TATE OF THE ART was an understatement, as far as the paint booth was concerned. After finding the light switch, Mitch wandered in, out and around the high-tech room. Back home he and his grandpa had rigged up a big fan and a few make-shift filters to keep the dust off a new paint job. They’d also discovered that if they took a hose and squirted down the floor before they painted, it helped keep the dust down. That was about as ‘high-tech’ as it got.
The college spray booth had been a more fancy setup. Equipped with halogen lights, a bank of filters, semi-clean floor and walls, and a fan that exchanged the air every few minutes, it was a major step up. But this room was off the charts. A series of heavy plastic grates formed the floor. This grid was built up off the plastic pan to allow the air to be pulled down through and circulated to the outside. The walls, bolted to a heavy metal frame, were made of the same tough plastic, kind of a Teflon composite, slick and dust-proof. And the room was spotless.
“Where’s Vinnie?” Mike asked, spinning Mitch on his heels. “His car’s out front.” Apparently the guy had a habit of sneaking up on people. It must be the Federal agent in him, Mitch decided.
“I don’t know, but you ought to take a look at this booth. Makes yours look like the inside of a garbage can. Odd thing is, there isn’t any air intake, just these little nozzles everywhere.”
“A down-draft setup of some sort . . .”
“Forced air, to be exact.” Vinnie stepped into the paint booth behind Mike. “‘Positive pressure,’ they call it. This one’s customized. I had them add in a paint-stripping system. Actually, it was Jimmy’s idea.” He shook his head. “Shame he got to use it just that once. . . .”
An uneasy chill washed over Mike. He hadn’t been able to reach Agent Barnes to tell him where he was going. He had called and left word with division, but if trouble arose they wouldn’t be much use since the case wasn’t yet priority status and Mitch wasn’t officially an operative.
“You remember Jimmy, don’t you, Mike?” Vinnie pulled the door shut, his face a cruel mask, one hand in his jacket pocket, the other on the door to the booth. Not a shred of his earlier cordiality remained. His heels clicking softly on the grate-work, he sidled up to within three feet of Mike. “Poor Jimmy. I invited him down to look over the new system. Asked him if he wanted his old job back. Told him I’d double what you was payin’ him. . . . Reminded him we had a contract.”
Mitch stood, paralyzed, at the far end of the booth, the tension thick, palpable. His chest was heavy, his knees weak. “I’ve got a–a flight to catch,” he stammered. “Can we get on with the contract so I can get going?”
Mike, his eyes wide with fear, grimaced at Mitch as if to tell him to “Shut up!”, Vinnie took advantage of the split-second distraction. With cat-quick reflexes, he whipped a plastic bag-encased gun from his pocket, pressed it to Mike’s temple and pulled the trigger. Mitch’s question echoed faintly, then the room fell into a deafening silence.
Mitch finally persuaded himself to blink. Then he looked on helplessly at the horrifying, rapid-fire sequence unfolding before his eyes. Only one of Mike’s eyes remained focused on Mitch. The unreal gaze told all: every bit of shock and terror, anger and anguish, pain and regret were wrapped in that one grave stare. Then his eyes squeezed shut and his legs buckled beneath him. Sagging to the right, his left hand curled across his torso in a fruitless effort to break his fall.
Through it all, Mitch’s feet had remained glued to the floor, his gaze now fixed on the grotesquely slumped figure. When what seemed like hours had passed, his eyeballs swivelled to take in Vinnie, his hand covered with a latex glove. A few drops of blood were sprayed across his hard face and down his silk suit. He stepped close, squatted low and peered into Mike’s face, and asked, “You a cop, Mike?”
Mike, in an instant, no longer saw the hard face of the cold-blooded killer, but felt the emotions as his failing mind scanned the memories of 40 plus years. They surged through his heart and thoughts. He saw his grandmother sitting on the porch of her old farm house waiting for his family to arrive for a visit, his bride waiting at the alter, the sadness of his first dogs passing having been struck by a car in front of his fathers home. The visions tightened and narrowed like a funnel as the blackness began to close in.
Vinnie reached down and patted the dying man’s chest, a tinge of regret in the gesture. “A .38 never was my first choice in a hand gun.” Then he raised the weapon again. Mitch turned away. Asecond blast went off, sending shock waves reverberating throughout the tiny room. When the thunderclaps had ceased, Vinnie’s cold complaints erupted in Mitch’s ringing ears. “Damn! Another thousand-dollar suit down the drain!”
Mitch cast another ill-advised glance at the body, a lapse of judgement he would regret. A jolt of nausea tore into him. He fell to his knees and started to retch.
Vinnie stood over him, grinning. “What’s the matter, kid? You said you wanted to sign the contract, didn’t you?” He turned and walked back near the door. He removed his jacket and dropped it on the floor in front of the stricken man. “I did the same thing first time I saw someone’s brains leakin’ outta their head. I was twelve. The old man slapped me ‘side a’ the head . . . told me to toughen up.” He kicked off his shoes and shook the plastic bag that held the weapon. “See this gun?” Vinnie shook the bag again. “Like I was sayin’ I swore out loud I’d kill the old man for what he did. He told me when I was good enough to do it, the time’d be right for me to take over the business.” After removing a small package from his pocket and putting it between his teeth, the killer dropped his pants. Then he tossed the gun, bag and all, on top of the crumpled pile.
Mitch didn’t answer or look up. He just knelt there, numb from what he had just seen.
Vinnie continued to undress until he was down to nothing but his boxer shorts and socks, and a large-caliber, holstered gun suspended over his shoulder. Taking the package from his teeth, he tore it open. Inside was a disposable towel, with which he started to wipe himself down. “Hey, I asked you a question. Ever seen that gun before?”
Mitch stared down at the .38, unable to speak. It did look slightly familiar. Vinnie turned his back and stepped from the booth. Mitch’s gaze fell on the door, back on the gun. He closed his hand into a hard fist to stop it from shaking. Then, assuming a crouching position, he inched his way forward.
Vinnie stepped back in the doorway and hung a garment bag on the open door. “Go ahead, kid. If you think you’re good enough.” He unzipped the bag. “The gun came from your Camaro. One a’ my boys found it–same day he picked up the title to the GTO.” Draping a fresh blue shirt over his shoulders, he added, “I’m bettin’ your prints are all over it. If they are, you just killed your cop friend. If they ain’t, you walk outta here a hero when you tell the cops what you saw. Be your word against mine. Course, I never been busted for armed robbery and the cops ain’t lookin’ for my red Camaro. So who do you think they’re gonna believe?” Vinnie pulled on some pants and snapped the suspenders at his chest. He pulled his gun up and strapped it down, then dropped a new pair of shoes to the floor and stepped into them. By this time Mitch had shaken off the sick feeling that was tearing him in two. Vinnie–again changing face as rapidly as he’d changed his clothes–reached up and tapped on the wall. “This booth, here, can take the paint off a car in thirty seconds,” began the seemingly unfazed, cold-blooded killer. “After the paint stripper has done its job, a high-pressure blast a’ soap and water from the same nozzles rinses and neutralizes the natural-based paint remover. With Jimmy, I ran out a’stripper. All that was left was a bag a’ bones. Gathered ‘em up and scattered ‘em in the desert. See, I always take care of the details personally. That way I don’t have any reason to stay awake nights worryin’. But you, my friend, have a lot to worry about. That beautiful lady a’ yours . . . ain’t she been tryin’ to choose baby names?”
Mitch clambered to his feet. Teeth clenched and nostrils flaring, he snarled, “You stay away from her!”
“Like I said, I always take care a’ the details–personally.”
Mitch made a move for the pistol on the floor. Within a fraction of a second, Vinnie had drawn his large caliber gun and hunkered down at Mitch’s side. Grabbing him by the hair, he jammed the gun into his patsy’s cheek. “Like my daddy said to me, I’m sayin’ to you: When you think you’re good enough, the business is yours. Meantime, I suggest you take that trip to the finals and give our new partnership some thought.”
Vinnie gave a grunt, shoved Mitch’s head forward, put the gun away and pulled his jacket straight at the collar. Then he pointed at the door. “Out front to the right, past Eddie’s Gym, turn at the alley and you’ll be in back a’ Three Queens’ parking. Have the valet bring your car to the front of the hotel. I got a few details to tend to.”
Still in shock, Mitch hesitated, then stumbled past Mike’s body, still staring at the revolver nestled atop the heap of clothes. If he’d just gone to the police in the first place, or even waited while the old engineer had called them, Mike would still be alive. Out of the body shop he went, down Carson Avenue past Eddie’s Gym, and turned into the cluttered alley. It was as if he were floating above the ground; the whole thing seemed like some terrible nightmare.
Vinnie, meanwhile, still in the shop, carefully removed several strands of Mitch’s hair from his fist and tucked them between Mike’s limp fingers. Several more he twined in the buckle of the dead man’s watchband. After pulling on a bulky pair of plastic coveralls, he walked to the back overhead door and pushed it up. Stephanie’s little car sat in the alley. Starting it up, he pulled it inside the building and closed the door.
Wallowing in turbulent thought, Mitch staggerd behind the gym, teetered against the dumpster, and collapsed against the wall of the old building. The two most harrowing moments of his life collided in the recesses of his head as the battered door of memories fell from its rusty hinges. A torrent of horror, grief and sorrow tore at his throat like a trio of demons.
Mitch slid down the brick wall to a sitting position and rested his head on his knees. He struggled to take a breath, a cleansing breath, any breath. For some reason he felt dirty, completely and utterly contaminated. In his mind he fought to fast-forward the videotape, to ease the vivid burden of a seven-year-old boy finding his father in the garage, dead.
“I hate him! I hate him!” Mitch remembered yelling on their way home from the school play. His dad had promised to be there “no matter what.”
“I’m sure he wanted to, dear. Something must have come up.”“That’s what you always say. You’re always making excuses for him.”
“That’s enough, Mitchell! Your father’s under a lot of stress right now.”
“How do you know?”
“I beg your pardon, young man.”
“I hear you fighting. You ask what’s wrong. He says everything’s okay and not to worry. Then you cry. It makes me mad. I hate him!”
Replaying the scene for the thousandth time, Mitch hopped from the car and slammed the door, his mother calling after him.
For some reason the garage door wouldn’t open. Again and again he’d hit it with his fist, the bottled-up emotions spilling over. Even a sevenyear-old had been able to tell that something was dreadfully wrong, especially during those last few months–but no one was willing to talk about it.
His dad had buried himself in his work, and the harder he worked the less
time he’d given his son.
Mitch raised his head from his knees, his eyes, bathed in tears of anguish,
still clamped shut. It felt like he’d stepped out of his body, and now he was
reliving those frightful minutes that had so altered his life, releasing all the
jumbled emotions he’d kept stashed away for 15 years. The adult Mitch
dropped his head back to his knees.
“Mitchell Wilson, you better not upset your father again!” she’d
called out as he bolted through the front door. “I’m warning you, young
man, he has enough to worry about without you nagging him, too.” Mitchell had slammed the front door behind him and headed for the
garage. Maybe his father would notice him if he fixed the door or
crashed on his bike or something. He surely hadn’t cared about any
other of his accomplishments lately. “I’ll show him,” the boy sputtered as he threw open the door from the kitchen. In the shadows, his
dad appeared as if he was asleep at the wheel. Mitchell remembered
the sandpapery sound his feet made when they had tromped down the
steps. How could he be sleeping at a time like this? “Dad, you promised!” he’d cried, and opened the door. Immediately, he knew something was terribly wrong. He reached to tug on his father’s sleeve,
when he heard his mother burst into the garage.
“Mitchell, no!” The boy’s gaze had turned for a split second, then
returned to his father–whose limp, blood-smattered body slumped from
the cab. It seemed to come at him in slow motion, collapsing on top of
him, trapping the boy’s gangly legs beneath the heavy torso. As it fell,
the pistol in his father’s hand hit the floor and exploded, sending a
bullet whizzing past Mitchell’s head. Even over the gun’s report, Mitch
remembered the sound his father’s head made when it struck the concrete floor, the distorted face bouncing next to his own. Open lifeless
eyes staring into his own.
Mitch’s face turned upward and his eyes sprang open. There was
blue sky above. “No!” he screamed, his fists slapping the pavement.
“No!” The horrific howls reverberated down the alley, to where Greg
Hart neared the carpet-covered entrance to Nurse’s shelter. The hair
on his arms stood on end. He’d thought he was alone in the sweltering,
afternoon heat.
“Who’s there?” he called back. No one answered. Greg surveyed the alley. The shrill sound had come from close by. Kneeling low, he peeked under the greasy frame of Eddie’s old Ford, then around the corner of the garbage bin.
Blind to the fact someone had heard him, Mitch was still trapped in his hideous, hypnotic trance. As she pulled her terrified son from the garage, his mother had screamed, “No Mitchell, I told you no! Now look what you’ve done!”
A hand touched him on the arm. The scream suddenly became the voice of a man, asking, “You okay, bud?”
Greg stood over the trembling man. “Hey, buddy, you alright?” he repeated.
Mitch’s head shot up, smacking hard against the brick wall. His eyes inflamed and swollen, he stared up into the man’s kind but unkept face. “Fine,” he answered. “I’m . . . fine.”
Greg stepped back to give the dazed man some room. “Can I give you a hand?”
“No. . . . No.” Mitch trembled like a child, blinked hard, and ran his hand–raw at the knuckles–through his hair and down the back of his newly bruised scalp. “I’ve got to go.” He dragged himself to his feet and lit out up the alley, climbed the concrete barrier to the parking lot and disappeared between the rows of parked cars.
Wondering where he’d seen the face before, Greg rested against the wall, still weary from lack of sleep. The rattling of an overhead garage door captured his attention. He peered between the dumpster and the protruding wall of the adjacent building. At the end of the alleyway, Greg saw a gangster-type man poke his head from a bay door, his eyes scouring its dark recesses in a cold stare. A few seconds later, a white Escort rolled from the shop into the alley. The man climbed from the car wearing a pair of white coveralls and began to strip a pair of latex gloves from his hands. Disappearing back inside, the bay door cranked shut.
Summoning the energy, Greg staggered from the wall and weaved his way down the alley. The fleeting thoughts of better times, clean socks, a shower, and a craving for some of the simple comforts he’d once enjoyed gnawed at his memory, like the stiff leather rubbing against the open sores on his feet. He yanked at the frayed laces and removed the shoes. The slap of eager tennis shoes against pavement again caught his gaze. Down where the Escort was parked, a pimple-faced kid in a green jacket climbed inside, gunned the little motor, drove the puttering car past Greg and out onto the street.
Barefoot, Greg tiptoed across the alley and climbed into the sweltering yet secluded comfort of Nurse’s home. In a matter of moments his thoughts traversed the breach of time, from what he’d given up through greed and lust to the stark reality of his current state. The soiled linens upon which he lay supplied the painfully stark reminder. Greg lay still, hovering between the twilight moments of thought before restful slumber transports the mind into a fantasy world.
His credit card troubles had only just begun when the phone calls started. Then came the call that would ruin his life. At first Greg thought it was simply a mistaken address. Before he knew what had hit him, he was fighting off an aggressive campaign of five different collection agencies, each trying to recover its massive losses.
Videotapes from Three Queens and the other casinos had been beyond compelling. The courts were convinced he’d been leading a double life. The public Greg Hart was the devoted family man, aggressive executive, sophisticated stockholder. The private Greg Hart was the wild ladies’ man carousing with a known sex offender and obsessed with gambling, booze and spending. The damning testimony from Rayna and the resulting confession to his wife of his infidelity had sealed his fate.
Unfortunately for him, the apartment on La Jolla was vacated and emptied of its elaborate, card-purchased furnishings before any serious investigation was begun. The slight differences in signatures was easily explained away by Greg’s drunken lifestyle. And the late-night hours he kept building a struggling company was colored as an alibi for his extracurricular activities. His only outright confession of guilt had been of his one-and-only foolish ‘visit’ with Rayna. Other than that, he’d declared his innocence on all the other charges.
Greg tossed and turned as twilight fell into sullen darkness. Before too much longer, rest had become deep sleep. Still, the nightmare continued to play out over and over again in his mind.