“Just take it easy,” Stone said. “You had a nasty shock.”
“Annie? Annie?” Paddy scanned the room.
“She’ll be back,” Stone said. “She had to, uh, step out for a minute.” He’d already cleaned up Paddy’s sick and had waited for the man to awaken.
“Was it really Annie?” Paddy asked, a shaky hand gripping Stone’s arm.
“Yeah, it was really Annie.”
When Stone heard Annabelle’s footsteps on the stairs he put himself between Paddy an
d his daughter. The door opened and she stood there, her face white, her expression, well, expressionless. For a terrifying moment Stone wondered if she’d gone out and bought a gun.
She closed the door behind her, pulled a chair out from the small dinette set in one corner and sat down facing the two men.
She stared between Stone and her father before settling her gaze on Paddy. “You done puking?”
He nodded dumbly. “Annie?”
She held up a hand. “Just shut up. I didn’t say you could talk, did I?”
He shook his head and sat back against the sofa, a hand over his flat stomach.
She turned her attention to Stone. “Why the hell did you bring him here?”
“I figured it was time the two of you talked.”
“You figured wrong.”
“I didn’t get a chance to tell you before you stormed out. When your mother was killed, your father was in a federal holding cell in Boston on a counterfeit check kiting charge.”
Stone sat back next to Paddy and studied Annabelle. The woman was the greatest con of her generation, he felt, because her face didn’t betray the slightest hint of emotion at the stunning news.
“How do you know that?” she finally said, her gaze never leaving his.
“I checked with my friend Alex on the way over here. The stuff’s all computerized now.”
“How did you even know to check?” she asked dully.
“Because the bloke asked me about your mother’s death when we were sitting at the bar,” Paddy broke in. “I told him. I was in that damn cell for nearly a month. They didn’t have enough to convict me, but I couldn’t afford a lawyer. By the time I got out your mother was long since buried.”
“That doesn’t change the fact that you’re the reason she died in the first place.”
“I never said it did. Not a minute goes by that I don’t wish it was me in the ground instead of her.”
Annabelle stared over at Stone. “And you bought that sob story? That’s Con 101.”
“No, it’s the truth, and I don’t give a damn if you believe it or not,” Paddy exclaimed, rising unsteadily to his feet.
“He comes all the time to see her grave,” Stone added.
“Who cares?” Annabelle snapped. “But for a lousy ten thousand bucks that this scum ripped off Bagger, she’d be alive today.”
“I never thought he’d come after your mum. I don’t know who tipped Bagger off where she was. If I did know, I’d have killed the bastard.”
“Save it for someone who cares.”
“And not a day goes by that I don’t think about having my hands around Jerry Bagger’s neck.”
“Really? So why haven’t you? It’s not like you don’t know where the guy lives.”
“He’s got a damn army around him.”
“Tell me something I don’t know.”
Paddy stared at her curiously. “I heard Bagger ran into some trouble recently. Scuttlebutt around the con world. Was that you?”
Annabelle rose and opened the door. “Get out.”
“Annie—”
“Get out!”
Paddy left, stumbling against the wall as he did so. Annabelle looked at Stone. “I’ll never forgive you for this.”
“I’m not looking for forgiveness.” He stood.
“So why did you really bring him here?”
“Why don’t you think about it and see if you can come up with the answer on your own. It might mean more to you that way.”
Stone walked out the door and Annabelle kicked it shut.
CHAPTER 40
TWO OF BAGGER’S MEN discovered that Milton had been to the hotel across the street from the Pompeii. They talked to the clerk on duty and also to Helen, the masseuse who’d worked on Milton. Confronted with Bagger’s grim foot soldiers, neither held back anything. And Milton clearly was not a cop or a fed. The call was made later that morning to Bagger with this information.
“Pick him and his friend up, find out what they’re up to and then kill them,” was Bagger’s response. “Then make sure Dolores knows about it. If that doesn’t shut her up for good, I know something else that will.”
The men drove to Milton and Reuben’s motel on the outskirts of the casino strip, where Bagger’s surveillance team had told them the men were staying.
They pulled to a stop in front of the motel and got out. Milton and Reuben were on the second floor, room 214.
They went in hard and fast. Milton was on the bed packing his bag.
One of Bagger’s men said, “Okay, you sorry sack of—” That was all he could manage because his jaw was cracked by Reuben’s hammer fist. He dropped to the carpet, out cold. Reuben grabbed the other fellow, lifted him up and slammed him against the wall, laid a massive elbow into the back of his head and then let him fall limp to the floor.
Reuben quickly rifled through their pockets, taking the ammo from their pistols and their car keys. He flipped through their IDs. Pompeii Casino. They were Bagger’s goons. He had watched them drive up in the Hummer, slipped into the bathroom and pounced when they’d burst in.
“How’d you know they were coming here?” Milton asked as he gazed at the two unconscious men.
“I figured if they killed that Cindy chick, they’d probably be keeping a close eye on the mother. They must’ve spotted you last night talking to her, spent the time in between retracing your steps, found out you were interested in this Robby Thomas guy and Bagger ordered a little visit.”
“Pretty good deduction.”
“Ten years in military intelligence wasn’t entirely wasted on me. Let’s go.”
They loaded their bags in Reuben’s truck. Five minutes later they were heading south as fast as Reuben’s decade-old ride could carry them.
“Reuben, I’m scared,” Milton said as they hit the interstate.
“You should be scared, because I’m shitting in my pants.”
CHAPTER 41
CARTER GRAY WAS BRIEFING the current CIA director on the matter of Rayfield Solomon. “I think it’s someone close to Solomon,” Gray told the director. “The picture that was sent, they wanted me to know why I was being killed.”
“Did Solomon have any family?” the director asked. “I know about the case, of course, but it was before my time here.”
“Solomon was involved with a Russian. That’s what started the whole thing. We only knew her first name, Lesya.”
“And after Solomon died, what happened?”
“She disappeared. Actually, she disappeared before he died. We believed it was prearranged. They knew we were closing in. We got him, but not her.”
“And this was how long ago?”
Gray said, “Over thirty years.”
“Well, that means if she’s still alive I doubt it’s her running around killing people.”