A Killing Kiss Read online

  He promised. As she watched the dark-eyed man turn and leave the room she didn’t doubt it for a moment. He would handle everything. All would be well. He promised.

  And he wasn’t a man that made promises he couldn’t keep.

  #3

  Of all Jacob Menten’s lieutenants Greg Tarkanian was the one who would be hardest to remove. Tarkanian was the first man Jacob recruited for his organization. Wiry, as tough as dried leather, as smart as one of Satan’s angels. Most of all cautious. Very cautious. He didn’t make a move without thinking it through from every angle at least twice. That made him dangerous. That made him the one lieutenant the dark-eyed man worried about the most.

  Greg Tarkanian was as old as Jacob Menten. In fact they grew up together in a small town just outside Chicago. He knew the organization inside and out. Knew all the secrets. All the hiding places. All the bank accounts. In short, with Jacob’s death, logic dictated that Greg Tarkanian would be the man to step up and take over the syndicate. The only problem was that somewhere... somewhere in their long history... Greg Tarkanian and Jacob Menten ceased to be friends. They didn’t split and become enemies. Technically Tarkanian was still one of Jacob’s lieutenants. But everyone in the organization knew. Knew Jacob had made it clear that if anyone took over the organization after his death the one person who would not do so was Greg Tarkanian.

  No one knew the incident which created the rift between Menten and Tarkanian. No one dared to ask. The boss’s old friend had a mean streak in him. A mean streak that could get vicious if pushed too hard. So no one asked. Everybody, including the boss when he was alive, let Tarkanian do his own thing. He left them alone if they left him alone. Apparently everybody agreed that was the best thing to do.

  But sitting in the rental car looking at Tarkanian’s two story red brick townhouse in one of the more affluent neighborhoods of the city the dark-eyed man mulled over the various options available to deal with this cold killer. Should he be polite and contact the old man? Ask him what his intentions were toward Charlene Menten and the baby? Or should he assume the worst and plan from there?

  Give the old man a chance. Years of loyalty from Tarkanian to Menten demanded at least giving the man a chance. So he would ask. He would approach the hard old man and straight up ask. Sitting in the car, he reached inside his coat pocket and pulled out of the shoulder holster underneath his left armpit the Rock Island made 1911 Government Model .45 caliber semi-automatic. Pulling the slide back to jack a round into the firing chamber he thumbed off the safeties and slid the gun back into the holster. He didn’t think the old man would do anything foolish but with Greg Tarkanian you never knew. You just never knew.

  Rolling out of the car Smitty looked to his right and left before walking across the quiet residential street. Dark eyes played across the facade of the townhouse. A light was on in what had to be the front room. The garage door to the right was down. There was a newspaper lying on the front step to one side of the door.

  Odd.

  It was a morning paper. Meaning that if Tarkanian was here he should have collected the paper hours earlier. But there it was lying on the step undisturbed. Eyes narrowing, his right hand slipped into his sport coat and curled fingers around the butt of the semi-auto. Stepping onto the sidewalk leading to the front door, Smitty paused for a second, tilting his head to one side. The townhouse was silent. No radio was playing. No television blaring away. No monotonous droning of a dish washer or dryer humming away in the back of the house. Just total silence.

  Stepping up to the front door he saw the door was not shut properly. A gap of about two inches separated the door from the latch. Bending his head to one side again he leaned it closer to the partially opened door and listened more intently. Pressed against his right thigh was the heavy blue metal of the Government Model in his hand. Frowning, finding it unnatural, the dark-eyed man slowly pushed the door open with the toe of his left shoe. Carefully, gun in hand, he stepped inside, stepped into the darkness of the quiet home.

  Lying in the short hallway that went from the front door to the dining room off to the right, was a body. A body lying in a sea of blood on the polished hardwood floor of the hall. A big man. Dressed in an expensive gray suit. Wearing very expensive loafers. And half of his face missing. On the floor beside the man was a heavy-looking leather briefcase. Scattered all over the floor to one side of the body were papers. Dozens of papers, legal briefs and other assorted documents.

  Shotgun blast at close range. From the looks of it someone came through the front door right behind the lawyer. When the lawyer heard the noise behind him he turned and caught the buckshot in his face. Glancing down at the body and then at the scattered legal papers with their official looking headings, Smitty had no doubt. The dead man was a lawyer. A very experienced, well-paid lawyer. Here to see Greg Tarkanian about something. But where was the old man’s body? Frowning, gripping the gun in his hand, he searched the house.

  There were no other bodies. But in back, in front of the door that lead out of the kitchen and into the garage, he found blood splattering. And a bloody door handle. Tarkanian’s? Probably. Searching the garage he found blood on the cement floor by an empty spot where a vehicle had recently been sitting. It looked like the second wounded man – call the man Tarkanian – staggered out into the garage, got into a vehicle, used an automatic garage door opener, backed out and drove off closing the garage door behind him.

  A lawyer was dead. And Jacob Menten’s oldest, most experienced lieutenant, alive but severely wounded. Where did he go? Who called the hit? Why go after Tarkanian first? Walking back to the hallway and looking at the dead lawyer again Smitty thought it over for a few minutes. And the more he thought about it the more it made sense. If you were the guy going to make a play and take over the syndicate you would want to eliminate the most dangerous threat to your usurpation first. Greg Tarkanian. Except Tarkanian didn’t die like he was supposed to. He could be very much alive. Wounded. But alive.

  Making him ten times more dangerous. A wounded animal. God help the fool that ordered the hit. God help the fools that muffed it. God help them. Because when Tarkanian got a hold of them they would be beyond the aid of anybody else. A grim little smile played across the dark-eyed man’s lips as he holstered his weapon. For now he wouldn’t worry about Greg Tarkanian. There were others who needed attending to first.

  #

  An hour later he dodged through traffic in the downtown area and stepped up onto the curb and into the glare of bright neon lights in front of the pub. He was here to talk to two people. Just talk. For now.

  The two sat in a booth in the back of the tightly cramped little bar owned by Mick O’Toole. Called, appropriately enough, The Irish Lad. The place was uptown plush; catering to the young crowd who had money to burn and indiscretions to hand out like business cards. It was filled with young women in expensive clothes flashing lots of jewelry. The men were the young hunters of the corporate world who loved their BMW’s and obscene annual bonus checks. Professionals who knew how to make money – and spend it – with the best of them. Combine the two and the pub was a hotbed of sexual tension and sizzling hormones.

  For O’Toole it was his ticket into a society that otherwise would never allow him within a hundred yards. Mick was a scarred, broken-nosed, calloused street fighter from the back alleys of Detroit. He barely had a high school education. He was rough around the edges. He couldn’t complete a sentence and refrain from lacing it with a few choice profanities. He knew all the moves in a fight. A fight that had no rules.

  Perhaps it was his rough edges which brought him so much notoriety and acceptance among the young and beautiful. The allusion of danger. The promise of dark, vicious action which might happen at any moment. It was a form of drug-induced elixir none of the Chosen could deny.

  The man sitting across the booth from the Irishman was oddly similar in many areas of heritage, yet quite different as well. Wil Marconi knew all the moves in a fight. Had t
he scars to prove it. His formal education was actually less than that of Mick’s. Yet Marconi spoke like an intellectual. Whereas the Irishman dressed with all the taste of a jilted pimp, Marconi looked like an ad out of GQ Magazine. A thousand dollar suit. Silk shirt. Silk tie. Diamond cufflinks. Gucci shoes. Big rocks glittering in gold rings on his fingers.

  Leaning against the mahogany bar Smitty poured his bottle of beer into a glass and watched the two men for a few seconds before his dark eyes swept the area in front of the two looking for their muscle. Up and coming crime lords need protection. With the death of their old boss times were going to get a bit rough until the dust settled. Best to make sure each had a man or two with them at all times.

  There were four of them. Four big-boned apes sitting at a table not too far away from the booth. The four were eating pizza and drinking beer but their eyes were watching the crowd. Two sets of eyes swept past the dark-eyed man leaning against the bar with a glass of beer in his hand. Swept by... and returned to take a closer look.

  He smiled when he saw one of the big men nudge the one sat beside him and nod his head toward the bar. The second one nodded and turned his head toward the booth and said something. Almost instantly the two in the booth swivelled heads around to look toward the bar. Toward Smitty.

  It was Marconi who lifted a hand up and waved. Waved for Smitty to come over. Hanging onto his glass of beer Smitty nodded and walked through the heavy crowd. Stepping up to the booth he tilted his head to one side. All four of the men at the table stood to create a human wall separating him from the crowd.

  “Smitty, what the hell you doing in town?” Mick spat, genuine surprise written on his hard, calloused face.

  “Here on business,” the dark-eyed man replied, his voice soft but loud enough to be heard. “Personal business.”

  The Irishman and the Italian looked at each other, worried, then looked back at the dark-eyed man standing over them. They knew Smitty. Met him every time he came in to do some business for the boss. The kind of business that had to be done quickly. Quietly. Permanently.

  “What kind of business?” Marconi asked.

  “About six months back I got a call from Jacob. Said he was worried. Worried about his wife and son. Said that if anything should ever happen to him he wanted me to make sure Mrs. Menten and little Jacob would be well cared for. Made safe. Made sure they would be left out on what was to come.”

  Mick O’Toole puckered his lips and softly whistled, lifting an eyebrow and shaking his head. A smile played across Wil Marconi’s handsome but cold face. A flash of mirth in his brown eyes. The two glanced at each other and then turned their attention back to Smitty. Marconi shrugged.

  “We have no beef against the boss’s wife, Smitty. As long as she gives back what’s rightly ours. What rightly belongs to the organization.”

  “It ain’t us you need to worry about anyways,” the Irishman put in swiftly. “Stu and Charlie are the one’s she should worry about. Charlie most of all. He’s always hated the missus. Talked about getting rid of her the moment the boss went down with his heart.”

  “And Tarkanian? How does he feel about Mrs. Menten and the baby?”

  “Greg?” Wil echoed, lifting a speculative eyebrow. He shook his head no. “Greg’s retired. He couldn’t care less about the business. Or the boss’s wife. He’s out of the picture. Completely out. But we’re still playing.”

  Black eyes narrowed thoughtfully and studied the Italian’s face for a couple of seconds. “Give what back to the organization?”

  “When the boss died two coded computer discs disappeared out of the boss’s personal safe,” Marconi went on. He began to look a little uncomfortable under Smitty’s scrutiny. “One disc listed all the marks who owed the organization dough. And not the nickle and dime stuff. Big wads of cash. The kind of cash that buys off attorney generals and governors in about ten different states. Plus half of Congress.”

  “A fucking fortune bigger than all the money Bill Gates has,” growled the Irishman, shaking his head in disgust. “Enough greenbacks to buy out the IRA – and I ain’t talking about savings accounts, brother.”

  “The other disc was a list of names and dates,” the better dressed of the two hoods went on. “A very long list of names of some of the most prominent politicians, judges, magistrates, cops, you name it... names of very powerful people. All of ’em owing us money. Lots of money. And favors. Which, if you want to know the truth, is more important for us. The favors.”

  “But the money, Wil. The money,” the Irishman said, shrugging and looking at his pal. “We need that dough if we’re gonna fucking go to war with the others. You know that.”

  “I don’t care about the money,” the Italian said, shrugging and frowning. “Sure. Money is money and we all love it. But we can make money. Making money isn’t a problem. It’s the leverage – the names – that I’m interested in. We get our hands on those names and, well, we can breathe a little easier. Nobody can use those names against us.”

  “But you know Stu and Charlie are hankering for those names as well, Smitty.” the Irishman growled, looking meaner as he spoke. “I wouldn’t trust Stu or Greg or Charlie with a bubble gum wrapper. Between the three of them they’re gonna find a way to find that disc. And they’re not going to be pleasant until they get it.”

  “You get the names and that’s it? Mrs. Menten and the baby walk out of this clean. They walk with the money and no regrets. No fears. Is that what I’m hearing from you two?”

  Mick O’Toole and Wil Marconi looked at each other across the booth and read each other like a book. They both nodded in agreement, looked up at Smitty and nodded again.

  “Deal,” said the well-dressed Italian, spreading his hands in a gesture of acceptance. “We get the names. She gets the money. Everybody’s happy.”

  “I’ll see what I can do,” the dark-eyed man said starting to turn. He hesitated and looked back at the two. “Thought you might be interested. You don’t need to worry about ol’ Charlie. It seems he’s out of the picture. Something about drinking too much and insisting on driving home. You might want to check it out.”

  The sneer flirted across Smitty’s thin lips for a nanosecond and then the dark-eyed man turned away. He disappeared into the crowd like a bad nightmare. The two men in the booth slowly turned their gazes back to each other. White faced.

  Poor ol’ Charlie.

  #

  In the darkness of night evil plays its twisted, maniacal games with a grim, macabre humor. In the night – in the early hours of the morning – when the sane and the law-abiding are at home and safely tucked in their beds, the sick and the deranged come out to play. Play a deadly game of cat and mouse.

  Blocks away from The Irish Lad the dark-eyed man sat motionlessly behind the steering wheel of the rental car. He waited for the traffic light that hovered over an empty intersection to change. In front of him the barely illuminated street was devoid of traffic. To his left and right the streets were just as empty. Behind him nothing stirred. The streets were lined with three- and four-storied brick edifices, dark and empty. The wind, as it blew a lonely piece of paper across the intersection in front of him, had the strong aroma of approaching rain. In the distance the flash of lightning, a lot of lightning, promised a driving thunderstorm was not too far away.

  And then – suddenly – in the rear view mirror... lights. Bright lights, rolling up behind the rear bumper of the rental car. The rumble of a powerful V8 coming through the partially rolled down window of his driver’s side door. The van sat high over the car’s bumper. A delivery van, dark and heavy. Dark eyes of menace glanced up at the rear view mirror. A gloved hand slid inside his sport coat and pulled out the heavy frame of a .45 caliber Rock Island brand 1911 Government Model. Using both hands he eased the slide back, jacked a round into the firing chamber, thumbed the safeties off, and laid the gun down on the seat beside him.

  When the traffic light turned green Smitty pulled away in a normal fashion.
Behind him the van waited for a moment or two and then followed. A smile – dangerous and dark – cut across Smitty’s thin lips. Both hands on the steering wheel he sped up a little, put a little more distance between him and the van. Four blocks later he pulled to a halt at another traffic light. Another empty intersection.

  Twenty seconds... thirty seconds... forty seconds rolled by and nothing happened. Streets empty, lightning filling the night; claps of thunder rumbled in the distance. The black, unmarked van sat directly behind him.

  Time seemed to tick by ever so slowly.

  Colors – sounds – smells seemed to increase in intensity.

  Yet so calm. So calm knowing that something was about to happen.

  Something bad.

  The light turned green.

  As Smitty slid his rental through the intersection a car, big and black with blacked out windows, shot out of a side alley and halted on the street in front of him. Behind him the growling V8 of the black van ripped open the night. With a vicious thud the bumper of the van smacked into the back of his car, lurching it around to one side just as men with guns started pouring out of the car in front of him.

  Smitty came out through the door low and quick, hugging close to the car and running as fast as he could toward the van beside him. Gun fire – the loud popping sound of several 9 mm’s and the thudding, teeth-rattling blast of Double-0 buckshot from pump action shot guns, filled the stillness of the night air. He heard the glass of the car’s front windshield shatter into a thousand pieces. Felt the car rock several times as buckshot slapped into the metal of the car’s fenders and grill. But he didn’t stop moving. Never gave the gunmen in front of him a clear target to shoot at.

  From behind the van two men with Kalishnikovs appeared, bringing their weapons around and up to fire at him. But they were slow. Too slow. A pair of slugs from his .45 exploded from his gun. One bullet each. Both men had their heads explode from being drilled between the eyes. Without missing a step and still running low Smitty shot a hand out and caught one of the Kalishnikovs as it fell from a dead hand.