Cat In An Alien X-Ray

“Quiet, Pops,” Louise mews contentedly. “I decided to tail you. It is a long hike back to our main bases. I say we head for Ma Barker’s territory at dawn and recruit some temporary tailers.”

“We were two short,” I agree. “And if that is not Miss Kathleen O’Connor who has drawn all the male attention, I will eat her hat.”

“You will eat your hat,” she has to correct me.

“No, Louise, I will eat hers, and you can chow down on your Mr. Max’s fedora.”

Chapter 44

Cop Shop Talk

“Hell yes, kid. In the old days, they’d jerk out your fingernails and force-feed ’em to your dog for good measure. They’d weld you into a drum and send you down the river. The Mexican cartels are just now revving up to that level of plain deviltry.”

Molina had given Matt one crumb at the end of their meeting: contact info for Woodrow Wetherly, a Metro cop who’d retired in the ’80s. That put him in his own eighties, and his skin looked every centimeter of it. He was as spotted as a hyena on face, hands, and forearms, further embellished by enough blue and black splotches to give a tattoo artist envy. It was all just sun damage.

Matt resolved then and there to use the high-octane sunscreen Temple was always after him about. The three golden hairs left on Wetherly’s mostly bald head remained a permanent reminder of his original blond coloring, like Matt’s.

“Call me Woody. I don’t get why the lady lieutenant would send a civilian to me for mob gossip. You write for one of those digital rags, Mr. Devine?”

“No. Radio’s my medium.”

“Radio.” Wetherly nodded and relaxed enough to light up a stogie that was waiting half-smoked in the big crystal ashtray on the table beside his lounger chair. “I did a lot of radio interviews in the 2000s. Nostalgia about the mob mostly, and how Metro and the FBI rid the city of all that jazz.

“The end of the ’80s, that’s when they started imploding all those mob-financed hotels, and as they hit the dirt, so did the gangsters that laundered money through them. I’m thinking of writing a book,” he added, which sounded like a line he’d used for years. “Would you want me on your radio show to talk about all that stuff?”

“Sure, someday.” Matt didn’t have Temple’s ease and maybe lack of conscience about jollying people along for his own purposes.

“What’s the name of your show, sonny?”

“The Midnight Hour.”

Wetherly puffed on his cigar, releasing an odor of burning tires. “Sounds like a good tough crime show.”

It did, so Matt just nodded.

“What are you wanting to know about any of this stuff going on now?”

“I wonder if there could be mob interest in illegally stockpiled money and guns. Something that had been accruing for a few years.”

“‘Accruing.’” Wetherly laughed heartily until his aged tobacco mirth died off into a gagging cough. “Gang interest, for sure.” He hacked a bit more behind his spotted, hairy hand. “Punks. Criminals are just punks now. Mean, yes, and stupid. And greedy. Always greedy. But the mob. Those guys had organization. You worked your way up, like in a bank. You did okay with the little jobs, you got bigger ones, and you got bigger. And those guys didn’t talk. No jailhouse confessions from them. They went to the grave with their lips sealed, just like Jimmy Hoffa.”

“But … he was a union bigwig the mob turned on.”

“And he paid the price. But his death and the body never being found … that was old-time merciless mob boss stuff. No one ever found his body. Forever. That is mob vengeance.”

“So a … flashy brutal killing?”

“That’s mob too. That’s mob sending a message. Usually to shut up the troops. Making an example.”

“They say the mob is out of Vegas.”

“In a wholesale way like years ago, yeah. But there are still operations, like in other cities.”

“So the survivors might be organized enough to … plan a heist, say?”

“Heist? No. Nope. Nothing that obvious. Amateursville. Heists are the work of small-time grifters who think they’ll get away with it, and they never do. Vegas was always a town that did business under the table, not in the street, assault rifles blazing.”

“But if the prize, the money or the guns, were someone else’s hidden stockpile, would traditional mobsters go after it?”

A wheezing laugh sounded like it might do the old guy in for good. Matt sat forward, ready to catch him if he toppled.

No risk. Wetherly slapped the arms of his faux-leather upholstery and leaned back so far, the footrest popped out with a metallic snap.

Matt jumped.