Клэр Донелли - Catch As Cat Can

Val didn’t give him a chance to speak. “Considering all the trouble I’ve kept your sorry butt out of, I think it’s really lousy that you decided to play me.”

“P-p-play you?” Neil echoed, somehow maintaining that phony smile.

“Look, Neil, keeping up the dumb act is only going to make me angrier with you,” Val told him. “We’ve figured out the little scam you had going with Charlie Vane—the guns going to Canada.”

That wiped the last traces of a smile off Neil’s face. “I—we—it was—”

He sounds even worse than he did trying to sell those skate wings to that woman, Sunny thought.

“Just tell it straight, and don’t insult our intelligence.” Will spoke over Neil’s babbling.

For a second, Neil seemed to develop a slow leak. His shoulders slumped, his head went down, his gaze drifted to his feet. “I put every dime I had into the shop, and it wasn’t enough,” he said quietly. “I just didn’t figure on how expensive things would be. And how could I raise any cash? The ways I knew how to make money were closed to me.”

He shook his head. “Then I remembered this guy who’d been in the joint with me, Gino Lodestro—they used to drive him crazy, calling him G-Lo for short. He used to tell me the stock market was nothing compared to the gun market.”

“Like making ten times the original price in a single transaction,” Sunny said.

Neil spread his hands. “That’s what Gino said. He used to run guns across the border into British Columbia. But then he headed east, working for one of the old-style families in Montreal. I managed to track him down, gave him a call. He took the cream off the top—offered six times the price so he’d make a handsome profit. All I needed was a way to get the guns to him. Charlie Vane had been moaning about money ever since I met him, so I put the proposition to him. We’d go in fifty-fifty. I scraped together every cent I could and gave it to him. He took care of the buying, going to gun shows. That’s something I couldn’t do. We packed the merchandise in waterproof containers, and Charlie took them for a boat ride.”

“Where was the transfer made?” Will asked.

“A cove somewhere in Nova Scotia,” Neil replied. “Gino had a van waiting, took the whole delivery, Charlie got the cash, and he brought it in with a load of fish. It was supposed to be a one-time thing, to get us back on our feet. Then Deke Sweeney dropped the hammer on us, banning us from the Portsmouth market. Money got tight pretty fast. And when Phil Treibholz showed up . . .” Neil took a deep breath.

“I gave him everything I had left, but it wasn’t enough. Treibholz wanted more. That’s when he went after your cat, Sunny, to show he meant business. I took Charlie Vane out to breakfast, suggested we try another load. He told me no way, just the one time had been too dangerous. He could lose his boat and put his boy in jail. So I had to try and find some other way to raise the money.”

He glanced at Sunny, but she kept quiet. No need to bring Dani and Olek into this, she decided.

“So how did you feel when you heard about Vane getting killed—with a house full of guns?” Val asked.

Neil looked as if he’d just taken a bite of something vile. “I realized he’d been playing me. He must have made a deal of his own with Gino, probably even hauled a couple of shipments without me even knowing. When I think how he gave me this pious song and dance, all the time screwing me over—”

“You could have killed him, huh?” Will said.

Neil’s eyes snapped in Will’s direction. “No, that’s not what I meant,” he said quickly. “I never killed Charlie—or Treibholz. When Phil turned up dead, I figured maybe somebody trailed him from California, and I sweated bullets. Then Charlie got it, and I wondered if it involved our deal with Gino. When I set things up, I got a burner phone and did a little traveling. I didn’t want things to trace back to here, so I gave Gino the impression that I was in Boston.”

“But Charlie Vane may not have been so careful,” Sunny said.

“Maybe not,” Neil admitted. “When Charlie got shot and I realized what was going on, I tried to get hold of Gino. But his number keeps going to voice mail.”

“Not a good sign,” Sunny said.

“Does the name Yancey Kilbane mean anything to you?” Will asked.

Neil shook his head. “Who is he?”

“He’s an enforcer for one of the biker gangs running guns across the border. We think he’s the one who dealt with Treibholz and Vane—and you’re next on his hit parade.” Val thumped Neil’s chest with a forefinger. “Get your go bag. I’m pulling you out of here.”

“But my store—my money,” Neil protested.

“You won’t enjoy either if you’re dead.” Val turned away, got out her cell phone, and hit something on speed dial. “Get your bag,” she told Neil, glancing over her shoulder.

Neil slouched away while Val identified herself over the phone. “I need a pickup, and someplace safe to keep a witness,” she said. The arrangements were made by the time Neil returned with a small travel bag. “We’ve got a quiet place where you can lie low until local law resolves this thing with Yancey Kilbane,” Val told him. “Depending on the results of that, we make a decision as to whether you stay in this area.”

Sunny and Will stayed with Val and Neil until a big SUV came grinding up the gravel path. A pair of men were aboard, and the driver got out, holding up his marshal’s star as he advanced toward the house.

“You Overton?” he asked Val. She produced her own badge. “I’m Kirby, and that’s McDonagh in the passenger seat. Where’s our customer?”

Neil bent and picked up his bag.

“I’ll be riding with you,” Val said. She turned to Will and Sunny. “Well, this has been an exciting evening, but I’ve got work to do.”

Will nodded. “So do I—after I get Sunny home.”

Sunny fought back a yawn. Wouldn’t look good, with all the forces of law and order set to start marching, she thought.

They watched the SUV disappear into the night and then climbed into Will’s pickup. “So what are you going to do?” she asked.

“I’m going to bring in Yancey Kilbane,” Will replied.

“Alone?” Sunny couldn’t keep the worry out of her voice.

“No, this is too important,” Will said. “I’ll arrange for backup.” He sighed. “Even though it means going through the chain of command.”

“Is that such a bad thing?”

“It will take time, and I have a feeling the clock started ticking the moment we walked into O’Dowd’s.” Will frowned. “It’s not a good feeling.”

“Well, Neil is safe,” Sunny pointed out. “Val just spirited him off to the proverbial undisclosed location.”

“She did her part,” Will agreed. “Catching Kilbane is mine. And the longer we wait, the more chance he realizes we’re on to him and disappears.”

He drove Sunny home and kissed her good night—good morning by that point—but she could tell he was distracted. “You know where I’ll be tomorrow,” she told him. “Let me know how it’s going, okay?”

Will nodded and drove off. Sunny turned to open the door and sneak inside—and encountered an accusing pair of gold-flecked gray eyes.

“Sorry, buddy,” she whispered, leaning down to scoop Shadow up. “Things happened.”

Shadow’s nose wrinkled and he wriggled out of her arms, landing on all four feet and stalking off, his tail lashing.

Guess I still have a good whiff of O’Dowd’s all over me, Sunny thought. That counts as two strikes to Shadow.

She crept upstairs and took a quick shower, mainly to get the stink of cigarette smoke out of her hair. As she sat on the edge of the bed in her pajamas, a towel wrapped turban fashion around her head, Shadow shouldered the bedroom door a little farther open and came in, making a big production out of sniffing all around her.