Кэрол Дуглас - Cat In An Alphabet Endgame

He suspected Max Kinsella was out there somewhere, following his own star, but Max had his own problems, as always. Matt knew from Temple that loner Max realized he needed help patching his family fissures together and pinned his hopes, for the first time, on someone other than himself. Temple and/or him. Rewarding as that concession was, Matt had bigger sharks to fend off.

He needed to figure out Woody’s game, to explore those seventies local crime connections neither Max Kinsella nor Carmen Molina would have a clue about. He needed slightly shady savvy and major muscle.

So. Matt showed up at Gangsters custom limo rides and signed up for a solitary tour to Red Rock Canyon.

Of course, there wasn’t a Fontana brother who didn’t know who he was.

Ralph was on booking duty, single earring, probably a green garnet, winking at him. “Certainly, Mr. Devine. Will that be a party of two?”

“One.”

Surprised at the imminent bridegroom’s solitary order, Ralph, (the clan had apparently run out of Italian first names at one point) asked, “Custom limo style?”

“Something…Al Capone. But not with a snub-nosed, midnight-black Chicago aggressiveness. I’d like a softly lethal desert vibe.”

Ralph cleared his throat. “Platinum Gray Ghost. And the preferred driver?”

“Aldo.”

Ralph paused.

“I realize he’s finally married and semi-retired.”

“Mr. Devine,” Ralph rebuked him. “One can never retire from being a Fontana brother. We are Family, and you are soon to become so too.”

Matt nodded. Mob types are not over talkative.

A cell phone was used. A back-turned, hushed tone employed.

“When would be convenient?” Ralph asked over his shoulder.

“This is serious,” Matt said. “Now.”

Ralph pulled on his pierced ear and again muttered into his cell phone. Then he excused himself to go into the front office.

He emerged a couple minutes later to offer Matt a tall glass with silver rings embedded around the top half and a crimson Bloody Mary inside. Matt accepted it gratefully.

The Gray Ghost was a beauty, as pristine as in her nineteen-thirties heyday. The long, high vehicle pulled up before Matt had sipped down to the second silver ring.

Aldo stepped out of the driver’s side, tall and tailored and tan and lovely like the Guy from Ipanema as opposed to the girl on the beach in the old song. He opened the driver’s seat passenger door.

“We’re soon to be related,” Aldo said, “in some fashion far more complicated than guys know how to calculate. My wife’s niece is soon to become your wife. Women keep better track of that, or so my very precise wife, Kit, tells me. I assume this is a private conversation between us guys. Welcome to the Family. Hop in.”

Matt breathed a deep sigh of relief.

Aldo flashed him an ice-pick-sharp look. “That bad.”

“That bad.”

Matt had Aldo drive out on County Road 215 West through Spring Valley, Summerlin South, and then empty desert toward Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area. He savored the strong, spicy Bloody Mary as his eyes scoured the monotonous desert terrain of sand and sagebrush to the east as they neared the park’s scenic drive turnoff.

Ironically, glancing west, he spotted the white gown and black-and-white formal attire of a bridal couple, who looked the size of a wedding cake topper, taking photographs against the magnificent rusty-red rock towers bristling on the western horizon.

He finally spotted the landmark he wanted, a biggish bland yellow rock southeast of the park entrance.

“I think this is the place,” Matt said. “Can you pull over along here?”

“Done,” said Aldo.

The Gray Ghost sat parked on the shoulder of an anonymous stretch of highway through the desert, a couple tour buses kicking up dust at it as they passed. No biggie. Gangsters’ limos were well-waxed and washed daily, Matt was sure.

Aldo gazed toward the dull, faded eastern horizon. “We’re far enough off the beaten track to be en route to some long-ago Vegas mob boss’s ‘Boot Hill’.”

“You mean where enemies were taken out to be killed and buried? I followed a guy here.”

Aldo waited.

“The other night.”

Aldo waited.

“So,” Aldo finally said, “you trailed a guy out here without being seen?”

“I think so.”

“If you weren’t an ex-priest, I’d say you had a helluva lot of balls. Dangerous job for a former white-collar dude.”

“Funny,” Matt said.

“And what did you see him doing without being seen?”

“The guy parked and walked to that clump of rocks.”

Aldo looked, and nodded.

“You left your vehicle to follow him on foot?”

“I parked a bit farther down the highway, put my hazard lights on like the car was disabled. I backtracked. I figured he’d turn around and eventually head back to Vegas.”

“Smart. Welcome to the Family,” Aldo said with a slap on the shoulder. “Hey. You’re not carrying. No holster.”

“I’m not a member of the Family yet.”

“Sounds like you should be. That took guts.”

“Desperation.”

Matt put his empty glass in a front seat cup holder. “Can you drive a bit onto the desert floor? My guy did.”

“Not if I value the wax job on this long, lovely lady.”

“Maybe you value the wax job on my not-so-long lovely lady.”

Matt’s oblique mention of Temple won a swift steering wheel turn and more than a limo’s length of ugly jolting onto the desert floor. Aldo opened his winced-shut eyes to survey the bleak cactus-punctuated landscape before he diagnosed their location.

“More sand and scrub and stones closer up. And, uh,” Aldo scratched his noble Italian nose with a forefinger. “This is what a bridegroom-to-be does getting ready for his wedding?”

“This is what a bridegroom-to-be does to live long enough for the ceremony.”

Aldo took a deep breath, reclined the limo seat and put calming classical strings music on the system. “You watched him from behind this big rock?”

Matt nodded. “The night was dark, but the moon was yellow. He dug up something big and bulky and put it in the trunk of his seventies sedan. Whatever he unearthed was heavy enough to weigh down the massive junker trunk when he heaved it in inside.

“He drove back to Vegas,” Matt finished.

“You were inclined to think he dug up a body.”

“Yes. But it was far worse.”

Aldo’s mind was distracted. “Errand boy’s job. But why un earth it?” he muttered.

“ Errant errand boy maybe,” Matt said.

Talking about this under the pulsing midday sun, listening to throbbing violins, the nighttime scene sounded stupid.

Aldo pushed himself off the cradle of his spine. “Now I like that news. We know this guy?”

“Unfortunately, I do, although I didn’t know who he was then.”

“So. You were in a great position to follow him again.”

Matt nodded. “I ended up at the parking lot of that old building near the Circle Ritz that Electra Lark just inherited.”

“Holy moly! You were driving her old white Probe. On a tailing operation. White? Man, you might as well have painted ‘Moby Dick’ on it. That’s the night you drove up two sets of stairs to interrupt a nasty situation inside the abandoned building. We Fontanas were most jealous you beat us there.”

“Yeah, but before I took that route, I followed that car to the parking lot and managed to jimmy open that old trunk lock and see what was inside.”

“Dead guy.”

“In a way,” Matt said.

“Huh? If not a corpse, what did your guy dig up?”

“A decades-old jackhammer, with rust on its bit.”

“Rust makes sense,” Aldo conceded. “Dried blood makes even more sense. No wonder The Mob Museum isn’t featuring this lost artifact in a Jack the Hammer exhibit.”