Cat In A Zebra Zoot Suit

45

Last Acts

The day after the night he’d stormed Electra’s new building, been released by Molina to make his midnight radio show just in time, and had come home to Temple’s place for a fervent and fevered reunion after they’d had a double dose of the aphrodisiac of danger, Matt stood in a small lot near a busy, cheesy Vegas corner staring at a motley assortment of older-model cars.

He’d lived such a straight and narrow life as a priest he had mounted up few regrets. Maybe not strangling Cliff Effinger was still one of them, given how deeply the man had impacted his, and also Temple’s, life even after his nasty end.

Now he regretted sacrificing Electra’s Probe to storming her new building’s front doors. A sincere regret, but one also selfish. Now he had to buy a replacement car for undercover work, ASAP, and be discreet about it. He’d never had a father to teach him to drive or to buy a car.

There’d been nothing for it but to call the man standing next to him, a man less than ten years older. When he’d reached Rafi Nadir at the Goliath Hotel, he hadn’t known how to describe what he needed.

“Hey,” Rafi had responded jovially. “What you need, my man, is a Tote-the-Note place. What kind of credit can you come up with?”

“Solid.”

“Or better yet. Cash?”

“How much?”

“You’re the wheeler-dealer. Tell me.”

“I was a priest for many years. I saved the little I earned.”

“Priest? You’re not doing badly with the redhead for all that.” Before Matt could take offense, Rafi said, “Sorry. I’ve run into some Catholic chicks in my time. Okay. Grab a cool five grand cash in small enough bills to haggle with, and meet me where I tell you. Four p.m. I’m on night shift. I’ll pick you up.”

“Uh, thanks. I think. Last time you picked me up was kind of a downer.”

Rafi chuckled. “Don’t worry. We’re going to enjoy this.”

Rafi had been optimistic. Rafi had enjoyed it. They had played good cop/bad cop—guess who was which ?—and Matt left in a 2001 gray Chevy Impala LS, rear spoiler, dickered down to thirty-nine hundred and ninety-five.

“It’s sort of dull,” Matt had told Rafi while the papers were being processed.

“That’s the idea. Be unnoticeable.”

So Matt drove his new old car to Woodrow Wetherly’s place, learning the vintage dashboard layout as he went.

This was a different encounter. Now Matt had seen what had been in the trunk of the beater car that had gone from Wetherly’s place into the desert and back.

The car and the trunk that had been waiting outside Electra’s hulking new building…

…while the lethal chandelier had emitted its last rays of electrified light before being later disconnected, disassembled, and taken away, like Leon Nemo, Punch Adcock and Katt Zydeco.

…while Matt had seen the driver he’d followed to Red Rock Canyon and back finally leave the Chevy and slip around to the back of the building.

…when Matt had left the Probe carrying its jack and sneaked up to the Chevy trunk to find out what buried desert treasure occupied its trunk. He’d hardly needed the jack to break in, the locking mechanism was so flimsy.

He had been braced for bones.

What he saw in the dim light from the street lamp was worse.

When he’d pulled off the bulky canvas covering, he’d found the bulky, battered old 35-pound jackhammer powering a long thick chisel spike, its angular steel pointed like a pencil that had been sharpened by a razor knife. The metal body was spotted with dark gouts of red paint.

A.k.a. blood.

Mobster Giaccomo Petrocelli. Jack the Hammer. So named for jack-hammering people to death.

A legend long dead, but not forgotten.

And his favorite murder weapon retrieved to murder again.

Then Matt saw the headlights of a fleet of silent oncoming cars, obviously Fontana Inc., and decided to bust the Probe into the building…now!

That was last night. This was tonight. So here was Matt, where he did not want to be, but had to be.

“You know,” the old guy said, leaning back into his big, battered recliner. “The time has come to talk of many things.”

Matt felt like the Walrus strolling down the path with the Carpenter toward some innocent oysters. Rightfully. Who would eat whom?

“Yes, my young friend. Kid. Sonny boy. I suspect you are on the verge of knowing too much. Your Midnight Hour may be closer than you think.”

“I do think that myself,” Matt said.

“And yet you came back. You’re beginning to interest me again. I admit you could have your uses. ‘Call me irresponsible’,” he crooned in a raw croak. And cackled. “I always did love Sinatra. And I don’t think your foolish alibis will bore me.”

“Is that the next line of the song?” Matt asked.

“Maybe. Depends on you if there is a next line to the song.”