The Assassin Part 34

He carried it to the bare light bulb fixture and looked through it again.

And saw that it was almost entirely clogged with some kind of s.h.i.+t. Rust. Whatever.

That's what she meant when she said "the pipes are clogged. They got to go." Jesus Christ! What the f.u.c.k is that going to cost?

Magdelana Lanza was waiting at the head of the cellar stairs when Vito came up.

"I told you not to flush the toilet," she said. "That there's no water. So now what am I supposed to do?"

"Use Mrs. Marino's toilet," he said.

"The plumber wants two thousand dollars' deposit."

"What?"

"He says, you don't get him two thousand dollars by nine tomorrow morning, he'll have to go onto another job, and we'll have to wait. He don't know when he could get back."

"Two thousand dollars?"

"He said that'll almost cover materials, labor will be extra, but he won't order the materials until you give him two thousand dollars, and you pay the rest when he's finished."

"Jesus, Mary, and Joseph!"

"Watch your language!"

"And what if I don't have two thousand dollars?"

"Then sell your Cadillac automobile, Mr. Big Shot, you got to have water in the house."

"Who'd you call, Mama, the plumber?"

"Rosselli Brothers, who else?"

"I'll go there in the morning."

"You can get off work? Give me a check, and I'll take it over there."

"I go on four-to-midnight today, Mama. I'll be off in the morning. "

"You got two thousand dollars in the bank? After you bought your fancy Cadillac automobile?"

"Don't worry about it, Mama, okay? I told you I would take care of it."

Vito realized that he did not have two thousand dollars in his Philadelphia Savings Fund Society checking account. Maybe a little over a thousand, maybe even twelve hundred, but not two big ones.

Upstairs, under the second drawer in the dresser, of course, there is some real money. Ten big ones.

But s.h.i.+t, I signed a marker for six big ones, which means I got four big ones, not ten. And when I pay the f.u.c.king plumber two big ones in the morning, that'll take me down to two.

Jesus Christ, where the f.u.c.k did it all go? I got off the airplane from Vegas with all the f.u.c.king money in the world, and now I'm d.a.m.ned near broke again.

"You got to take care of it," Magdelana Lanza said. "We got to have a toilet and hot water."

"Mama, I said I'd take care of it. Don't worry about it."

Magdelana Lanza snorted.

"Mama, can you stay with Mrs. Marino tonight? I mean you can't stay here with no water."

"Tonight, I can stay with Mrs. Marino. But I can't stay there forever. "

"Okay. One day at a time. I'll see what the plumber says tomorrow, how long it will take him. Now I got to get dressed and go to work. Okay?"

"I'll go ask Mrs. Marino if it would be an imposition."

"You'd do it for her, right? What's the problem?"

"I'll go ask her, would it be an imposition."

She walked out the front door and Vito climbed the stairs to the second floor. He took the second drawer from his dresser, and then took the money he had concealed in the dresser out and sat on his bed and counted it.

It wasn't ten big ones. It was only ninety-four hundred bucks. When there had been twenty-two big ones, six hundred bucks hadn't seemed like much.

Now it means that I don't even have two big ones, just fourteen lousy hundred. Plus, the eleven hundred in PSFS, that's only twenty-five hundred.

Jesus H. Christ!

He changed into his uniform.

The plumber and his helpers will be all over the house. I better take this money with me; it will be safer than here.

SIXTEEN.

Officer Jesus Martinez drove into the parking lot of the Airport Police Station in his five-year-old Oldsmobile 98 about two minutes before Corporal Vito Lanza pulled in at the wheel of his not-quite-a -year-old Cadillac Fleetwood.

Martinez would not have seen Lanza arrive had he not noticed that his power antenna hadn't completely retracted. Jesus took great pride in his car, and things like that bothered him. He unlocked the car and got back in and turned the ignition on and ran the antenna up and down by turning the radio on and off.

It retracted completely the last couple of times, which made him think, to his relief, that there was nothing wrong with the antenna, that it was probably just a little dirty. As soon as he got home, he would get some alcohol and wet a rag with it, and wipe the antenna clean, and then lubricate it with some silicone lubricant.

He was in the process of relocking the Olds's door when Corporal Lanza pulled in beside him.

That's a new Cadillac. Where the f.u.c.k does he get the money for a new Cadillac?

"Whaddaya say, Corporal?"

"Hey! How they hanging, Gomez?"

"It's Martinez, Corporal."

"Sorry."

"Nice wheels."

"Yeah, it's all right. Nothing like a Caddy."

"What's something like that worth?"

"What the f.u.c.k is the matter with you? It's not polite to ask people what things cost."

"Sorry, Corporal. Just curious."

"A lot," Lanza said. "Save your pennies, Martinez."

"Yeah."

"Or get lucky, which is how I got that f.u.c.ker."

"Excuse me?"

"Las Vegas. You want a Caddy like that, you go to Las Vegas and get lucky."

"Yeah, I guess."

"So how do you like the Airport?"

"I haven't been out here long enough to really know. So far it's great. I was in Highway."

How the f.u.c.k did a little Spic like you get into Highway? You don't look big enough to straddle a motorcycle.

"Yeah, I heard. So why did you leave Highway?"

"They made it plain to me that maybe I would be happier someplace else. Which was all right with me. I wasn't too happy in Highway."

They didn't want you in Highway as little as you are. Those f.u.c.kers all think they're John Wayne. And John Wayne, you're not, Gom-Martinez.

"Well, walking around an air-conditioned building telling tourists where they can find the p.i.s.ser sure beats riding a motorcycle in the rain."

"You said it, Corporal."

"The next time they announce a corporal's exam, you ought to have a shot at it."

"Yeah, well, I'm not too good at taking examinations."

"Some people are, and some people aren't. Don't worry about it."

It wasn't until a few minutes after midnight, when he put the key in the Caddy's door, that Vito, with a sinking feeling in his stomach, realized that he had done something really f.u.c.king stupid.

He pulled the door open and slid across the seat, and then, cursing, lifted the fold-down armrest out of the way and put his finger on the glove compartment b.u.t.ton.

s.h.i.+t, it's locked. I don't remember locking the sonofab.i.t.c.h.

He found the key and unlocked the glove compartment, and exhaled audibly with relief. The Flamingo Hotel & Casino envelope was still there, right where he'd shoved it when he got in the car.

He took it out and glanced into it. There was enough light from the tiny glove compartment bulb to see the comforting thick wad of fifties and hundreds. He closed the envelope and stuck it in his pocket.

Not that much of it is still mine anymore.

I know G.o.dd.a.m.ned well I didn't lock that compartment. Maybe, this is is a Caddy, after all, it locks automatically. a Caddy, after all, it locks automatically.

He closed the glove compartment door, slid back across the seat behind the wheel, put the ignition key in, and started the engine.

Starts right f.u.c.king off! There really is nothing like a Caddy.

He backed out of the parking slot, noticed that the old Olds the Spic kid drove was still there. Well, at least he knew what he was doing in the Airport Unit. The little f.u.c.ker was too dumb to pa.s.s the detective's exam, and too little to be a real Highway Patrolman, so they eased him out. They tossed him Airport Unit as a bone. He wondered if the little Spic was smart enough to know how lucky he was to be in Airport; they could just as easily have sent him to one of the districts, or somewhere else really s.h.i.+tty.

Vito decided he would be nice to the kid. Make sure he knows what a good deal he had fallen into. He might come in useful sometime.

He drove up South Broad Street and then made an illegal left turn onto Spruce.

What the h.e.l.l it was after midnight, there was no traffic, and he was in his uniform, n.o.body was going to give him a ticket, even if some cop saw him.

He did decide to put the Caddy in a parking garage. If he didn't, sure as Christ made little apples, some a.s.shole, jealous of the Caddy, would run a key down the side or across the hood. Or steal the f.u.c.king hubcaps.

When he parked the car, he remembered this was the garage where the mob blew away a guy, one of their own, who had p.i.s.sed somebody off. Tony the Zee DeZego. They got him with a shotgun.

Tony met him at the door of her apartment in a negligee. Nice-looking one. Vito had never seen her in it before.

"You didn't have to wait up for me, baby," Vito said.

"I went to bed," she said, kissing him, but moving her body away when he tried to slip his hand under the negligee, "but Uncle Joe called me, and then I couldn't get back to sleep."

"What did he want?"

"He's worried about those markers you signed at Oaks and Pines Lodge."

"Why should he be worried? I'm good for them. And he set it up too, didn't he?"

"Well, that's what happened. He didn't set it up. They just thought he did. But because he sent you there, they told him they were holding him responsible. So he's worried. Six thousand dollars is a lot of money."

"Hey! I'm good for it. I got it in my pocket. You call him up and ask if he wants me to come over there right now with it, or whether he can wait until the morning."

"I'm sure it will be okay," Tony said.