“He started with Monica because of her husband, the doctor.”
“Yes. We could not have you kill the doctor. It would be too easy to link Victor to the crime. There is a saying: ‘If you would hurt your enemy, punish the one he loves.’ Since Monica was innocent, we gave her a choice: live in captivity or die in the van.”
“And she chose life.”
Victor and Hugo nodded together.
“But you knew the Fathis planned to kill her.”
Hugo and Victor nodded together. Hugo clarified, “We knew they would not use proper restraint. We knew they would not give her time to recover.”
“So why have you involved me in all of this?” I asked.
“We’ve got big plans for you, Mr. Creed.”
“Such as?”
“You’re going to help us take over the world.”
“Well, why not,” I said. Then, for whatever reason, I thought of Joe DeMeo. I said, “I’d love to help you take over the world and all, but I’m going to be busy robbing and killing a very powerful crime boss.”
Victor said, “Maybe … we can … help.”
I thought about that a minute and said, “You probably could. You hijacked a spy satellite. Do you have access to drones?”
“Killer drones?” Hugo asked. “Loaded? That is impossible.”
I laughed. Maybe they weren’t as crazy as I’d thought. “I was thinking maybe you could divert one of the weather drones off the coast of California or a surveillance one flying between Alaska and Russia.”
“To where?”
“Hills of LA,” I said. “Just for a few minutes.”
Hugo walked to the other end of the room with his cell phone. He was gone a couple of minutes. When he came back, he looked at Victor and nodded. Victor nodded back. “Yeah,” Hugo said, “we can do that.”
“Really?” I asked.
Hugo nodded.
“What will it cost me?”
“What’s … the … take?” Victor said.
“Tens of millions, I think. If we do it right.”
Victor thought a moment before replying. “We … don’t want … the … mon … ey,” he said. “We’d … ra … ther bank … the fa … vor.”
“Works for me,” I said. Then I dialed Joe DeMeo’s number.
“Well, you said you’d call,” DeMeo said. “So it must be Tuesday.”
“You killed a lot of people in that hotel trying to blow me up,” I said.
“Creed, listen to me. If you’re still worrying about that ten million for the burned kid, I got a better idea. I did some checking,” he said. “Turns out she’s got all kinds of life-threatening injuries, so I’m wondering maybe we should see if she survives before you and me ruin a good relationship.”
“She’s well-protected, Joe.”
“Yeah, I heard your giant was there. A face like that, he ought to fit in with the rest of the burn patients.”
We were quiet awhile. Then he said, “Are we done here or is there something else you want to say?”
I said, “I’m coming to get you, Joe.”
“Oh yeah?” he said. Then he laughed. “You and what army?”
I looked at Victor and Hugo, thought about the guys holding the gun and detonator under the table, thought about the mini scientists who could hijack spy satellites and create an antidote for the deadliest poison known to man. I thought about the dwarf who worked on the White House kitchen staff.
I nodded at Victor. He winked at me and nodded back.
“I got a hell of an army,” I told Joe DeMeo.
Hugo’s posture went ramrod straight, and his chest swelled with pride. He saluted me.
I hung up the phone. Hugo said, “Well? What did he say? Did he laugh when you said that part about the army? I bet he laughed. Tell me he laughed. Just say it, just tell me he laughed and I’ll kill the son of a bitch with my bare hands. I’ll rip his ears off his head. I’ll …”
“He laughed,” I said.
Hugo looked at Victor. “They always laugh,” he said. He seemed to instantly deflate.
“Don’t let it get you down,” I said. “They don’t know what they’re up against.”
“Ac … tually … they … don’t,” Victor said.
CHAPTER 36
There is no scent of freshly baked bread in Little Italy, no Italians singing love songs or speaking boisterously while flapping their arms in the air. Still, enough charm remains to inspire a walk, if you’ve got the time. I did, so I told my driver to wait while I headed down Mott, and Mulberry, and Elizabeth and Baxter.
The area is gradually being swallowed up by Chinatown, and most of the people who can speak Italian have long since moved to the Bronx. But the streets are still lively and colorful, and the fire hydrants are painted green, white, and red, the colors of the Italian flag.
I didn’t find anything to buy, but I had a decent lunch and managed to clear my head after the meeting with Victor and Hugo. I didn’t think for one minute Victor and Hugo’s army of little people could take over the world, but I was gaining confidence that they could help me take down Joe DeMeo.
A couple hours after lunch, I found my driver and had him push his way through the traffic to the Upper East Side of Manhattan, where I got a room at the Hotel Plaza Athenee. By five, room service had delivered an incredible panini sandwich filled with fresh spinach, mozzarella, and roasted red peppers. They also brought me a bottle of Maker’s and a heavy glass tumbler. I ate the sandwich and washed it down with three fingers of bourbon. By six, I’d had a hot shower and was freshly shaved and dressed. I watched the news on Fox for twenty minutes and still had more than enough time to walk the quarter mile east, to Third and Sixty-Sixth.
It was Tuesday, after all.
“For me?” she asked.
There was an empty chair waiting for her at the tiny table I’d staked out at Starbucks, and Kathleen had instantly spied the raspberry scone on the small square of wax paper across from me. To my utter surprise, she rewarded me with a radiant smile, removed her coat, and joined me at the table.
“Who’d a thought it?” she said.
“What’s that?”
“There’s a romantic component at work here,” she said, “one that might even rival your desire to separate me from my panties.”
“The mystery never ends,” I said.
“Do I want to know where you’ve been since Wednesday, what you’ve been up to?”
The angel on my shoulder urged me to tell Kathleen everything and let her run out of my life so she could find true happiness. Of course, the devil on my other shoulder said, “When in doubt, just smile and change the subject.”
“Can I get you a coffee?” I asked.
Kathleen frowned and shook her head. “That bad, eh?”
“I’ve had worse,” I said, and immediately realized I was telling the truth. I thought, What a rotten thing to have to admit, even to myself. I looked at Kathleen across the table. Her eyes were locked onto my mouth, as if she could read my thoughts by watching me speak the words. If that could possibly be true, I wanted to give her something better—a happier thought, one she might enjoy hearing. It would have to be something sincere.
Lucky for me, I had one. “I missed you,” I said. I’d wanted to say more about it, wanted to say it better, but at least I’d said it.
Her eyes remained fixed on my mouth while she processed the validity of my comment. Then she slowly twisted her lips into a smile, and I felt that thing I always felt in her presence.
Hope.
Maybe I still had it in me to be a better person than I’d been. Maybe I hadn’t yet descended so deeply into the pit that I couldn’t experience a woman’s love, capture her heart, have a decent life.
She took a bite of her scone and made a production of licking the sugar from her upper lip. She gave me a sly smile. “You really like me, don’t you!” she said.