Checkered Crime: A Laurel London Mystery (10 page)

I didn’t say a word. I put the car in drive and headed back toward Walnut Grove. I wasn’t sure what to say.

“
Come on
, I don’t feel bad about doing it,” he scoffed.

I glanced at him in the rearview mirror. He stared back with blank animal eyes. I focused back on the road.

“Besides, I gave you enough cash to get you a real phone, not the dollar store junk you had.” He opened his suit coat.

I gripped the steering wheel tightly with both hands to keep them from shaking. A knot settled in my throat. I swallowed hard to get it down, but the knot didn’t budge. I didn’t know how to start the conversation that I was going to give him back his mob money and never pick him up again.

“I’m packing too!” I yelled and winced when he pulled his hand out, knowing he was going to shoot me.

My eyes felt like they had exploded open when I saw he didn’t have his creepy black gloves on and it exposed his hand minus a pointer finger.

“Eeck!” I threw my hand over my mouth and tried to steadily drive with the other one.
Trigger Finger Tony
, Jax Jackson’s voice played over and over in my head. I put my hand back on the wheel and looked at my two pointer fingers.

They suited me nicely and I was not planning on losing them anytime soon.

“Packing.” He chuckled.

Damn.
He wasn’t a bit scared by my little friend. In fact, his reaction scared me.

“I hope you haven’t spent all the money I gave you yesterday.” He licked his thumb and started to count out more money from the wad of cash in his other hand. “You seem to be able to keep your mouth shut, so I think I’m going to have to ask you to take a leave of absence from your job and just be my personal driver while I’m in town.”

“I’m not that trustworthy.”
Shit, shit, shit.
How was I going to get myself out of this one? If I took the money, Jax would be right. I would be working for the mob
if
Trigger was a mob man. “I mean,” God, I was going to get myself shot. Or worse…my finger eaten by a fish! “I mean…,” I hesitated.

“Is there a problem with the money?” He pulled a few more bills from his stack. “Fine. I’ll give you more.” He tossed the entire stack of hundreds over the front seat. They scattered all over the passenger side. “I’m trusting you can drop me off at the docks in Walnut Grove and bring me back tonight around five.”

Without hesitation or thinking about my actions, my mouth opened wide, real wide, “At your service.”

Crap! Not being able to resist the thrill of something going down had never been a good trait of mine and those situations always turned out bad. This was a bad situation.

“I mean, I can’t. I really wish I could, but
—
” I tried to continue, but Trigger Finger Tony interrupted me.

“What is your name?” he asked.

“Laurel.”
One word answers, stick with one word answers
, I told myself.
Stand your ground.

“Laurel what, honey?” His hand, minus a finger, dangled over the seat. His chunky middle finger had no problem making up for his missing pointer as it was nice and snug in the trigger guard of a pistol dangling off of it. “You have to have a last name. Me and my little friend would like to know what it is.”

“London. Laurel London.” To hell with one word answers. I had to save my life.

“Well, Laurel London. I hope we don’t find ourselves at a crossroads of misunderstanding. You see,” he leaned back and brought the gun up to his lips. He made sure I was looking at him in the rearview before he kissed it. “When I put my mind to something, I don’t change it. No one, not even Laurel London can change it or tell me no. Capisce?”

“I’m not sure who you think you are, but I have a life outside of you as a customer.” My voice cracked.

I swallowed hard before I glanced back in the rearview mirror and quickly turned my head back to the front as he was glaring at me. No smile. Dead stare.

My head started to ache and my stomach rolled like I had to use the bathroom. Instantly I had to wonder if I had some sort of disease. Maybe that Irritable Bowl Syndrome or something. Was that a hereditary disease? Or was it just the stress of my crazy life?

Stress of losing a job. Stress of Jax Jackson. Stress of losing a finger. Stress of possibly having a mob boss in my car.

“Do you like the money Laurel?” he asked.

“Yes, but I don’t like your little friend. It makes me nervous and a little stressed out.” There was no reason to lie to him; I knew I was going to have to do what he said because everything Jax had said to me about Trigger Finger Tony played over in my head like a movie. I never planned on being anyone’s snack. “I think it made me stressed out because I have this stomach thing. Though it could be a hereditary thing and I just don’t know about it because…”

“Because you were an orphan,” Trigger finished my sentence in a snide sort of way. “Yeah, yeah. Enough of that bullshit. What about the money?”

“I don’t know who you are, but if you acted like a regular taxi passenger without a gun, maybe I wouldn’t be so taken aback by your very generous offer.”

“Okay little darlin’. Let’s say I put my friend away and we go legit by me hiring you to be my driver for as long as I need you. We have these services in New York that will come and pick you up and drop you off. No questions asked.” Trigger Finger Tony made a good offer. “I pay you under the table and you don’t report a thing to the IRS. Or cops.”

“And you aren’t going to hurt me?” I gulped. I had never really thought about my fingers, but now that I took a closer look I was becoming a little partial to them. I turned down River Road. I couldn’t get to the docks fast enough.

“Hurt you?” Trigger Finger Tony laughed. “Why would I hurt you?” His eyes lowered. “See you around five.” He held up his hand. “Get a phone.”

“Is that really four? Or is that five?” My smart comment shot out of my mouth before I could stop it.

A tilted grin flipped up in the left corner of his lip. “Five.” He flipped me a few more Benjamins before he got out of the car.

“Damn, damn, damn!” I beat the steering wheel with the palm of my hand.

Guilt dropped in my gut like a bowling ball. By order of Jax Jackson and for my safety, I was supposed to drop him off and tell him I couldn’t do any more driving. But no…I let the money entice me right back into Anthony Cardozza’s inner circle of bad. Whatever that was.

I eased back out on River Road and head back to town. I had to get a strong cup of coffee and an appointment with the doctor. I held my hand up. It was shaking like a leaf. My stomach hurt so much that I felt like I needed to lie down. There wasn’t a time that I could recall me ever feeling this way.

“Cool as a cucumber, Laurel London. You are tough. Tough. Shit!” I screamed when I swerved off the road and into a ditch trying to avoid a man.

I gripped the wheel and took a few deep breaths to make sure I was still alive and that I hadn’t just crapped myself.

“Are you okay?” Jax Jackson stood at my window and gestured for me to roll it down when he couldn’t open the locked driver’s side door.

“I’m fine.” I got out, a little shaky, but my stomach wasn’t hurting. “What the hell were you doing in the middle of the road?”

“I’ve been staking out the docks. I have to walk since there isn’t a cab around here. A
real
cab company.” Jax clenched his fists. “Didn’t you see me from way back there?” He uncurled his hands and pointed behind us. “I saw your big yellow car coming. That is why I was flagging you down.”

He walked out of the ditch and into the middle of the country road; there was a stalking, purposeful intent in his walk.

“I didn’t see you until it was almost too late.” I shook my head.

“Now you’re screwing with me. I think you were trying to hit me.” Jax turned toward me. His eyes watched me with a renewed interest. “Were you?”

“No. I’m…,” I flung my hands in the air. “I’m stressed. I swear I am.” I busted out in tears. Ever since meeting Trigger and Jax, my life had been turned upside down, right side up and back twisted. “I bet I have an ulcer. I need to get to the doctor.”

“I’m so sorry Laurel.” He brought me to him and nestled me into his arms. “I can’t let you do this anymore.”

What? Do what? Hug on me? Because I had to admit it felt really good.

He pulled me away from him at arm’s length. Silently I studied him and he studied me back. His gaze moved, traveling up and down me. I could almost feel his thoughts.

“Do what?” I finally asked, breaking the silence.

“We are going to have to work together.” He dropped his hands to his side and ran his fingers through his hair, something I thoroughly wanted to do. “You are going to have to be on the mob payroll and FBI payroll.”

“Whoa!” I backed up toward my car by walking backward. “I’m not on anyone’s payroll. I might be a good con here in little ole Walnut Grove, but I’m not enough of a con to help any sort of mob shit taking place in Walnut Grove. I’ll tuck my tail between my legs and go beg for a job at the bank if I need money that bad.”

“It’s not about money. It’s about doing what I need to do to bring down Trigger Finger Tony Cardozza. That includes you.” He pointed a finger at me. “For some reason he likes you and the FBI needs to use it to our advantage.”

“I don’t know about any of this.” I wrapped my arms around my stomach when the pain suddenly appeared. I for sure had some sort of whacky disease and it was vital I found out my family history.

Jax continued to walk toward me.

The closer he got, the faster I walked backward until I stepped off the road into the grassy brush a little behind my car and fell flat on my ass.

“Damn!” I jumped up, my feet in the messy marsh. “The county needs to get out here and mow this grass.” I looked down and pulled my foot up. The grass was smashed where I had stepped. There was a finger that was stuck straight up in the mud. “Oh shit! Shit! Shit!” I jumped out of the marsh grass and back out on the road.

“What?” Jax rushed over. He took his small pad of paper out of his pocket and got the pencil out of the spiral. He used the pencil tip to push the finger out of the mud. “Oh God. Trigger strikes again.”

“What does that mean?” I begged to know. My insides felt like they were having their own little carnival inside. I felt like I was about to blow chunks any minute.

“The ring looks like one of his guys. Nicoli Fabrizo.” He used his foot to lightly brush the top of the grass. “No body. Probably sending Nicoli a message.”

“Message?”

“That’s what he does. Takes a finger here and there to make sure his people don’t stray. Nicoli probably did something that didn’t set well with him and he taught him a lesson.”

“So he isn’t dead?” I asked. Missing a finger and alive was a much better situation than missing a finger and dead.

“I’d say he is alive, but in a little pain.” Jax looked around the grassy area. “Enough pain that he will remember not to cross Trigger again.”

“This Nicoli is here too?” Shivers traveled up my body. There was an intense feeling that I had gotten myself into something much deeper than I could handle.

“Has to be. The ring has a big N printed on it and the insignia is the Cardozza family crest.” He ripped a piece of paper out of his notepad and reached down. He grabbed the finger. “See.” He held up the dark, dried up bloody digit for me to see.

“There went my appetite.” I had to look away in fear I was going to throw up right there. “What about these rings?”

“There isn’t really any significance to them. Only that each employee of Trigger’s has one. It’s kind of like a status thing.” He shrugged and began to elaborate, “When one of Trigger’s men walk into a bar or restaurant in Jersey or the city, everyone knows not to mess with them
—
that he’s part of the Cardozza cartel, mob, whatever you want to call it.”

“That makes sense.” I studied the ring a little closer to get a better look in case I did happen to see anyone around Walnut Grove wearing one. “Do we need to call the police?”

“I am the police. The FBI.” He shook his head and folded the finger in the paper. “I’ll make sure I get this back to the Louisville lab for evidence. That is why I’m not touching it.”

“For prints or something?” I asked trying to pretend I knew what it was all about.

“Something like that.” He grinned. “You okay?”

“No. No. I’m definitely not okay.” I tried to shake it off, but burst out in tears. “I’m really not tough.”

“You are tough.” He walked back over and tried to embrace me again which would have been great if the finger wasn’t in his grip. “Oh. Sorry.”

“I’m fine. Really.” Now was the time to get on my big girl pants. “I think we should tell Derek about this.”

“Bowling Derek?”

“He’s my friend and he is in the training program at the University of Louisville to become a police officer,” I said with full confidence that Derek would know what to do.

I put my hand on the outside door handle of the car to open the door. I was going to take myself directly to Derek’s garage and get all this stress off of me.

“That is not going to happen.” Jax planted his hand on the door jam, not allowing me to open it even though I gave it a few quick tugs. “This is an FBI investigation. It’s completely on the down low. If anyone finds out about this in the public, all residents of Walnut Grove are in danger. Do you want that on you too?”

“Umm…no,” meekly I answered. “I’ve been trying to get on the level around here.”

“Then help us out. The FBI.” His words “help us out” did have a nice ring to it. “Only you can’t tell anyone. Not even Derek or the local police.”

“You will keep me safe?” I asked. “Will you keep Trixie safe?”

“If you cooperate and do what I ask you to do. Not go off on some rampage of your own and get all hot headed where we both will be in danger,” he paused. “Who is Trixie?”

“She is my guardian.” I bit the side of my lip wondering if I should tell him my story.

“Guardian?”

“I grew up in an orphanage.” I paused to gather my thoughts because I wasn’t sure how much I wanted him to know. Then it hit me. “Oh, but I bet you knew that already and that Trixie was the head of it. She still thinks she has to take care of me.”