Redemption (13 page)

Nestor said he’d leave a present. Instead, he’d left a test. If Lucky followed his instincts, he’d be playing Nestor’s game—without understanding the rules.

He eased off the trigger. “Well, well, who do we have here?”

Bo killed his flashlight and stayed near the wall, a few feet away, coving their target from a different angle.

Leave it to Nestor to use steel chain as gift wrap. Lucky stopped well back of his estimate of Stephan’s reach. Not far enough from an unpleasant smell. Not as horrible as when they’d found Vincent’s decaying remains, but still awful. “Hello, Stephan.”

“Lucky, you have to help me.” Stephan lunged toward Lucky. “I’ll pay you. I can make you rich. Just get me out of here.”

After all he’d said, after all he’d done, this sorry son of a bitch had no right asking Lucky for anything.

“Don’t have to do a damned thing but die and pay taxes, and I ain’t doing either one of those today.” Lucky fought back the urge to spit. “And where do you think I’d be taking you?”

Think, think, think, think.
Stephan had seen two beams; he knew Lucky wasn’t alone.

“You know how well connected I am. Unchain me, give me your flashlight and five minutes’ head start.” Stephen tore at the chain wrapped twice around his ankle. A padlock held the binding tight.

“You seem to think I could even if I was so inclined.” Lucky glanced back at Bo, whose face remained impassive, unreadable. “Not that I am.”

“You could. I know you could.” Stephan’s words emerged choked with his terror and unaccustomed pleading. “They threw down keys when they left me. Just over there, the bastards.”

The keys. So this was a test. “Tsk, tsk, language. They could have shot you already, let your body lay here, for, oh, six months or so.” Let Stephan chew on that a minute. “Just like your daddy Vincent.”

Lucky faked calm when his senses screamed to grab Bo and Stephan and get the hell out of there.

But someone stood nearby, out of view, watching. The prickles on the back of Lucky’s neck said so.

Bo turned his light back on and stepped closer, close enough for Stephan to widen his eyes in recognition, and close enough to brush shoulders with Lucky. Bo played his beam over the tunnel floor. “That’s not all they left.”

A syringe, still in its sterile wrapper, sat next to a much-too-familiar vial. Bo had held his arm out for a dose of the poison such vials contained, every morning for months.

Oh shit, did temptation call to him now? Bo didn’t move from his spot, but what hungers did the vial raise within him? Not after all the hard work in rehab. Please no.

Stephan lunged at the vial. “Thank God. I need that.” He fell short—the chain jerked him to the floor, the drug still a good foot beyond his outstretched hand. “Please, just give me that.”

Lucky would love nothing better than put his .38 to Stephan’s temple and blow him away. Bo might not have even realized he clenched and unclenched his fists, a glower that Lucky hoped never to see turned his way locked on the human shit pile lying on the floor.

Damn. One trigger pull and Stephan couldn’t hurt anyone again. Or better yet, hold him down and let him watch Bo load a syringe and Lucky stick it into his arm, much like Stephan’s paid doctors had done to Bo and his men.

First he’d give Stephan a play by play of all that happened after Bo took a needle to the neck, taunt him. He’d smile when the motherfucker’s fingernails turned blue, when the pitiful excuse for a Mangiardi gasped for breath—when the bastard’s heart stopped.

“Withdrawals starting, Stephan?” Bo asked as easily as if he’d offered tea. “Withdrawals are fun. You have no idea how much fun.”

“Looks like he’s about to find out though.” Good, good, Bo wasn’t reaching for the vial. “Which starts first, the nausea or the shakes?”

“First you can’t breathe. It’s like someone holding a plastic bag over your head. Then your guts go haywire. Whatever’s inside is coming out.” Bo never raised his voice while ticking off symptoms in his text-book speak. “Shakes, chills. Tell me, Stephan, how are you feeling right now?”

Lucky’d never asked Bo the details, and please, merciful God, let Bo have done the worst of recovery with supervision and medication to help him.

“Feeling queasy yet, Stephan?” Phantom snakes wriggled through Lucky’s insides, a memory of his own withdrawals years ago when he’d lain curled up hurting in his jail cell, riding out the storm alone—without Loretta Johnson’s magic potions.

“You cocky little bastard, give me that vial!” Stephan’s roar didn’t have much impact when he sprawled face down on the hewn-out rock, straining to reach.

“Just like you gave it to your men?” Unlike Alejandro or Juan or Aureo—or Bo—Stephan had made a choice to use. “Are you still proud of what you created? You bragged about your undetectable, pure hydrocodone. Tell me, how bad do you want this?”

The glass vial crunched beneath Bo’s boot. “Oh darn, my clumsy feet.”

Lucky’d never heard a sweeter sound.

Bo made his own choice. Whether he’d chosen not to keep the drugs for himself, or not to let Stephan get them didn’t matter. He’d won a battle.

Stephan screamed, “You sadistic son of a bitch!”

“Tsk, I thought we had the language talk.” Lucky kept his voice calm, saving his happy dance for later. If Bo was standing in a 5cc puddle, he wasn’t reaching for the syringe. “You want us to do something for you, like, with this here key?”

The syringe and vial weren’t the only items Nestor’s men had left. A small flashlight of the two-battery, possibly 250 candlepower variety, lay about a foot from Bo’s toes, still beyond Stephan’s reach, and next to that, a key with a bright tassel attached. Lucky picked them up.

“Give me that!” Stephan whimpered, rising to his knees. The source of the nasty smell became clear—little Mr. Wanna-be Drug Lord had pissed his pants. The groin of his black trousers glistened wetly in the flashlight’s beam. Lucky didn’t want to think about what else Stephan had uncorked in there, diarrhea being a withdrawal symptom. “Unshackle me! Now!”

“Yeah, I bet Aureo said something like that too. Don’t ya think…” Who stood by Lucky’s side, Bo or Cyrus? Either one would smash the drugs into the rock, but for different reasons.

Bo’s voice took on an eerie calmness. “You remember Aureo, don’t you, Stephan? The guy someone killed to send you a message. Bet he begged for help several times while your pals dragged him around town. The man died because of you. Ever do anything for his family?”

The remains of a man tied to a bumper and dragged through the streets still gave Lucky the shivers. Stephan likely never gave a second thought to how one of his men suffered and died.

Whatever Stephan blubbered wasn’t much of an answer. Lucky took the response as a “no.” Stephan never saw beyond the end of his own nose, not in his dealings, not with his people.

“Please let me go” was clear enough. So were the tears running down Stephan’s face.

Lucky pulled his shiny SNB badge out of his pocket, though he’d chosen not to wear the department issued uniform. Let the bastard get a good look. Stephan’s eyes went wide. “If you come with me I’m taking you straight to jail.”

“I have lawyers. I can get better lawyers and still have plenty of money to share with you.” Victor Mangiardi would never whine and plead for his life in the dirt like his sorry excuse for a nephew.

“Don’t much like where you get your money.” The bastard had wrung every dollar out of an addict’s life. Maybe even Lucky’s own brother’s, if Daytona hadn’t cleaned up his act. “What if we don’t like your money?”

“Then call it mercy and give me the key. I’ll do anything. You have family. I can help them. Anything, anything at all. Ask and it’s yours.” Stephan reached for Lucky again. “Just let me go.”

The sorry shit-for-brains needed to stand trial, face his fate. Walk in Victor’s shoes and get handed a life sentence.

“Maybe we don’t remember what mercy is, after spending so much time with you,” Bo suggested in a voice that sounded way too calm for his words. Like a pent-up explosion waiting to happen. “Or maybe all we’ve got left is not kicking the shit out of you while you’re chained up like the dog you are.”

“Now, now, calling him a dog is an insult to Moose.” Lucky had to get through to Bo, just in case shooting Stephan through the heart and making him die quick was his partner’s current version of mercy. If Lucky couldn’t, neither could Bo. Their future together depended on them not being arrested. “He’s more like dog shit now. We don’t wanna get him on our boots.”

“Now that would be an insult to good leather.” Bo’s wry snort at least meant not explaining scuff marks on Stephan’s face. Bullet wounds were still an open question.

“I want answers. Why did you kill your father?” Lucky exchanged a glance with Bo. Bo nodded. The man was a master with the recording feature on his cell phone. What Nestor didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him.

“He was content to run a legitimate business, but an opportunity arose to increase our wealth a thousand times. He wouldn’t listen. If he’d just fucking listened he could’ve lived!”

A confession. Great. Lucky wanted more. “Did you put a hit out on your uncle?”

Stephan stared at Lucky with wide eyes, mouth open, every fiber of his being screaming, “
Yes, I did!
”
But he didn’t say the words.

Lucky tightened his hold on the gun. In one instant, he could pay this sonofabitch back for years of pain.

“What if you run back to Mexico once we turn you loose?” Bo’s words cut through the fog of Lucky’s revenge.

The walls closed in. Lucky needed out of here. Now. How did Bo stay so cool?

But what if Nestor thought they’d refused his gift? “Oh, I don’t think he’ll do that. How much you want to bet that Nestor’s men are hiding out of flashlight range, wearing night goggles and trying not to laugh their asses off?” Lucky pointed his Q-Beam down the tunnel, peering after what seemed entirely possible.

“Excellent guess, Mr. Lucklighter,” boomed back down the tunnel. “But if you’re quite done explaining to Stephan the poverty of his options, you could arrest him.”

Yeah, let him and Bo feel like they’d struck a blow for law and decency, a feeling that might last until Stephan made his one phone call. And take a chance on him walking, like every other wealthy, dirty-handed SOB with enough money for the best lawyers. Except for Victor.

Bo made a show of turning his cell phone off. Stephan froze. So he still had sense enough to realize he’d screwed himself over.

“Shooting him here might be the best choice.” Lucky shouldn’t have said that out loud—he couldn’t follow through in killing an unarmed, bound man. He wasn’t an executioner. But if Stephan were free…

“You got my vote,” was definitely Cyrus talking, but Bo didn’t lift the muzzle of his weapon.

“Please, please, just let me go.” Stephan yanked at his chains, eyes wild. “They’ll shoot me if I’m still here in an hour, they said so.”

“Perhaps sooner, Mr. Lucklighter. The dinner Graciela has prepared for us is getting cold,” reverberated down the tunnel.

Fuck, Lucky couldn’t leave it to Nestor to rid the world of such rubbish. His stomach rumbled at the mention of Graciela’s cooking. Food meant the cantina. In Mexico.

Nestor hadn’t called Lucky and Bo back to the tunnel simply to take out the trash.

“Cyrus. Cyrus, please. Help me.” Stephan crawled as far as the chains allowed toward Bo. “You worked for me. I paid you well.”

Bo locked his jaw and averted his eyes.

“So you’re with them, huh. Well, let me tell you something.” Stephan held his hand up, thumb and forefinger nearly touching. “You think you’re so high and mighty, but you’re this close to being me. I know you. Worked with you. You love the game. It’s in your blood. The money, the power. And it can all be yours.”

Bo snarled, “Shut the fuck up. I’m not like you. I’ll never be like you, you soulless bastard.”

Stephan laughed, the same oily, twisty sound Lucky remembered from long ago. Over the years he’d met many men on both sides of the law, and each had the potential for good and bad. Even hard men like Nestor and Victor had souls, displayed kindness every so often.

Stephan had killed his own father. No gray area existed in the man. Evil. Pure evil. Out for himself and no one else.

Lady Justice better be ready to roll.

Lucky threw the key at Stephan, who didn’t lift his hands to catch. The key bounced off his shoulder and clinked against the floor. Stephan dove after it, to fumble at his ankle.

“The devil you know”—Lucky jerked his thumb toward the Mexican end of the tunnel—”or the devil you don’t.” He jerked his thumb at the US end. “Which shall it be?”

The chain clattered to the ground, as did the one around Stephan’s neck. He paused long enough to grab the tiny flashlight at Bo’s feet and lunged for Bo.

Lucky got there first. Gun to Stephan’s temple, he growled, “Chained and defenseless is one thing, but you’re free now. Protocol says we stop threats with force if we have to.” Even if there’d be hell to pay later. Lucky took his chances. “Go ahead, take a swing. I’ll blow you the fuck away and the only thing they’ll do to me is make me type up a twenty-page report.”
Do it, do it, do it!

Heart pounding, adrenaline surging. One stupid move on Stephen’s part, and this ended here.

Stephan stepped back.

With one parting glower at Bo, he flicked the tiny flashlight beam on and stumbled down the passage. Lucky kept his gun aimed at the man until he disappeared down the tunnel. There were no other ways out but the tunnel end. One heck of a “Welcome to Texas” committee waited for Stephan across the border.

“We’re just letting him go?” Bo raised the muzzle of his weapon an inch.

“Say ‘Hi!’ to Walter!” Lucky called after Stephan. “Nah, the crew can do the work. You heard Nestor, supper’s getting cold.” Not to mention Nestor being the kind of man who didn’t take chances.

Escape wasn’t even a remote possibility, for Stephan, for Lucky, or for Bo. The game wasn’t over, and wouldn’t be until Nestor said so. Stephan leaving didn’t slow Lucky’s pulse one iota.

Figures stepped into the light cast by Bo’s flashlight. Nestor, Cruz, another man Lucky didn’t have a name for and was too wrung out to assign a nickname to. Couldn’t be that he was getting too civilized to call a guy Mustache or Beardboy. Cruz and the unknown had a small armory between them, and Cruz did indeed wear night goggles.