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I’d been doing some work lately for this fat-ass vodka slurper named Dmitri Godunov. Everybody called him Good-Enough, which was a pretty apt description of his business practices, but his money was green. Had Dmitri sent me up here to see Gino? About what? I intended to find out.
A mile outside of town, I passed the Shady Rest Motor I
I slowed at a twinge of memory. The woman’s face in close-up. I’d met her before. She’d moved here from the city. Dmitri bought the motel so he and his boys would have a place to stay during summit meetings, thumbing his nose at Gino, and he made her the manager.
She was co
I didn’t have any trouble finding the turnoff to Gino’s hideaway. My headlights sliced through the frosted evergreens that grew close to the paved road. The beams reminded me of my gunshot wound. I checked the rearview, but the bandage and the hat were doing the job. No sign of my strange internal light.
Halfway to the lake, the usual black SUV was parked on the shoulder. The driver’s door opened as I approached, and one of Gino’s sentries, a muscle boy named Chuck Graziano, climbed out from behind the wheel. He held up a gloved hand to shield his eyes from my headlights. The other hand was inside his leather coat, going for a shoulder holster.
What the hell, I had a deadly weapon of my own. I was driving it.
I gu
The tires had squashed his head, and it wasn’t pretty. No open-casket service for Chuckie. I dipped a hand in his jacket and came out with a heavy Colt.45 with a chrome finish. I checked the magazine, then stuck the flashy gun in my belt. I immediately felt better.
I dragged Chuck into some weeds at the side of the road, then got back in the Buick and drove to the cabin. I killed the headlights as I reached the clearing. A round moon was rising, and its liquid light rippled on the lake.
I sat in the car a few minutes, watching the house. Lights glowed in several windows, but I couldn’t see anybody moving around inside. I got out of the Buick and gently closed the door.
A thick bed of pine needles cushioned my steps. Pistol in hand, I circled the cabin, peeking in windows.
In the living room, four of Gino’s boys sat wreathed in cigar smoke, deep in concentration over their poker hands. Gino wasn’t among them. I figured I’d find him in his “study,” a small bedroom where he went to be alone. He liked to sit behind his secondhand desk, poring over his papers and counting his money.
I checked all the other windows first, then poked my head up outside of the study’s single window. Gino’s back was to me, but there was no mistaking the meaty neck or the black pompadour. Gino had the tall, thick mane of a televangelist, hair of biblical proportions.
The back door was locked, but I used the blade of the scalpel to slip the latch. I crossed the kitchen to the central hallway. The boys in the poker game roared with laughter, and I used the noise as cover as I tiptoed past their open door. I froze, listening, but they kept laughing over their cards. Idiots.
I stepped inside Gino’s study and shut the door behind me. He looked up, a
“What’s the matter, Gino? You act like you’ve seen a ghost.”
“You, you-”
“I’m what? Dead?”
He looked past my shoulder, like he’d remembered the boys in the other room. Before he could shout, I showed him the shiny gun.
“The cops said you were DOA-”
“Somebody got it wrong, Gino. I’m still kicking. And I want to know who shot me.”
“You don’t know?”
“Was it you?”
Gino arched a thick eyebrow. “You think I had you shot?”
I shrugged.
“If we’d bumped you, Mercer, you wouldn’t be walking around. My guys might fuck up some things, but they’re good at that.”
“I was in LaPorte to see you-”
“Our business was done. Nobody was more surprised than me when I got a call from Dmitri’s motel, telling me you’d bought the farm.”
“I was shot at the motel?”
Gino looked me over again, hunting for bullet holes. I still wore the doctor’s hat, so he couldn’t see the bandage.
“You don’t remember?”
I waggled the gun at him impatiently.
“Yeah, yeah, it was at the motel. That right there oughta prove I had nothing to do with it. If I wanted to get rid of you, I woulda put you at the bottom of that lake.”
What he said made sense. The Guidos don’t leave bodies for autopsies. They dump them in lakes or bury them in concrete. They’ve had lots of practice.
“Dmitri sent me to see you,” I said.
“That’s right. Some of our boys had gotten crosswise. He sent you to smooth things over.”
“And we made them smooth?”
“Far as I was concerned. You were supposed to talk to Dmitri, make sure we had a deal.”
A flash of memory: Dmitri leaning toward me across a table, sputtering about one of his boys who’d been killed in a fight. What was the name? Alexei. Just a kid.
“What about Alexei?” I asked Gino.
“What about him? He was a punk. He messed with Chuck at that night-club Dmitri owns on Coney Island. Chuck was within his rights-”
“We covered all this.”
“That’s right. You getting your memory back?”
“I remember enough.”
Gino’s eyes settled on the.45 in my hand.
“Speaking of Chuck,” he said, “isn’t that his gun?”
“That’s right.”
“So where is he?”
“He had a traffic accident. Unless you want to join him, you’d better sit quiet until I’m gone.”
“Thought you knew better than to make threats.”
“I got nothing to lose.”
I reached behind me for the doorknob. Soon as the door cracked open, I could hear the boys arguing over their cards. Clueless.
I met Gino’s eyes. “Don’t tell anyone you saw me.”
“Who would believe me?”
I eased into the hallway and closed the door behind me. Then I slipped out of the house, quiet as a ghost.
WHEN I pulled into the parking lot of the Shady Rest Motor I
I got out of the car, ripped the tape away, and tried the doorknob. The door swung open. I felt uneasy as I reached inside and flicked on the lights.
The bed was mussed, and every surface was dusted with fingerprint powder. But what captured my attention was the large red-brown stain on the tan carpet, near the foot of the bed. Blood. My blood.
There’d been a lot of it. I carefully circled the stain, measuring it with my eyes. I must’ve bled out right here, before the ambulance arrived, before anyone tried to save me.
The wavy-haired manager appeared at the open door. She wore jeans and a lumberjack shirt, and she spoke with a strong Russian accent: “What do you think you’re doing?”
I looked up at her from under the brim of my hat. When our eyes met, she went pale. She whispered, “Nyet.” Then she fainted dead away.
Shit. I kept having that effect on people.
Careful not to step on the bloodstain, I went to the door and checked the parking lot. No sign of anyone except for the young Russian woman who lay in a heap at my feet. I got my arms under her and lifted her up.