The Burning Day (17 page)

That stopped me in my tracks. “Her kid?”

“That’s right. The redhead, Mary’s kid. I figured that’s what Francis wanted to talk to you about, Mary’s got a little boy. They were worried something was going happen to the kid, so Francis pulled a few strings without telling the Don, and we put the kid on a plane out at that old country airport. That’s when you showed up out there.”

I thought about the airport gunfight, the one with automatic weapons and two rival gangs and no one getting hit, and felt a little stupid at last. It had been a sham, so that Francis could cover what he was really up to. There had never been any of Longshot’s hoods there at all, just Francis and his buddies down by the river, firing weapons. I remembered Mary’s strict prohibition of guns, and suddenly it all made sense. Maybe Francis figured firing guns was okay, as long as nobody was getting hurt.

I let the guy go. “All right, thanks.”

At least now I knew where I had to go, though I still had the sense that I was several big steps behind everybody else. Somehow, I should have known that it would all come together at the old airport. My job always seemed to take me to desolate places, those places abandoned by God and man. It was in those places that the issue at hand was usually decided, it seemed.

~

The town didn’t look much different than it had a few days before. There were still the sullen, loitering young kids, black, white and Latino, wearing their colors and snarling their snarls. The same faded sign and dirt road awaited me. After that, though, were only unknowns.
 

I parked back from the tarmac and made my way up to the low hangers, moving from one clump of bushes to the next. I stuck to the shadows, and I watched and moved when I was certain no one was watching.
 

I finally got to the central building, and noticed three things. The first was a plane parked there. The second was that Francis and another man were standing beside it. The third thing was no good, no good at all. The other man that was standing there had a gun in his hand. He was facing me, too.
 

So much for the element of surprise. He instantly focused his attention on me. He and Francis were standing there, Francis with his hands up slightly, like he was frozen stiff standing up.
 

 
“Dom Morton,” I said aloud.

The man who had called himself Henry Wiggins smiled his smug smile, and nodded. “That’s right. So here you are again, my good sir. Roland Longville, Private Detective. I suppose you’re a little pissed at me, after our first little dance in the hotel. Sorry, Longville, but I always come out on top.”

“There’s a first time for everything, Morton.”

He kept that smile frozen on his face, and it was the smile of the car salesman sizing up an easy mark. “Right you are, Mr. Longville. But no time for cracker barrel philosophy, just now. You know, I’m glad I didn’t kill you before. You amuse me. Now, give me your gun, if you please. And bring it out nice and easy, brother man. No funny stuff. I know you’re packing. I don’t like to shoot people, but I will.”

I remembered Charlie Zellars’ ravaged body in the Earle Hotel.

“I believe you,” was all that I said. I opened my jacket carefully and pulled my .45 out ever so slowly, with my left hand. I laid it on the pavement and shoved it over to Morton with my foot. He didn’t stoop to pick it up. Instead, he shifted his gun back to Francis.

“Now, I have a bone to pick with the two of you.” He glanced back at me, quickly. “Just stay where you are, Longville, and maybe I won’t have to ventilate your black hide after all.”

I had no intention of staying where I was, but I said nothing. I stood still. He was a slick operator, overconfident from years of conning the gullible and browbeating the weak. He had already pigeonholed me as someone who wasn’t going to be any trouble. It was obvious he was gearing up to talk, and for some reason he was paying me very little attention. I didn’t do anything to change his mind for the moment.

I understood his obsession with Mary. He had come here to take Francis’ place, and collect Mary from Longshot. Just what he planned to do with her was anyone’s guess. Maybe he loved her in some strange way, but he didn’t think twice about using her in any way, however lurid, to further his own ends. Sure enough, he started talking, and it sounded rehearsed.
 

“You shouldn’t have taken Mary from me, Francis. I was going to make us all rich—her, me and Zellars, too. They didn’t understand. When she ran out on me, she cut me out of everything. I can’t stand it when people cut me out of things. Zellars tried to betray me, too, after all I’d done for him. I remember when it was just the three of us on the road. Those were good times. Then, I turned around and both my good friends ran off on me. They forgot I used to cut them in on everything; they left me out in the cold. She has to pay for that. You can sure bet that Zellars regretted it.”

As he talked, his voice rose with emotion. I walked silently up behind him—he had forgotten me for five seconds and that was a mistake. He suddenly sensed that I was there, and he spun, gun in hand. I got one hand on the gun, and as he turned he tried to get a shot off at me.
 

He was quick, but I was far stronger. I pushed the gun up, like they had taught me in the Military Police, in another of my former lives, and Dom Morton clung to it, just like he was supposed to. But as I continued to push the gun upward in an arc, his refusal to let go made him topple over backwards. It’s the way you’re supposed to take down a potential assassin, or, at least it was back during the Cold War, before blowing yourself up, and your enemies with you, became all the rage.

Morton let go of the gun as he finally fell over, but rolled nimbly before I could come down on top of him and end the whole thing with my far greater strength and weight. He still had my gun, which he was pointing at me. But I had his gun and was pointing it at him, too.
 

He smiled. “I underestimated you, Longville. You’re a sneaky bastard. Now drop it.”

The revolver felt good in my hand, so I didn’t let it go. “No dice. You drop it. I called the police before I walked up here. Or, if you like, we can stand here and have our little Mexican standoff until they get here.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“Then you obviously don’t know much about me. I was a Birmingham Detective before I was a private eye. I put a call in to my old partner. So put it down.”

Morton laughed. “I don’t think so. If your cop buddies are coming, then I’m leaving. Morton stepped backward cautiously across the weathered tarmac, toward where his car sat waiting. I could see it out there, a glimmer in the darkness, out behind the hangers at the edge of the woods. I had parked there myself, only a couple of days ago.

 
“Don’t follow me,” Morton hissed. “I mean it. Don’t make me show you what I’ll do.”

“Longville. Give me that pistol,” Francis growled ferociously behind me.

“Not a chance. Listen. Wait until he gets out of sight behind that first hanger. Then you go around one side and I’ll take the other way.”

“What am I gonna do? I got no weapon.”

“Distract him.”

Francis looked at me like I had grown an extra head, but he bit back whatever he was going to say. He was thinking about Mary. And Florida. And being free of it all.

“Okay,” he said, and started running, me right alongside him. He ran at a fast waddle, being a stocky, short guy. We split up at the hanger, flattened against the wall, and moved away from each other. With any luck, Morton’s attention would be split between the two of us, and one of us would get to him.

Just then, I heard gunfire. My heart skipped a beat, but it wasn’t my .45. It was the sharp crack of a 9mm, firing once, twice. A double-tap. Executioner style.

I came around the building fast, just in time to see Francis coming from the other direction. We both stopped immediately. Mary ran past me and stopped. She stood in front of us, her face buried in her hands. Dom Morton lay on the ground, his petty schemes having played out for good. There were two bullet holes in his right temple. Tap, tap. Standing over him was Longshot Lonnie O’Malley and two of his hoods. One of them was holding a hot 9mm, which he made no effort to conceal. In fact, he looked quite ready to use it again.

Lonnie smiled and looked at Francis, then Mary, then me.

 
“Well if it isn’t all of my dear old friends, Roland Longville and Francis Lorenzo, and his lovely lady, Miss Mary.”

“What happened?” I asked, feeling foolish, not knowing what else to say.

“You know what happened, Longville. Obvious, isn’t it? I was looking at this air strip as a potential real estate investment, when we witnessed this crazed gunman attempting to abduct this poor young lady. By an unfortunate coincidence, we were in his path of escape. My bodyguard took the man’s life when he chose to fire on us. Regrettable, but necessary.”

“So what’s next, Longshot?” I asked him. “Are you going to kill us now?”

Longshot Lonnie feigned surprise. “Now, why in hell would I do that?” He stooped and picked up my .45 and handed it to me. “Yours, I believe. I owe you, Longville, don’t think I forgot the question you asked me earlier. Like I said, the answer is yes. And, as far as Francis and Mary go, well now, Francis and me have an arrangement, and a deal’s a deal. An Irishman’s word is his bond. And I think we’re square, up to now. The one last part of the deal is that they leave town. We’re here to make sure they get to do just that. And as for you, well, you still have that silver token, and that means I still owe you one.”

“So everybody wins.”

Lonnie smiled widely. He really did look like an alligator, albeit one with crazy, two-colored eyes. “That’s right, gumshoe. Today, everybody wins.”

Chapter 31

Without a word, Francis took Mary gently by the shoulders and led her around the dead man. She stopped when she got even with me. “Mr. Longville, I’m sorry I lied to you.”

“I understand why you did. Morton and Zellars had never found out about your son. You had to keep them from finding out, because they would have used him against you to get what they wanted.”

She smile her gigawatt smile and squeezed my hand. Then they walked away, toward the plane. I walked after them. Longshot and his men just stood there. None of them tried to stop me. Longshot had won the day. Don Ganato was dead. Morton had helped them set it all up, and he was now neatly out of the way, also.
 

The pilot started the plane’s engine as we drew closer. Mary slipped from Francis’ grasp and ran the last few steps to the plane. She looked like she needed to sit down, or maybe sleep for a long, long time. Francis let her go and turned to me.

“Longville, I know what you must think of me. I mean, I know I’m a crook, but I can’t say I’m proud of how it all went down with Longshot Lonnie and Don Ganato. You probably think I’m a no-good bum for selling out Don Ganato. Try to understand, I did it all for the boy’s sake. I couldn’t tell you, but Mary and Silvers, they had a kid. She didn’t know she was pregnant when he died. She’s been through hell, keeping these creeps from finding out about him, about Joseph. He’s a great kid. Mary and the kid deserve a life without threats and extortion hanging over them. I did what I did so they could have that.”
 

“There’s no need to explain, Francis, as long as you’re satisfied with the way things worked out.” Then I thought about my first visit to the airstrip, and I almost laughed aloud. “The first plane. The night I caught you guys out here. It was for Joseph.”

“That’s right. We were sending him on ahead. We’ll be picking him up soon, before we start the last leg of our trip.”

 
Francis and his goons had been putting little Joseph on a plane to Florida when I bumbled upon them. Of course they had seen me approaching. No doubt, Francis had instantly hit upon using me to promote the idea that there was some new Ganato crime venture going on out there, and he used my inquisitive nature against me. I had wanted a peek at what was on the plane, never guessing it was just a little boy.

So, Francis wanted to wed Mary and adopt Joseph. For this he had sold Don Ganato down the river. I hoped the little boy, wherever he was, would never know all that had been done in his name. I hoped that these three people could have a good life where there were no mob bosses and pitched gun battles, no stealthy men with guns and sleazy plans. That was hoping for a lot, I knew, but I’m an idealist, after all.
 

“You know what you’ll have to do, to stay alive,” I said to Francis. “You’ll have to go to ground, or stay on the move. Go down, stay low . . . and stay there. Don Ganato had friends, old school friends. They won’t let this pass. They’ll be looking for you.”

“I’m not worried about the bosses up north,” Francis said. “Longshot Lonnie had their permission, or at least, their pledge of non-interference, so he could . . . do what he did. But Don Ganato had other friends, I know. They’ll be looking, sooner or later, no matter what anybody tells them. They won’t stop, either. I’ll have to do whatever it takes to make sure they don’t find us.”

He stood there for a long second more, then gripped my shoulder. “Thanks, Longville. I just wanted to say that.”

I nodded. “Good Luck, Francis.”