Joe Gores - Menaced Assassin

Death in Death Valley. Almost corny. Almost.

Gideon had finished his early-morning laps in the heated pool, now was on the terrace of the inn, drinking orange juice while waiting for his decaf and toast. A beautiful morning for eighteen holes of golf. He had slept like an angel despite the questions going around and around in his mind until his head had hit the pillow.

He regretfully put aside consideration of what to get his favorite granddaughter for her birthday-a five-foot stuffed purple Barney had the inside track at the moment-to return to the previous night’s churning thoughts. He hadn’t told Kosta that he secretly agreed Mr. Prince was probably be hind the Madrid and Kreiger killings, because he felt that Mr. Prince was looking at Kosta as a possible threat somewhere down the road.

A pretty young waitress came with his toast and coffee. He watched her hips glide like oil beneath the oddly erotic uniform as she walked away. Could he possibly… No. He went to Vegas for that. Outside Vegas these days he was decidedly avuncular.

If Mr. Prince was not behind the killings, then who? Could it be Kosta? Could he have set up the hit on Moll Dalton with a phony fuck-up confession, so the rest of the killings could be seen to grow out of that?

Where should he stand should there be a confrontation between these two? Gross Gott, he knew the answer to that. Stand with Kosta, fall with Kosta. Gid planned to live forever: he had seen enough men die to know there was nothing worse than dying, nothing on this earth. If Mr. Prince gave him the order today to set up a hit on Kosta, by morning Kosta would be dead.

Not that Mr. Prince would. The man’s mind was too subtle for such a gross challenge to human feeling and commitment. Gid would be the last to know-except for Kosta, of course.

A lean dangerous-looking Italian with a tired face sat down at Gid’s table. He wore jeans and heavy hiking boots and a light baggy sport shirt outside his pants. Gid glanced involuntarily at the heavyset man alone at a table on the corner of the terrace.

“You won’t need him. Dante Stagnaro. You want ID?”

“No. That explains the gun under your shirt.”

“Sig-Sauer 228-a beauty.” He pointed at Gid’s pot of coffee. “Decaf?”

When Gid nodded, the Italian turned over the unused cup and filled it, added milk and Equal. He sipped, sighed in pleasure, leaned back in his chair and crossed his legs. The tables were set far enough apart so nobody could casually overhear them.

“I’m sorry, I know nothing about guns,” said Gideon.

“Pity. I’m a fucking deadeye with it, I could shoot off your chauffeur’s toes before he could stand up.”

“You aren’t quite… as I pictured you, Lieutenant.”

“I get giddy when I talk to mobsters.”

Gideon was starting to get into the spirit of it, starting to enjoy himself. He said, “Such a remark would be actionable in front of witnesses.”

“But it’s just between us girls.” Dante leaned forward across the table, focusing his energies, and Gideon suddenly understood the reputation of this seeming buffoon. His first impression had been right: here was a dangerous man. “I think your life is in danger, Mr. Abramson.”

That broke the spell. Gideon said, “So this woman goes in to buy a fresh chicken. She lifts a wing and smells underneath it; then she lifts the other wing and smells. Then she spreads apart the chicken’s legs and sniffs again. She turns to the butcher and she says, ‘You meshugga, this chicken is no good.’ The butcher says to her, ‘Lady, can you pass a test like that?’”

Dante didn’t crack a smile. Instead, he said, “Meaning?”

“Meaning, you stink worse than the butcher’s chicken. I suppose Mr. Prince is going to have me killed, so I must scurry to you as my passport into witness relocation.”

“I don’t know who wants you dead. I don’t know who wanted Spic Madrid or Otto Kreiger or Skeffington St. John dead, either. But I know that the man who killed them is here in Death Valley. Gounaris is gone and he’s not after me.”

For a moment, Gideon was shaken. The man was very good!

“Then why don’t you arrest him?”

“I said I know he’s here, not who. He left me a note.”

Dante laid Raptor’s note on the table. Gideon leaned forward, scanned it without touching it. No fingerprints.

“‘I do not kill my own kind. Raptor.’” He looked up at Dante. “Raptor?”

“It’s what he calls himself.”

The waitress was at his elbow. “Mr. Abramson?” He turned. “You have a telephone call. Would you like me to bring-”

“No, thank you.” It was probably some ploy the meshugge cop had set up, he wasn’t going to give the man the satisfaction of listening in. “I’ll take it at the desk.”

“I’ll have some more coffee while I wait,” said Dante.

Inside at the phone alcove, Gideon picked up without hesitation; nobody would call him on business at an open phone like this. The voice was thick, heavy, Bronx-accented.

“This is Raptor, tell me one a ya fuckin’ hebe jokes.”

Anger swelled Gideon’s chest. “ Hebe jokes?”

“I gotta know I’m talkin’ to the right guy here. I never met you, but you’re famous for them terrible Jew jokes you tell.”

This made sense. His fury dissipated. “Ah… okay. This Jewish mother is talking with her son’s teacher, she says, ‘My Gregory is very smart. If he’s a bad boy, slap the boy next to him-Gregory will get the idea.’”

“Yeah, they’re right,” said the heavy voice. “Terrible. Now, ditch the fuckin’ cop.” This call was local. Somebody in the building-or down the road a half mile with binoculars and a car phone. A heavy chuckle. “I left him a note.” Then he said, “I did them all.” When Gid didn’t answer, he added impatiently, “All of them. Starting with the broad. You’re supposed to be next.”

It was just so goddamned pat; another simpleminded gambit by the cop to either frighten him or compromise him in some way. But Stagnaro was not a simpleminded man. If he came up with a gambit, wouldn’t it be a convoluted one, instead of children’s games like the note, this phone call?

Could both note and call be genuine? Was he talking with the man who had hit all the others? Gid couldn’t help it, he heard himself asking, “For whom are you supposed to do this?”

“I tell you that, I got nothing to sell.”

“Why would I want to buy it?”

The caller gave a harsh chuckle. “To stay alive, pal. To stay alive.” Gideon felt a finger of dread down his spine.

“Why would you want to sell it?”

“I think he’s got me on the list after you.” When Gideon hesitated, the voice added, “Make up your fuckin’ mind, I gotta get somebody between me an’ the light. You don’t wanna play I gotta go to the fuckin’ cop.”

“No, no. I’m in the market. It’s just that I… I need some protection, a place where I can feel safe.”

“You think I don’t? I want it flat and I want it wide open. I know all about you, Abramson. You’d fuck your dead mother so you could steal the pennies off her eyes afterwards.”

He was truly, blindingly angry for a moment. Retired or not, nobody talked that way to Gideon Abramson.

“Men talk like that end up drinking a Drano cocktail.”

“Twenty years ago, old man, maybe. Now you’re just pissing in the wind. So we’ll play this my way…”

When Abramson returned to the table, he paused just long enough to sign the chit and add a tip and his room number.

“Raptor?” ventured Dante. “Wanting a meet?”

Gideon met his eyes guilelessly. In the old days, many a cutter in the garment district had been seduced by the limpid honesty in those eyes, always to his sorrow.