Tony’s asshole was so tight he could not have farted if his life depended on it.
“I fell off a ladder,” Shane said.
“What’s this about?” Tony asked. Stunned at Ray’s answer, but thinking he needed to take control of the situation to keep from going to jail.
“Where’s your wife?” the sergeant repeated.
“I told you, she’s shopping.”
“We’re going to look around and make sure she’s not here.”
“Why?”
“Someone claiming to be your wife called nine-one-one and said you were trying to kill her.”
The other Kenner officer and the deputy sheriff walked into the garage. The deputy glanced at the sergeant and shook his head. An incredible situation, Tony thought, a house full of cops, a guy beat to hell, and so far no one had been arrested.
Just as the sergeant pulled a notebook from his back pocket, Shane flashed a grin at Tony, then raised his hand to his head. He buckled his knees and dropped to the sofa, moaning. It was the worst acting job Tony had ever seen.
One of the cops, a young kid with a fresh-from-the-academy look, sank down beside him. “Sir, are you okay?”
“I think I have a concussion.” Shane collapsed onto his side. “Do you think you can give me a ride to the hospital?”
The sergeant keyed the radio mike clipped to his shoulder and called for an ambulance.
Tony seethed.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
“I saw the ambulance,” Jenny said. “I thought you were dead.”
Riding in the passenger seat of Jenny’s car while she drove back to the hotel, Ray said, “I almost was. You saved my life.”
“I knew it had to be you in the ambulance. I didn’t know what else to do, so I followed it to the hospital.”
His ear was bleeding again, so he pressed the wad of Kleenex against it that Jenny had dug out of her purse.
She said, “You should have stayed until you saw a doctor.”
“Tony’s probably at the hospital right now looking for me.”
“What happened?”
“When the police started banging on the door, Tony had no choice but to open it. Joey stuck his head into the kitchen and saw it was cops. He ran back into the garage and told Rocco. Rocco was scared shitless. He told me if I kept my mouth shut, he’d let me go as soon as the police left.”
“Why didn’t you tell the cops what was going on? You could have had all three of them arrested.”
Ray winced in pain as he shook his head. He thought about Dylan Sylvester dead in his apartment, dead from a bullet Ray put through his face. “There are some things going on that I don’t want to have to explain to the police.” Just then he remembered the Smith amp; Wesson. It was still in Tony’s garage.
Damn.
“They would have helped you.”
“They did help, and so did you. When they said why they were there, I knew it had to be you who came up with that scam.”
“It was the only thing I could think of.”
“I wasn’t going to let them leave without me even if I had to punch one of them in the face and go to jail.”
“How’d you get out of the hospital so fast?”
“There’s no law says you have to accept medical treatment.” He pulled the Kleenex away from his ear and saw the fresh blood. His eardrum had burst from the pistol-whipping. “Soon as the ambulance dropped me off, I told the triage nurse I felt a lot better.”
Jenny turned and looked at him. “They let you leave?”
“They wanted me to sign a form saying I was refusing treatment.”
“Did you sign it?”
“As soon as the nurse went to get it, I walked out.”
“When my cell phone rang, I almost jumped out of my skin.”
“I used the pay phone in the coffee shop,” he said. “I’m just glad you wrote your number on my hand.”
“I was walking across the parking lot, about to go into the emergency room to look for you.”
Ray laid a hand on her leg. “Thanks.”
Jenny dropped one hand from the steering wheel and rested it on top of his.
Next morning, Ray felt like shit. His ear had hurt so badly during the night he hardly slept. Jenny ordered a room service breakfast. When the food came, she spread it out on the small round table crammed into a corner next to the air conditioner. They sat opposite each other on thinly cushioned wooden chairs.
After two cups of coffee and three cigarettes, Ray started to feel better. Munching on a piece of toast, he said, “I’ve got to go back to Tony’s house.”
Jenny stopped chewing her melon slice. “Are you crazy?”
Besides his ear, there was another reason he hadn’t been able to sleep. “Tony has the gun.”
“What gun?”
“The gun I had last night. The one I got from Dylan Sylvester’s apartment. It’s the one he tried to shoot me with at the House.”
“How’d you get his gun?”
“I took it from him.”
“Now Tony’s got it, so what?” Jenny said.
“It’s got my fingerprints on it.”
“Big deal!”
“I’m a convicted felon. My prints on that gun can send me back to prison.”
Jenny pushed her plate away. “It’s not like Tony’s going to turn it over to the police.”
“He knows the system. If he’s trying to pin the robbery on me, all he’s got to do is make sure that gun gets into the right hands. With a piece of evidence like that, Carl Landry can put me away.”
“Landry’s straight. He doesn’t have anything to do with Tony.”
Ray nodded. “Landry junior is a straight arrow, but he blames me for his old man going to prison, and he wouldn’t pass up a chance to send me back. He’ll deal with Tony if he has to.”
“That’s a lot of trouble to go through just to catch a convicted felon with a gun.”
Ray stared across the table at her. “Sylvester is dead, and that’s the gun that killed him.”
“What?”
Ray told her what had happened in the apartment.
When he finished, she was too shocked to speak.
“I’ve got to get that gun,” Ray said.
“How are you going to get it if it’s in Tony’s garage?”
“I’ve got to get into his house while he’s at work.”
“You’re trying to stay out of jail by breaking into someone’s house, Tony Zello’s house? Where you almost just got killed?”
“Jen, I’ve got no choice. I’ve got to get that gun. If Tony finds out he has that kind of leverage on me, he won’t hesitate to use it.”
Jenny shook her head. She looked disgusted. “What about his wife?”
“Charlie Rabbit said she goes out almost every night.”
“I thought you were changing,” she whispered. There were tears in her eyes.
Ray picked up his pack of Lucky Strikes from the table and shook one out. With a cigarette dangling from his lips, he raised his lighter and flicked it. Nothing happened, so he flicked it again, still nothing. He spun the wheel four more times but couldn’t get the damn thing to light.
“They got any matches in here?” he asked.
“What if Tony comes home while you’re there?”
Ray was getting jumpy. He held up his hand. “Hold on a second.” He stood up and scanned the room. On the nightstand, inside the hotel ashtray, he found a book of matches. He slid back into the chair and lit his cigarette, then breathed the smoke into his lungs. Another drag and the jumpy feeling started to fade.
He tossed the matches on the table. Jenny was staring at him, still waiting for her answer. Ray looked at her through the haze of smoke hanging between them. “Sorry, what did you say?”
“What if Tony comes home?”
“That’s where you come in.”
Jenny arched her eyebrows. “What do you mean?”
Jenny got to the bar at a quarter to nine. Early enough so she could have a drink by herself. It would be easier with a drink or two in her. The Carousel Lounge at the Monteleone Hotel was crowded. There were a lot of expensive suits, beautiful dresses, and sparkling jewelry. The Monteleone was the oldest and classiest hotel in the French Quarter.
She had argued with Ray all morning, at one point telling him she was leaving him and going to California. He could straighten out his own damn life without her. But she hadn’t left, and by early afternoon she had agreed to his plan.