John Locke - Lethal Experiment

Kathleen flashed a grin at me. “Maybe I’ll just walk over there and find out,” she said.

Chapter 12

Sal caught my eye and motioned us over. We worked our way over to him.

“This is my wife, Marie,” he said to Kathleen.

“And this is Kathleen,” I said.

I nodded at Big Bad and T-Bone and they each gave me a short, tight nod in return.

Sal made a great show of bowing and kissing her hand. Then he took a step back and appraised her body like a meat inspector deciding between choice and prime. Prime won.

“Ah,” he said, licking his lips. “You done good with this one here, Creed.”

Marie said, “Stop it Sal. You’re making the poor girl uncomfortable.” To Kathleen she said, “Don’t pay any attention to him. He thinks he’s a stallion.”

Kathleen smiled.

Marie’s eyes turned fierce. “I mean it,” she said. “Don’t pay any attention to him!”

Kathleen flashed me a look of confusion.

Sal said, “Marie, this is Creed’s girlfriend.” He emphasized the word by arching his eyebrows.

Marie showed skepticism.

“They’re adopting a kid, for Crissake,” he said.

Marie’s demeanor changed instantly. “Really, Donovan?”

“It’s true,” I said.

Marie beamed at Kathleen. “You’ll have to let me help you plan the wedding!”

Sal laughed. “Hell, they ain’t gonna exchange—whatcha call—nuptials. They’re going to keep living in sin like we used to do.” He gave her a wink.

“We did nothing of the kind,” Marie huffed. She turned to Kathleen. “That true? No marriage?”

Before Kathleen could think of a response, Marie shook her head and left us to chat with some guests.

Sal said, “You bring an envelope?”

“Better than that,” I said, “but we have to go inside to get it.”

“No shit?” Sal said. “Then let’s go!”

He told T-Bone to guard the stash and motioned to Big Bad to follow us. We started making the journey through the crowd of well-wishers and glad handlers. As we walked I said, “How’d you know about the adoption?”

Sal smiled. “I got my—whatcha call—sources.”

To Kathleen, Sal said, “You ever see this one fight?”

“I heard him once.”

Sal said, “Heard him? What’s that mean?”

She gave me a look. I said, “Nellie’s Diner. Joe DeMeo’s goons.”

Sal said, “You was there?”

Kathleen nodded. “Sort of,” she said. “I was in the restaurant, hiding under a table.”

We entered the great room. Santo Mangano waved from the foyer and yelled, “Hey, Sallie!” Sal returned the wave.

“Thing of beauty,” Sal said, “the way Creed—whatcha call—inflicts physical damage. We was in a place one time, some martial arts guy was drunk and comes at me for no frickin’ reason. Before Big and T have a chance to react, Creed goes after this guy and I swear to Christ, it looked like a cyclone fightin’ a water bug!”

Kathleen squeezed my arm. “You think that’s something, you should see him in the sack.”

“No shit?”

“Yeah,” I said. “Except in the sack, I’m the water bug.”

Sal started to laugh but a thunderous voice suddenly took over all the speakers in the house. He flinched slightly, but stood his ground. All around us, gangsters hit the floor, pulling their wives down with them. Women screamed as their husbands scrambled for cover. Guns were produced from ankle and shoulder holsters. Servers brandished knives, proving me right about the brandishing.

The voice was masculine, and powerful, like the wrath of God.

The voice boomed: “The mightiest warriors are not the most physically impressive!”

The lights went out and circles of blue lasers started flashing at the far end of the foyer. The giant voice spoke again.

“Behold the mightiest warriors of all time!”

A giant cloud of smoke appeared and the lights came back on. A wheelchair stood where the smoke had been. Not an ordinary wheelchair, but one fashioned from space age materials. It was equipped with a series of roll bars, lights, and all manner of electronic equipment. Navigating the chair was a little person with enormous dreadlocks, wearing an electrified shirt.

Victor.

At Victor’s side, the ever-present, always angry Hugo, “The Little General,” stood guard. Hugo was Victor’s aide, confidante, and advisor in all things military. Victor and Hugo were little people who dreamed of conquering the world with their midget army. If they ever succeeded it truly would be a small world, after all.

All eyes turned to Sal.

“Relax,” he said. “The little guys wanted to make a—whatcha call—entrance. I told ‘em, knock yourselves out.”

Dozens of gangsters sheepishly holstered their weapons and dealt with their angry spouses with severe, whispered threats.

Victor made an adjustment on the arm of his chair and the loudspeaker voice softened. “Could I have the honor of Salvatore Bonadello’s presence for one moment?”

Sal said, “Let’s—whatcha call—indulge the little guy.” We started walking toward Victor and Hugo.

“I need to check my makeup,” Kathleen said, just the way we’d rehearsed. “Can you point me to your powder room?”

“Powder room?” Sal said. “Now that’s class!” He pointed the way and Kathleen headed there.

“At first I thought she meant gunpowder,” Sal said, studying her ass as long as he could before she disappeared from view. “That there’s a winner. I envy you, wakin’ up to that every morning.”

Victor’s speaker voice said, “Will you all please give a warm welcome to my manservant, Merlin.”

No one moved to make a sound. Once again, all eyes were on Sal. He looked around the room and shouted, “He means clap your hands. Show some class here!”

Sal began clapping his hands. Others, clearly befuddled, reluctantly joined in.

From behind the assembled guests a woman screamed. Everyone spun around. Then the scream circled the room through the speakers and the guests saw that Victor had created a diversion so the magician could appear.

Merlin began approaching Sal. Big Bad produced a .357 magnum and held it at Merlin’s face.

Merlin regarded the gun with more than a little trepidation. “I was told there’d be no guns?”

Sal said, “I’m gonna let the gun stay where it is. Just in case.”

Merlin assembled his courage and said, “Very well, but please be careful. Can you give me a dollar please?”

“The fuck?” Sal said.

Sal looked at Victor. “It’s my friggin’ party,” he said. “It don’t set well givin’ money to this guy here.”

“Just one dollar,” Merlin said. “I can assure you, you won’t be sorry.”

“I better not be.”

Sal dug into his pants pocket, produced a wad of cash big enough to choke a wide-mouth frog. He flipped through the bills until he found a dollar, which he peeled off and handed to Merlin. Merlin’s right hand was empty—I was watching it—then suddenly it held a felt-tip pen.

I’ve seen good before. Merlin was great.

“Please sign the dollar, so we’ll know it’s yours.”

“I already know it’s mine, shithead!” Sal said. But he signed it anyway.

Merlin took the bill and held it high over his head as he backed up a few steps. Sal told Big Bad, “Keep an eye on this friggin’ guy.”

Big Bad nodded and kept his gun sighted on the magician.

Merlin produced an envelope, again seemingly out of mid-air, placed the dollar in the envelope and tore it. When he did that, Big Bad cocked the trigger.

A very nervous Merlin probably never had to work under this type of pressure, but he managed to complete the trick. He folded the envelope several times while tearing sections of it. Then he unfolded the perfectly intact envelope and held it high above his head, waiting for applause.

There was none.

Sal said, “Where’s my money? These guys’ll tell you, you don’t want to owe me money.”

Sporadic nervous chuckles broke out from various areas of the room.

Merlin handed the envelope to Sal. In it was a certified check for one hundred thousand dollars.

The guests erupted in cheerful applause, hooting and whistling. To a man, they understood what a certified check meant.

Sal wasn’t grinning, but he was close. He looked like a kid who’d just inherited FAO Schwartz. He slapped Merlin on the back, shouted “Bravo!” at Victor.

Victor’s speaker voice said, “Read the signature on the check.”

Sal tried to read the signature, frowned, and took a pair of reading glasses from his jacket pocket. “Donovan Creed,” he said. I bowed and said, “I told you I’d amaze you.”

Sal gave me a body hug. “Now that’s appreciation,” he said, looking around the room. Then he stopped as if suddenly remembering something.

“Where’s my dollar?” he said.

From the other end of the room, Kathleen said, “I’ve got your money right here, Mr. Bonadello.”

She held two items high over her head while crossing through the crowd. She presented them to Sal. One was his signed dollar bill. The other was another cashier’s check for a hundred thousand dollars.

Sal was way ahead of her. He went straight for his glasses and got to the bottom line quickly. He announced to the crowd, “Victor just gave me another hundred grand!”

Once again the crowd erupted into thunderous applause. I gave Victor a thumbs-up, and he returned the gesture.

Sal’s eyes were on Kathleen. He kissed her cheek.

“You better reel this one in,” Sal said, “before she gets away. You ain’t getting’ any younger, you know.”

Sal hugged me again and left us to mingle.

I smiled at Kathleen. “You did a good job with the magic trick,” I said.

“It was fun.”

We gorged ourselves on the classic Neapolitan food, which consisted of hearty, straight-forward dishes, like ziti al forno, chicken cacciatore, panzerotti, steak pizzaiol, rigatoni with broccoli, lasagna, and several standing rib roasts.

We followed that with an hour of dancing, under the lights. As the night wore on, the gangsters and goons seemed more accepting of my presence at the party. The reason for that was simple. Sal had spread the lie that I was retired, and that my donation had been my buy-out from the life.

As Kathleen and I stood in the foyer, waiting for our car, I said, “Anybody hit on you tonight?”

She reached in her purse and pulled out a slip of paper and handed it to me.

“Whose number is this?”

“Some guy named Ice Pick,” she said, “though I doubt that’s his Christian name.”

She looked around the room filled with fierce wise guys, badlyhealed broken noses, missing fingers, and an endless assortment of scars.

“Then again,” she said.

Chapter 13

It took awhile to piece all this together, but between Ned’s confession, my and Teddy Boy’s observations, the video camera I’d installed in The Grantline, the wireless mike I’d hidden in Callie’s purse—and Callie’s first-hand experience—it went down this way, give or take:

Bickham Wright always came to the bar with high hopes, looking for gorgeous, but The Grantline was a redneck dump in West Podunk, a good 40 miles from the big city action. So Bickham always hoped for gorgeous, but he was willing to settle for cute. After a couple hours and several drinks, he and his friends would forget all about cute and start fighting over what’s available.

And for that, they didn’t need the date rape drug.