Callie’s Last Dance

16.

Callie Carpenter.

THE CONTiPORARY GANGSTER handbook calls for high income-earners to keep a low community profile. Following that advice to a T, Frankie and Angie De Luca maintain an unassuming home in a modest neighborhood.

It’s nine-thirty p.m. under a dark sky as Callie approaches the residence. She knows the De Lucas dined across town with Sal, Marie, and several mob lieutenants and wives at Luigi’s, a mob-connected family restaurant. Their plans had been to finish dinner around nine, then watch the fireworks from the restaurant’s courtyard, which overlooks the Ohio River. Luigi’s isn’t the best viewing spot, since the fireworks are launched a mile away, but it’s safe, private, and the De Lucas will be there at least another forty-five minutes. Which means they’ll be gone an hour, if you include driving time.

And why wouldn’t you?

She picks the back door lock so quietly the family dog sleeps through the process.

Until Callie opens the door.

When that happens, several things occur. One. The alarm panel beeps, which tells her the De Lucas have an alarm, but failed to set it. Two. The beep is sufficiently loud to wake the bullmastiff, who goes berserk upon finding a strange woman standing in the hallway. Three. Callie leaps atop the washing machine and spends the next twenty minutes hopping back and forth between the washer and dryer as the dog snarls, lunges, jumps, and tries to eat her ankles instead of the biscuits Callie keeps tossing to the floor.

Callie didn’t know there’d be a dog, but there often is, so she came prepared. The dog biscuits contain enough synthetic opiate analgesic to render your typical canine adversary unconscious within minutes.

Dosing is simple.

Each biscuit neutralizes twenty pounds of dog. For a ten-pounder, you break the biscuit in half. The dog currently trying to maim Callie is a seven-biscuit beast.

Ten minutes of jumping tires most bullmastiffs. Twenty minutes exhausts them. When the De Luca mastiff finally hits the wall, he eats the biscuits and hits the floor with a heavy thud.

Callie races to the kitchen and searches the drawers and cabinets till she finds the burglar alarm pamphlet where she rightly assumed the De Lucas recorded their alarm code.

She tests it.

It works.

She thumbs through the pamphlet and learns how to bypass the monitoring company.

She goes to the garage, finds Angie’s keys right where she expected to: in the console tray of Angie’s car. She removes the door key and slips it in the pocket of her jeans. Then searches the house, finds Frankie’s guns, removes the bullets.

Under normal circumstances, killing Angie and Frankie would be child’s play. But Creed wants her to torture Frankie, hoping to learn something he can use to justify Frankie’s death. If, for example, Creed can prove Frankie’s been skimming money, Sal would condone the hit.

She walks back to the laundry room, sits on the floor beside the dog, and strokes his head. This is an ugly-ass dog. First time Callie’s ever seen one that’s uglier asleep than awake. While Callie isn’t opposed to killing animals, she needs a better reason than its appearance. And killing this one would take the De Lucas out of their routine. They’ll come home, expect the dog to meet them at the door enthusiastically. If it doesn’t, they’re going to be concerned. Killing and torturing people works best when you catch them by surprise, while they’re following their daily routines. The fewer variables, the better.

If killing the dog’s a poor option, not killing him is even worse. He could start barking when Callie returns later tonight. If so, Angie might call the cops. Nothing worse than trying to torture a guy while police bang on the victim’s door, demanding to enter.

If she further sedates the dog, the De Lucas will come home, find their pet unconscious. They’ll panic, and rush him to the vet.

And Callie would break into an empty house.

The dog has turned this simple killing into a complete cluster fuck.

Creed’s original idea had been for Callie to oil the doors, test the floors for sound, and sneak back in at two a.m. while the De Lucas were sleeping. She’d creep into their bedroom, kill Angie quickly, before Frankie can react. Then torture Frankie, gain the information she needs, then kill him.

Callie sighs, removes a tiny disk from her back pack, peels off the backing, and attaches it to the inside of the dog’s collar. The disk contains a miniature blasting cap and plastic explosive that can be detonated remotely from Callie’s cell phone. Press a button and Fido’s head comes clean off.

She pats his head again and says, “I hope it doesn’t come to this.”

Then she goes into the kitchen and makes herself a sandwich.