Charlie Hustmyre - House of the Rising Sun

Carlos moaned. His breath was a wet sucking sound. Ray stepped to the side of the bed, his gun down by his leg. The Old Man’s eyes darted from side to side and although his mouth moved, all that came out was a gurgle. Blood bubbled from a hole in his chest, just above his left nipple.

Priscilla lay on her back, on top of Carlos, her smooth white skin punched through with three jagged black holes. The blood from her neck partially covered her breasts like a red bib, but her heart had stopped and so had the bleeding.

Carlos reached a hand out to Ray. Instinctively, Ray took it. Then he heard a rattle deep inside the Old Man’s chest as he breathed his last breath. Ray sank to the floor. He knew one thing for sure. He was fucked, absolutely fucked. No way, absolutely no way, could he get out of this. When the Guidos found out he had killed-

A thought, like a single razor-thin sliver of light sliced through Ray’s brain. The thought was nothing but a single word- IF. If they found out he killed Carlos Messina.

He looked at the two bodies. Naked bodies, entwined together in bed. Lovers caught in the act. Lovers shot dead. A crime of passion, a crime of insane jealously, a crime committed by an enraged husband.

Ray picked up the Beretta. He de-cocked the hammer and jammed the pistol in his waistband. The chair went back against the wall; then he wiped off the aluminum tubing with his shirttail. He looked for his footprints in the blood but didn’t see any. Once he got away, he would throw away his shoes just to be safe.

He backed toward the door, carrying Tony’s bag and the Smith amp; Wesson, scanning the room for any identifiable sign that he had been there. At the door, he used his shirt again and wiped off both sides of the handle.

Standing in the open doorway, Ray pulled Tony’s lighter out of his pocket, the ugly “Z” lighter Priscilla Zello had given her husband.

She bitches about my smoking. Says it ruins all her clothes.

Tony’s wife didn’t smoke. So it stood to reason that if Tony’s lighter was at Carlos Messina’s camp, Tony must have brought it. If it was on the floor, Tony must have dropped it. When he caught his wife in bed with Carlos and killed them both.

Ray smeared his palms over the metal surface of the lighter. Lab techs had to find smudges on things, otherwise those things looked planted. He tossed the lighter onto the floor, then closed the door behind him.

Ray tossed the Beretta in the swamp. Driving back toward the city, he stopped at the first gas station he came to on Highway 90. The station was closed. People out here went home early. The pay phone was attached to the corner of the building, over by the restrooms. He used his shirttail to hold the handset.

Ray told the 911 operator that he was a neighbor, out walking his dog when he heard shots coming from the Messina camp. No, he didn’t want to give his name. That’s why he was using a pay phone. Didn’t she know who Carlos Messina was? He didn’t want to get involved. He was just reporting what he had heard in case someone needed help.

Was anyone hurt? the operator asked.

He didn’t know for sure, Ray said, but he heard gunshots and didn’t that usually mean someone was hurt? Before he hung up, Ray told the operator one more thing: just after the shots, he had seen a man pulling away in a green car. He wasn’t sure what kind, but it was big, one of those luxury cars, maybe a Cadillac or Lincoln.

Ray pulled his Mustang into a parking garage next door to Harrah’s Casino. The six-story garage was well lit and had twenty-four-hour traffic and security. He opened the trunk and tossed in Tony Zello’s leather carryall.

Glancing around the garage, Ray spotted an old couple just stepping into the elevator. He slipped Dylan Sylvester’s Smith amp; Wesson. 40 caliber down the back of his pants and covered it with his shirt.

Ray took the elevator down, walked across Canal Street, and eased into the French Quarter.

After more than a decade of interviewing suspects and witnesses, at least half of them lying to him, Ray had faith in his ability to judge if someone was telling the truth, but it had to be face-to-face. Ninety percent of communication is nonverbal. Facial expressions, body posture, hand gestures, eye movements-those are the things that give away the liar, and none of that comes through during a telephone conversation.

Interviewing someone over the telephone was like phone sex. She might sound like a twenty-two-year-old, 120-pound, blonde-haired, blue-eyed goddess, but odds were she was a fifty-year-old, 300-pound hag, with thinning hair and bad breath.

He had to talk to Vinnie face-to-face.

Ray wasn’t sure where Tony was, but he had to assume he was probably at the House. From a doorway alcove across the street and half a block away, Ray spent twenty minutes watching the front door of the House, making sure Tony wasn’t dicking around outside, greeting customers, acting like a big shot. The key to Ray’s plan was to get in and out without running into Tony.

Getting in turned out to be easier than Ray thought. He just strolled in. The new doorman, a guy Ray had never seen before but who definitely looked Italian, even opened the door for him.

Inside, the first floor was packed. On the stage, a couple of the girls were doing their oiled-up, titty-rubbing routine. No one even looked at Ray as he drifted past the bar, past the empty stool where he used to sit, and climbed the stairs. The pistol wedged into the back of his pants felt heavy.

Same thing on the second floor. From the stairwell, Ray saw the players jammed around the tables, throwing down money and chips.

On the third floor, he caught the eye of one of the girls draped across a chaise. The refurbished and resized rooms where the girls got down to work were spaced along a central hallway, but the area near the stairs was set up as a lounge. If a guy couldn’t find a girl in the strip club or casino, all he had to do was go up to the third floor and he could find one waiting for him on a love seat or reclining on a sofa. Vinnie liked to keep two or three girls there all the time.

When the girl on the chaise looked at him, Ray didn’t know what else to do, so he pressed a finger to his lips, pleading for silence. She shrugged and rolled her head back against the cushion.

On the fourth floor, Ray crept down the hall to the sitting area outside Vinnie’s apartment. A leather couch and two wingback chairs were arranged around a coffee table. Ray checked his watch. Five minutes past midnight. Vinnie wasn’t much of a night owl, so the odds were good that he was tucked in for the night, with or without the missus, depending on whether it was bridge night.

The door to Vinnie’s suite was solid, made of dark wood, and heavy, the kind normally found on the exterior of a house. An old-fashioned brass knocker was centered just below the peephole. Ray glanced around the sitting area, hoping for some inspiration, some idea how to get the door open. Knocking was out of the question. Even if Vinnie didn’t know about his brother yet, as soon as he saw Ray standing outside his door, he would at least call Tony, or, at the very least, if Tony was out, summon a couple of muscle heads up to put the grab on Ray until he could find Tony.

No inspiration came. Ray thought about the lock-picking kit he used to carry around in his briefcase. He had carried it for years, maybe used it twice. Now that he really needed it, he couldn’t remember what he had done with it. When you get arrested, denied bond, then later sent to prison, your possessions seem to have a way of disappearing.

He raised his foot and kicked. The door flew open. Whoever had remodeled the place had hung the heavy door on the hotel’s original door frame. The cheap wooden jamb splintered as the lock’s strike plate tore through it.