Reckless (12 page)

Nick schooled his face into an emotionless
mask. It had been heroin that had killed Danny. Heroin important
and distributed by Lou Taranto. “So?”

“Come on, Nick, you know what I'm saying.
That stuff will hit the streets in a matter of days, if not hours.
Lou has a crew waiting to split it up for distribution, and we both
know they'll be selling it in no time. I can't let that go.” He
shook his head and ran one hand over it, front to back. “We have to
look the other way all the time when we're under. I can't do it
this time.”

“It's your tip, Carl. Call it. We'll play it
your way.”

Carl looked at Nick for a long moment, his
blue eyes thoughtful. “If we let the stuff get inside the
warehouse, we might as well forget it. The place is like Fort Knox.
A lot of cops would go down in a raid.”

“So what do you want to do?” Nick thought he
already knew the answer, and he knew he wasn't going to like it.
Allowing Fat Lou's poison to hit the streets was unacceptable...but
so was losing his best friend. His only friend.

“I'm dropping an anonymous tip to the local
cops,” Carl said. “Gonna let ‘em know when the truck is due in and
what it's hauling. They'll be there waiting.”

Nick expelled his breath in a rush. “They'll
be there, all right, and they'll be loaded for bear. There's no way
you can tip them that there's a Federal agent with the suspects.
You'll probably end up getting your head blown off.”

“Forewarned and all that, pal. I knew the
risks when I signed on. Besides, better I buy it than some kid who
ought to know better. Some kid like Danny.” He paused to let that
sink in. “I figure this way I give the cops a pretty fair chance,
with only four guys and the driver shooting back at them.”

“Five guys and the driver,” Nick said softly.
“I’m gonna be there with you.”

Toni leaned closer to the door. She had to
strain to make out what they were saying because they spoke so
softly. They must be in the kitchen. She recognized Carl's voice,
but so far, hadn't understood half of what they'd said. She opened
the door a crack, better to hear them and hoped they wouldn’t
notice as she knelt low and peeked through.

“Oh, that's brilliant, Nick. You come along,
that way we can both get shot full of holes.”

Nick's eyes looked like Toni had never seen
them. Possessed or something. “How long's it been, Carl? Huh?” He
was almost whispering. “What, twelve years now? You remember when
you lost Gina and crawled into a bottle headfirst? It took some
doing, but I snapped you out of it.”

Carl sniffed. “Smashed every damn bottle I
had and wouldn't let me out of your sight for a week.”

“Even further back than that,” Nick went on,
and his voice was gritty. “The night Danny OD'ed. I lost it. I
wanted blood and I was ready to get it with my bare hands. If you'd
let me go out that night, I'd never have come back alive. You
remember? You had to sit on me to keep me from going after Taranto
alone. You ended up with a black eye by morning—”

“The way I remember it, you weren't too
pretty the next day, either.”

“Hell, I had twenty pounds on you even then,
Salducci.”

“Yeah, but I had ten years on you, you
muscle-bound punk.”

Toni opened the door a fraction of an inch
further. Nick put one hand on Carl's arm. “You stuck by me, Carl.
You're the only one who did. It's gonna hit the fan tomorrow night,
and I'm damn well gonna be there to tell you when to duck.”

“More like
I'm
gonna be there to carry
your
oversize ass home when it's over.” Carl stepped more
clearly into Toni's range of vision. He was at least four inches
shorter than Nick and sported some excess flesh that wouldn't dare
attach itself to Nick's body. His face was shadowed with beard, and
his black hair grew in a horseshoe pattern around a bald center.
When he looked at Nick again, she saw the resignation in his
face.

“So the cops get a truckload of smack, we get
shot at, and Lou gets fucked,” Carl said. “Sounds good. You think
you can manage to get in on this? I mean, you can't just show
up—”

Nick held up a hand. “If I work this right,
it'll be Lou's idea to send me along.” He slapped Carl's back. “Get
yourself a vest and wear it.”

“I'll just borrow one from you. That way I'll
be covered clear to my knees.”

Toni closed the door soundlessly when they
returned to the living room. She crept back to bed in case Nick
should check. She'd heard only a minute's worth of their
conversation, but it was enough. More than enough. Nick had lost
his brother to drugs and he’d wanted to kill Lou Taranto for that.
He couldn't possibly be working for the biggest heroin supplier in
the state. It just wasn't possible. He had to be one of the good
guys.

She'd heard enough to know that there was a
tight bond between the two men, and more than she wanted to know
about what was going on tomorrow night. They were going to walk
into a situation that could get them both killed.

She spent the remainder of the night awake,
turning their words over and over in her mind.

In the morning, when she rose and showered
and dressed, it wouldn't leave her alone. The image of bullets
flying toward Nick—toward both of them—haunted her constantly.

He wasn't there when she walked into the
living room. Did the man ever sleep? She dragged herself into the
kitchen for some coffee, following the rich aroma that had reached
her the second she'd opened the bedroom door. It smelled great, but
the way her stomach was churning, she wondered if she could even
handle a single cup. She filled a heavy stoneware mug despite her
doubts and held it with both hands as she paced the room.

She shouldn't be wondering where Nick had
gone this morning. She shouldn't worry that he was already
embroiled in a film noir-style gunfight.

Yeah, she shouldn't be worried but she was.
She took the remote and checked the mansion, but she'd already
known she wouldn't find him. A sense of emptiness pervaded the
place with his absence.

God, what if he'd already gone on this
suicide mission of his?

No. She'd heard them say that whatever was
happening would happen tonight.

But would he return before all of that? Was
he somewhere right now, preparing for it? Would he go directly to
that hell of crisscrossing bullets?

She stood still, closed her eyes and took a
bracing gulp of hot coffee, then grimaced. She hadn't put cream or
sugar in it.

“Enough, already.” She moved purposefully to
the counter and spooned sugar into her mug, then stirred. To keep
from imagining all sorts of melodramatic nonsense she could do
nothing about, she decided to distract herself by writing.

An hour later the coffee was stone-cold and
her mind was nowhere near Katrina Chekov's world. Her efforts ended
when she tore a sheet from the notebook, crumpled it into a tight
ball and threw it across the room. The pencil followed, as soon as
she'd snapped it in half. The entire notebook sailed through the
air a moment later to join its companions in a corner. Toni got to
her feet and paced the room. The confinement made her
claustrophobic. The knowledge that the door was sealed and that the
only person who knew how to open it might get himself killed before
he came back here to let her out had her chewing her nails. Sitting
here doing nothing, while he might be out there getting shot at,
had her crazy.

She stopped pacing when her agitated gait
took her right up to the door. Her gaze fixed on the numbered panel
beside it, and a new thought made itself heard above all the
others.

The panel had ten numbered squares. She was
fairly certain it took three to open the door. But which three? Did
it matter? She'd have to hit on it eventually. She began with
1-1-1.

Nick had phoned Lou at the crack of dawn and
arranged to meet with him at a truck stop off the highway. Always
on time, Lou was waiting in a booth near the back of the place when
Nick arrived.

He stood, clapped a hand to Nick's shoulder
and waved him to the padded bench seat. Lou let his gaze sweep the
place when they were both sitting, and Nick followed suit. There
was a long counter facing the doors, and a line of stools with deep
red upholstered seats. An old-fashioned cash register sat on one
end of the counter, and a man who looked as if he ought to be in a
boxing ring moved back and forth behind it. Booths like the one
they were in lined the other three walls. The open floor was a maze
of stackable shelving, all of it cluttered with snack foods,
magazines and toiletries. The air was thick with the smell of hot
grease.

“Nice place you picked, Nicky.” Lou couldn't
keep the worry from his voice. “What's wrong? Why'd you call so
early?”

Nick sighed and tried to look tormented. He
glanced at the waitress, whose parents had done a disservice by not
getting her braces when she was young. She hurried toward them,
pulling a pad from her apron pocket and a pen from her nest of
brown hair. “Coffee,” Nick told her. “You want some breakfast, Lou?
It's on me.”

Lou shook his head once. “I'm on a tight
schedule.”

“Just coffee, then,” Nick told the girl.
“Bring the pot.”

She nodded, replaced the pad and was back in
less than a minute with a bubble-shaped carafe. She turned over
both their cups, filled them and disappeared again, seeming to
sense that the two men did not want to be bothered.

Lou sipped. “Just cause I’m backing you to be
made, Nick, that doesn’t mean I’m at your beck and call. I came
this time, but you need to know––”

“I know. It won’t happen again, Lou.”

Nodding once, Lou waited. Nick cleared his
throat. “I've been thinking about what Vi—” He broke off, glancing
around the place with feigned nervousness. “What our friend had to
say the other day.”

“He said a lot of things.”

“About the vote,” Nick clarified. “I'm afraid
he might've been right. I'm not proven.”

“You took the broad out, Nicky. That's proof
enough for me.”

“You only have one vote.”

Nick watched Lou's expression gradually go
grim. Finally the fat man nodded, causing his flabby jowls to sway
slightly. “Truth is, Nicky, the other bosses aren't sure about you
yet. It might not go the way I wanted it to. But I'll keep backing
you. Sooner or later—”

“I don't want it sooner or later, I want it
now!” Nick made a show of forcing his temper back down. “Look,
can't you set me up with something, give me some kind of assignment
that would show my loyalty?”

Lou frowned and squeezed his chin in one
hand. “There's nothing big enough going on—”

“Then it's hopeless.” Nick leaned back hard
and stared into his coffee cup.

Lou released his chin and drummed his fingers
on the table. “There
is
a shipment coming in tonight. Not a
big enough deal to earn you much clout—then again, it can't
hurt.”

Nick brought his head up fast. “I'll take
anything you can give me, Lou. I want this so bad I can taste
it.”

He tried not to grin as Lou began to tell him
about the shipment that would arrive by truck at his warehouse that
night, and he whistled as he drove back to the mansion a little
while later. This thing was going smoother than he'd hoped.