Dead Money Run (8 page)

Sonn
y
Cap considered himself to be a patient man. He lived in Atlanta most of his adult life and was very proud of the fact that he never had an arrest on his record.

With the help of his father, Big Nick,
he had built an organization from nothing. He paid his dues. People, both inside the outfit and out, sought his counsel. The family had given him a chance to move up and he took it. His next step was to be a ‘made man’. He felt sure it was coming. Once he got that, he would be in the inner circle and things would change. He and his father owned three show bars in town and each was turning about three hundred grand a month including the take they got from the hookers working for him. In addition, they owned an adult porno movie production company that was making money hand over fist. With the internet, seeing porno flicks was as natural as checking the weather. All total, they were taking in over two hundred and fifty million a year. Not bad for a guy who didn’t go to college.

Learning from his father, Sonny believed in being fair, but he needed the respect. He was married once and had lived in a place called Buckhead on the north side of Atlanta in a big house that belonged to an ex-governor of Georgia when they were still riding around in buggies. Since at least the 1950s, Buckhead ha
d been known as a district of extreme wealth, with the western and northern neighborhoods being virtually unrivaled in the Southeast. The average income was north of $350,000 per year. Sonny always liked being able to tell people he lived in Buckhead. It made him feel important.

In addition to their day to day operation
s, he and his father owned a piece of an insurance company that washed money for the Outfit and it did nothing but coin money, a lot of money.

Th
e insurance company, while a major piece of the operation, it was also the source of Sonny’s only black mark and it was a big one. The company had insured the loss at the Indian Casino on Cumberland Island when it was robbed fifteen years ago and had to make good on the claimed loss by the Indians. The heist was supposed to be part of Sonny’s operation, but someone beat him to it. The Outfit was not only out the fifteen million, but another fifteen to cover the money for the Indians. He tried to reason with the Indians, telling them the Outfit had not done the deal as planned, but they didn’t want to hear it. The head Indian said he was going to the Bureau of Indian Affairs.

Sonny could not reason with the bastards. They might have lost the war, but they were
now winning the battle. It had been Big Nick’s decision to pay the money and cover the loss to the Outfit. Which was all well and good, but now his father wanted the money back and the Outfit wanted a cut of the missing money because it had been laundered. Nothing was working out like it should.

Since
his father had paid out the money, Sonny had been trying to recover the money the stiff who took it and now was rubbing it in Sonny’s face.

When
Sonny got word that the only remaining member left from the gang that robbed the place was out of prison, he put a plan into motion to get the money back. The ex-con’s name was Lou Malloy. Sonny’s plan was to put pressure on Malloy to give up the money by hitting on his sister who worked for the casino. But that backfired when he learned she was a Fed. She had not died easy, but whatever information she had, died with her.

Now
Sonny had another problem. The Outfit now wanted a cut of the fifteen and his father was livid. With Malloy out of prison, they were getting impatient. Fifteen million dollars didn’t just disappear, they said.

Two
of the men Sonny had sent out had not come back and were presumed dead. The other two were as good as dead. One would never walk again and was useless. The other one was standing in front of Sonny blubbering about some shit that it wasn’t his fault. That Mickey had tried to play it rough, against Henry’s better judgment, and lost.

“So let me understand this Henry…”

“Hank, Boss. I can’t stand the name Henry.”

“Henry, you think I’m
gonna swallow this shit you’re trying to feed me? Huh?”

“No Boss.”

“You’d been better off stepping in front of a truck rather than come back here telling me this pile of crap story.”

Looking toward the other
person in the room, Sonny snapped his fingers and said, “Angel, give Henry here some help with his thinking.”

“Sure Boss.”

Angel hit Henry on the back of the head knocking him onto Sonny’s desk.

“
Henry, get the fuck off my desk before you bleed on it,” Yelled Sonny. “This is a ten thousand dollar desk owned by some French king. You mess up this desk and I’m going to have Angel kill you and get this over with, you hear me?”

The big hood tried to get up, but he was having trouble
his balance and focusing his eyes.

“I told you
, Henry. Get off the fucking desk. I’m not telling you again.”

The big man finally stood up. “Yes
, Boss. I’m sorry.”

“Okay, that’s better. Now, you were telling me about th
is Malloy and this babe he had with him.”

“Yeah
, Boss. She was a real looker. Looked professional like. May have been someone in the life.”

“You saying she was a hooker?”

“Looked that way to me.”

“Okay. So this guy tapes you up and leaves the room?
”

“Yeah.”

“Did you or Mickey mention my name?”

The big hood started to shift his eyes and Sonny read the
tell. He knew a lie was coming.

“No, Boss. I didn’t, but Mickey mentioned something about Angel here
and Malloy wanted to know where to find him.”

Sonny raised his eyebrows and said, “Did he now? And how do you think he knew to ask that? What did you tell him?
”

“
I didn’t tell him anything. Mickey was busy massaging his nuts after Malloy kicked him and was doing all the talking.”

“How’d he manage that?”

“I don’t know. I was just listening.”

“So
, you didn’t do anything? Just stood there like a wooden post.”

The big man didn’t say anything.

“Nothing? You have a weapon on you?”

“Yeah
, Boss. I had my thirty-eight.”

“You have it out when you went through the door to the room?”

“Yeah.”

“Why didn’t you use it?”

“I was knocked into Mickey and my shooting arm got all tangled up with him falling. I couldn’t move it.”

“Should have shot him,” said Sonny.

“Shot who, Boss?”

“Mickey, asshole.”

“Why shoot Mickey?”

“
Forget it.

“
This Malloy say anything else?”

“Yeah, he mentioned
someone named Hightower.

“Yeah,” said Sonny suddenly more interested. “What’d you tell him?”

“Nothing, but Mickey told him you worked for Hightower.”

“Shit, “said Sonny. “Get this piece of shit out of my sight. I don’t want to see him again.”

After the two men left, Sonny pounded his fist on his ten thousand dollar desk. This Malloy was making a nuisance of himself. What the hell was wrong with people? He had the company offer a reward on the money if it was returned to see if Malloy would bite on the bait. He even paid some money to that dumbass warden at the prison to try talking some sense into Malloy. A buck and a half was a lot of money. Picking up the telephone on his desk, he punched in a number and waited. When a voice answered, he said, “Come in here. This ain’t good.”

I
had set the little alarm clock for six-thirty in the evening. As it buzzed its head off, I opened my eyes to find the little button in back to turn it off. Hilary hadn’t moved. So much for her claim on being a light sleeper.

I got up
, took a shower and dressed. Hilary was still out when I got out of the bathroom. I decided to let her sleep and went outside to smoke a cigarette. I never smoked in prison, but I needed a jolt of something. Since I didn’t have any liquor, I went with nicotine.

After two cigarettes,
it was time to go. We were going to be late as it was. I walked back in the room and sat on the edge of the bed looking at Hilary. She was lovely to look at and fun to be with. My hope was that this would work out. I nudged her gently.

“Hey, sleepyhead
, time to get up.”

Slowly
Hilary opened her eyes and said, “Where are we?”

“Ritz-Carlton,” I said.

“Don’t I wish? What time is it?”

“Seven-thirty,” I said.

Suddenly she jumped up. She had no clothes on, but she failed to see the significance of that.

“
Shit. We need to get going. I need a shower. Where are my clothes?”

I just pointed to a chair in the corner and got up from the bed to give her room.

“God, you should have gotten me up.”

“I don’t think God ha
s anything to do with this,” I said.

“Damn it Lou, you know what I mean.”

I watched Hilary grab her underclothes and head to the bathroom. While she was in the shower, I packed our things, except for what I thought she would need when she got out of the bathroom, walked out to the car and put the bags in the trunk. Fifteen minutes later we were heading to the Marks’s house and, hopefully, a solution as to what had happened to Susan and why she had to die.

Hilar
y
was still condemning for her lack of action earlier when we reached the Marks’s address.

“I
was my entire fault. You should have kicked me out of bed.”

“Not saying that won’t happen, but not for this,” I said. “The
Marks’s are probably in for the night, sitting around, popping corn, drinking beer and watching their favorite game show on television”

“They don’t call them game shows anymore,” Hilary said. “They’re called reality
shows.”

“Since I don’t watch TV, I’ll take your word on that, real or otherwise.”

As we drove down the street, a muscle car pointing in the opposite direction of traffic was parked on the street in front of the Marks’s house and a Lincoln Town Car was parked in their driveway. It looked to be the same Town Car that had been waiting for me when I got out of prison.

“Must have been in a hurry,” I said, pointing at the
muscle car.

“
Wish we knew what the Marks’s owned for a car,” said Hilary. “I bet it isn’t that Lincoln.”

“I’ve seen that car before
,” I said. “You remember the two clowns that tried to punch our number at the rest home for gators a few days ago?”

“Yeah
?”

“
The choirboys that met me at the exit gate when I got out of prison were driving that car,” I said.

“So I guess this means we don’t get to go to the drive-in movie tonight?”

“That would be a good guess,” I said. “See that dude sitting on the porch thumbing his phone?”

“What about him?”

“I think he’s the same one who I pushed through the door at that hotel last night,” I said.

“Didn’t he say he worked for this Sonny Cappoleto?”

“That’s what he said. For a PI, you have a good memory,” I said.

“What can I
say? Technology has finally come to Cosa Nostra. Is this a great country or what?”

“For some people
,” I said. “However, I bet it isn’t going too great for the Marks’s about now?”

The front porch
where the guy was sitting had a couple of lights on. I could see the guy’s face. It, in fact, was one of the goons we left taped up in Savannah. So much for kindness. There would be no next time.

“
Hey, you’re right. That is one of the guys we met in the hotel in Savannah,” said Hilary.

“And here I thought you weren’t paying attention.”

“What are we going to do?” Hilary said.

“
Find a driveway where no one’s home. Park in front and wait to see who walks out of the Marks’s house.”

We were in luck.
A house about four doors down from the Marks’s was for sale and a realtor’s lock box was on the front door. Pulling into the driveway, I reached over and took out my lock pick tools. Picking the lock on a lock box took all of two seconds.

Inside, t
he place was furnished. I walked through to the kitchen and out into the garage. It was empty. I hit the garage door button, raised the garage door and went outside and backed our car into the garage. After shutting the garage door, I walked inside and turned on the under-the-counter lights in the kitchen. Walking into the den area, Hilary had already staked out a spot on a couch and was sleeping. I walked into the living room and looked out the front window back toward the Marks’s house. Play Boy was still sitting on the porch thumbing his phone.

While w
anting to see what might develop, I didn’t want to wait too long. The house we were using looked lived in and the owners could come back at any moment. I checked the Glock and screwed on the suppressor. The little twenty-two revolver was tucked into a holster on my left hip. It was a good weapon for close in work and when fired, didn’t make a lot of noise.

I
needed to see what was happening in the Marks’s house. Not for the Marks’s sake so much as to get my hands on my sister’s file, if it was in there. Walking back into the den, I thought about waking Hilary, but since I didn’t figure to be gone more than fifteen minutes, I left her alone. Walking into the garage, I put on the pair of latex gloves from before and went out the side door of the garage to the front of the house. Across the street, there was a house with the lights out. I doubted the bozo sitting on the Marks’s front porch would notice me if I walked up the driveway. Still, caution was the better part of valor.

Like a man looking for a paper, I walked across the street
and behind the blacked out house. The neighborhood was one of those subdivisions where everyone’s backyard backed up to the other houses and this house backed up to the Marks’s. From there, I got into the Marks’s yard by simply walking through the rear hedge. Removing the Glock from my underarm holster, I walked up to the back of Marks’s house and looked in one of the kitchen windows. The lights were on everywhere in the place. In the kitchen, tied to a couple of kitchen chairs, were Shelia and another man. What I saw was not a pretty sight. I assumed the man with his head hanging down was Shelia’s husband, Billy. He looked dead. Shelia looked to be on her way. Four other men were in the room drinking liquor, three from large juice glasses and one from a bottle. They were all laughing and grabbing their crotches like a bunch of chimpanzees.

Shelia had the front of her blouse ripped off and bra r
emoved with wires attached to the end of each breast. The one drinking from the bottle had the business end of an ESW, or electric shock weapon, in his hand and every few minutes was giving Shelia a jolt causing her body to jump.

I had to move fast.
Moving to the front of the house where Knuckles was busy working away, I put the Glock back in its holster and I removed the twenty-two. He never looked up as I stuck the end of the revolver next to his head and pulled the trigger twice. I grabbed him so he wouldn’t fall over and pulled him behind a hedge of azaleas. Turning, I opened the front door. A chime went off inside. Someone from the back room yelled, “Hank, I thought I told you to stay on the porch.” When the guy doing the yelling cleared the doorway to the kitchen, I shot him in the head with the Glock. He was the guy drinking out of the bottle.

Moving fast, I made
it around the corner and I shot two of the men drinking from the juice glasses. The fourth man was trying to reach the ESW, but stopped when he saw me and stuck up his arms in the air and said, “Don’t shoot. I give up.” I shot him in the knee. He went down yelling holding his leg. As he flopped around on the floor, I went over and checked the man tied to the chair. He was dead. Next, I checked on Shelia. She was barely breathing. I had to get her to talk to me. I untied her and removed the wires from her chest. She wasn’t going to make it.

“Shelia, can you hear me?”
There was no response. “Shelia, it’s me. John Addams. Ann’s husband. Where is the file on Susan?” I watched as her eyes fluttered and she moved her head.

“In
…bedroom. Bible…in the…bedroom.” Then she died.

When I turned, the
one on the floor was trying to reach for a gun that had dropped on the floor. I walked over and kicked him in his injured knee. He started screaming so I kicked him again.

“Listen
, asshole. Every time you scream, I’m going to kick you in the knee. You got that? Now where are you from?”

“Fuck you.”

“Lot of that going around,” I said and I shot him in his ankle.

“Oh God!
Damn.”

“What’s your name?” Same answer as before so I shot him in the other knee.

“Look, you are never going to walk again, but you could remain alive. Who do you work for?”

“Cap. Work for Sonny Cap and you
’re a dead man.”

“Well, we all have to die some time. Just happens to be your
day to go first.” I shot him in his right eye with the twenty-two. I picked up the pistol he was trying to reach and stuck it in my pocket. It was a Colt Python. If at some point I had to ditch the Glock, the Python would be a good replacement.

The upstairs was a mess. Everything had been
torn apart. I found what I thought was the master bedroom and looked around. A large bible was sitting on a shelf near the bed. Removing the bible, I opened it and there was the disk. Putting the bible back, I thought about turning out all the lights in the house before leaving. On the other hand, what was the point? Leaving all the bodies in place, I went to get Hilary.

When I got
back to the house we were using, Hilary and our car were gone and the house was no longer vacant. All the lights were on and I could see people walking around inside. There was a car in the driveway, but it wasn’t ours.

Now what?

I figured I had to boost one of the cars at the Marks’s when a set of car lights flashed me a couple of times. It was Hilary.

“You look like you need a ride
, Bubba,” she said, as she pulled to a stop. “What took you so long?”

“
I had some complications,” I said. “Shelia and her husband are dead, but I have what I think is the file and the visiting team is down another five notches.”

“Sounds like a cluster fuck
, if you ask me.”

“I guess you could call it that
,” I said. “I just wish I could keep someone alive long enough to get some useful information.”

“Maybe you need to start off being a little nicer and
not shoot them first?”

“
At least now I have a starting point for a new plan,” I said. “Sonny Cap’s name is getting around. He’s next on my list.”

“F
irst we need a place to sleep and not get more visitors," said Hilary.

Then
it came to me. “I think I know just the place.”