Читать книгу Shadow Hunt - Don Pendleton - Страница 7

U.S. Marshal Jack Rio did his best to get comfortable in the too small seat of the rental car. He wasn’t muscle-bound or obese, but he had broad shoulders and stood a few inches over six feet tall. With the exception of a full-size truck or an SUV, not too many vehicles on the road were made for someone his size, so getting in and out of the black Nissan Sentra for him felt like he was getting in and out of a clown car. On the seat next to him was a slender briefcase, and his sweat-stained cowboy hat that had about as much business in New Orleans as he did.

Rio pulled another cigarette out of his hard pack, lit it and blew the smoke out the open window. He tossed the remaining pack into the console and mentally reminded himself that he should quit when he got back home. Overhead, the sky threatened rain, but so far as he’d seen, it did that almost every day here. Maybe it was the season, he thought, but it was no wonder the city worried about floods and hurricanes—if it was any lower, it’d been under the damn Gulf, not next to it.

The door to the restaurant he was watching opened, and he tensed, then relaxed as a young couple came out holding hands, laughing, and headed for their car. Mosca’s was busy this night, and despite its nondescript white exterior and plain sign, the food was reputed to be outstanding.

The fact that it had been the epicenter of organized crime in the area until the early nineties hadn’t apparently done much to harm business. New Orleans was really the beginning of organized crime that started with two Matranga brothers in the late 1800s and ended with the last-known leader of the Matranga Family, Carlos Marcello. He died in 1993, but he’d worked out of Mosca’s as much as anywhere. Which made the whole damn situation that Rio was in even more strange.

The marshal shifted in his seat, flicked ash out the window, and tried to ignore the trickle of sweat that slid free of his short-cropped black-and-gray hair and down the center of his back. Everyone in New Orleans was sweaty. It was always hot and humid, just on the edge of raining. Under his navy blue sport coat, his .45-caliber Smith & Wesson was heavy and uncomfortable, molding his dress shirt permanently into his skin, but there was no way he was going to take off the coat—or the gun. A lot of experienced shooters carried a 9 mm pistol for personal protection, but Rio’s experiences as a U.S. marshal had taught him the value of a weapon powerful enough to a blow a hole in an engine block.

Rio believed in many things, but the existence of both true evil and pure human fuckery convinced him to load his .45 magazine with hollowpoint rounds, and to carry the weapon at all times when he was awake and have it close at hand when he was asleep. So far, his approach had kept him alive in spite of assignments hunting down very bad men from Mexico to California and all over the American Southwest: Texas, Arizona, New Mexico and even southern Nevada. As a “floater” for the U.S. Marshals Service, Rio traveled wherever the higher-ups decided they wanted him to go, working on cases ranging from missing persons to drug runners to vicious killers that they’d prefer the media never heard about.

Sighing, Rio opened the door of the rental car and climbed out, continuing to watch the restaurant. The entire situation felt wrong, and his instincts weren’t something he took lightly. Why in the world would that shine boy from the DA’s office want to meet here? He had to know that Marcello had been using this same restaurant as a front and a meeting place back when he was running things down here. Maybe the attorney just had a twisted sense of humor, but that didn’t quite fit, either.

The real bitch of it was that he was totally on his own here. This wasn’t an official case, and he sure as hell wasn’t on duty. He was supposedly on vacation, but like some other law-enforcement officers he knew, there were no real vacations for him—just times when he worked a case out of his jurisdiction because it smelled funny and he wanted to try to figure it out. That’s why he was here, sweating through his shirt and his sport coat, instead of drinking cold beer and fishing in the Gulf with his brother.

Almost a year ago, when he was running down a fugitive who’d thought he could hide out in L.A., Rio had met an old FBI hound who talked about the organized crime in New Orleans and how their whole operation just kind of vanished after Marcello died. It stank to high heaven, but no one had been able to find anything else that could establish they were still there and still in business. Rio had been intrigued, and did a little digging of his own. Over time, organized crime in New Orleans had gotten into all of it: drugs, smuggling, money laundering and the usual organized crime list of dirty deeds, and the Matranga Family was in charge of it all.

Usually, when an organized crime family went out of business, it was because another family came in and took over, or everyone was killed, but so far as the Feds could tell, organized crime was out of business entirely in the New Orleans area.

And since the whole damn city was corrupt, Rio thought, that didn’t make one thin dime’s worth of sense.

Someone was there—it was just a question of finding them out. Since Rio’s main job was locating people who didn’t want to be found, he figured he’d go down and spend a week poking around. At the time, he’d thought something might turn up simply because he was an outsider and could see things a bit differently than a local. So far, however, he’d run into a lot of shrugged shoulders, dead ends and urban stories that were more legend than fact. Until he’d spoken to the kid from the DA’s office, Trenton Smythe, Rio had pretty much figured that he was going to come up as empty as everyone else.

He took one final drag on his cigarette and tossed it to the ground, crushing it beneath his boot heel. Something didn’t feel right, but he was supposed to be on a plane home tomorrow, so if he was going to find anything, he had to find it now. And in spite of his smarmy name and nervous manner, Smythe had seemed convinced he knew something worth telling. Since it appeared he’d run out of options, Rio crossed the parking lot and entered the restaurant.

Smythe was sitting in a booth near the back, his tie loosened and his brown hair mussed, which seemed unusual to Rio. He pegged him as the polished type who looked down on anyone who wasn’t wearing a pressed suit and tie, like the first time Smythe saw Rio in the DA’s office. But the young attorney didn’t look polished this night with his yellow shirt unbuttoned at the top and looking like it had been slept in. An unopened bottle of wine and two glasses, waited on the table, along with a couple of menus. Even though the bottle of wine wasn’t open, Rio would wager his pension that Smythe had already had a drink or two. When Smythe spotted Rio, he raised a hand in greeting. As the marshal walked across the restaurant, he noticed that most of the tables were full and waiters scurried back and forth with food and wine. Nothing appeared out of place.

As he reached the table, Smythe stood and said, “I didn’t think you were coming. You’re late.”

“I’m cautious,” Rio said. “I’ve been here for a half hour, just watching.”

“For what?” he asked.

“Trouble,” he replied. “Trouble’s like reality—it shows up when you least expect it.”

Smythe shrugged noncommittally. “Wine?” he offered, holding up the bottle. Rio didn’t know much about wine, but the aged merlot seemed like a big gesture for someone on government pay.

“No, thanks,” Rio said. “You go ahead.”

A waiter appeared at the table, opened the wine and poured. After telling them the specials, he asked for their order. Rio ordered spaghetti and Smythe the house shrimp specialty, then the waiter headed off for the kitchen to turn in the ticket. No matter what else, the smells coming from the kitchen were enticing.

After a minute or two of silence, Rio decided to nudge Smythe a bit. “So,” he said. “You told me you had information about organized crime in this area after Marcello died. Why don’t you share it with me?”

Smythe scoffed. “That’s easy?” he asked. “You’re not any smarter than the other federal law officers in this area.”

Rio held up his hands in mock surrender. “You’re the one who said you had information. I’m just asking what it is.”

“Well, nothing’s free,” Smythe retorted. “Hell, they’re charging for air at the gas stations now, and if I tell you what I know, I’ve got to get something for it, too.”

The waiter returned, refilled the wineglasses and set out bread on the table. “Your meals will be up in a couple of minutes.”

Once he’d left, Rio said, “What do you want?”

“Two things,” he said. “First, I want out of New Orleans—out of Louisiana—and I mean way out. Fucking Wyoming or Canada or something.”

Knowing what was coming, Rio asked anyway. “And?”

“A boatload of cash,” he said. “Enough so I never have to work a day in my life again.”

“So, you want Club Med witness protection,” Rio said. “You’re dreaming, kid. The FBI’s been down here digging for years and found nothing, so whatever you’ve got can’t be that good.”

“You don’t get it, do you, Rio? No one finds them because they’re everywhere—every law-enforcement agency, every cop, every lawyer. The FBI hasn’t had any success because their agents are either on the take or kept out of the loop. What I know—what I’ll tell you—will rock this city from the top down. It’s worth what I’m asking.”

“You’re going to have to give me more than empty words and promises, boy. I can’t just make a call and get you what you want. I’m going to need to have rock-solid evidence—names, places, you name it. And then, maybe.”

“What I don’t have,” he said, “I can get. There are people who trust me, and I have access to everything that I need.”

“When?” Rio asked.

“I can have it for you by tomorrow. I just have to copy the files.” Smythe took a long swallow of wine, which was when Rio noticed that his hands were shaking.

He took another long look around the restaurant, but didn’t see anything that raised his hackles. Still… “You nervous, Smythe?”

“Hell, yes, I’m nervous,” he snapped, his blue eyes darting around the room. “Wouldn’t you be?”

Rio shrugged. “I’m not the type.”

“If you knew these guys, you would be. If they knew I was having dinner with a federal agent, I wouldn’t make it through the night,” he said. He refilled his glass. “I’ll have everything for you tomorrow, but I want your word that you can get me what I want.”

Rio thought about it for a moment, then nodded. “I can get it,” he said. “But not until I see what you’re putting on the table.”

“Fair enough. When?”

“First thing in the morning,” he said. “My hotel, seven sharp. I’ve got a flight scheduled to leave at ten.”

“You’re leaving?” Smythe asked, incredulous. “Now?”

“Relax,” Rio said. “If you bring me real information we can use to ferret these bastards out, I’ll reschedule.”

“Oh, all right, then.”

Their food came and they ate in silence. Italian wasn’t his favorite, but even Rio had to admit that his spaghetti was very good. He finished quickly, then stood up. “You’re buying, right, Smythe?” he asked.

“Sure, sure,” he said. His words were slightly slurred, but then he’d almost polished off the entire bottle of wine himself.

“Tomorrow morning, then,” Rio said. “Don’t be late.”

“I won’t,” he said.

Rio left the restaurant without another word. The parking lot was dark, and his car was parked on the far edge of the lot. He moved with easy grace to the vehicle, sweating already in the humid night air. He unlocked the door, opened it and wedged himself into the seat. Then he put the key into the ignition, started the engine and reached for the air-conditioning. It was too damn humid to not run it on full blast, and he twisted the dial as far to the right as it would go.

As the vents blasted air into his face, two things happened at once. He recognized the acrid tang of pepper spray, and four large men appeared around his car—one at each door. Almost instantly blinded, he tried the door, but the goon standing there held it shut.

“Damn it!” he said, sneezing, coughing and hacking. He forced himself against the door with all his strength and it popped open. He fell out onto the concrete, reaching for his gun even as he landed. Blind, he didn’t have much of a chance, but he wouldn’t go down without a fight.

“Don’t bother, cowboy,” a voice said in his ear. He felt the cold metal barrel of a gun pushed against his flesh.

Still coughing, his lungs and eyes burned from the pepper spray, Rio moved his hands away from his coat. The man pulled out the .45 and handed it to one of his pals. The marshal couldn’t make out faces clearly through the tears running from his eyes.

“What the hell?” Rio started to say, when the Italian leather boot slammed into his head.

“Welcome to New Orleans, cowboy,” the man said. “The boss wants to have a word with you, and I suggest you cooperate. The gators are hungry this time of year.”

Knowing that if he fought now, they’d just kill him outright, Rio relaxed. He’d have to wait for a better opportunity.

“Told you I’d bring him,” he heard Smythe’s voice say. “Didn’t I?”

“Yeah, Trenton, you did real good,” the man said.

His eyes were clearing, and Rio saw a man dressed in an expensive suit, Smythe standing behind him. Rio spit blood from his split lip. “I won’t be forgetting this, Smythe,” he said. “Not for a long, long time.”

“You’ve got more to worry about than I do, Marshal. A lot more.”

Rio was about to reply when the boot hit him again, this time connecting with his temple, and the world went hot, then dark.