“Numbers?” I croaked the word.
“Six Four Eight Five. He said you gave them to him. He said he couldn’t have taken down Falsone without your help. Capri? Are you all right? I only ask so I can understand what sort of person I’m marrying.”
I couldn’t answer. Because my world was over. My life was shattered. Everything I thought was broken, all because of those four numbers. Four little numbers. I couldn’t breathe and couldn’t think and everything I was contracted into a single point in space. I was smashed and finished. Six Four Eight Five. Six Four Eight Five. The numbers played through my head, again and again and again.
That was how my father did it. That was how he managed to sneak up on Falsone and kill him.
Six Four Eight Five.
I released Maxim. I stumbled away, shoving through the crowd. I heard someone say my name. I didn’t care. My head buzzed, tumbled, twirled. My pulse went wild and my vision dimmed. Black on the edges.
My god. Oh my god.
It was me.
It’d always been me.
I killed Carmine.
Chapter 13
Mal
There were exactly nine strip clubs south of San Antonio. I figured if Clem was working one for Balestra, they’d stick within city limits. So that made nine total clubs. Three were owned by competing gangs, small-time families with no real sway, and Clem wouldn’t be in those joints. I crossed those off the list and worked my way from the top.
Strip clubs weren’t my scene. Body glitter, horny men. I’d never had issues getting off if all I needed was sex. Never had to resort to paying for it.
But I respected the girls. They worked hard and put up with a lot of scum. I empathized with that. Hell, I identified with it.
Clem wasn’t in the first place. I met a nice girl named Rosemary, real name Janine, who offered to suck my dick in the back room. I politely declined, tipped her well, and got her to admit she didn’t know the guy I was looking for. The next place went about the same, except I met a girl named Firefly, and the price she quoted for a blowjob was twice as much as Rosemary. I was tempted to go tell Rosemary to raise her prices. At any rate, Clem wasn’t in the second place either.
I found him at the third. Got lucky that way. Only took me about four days, start to finish, before I walked into the Private Garden, a lovely gentleman’s club with black tinted windows and sticky floors. The girl there was named Shadow, and she didn’t offer me a blowjob at all. Almost felt insulted.
“Clem? You mean, the new owner, Clem?” She shrugged and gyrated her hips, shaking her ass in my face. I wanted to tell her to stop. My heart rate doubled. Not from the dance, but from the information.
“When did he take over?”
“Four months back.” She shrugged, shaking her breasts. She was a bad dancer. New girl maybe. Probably why she didn’t offer that blowjob. I almost felt sorry for Shadow, except I had to murder her boss, so I kept her talking.
“Is he a decent boss?”
“He’s not so bad. Doesn’t do much, you know? Sits in the back and counts the money. Only yells sometimes. I like him.”
I grunted as she kept going. I put a twenty in her hand. “Is he here tonight?”
“Nah, not tonight.” The twenty disappeared. I had no clue where. The girl was in a thong and the smallest bra in the world. No worldly idea where cash could go. Didn’t want to know. “Comes in Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Saturday.”
I grunted, gave her another twenty. So Clem would be in the next night. “Do me a favor. You seem like a nice girl. Don’t work tomorrow.”
She snorted. “You got something against Clem?”
“You could say that.”
“Look, whatever you do, go easy, okay? I like Clem. He’s not so bad.”
“Just don’t work.”
She finished her dance and I got out of there. In the Chevy, I leaned back and let a sense of wary excitement wash over me. I pressed my fingers against the stab wound and let out a soft grunt of pain.
It wasn’t healed. But the stitches held me together. Cap had done a decent job, all things considered. I could move around, but I wasn’t at my best. If it came to a fight, it’d be close.
I picked up my phone and texted Cap’s burner.
Mal: Found him. Third time’s a charm.
She got back right away.
Cap: You found him?? Really??
Mal: Really. Working at the Private Garden. Taking him tomorrow.
Cap: How unlucky. You don’t get to look at strippers every night anymore.
I smiled to myself. If only she knew how little I cared about those girls. Especially with Cap in my life. With that kiss still roaring in my brain, I texted back.