LEO
I know what’s going to happen. I just don’t want her involved when it goes down. It’s making more and more sense. It has to be the sheriff. He’s the snitch. That’s why he keeps turning up at the most convenient moments.
Look at him coming to check to see if I’ve been killed back at the abandoned house. It took him seconds to reappraise the situation.
He could have killed me, but it wouldn’t have taken long for Mikey to find out. Much easier to frame me for the murder of Benny. Maybe Cam, too.
I’m certain it’s him. I’m a fucking idiot for thinking we bought him. The Belucci famiglia obviously paid him more.
Something about it doesn’t add up but I can work it all out properly later. For now, I know I’m in trouble. I’m in the back of the car, driving away from Amelia’s house. I say nothing.
Amelia is in her house and he knows he can deal with her later. One witness dead and one more murder to pin on me. Then he can carry on his merry game of bringing the Beluccis back to Gordon’s Cove.
I’m not liking the way we’re going. We’ve gone straight past the sheriff’s office. Louie might think I didn’t notice, but I already know this town like the back of my hand.
We’re heading out into the open countryside. There’s only one reason for that. He’s planning to kill me.
“You need to vanish,” he says as we pass the Welcome to Gordon’s Cove sign. I look down at the cuffs on my hands. “For appearance’s sake,” he told me after we’d dropped off Amelia. He’s taken my gun off me too and I miss it like I’d miss my arm.
At once I realize I’ve made a mistake. I should have killed him back at the lighthouse. I’m going to have to think fast when we stop if I’m going to get out of this alive.
I need to stay alive to protect Amelia. If I get killed, he’ll go for her next and she’s done nothing to deserve getting hurt. The only reason she’s involved at all is because of me, and the least I can do is make sure she’s safe.
I close my eyes and let Louie think I’m asleep. He does not know I’m as alert as I’ve ever been. I’m picturing the roads we’re taking.
I know the quietest spot near town is the old mill. A great wide space of scrub hidden from the road by a row of pine trees. No one will be out there this time of night except for us.
The car slows and turns and I open my eyes. I guessed right. We’re coming to a stop. Louie turns to look at me. “Time to make you vanish,” he says. “You ready?”
“Let’s get this over with,” I tell him. I already know something he doesn’t. When a made man kills you, he doesn’t talk first, he just smiles, and then next thing you know, you’re dead. I should know, I’ve done it often enough to other people.
Guys like Louie, they like to boast. It’s what gets them killed the most often. They rabbit on about how smart they are compared to you while you get yourself ready to snap their necks before they even know what’s happening.
I’m going to kill him and I’m going to enjoy it. He’s still talking, but I’m not moving out the back seat of the car until he tells me what I want to hear.
“Time to go,” he says at last.
“Tell me one thing,” I reply as he swings his door open.
“What’s that?”
“What’s in it for you?”
He laughs. “You’ve no idea, have you, no idea at all.”
“How long you been the snitch for, Louie?”
“The snitch? Do you think I’m the snitch? That’s just a made-up story to get you out here, Leo. You really are a dumb fuck, aren’t you? Now out the car, before I drag you out.”
He pulls open my door and I get to my feet, my hands cuffed in front of me. I could get them around his neck, but he’s got his gun trained on me.
“Over there,” he says, pointing toward the old mill.
“Why not let Benny kill me?”
“This way I can show the Don your corpse, show him you were breathing when I filled in the grave. Get moving.”
I walk that way, getting an occasional poke in the kidneys from the butt of his pistol. “That’s far enough,” he says, and I look where I am. There’s a pit been dug.
The dirt next to it looks fresh. It’s only a few hours old. “You waltz in here like it’s your fucking town,” Louie says, shoving me down to my
knees. “It’s not your town. It’s Belucci’s town.”
“Get on with it,” I tell him, bracing myself. “You’re boring me.”
He moves behind me, putting the gun to the back of my head. “I get the casino,” he says with a laugh. “You get an unmarked grave in the middle of nowhere. Bet you never thought you’d go out this way.”
“Mikey know you’re doing this?” I ask, expecting the bullet to fire any second. I wish I had time to say a proper goodbye to Amelia.
Louie laughs even louder. “Mikey’s the one who set this all up,” he says. “Emails me to make me an offer I’d be insane to refuse. Get rid of you and I get your place in the family. I get made. I get to be boss when he retires. I unite the two families.”
Two things make little sense about that sentence. Mikey has emailed no one anything in his life. Two, no one in the Gianni family retires. The only way out is six feet under, just like my retirement plan is the pit in front of me.
Whoever emailed Louie, it wasn’t Mikey. He’s being used to get rid of me. It makes sense suddenly.
The snitch has conned Louie into doing his dirty work, taking me out without even showing his face. The snitch isn’t Louie; the snitch is using Louie. Pretending to be Mikey.
“One thing you should know,” I say, tensing up my muscles ready.
“Before you shoot me.”
“What’s that, big man?”
“I’m a Christian. Any chance you’ll say a prayer for me when I’m gone?”
He barks out a laugh. “That’s a good one, Leo. Yeah, sure, I’ll say a prayer for-”
While he’s talking, I spring sideways. He goes to shoot, but I’m already kicking out at his ankles with all the force I’ve got. He trips and falls forward, straight over me and into the pit he’s dug. He lands in the bottom with a crunch, screaming like he’s just broken something important.
I’m up and running a second later. I get to his car and glance inside. Key in the ignition. The first bit of good luck since I got out here.
I lift my legs to get the cuffs out under my feet one at a time. I glance back and Louie’s on the edge of the pit, pointing the gun my way. I dart behind his car as he fires.
A window shatters, glass falling on my head as he yells my name. I squeeze open the door and slide in, starting the engine and gunning it, racing away to the road, leaving him far behind.
I have got little time. He can call for reinforcements on his radio and now I’m going to be a wanted man. No amount of money is going to get the heat off my back.
I think as I drive. Will he really call it in? If he does that, he’ll have to admit he didn’t kill me. If the snitch is as ruthless with failure as he has been about everything else, then Louie is going to have far bigger problems than me pretty soon.
More likely he’ll try to track me down himself. That leaves me one option. I need to get Amelia some place safe, and then I need to find the snitch and deal with him once and for all.
I tear back down into town and get to Amelia’s place. The one time I want to find it unlocked, I don’t. I bounce off the front door when I go to shove it open. I hammer on it and a light goes on upstairs a moment later.
“Open up,” I hiss to myself. “Get a move on.”
The door swings inward and she’s yawning out at me. “What
happened?” she asks. “Is that Louie’s car?”
“Get in,” I tell her. “I’ll explain on the way.”
I grab hold of her and half drag her down the path to the car. She climbs inside and then I stop. “No,” I say, shaking my head. How much more could we stand out than in the patrol car? “Your car. Where are the keys?”
“Hook inside the door.”
I run up the path to her house. I get inside and grab the keys, coming back out to find her standing by her car, looking scared. “What happened?” she asks. “Where’s Louie?”
“In a six-foot deep hole last time I saw him.”
“You killed him? You killed Louie?”
I manage a bitter laugh as I get in her car, waving for her to join me. “I should have done,” I tell her. “Son of a bitch tried to kill me.” “He what?”
“Tried to kill me. Wants control of the casino and made a deal to get it. Just had to get rid of me first.”
I start the engine and drive steady, keeping to the back roads, not that there’s much difference in a place this size. We’re the only car out this time of night.
“Where are we going?” she asks.
I think about where to go. “There’s only one place where we might be safe.”
“Where?”
“The casino.”
“Why there? What’s going on, Leo?”
“It’s got cameras and alarms everywhere. We’ll see him coming.”
“See who coming?”
“Louie. He’s going to want to finish the job he started.”
“Are you seriously saying he tried to kill you?”
“Are you not hearing me? He’s working for the snitch. He took me out to the old mill to deal with me.”
“But he’s been sheriff ten years. He’s not a crook.”
“Gonna have to beg to differ on that one.”
“What happened at the mill, exactly?”
“I got away, but we haven’t got long. He’ll be looking for us both now.”
“Us both? Why me? What have I got to do with all this?”
“He’ll try to use you to get to me. That’s why you have to come with me. This time of night we can get set up in the casino and deal with him when we’re ready. If we’re lucky, that might bring the snitch out in the open too.”
“And if it doesn’t?”
“Then the Don’s going to kill me, anyway. Maybe you too, if he finds out about us. Tie up the loose ends.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah, oh.”
I head up the hill to the casino, but I’m still half a mile from it when I stop. There’s a couple of cars blocking the road in front of me. Someone is standing in front of them, but with the lights on full, I can barely make out a silhouette lifting a gun toward us.
A shot fires. The windscreen shatters and then Amelia’s screaming. I slam into reverse and back up, hitting the handbrake to spin us around, racing back toward town.
I can hear an engine starting up back there and then another shot firing, but we’re too far away for it to do any damage. “Who was that?” Amelia asks as I tear down the hill back into town.
“I think that was your friendly neighborhood sheriff,” I say, glancing across at her. “The one you’re sure isn’t a crook. I’m guessing he thought the same as me, that the casino was the best place to be. Son of a bitch is smarter than he looks. Shit!”
“What? What is it?”
I nod toward the rearview mirror. A pair of bright lights are getting larger. I yank the car left and the wheels almost lift off. I need to get some space between us.
All of a sudden, I’m back five years. This is exactly how it went down back then, the night Rex got shot.
“What is it?” Amelia asks again.
I glance back. The lights are still there, getting larger. I look over at her and she looks scared. “He’s coming after us,” I tell her.
She says nothing. She just looks back, and then her hands mash together in her lap.
“We’re going to die,” she mutters to herself.
I shake my head. “I will keep you safe,” I tell her, certain I’m telling the truth. “I won’t let anyone hurt you. I promise.”
I’ve not been right about much tonight, but I’m certain of one thing. Anyone so much as looks at her funny, I’ll rip them apart.