11

“Nice work, Rubio! Score one for the home team!”

Eddie Tallarico dances through the living room of his crumbling mansion, a bundle of rosemary clutched in his fat fist. He’s decked out in flannel paisley pajamas, the thick material clinging to his rubbery folds, undulating with each grotesque movement. It takes all of my strength, all of my willpower, not to deck the son of a bitch.

“Evening, Eddie.”

“Evening, hell! It’s sunshine in the morning, Rubio. Didn’t ya hear the news? Jack Dugan is no more.” He turns his little dance into a cha-cha. “No more, no more, Jack Dugan is no more.”

“Right. Yeah, I heard that.”

“Heard that, hell. Hell! I got my sources, Rubio. I know what happened. Coverin’ up the dames so that fucker would be left unprotected.”

He leaps onto a sofa and, in the best impression of a three-hundred-pound Fred Astaire I’ve ever seen, flips it over, walking down the cushions as he approaches me. “I had my eye on you,” he says, “and I was wary. I’ll say that much—I was wary.”

“No doubt.” The other men in the room are chatting among themselves, but have started to notice my presence, and a buzz is building.

“That’s one of the reasons I sent you out on that racetrack job. To gauge you. To see what you’re capable of.”

I’m trying to keep it light, easy. I want to show him exactly what I’m capable of, but this isn’t the time or place. That will come. “I kinda figured,” I tell him, warming to the part.

“Kinda figured. Hell. You’re a bright one, I can see that. I had all you L.A. types measured the same, you know? Every one of ya, outta the fruit cup—that’s how I figured it. My brother . . . hell, my brother was one of the good guys till he moved out west, and now I gotta contend with his movie connections, and his actor friends. Like I need that in my life.

“But you . . . you got a good streak in you, Rubio. Sherm and Chaz tell me you did a real number down at the track.”

I can feel it now, that hard nugget riding in my stomach. Something tight forming down there, a solid core of hatred, small but growing. “Doing my best, sir.”

“Well, you got that taken care of, and then you paid off double. Keeping it together when the shit came down, playing it cool. You’re in over there, baby—in and good, and that’s just gonna come in handy when it all comes to a head.”

I decide to play it a little harder. “You want me to make a move?” I ask.

Eddie just breaks out into a big grin and hugs me close. I can smell the tar, my nose pressed next to his scent gland, the molasses dragging me under. It’s a heavy smell, a heady smell, and next to the stink of pepperoni and fried cheese, it nearly knocks me out cold.

“Lookit you,” he drawls, and it’s frightening to see this behemoth in such a good mood. “Already working your way into the plans. I love this guy!”

This seems to be some sort of cue for the other soldiers in Tallarico’s family to approach and tell me that they, too, love me and my zany antics. I accept the hugs and the kisses and the pats on the back and return them in kind, and somewhere in the middle of it all—halfway between a bear hug from Sherman and an earnestly drunken conversation with Eddie’s mafia accountant about the state of the union—I realize that in just one short week, I have worked my way into the inner circles of not one, but two of the deadliest dinosaur mafia families in the country. Where’s my you’ve-got-no-direction high school guidance counselor now, huh?

Cheers fill the living room, toasts are made, and more congratulations are heaped upon yours truly as Tallarico hits the music and the party gears back up to full speed. An entire basil plant is shoved into my hand, and it takes me a second before I realize what I’m holding. I drop the entire thing to the ground, the pot falling to one side, dirt spilling out across the carpet where it’s trampled into the fibers a moment later by a rampant, unstoppable conga line.

“Pssst! Vinnie! Can I speak with you a sec?” It’s Chaz, ten feet away.

I saunter over to the corner, keeping my game face on. Chaz is jittery, clearly not enjoying the festivities as much as the rest of them. “Good to see ya,” I say casually.

“Hey,” he says. “Hey.”

“Hey,” I respond. “Are we talking? ’Cause there’s a party back there . . .”

“Yeah, yeah,” says Chaz. “Listen, after the racetrack job, I was supposed to talk you into going over to Dugan’s, making yourself comfortable. Just to play an inside part, in case things got hinky.”

“And . . . ?”

“Hell, you were there,” he says, glancing around the room to make sure no one else can hear our conversation. “The stables, Stu, that fucking Pepe, it was a mess. Guy screamed so loud we had to take off his fake feet and shove ’em down his throat. And then you were outta there before I remembered, so . . . I mean, it worked out real nice you being with Dugan like you were supposed to, but I didn’t tell Eddie that I fucked up. And I was hoping . . .”

“You were hoping I wouldn’t tell him, either.”

Chaz’s face flushes with relief. “Right. Right.”

All I could do, back outside the 7-Eleven, standing there over Jack’s prone body, helpless, nauseous, was think over and over again: It was a gun. A simple stupid gun that finally did him in, the ultimate mammalian weapon as executioner. And it made sense. Because while we’ve got our dissolution packets and our claws to the throat, our spiked tails or a razor-sharp bite from our fangs, it’s nothing when compared to the crack of a rifle and the punch of a bullet. When it comes to taking out a rival gang leader, it’s all about raw killing power, and the humans cornered that market a long time ago.

Now the Tallaricos would learn about it from a different angle.

“You know, Chaz,” I say, pulling him close, buddylike, “I think we’ve got some deals ahead of us. I think we can work this out.”

“That’s great,” he says, exhaling hard, as if he’d been holding his breath since this afternoon. His words speed up even more than usual, the rapid-fire speech harsh against my eardrums. “Super, just super. It’s the kind of thing I was hoping for—”

I hold up a hand—big ole stop sign, and he drops the clamor. “You wanna check out a good scene?” I ask.

“Like what?”

“Like some primo herb. All gratis.”

“We got that right here—”

“And the ladies,” I add. “Oh, some fine women. I know a place we can go . . . All types. Hell, they even got a room—” I lower my voice a notch to give it that proper air of sleaze. “They got a room in back with mammals.”

“Humans?”

“All tied up for you,” I tell him. “Ready for a little meet-and-greet.”

This is too much for Chaz; he’s nearly become warmblooded just at the thought of it. “Come on,” I tell him, heading through the hallway, away from the main room. “Let’s keep this between you and me.”

He eagerly follows me out of the compound, where Eddie has set up a round-the-clock guard service behind the main gates. Four cars wait in the driveway, a steel barrier against anyone who might want to come crashing through. We step into the Lexus and Chaz waves at the guards, who part their cars, open the gates, and wave us past. Within minutes we’re off the island and heading toward the beach.

“How come I don’t know about this place?” Chaz asks as we drive along the causeway.

“Don’t know,” I tell him. “I heard about it from Dugan’s crew, so maybe it’s a Hadrosaur joint.”

He nods, as if this makes all the sense in the world. “Yeah. Yeah, that’s probably it. But it’s safe and all?”

“Oh, don’t you worry. It’s safe.”

I hadn’t planned on this next part; it’s not my job. But there’s a certain amount of curiosity that needs to be satisfied, and I’ve always been one dead cat, anyway. “How’d you know where to go?” I ask him.

“When?”

“With the Dugan hit. You have a tracer on me?”

Chaz laughs, shakes his head. “Nah, Vinnie. We got a guy on the inside.”

“In Dugan’s family?”

He nods and gives another chuckle. “Same as how we knew he was down at that club. Got the phone call from our source, found out where Dugan was going, that was the end of that. If it wasn’t for the inside man, though . . . Hell, we got lucky.”

An involuntary shudder passes through me as my spirits drop another notch. I’d suspected a betrayal from within—how else would Tallarico get the information about what went down inside the club?—but hearing it confirmed sends a small round of depression through my body. It’s not like they’re my men, but I’m sad for Jack, for Noreen, even a little bit sad for Hagstrom and the Dugan family in general. I’d hoped to find loyalty, if not honor, among thieves. Now I know otherwise.

“Which one of ’em is it?” I ask. “Just so I know who’s who next time I go in.”

But the little guy just winks my question away, and as soon as I catch that satisfied grin, I know there’s no chance I’ll get the information out of him.

Then again, I don’t have to. That’s someone else’s job.

Three hundred feet before the causeway exit, I see the black limousine parked on the far side of the road, hidden beneath the darkness and the shadow of a palm tree.

“Something wrong with the car?” Chaz asks.

I decide not to answer him. I don’t have to be coy or cute or smarmy anymore. That kernel of coal in my chest is keeping me silent.

“Vincent, what’s up, man?”

Again, nothing. Every second I stay mute is another second I grow colder, and I find that ice is the only way to numb the pain right now.

“Why are we pulling over?” There’s a note of desperation in his voice now, and it thrills me to hear it. “Vincent? Hey, Vinnie—”

I hit the brakes and slam the car into park. Chaz is glancing around him, frantically looking around the car, into the darkness, a cat thrown into a box, unsure of where it is or how it got there—

The passenger door opens. It’s Hagstrom. “Get out,” he tells Chaz.

The mop-top Raptor looks at me beseechingly. “Vinnie . . . what’s going on?”

Hagstrom doesn’t wait to tell him again. He reaches in and yanks Chaz out by an arm, pulling him to the ground below. I watch out the windshield as BB and two others muscle the little guy up and into the limousine, slamming the door behind them.

“Go on back,” Hagstrom tells me. “Make sure you’re seen.”

I know the routine; I came up with it myself. I give a nod to Hagstrom and pull the car back onto the causeway, driving around for ten minutes or so before heading back to Star Island and Tallarico’s compound.

I make sure to find Eddie as soon as I get in. “You partying it up, Vinnie?” he asks me, already half in the bag.

“Sure, Eddie,” I say, convivial as ever. “Chaz just had me drive him out to some club on the beach. Hope that was okay.”

“Chaz is a big boy,” Eddie replies. “He can do what he wants. But you’re no fucking chauffeur around here. Next time, find Raoul, let him do it. You’re my guy, Vincent. You got that? You’re my guy.”

“I’m your guy,” I repeat, and allow Eddie to give me a sloppy kiss on the cheek before he dances off into the living room and rejoins the festivities.

I make a show of partying it up with the other Tallarico family members, telling and retelling the stories of the hit on Jack Dugan, each time accentuating my role in the assassination. It’s a tale that grows smoother with each telling, because with every iteration, another layer of coal wraps itself around my heart, making it that much easier to deal with both the past and the unpleasant, inevitable string of events yet to come.