Apaches - Lorenzo Carcaterra [136]
“Are you crazy!” Lavetti said. “Do you know who you’re talking to? I’m a cop. A deputy inspector!”
“The two who died were cops,” Boomer said. “You’re just a punk with a badge. But tonight you’re in for a treat. I’m going to give you a chance to die like a cop.”
“I’m not going anywhere with you,” Lavetti said, starting to turn and run.
“Then you’ll die right here.” Boomer pulled the gun from his pocket and pressed it to Lavetti’s temple. “On the street, like the piece of shit you are. Either way, I don’t give a fuck. It’s your decision.”
“Where are we going?” was all Lavetti could manage to say.
Boomer turned Lavetti around and cuffed him as he pushed him toward the backseat of the dark blue sedan. “To visit an old friend of yours. And I bet she’s gonna be real happy to see you.”
“I could have you killed,” Lavetti said, glaring at Boomer from the backseat. “One call, that’s all it’ll take.”
“A lot of guys have made that one call, Lavetti,” Boomer said, kicking over the engine and peeling out of his space. “I’m still here. And they’re all dead.”
• • •
BOOMER AND DEAD-EYE were crouched down, hidden by shrubs and darkness, staring across a golf pond at the heavily guarded three-story house.
“I count at least eight in front,” Boomer whispered. “Figure the same number in back. And double that for the ground crew.”
Rev. Jim and Mrs. Columbo were stretched out farther up the ridge, Lavetti shoved face down alongside.
Except for Lavetti, they all wore bullet-resistant vests under their black shirts. On the plane ride over, the four of them had jammed a full arsenal of semis around their hips and waists, loaded up on grenades and ammo, and listened while Boomer laid out what sounded like nothing less than an invasion.
“You really think any of this is going to work?” Rev. Jim asked at one point.
“Are you kidding?” Boomer said. “It’ll be a fuckin’ miracle if it even comes close to working.”
“I’m glad to hear you say that,” Dead-Eye said. “I was starting to worry.”
“With our luck,” Mrs. Columbo said, jabbing a thumb toward Lavetti, “he’ll be the only one to make it out alive.”
“Don’t bet on that,” Boomer said, staring over at Lavetti, who had stayed silent through the entire flight.
“Run that Greek fire deal by me one more time,” Rev. Jim said.
“I’m new at this myself, so bear with me,” Boomer said, holding up a white five-foot plastic tube. “But the way Geronimo told it, you air-gun the nitro through the tube and it shoots out above the water, a lot like a torpedo out of a sub. It bounces off the water and right into the house.”
“It leaves behind a flame trail,” Dead-Eye said. “So you can use it as light too.”
“An air gun and nitro,” Rev. Jim said. “What could go wrong with that?”
Boomer had alerted his federal sources from the air and bargained himself an hour’s worth of attack time. “Don’t worry, Tony,” he said to a voice at the other end of the phone. “As it is, you’re giving us about thirty minutes more than we need. We’ll try and leave you nothing to clean up.”
Before Tony clicked off the line he said, “I don’t know which is better, if we find you dead or alive.”
“If you find us,” Boomer said, “I’d count on dead.”
• • •
LUCIA CARNEY DRANK from a glass of white wine, looking out into the darkness. Wilber Graves stood next to her, a smug smile on his face. She was dressed in a black pants suit, her hair hanging down around her shoulders, a .45 silver-handled semiautomatic lodged against the base of her spine.
“They’re here,” Lucia said. “Hiding in the shrubs somewhere.”
“They won’t get far,” Wilber said. “Or even close. They’ll be dead before they reach the house.”
“A shame,” Lucia said. “I was hoping to at least meet them. To fly all this way and go to all this trouble, just to end up dead on a golf course.”
“There are six men on every floor inside the house,” Wilber told her. “Just in case.”
“And where will you be?” Lucia asked.
“Where I belong,” Wilber said. “Next to you.”
Lucia finished her drink and smiled. “Time will decide where you belong, Wilber,