"Give me the money, Leo, and I promise I'll end it quick and painless."
He waited but got no response. Renfro's face was scarlet. His lips were pulled back, exposing teeth gnashed together.
"Leo? Leo, listen to me. I know you're in a lot of pain but listen to me. If you don't give me the money we're going to be here all night. You think it hurts now? You can't imagine what – "
"Fuck you! I don't have the money."
Karch nodded.
"Well, at least we're making progress, right? We're now past the 'What money?' stage. If you don't have it, then where is it?"
"I gave it to Chicago."
The answer came too quickly for Karch. He looked closely at Renfro's face and decided he was lying.
"I don't think so, Leo. Where's the girl? Cassie Black, Leo, where is she?"
Renfro didn't respond. Karch stepped back a pace and calmly fired a bullet into his other knee.
Renfro let out a loud scream that was followed by a stream of epithets that dissolved into delirium and moans. He rolled over onto his chest, his elbows tucked in and his face in his hands. His legs were sprawled behind him, twin pools of blood leaking from his knees. Karch looked out the broken door, across the pool, and checked for lights or any indication that the neighbors had taken notice. All he heard was the freeway. He hoped it would keep him covered.
"Okay, okay," Leo blubbered into his hands. "I'll tell you. I'll show you."
"Okay, Leo, that's good. Now we're getting somewhere."
Renfro raised his head and pushed himself up onto his elbows. He started crawling forward, toward the shattered door, his dead legs dragging behind him and leaving a trail of blood.
"I'll tell you," he choked out through pain and tears. "I'll show you."
"Then talk to me, Leo," Karch said. "Where are you going? You can't go anywhere. You can't even walk, for crying out loud. Just tell me where it is."
Renfro moved another painful foot closer to the door. When he spoke his voice was ragged and was delivered through clenched teeth.
"See… you see… it was the fucking moon… the void moon…"
"What are you talking about? Where's the money?"
Karch realized he had gone too far. Renfro was delirious with pain and blood loss. He was quickly becoming useless.
"The void moon," Renfro said. "It's the void moon."
Karch took a step along with him.
"Void moon?" he said. "What's that mean?"
Renfro stopped moving. He turned his face and looked up at Karch. The tightness had gone out of it. He almost looked relaxed.
"It means anything can happen, motherfucker."
His voice was strong now. He suddenly raised himself off his elbows onto his hands. He raised himself up to full extension and lurched forward into the sliding door frame. His neck came down on the jagged piece of glass still held in the frame.
Karch realized what he was doing too late.
"No, goddammit!"
He reached down and grabbed Renfro's collar and jerked him up and off the glass. He dropped him to the floor and then grabbed his shoulder and turned him over.
He had acted too late. A deep, wide gash extended across Renfro's neck. He had cut his own throat. Blood was burbling out of the left side where the carotid artery had been severed.
Leo Renfro's eyes were bright as he looked up at Karch. A bloody smile formed on his face. Slowly he reached a hand up and used it to hold his neck together. His voice was a whispered croak.
"You lose."
Leo dropped the hand and let the blood flow from his neck. He kept the smile on his face and his eyes on Karch.
Karch dropped to his knees and hovered over him.
"You think you beat me? Huh? Huh? You think you won?"
Leo could only answer with his smile. Karch knew it said Fuck You! He raised the gun and pressed the muzzle into Renfro's bloody mouth.
"You didn't win."
He leaned back and turned his face away. He pulled the trigger. The shot blew out the back of Renfro's head and killed him instantly.
Karch pulled the weapon away and studied the dead man's face. His eyes were open and somehow he still had the smile.
"Fuck you. You didn't beat me."
He leaned back on his heels and looked around himself. He saw a drop of blood spatter on the white instep of one of his two-tone Lite Tread spectator shoes. He used his thumb to wipe it off and then wiped his thumb on Leo's shirt.
He stood up and looked around the office. He sighed loudly. He knew he had a long night of searching ahead. He had to find the money. He had to find Cassie Black.
31
ON Friday morning Cassie Black arrived at the dealership at ten and checked with Ray Morales to see what was what. He had taken her calls while she had been out the last few days. Ray said all was quiet but that he had a prospect coming in to test-drive a new Boxster at three. He had just been given a development deal at Warner Brothers that ran into seven figures. Ray had gotten it out of the Hollywood Reporter and expected it to be an easy sale. She thanked him for thinking of her with the prospect and was about to head to her office when he stopped her.
"You okay, kid?" he asked.
"Sure, why?"
"I don't know. You don't look like you've been sleeping much lately."
Cassie brought her right hand up and cupped her left elbow, which still ached from the briefcase jolt.
"I know," she said. "Just been thinking about things. Sometimes it keeps me awake."
"What things?"
"I don't know. Just things. I'll be in my office if you need me."
She left him then and went to the sanctuary of her tiny office. She dropped her backpack into the foot well of the desk and sat down. She put her elbows up on the blotter and ran her hands through her hair. She felt like screaming I CAN'T DO THIS ANYMORE! But she tried to put her anxieties aside by reminding herself that one way or another her life would be changing very soon.
She picked up the phone to check her voice mail, even though on Tuesday she had left a generic outgoing message saying she would be off work for a few days and referring calls to Ray Morales until she got back. Four messages had been left for her anyway. One was from a body shop reporting a set of customized chrome wheels for a ' 58 Speedster she had sold were now ready. The second call was from one of Ray's prospects – a producer at Fox – from the week before. He wasn't calling about the car he had test-driven. He was just calling to tell her he had liked her style and wanted to know if she was interested in going with him to a premiere of a friend's picture the following week. Cassie didn't bother writing down the guy's private cell phone number.
"If you liked my style, why didn't you buy the car?" she said into the phone.
The third message was from Leo. There was an agitation in his voice she had not heard before. The message had come in at 12:10 A.M. that morning. She listened to it three times.
"Hey, it's me. What's wrong with your cell phone? I couldn't get through. Anyway, I just got back from my drop. I have those things you wanted but there's something else, something wrong. Somebody got the address somehow and dropped me something there. An ace of hearts from the Flamingo. I don't know what it means but it means something. Call me when you get this. Use all precautions and keep your head down. Oh, and erase this, okay?"
Cassie hit the three button on the phone, erasing Leo's recording before she went on to the fourth message. The last call had come in at seven-thirty that morning and it was a hang-up call. There had been no background noise, just a few seconds of someone breathing and then the hang-up. She wondered if it had been Leo.
She hung up the phone, reached down to the floor and pulled her backpack up onto her lap. She first dug through it until she found her cell phone. It had been turned off. She remembered doing it the night before after hanging up on Leo and deciding she didn't want him calling back.