Inside Out (8 page)

Greg said, “Looks like a pair of swabbies from the other side. Let's keep a straight face, make sure we make an impression.”

He lifted the man's dog tags and glared at him. Winter and Cross relaxed, lowering the muzzles of their weapons.

“What the hell are you two doing here?” Nations growled.

“Navy, sir! Ensign Signalman Lawrence Tacket, sir!”

“Ensign—” the woman started.

“I don't give a damn what your names are! What I asked was what the hell you are doing over here.” He scooped the clothes up and searched the pockets. He dropped a sealed condom on the sand, along with some change and a pocketknife. He opened a wallet and checked its contents.

“We were just out for a walk,” Ensign Tacket offered.

“And the wind tore your uniforms off?”

Tacket was a muscular young man and he stayed at full attention, his eyes ahead as if a drill sergeant was on a parade ground inspecting him. The young woman was shivering in the evening chill, her teeth chattering violently. Neither could have been more than eighteen or nineteen years old. The naked woman suddenly giggled nervously. “Can I cover up, please?” she pleaded.

Greg allowed his eyes to drop down below Tacket's waist, then shook his head. “Remove that condom, Ensign. And don't drop it on my beach.”

“Please,” she repeated.

“Cross, give the lady her clothes.”

Cross scooped up the woman's shirt and pants, checked them, and tossed them to her. She turned to one side and slipped them on.

The ensign reached down, peeled off the condom, and hid it in his large fist.

“Okay, you two. You're damned lucky my man didn't kill you both. The admiral's wife got an eyeful, and you'll be fortunate indeed if she doesn't ask her husband to skin you two alive. Next time, if you want to play ‘punch the monkey,' do it on your side of the island,” Greg said.

The woman giggled again.

“Don't ever let me catch you on this side of this island again. Go! Run!” They started to go up over the dunes but Greg thundered, “All the way around! Stay the hell out of my trees!”

Winter turned and walked toward the house like a man with a broken foot. It was sobering to realize that if the two ensigns had come straight over the hill in the dark at a dead run, he might have killed them. Winter doubted Greg would make an official complaint. It was a good story that would be spoiled if Nations had to end it with the fact that he caused two kids to be busted out of the service, probably their only tickets out of otherwise bleak futures.

Greg fell into step beside him. “What happened to you?”

“What do you mean?”

“You're walking like somebody pounded sand up your butt.”

“Strained a groin muscle, I guess.”

The security lights died and it was night again.

Martinez stood waiting on the porch with one hand on the doorknob. “Winter, Mrs. Devlin is really sorry about kneeing you in your noogies. She thought you were making an advance . . . of a sexual nature.”

“Guess there's more than one way to pull a groin muscle,” Greg said, grinning.

“Forget it,” Winter muttered. He was certain he would never again produce another ounce of semen with anything swimming in it.

Martinez rolled her eyes and went inside, laughing. Greg followed, and Cross strolled off down the beach, still snickering.

Winter slumped in the rocking chair. Midnight bumped against his leg. A few minutes later, Jet came out and handed Winter an ice pack.

“Mr. Greg said you might want this for your pulled muscle.”

When Jet went back into the house, Winter clearly heard several people whooping with laughter.

He decided that for the remaining time on the island, whenever the deputies thought about him, the Tampa incident would no longer be the first thing that sprang to mind. He put the bag between his legs. It helped.

14

Atlanta, Georgia Monday

The guard stared out through the bulletproof glass at the attorney as though the latter were a thief come to steal the gold out of his mouth. The man before him wore a bedraggled hairpiece. Bertran Stern had a nose like a parrot's beak and sad eyes. He was stoop-shouldered and his suit coat hung on his lanky frame like a drape. Liver spots dotted the hand with which he pressed his driver's license through the slot.

“Here to see Sam Manelli,” Bertran said.

“You his attorney?”

“I am.”

“Bertran Stern?” the guard read. He looked back up and again at the license, comparing the picture against the real thing.

Stern nodded once.

“From New Orleans?” the guard said as he inspected the Louisiana license.

“Yes.”

“Manelli had another attorney here yesterday.”

“Mr. Manelli has several legal representatives. I am his private counsel.” Stern exhaled heavily. The guards always asked the same questions. He supposed it was some form of harassment, but he didn't care. He was already thinking about the trip back home, knowing he would be resummoned as soon as he settled in. He had never liked traveling and was terrified of airplanes. But he had been flying back and forth from New Orleans, ferrying messages between Johnny Russo and Sam, since the mobster's arrest two weeks earlier. Johnny had been running Sam's crime empire for five years and doing a pretty good job as far as Bertran could tell. Sam seemed pleased with what Johnny was telling the attorney and Johnny liked the messages he got back.

After a few long minutes the solid steel door slid open. A female guard led Bertran to the exercise yard reserved for maximum security prisoners.

Sam was in his early seventies but looked a decade younger. The gangster was a swarthy man, five-six, one hundred and ninety pounds, with jowls like a bulldog. His full head of gray hair was slicked neatly back, which accentuated his square skull. His meaty hands had untanned places where he usually wore his rings, and his nails were still shiny from his last manicure. He was dressed in an orange jumpsuit and plastic flip-flops and had a thirty-dollar cigar clenched between his teeth. He came at Bertran Stern like he was going to stick a shiv into his heart, his intense blue eyes ablaze.

“Follow me!” he growled. Bertran followed.

Sam headed for a concrete picnic table under a small metal shelter, but before they arrived Sam grabbed the attorney's elbow and propelled him to an exposed table standing alone in the yard.

Sam told Bertran to sit on the bench seat and planted himself on the tabletop so he could look down on him, for the psychological edge. In Bert's mind, Sam was ten feet tall.

“Music would be good,” Sam said.

“Oh, right.” Stern took a small radio out of his briefcase and turned it on to a classical station. “I guess I have jet lag. I'm getting a little old for this running back and forth.”

“You want to swap complaints?” Sam said. “I got a list long as a Jew's nose.”

“No, of course not.” Bertran was Jewish.

“You don't want to come here no more, is that it?”

“I like coming here, Sam.” Bertran's fingers were trembling. “To see you.”

Manelli clenched the cigar in the side of his mouth and spoke around it so no one could read his lips, even with binoculars, which the feds would do.

“How's my boy doing?”

“He says business is normal—nothing down at all. He has some concerns if you remain here long, but he says he'll worry about that when he has to.”

“You think he's doing good—on the level?”

“He wouldn't say something unless it was on the square.”

“And he ain't dumb.”

“I haven't seen any evidence of it.”
There are far worse things than being dumb.

“Okay. What about the other thing?” Sam asked, pleased at Bert's take on Johnny.

“The guy? Johnny says it's just a matter of time until it's handled. Things are moving.”

“And as soon as it's done, I'm outta here?”

“No one to talk, no evidence but the guy's word. Yes, it's certain.”

“What about her?” Manelli said.

Stern didn't want to give Manelli bad news, but he had no choice. “She was supposed to be back in the country Saturday,” the attorney said carefully. “Johnny was at the airport personally and he said she didn't come out of the terminal and never showed up at her house. He's got someone checking there periodically, but Johnny thinks she got intercepted by the cops and might be with
him
someplace.”

Manelli growled, “I want her waiting for me when I get out of here. Tell Johnny I said that better be the way it is.”

The mobster's eyes grew hard, his lips rigid with fury. “I got three million reasons why they better get it done. If it don't get done, heads will boil. Make sure the old man knows that if the rat squeaks, history or not, I ain't gonna like it a lot. I want that Mick bastard in pieces so small a skinny crab would have to eat a dozen to keep his stomach from growling.”

Stern nodded solemnly.

“You just remember you said I'd be out in a few days, and here I sit two weeks later.”

“When I said that, I didn't know what they had behind the charges, Sam.” Bertran's palms felt clammy.

“By the way, how's your grandbabies doing?” Sam asked.

Bertran smiled nervously and told Sam they were all fine. Over the forty years they had been doing business, Sam had threatened his family so many times he'd lost count. But no matter how many times he had heard the question, its impact had never lessened. Bertran Stern knew that Sam would not hesitate before having Johnny Russo take a hammer to a child, nor did he doubt that Russo would welcome doing it for him.

15

Rook Island, North Carolina

Twenty minutes before the helicopter landed, Greg told the deputies on duty that it was on its way, bringing a physician to the island. Forsythe was up on the water tank. The waist-high safety rail around the tank was made of steel plate. His weapon was a tricked-out .308-caliber assault rifle with a thicker-than-normal barrel, a thirty-shot magazine, and a scope. The mirrored sunglasses he wore gave him a decidedly sinister appearance.

The helicopter landed, and a casually dressed man climbed down and strode toward the house carrying a black leather bag. Winter led the doctor inside, where he and his bag were searched. Greg asked Winter to escort the doctor to Dylan's room and remain with him.

Though it was open, Winter knocked at the door. Sean Devlin was seated in an armchair, reading. Winter had not seen her since their encounter the night before. She looked up at him with amusement in her eyes.

“Ah,” Dylan said, seeing them. “Here to make me whole again.”

The doctor was all business. He moved straight to the bed and placed his bag on the mattress.

“You put weight on this yet?” He nodded at Devlin's ankle.

“Some,” Dylan said.

The doctor removed the bandage, moved the foot around. “That hurt?”

“No.”

“That?”

“No.”

“Lose the shirt.”

“What, no foreplay?” Dylan said. “You know what foreplay is where I come from?”

The doctor said, “A six-pack?”

“‘Get in the truck, bitch.'” Dylan laughed. “But ‘a six-pack' works for me.”

Sean frowned at the joke.

The doctor cut the tape and bandages away from Dylan's ribs, exposing a yellow bruise the size of a dinner plate. He asked Dylan to stand and walk around the room.

Sean closed her book and watched.

“No pain?” the doctor asked.

Dylan slapped his rib cage hard, then hopped up and down on his unwrapped foot. “Good as new,” he bragged.

“You have an impressive threshold for pain. Those ribs need more time before you go slapping them, so take a few days. Use the crutches if you need to. Any pain medication?”

“I have some, but I can control pain without medication.”

Dylan looked at Winter and winked. “I can start taking walks on the beach now to protect you from my wife.”

Sean opened her book and looked down, perhaps embarrassed.

Winter stared flatly at Dylan, ignoring the killer's mocking grin.

While Winter and Greg were watching the helicopter carry the doctor away and Winter was wishing he was a passenger on it heading home, the Devlins appeared on the porch. Martinez came around the side of the building and stopped in the sand. Dylan reached up, stretched, and inhaled noisily.

“Gentlemen, my wife and I wish to take a leisurely stroll on the beach,” he announced. “Perhaps Deputy Massey would like to accompany us. If he feels up to walking, that is.”

Greg lifted his radio and asked Forsythe for an all-clear. From the water tower, Forsythe leaned the rifle against the rail before him and scanned the water, the sand, and the tree line with his binoculars, then radioed back that the turf was secure.

“Okay, Mr. and Mrs. Devlin, the beach is all yours. Winter, grab a Colt and tag along.”

Winter went into the house and got an AR-15 carbine from the locker in the security room. As he returned, Dylan was saying, “My wife is getting as dark as a Spic. Pretty soon she'll be chattering Spanish at her.” He indicated Martinez.

Martinez raised an eyebrow but otherwise didn't react.

“Perhaps it
is
too bright for a walk,” Sean said. Her cheeks were flushed pink. “Maybe later would be better. When the sun isn't so strong.”

Dylan agreed easily. “An evening walk, then. I, on the other hand, need some rays.”

Winter figured Sean didn't want to displease Dylan. It looked to Winter that the latter exercised control by undermining his wife's confidence. Wouldn't be the first husband who operated that way. His own father had done the same to his mother.

Winter and Dylan started down the beach side by side. “Where was it my wife racked you? On the beach, I mean.”

Winter pointed at the spot at the dune's edge where the sand was still churned up. “About there. Maybe she'll reenact it with you.”

“I know who you are, Massey. I overheard Cross and Dixon talking about a little square dance in Florida a few years back with three Latino gun boys. They seem to think you're some sort of a handgun god.”

“I never cared for dancing,” he said laconically.

“Must have been exciting. Facing those machine guns, and you with only a little pistol. The marshal and the outlaws in a real old-fashioned shoot-out. I bet your blood was up—facing death, looking it in the eyes, and walking out alive. Nothing like it. No one who hasn't been there can understand being tested in the crucible and coming out in one piece.”

“A man would really have to be wired wrong to enjoy a thing like that,” Winter said dismissively.

“The elation after the kill. The adrenaline rush. Don't shit me, Massey, you felt that euphoria. We have that in common, you and I. But where I never felt the slightest pang of guilt, I bet it nearly ate you alive.”

Winter had indeed felt that euphoria. But the shoot-out in Tampa had been followed by nausea, cold sweats, and nightmares. “I sure as hell didn't kill because someone was writing me a check for it,” he said, betraying his emotions.

“Don't be so sanctimonious. They pay you, Deputy. I just get fatter checks.”

“Different
theys.
And my they doesn't want me to kill anybody.”

“Do you think about your own death, Massey?”

“Some.”

“Are you afraid to die?”

“Not looking forward to it.” Winter could feel his blood rising and wished Devlin would get off the subject.

“How would you go, given a choice? Heart attack in bed? Bullet in the brain? Swan-diving into an active volcano?”

“I doubt I'll get to choose. Can we change the subject?”

“Man like you could be anything, and yet this is what you chose.” Dylan persisted, savoring Winter's obvious discomfort. “All the things you could have had, and you're walking down the beach, putting your life on the line for what, sixty thousand a year? I have a beautiful, rich wife who thinks I hung the moon, but I never touched a penny of hers because I make a lot of money. A
lot
of money.”

“I don't go hungry. I can drive only one car at a time, and I have a good medical plan with dental.”

“You're a fucking
security guard,
Massey,” Dylan snarled. “You know what my favorite thing is?”

“I don't care.”

Devlin stared down at the AR-15 in Winter's hand. “It's taking a target's weapon away and giving him the business end of it. Gun, knife, once it was a baseball bat. The expression on their faces is always worth the extra effort. It's the ultimate humiliation, like pissing on them—a caveman high.”

“Can I be totally honest with you, Devlin?”

“I'd welcome it.”

“I like chasing down bad guys. The sense of satisfaction I get when I put human garbage—like, say, a cold-blooded murderer—in chains is priceless. Hell, I'd do it for free if they didn't pay me to.”

“That so? So tell me one thing.”

“Yeah?”

“What's it feel like to have your balls bashed in by a woman?”

“About half as painful as talking to you.”

Dylan threw his head back and laughed. “That's a good one! You're a piece of work, Massey.” He turned back toward the house, shaking his head. “And I had hoped we could be pals.”

“Now,
that's
a good one,” Winter said flatly.

When they returned, Sean was in a rocking chair on the porch with the cat in her lap, rubbing its head. Winter stopped beside Martinez at the railing. When Dylan reached down to rub it, Midnight hissed, clawed his hand, and ran off.

Sean took Dylan's hand and inspected the scratches. “He seemed so friendly,” she said softly.

“Things aren't always as they seem,” her husband snapped. He sat in the chair beside her, rubbing the bloodied hand against his pants. “Nine lives. Living out here with no cars, no other cats or dogs, that little black shitter could die of old age with eight of those still tucked away in a celestial savings account.” He stroked his wife's hand, looked up at Winter, and smiled. “Unless he does something dumb.”