“Crazy bitch,” Carlos yelled as he wrapped his thick arms around her chest, squishing her bare breasts, but not able to stop her.
Ray sprang out of the chair, knocking it over behind him. He stepped to his right, toward the back door-a moving target is harder to hit-as Priscilla one-handed the pistol across the front of her body and fired at him.
Ray saw the flash, a yellow spurt of flame bursting from the muzzle, but adrenaline had diminished his sound perception, so he heard only a dull pop. Priscilla lay on her right side, sprawled on top of Carlos, who still had both arms locked around her and was trying to toss her off the bed. The Old Man had probably thrown her aim off just enough to save Ray’s life. Only six feet away, he didn’t expect her to miss again. With the Smith amp; Wesson thrust out in front of him, Ray yelled, “Drop the gun!”
Priscilla arched her back like a wrestler, pushing Carlos into the headboard. He held on to her with one arm and reached his other hand out, trying to grab the Beretta, but she moved it away from him like they were playing a game of keep-away.
Ray sidestepped all the way to the door. He yelled again, “Drop the gun!”
Priscilla rammed an elbow into Carlos’s gut. He grunted as his breath exploded through his lips. He dropped his hands. Priscilla rolled up onto her knees in front of Carlos, then leaned forward, bracing herself with one hand on the bed. She stretched the gun toward Ray.
Ray aimed the Smith. 40 and squeezed twice on the trigger-BOOM! BOOM! As far as he could tell the first shot missed, and the second whizzed under her hanging breasts and hit her in the thigh.
The Beretta flashed as Priscilla fired again. Ray heard the bullet THUNK against the wall behind him. He started pulling the trigger again-BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! The first shot caught her in the neck and lifted her onto her knees. The second one hit her low in the stomach, just above her dark patch of pubic hair. The third one missed and dug out a chunk of drywall just above the headboard. Priscilla fell back on top of Carlos, her eyes rolling up as one hand fell over the edge of the bed. Ray heard the Beretta clunk to the floor.
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.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
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.