Without taking his eyes off me, Vinaldi signaled into the gloom behind him. The henchman who’d frisked me padded out of the darkness, carrying something. Out of the corner of my eye I saw that something was still going on in the club beyond the glass, but then my attention was utterly taken.
On the floor in front of me had been placed a cardboard box.
I leapt toward it, but Jaz and another goon smacked me back into the chair, pinning my arms to stop me from doing it again.
“Who the fuck’s in there?” I shouted, still struggling vainly. “If it’s Jenny or David I’m going to kill every fucking one of you!” Jaz and his colleague laughed good-naturedly; I wasn’t in a position to do anyone any harm.
But the atmosphere changed. Vinaldi looked at me strangely. “What are you talking about?”
“I’m not joking, Vinaldi; if it’s David or Jenny you’re fucking dead.” The Rapt in my head had finally cleared enough for Nanune’s death to strike home; and I was out of control with the realization. “Whatever it takes, you’re dead.”
Vinaldi’s frown intensified. “I know nothing of this David or Jenny. Are you trying to be clever, Randall?”
I stared at him, not knowing what the hell was going on.
Deep breath. “Who’s in the box?” I said.
“Someone you were seen talking to yesterday.” Vinaldi nodded, and the henchman leaned over to open the box. I could see what was in there before he lifted it out, and felt a wave of relief wash over me.
The hood from the Minimart.
“This was delivered an hour ago. That’s why you’re here, Randall. You come and disturb me at my home and I think ‘Let him go, he’s nothing.’ Then this is delivered and I have to reconsider.”
“Johnny,” I said. “Listen to me. I went in this guy’s store, and he made me. That’s all. I didn’t bomb the place and I didn’t cut his head off. I’ve got problems of my own: All I wanted was to get out of town. Then at Howie’s an hour ago I got a box just like this one with the head of a friend of mine in it.”
“Bullshit,” Jaz said. “Look, boss, let me just kill the fuck now. I’ll do it as slow as you want.”
Vinaldi waved Jaz back, looking carefully at me. A bleeper went off somewhere in the background of the room, but no one paid any attention to it. I let my eyes run across the crowd on the other side of the glass, trying to think how the hell I was going to convince him. Something in the view caught my eye, but then it was gone. My mind was racing, trying to fit this into the picture. It wouldn’t fit.
“Something’s going down,” I said rapidly, trying to think as I spoke. “Someone killed Mal, maybe looking for me, maybe not. But they wanted Mal, too, because of some murders he was looking into. I came to you last night because I thought you’d done them, or had them done.”
“I told you, you fuck, I don’t have women murdered except on special occasions.”
“But somebody does, and those two women were tied to you. Maybe the other three were too. Just like it was your guys who got killed—they all come back to you. And the same guy killed Nanune.”
Vinaldi got as far as asking who the hell Nanune was when the bleeper on the desk sounded again, louder and more urgently this time. He turned furiously: “Jesus, there’s four of you here—can’t one of you answer it?” Then he turned back to me, and I saw his not inconsiderable intelligence trying to sift through what I’d just said. Maybe he’d come up with an answer. I hoped so. Perhaps he could let me in on it. “So who—?”
A rustling sound. Not heard, but sensed. In my head, as it had been in the elevator. Neck going cold, I whirled my head to look out the glass, suddenly understanding what I’d noticed through the wall out of the corner of my eye.
“He’s here,” I said.
“Boss,” shouted the guy at the desk. “Something’s getting fucked up out there.” I had time for a sliver of déjà vu and then everything went ballistic. Jaz and the others scrambled for their cannons amidst a blizzard of swearing.
“Who’s here?” Vinaldi asked me, confused, but I didn’t have to answer because the door was opened and the question was answered.
The man with the blue lights in his head.
He calmly shut the door behind him and fired. Jaz spun away, hit in the arm. The other hoods forgot all their training and stared at the man in the doorway, hypnotized by the flashing blue lights.
“Hey, Johnny,” the man said, leveling his gun at Vinaldi. “Looking good. Remember me?”
For the first time in maybe his entire life, Johnny Vinaldi looked utterly dumbfounded. He stared at the man, brow creased, seemingly unaware of the laser sight on his forehead.
“Shutdown,” the man with the blue lights said as he pulled the trigger, and I did something completely unexpected. Unthinkingly bracing my heels against the heavy chair I was sitting in, I launched myself at Vinaldi, smashing into his chair and knocking the pair of us across the floor. The bullet whistled through the air just above us, Vinaldi’s eyes still locked on the man with the lights.
The man appeared to notice me for the first time, and laughed delightedly in recognition. “Hey, Jack’s here, too,” he said merrily, meanwhile holding his gun to the side to shoot Vinaldi’s second henchman. “What a happy coincidence. There’s people who are really pissed at you. You and I got stuff to talk about.”
I felt otherwise, and lunged toward the table, carelessly knocking it over and sending my gun skittering toward the wall. Johnny had regained his composure and was reaching for his own weapon, but it was all far too slow.
The door was kicked open and five of Vinaldi’s men swarmed in—the guys who’d come for me at Howie’s place. The man with the blue lights leapt out of their way like a gymnast, and again I heard a rustling sound at the back of my mind like spiders walking on leaves. But mainly I heard the sound of gunfire as everyone fired at one another at once. I swiped my gun up from the floor, keeping my head below the level of the sofa.
I don’t like enclosed spaces too much. I turned and fired straight at the glass wall.
The result was nothing like the shattering in Howie’s place. That was just straight glass. This window had electronics built into it, and fractured with a grinding folding scream. A jagged sheet broke out of it, tumbling down into the room and revealing the sweating dancers beyond.
I grabbed the overturned table and yanked it onto its side, crawling quickly toward the hole in the glass, flinching against the impacts I expected to come. Everyone seemed to be too busy trying to kill someone else. Vinaldi was crouched by the wall, behind the body of a fallen bodyguard, firing into the melee by the door.
“I’m still going to kill you,” I told him, then jumped through the wall and tumbled into the crowd beyond. None of the dancers seemed to be aware of what was happening, the gunfire inaudible beneath the pounding noise and flickering lyrics. I pushed my way out through the crowd, and when I emerged panting into the street I turned for the elevators and ran.
“Hey—what the hell happened to you?”
I shouldered my way past Nearly and into her apartment. It was dark—lit only by warm strip lighting down at floor level—and neat, cozy, personal. Presumably she didn’t do business here, though a few items dotted around the apartment—the TV, some of the furniture, a rearWindow on the back wall—hinted that she did good business somewhere. Suej was sitting in the middle of the floor, a mug of coffee in front of her. She jumped on seeing me, face aghast.
“What?” I said, and then looked down and realized someone’s blood was spread liberally all over my clothes. “It’s not mine,” I said, putting my arms around Suej, and holding her tight.
When we disengaged I turned to see Nearly holding a mug out to me. “We don’t have time,” I said.