to the twins to play with. I was invited to watch, and by ‘invited’ I mean they stood me right in front of the poor bastard while the twins went to town on him and Nicky made not-so-veiled threats. He wants to make sure we know he’s still the king of the castle.”
“Son of a bitch,” Jennifer said. The table thumped under her fist.
“Perhaps it’s time,” Bentley said, “for you both to seriously consider a visit to Agent Black. Lay your cards on the table, and take what she offers.”
Corman nodded. “I know you’re worried about the fallout, kiddo, but me and Bentley can take care of ourselves. Wouldn’t be the first time we’ve pulled a vanishing act. Nicky’s goons will never find us.”
“Not happening,” I said. “One good thing came out of this little nightmare: now we know Nicky’s not shopping for a deal of his own. He’s convinced he can ride this out until the task force unravels or Black just gives up and goes home.”
“Can he?” Margaux said.
I shrugged. “He wouldn’t be the first racket boss to get taken down in Vegas, not by a long shot, but he’s got access to the kind of resources no human gangster could dream of. Bugsy Siegel didn’t have a direct hotline to hell.”
“Actually,” Bentley started to say, then shook his head and fluttered his hand in the air. “Never mind.”
I looked over at Jennifer. “I know you’re pissed at Nicky, but you need to dial it down some. He’s feeling cornered, and you know what that means. If he thinks you’re going to be any kind of a threat, he’ll shoot first and ask questions never.”
“That kochon wouldn’t dare,” Margaux said. The faint crow’s-feet at the corners of her eyes tightened. “What about the truce? The rules are the rules. We don’t rob from him, he doesn’t cross us.”
The Vegas occult underground had always had an uneasy peace with Nicky, mostly because of how many of us had worked for him in one way or another. It was professional courtesy backed up by the promise of mutually assured destruction. He could take out any one of us, if he put his back into it, but he knew that would bring every magician in the city down on his head at once. That was one fight nobody would be walking away from.
“Different rules, sugar,” Jennifer drawled. “I pay out to Nicky to keep my business running, not that it’s done me a dog’s lick of good lately. That means he has a certain proprietary interest in what I do and who I talk to. I could put a world of hurt on him if I talked to the feds. Rules or no rules, if he thinks I’m gonna pull that trigger, he’s gonna pull his trigger.”
Margaux leaned back in her chair and drank her hurricane, glowering.
“Chak kochon gen samdi pa-l,” she said.
“Meaning?” I said.
“Each pig gets its own Saturday,” she said, contemplating her drink. “When I was a little girl, back home in Haiti, Saturday morning is when we’d slaughter the pigs.”
? ? ?
Mob mentality is like wildfire. It spreads fast and hard, and suddenly you find yourself surrounded by really smart people making really bad decisions. In the middle of a riot or a mass panic, the first thing to do is get the hell out, cool down, and collect your senses. I paid my tab and headed out to taste the night air.
Harmony Black had started a slow-motion avalanche, and I didn’t know how to stop the rocks from raining down. Nicky was getting panicky, so the people under him were getting panicky, which spilled over into my crowd. It wouldn’t take much of a push to get everybody tearing at everybody else’s throats. Pretty soon somebody was going to do something stupid, and the entire Vegas underworld would burn for it. That probably suited Agent Black just fine, but it was my family standing in the cross fire. I needed to shut this thing down before it got completely out of control.
I had twelve calls on my phone in the last hour, all hang-ups from Pixie. She didn’t leave voicemails, as a general rule, because she was afraid of the NSA listening in. There was no chance of talking over the raucous din on Fremont Street, so I waited until I was away from the crowds and in my car before I called her back. She picked up on the first ring.
“Where the hell did you find these guys?” she said, sounding breathless. I heard the clacking of a keyboard in the background, her fingers flying faster than bullets.