Donnie Martel shot a thirty-seven on the back nine of Van Nuys. Never mind that he’d shot a forty-one on the front nine—he still had a round of seventy-eight, the first time he’d ever broken eighty on any course.
Donnie had a few drinks at the nineteenth hole, replaying the great shots in his mind, before driving home. He pulled into the underground garage, took the elevator up to his floor, and unlocked the door to his apartment.
There was a man sitting on the couch holding a gun.
Donnie blinked, uncomprehendingly.
He wouldn’t have understood even if he’d been sober.
Teddy hadn’t made himself up to be anyone in particular. His face didn’t match any driver’s license, passport, credential, or other ID. The only criteria had been that he not look anything like either Mark Weldon or Billy Barnett.
He’d also gone for mean. He wanted to be the scariest son of a bitch Donnie could ever imagine walking in on. Alcohol had dulled the effect somewhat; still, Teddy was thoroughly intimidating.
“Hi, Donnie,” Teddy said. “I’ve got good news and bad news. You and I are going to have a little chat, and I’m going to ask you some questions.
“The good news is I’m not going to kill you if you don’t tell me what I want to know.”
Teddy flipped open a razor-sharp, stiletto-pointed gravity knife. His thin-lipped smile was positively chilling. “The bad news is you’ll wish I had.”
Gino Patelli. The name meant nothing to Teddy.
So, a man he didn’t know wanted him dead. Not an earth-shattering event for Teddy. He probably didn’t know half the men who wanted him dead.
Teddy whipped out his cell phone and googled Gino Patelli, with surprisingly few results. Most references were recent, within the last few years. Without a Wikipedia page, it took a while to sort out why.
Gradually Teddy pieced together the information.
Gino Patelli was the ne’er-do-well playboy son of Vinnie Patelli, a low-level mob enforcer gunned down in an ancient turf war. Gino’s mother, Rosa, had died in childbirth, so the death of his father left him orphaned. Rosa’s brother, Carlo Gigante, took the boy in under his wing and taught him the family business. When Carlo wound up dead at the bottom of a cliff overlooking the ocean, Gino, having suddenly inherited his uncle’s empire, stepped in and proceeded to rule it with an iron hand.
That all made sense to Teddy. While he had not killed Carlo Gigante, there was certainly reason to think that he had. Teddy had set into motion the events that led to his death; the fact that he did not actually commit the deed hardly absolved him from the responsibility.
The circumstantial evidence was compelling. Carlo Gigante had sent goons to kill Billy Barnett’s wife. Teddy had accosted Carlo in an L.A. nightclub, beat up his bodyguards, and threatened to kill him. Carlo Gigante had subsequently wound up dead. Gino Patelli would have no problem doing the math.
Teddy looked up Gino’s address and drove out there. What he saw was not encouraging. A stone mansion like a giant fortress set back from the road behind an iron gate. A fence topped with barbed wire and no doubt electrified. Grounds protected by floodlights and probably dogs.
Teddy sighed.
He could kill Gino Patelli, but it would not be easy. It would require planning and execution. Above all, it would require time.
Teddy was about to shoot a feature film, a long and painstaking process, which required him to be somewhere else and to be someone else.
Mark Weldon was a bad guy in the movie, a stone-cold killer, but for all that he was a pussycat compared to Teddy Fay. Mark Weldon could not go on a killing spree in the middle of a movie shoot.
Teddy chuckled.
It was probably even in his contract.