The Castle Doctrine (Daniel Faust Book 6) Read online

  I couldn’t fool myself into letting my guard down or thinking this was going to be easy. Ecko hadn’t lived this long by making dumb choices, and maneuvering him into a spot where I’d even have a chance to bring him down was going to take all my wits and more than a little magic. But at least now I had a shot. Two of them, actually, nestled down inside Bessie’s twin barrels. They were the only shots I was going to get, so I had to make each one count.

  * * *

  Winslow set me up with everything else I needed for that night, packing it all up in an overstuffed black Adidas duffel bag. Everything except the last item in my new arsenal, riding in a Velcro sheath strapped to my ankle: a punch blade with a six-inch spike, forged from a single piece of black plastic.

  “This here’s composite plastic,” Winslow told me, “a fiberglass blend. It don’t hold an edge, so don’t try to cut with it. And don’t be surprised if the blade breaks off right inside the gut of the first punk you shiv with the damn thing. What it will do is get through a metal detector, easy peasy. Consider it a weapon of last resort.”

  While I was getting armed up, Jennifer led the recon charge. Most of her street dealers were college kids with beat-up secondhand rides or pizza delivery cars. Easy enough for them to cruise around Little Shawn’s turf without drawing notice, taking the temperature of the street. Shawn’s set wasn’t hard to spot: the Playboy Killers rocked purple and gold and patrolled like an army preparing for a siege. Ready to kill and die for four measly blocks of low-rent Vegas real estate.

  At the heart of Shawn’s fiefdom lay the Cobalt Lounge, and the advance scouts struck gold. Three sedans were parked out back, they reported, all of them with Illinois plates.

  As I walked up the front steps of the Calles’ fortress, tracked by a rooftop sniper’s scope, I heard the war drums beating. Slow hip-hop bass, thumping from an amped-up Bose speaker system. In a room where the sunlight fought its way through metal slats hammered over the windows, casting dusty rays across peeling yellowed paint and stripped wooden floorboards, a folding card table bore the tools of a modern urban general: a marked-up street map, a pyramid of burner phones, and a couple of overflowing ashtrays.

  Jennifer looked up from the map and whistled. I’d dressed for the occasion, in the three-piece Brunello Cucinelli suit Caitlin had bought me after my escape from prison. Midnight black and ivory, with a skinny tie and Italian wingtips so sharp they could cut glass.

  “Damn, hon. Hope you’re dressin’ for success.”

  “That makes two of us. What’s the prognosis?”

  Gabriel tossed back a swig of beer and planted his fat thumb on a circled chunk of the map.

  “Besides the Cobalt, the PKs got lookouts here, here, and here. This dump right here? That’s their stash house. They got a dealer working the corner one street down, and he sends runners back and forth all day long.”

  “They’re tense,” Jennifer said, “but not as tense as they should be. I guess Angelo’s got ’em convinced they’re bulletproof now that they’re working for Chicago.”

  I nodded as I surveyed the map. “Sure, that’s his whole sales pitch. Join the Outfit, get rich and fat. We ready to prove him wrong?”

  “Ready and willing, ese.” Gabriel tapped the circled streets. “I just talked to Eddie Stone. We’re gonna call this a co-op. Soon as you give the signal, Calles and Bishops gunships are gonna strike here and here. Hit ’em with one drive-by, then as soon as any leftovers poke their heads up—bang, round two.”

  “The stash house is a harder nut to crack,” Jennifer said. “We’re not even gonna try to fight our way in there. Think we’ll just post some shooters front and back, and wait for the roaches to pour out once the Cobalt Lounge calls for reinforcements. Oh, and Winslow’s on board. While you go in the front, the Blood Eagles are gonna be creeping into the back lot, wiring a little farewell surprise to the Outfit’s cars.”

  I studied the marked streets, committing them to memory. Getting in was one thing. Getting out, even if I survived my impending showdown at the Cobalt Lounge, was another problem entirely. Between the cops, the Outfit, and a hornet’s nest of pissed-off bangers, my getaway had to be flawless.

  “How about my covering fire?” I asked.

  “Here, other side of the street from the Cobalt.” Gabriel pointed. “Two-story apartment building with rooftop access from a back fire escape. You’re gonna have my two best deadeyes, this guy from the Fine Upstanding Crew—he used to be an Army Ranger or something, no joke—and three dudes from the Fourteen-K. Don’t know how well they can shoot, but those Chinese guys get better hardware than Winslow does. Got a whole firing squad for you.”

  “All right,” I said. “This is important, okay? Make damn sure they check their targets. There’s gonna be a stampede of civilians pouring out those doors just ahead of Little Shawn’s guys. Once we take control of the city, job two is getting the cops and city hall back in line. A few dead gangsters, they can turn a blind eye to. If we turn this into a massacre, though, they’ll have to keep coming after us.”

  Gabriel set down his can of beer and held up his open hands. “All right, all right. You don’t gotta worry about that, okay? We got it covered. Ask me, I think you’re crazy, going in there alone.”

  “Still,” Jennifer said, “if you can pull it off, that’s the stuff legends are made of. Call it, sugar. What’s the play?”

  I looked at my watch. Almost five o’clock. In another hour, chasing sunset, the lights of the Cobalt Lounge would flare and the doors would open to the public.

  “Get everybody in position,” I told her. “Let’s do this.”

  35.

  Of course, I kept an ace up my sleeve. Back at Bentley and Corman’s apartment—the downstairs door still broken, but the rotting corpses carted off thanks to Caitlin’s “cleaners”—I sealed my duffel bag of ordnance inside a cardboard packing box while Caitlin rummaged through Bentley’s closet.

  “What do you think?” she asked, stepping out into the hall. She’d slipped into Bentley’s counterfeit postal-delivery outfit. It fit, though a little small on her, hugging her curves.

  “I think I may have a previously undiscovered thing for women in uniforms,” I told her.

  She grinned, slipping her arms around my neck and pulling me into a long, familiar kiss. My tension melted away like a cube of ice on a hotplate, dissolving into a slow simmer.

  “Oh, I have uniforms,” she purred in my ear. “You should see me in jackboots. Is that the special delivery?”

  I glanced back over my shoulder to the box on the kitchen table. “That’s it. You up for this?”

  “Are you? My part is simple enough. You’re the one risking his life to gain a little face.”

  “More than a little,” I said. “On the street, respect is everything. And if this alliance is going to survive, I need to know that when I give an order, it’s going to be heard and followed. It’s not just the Outfit I’m worried about. When Angelo’s dead and gone, we’ll still have an entire city to retake and rebuild. Lot of temptation for people to turn rogue. Lots of ways this whole project could go off the rails in a heartbeat. I’m trying to get ahead of any trouble, and position myself where I can throw some weight around if I have to.”

  She favored me with an amused smile. “Look at you, stepping off the sidelines. And displaying an ambitious work ethic. You could almost be a fledgling hound.”

  I laughed, going to pick up the box. It rested heavy in my arms, laden with the fruits of Winslow’s secret stash.

  “Don’t worry,” I said, “I’m not gunning for your job.”

  “Oh, I know,” she said. “I was just thinking, if there was ever a vacancy…hmm. ‘Princess Caitlin’ has a nice ring to it, doesn’t it? You never know, my father might decide to retire in ten, maybe twelve thousand years from now.”

  “I’ll keep my schedule open.”

  “I might have even burned away your ridiculous streak of altruism by then.”

  “You kno
w,” I said, “when you’re trying to corrupt someone, you probably shouldn’t blatantly tell them you’re doing it. Just a professional tip.”

  Caitlin plucked the box from my arms with one hand. With the other, she stroked her fingertips behind my ear, ruffling my hair. An electric shiver rippled down my spine.

  “Darling,” she said, “you are already thoroughly, deliciously corrupt. I’m just making you more efficient. So, shall we go commit a murder?”

  I offered her my arm.

  “When you put it that way,” I said, “how can I refuse?”

  * * *

  The Cobalt Lounge was classier than I expected, considering it was run by a street gang called the Playboy Killers. Its name splashed the dusk in electric blue neon, the exterior built like an art deco temple from a fever dream of the forties. Brushed stainless steel jutted from the nightclub’s edge like the wings on a vintage muscle car, and ropes of blue velvet cordoned a manicured walk out front. It was a spot of decadence in the heart of urban rot, and I pegged most of the clientele as local hipsters looking to mix a little frisson of danger with their twelve-dollar drinks.

  I joined the line, inching toward a pair of double doors quilted in mahogany-toned leather. Out front, bouncers in tight black muscle shirts decided who made the grade and who had to keep walking, one of them giving the chosen few a once-over with a handheld metal detector before waving them inside. The only metal on me was my belt buckle; the composite plastic dagger velcroed to my ankle and the deck of cards in my hip pocket wouldn’t trigger any alarms.

  The rest of my gear would, and that was why I’d trusted it to Caitlin’s capable hands. She turned heads as she came down the walk, putting a little extra swing in her step while she skirted the line and approached the bouncer with the clipboard.

  “Package?” He held out an expectant hand. “I’ll take it.”

  Caitlin shook her head. “Has to go to the manager. A…Mr. Shawn Mahoney? I need a signature.”

  “So I’ll sign for it.”

  She tapped a stamp on the lid. “Addressee signature only. The package is insured. Sorry, I don’t make the rules.”

  “Can you bend the rules? We’re a little busy here, lady.”

  Caitlin raised her chin high. Her eyes narrowed, and she gave him an offended sniff.

  “Can I bend the federal law which I swore, as a duly deputized agent of the United States Postal Service, to uphold? No, sir. I cannot and will not, and I could report you to the proper authorities for even making the suggestion.”

  The line wasn’t getting any shorter while they argued. The bouncer sighed, waving over one of the guys at the door.

  “Hey, take her to Little Shawn’s office. Then walk her out again, okay? We don’t have time for this tonight.”

  They brought her inside. Soon it was my turn up at bat, falling under the bouncer’s scrutinizing eye. I was a little old for this crowd, but my tailored suit sent a loud and clear message: I was the kind of guy who could spring for bottle service without blinking an eye, and probably would. He nodded me through, and I held out my arms while a metal-detector wand whisked over my body. Now I was wealthy, clean, and verified safe. The bouncer held the door for me as I stepped into the heart of Little Shawn’s kingdom.

  I paid my twenty-dollar cover charge and wandered into an electro-swing wonderland. A rainbow of laser lights cut through the smoky dark, spinning across sweaty faces and upraised hands to the tune of high-pitched synthesizers. Dancers shimmied on a pair of raised oval stages, dressed in scraps of rave wear, their faces done up in glowing ultraviolet paint. One had her cheeks painted like a peacock, tacky plastic fairy wings strapped to her shoulder blades to complete the look, while the other had done her face like a Day of the Dead skeleton in hot-pink neon. Up ahead, Caitlin eased through the crowd at her escort’s side. He carried her package, and she worked him like a tight-stringed violin, her fingertips caressing his arm and the back of his neck while she murmured in his ear. I couldn’t hear anything over the music, but when he turned his head, his blush told me everything I needed to know.

  So far I hadn’t drawn any attention. Little Shawn knew me—we’d met at the first gathering of the New Commission—but I’d never worked with his crew. Unless the Outfit was flashing my picture around town—and they might have been—the bangers working security had no reason to recognize my face. I eased back toward a mahogany pillar at the edge of the dance floor, lifting my left foot and reaching down to idly scratch my leg. A practiced sleight. I used the harmless gesture to unstrap the thin plastic dagger and palm it, slipping it up my jacket sleeve, keeping my forearm slightly bent to hold it in place.

  Just up a back hallway, past the restroom doors, Caitlin and the bouncer disappeared into a broom closet. I surveyed the room, giving her a slow twenty-count. Security was subtle—the Playboy Killers didn’t go flying their colors in front of paying customers—but there was no mistaking the hard-eyed kids in bright purple kicks stationed around the outskirts of the lounge, lugging heat under their track jackets. Machine pistols, by the size of the bulges.

  A bead of sweat trickled down the back of my neck as I cut across the dance floor, the press of bodies and the sweeping lights keeping the room sauna-hot. Caitlin stepped out of the broom closet just as I reached the door, looking pleased, my duffel bag slung over her shoulder. I caught the faintest glimpse of the closet as she swung the door shut. A shredded cardboard box, blood spatter, and a smiling dead man.

  She passed me the duffel bag, gave me a peck on the cheek, and made her exit.

  I shouldered the bag and unzipped it, mapping its contents by feel as I moved back through the crowd, heading for the bar. Rows upon rows of high-end bottles decorated mirrored shelves behind the curving chrome bar, underlit by blue LED strips like something out of a science-fiction flick. I found an open spot right in the middle and patiently waited for the bartender to finish hitting on a couple of college girls and look my way. He sauntered over, chewing on a soggy toothpick.

  “Bacardi One-Fifty-One,” I said. “Bring the whole bottle and a glass.”

  He arched an eyebrow, but he did as he was told. The amber bottle slapped down on the bar, its top fire-engine red, alongside a shot glass.

  “No.” I kept the bottle, but I pushed the glass back. “Bring me an Old Fashioned glass.”

  Looking even more dubious, he swapped out the shot glass for a much bigger one. I splashed rum into the tumbler, filling it one inch shy from the brim. I wrinkled my nose as a few droplets splashed onto the chromed surface of the bar and the odor wafted up. Bacardi 151 is named for its proof: 75.5 percent alcohol. It smells like jet fuel and tastes worse.

  “You…want ice with that?” he asked me. “Or a mixer or something?”

  I raised the glass to him and took a sip. The rum was a lit match burning down my throat. One sip was plenty. I put the glass back on the bar, beside my left hand, while my right stayed close to the open zipper of the duffel bag.

  “Nah, I’m good. Y’know, I’ve been told I have a drinking problem. Can you believe that?”

  He blinked, not sure what to say. I broke into a grin.

  “Just messing with you. Hey, there is one thing you can do for me.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Go get your boss,” I told him. “Tell Little Shawn that Daniel Faust is here, representing the New Commission, and I’m here to kill him. Then you should take the rest of the night off.”

  36.

  The bartender scurried off, wiping his hands with a dirty towel, eyes bulging like a fish out of water. I waited. Normally I’d pass the time with a drink, but I wasn’t touching the 151 again; my standards might have been low, but they still existed. The glass and the bottle sat untouched, waiting for the right moment.

  The right moment came about five minutes later, when Little Shawn came out to play. He’d earned his nickname, standing about five foot three and decked out in royal purple, wearing his hair in a tight high fade. A lot of ratt
lesnake mean crammed into a tiny package. He’d brought a couple of his buddies with him, one with a crooked boxer’s nose and the other with his eyes set in a permanent squint, like he thought he was a gunslinger from a Clint Eastwood flick. Little Shawn stepped up to the bar on my right, Crook-Nose on my left. Squint stood behind me, crowding my space, boxing me in.

  I let the blaring, reeling synthesizers and thudding bass wash over me, through me, swallowing my nervous energy and making my hammering pulse a part of the music. One chance to get this right. One mistake, just one, and I wasn’t walking out of here alive.

  “I had to see this shit for myself,” Little Shawn said to his buddies. Then he looked me up and down. “Yeah, I remember you. You were working security at the first Commission meeting. Glorified doorman. You ain’t nothing but Jennifer’s bitch.”

  “I’m moving up in the world,” I told him. “Can’t say the same for you, though. What’d Angelo Mancuso offer you to turn traitor? Must’ve been something nice.”

  “Oh yeah. Real nice. The world and everything in it. When you fools are all dead and gone, the PKs get all the business on the Strip. We’re gonna be running this town.”

  I shook my head. “Yeah, because the Outfit is going to hand that kind of action to a second-rate street gang who can barely hang on to four blocks of turf. That makes all kinds of sense. Wake up, pal: you’re being used for cannon fodder. And when the smoke clears, Angelo might give you a job shining his shoes. Hell, I can prove it.”

  His eyes narrowed. I could hear his mental gears clanking. Slow, rusty, but they still moved. “Yeah?”

  “Yeah. Case in point: I know you’ve got about a dozen Outfit shooters holing up in your back room here.”

  “So?”

  “So,” I said, “you know I’m not here alone. I mean, come on, I’d have to be some kind of suicidal idiot to walk in here by myself and call you out. So obviously I’ve got my own hitters backing me up. Place is probably filled with them, just waiting for my word to open fire.”