Deadly Dozen: 12 Mysteries/Thrillers (172 page)

CHAPTER FORTY

AFTER BINDING THE WRISTS and ankles of the two Russians I wounded with my .38, I ask Roger to stand guard over them.

“What are you doing with Alexander?” Suzanne asks.

I hand her one of the other two hand cannons the thugs brought along.

“Georgie and I are going to interrogate him inside the van,” I lie. “You help Roger.”

She seems a little apprehensive at first, like she doesn’t quite believe my story. And for good reason. As a woman who sells fiction, her built-in-shit-detector must be as good if not better than my own. She’s also read my book. Which means she’s fully aware of how much I hate Russian mobsters and now, how desperately I need to clear myself of having anything to do with Sissy’s death. But that doesn’t mean I want her to witness what Georgie and I are about to do.

Before Georgie and I proceed to carry Alexander out to the van, I make sure Roger has himself a couple of cold beers sitting out on the kitchen table and that Suzanne has a fresh pack of smokes and a mirror with some neatly cut lines laid out on it. Courtesy of Sissy Walls. God rest her soul.

“Ready Georgie,” I say, hefting a woozy Alexander to his feet, with his left arm wrapped around my shoulder.

“Don’t pass out on us, Mr. Stalin,” Georgie says, pulling a vial of Viagra from his jacket pocket. “We need to get that hammer and sickle in the mood.”

CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

WE HAUL THE WOUNDED thug out to the van where we shove him into the back cargo space along with Sissy’s body.

“What the fuck are you doing with dead body?” he begs. “Get me away from dead body.”

While I’m standing outside the open cargo bay doors, Georgie jumps inside, sets himself onto his knees to the right of Sissy’s black-bagged body. He pulls his cell phone from the chest pocket on his jean jacket.

“Here you go, Alex,” he smiles, holding out the phone toward the wounded Russian. “Why don’t you call the police and tell them what’s happening.”

The thug coughs up a luggy, spits it in Georgie’s general direction. The pathologist might be nearing his senior years, but he’s still quick on his feet. Or, in this case, his knees. He shifts his head out of the line of fire as the thick wad of spit splats against the van’s hollow metal wall.

Sufficiently pissed off, Georgie, pulls his .9mm, presses the barrel against the goon’s forehead.

“Get undressed,” he orders.

Georgie unzips Sissy’s body all the way, revealing her pale, chalky face and mussed up red hair, along with the entirety of her naked body.

There’s a look of profound confusion mixed with pain and fear on Alexander’s clean-shaven face. His steel gray eyes are open wide, brow scrunched. His mouth has gone dry, judging from his incessant swallowing and the way his Adam’s apple bobs up and down in his throat like a turkey awaiting the axe.

Georgie tells me to hold my gun on the thug while he returns his to his shoulder holster. He then unzips his duffel bag, pulls out a bottle of
Poland Spring Water
, uncaps it. Hands it to the Russian.

“Hold this,” he says.

From outside the open doors, I hold the .38 on the Russian, pointblank, safety off.

Alex takes hold of the water bottle.

“Now then,” Georgie goes on, pulling the vial from his jean jacket pocket. “I want you to swallow these.” The old pathologist pours a fistful of pills into the palm of his hand. He immediately attempts to transfer the pills to the Russian’s hand. But the Russian tosses the water bottle at Georgie’s head.

“Fuck you, pig!” he screams.

Georgie turns to me. “Moon, shoot off one of his big toes.”

Without hesitation I press the barrel of the .38 against the goon’s boot tip.

“Wait! Please! Fucking wait! Stop!” he begs.

Georgie, still holding out the pills. “Well, what’s it going to be Alexander Stalin? This is one of those you-can-do-this-the-easy-way-or-the-hard-way moments.”

I push the gun against the tip of the boot so that he gets the point. He winces in pain since the foot I’m messing with belongs to the shin I’ve already put a hole through. He takes the pills from Georgie and pops them down his throat. The entire handful. Reaching around his backside, Georgie retrieves the water bottle and hands it back to him. Half the water is gone, but he swallows what’s left along with the pills.

“What is in pills?” Alexander begs as soon as he can get his air back.

“Viagra,” Georgie tells him. “You’ve just taken enough to make an elephant hard as a rock.”

As if on cue, we all shift our glance in the direction of the thug’s junk. As if it’s about to rise like a muffin inside an
E-Z Bake Oven
.

“You are insane, da?” he says. “That many pills will make me kiss bucket.”

“It’s ‘kick the bucket,’ Alex,” Georgie corrects. “Kick, the fucking bucket. And I don’t really care what happens to you after you give us a sample.”

“What sample?” the goon begs.

“Your sperm sample.”

“I will do no such thing.”

He’s moving now. Shifting his body as if his already too tight clothing is growing too uncomfortable for him. The pills are working.

“Yes you will,” Georgie tells him. Then Georgie tells him precisely how and where he wants that sperm sample delivered.

The goon’s face goes from pale to purple. For a split second I think he might throw up. Georgie pulls Sissy’s legs out of the body bag. She’s limber and rubber-like now that the rigor mortis stage of death has passed. He positions her legs like she is about to give birth and, reaching back into his kit, pulls out a pair of blue Latex gloves, slaps them on. Next, he produces a tube of
K-Y Jelly
. Squeezing a dollop out onto his finger pads, he applies the K-Y in the required area. Then, his eyes on Alex, he says. “Let’s go Romeo. Batter up.”

“Batter up. What does that fucking mean? Batter up. You mean like dick. Dick’s up.”

“It’s just a saying,” Georgie says. “Let’s go, assume the position and make it happen.”

But the goon backs away. His look of horror turns to weeping. He begins crying real tears. The tears are streaming down his cheeks.

“Please. Don’t make me do this.”

“Let me ask you something, Alex?” Georgie says. “Did you enjoy raping Suzanne? Making her suck your cock while you stuffed the barrel of that pistol into Roger’s mouth? You weren’t crying then.”

“It was all in good fun.”

“Good fun,” Georgie laughs. But nothing’s funny. “How many men and women you killed in your day, Mr. Stalin? How did you kill them? Shoot them in the head? Did you rape the women before you killed them? Did you cut their heads off? What about the boys you’ve tortured and killed? Did you cut their throats? Do it in front of their mothers?”

Alexander remains silent, knowing that Georgie isn’t exaggerating. Like me, Georgie has had his share of near-death run-ins with the Russian mob.

“I have never made anyone have sex with a dead person before,” the thug wails. “That is going against unwritten rule. Like disobeying Geneva Convention or something.”

“First time for everything,” Georgie insists, tearing off his rubber glove and once more grabbing hold of his .9, holding the barrel on the weeping Russian, thumbing back the hammer. “Do it, or die now.”

“Then you won’t have sample,” the goon exclaims.

“Oh, I can grab a sample up until five minutes after you’re deceased. Little known fact about dead men. The junk can produce sperm while the body is still warm.” Reaching back into his bag with his free hand. “Only difference is I’ll have to cut it out, which means immediate and total castration.”

Now the Russian goes from purple to red. He also stops crying, as if he’s just wept his last tear. He sits up, wincing in pain. Then sucking in a single deep breath, he unbuckles his pants, pulls them down around his knees and rolls over on top of Sissy.

“May the good Lord forgive me,” he says, as he makes the sign of the cross, then shifts himself forward to go to work on her body.

“May the devil have mercy on your soul, Alexander,” Georgie says while I step back from the open doors and look the other way.

CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

IT TAKES LESS THAN five minutes for Alex to give us, and Sissy, the sample we need. He then buckles his pants back up. Georgie helps him out of the van where he proceeds to puke. When he’s finished, Georgie and I act as his crutches and lead him back into the house. Inside we find Roger and Suzanne are still holding guns on the seated, wounded Russians. Their blood has collected to form a small pool of crimson underneath the chairs.

“What do we do with my house guests, Moonlight?” Roger inquires. He’s got an open beer in his free hand. Meanwhile, Suzanne is sitting on the long leather couch, her pistol set on the cushion beside her now that the two Russians are passed out from blood loss and on their way to being dead.

Georgie and I drop Alexander to the floor. With all the Viagra he’s ingested, his erection is pup-tenting out of his pants. My guess is he’ll carry that wood for forty-eight hours or more.

“We need to call the police,” I say.

Georgie nods.

“It’s about that time, Moon. Call the cops from the car while we’re trucking Sissy back to the morgue.”

I ask Roger how he feels about involving the cops at this point.

“If it means these Russians will no longer be up my ass for one million bucks,” he says, “I’m ready. I’ll even wait here for them.”

“What will you tell them, Rog?” I ask.

“The truth,” he says, taking a drink of beer. “At least, my version of the truth. I drove back to the house and let myself in. These guys were here waiting for me. Turns out Sissy had some illegal drug dealings with them and now they wanted their money. Now that Sissy’s gone they wanted me to pay. They pulled their guns on me, but I was able to get the jump on them. I shot them in self-defense. Just like the first time around when I shot that man for trespassing.”

“We’ve got three different caliber of bullets embedded into these Russian’s legs and into the woodwork,” Georgie points out. “How is Roger going to explain that?”

I start wracking my brain for an answer when the bullet wizzes past my right ear.

CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

I HIT THE FLOOR.

So does Georgie and Roger.

Suzanne slides off the couch, crawls around the back of it. Alexander crawls over to Roger, snatches the .44 Magnum from his hand, cold-cocks the author over the head with the barrel.

Another couple of rounds tear through the windows and into the floor at my feet.

Alexander raises up the gun, fires one off at Georgie. The bullet misses and takes a chunk out of the wall behind him.

Georgie rolls in my direction, pulling out his .9mm, aiming it at Alexander, and proceeds to pump three rounds into his head.

No more Alexander.

Coming from outside the now shot through windows are the sounds of boot heels on the wood desk and an ear-piercing screech. Correction. Not a screech at all, but a good old-fashioned rebel yell. Then comes the sound of the kitchen door being kicked in. In steps two men and behind them two women.