The New Mammoth Book of Pulp Fiction (30 page)

They were on Franklin and mid-afternoon Tampa traffic moved glitteringly, sedately. Then Morganza made a sharp right and slowed the flash car. They drew to the curb.

Vincenti’s practiced finger flicked the roach out the window. He was patient. He had to be.

“It’s that loan company, across there. Acme,” Morganza said. He coughed lightly and checked his wrist where gold gleamed. “Due – right now.”

Vincenti watched the Acme Loan entrance. His nose was a blade and his chin held a deep cleft. He sighed and yearned for Vegas with some fresh broad. Well, it would come later, after he returned to LA.

The grass had given him a small lift.

Suddenly Morganza said, “Here it is, you.”

Vincenti looked quickly towards the Acme Loan.

An enormous man in eye-shattering white, slow-moving, ponderous but with the provoking grace of an elephant, still young, shoved from the Acme entrance into the street. Another man, short, reed-like, gripping a tan straw hat, was with him. They stood there on the sidewalk. The short man gestured ubiquitously, while the big man grew like a tree.

Morganza opened his door and stepped out.

“Which the hell one?” Vincenti’s voice was flat, like tepid tea.

“Biggie,” Morganza jerked, and was gone, melting into the afternoon.

Vincenti lifted long legs and slid over beneath the wheel, planting his feet. He waited, watching the big man.

So, this was Nemo Lucelli, god of the Gulf Coast, with wormy fingers that fatted into Miami’s guts, palpated Jacksonville, and saw to the Bahamas skim. Overlord of Florida crime, glutting on everything from prostitution and narcotics to illegal Florida gambling; twisting the coat-tails of governors, senators, and shipping magnates. It was reported authoritatively that his Mexican connection was the fatted calf itself. And anachronistic Murder Inc. was nothing to Lucelli’s bloodbath.

The Big Nemo . . . but Vincenti hadn’t figured him this big in girth.

The National Syndicate wanted Nemo wasted.

Vincenti knew he would be able to retire for maybe three years after this job, able to thoroughly feed his own ravening appetites. Women. Young girls.

He tightened his teeth, his slate-colored eyes checking every corner for
soldatos
, bodyguards, the lieutenants of Lucelli’s regime. The Tampa hierarchy did not know Vincenti and would not make him. Morganza was from Chi, with
capo
Ringotti. Morganza would already be at Tampa International, a fly duck.

A quick-moving soldier opened a Caddy limousine door, and Lucelli lurched towards the shiny car, leaving the short fellow still gesticulant.

Vincenti knew that car would be slug-proof.

A door slammed. Vincenti saw the fat man in white lift a glass from a portable bar in the limo. Then the Caddy purred into traffic.

Vincenti knew it had to be obtuse.

Now
was the word. Or as close to
now
as conditions would permit. Make the damn hit and get out.

Vincenti quickly lit a previously rolled joint, took a vigorous toke, and skunked after the Cad, holding his breath, experiencing a tingle in his solar plexus. This was the biggest hit he’d ever attained, and he was playing it to rule . . . the rule cooked up on the cross-country jet flight.

Hit –
now
. No maps. No clockwork. No shenanigans.

It had to be
hit now
, because Lucelli’s fortress could be creepy, and there was the ever-gnawing probability that winds would blow news of this top-brass execution decision.

There was
always
a long tongue, no matter how the odds looked.

Vincenti toked the fat joint deeply, holding the narcotic smoke, the red ember sputtering. Ordinarily he spent days, sometimes weeks, on a hit – planning, scheming, checking every angle. Not this time. No time was this time.

He knew he had to be high. It was in and hit and run.

Desperation was beginning to drive him now.

He worked at desperation. He was a pro. His card was death and the deal was no shuffle, no cut.

They were approaching West Shore Boulevard, the limo blurringly smooth at a sixty clip.

Traffic was heavy.

The afternoon sighed, turned, and rolled over towards four o’clock. Black palm fronds fingered the yellow haze like cemetery hands.

Abruptly the limousine crawled into a circular drive rimmed with glistening poplars and silk oaks, slowed to gleam and glitter in the shadows of a portico fronting a small yellow-stone cottage – small by Lucelli’s standards, Vincenti mused, firing another joint. Actually the cottage was a minor mansion.

Still . . . it didn’t look like home ground, for some reason.

He tooled the outside lane slowly, turning to check. Sure enough, Lucelli was out of the limo and the big car was pulling away in the drive.

Vincenti checked the rear-view mirror, holding his breath.

The Cad crept back onto the boulevard and increased speed.

Lucelli was alone back there at the yellow-stone cottage.

Vincenti wheeled the Continental to the right, down a curving red-brick street shaded with ancient water oaks.

He couldn’t believe it! He couldn’t!

The
now
was in solid.

Curtly, then, the professional took over. He sped down the block, turned fast right again, marking where the yellow-stone cottage would stand on the boulevard.

He parked at the curb, allowed his right hand to check the spring-holstered, silenced Luger beneath his left arm, then just sat there a moment.

The quiet-looking stone home to the right, behind fastidious dark green Florida poppy hedge, seemed uninhabited. Vincenti had the salesman’s antennae about matters like that.

Anyway, it was
now
– not later.

He lit still another joint, left the car, and walked rapidly along the outside poppy hedge that bordered a blue-gravel drive. He glanced neither right nor left. He held smoke in his lungs and the afternoon was a cinema screen, flickering impossible paradise.

The large homes on either side were set distantly.

He approached a yellow-stone wall. The cottage where Lucelli had stopped took up, in grounds, obviously most of the block. The place with the hedges was a cheapie.

He flicked the roach away, touched the wall, and with a smooth leap elbowed the rim.

He clung there, taking it in – a kidney-shaped swimming pool under silk oaks, the water like green ice. Walls. Footpaths. Flowers in bloom. A mocking blue jay.

Glass doors open on glitter and shadow.

Nobody. No sound other than the blue jay.

Then . . . soft music. Bartok. Vincenti prided himself on a secret vice. Lucelli the Slaughterhouse, attending Bartok?

He sniffed – sniffed again. Musk. Incense. Lucelli.
Avanti
. Nemo Lucelli!

A white shape moved through velvet-red shadows inside the cottage.

Vincenti went up the wall, and down into a horseshoe flowerbed of yellow roses. He barely landed here before he was running lightly, silently, around the pool, past canvas deck chairs, luxuriously padded chaises, across a broad flagged patio with a half-finished drink on a redwood table, and over to the glass doors.

He could feel his heart astounding his chest. He was sweating now, as he let the Luger fit into his palm, and gripped the cool butt, fingering cold steel.

“Who is it?” The voice was fat, hoarse, and deep, from inside the cottage.

Vincenti whapped the Luger’s sliding blue-steeled breech open with an oily click, and leaped between the glass doors.

Everything happened at once. The music. The jay screaming. Nemo Lucelli standing there like an elephant in a white terrycloth robe, belted around the enormous girth, a fat, manicured hand with a square-cut diamond, holding a martini glass, a woman’s voice:

“What is it – Nemo?”

Vincenti said, “Hello.”

Nemo Lucelli backed through an alcove into a sprawling, shadowed living room with huge hassocks and a fireplace. He paused against a glass cocktail table, his mouth working around unspoken words.

“They said you broke word,” Vincenti told Lucelli. “They said to waste you.”

“Wait—” Lucelli said.

His drink spilled on the thick gold rug.

Vincenti emptied the Luger. It made gasping sounds. Crimson blossoms appeared across Lucelli’s chest. He gave a tremendous leap backwards and crashed down on the glass-topped cocktail table, shattering the plate.

He was dead. His eyes were open.

The jay screamed. The music softly curtained the diminishing afternoon as Vincenti released the spent clip from the Luger and slapped a fresh one in its place.

“Nemo?”

The woman’s voice again, up and to the left, coming near.

She burst into the room, saw the hulk covered by terry cloth amid the jagged shards of broken glass, the blood. She put one hand to her mouth and bit knuckle. Then she flung coppery red hair out of one eye and stared at Vincenti.

“Hello and good-bye,” Vincenti said.

He lifted the Luger.

“You fool!” the girl who was more than mere woman said. She whirled and spat on the bloody body of Nemo Lucelli. “I wanted him dead! Don’t kill me – think, you fool!”

Vincenti frowned, staring at this girl.

She was beautiful, with long, flowing red hair. She wore a black swimsuit – a bikini – that was revealing enough to make a man hold his breath. Tall, she was, firm-breasted, long-thighed, with broad red lips, large blue eyes – a wish, a promise.

“Who are you?” Vincenti said.

“Not now – not here.” She spoke rapidly. “There’s no time. They’re coming back, don’t you see? Nemo sent them for some brandy.” She paused, put both hands to her cheeks. “You kill me, you’ll never get away – they’ll know somebody else did this. I know what to do – let me do it. I hated him! I was bought and paid for. Everybody knows it. They’ll think I did this. They know it’s been coming. Don’t you see – here – they’re here now!”

She pointed towards a front window. Beyond the sound of the music was the sound of a car’s wheels on gravel, and Vincenti saw gleams and glitters out there in the silky shade from the limo’s paint job.

The girl snatched up a red robe from a chair.

“Where’s your car, you idiot – hurry!”

Thinking how it had to be the weed, Vincenti grabbed her hand and turned running, dragging her – because truly it was good in this direction, too – this girl was his alibi.

If he made it.

“Where?” she gasped.

He said nothing, holstered the Luger, thinking how they would believe she had killed Lucelli. He grabbed the Luger from its holster again, thinking, You forgot, you fool! It’s that damned Acapulco Gold.

He flung the Luger into the pool with a splash that shattered the icy green, and they ran through the flower beds to the yellow-stone wall.

“Hey!”

It was a shout from back in the cottage.

“It’s them,” the girl whispered, cringing against Vincenti.

Vincenti did not hesitate. He grasped her around the smooth, plump thighs and lifted her quickly to the top of the wall.

“Drop down,” he said, scrambling after her.

There were shouts from inside the cottage.

Vincenti slipped over the wall just as somebody fired in his direction. Chips of shattered stone flew in the afternoon.

“Run for the street – my car,” he told the girl, thrusting her ahead.

“They climbed the wall!” a man shouted from behind.

They made the Continental.

“Let me drive,” the girl said. “There’s only one place to go – my plane at the St Petersburg-Clearwater Airport. This area’ll be crawling. It’s our only chance.”

“Get in,” Vincenti told her. “I’m driving.” He was also thinking fast. She was right. Word would go out.
Soldatos
would be everywhere, watching for her and whoever was with her. They would be at every entrance to the city, every highway would soon be covered. There was only the one chance: with her.

They were away fast, with the girl directing him on back routes. It was all Vincenti could do to hold the speed down, and there was a snarl of discouragement in his chest, but it began to lessen with each mile. This girl – this girl was something to consider – a beauty – and with quick brains, too.

Lucelli was dead. He would have plenty of money. This girl would have plenty, too – it was a fast deal and a good one.

Soon they were out of Tampa on the Courtney-Campbell Causeway, headed for Route 19. Vincenti began to relax a touch, but he did not let up on the accelerator. He knew anything could happen. Lucelli’s web could reach out . . .

“What’s your name?” he asked the girl, trying to think about more comforting things.

“Anette,” she said.

“Okay, Anette. Looks as if we’ll be together for a time. But where’ll we go?” He hesitated, then took a shot at it. “I’m from LA.”

“My money’s in Vero Beach – that’s where I live. I was just visiting Nemo at one of his castles, see? We’ll fly my Cessna to Vero – agreed?”

“Then where?”

“There’s only one where. Europe. We’ll head for Miami, and fly to England first. It’s the only way, and it can be damned thin. Nemo rules – ruled this state.” She slid closer to Vincenti. “What’s your name?”

He told her.

“But what’s your first name?”

“Harry.”

“Gee, I dig that – Harry.”

He allowed himself to comfort her somewhat by placing one hand on her knee, while visions danced in his head.

Sugar plums, he thought. Sweet sugar plums.

Presently they reached the St Pete-Clearwater Airport. In less than fifteen minutes they were seated in Anette’s four-seat Cessna; a beautiful ship, colored red, white, and yellow – sleek in the early twilight.

They came down the runway with Anette at the controls. She had asked him if he could fly.

“I leave that up to pilots.”

“Vero, here we come,” she said, and they were airborne.

Vincenti took his first clean breath of freedom. There was little chance of being caught now. He had done his job. Lucelli was dead. He would collect payment by cable in London. He had his passport with him. He was always ready for anything.