CHAPTER 33

READER TOOK A MOMENT to enjoy the fruits of his labor. Ten years of planning had gone into this and he was going to savor it.

But not too long. There was no telling if someone had heard the gunfire, even way out here in the boonies.

He shoved Castro’s body out of the way and leaned into the limo.

“I thought so,” he said, talking to himself and reaching for one of the cigars in the special humidor by the wet bar. He drew in the rich aroma and then licked it all over. Lighting a match, he inhaled deeply, savoring the feel of the smoke as it reached deep into his mouth.

“Nothing like a good Cuban cigar, eh, Castro?” he said, looking down at his dead foe.

He took another slow drag and then quickly got to work. The money was right where it was supposed to be, in the false bottom. He walked swiftly to behind the house where his Cavalier was parked and drove it back, parking it next to the limousine. Working methodically, but with a deliberate speed, he transferred the bundles of greenbacks. They were all hundreds. He’d hit the jackpot. There was even more than he’d counted on. More than six million, it appeared, by his quick estimate. It took up the whole of his back seat where he had his own false bottom rigged. The back seat lifted out easily. It should have--all it was was a balsa frame with a seat cover stitched over it. Not something you could sit on. A piece of art, courtesy of Bobby, just another of his gifts. He’d switched it with the regular one just before driving over from New Orleans. It was a tight fit, but he was able to get all the money in and get the seat back in place. Looking at it, no one would ever guess that there was a king’s ransom beneath it.

The next thing he did was pop open the trunk of the limo. It would have been a chore to get at the jack if someone needed to fix a flat. First, they’d have to move over fifty bags of cocaine.

It was tempting. Reader stared at the coke for long seconds and then he just shut the lid. Fuck it. He had what he wanted. No use being greedy. He got stopped with that stuff, it was all over. No, the money was enough.

Reader took a last puff of the cigar and threw it down, opened the door to his own car and climbed behind the driver’s seat. He was just about to turn the ignition key when a voice spoke from the open window of the passenger side.

“Hold it right there, Kincaid. Hands on the wheel. Now!”

“You!”

That was all he said. For a second he thought about trying for the gun nestled against his back but knew that was fruitless. He’d think of something.

***

Sitting in one of Titus Fuller Derbigny’s overstuffed chairs in the drawing room, Charles “Reader” Kincaid looked up at his captor and snarled, “So, how’d you figure it out, fucker?”

He was handcuffed in back and his feet were tied as well.

“Watch your mouth, punk,” Grady said. “There’s a lady present.”

“Where?” he retorted, cocky as a mallrat teenager, even though he was helpless.

Whitney looked over at Grady and smiled.

“Let him talk,” she said. “He doesn’t bother me. When he opens his mouth all I hear is a slug with a limited vocabulary.”

“Fuck you, bitch,” was his reply.

“See?” Whitney said. “That’s half his vocabulary, right there. And he wonders how he got caught.”

They weren’t the only ones in the room. They were just the only live ones. The owner of the mansion was sitting in his wheelchair, over by the big bay window, a bullet hole in the center of his forehead. Over in a corner, a middle-aged woman in a blood-covered maid’s uniform lay sprawled with her throat cut. In a quick search of the house, Grady had found two other bodies in similar circumstances. One in particular was interesting. Another middle-aged woman, but this one was dressed in clothes that would have covered Grady’s annual salary when he was on the force. The other dead person looked to be the handyman.

“You’ve been a busy boy, haven’t you, Kincaid? Who’s the lady back in the bedroom? Looks like you had a little fun with her before you finished her off. Could that be the old guy’s granddaughter?”

“Yeah, maybe,” he said, sullenly. “Like I said, how’d you figure it out?”

Grady walked over, pulled up a chair and straddled it backwards, facing the criminal.

“A newspaper article.”

“What?”

Grady looked at Whitney, standing in the doorway that led to the kitchen. “How long did they say?” he asked.

“Half an hour,” she replied.

“And the stuff?”

“They’ll bring the stuff.”

Satisfied, Grady nodded and turned back to Reader. “A newspaper article. A very small article. Not more than three, four lines.”

Reader gave a derisive snort. “What the fuck you talking about, Popeye?”

Grady stared at the man.

“This isn’t the first time you’ve been in this house, is it?”

Whitney came up to stand beside Grady, her hand on the back of the chair.

Reader’s eyes narrowed to tiny slits. “No shit. Who you think killed these assholes?”

“I’m not talking about today, Kincaid. I’m talking about thirty years ago. Thirty-three to be exact. That lady back there--if I were a betting man, I’d say that was Sarah Derbigny.”

Reader stared murderously at the ex-cop. Then, he looked away and his shoulder slumped.

“It wasn’t about the money. It was never about the money.”

“I know.” Grady lighted a Marlboro medium, and extended it to Reader who looked at him oddly, then took a drag.

“How’d you figure it out?”

“Research,” Grady said. “Being a bulldog. It’s what I’m known for. Actually, it was Whitney here who’s responsible for finding it. Titus Derbigny was your foster father, wasn’t he? After you killed your father.”

Reader got a strange look on his face. He was staring at the doorway that led into the kitchen, but it was obvious he was seeing something else.

“Bastard fucked with me.”

“I kinda figured that,” Grady said. His voce was soft. “Beat you, didn’t he?”

“He did more than that. He did things...” His voice trailed off. All of a sudden, he didn’t seem like the big, bad genius criminal. He sank into himself, became smaller. “Fuck him. I got even.”

Grady rose. “Yes, you did. Whatever he did, I’d say you got even. Was it worth it?”

Reader looked over, caught his eyes and held them. “Yes. A hundred times over. It was worth every fucking scream that motherfucker made. My only regret is that I couldn’t keep him alive longer. At least he got to see his precious granddaughter die.”

“Oh!” Whitney’s hand rushed to her mouth.

Grady began talking to the man, his voice easy, almost tender.

“You almost got away with this. If Whitney hadn’t found that article, I would’ve kept following the trail you put out for everybody. The one everybody else that got involved in this deal followed. As soon as I read about a boy who took a baseball bat to his foster father and who got turned in to the police, it all started to make sense. Five years for assault. That’s a lot, even for down here. Especially for a kid.”

“Yeah. I think of it as college.”

“But you killed your own father,” Whitney interjected. “Before that. You weren’t some choir boy.”

Reader’s lip curled. “You’re right, lady. I killed my father. I guess I got tired of him fucking up my mother. And me. He wasn’t no different from Titus. Just had less education, less money.”

“You know what?” Grady said. “I kind of figured that out, Kincaid. It almost made me feel sorry for you. Almost. But then, I thought about my brother. My brother never did anything to you. You just killed him to cover your tracks.”

“So sue me,” Reader said, his eyes hard again.

“Naw,” Grady said. “I got a better idea.”

“I guess the cops are coming, huh?”

“Yes and no. There’s some cops coming, but not to arrest you. Maybe later. That’ll be up to you.”

“What the fuck you talking about?”

Grady ignored the question. “I kinda feel sorry for you, Kincaid,” Grady answered. “You had a rough time when you were a kid. I thought I’d give you an option. You’ll see. You might be able to save your ass after all. Besides, I don’t think I want to turn in this money you went to all this trouble for.”

“You’re taking my money? What kind of a cop are you?”

“A smarter one than I used to be,” Grady said. “I got to figuring. Well, me and my lady friend here got to figuring.”

“You see,” Whitney said, taking up the conversation. “We talked about how scum like you are always getting off.”

“Finding some loophole in the law,” Grady said.

“Getting out on a technicality,” Whitney resumed. “So we came up with kind of a solution to all that. A way to let the good guys come out on top.” She paused. “We’re the good guys here, Reader, in case you were wondering.”

Before Reader could say anything someone knocked on the front door.