House of the Rising Sun

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

Ray pulled his Mustang into a parking garage next door to Harrah’s Casino. The six-story garage was well lit and had twenty-four-hour traffic and security. He opened the trunk and tossed in Tony Zello’s leather carryall.

Glancing around the garage, Ray spotted an old couple just stepping into the elevator. He slipped Dylan Sylvester’s Smith amp; Wesson. 40 caliber down the back of his pants and covered it with his shirt.

Ray took the elevator down, walked across Canal Street, and eased into the French Quarter.

After more than a decade of interviewing suspects and witnesses, at least half of them lying to him, Ray had faith in his ability to judge if someone was telling the truth, but it had to be face-to-face. Ninety percent of communication is nonverbal. Facial expressions, body posture, hand gestures, eye movements-those are the things that give away the liar, and none of that comes through during a telephone conversation.

Interviewing someone over the telephone was like phone sex. She might sound like a twenty-two-year-old, 120-pound, blonde-haired, blue-eyed goddess, but odds were she was a fifty-year-old, 300-pound hag, with thinning hair and bad breath.

He had to talk to Vinnie face-to-face.

Ray wasn’t sure where Tony was, but he had to assume he was probably at the House. From a doorway alcove across the street and half a block away, Ray spent twenty minutes watching the front door of the House, making sure Tony wasn’t dicking around outside, greeting customers, acting like a big shot. The key to Ray’s plan was to get in and out without running into Tony.

Getting in turned out to be easier than Ray thought. He just strolled in. The new doorman, a guy Ray had never seen before but who definitely looked Italian, even opened the door for him.

Inside, the first floor was packed. On the stage, a couple of the girls were doing their oiled-up, titty-rubbing routine. No one even looked at Ray as he drifted past the bar, past the empty stool where he used to sit, and climbed the stairs. The pistol wedged into the back of his pants felt heavy.

Same thing on the second floor. From the stairwell, Ray saw the players jammed around the tables, throwing down money and chips.

On the third floor, he caught the eye of one of the girls draped across a chaise. The refurbished and resized rooms where the girls got down to work were spaced along a central hallway, but the area near the stairs was set up as a lounge. If a guy couldn’t find a girl in the strip club or casino, all he had to do was go up to the third floor and he could find one waiting for him on a love seat or reclining on a sofa. Vinnie liked to keep two or three girls there all the time.

When the girl on the chaise looked at him, Ray didn’t know what else to do, so he pressed a finger to his lips, pleading for silence. She shrugged and rolled her head back against the cushion.

On the fourth floor, Ray crept down the hall to the sitting area outside Vinnie’s apartment. A leather couch and two wingback chairs were arranged around a coffee table. Ray checked his watch. Five minutes past midnight. Vinnie wasn’t much of a night owl, so the odds were good that he was tucked in for the night, with or without the missus, depending on whether it was bridge night.

The door to Vinnie’s suite was solid, made of dark wood, and heavy, the kind normally found on the exterior of a house. An old-fashioned brass knocker was centered just below the peephole. Ray glanced around the sitting area, hoping for some inspiration, some idea how to get the door open. Knocking was out of the question. Even if Vinnie didn’t know about his brother yet, as soon as he saw Ray standing outside his door, he would at least call Tony, or, at the very least, if Tony was out, summon a couple of muscle heads up to put the grab on Ray until he could find Tony.

No inspiration came. Ray thought about the lock-picking kit he used to carry around in his briefcase. He had carried it for years, maybe used it twice. Now that he really needed it, he couldn’t remember what he had done with it. When you get arrested, denied bond, then later sent to prison, your possessions seem to have a way of disappearing.

He raised his foot and kicked. The door flew open. Whoever had remodeled the place had hung the heavy door on the hotel’s original door frame. The cheap wooden jamb splintered as the lock’s strike plate tore through it.

Ray had been in Vinnie’s penthouse before and rushed straight into the bedroom. In the light that spilled from the open bathroom door, Ray saw Vinnie sitting up in bed, eyes wide, wearing a just-woken-up-in-the-middle-of-the-night look on his face. The spot next to him was empty.

Ray held both hands out and open, imploring Vinnie to stay put. He left the Smith amp; Wesson tucked against his back. Last time he had pulled it out things hadn’t gone so well. “Where’s your wife?”

Vinnie glanced at the spot beside him. “Playing bridge,” he said, not fully awake enough yet to demand what Ray was doing breaking into his house in the middle of the night.

“I’m just here to talk, Vinnie. All I’m asking for is two minutes.”

Vinnie tensed and shot a glance at the nightstand beside him. There was a telephone on top. Below that a single drawer. Ray didn’t think it was the telephone Vinnie was thinking about grabbing.

“Vinnie, I have a gun, so if you’re thinking about reaching into that drawer for a piece, don’t. You’re not going to make it.” Ray waved his open hands back and forth. “I just want to talk.”

Vinnie was old, fat, and slow. He looked toward the nightstand one more time, then sighed. He slouched against the headboard and looked up at Ray. “So talk.”

Ray backed up and dropped into a chair that sat next to the wall, just inside the bedroom door. From Vinnie’s point of view, having a man towering over you while you sat in your bed wearing a pair of silk pajamas had to be intimidating. Ray didn’t want to intimidate him. He really did just want to talk. He wanted to find out the truth.

“I didn’t kill your son,” Ray said.

Vinnie didn’t respond, just stared across the room at Ray with a pair of sad eyes.

Ray went on. “But I’ve got to ask you something.”

“What?”

“Why was there so much money in the counting room that night?”

“I gave you a job when you got out. I paid you good money. I even trusted you.”

“Vinnie, I didn’t do it. If I did, I wouldn’t be here right now. I’d have taken the money and disappeared.”

Vinnie folded his hands across his paunch. “Tony warned me about-”

“Fuck Tony! He’s the reason I’m in this mess.”

“What do you mean?”

“Why was there so much money in the counting room?”

Ray watched Vinnie’s eyes. They moved up and to Vinnie’s left, the analytical side of the brain, searching for a memory; not toward the right side, the creative side, the side where lies came from. It was something Ray had learned in interview and interrogation class.

Vinnie said, “This year Halloween fell on a Friday. We figured we would get real busy. We were right.”

“Whose idea was that?”

Again, Vinnie’s eyes cut up to his left as he pulled down a memory. “Tony said we needed extra cash.”

Bingo.

“Tony’s the one who set this up. He’s the one who got your boy killed.”

“Bullshit,” Vinnie barked. His eyes cut to the nightstand drawer.

“Think about it, Vinnie. Who was it who was really doing the pushing to have me work this thing?” Ray was guessing, but he could tell by the way Vinnie’s face changed that he was guessing right. “When we thought Hector might know something, Tony shot him. When I started tracking down the four gunmen, they all turned up dead before I could get to them.” Except for Dylan Sylvester. He wasn’t dead before I got to him, but that’s another story. “What you said was right, you gave me a job and you pay me well. I got no complaints, and I got no reason to violate your trust.”

Vinnie stared straight ahead. His face soft. He was thinking about it. “The money is reason enough,” he mumbled, but it sounded more like a reflex. “Everybody needs money.”

Ray thought about something Tony had said, Vinnie couldn’t afford to buy a grilled cheese sandwich. Telling him about Vinnie’s financial problems. “Tony set it up so it looked like I did it, and then he led me around by the nose until he had me thinking it was you.”

“Me!”

“He told me Pete’s school was tapping you out. That and your wife’s shopping. You were basically broke.”

“Tony’s been telling me it was you who set it up and got my son killed.”

“He told me it was your decision to have so much money that night.”

“That’s bullshit.”

“And whose idea was it to skip a couple of pickups?” “Tony said picking up bags of cash with so many people in the club was too tempting, like asking for trouble. So we cut back some that night.”

“Which left a lot more in the counting room.”

Vinnie nodded.

Ray said, “He was planning to put it off on both of us.”

“Why would he do that?”

Ray wondered if Vinnie could really be so stupid that he didn’t see the ambitious fuck he had working for him. “He wants to run the House. At least that’s what he wants right now, no telling what he’s going to want later.”

“Tony is family.” Vinnie voiced the words, but the conviction in them was absent.

Ray glanced at the empty spot in the bed beside Vinnie.

“You said your wife was playing bridge?”

Vinnie nodded. “Twice a week.”

“That’s a lot of bridge.”

“What do you mean?” Vinnie’s voice was low and defensive.

Ray glanced at the telephone on the nightstand and thought about the carnage at the Old Man’s cabin. Any minute that phone could ring. He didn’t want to be here when Vinnie got the word his brother was dead. “I have to go, Vinnie.”

“Where the fuck you going?”

Ray was sure Vinnie was telling the truth. Tony had duped Vinnie just like he had duped Ray.

Now Ray had to get out of here. If he could lie low until the news broke about Carlos and Priscilla, and once the cops started hunting Tony down for murder, Ray could resurface. He could hand Tony’s bag full of money to Vinnie and say he found it at Dylan Sylvester’s apartment. Vinnie wasn’t going to look too closely at the logic of Tony leaving the money with a tweaked-out stickup man, not when Vinnie had all the money back in his hands, not when he was the last man standing and the new boss of New Orleans.

But first Ray had to get out of here and disappear, just for a few hours, until the storm out on Lake Catherine blew over. “I think I can get the money back,” Ray said.

Vinnie’s eyes narrowed with suspicion. “How?”

Ray looked at his watch. It was almost twelve thirty. “Give me until noon.”

“Why?”

“Just trust me.”

Vinnie glanced at the nightstand, but Ray couldn’t tell if he was looking at the phone or thinking about going for the gun in the drawer.

“Vinnie?”

Vinnie looked up. “You sure about this, Ray?”

“You’ll hear from me by noon. I give you my word.”

Vinnie shook his head. “I’m talking about Tony.”

Ray nodded. “I’m sure.”

“I treated him like my fucking blood, like my own… better than I did my own son.”

Behind Ray, Tony Zello said, “I have to admit I underestimated you, Shane.”

Ray spun around. Tony stepped into the bedroom, his five-shot. 38 aimed at Ray’s face. He pressed the muzzle against Ray’s forehead and patted him down. He pulled the Smith amp; Wesson. 40 from behind Ray’s back.

“Tony, what the fuck is going on here?” Vinnie said.

Tony hefted the big Smith amp; Wesson in his left hand. “What’s that term the government uses, regime change? ” Casually, Tony extended the stainless-steel automatic and shot Vinnie in the face. Blood and brains splattered the far wall.

“Carlos is going to be devastated when he finds out you murdered his brother,” Tony said, screwing the muzzle of his. 38 tighter against Ray’s forehead. “But then again they weren’t all that close anyway. And he’ll be glad to hear that I got here just a few seconds later and put a bullet in your head.”

Ray chopped Tony’s right wrist with the edge of his hand. The. 38 popped loose. Ray locked both hands around Tony’s left wrist. Tony raised the Smith amp; Wesson, but Ray kept the muzzle away. Tony squeezed the trigger. The big gun exploded a foot from Ray’s head. Ray slammed his forehead into Tony’s face. The Smith amp; Wesson clattered to the floor.

Ray locked eyes with Tony. Then he drove his fist into Tony’s nose. Tony fell like a sack of wet cement. After he hit the ground he didn’t move. Ray reached for the Smith amp; Wesson. Then he stopped, his hand just a few inches from it. Tony’s fingerprints were on that gun. An idea popped into Ray’s head. He picked up the. 38 and shoved it into his pocket. Then he turned to the bed.

Vinnie lay sprawled on his back. The bullet had hit him just below his left eye. Under his hair the back of his head was misshapen where the high-velocity. 40-caliber bullet had blown out the back of his skull. Vinnie’s silk pajamas and the silk sheets under him were awash with blood.

Ray grabbed the nearest pillow. There were only a few spots of blood on it. He pulled off the silk case. Then he reached his hand through the case and held it over the Smith. 40. Using the pillowcase as a glove he picked up the automatic. Then he reversed the case, pulling the gun back through the opening and leaving the big pistol at the bottom of the pillowcase as if it were at the bottom of a sack.

Tony groaned.

Ray kicked him in the head.

Tony went back to sleep.

Ray stepped into the hallway carrying the pillowcase with the Smith amp; Wesson. Joey and Rocco were bounding out of the stairwell. They saw Ray and started lumbering toward him. Ray jerked Tony’s. 38 from his pocket and fired a wild shot at them. The two muscle heads dove for cover. Joey came up with a gun and fired back. Ray emptied the. 38 at them and bolted for the fire exit a few feet away at the end of the hall.

He threw open the heavy door and stepped out onto the metal fire escape landing. A rusted metal ladder ran up the side of the building. That ladder was how Ray climbed to the roof every morning to catch the sunrise. But this time he needed to go down.

Ray dropped the. 38 and stuffed the pillowcase containing the Smith. 40 into his waistband. He swung onto the ladder and scampered down two floors to the second-floor landing. The ladder ended there. Rust marks against the brick wall showed where the fire escape had once gone all the way to the ground. Ray peered over the metal railing. It was a ten-foot drop to the alley below.

A nearby metal drain spout ran from the roof to the ground. Ray climbed over the railing and leaned toward the drain spout. The spout was secured to the brick by thin metal bands screwed into the wall every five or six feet. The drain spout and the bands and screws holding it to the wall were covered with rust.

Ray grabbed hold of the spout with both hands. He braced one foot against the wall and swung away from the landing. His fingers almost slipped away from the sides of the square metal spout, but he held on. Tentatively, he took one step down. Then another. He shuffled his feet down the wall and worked his hands one over the other toward the ground. Halfway down, his right foot slipped and his knee banged against the bricks. He lost his grip and fell.

Ray landed on a metal trash can. He bounced off, did a half roll, and flopped onto the filthy alley floor, his ribs screaming in pain.

He pulled himself to his feet. He looked up at the fire escape. The fourth-floor landing was empty. The door still closed. Joey and Rocco had by now probably discovered Tony on the floor and Vinnie lying dead in his PJs. The two steroid guzzlers weren’t very adaptable. They would have to wait for Tony to come around and ask him what to do.

In the meantime, Ray had to get the fuck out of here. He limped out of the alley and turned toward Canal Street.

There was a pay phone on the ground floor of the parking garage next to the elevator. Ray picked up the receiver and dropped in a quarter. He called directory assistance. Once he got the number he wanted, the computer connected him automatically.

After a couple of rings a recorded voice thanked him for calling American Airlines. Ray pressed zero until a live ticket agent came on the line. He booked a flight and told the agent he would pay at the counter when he checked in.

“If you would like to put the ticket on your credit card, we can hold the seat for you,” the female ticket agent said.

“I’m paying with cash.”

“Oh,” she said. Airlines didn’t like dealing with cash. In a post-9/11 world, people buying last-minute tickets for cash were suspicious. Something Ray was counting on.

After nearly a minute of computer keyboard tapping, the ticket agent said, “To confirm, sir, I have you booked one way, departing New Orleans tomorrow at 1:25 PM, arriving in Miami at 4:10 PM. Would you like the confirmation number?”

“I don’t have a pen with me,” Ray said.

“Then is there anything else I can help you with?”

“No, that’s all.”

“Well, thank you for choosing American Airlines, and I hope you have a pleasant flight, Mr. Zello.”