The Collectors

Chapter 60

He woke, stretched, turned over and gazed out the window. The weather today was just like it had been yesterday. Sunny and beautiful with an ocean breeze apparently designed solely to inspire contentment in all it touched. He got up, wrapped a sheet around his waist and strolled to the window. Situated on several acres of land that included a sandy beach pounded by the ocean, the villa was his, at least for a year, the length of the lease, but he was thinking about buying it outright. The isolated estate boasted a saltwater infinity swimming pool, a wine cellar, a tennis court and a cabana with a daybed that was useful for more than drying out after a dip, for he seldom swam alone or with a bathing suit on. In the two-car garage sat a Maserati coupé and a Ducati for his driving pleasure. A cook, maid and gardener came with the place for less money than he’d paid in condo fees back in L.A. He drew a deep breath and knew he could spend the rest of his life here.

He hadn’t exactly followed Annabelle’s instructions about not flashing the cash, but this place had been immediately available for someone with the money. He’d actually seen the listing on the Internet before they’d done the scam but after Annabelle had told them they stood to make millions. It was never too early to plan for such a large purchase. And once he had leased the house, he had to have the toys that went with it. He wasn’t worried about Bagger finding him. The guy had never even seen him. And there were lots of rich, young people around this part of the world. He was cool. In fact, he was great.

Tony heard her coming up the stone stairs and retreated back to his bed, letting the sheet fall away. When she opened the door, he saw that she carried a tray with his breakfast only. It was funny; she’d slept with him after the second night but wouldn’t eat breakfast with him. It probably had to do with her being the maid.

“Dos huevos, jugo de naranja, tostada y café con leche,” she said. Her Spanish accent was pleasantly lyrical.

“And you.” He smiled, pulling her to him after she had set the tray down on the table next to the bed. She kissed him on the lips and let him slip off her strapless nightie, which was all she happened to be wearing. He traced the finely developed muscles in her long brown neck, stroked her large breasts, moved his hand down her flat belly and then went lower still.

“Tu no tienes hambre?” she cooed, rubbing her bare leg against his and nuzzling his neck with her lips.

“Hambre for you,” he said, nibbling her ear.

He scooted around and let her fall back on the bed. He took one of her shapely legs in each of his arms and stood poised between her thighs. She licked her fingers and then squeezed her breasts.

“Damn, you drive me loco, Carmela!” he said.

She lunged forward, grabbed him by the shoulders and pulled him down on her.

The door smashing back against the wall made the couple forget about screwing before breakfast.

Four big men came in, trailed by a smaller broad-shouldered fellow wearing a two-piece suit and open-collared shirt and sporting a devilish look of triumph.

Jerry Bagger said, “Hey, Tony, nice place you got here. I really like it. It’s amazing what you can buy with someone else’s money, ain’t it?”

He sat down on the bed as the terrified Carmela tried to cover herself with the sheet.

“Hey, honey, you don’t have to do that,” Bagger said. “You’re really pretty, how do you say, bonita! That’s right. Muy bonita, bitch.” He motioned to one of his men. This gent picked up Carmela, carried her over to the open window and tossed the lady out.

They all listened to one long scream and then a thud.

Bagger picked up the glass of orange juice on the tray and drank it down in one long gulp. He wiped his mouth with a napkin and said, “I drink orange juice every day. You know why? It’s got a ton of calcium. I’m sixty-six, but do I look it? Hell no! Feel this muscle, Tony, go ahead and feel it.” Bagger flexed his right biceps. Tony, however, seemed paralyzed.

Bagger feigned surprise. “Why so upset? Oh, because of the bitch going out the window? Don’t worry about that.” He looked at the man who’d done the tossing. “Hey, Mike, you aimed for the swimming pool, right, like in that James Bond movie? Which one was that again?”

“Diamonds Are Forever, Mr. Bagger,” Mike said promptly.

Bagger smiled. “That’s right, Diamonds Are Forever. Damn, I love that James Bond shit. That’s the one with what’s-her-name in the teeny bikini where you can see her butt crack. Stephanie Powers?”

“Jill St. John, Mr. Bagger,” Mike corrected politely.

“Right, right, I always get those two broads mixed up. Bitches look just alike when they ain’t got nothing on. Go figure.”

“I didn’t quite make the pool with the lady, Mr. Bagger,” Mike admitted.

“But you tried, Mike, you tried, that’s the important thing.” He turned back to Tony. “That’s the most important thing, right, Tony?”

Tony was obviously too horrified to speak.

“Besides, it’s better this way, because the two old folks downstairs? You’re not gonna believe this, they just keeled over and died when we walked in. And there’s no way a pretty little thing like that bonita bitch could’ve kept up a big place like this all by herself. I look at it as a favor what we did, don’t you, Tony?”

Tony nodded with great difficulty.

“Now feel my muscle. I want you to feel the strength I got in this body.”

Not waiting for Tony to take the initiative, Bagger grabbed his hand and pulled it over to his flexed biceps. “You feel how hard that is, Tony? Do you understand how strong I am now? You got a real good sense of that?”

Tony wailed, “Please don’t kill me, Mr. Bagger. Please. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

Bagger gave Tony’s fingers a crushing grip and let them go. “Come on, don’t do that, apologies make a man look weak. Besides, it was a great scam, really first-rate. Everybody in the whole gambling world knows that you guys put one over on my ass to the tune of forty mil.” Bagger looked away and drew a deep, calming breath, apparently trying hard to keep from dismembering the young man with his bare hands, at least for a few more minutes.

“But first, let’s get one important thing squared away. I want you to ask me how I found you. I want you to know how smart I am and how fucking dumb you are. So ask me, Tony, how did I track you down, with all the places you could’ve gone in the whole freaking world after ripping me off?” Bagger grabbed ahold of Tony’s slender neck and jerked him close. “Ask me, you little prick.” A vein throbbed in Bagger’s temple.

Tony said haltingly, “How did you find me, Mr. Bagger?”

Bagger slammed a forearm into Tony’s shallow chest, knocking him back against the bed. Then the casino chief stood and paced. “I’m glad you asked me that. See, the bitch who ran the scam, she had you watching me that first night to make it look like I was under surveillance. Now, the only way to look into my office is to get a room on the twenty-third floor of the hotel across from my casino. So I go over there and make some inquiries about who occupied any rooms on that floor on that day that looked out onto my place. And I checked out every single person on that list.”

He stopped pacing and grinned at Tony. “Until I found you. You were smart not to use your own name at the hotel, but you made a slip that the bitch and her sidekick didn’t. That’s why I couldn’t track them down, ’cause they left nothing behind.” Bagger wagged a finger at him. “But you, you went and got a massage, because I checked on that. And you hit on the chick that gave you the rubdown, looking for a little action on the side. But you didn’t last too long with the lady and then ran into the bathroom to puke your guts out. While you were in there the bitch rolled your wallet and took some cash to add to the lousy C-note you gave her for popping early. And that’s where she saw the driver’s license with your real name. It was pretty dumb to keep it in there, Tony.

“So while you thought the BJ only cost you a hundred bucks, you can see the price tag really turned out to be a whole lot more. And the lowlife told me everything I needed to know for a lousy grand. Don’t ever trust the bitches, Tony, they’ll screw you every time, and don’t I know it.”

He sat back down next to Tony, who was now quietly sobbing. “You got a rep, young man. Gadget boy, do anything with a computer. Like putting spy shit on my bank wiring system and stealing forty million of my money. I mean, that’s talent. So anyway, I greased a lot of palms, checked your friends, your family, traced some calls you made back home, killed a few uncooperative people, and now I find myself sitting here with you on the sunny coast of Spain or fucking Portugal or wherever the hell we are.” He slapped Tony’s bare leg.

“Okay, good, now I got that off my chest, we can move on.” He motioned to one of his men, who pulled a compact pistol out of his jacket holster, spun a suppressor on the muzzle, chambered a round and handed it to Bagger.

“No, please, no,” Tony whimpered before Bagger silenced him by jamming the pistol in the young man’s mouth, breaking his two front teeth in the process.

Bagger wedged a forearm against Tony’s windpipe, holding him down on the bed and sliding his finger near the trigger.

“Okay, Tony boy, here’s the drill. You get one chance at this. One chance,” he repeated slowly. “And it’s only because I feel generous. Why, I don’t know. Maybe I’m mellowing in my old age.” He paused, licked his lips and said, “The bitch. I want her name and everything else you know about her. You tell me that, you get to live.” He looked around the cavernous bedroom. “Not here, not on my dime. But you get to live. You don’t tell me, well?” Bagger abruptly slid the pistol out of Tony’s mouth, its muzzle covered in his blood and bits of teeth. “Oh, you thought I was just going to shoot you?” Bagger laughed. “No, no, that’s not how this works. That’s way too fast.” He gave the gun to another man and held out his hand. Mike slapped a serrated knife into his palm.

“We do this stuff slow, and we have lots of practice.” Bagger held out his other hand, and another of his men slipped a plastic glove on it.

Bagger continued, “You didn’t used to have to do this glove stuff except because of fingerprints. But now what with all the diseases and crap everywhere, you can’t take chances. I mean like the bonita bitch, how do you know she wasn’t bonking every muchacho in town before you started banging her ripe ass? I hope you were at least wearing a rubber.”

Bagger reached his gloved hand down, grabbed Tony’s crotch and pulled hard.

Tony screamed in agony, but the other men held him down. Bagger studied Tony’s private parts and said, “Frankly, I don’t understand what bonita saw in you.” He raised the knife up. “Okay, the bitch’s name, where my money is and everything else. Then you get to live. Otherwise, I start with your balls, and then it gets really painful after that. What’s it gonna be, Tony? You got five seconds. And once I start cutting, I don’t stop for nothing.”

Tony made a sound.

“What was that? I didn’t quite get it.”

“A-Ann—”

“Speak the hell up, you little asshole, my hearing’s not that great.”

“Annabelle!” he screamed.

“Annabelle? Annabelle who?” Bagger yelled so hard, spit flew out of his mouth.

“Annabelle... Conroy. Paddy Conroy’s daughter.”

Bagger slowly lowered the knife and let go of Tony’s privates. He handed the blade to one of his men and stripped off the glove. Jerry Bagger stood and walked over to the window and looked out. His gaze didn’t even linger for a second on the dead Carmela, who’d landed flush on an ornate stone lion positioned next to the back door. Instead, he stared out at the ocean.

Annabelle Conroy? He’d never even known Paddy had a kid. Yet now it started to make sense. Paddy Conroy’s little girl had been in his casino, in his office, played him like a fool and screwed him out of far more than her old man ever had.

Okay, Annabelle, I did your mama, now it’s your turn.

He cracked his knuckles, turned back around and looked at bloody-mouthed Tony lying there on the bed weeping, a hand over his privates.

“What else?” he said. “Everything. And you get to keep breathing.”

And Tony told him, finishing up with Annabelle’s instructions on keeping a low profile and not spending his money all in one place.

Bagger said, “Well, you should’ve listened to the woman.” He snapped his fingers. “Okay, guys, get to it. We don’t have all day.”

One of the men opened a black case he’d brought with him. Inside were four baseball bats. He handed three to the other men and kept one for himself.

As they raised the bats overhead, Tony shrieked. “But you said if I told you, you’d let me live. You said so.”

Bagger shrugged. “That’s right. And after the boys finish with you, you’ll still be alive. Barely. Jerry Bagger is a man of his word.”

As he walked out, he heard the first blow land, breaking Tony’s right knee. Bagger started whistling, closed the door to muffle the screams and went downstairs for a cup of coffee.