Стюарт Вудс - Barely Legal

His gun fell from nerveless fingers.

Mookie raised his hands to the sky as cops swarmed around him.

Downstairs the gunfire had stopped. That could have meant anything, but there were no voices.

Herbie crept down the stairs ahead of Melanie. There were bodies everywhere. He couldn’t tell if they were dead, but they were down. The three hoods from the house, and Carlo, and the driver, and Ollie the Ox. Melanie cringed slightly at the sight.

“Come on,” Herbie said, helping her along. She passed him on the stairs, stepped over Gus’s foot, and headed for the door.

Mario Payday came out of the kitchen with a gun in his hand.

Stone and Dino flew by the cops arresting Mookie, roared down the street, and screeched to a stop in front of Cousin Lou’s house, the approaching sirens of the local cops close in their wake.

David Ross spotted them, waved his arms, and pointed. “They’re in there.”

Stone recognized him as they hopped out of the cars. “What the hell?” he said without breaking stride.

“Who’s that?” Dino yelled.

“My client,” Stone yelled.

They raced up the walk.

Mario Payday’s Normally genial face twisted in rage. Herbie had set him up, tricked him, lured him into a trap, and got his men killed. Worse, he hadn’t paid him! No one did that to Mario Payday.

Mario raised his gun and fired.

Herbie stepped in front of Melanie, taking the bullet in his chest. As he fell, he shot Mario Payday twice in the head as Stone and Dino burst in the door.

Donnie missed the news on TV. He’d avoided anyplace showing the local news, not wanting to be sitting there when his mug shot came on. He was sure someone would notice the resemblance. So he never saw the news that the police had a new suspect in Yvette’s murder case. He thought he was still on the run from a murder rap.

Donnie dyed his hair. His beard wasn’t working for him, at least it wasn’t coming in fast enough, so he bought a box of hair dye at Duane Reade. He bought red dye, probably a mistake. Whether it was the consistency of his hair or he just didn’t do it right, it came out blotchy, which was most unfortunate. He looked like the front man for an unsuccessful rock band.

He also bought a pair of glasses. He was going to get sunglasses, but he figured that would look suspicious. He was at that stage where he was second-guessing everything. Glasses would be a disguise, but sunglasses would be a dead giveaway.

He found a rack of reading glasses in the drugstore and chose a pair with the largest rims and the weakest prescription. The pair he chose were of dark black plastic, and allowed him to get around without actually walking into walls. They still blurred his vision, which made it harder to spot imaginary dangers.

His money was running out, but he kept on the run. He just stumbled on with his red hair and Elton John — sized glasses, the Mr. Magoo of all burglars, a nearsighted circus clown.

Jules Kenworth was afraid of the call. Tommy Taperelli’s empire had collapsed, and with it any chance of pressuring Councilman Ross on the vote. It was hard to believe. Two days ago they had the man’s daughter, they had the man’s son on trial, they had every ace in the deck, and then this two-bit pip-squeak lawyer beat them with a pair of deuces. Never mind kissing a quarter of a billion down the drain, Kenworth was liable to lose his status, his position in high society. He had seen it happen to others, but never thought it might happen to him. Dinner invitations fall off, phone calls aren’t returned, and suddenly there you were, just another unimportant billionaire, a nameless, faceless statistic lost among the unimportant, unwashed, huddled masses that comprised the majority of the wealthy one percent.

But that wasn’t the worst of it. Suddenly there was the threat of jail, a very tangible prospect. Taperelli’s men had been caught with the councilman’s daughter, and one of them, the last man standing, was probably spilling his guts, citing chapter and verse and naming names. Did the guy know his name? How could he not? Kenworth’s relationship with Taperelli was no secret. The acquaintance of a mob boss was a real feather in his cap. It had gotten him laid once, when his money hadn’t — go figure — but he understood the allure. It was the Robin Hood appeal. Not that he’d ever given to the poor, but still. The idea of the bad boy. The glory that now was turning around to bite him.

Taperelli was going down, and Kenworth was in danger of going with him.

Kenworth dreaded the call.

The intercom buzzed.

The cheery voice of his secretary chirruped, “Taperelli on two.”

Kenworth’s pulse quickened. For a moment he wasn’t sure what to do. Should he buzz his secretary back, tell her to say he wasn’t there? No, he’d taken too long. Taperelli’d know he was. And what difference did it make? If Taperelli had rolled on him, he needed to know.

He just didn’t want to hear.

Kenworth clicked the button and picked up the phone. “Hello?”

“Jules? Tommy. Listen, I just wanted to apologize.”

“For what?” Kenworth said.

“What do you mean, for what? For letting it all get away from me.”

“Ah, well, what you gonna do?”

“I know, I know.” There was a pause, then, “Listen. You know Mookie’s talking.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah, he’s giving the cops everything, and that’s not good. He knows about our relationship, and he was caught out there with the girl. Well, not with the girl, but running away from the house. He’s admitting to grabbing the councilman’s daughter, and telling Kelly to set up his son, and the whole bit. I don’t know how much of it is going to stick, because there’s no corroborating testimony, everyone else is dead, which, I hate to say it, but it’s like we caught a break. The point is, none of this should come back on you. You never dealt with Mookie, so anything he spills about you is hearsay. And I’m not going to spill the beans. So you can rest easy.

“Me, not so much. I probably got some courtroom proceedings coming up. I’ll probably be running up some astronomical legal fees, and I might need you to help me out in that department, but the point is you won’t be spending them on yourself.

“Anyway, that’s the situation. I’ll let you know how it pans out.”

Kenworth hung up the phone and slumped back in his chair. Relief flooded over him. Taperelli was a brick. He could count on their relationship. Oh, yeah, there was the incidental request for legal fees, with the implied threat of what he might say if they were not forthcoming, but that was nothing compared to what it could have been.

Kenworth sighed and poured himself a snifter of cognac.

Yup, he’d dodged a bullet.

Tommy Taperelli hung up the phone. “How was that?”

The police detective took off his headset. “Not bad for a first pass. I don’t think he suspected a thing.” He pointed over at the technician manning the recorder. “Good for sound?”

The technician nodded, gave him an A-OK sign.

“Wait a minute. First pass?” Tommy said.

“Sure. Next time it will be easy. You can listen to this back, see where you can improve.”

“You didn’t say anything about a next time.”

The detective glanced over at the assistant district attorney, who had been sitting back and observing the proceedings. The ADA placed his set of headphones on the table and smiled patronizingly. “Mr. Taperelli, do you want this deal or not? It’s not how much you cooperate, or how many phone calls you have to make, or who those phone calls are to. The question is, do you want to play ball? If you do, it’s our game. It’s our game because we already have one gangster spilling his guts. Kidnapping and extortion are a slam-dunk, and murder’s on the table, and the only reason you have any wiggle room at all is that Jules Kenworth is a bigger fish. Only if you don’t hook the bigger fish, suddenly you’re the bigger fish, and all bets are off. Your lawyer understands that, Mr. Taperelli, and if you don’t understand that you should have a talk with him because, trust me, you are going to be making as many phone calls as we like.”