“I suggest you take your seat, Blue,” Lou said from behind him. “You make me ask again and I’ll break your kneecaps so you don’t forget your manners. The lady wants to talk to you, so sit and talk.”
“Come on, Cain, there’s no reason for the muscle. And where’s Merrick? I’m sure she’d vouch for me. I didn’t do nothing wrong.”
A waitress came over with an empty tray and picked up Blue’s glass. “Can I get you anything?”
“A shot of Jameson, neat,” Cain answered.
“The good stuff’s extra.”
Katlin waved a twenty in front of the waitress. “This ought to cover it.”
“Now, Blue, what makes you think I’m here because you did anything wrong?”
The question sounded innocent enough, but Blue hadn’t worked for Cain for a couple of years without learning a few things. There was something behind it.
“That’s what I’m saying. I’m just sitting around waiting to go back to work.” The fresh round of drinks was placed on the table, and Blue smiled up at the girl he’d been trying to flirt with for the better part of the afternoon.
“Of course you’re out of work. That’s as good a reason as any to set up my family and get some of my people killed. You were just looking out for your own interest. Who could blame you for that?”
Blue spit the rum he choked on back onto the table. Swallowing wrong set off a furious round of coughing, and he knew the color of his face lived up to his name. “Wha…what?” he finally got out through the wheezing.
“Let’s go for a little ride, Blue,” Cain said. She stood, pulled out a money clip, and peeled off a couple of bills. The waitress reappeared as if by magic. “What’s your name, darlin’?”
“Mitzi.” She looked greedily at the crisp one hundred dollar bills in Cain’s fingers. “You need another drink or something?”
“No, Mitzi, I need to know where the back door is. Then I need to hear you give a complete description of me. If you can do that”—the money clip came out again and Cain peeled off another two hundred—“you can go shopping for something pretty.”
“The door’s by the restrooms, through there.” She pointed to Cain’s left. “And you, it’s going to be hard to say anything about somebody I’ve never seen before.”
Before the money exchanged hands Cain laughed, never taking her eyes off the woman. “See, Blue, we just met, and already this girl’s got something up on you. She’s smart, and she knows when to keep her mouth shut.” Cain handed the money over and walked out the front.
Behind her Blue was about to scream when Lou put a small knife up to his throat.
“You gonna be needing change on that twenty?” Mitzi asked Katlin.
“Keep it, sugar. I’m not as generous as my friend, but not many of us are.” The third race Blue had bought tickets for concluded, finally breaking his losing streak.
“Hey, I won.” He held up the stubs now worth five grand.
“On second thought, sugar, I think this might just be your lucky day.” Katlin ripped the stubs out of Blue’s hand and gave them to the waitress. “Go buy yourself that something pretty my friend mentioned.”
“That’s mine,” Blue whined, temporarily forgetting the trouble he was in.
“It’s just not your lucky day…again…you fucker,” Lou whispered before pushing him toward the door. “Let’s go so I can explain to you what the trifecta of screwups means.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
“You ever get the feeling all hell’s about to break loose and there’s nothing you can do about it?” Joe asked. It was starting to frustrate him that everyone they’d targeted was being so circumspect. “Maybe if we recap what we have so far.”
“This started with us following Kyle’s lead by raiding Cain’s warehouse and finding a legal shipment of liquor,” Shelby said.
“Right, only the real crime was Kyle shooting Cain on Giovanni Bracato’s behalf. As retaliation for losing his inside man, Bracato orders the hit on the house, Muriel’s office, and Emerald’s.” Joe was pacing now as Lionel wrote the timeline on the board in the conference room they were using. “We have no real proof he ordered the hits, but who else would have held such a grudge against her?”
“Did we check with the police that day about any identification on the people Cain’s crew was able to bring down?” The blue marker in Lionel’s hand was starting to dry up from all the writing he’d done. “I don’t remember reading that in their report.”
“You’re right,” Joe agreed.
“If we had the names we could run down any leads on who they were working for. It could make it easier for us to find a way to bring someone in for questioning. At this point I don’t care who it is, just as long as we get a little something out of it.”
Shelby ran her hand through her hair and felt tired. They’d spent so many hours at the office trying to prevent the mayhem they were all waiting for that she was starting to feel like she’d never have any personal life. “I did ask about that, and the detective on the scene said there was no ID on any of the perps. If I was a betting woman, I’d say Muriel or Merrick has those right now and knows who they worked for.”
“You wouldn’t want to call her and ask her nicely to let us have a look at them, would you?” Joe drooped his lips into a pathetic frown and cocked his head to the side like a begging puppy.
“I’m sure she’d not only do that, but tell us exactly how her cousin has evaded detection from doing God knows what for so long.” She gave the answer in the same teasing tone as she addressed Joe’s question. “Come on, guys, we’ve been at this for days, and it isn’t getting us anywhere. How about we knock off early today and start fresh tomorrow?”
“Yeah, I can’t really see anything shaking out today.”
*
The inside of the Casey house seemed dark and ominous because the back windows had been boarded. When they reached Cain’s office, Emma had to put her hand on the doorjamb to steady her balance. Behind her, Merrick still looked irritated at having to be stuck with her as long as Cain ordered. “You know, Merrick, if you stop sulking long enough, you might find that my company really isn’t all bad.”
“I’m not sulking.” The long sigh that followed didn’t make Merrick sound all that convincing. “Are we almost finished here? Cain and the others might need me.”
“If you find this assignment so unacceptable, I’ll be happy to talk to her tonight and see if she’ll change her mind. I’m sure Cain can find someone else to work with me.”
Emma ran her fingers along the holes in the leather chair and closed her eyes. It chilled her blood to think of her lover sitting here. “There’s no sense in you being miserable and making me miserable watching you frown all day long.”
“No, I appreciate your concern, but she’s right,” Merrick conceded. “You need someone competent to watch you, and I’ll do it as long as necessary. Do you want to start calling repairmen? I could get the household staff to give me a list of who we’ve used in the past.”
“Maybe tomorrow, but for now I want to talk to Cain about all this. Fresh paint and new windows might fix what’s broken, but I don’t know how the kids would react to coming back here.”
“How do you feel about the prospect?”
“I’d be happy living in the pool house out back, Merrick. Just as long as I get to share it with her. I was scared before because I didn’t fully understand.”
“And now?” Merrick didn’t look entirely convinced.
“We’ve talked a lot in the last few weeks, and now I understand far better what makes her tick. Before, I just knew about what she needed from me here.” She waved to indicate the house. “But what she needed to get done out there was a foreign concept.”