I pretended to be puzzled, but in my mind I saw 007 after having just sucked a poisonous spine fish from the flesh of the beautiful Domino. “I give.”
She was as gleeful as a little girl. “Sean Connery in Thunder-ball. I can’t believe you didn’t know that one.”
I was leaning forward, my fingers brushing the inside of her thigh. “I didn’t see the movie. Where did he... taste her?” I asked.
Nora gave me a long look. But she didn’t lower the gun. “Your turn,” she said. “And this time, make it hard.”
“That sounds like a James Bond quote too.”
She laughed. “Silly. I meant the movie reference.”
“Okay,” I said, sliding a little closer. “But instead of a quote, I’ll give you a story. Our hero grows up in the country, leading a good, clean, healthy life, until it’s time for him to go to a state college. There, on a Marine ROTC firing range, he discovers that the hunting skills he took for granted back home are pretty damned remarkable. Enough for him to attract the attention of a government agency that dearly needs people who know how to use guns.”
“I think I know the movie,” she said, “but go on. And don’t stop this.” She lowered one hand to move mine further up her thigh.
“The agency frees him from his ROTC obligation and agrees to pay his tuition and give him spending money and a car and, in return, he agrees to work for them for four years after he graduates.”
“And he becomes a sniper in Vietnam?” Nora asked.
“Not exactly. Not in Vietnam. But his work is government-sanctioned.”
“Like James Bond.”
“Yes. But not James Bond,” I said.
“Got it. Charles Bronson in The Mechanic.”
“No. The hero of my story is younger than Bronson. And he’s based in Los Angeles, pretending to be an accountant for an independent film studio that the government actually owns. And the four years turn into eight. And, about then, he meets this beautiful, wonderful woman and—”
“The Specialist, with Sly Stallone and Sharon Stone.”
“Let me finish,” I said. “I’ll make it short. He falls in love. They move in together. He decides to quit the agency, but before he can, she discovers... that he’s been lying to her, that he’s a worthless, self-loathing, piece-of-shit, government-sanctioned, homicidal sociopath.”
“I’m still not sure what movie you’re talking about.” Staring at me, she asked. “Are you crying? Why the hell are you crying?”
“Because life is not a movie, you stupid bitch,” I said, bringing my palm up fast off her thigh and shoving her hands and the big heavy Magnum into her face before she could even consider pulling the trigger. Blood flowed from her broken nose. I had the gun by then and banged it against her head twice before she went to sleep.
“I’m in a situation, Henry.”
“Who’s... Jimmy D? Zat you?”
“It’s me,” I said into my cellular. “Sorry to wake you, but I wasn’t sure who else to call.”
“No. It’s okay.” He started hacking and coughing. I heard his wife mumbling something in the background, then him telling her to go back to sleep, that it was business. “Long time between calls, Jimmy. What’s the hap?”
I filled him in on everything that had taken place in the last hour or so. He replied by laughing.
“It’s not funny, Henry.”
“Depends on where you’re sitting. The image of you, out in your peaceful, laid-back little town, stuck in the middle of a park with an unconscious hit woman, waiting for morning or a bunch of spaghetti-head yo-yos with guns, whichever comes first... it is to laugh, amigo.”
“Can you do anything?” I asked. “If not, I’m going to try my luck driving out of here. I’ll unload the blonde somewhere along the road.”
“If they saw her get into your cab, Jimmy, they got the name and the plate and there’s nowhere you can run. Gimme your number and sit tight.”
Henry had been my handler. In his fifties, five-seven, balding, vaguely pear-shaped, totally without conscience, but a straight-shooter and a father figure for all of that. He called back in twenty minutes. “I just spoke with a cretin named Morelli. He says he knows all about you, but he’s the kind of braying asshole who, if he knew your name or even the cab company, would have told me just to prove how bright he is. In any case, he says he’s willing to forget about you as long as he gets the eighty grand taken from Berlucci’s safe. And he wants the woman, of course. You got the money, right?”
“Yeah.” I had already investigated Nora’s bag. It was loaded with banded fifties. “I imagine it’s the full eighty. I’m not going to count it.”
“Okay, here’s the play. As soon as we hang up, I call Morelli with your exact location. He wants you to leave the broad and the loot right where you are and drive away. Do not look back.”
“You sure they’ll let me just drive away?”
“You can never be sure, Jimmy. Not when you’re dealing with rabid dogs. My guess is they don’t want Uncle Sam on their ass. That’s the most assurance I can give you.”
“Thank you, Henry.”
“My pleasure.”
The blood from Nora’s broken nose had dried on her mouth and chin. She looked like she might be waking up soon. I’d have to hit her again.
“Henry, I’m ready to come back.”
“Miss the La Dolce Vita, huh?”
“Something like that,” I said.
“I’ll be waiting with open arms, kid.”
I lifted the blonde out of the cab and placed her on the asphalt behind the clubhouse. I put the bag and the money right next to her.
Then I got back into the cab. With the blonde’s Magnum on the passenger seat, I left the park and turned right on La Paz. The only vehicle I saw in either direction was an old Chevy truck heading north. I passed it heading south.
But not too far south, maybe half a mile down La Paz to the first cross-street, Kings Road, where I turned right into a block full of middle-class homes. I maneuvered the cab between two sedans parked for the night.
The blonde’s Magnum didn’t smell as if it had been used, but it held only four shells. Better than bare hands. With the weapon dragging down my Levi’s under my shirt, I worked my way back through the park.
They were a noisy bunch. Slamming car doors. Cursing. I was careful moving up behind a tree, Magnum drawn, for a view of the scene at the rear of the golf club building. Six men had come in three cars. The Escalades and a sweet yellow Jaguar convertible with the top down.
I wanted a look at Morelli and his buddies. I figured it was worth the risk to be able to recognize the bozos if they really did have a line on me and decided to do something about it. I had my night vision by then and I studied them as well as I could while they dragged Nora’s dead partner, Jed, from the black Escalade.
The guy I picked as Morelli was poking through Nora’s bag. Apparently satisfied with its contents, he tossed it into the white Escalade. He was big, bald, almost Mongolian-looking, with a droopy mustache, wearing a black, longs-leeve shirt and pants, with some kind of jewelry around his neck that caught the moonlight. The others were in suits. I noted their hairstyles, facial structures, body movement, as they did the heavy lifting — the departed Jed went behind the wheel of the Jaguar, the unconscious Nora onto the passenger seat.
I wasn’t sure what the plan was, but I figured that last knockout blow I’d delivered to Nora had been a mercy.
The bald guy with the mustache was definitely Morelli. He said something that was almost too guttural to be Italian and, while the others grabbed what looked like short-barrel Beretta rifles from the rear of the black Escalade, he moved to Nora.