Don Pendleton - The Bone Yard

Lucy could not meet his eyes now. When she answered him her voice was soft, subdued.

"I've heard them."

"So?" He ruffled fingers through his snowy hair. "You see the horns? Smell brimstone? Lucy, every man has done some things he's not too proud of. Maybe if I had the chance to go back fifty, sixty years, I'd do some things a little differently." He hesitated, pinned her with a searching stare. "I can't go back, Luce. Nobody can. What's done is done."

"And what's about to happen?"

He frowned.

"Now you're talking riddles."

"Grandpa, there are stories, rumors... Are you planning something?"

"Something? Lucy..."

"With Frank Spinoza? Or against him... I don't know..."

His voice was on the razor's edge of anger when he spoke again.

"Who filled your head with this meshugeneh idea?"

"It doesn't matter, grandpa."

"Well... what would I do to Frank Spinoza? What could I do?"

"I'm sorry, really. I don't know."

"Forget about it, Lucy. I understand how these things sound sometimes."

"I'd better let you go. You've got your hands full here." She was having trouble keeping tears out of her voice now as she turned toward the office door. She wanted to be out of there, away from him. The destination did not matter to her, just as long as she was moving.

"You stop by any time," he told her. "And never be afraid to ask me anything, Lucy. Anything at all."

"I love you, grandpa." But she could not face him. Could not let him have the parting kiss that they had always shared from childhood.

"Lucy..."

But she was already moving, the noises of the crowded lobby closing in around her, drowning out the old man's words. The tears were in her eyes now, burning, threatening to spill across her cheeks. The ache inside her chest was so intense she felt that it might steal her breath away. He had been lying to her, with the ease of endless practice. He had been lying, start to finish. Lucy knew it in her heart, and with the knowledge came a stabbing pain that pierced her like an ice pick. There had not been a wildcat strike in Vegas for as long as Lucy could remember; they were clearing out the Gold Rush for some other reason. But why? To accommodate whom?

And what about Spinoza? Every answer dealing with the New York mafioso had been just a shade too easy somehow. None of them rang true. As if in answer to her secret thoughts, she recognized the face of Frank Spinoza across the crowded lobby.

He was standing near the main security station, deep in conversation with another man she did not recognize — until he turned sideways.

Lucy placed the profile in a single lurching heartbeat. He was one of the hoodlums who had viewed her in captivity at Minotte's and briefly listened in on her interrogation by the boss before the roof collapsed around them.

And what would he be doing with Spinoza? Were New York and Chicago joining hands somehow? And did their business help explain the sudden mass evacuation of the Gold Rush in the dead of night?

Her tears were dry as Lucy Bernstein slowed her pace, no longer heading for the exit and the crowded sidewalk now, but drifting in the general direction of Spinoza and his company. The two of them were moving toward the bank of elevators, with another pair of flashy suits in tow. Lucy fell in step a cautious distance to the rear.

Her news sense drove her now. She was determined to uncover what the man she trusted most in all the world before tonight was so determined to conceal.

She meant to follow Frank Spinoza and his trail of slime wherever they might lead, and in the end, if some of his corruption should rub off on others — on her grandfather — well, she would deal with that when she came to it.

The man had made his choice years before she was born, and he could live with it — as she would live with what she had to do that night. She had no choice.

Lucy Bernstein had a duty, and she would see it through, no matter what the cost. There was no turning back from this point even if it killed her.

And it might, she knew with sudden chilling clarity.

Abe Bernstein watched his granddaughter cross the crowded lobby, finally losing sight of her before she reached the registration desk and exit. He tried to put her out of mind but he could not dismiss her questions quite so easily.

She had been fencing with him, but why? That business with Spinoza had been too damned close for comfort, and he wondered where she heard the rumors of their troubles. No one knew the plan outside of his immediate organization. If they had a leak at this late date... Bernstein calmed himself with an effort.

He was building problems out of nothing now, he knew. She must have been uncovering bits and pieces for the series Goldblume had assigned her to the one that was supposed to break on Sunday. It was inevitable that his name would surface in the course of her inquiry — he had built the goddamned Gold Rush, after all — and he could stand the heat, the trace of accusation in her eyes where only childlike love and trust had shown before.

He hoped she was not getting too immersed in all this Mafia business. It was a fading brotherhood though Frank Spinoza did not know it yet. They needed the cover Lucy's series would provide, but it was only that. She did not have to know the ending. Abe intended to write that for himself, beginning very shortly.

He moved across the crowded lobby, smiling absentmindedly and receiving mostly hostile stares in answer. He was halfway to the wide casino concourse when a husky bellboy flagged him down, appearing to continue with his futile sweeping while they spoke.

"We're set," the bellhop told him, dark eyes scanning cautiously around the lobby.

"All right. They're due within the hour. We'll be waiting for a clear shot. No one makes a move without my word."

"You've got it." He moved along, secure that everything was ready.

The sweeper was one of Bernstein's "specials," handpicked with an eye toward ruggedness and military backround. There were forty of them on the premises this night, each one with weapons on his person or within his reach, all prepared to make their move on Bernstein's word. It was a private strike force primed for action, with Abe Bernstein's finger on the trigger.

He had taken pains in the selection of his commandos, gleaning out the best available from mercenary sources over eighteen months of careful shopping. He had supervised their training personally, hiding them among a crop of young Olympic hopefuls working out at the exclusive health spa that he owned in Southern California.

Procurement of their arms, the final honing of their lethal skills in combat situations, was accomplished in conjunction with the neo-fascist paramilitary gangs who populate the Southern California desert with their training camps and arsenals, Forty soldiers, right — each finely tuned and with a special duty to perform when Bernstein gave the signal. Teams to close the hotel off from outside access, others for the hotel wings, prepared to move from room to room until they had eliminated every Eastern gunner. More to handle any stragglers in the restaurant and lobby area, making it a clean sweep. When Bernstein gave the word, they would transform the Gold Rush briefly into the biggest morgue in town.

But not just yet.

He had to wait until the final guests were bussed away to alternate hotels, their places taken by gorillas who were circling McCarran Airport at that very moment.

When everyone was present and accounted for — the imports and Spinoza's coterie of shaky allies on the local front — then Bernstein would be ready to unleash his strike force. And he was looking forward to it with relish.

There was a great day coming for Las Vegas — and for Bernstein. He was about to do a favor on behalf of justice. Poetic justice. And it was going to be a pleasure.