The Dame Did It (4 page)

He handed Killingsworth the key to the
Corvette, but called after them as they both climbed into the low
seats. “What about your truck?”

Killingsworth shrugged. “We’re just
borrowing it, Sam. If someone were to have certain contacts and
were it to somehow disappear, no one would be the wiser.”

Sam rubbed his bony hands together. He knew
of just the chop shop that would be happy to disassemble the Ford
into untraceable parts and pay him a hefty fee for the opportunity.
“Say no more, Mr
.
and Mrs. Johansen. I
assure you, I will be most discreet.” He turned back to his office
to count his money, again, and make a couple of phone calls—some
discreet and others not so discreet.

The Corvette spun back onto the 9001,
heading East toward Lexington. Normally, it was a three hour drive
to Lexington but, with careful monitoring of the radar detector,
they made it in two. They had spent a fair amount of time
exchanging their wheels and it was near midnight when they reached
Finn Macintyre’s place in the suburbs. Finn was a small time
hustler who pulled cons on old ladies, emptying their savings and
robbing them of their social security checks, but his ill-gotten
gains slipped like water through his fingers—spent on booze, drugs,
and fast women. His lawn was overgrown, and empty bottles of
bourbon adorned the rail of his front porch. A shiny red Porsche
sat in the driveway as Blackheart and Killingsworth approached the
door.

“That’s new,” said Blackheart. “Or at least
he picked it up since I’ve been in the pen.”

“I’ve got a bad feeling that your girl and
your best friend may have already spent Frankie G’s drug money.
They’ve had plenty of time.”

“I told you,” growled Blackie. “He ain’t my
best friend anymore.” He lifted his fist to knock on the door, but
Killingsworth caught it.

“Allow me,” she said. She produced a
lockpick gun from her handbag and in a few seconds the locked front
door was locked no longer and they eased into the front room, which
was decorated in modern style with angular coffee tables, end
tables, and boxy leather couches. A small mirror rested upon the
table, a dusting of white powder, a furled hundred dollar bill, and
a razor blade lying on top. There was, however, no sign of any
occupants.

“Looks like they’ve been celebrating,” said
Killingsworth.

The headlights of a car swept the house,
momentarily brightening the dim interior, and Killingsworth stepped
to the blinds, pulling two slats apart and peering through them.
“We’ve got a car parked on the other side of the street.”

Blackheart cursed. “Is it the police? I
should have known better than to pay a visit to my ex-girlfriend.
They’ve probably been staking out her place since I escaped the
transport truck.”

“Why were you being transported?” asked
Killingsworth.

Blackheart shrugged. “Something about me
being too dangerous to mix with the general population and that I
should be transported to Eddyville with the other hard core
criminals. I don’t get it, though, I’m strictly small time compared
to the guys they’ve got in the Kentucky Pen. I’m not a rapist and I
never killed anyone… until today, but I don’t see as I had much
choice.”

“It takes a little getting used to.”
Killingsworth still peered through the blinds, hoping to find a
clue which would tell her the identity of the newly-arrived
vehicle’s occupants.

“Is it even possible to get used to it?”
asked Blackheart.

“I’ve killed a lot of people, Big Boy. It
becomes almost second nature.”

“How do you deal with it?”

“Lots of cigarettes, booze, and m—” She cut
herself short, lest she admit too much and quash any chances that
she might have with Blackheart after their job was done.

Blackheart checked the kitchen, but it
didn’t look as though it had been used for anything but providing
drinking glasses from the cupboards. “Cigarettes? I haven’t seen
you smoke a single stick since you pulled me out of the back of
that transport wagon.”

“I go cold turkey when I’m on a job.”

“Don’t you go into withdrawals?”

“I should, but I don’t seem to. Maybe it’s
the adrenaline.” Killingsworth started down the hallway, pistol in
hand. The first door on the left was ajar and opened into a
bathroom. The next door opened up into a small office with a
cluttered desk containing a computer, phone, and a plethora of
scattered papers. Killingworth pushed open the last door on the
right, revealing the master bedroom and Finn and Charise, who lay
exhausted, and deep in slumber, after their evening of drug-fueled
passion.

Killingsworth didn’t waste any time. She
strode across the room, grabbed Finn’s head by a handful of his
curly brown hair and shoved her pistol in his face. It was a rude
awakening to say the least.

“Where’s the money that came in the
package?” she demanded.

Finn’s eyes popped open and his bleary gaze
was replaced with fear and he began to struggle. Killingworth
jammed the pistol into his right eye and yanked hard on his hair.
“Stop fighting, or I’ll put a bullet through your brain—and then
through the tramp’s brain.”

“What, what do you want?”

“I want the money that Joe Blackheart mailed
to Charise.”

Charise stifled a scream and made a dash
from the room, the sheet that draped her body tearing loose from
the bed and coming with her, but the folds of the linen tripped her
up and she stumbled into Blackheart. He wrapped his thick arms
around her torso and held tightly while she kicked, flailed and
cursed a string of words that would make a sailor blush.

“Classy woman you’ve got there, Big Boy.
What did you ever see in her?”

The sheets began to slip down from Charise’s
shoulder, revealing just a fraction of her fully formed
decolletage. “Never mind,” said Killingsworth. “I get it. Now
someone speak up before I lose my patience. I want to know where
the 650 grand is, and I want to know fast, because it might be
easier to kill you both and just look for it ourselves.”

“Watch the eye!” begged Finn. “That just
healed up.”

“If you don’t cooperate I’m going to give
you more than a shattered eye socket,” warned Killingsworth.

Finn focused with his left eye, looking past
the blonde assassin that was shoving a pistol into his other eye,
and seeing Blackheart holding the struggling Charise. “Joe! I
thought that you were in jail. I’m your best friend, why are you
doing this?”

Blackheart gave Charise a jerk that
momentarily squeezed the breath from her body and silenced her.
“When I beat you down you begged me to forgive you for sleeping
with my girl, and you promised me you’d never lay a finger on her
again. How long did you keep that promise, Finn?”

“You were in jail, Joe! Charise was lonely
and I felt bad for her—”

“I’m sick of this sob story,” said
Killingsworth. “I’ll off him for free. Just give the word.”

“Give him ten seconds to tell us where the
money is. If he doesn’t spill, then you have my permission to pull
the trigger.”

“We didn’t even know about the money until
three days ago!” protested Finn. “Charise needed a bra and
remembered that you had sent her some of her clothes. She dug out
the package and we found the money inside. We were going to keep it
safe for you—until you got out of the pen. Honest!”

“Who paid for that Porsche out front?” asked
Blackheart.

Charise recovered some of her breath and she
managed to gasp out a reply. “I didn’t think you’d mind if I used a
little bit of it to support myself until you got out and we could
get married.”

“Married?” exclaimed Blackheart. “What about
Finn?”

“What about him?” said Charise. “I was
lonely. I just needed someone to keep me company until I could be
with my true love again.”

Killingworth rolled her eyes. “I hope you’re
not buying any of this, Big Boy.”

Blackheart hesitated. “No.”

“Good,” said Killingsworth, and she put her
finger on the trigger of her Colt. “Now, Finn, I want you to tell
me where the rest of the money is.”

For a moment his left eye wandered to a
painting of a lion in the jungle veldt which hung crooked on the
wall. “We put it in a safe deposit box. Come back tomorrow and I’ll
get you the key.”

“You and Charise must think we’re pretty
stupid.” Now, Killingsworth spoke to Blackheart. “Big Boy, put the
tramp on the bed next to Finn and take a look behind the
painting.”

Blackheart carried Charise over to the bed
and dropped her next to his former best friend, and she tucked her
knees to her chest, gathering the sheet around her as if it were
some protective shield.

“Please don’t kill me, Joe,” pleaded
Charise. “I know you still love me. We can still be together.”

Blackheart ignored her supplications and
moved aside the painting, revealing a ragged hole which had been
punched into the wall. He reached into the hole and began to remove
bundle after bundle of cash.

“That has got to be the laziest job of
stashing money I’ve ever encountered, Finn,” said Killingworth.
“You have got to be one of the poorest excuses for a criminal that
I have ever seen.”

Blackheart counted the bundles and dropped
each of them into Finn’s gym bag. “We’ve got 420 grand.”

“Where’s the other 230 thousand?”
Killingsworth emphasized the question by jabbing the snout of the
pistol a little deeper into Finn’s right eye.

“We… we spent it,” said Finn, and he held
out a key that he retrieved from the bedstand. “Here, take the keys
to the Porsche! That’s where all the money went.”

Killingsworth snatched away the keys. “You
spent 230 thousand on one Porsche? My, are you a big spender. I
could almost believe you’re that stupid, but I think you’re holding
out on us. Tell us where the rest is and I promise that I won’t
shoot you.”

Charise’s eyes were wild with fear. “What
about me?”

“One of you has got to die,” said
Killingsworth. “If you want to be the one to live tell us where the
rest of the money is.”

Finn and Charise both spoke as quickly as
their tongues would allow, the location of the remaining money
spilling out in frenzied jumbles.

“Do the honors,” said Killingsworth, and
Blackheart pulled loose the slender dagger that the blonde assassin
had lent him earlier. He approached the bed and used the point to
rip open the foot of the mattress where it had been crudely
stitched together. Here, he found 83 thousand and some odd change
and he announced the amount to Killingsworth as soon as he had
estimated it.

“I still think they’re holding out on us,”
said Killingsworth, “but we’ve got a car outside watching the
house. I think we’d better be moving on.”

“Don’t kill me!” begged Charise. “It was
Finn’s idea to spend the money. I wanted to save all of it for you,
Joey baby. You know I love only you.”

“The story’s changing,” said Killingsworth.
She withdrew the pistol from Finn’s eye socket and plucked up a
pillow from the bed. “Time to tie up loose ends and blow this
joint. Charise talked first, so she gets to live.” Killingsworth
shoved the snout of the .45 into the pillow and pressed it against
Finn’s head and was about to pull the trigger when the pop of a
semi-automatic rifle echoed through the night, immediately followed
by shattering glass and spurting blood as Finn spun to the ground,
peppered by rounds even as he dropped.

Killingsworth threw herself to the floor as
a bullet tugged at the sleeve of her jacket. The mattress gouted
feathers as bullets plowed through, and plaster dust flew as
bullets cut through the window and then the wall on the other side
of the room.

Blackheart dropped Charise, fell to his
knees and crawled toward his former best friend, reaching out
toward him. “Finn!”

Finn turned his head toward Blackheart,
blood dribbling from the corner of his mouth. “I’m sorry, Joe. It’s
all my fault. I told Charise to testify against you and to be quiet
about the part where she came at you with the fire poker. I wanted
her… and I thought that if I could get you out of the way, I might
have a chance at keeping her.” Finn’s eyes rolled back in his head
and he ceased breathing.

The barrage of bullets ceased for just a
moment and finally Charise let out a long dreadful shriek and
bolted for the door of the bedroom, bed sheet trailing behind. A
half dozen spots on the cream-colored sheet blossomed crimson as
the barrage began anew, and the force of the bullets pitched
Charise against the wall.

Both Blackheart and Killingsworth were flat
on their bellies, crawling for the door and past Charise who sat
slumped against the wall, her dead eyes glassy and staring. Bullets
cut through the walls overhead, showering them with plaster and
splinters.

“Who’s shooting at us?” asked
Blackheart.

Killingsworth had no answers. “Who knows
about the money?”

Blackheart pulled himself down the hallway
and Finn’s signed and framed photographs of last year’s playmates
grew bullet holes and were thrown from the walls. The very
foundation of the house seemed to shake and tremble as the assault
continued. “Finn and Charise went on a spending spree the last
three days. Probably a few people noticed and someone put two and
two together.”

“That sounds about right.” Killingsworth
didn’t bother firing back. They were at the center of the house and
she couldn’t see who was shooting at them or where he was. The
bullets of the rifle that was being fired at them had a lot more
penetration than her pistols. “Probably some of Frankie G’s men
caught wind of it. Who picked up the pieces after Keel and I took
him out?”

“Diggs Sanderson,” said Blackheart. “He sent
word to me in jail that he’d have me shivved if I didn’t tell him
where the cash was at.”