Blood Flag: A Paul Madriani Novel (33 page)

The only thing of any color was a small red SUV, shiny and new, parked near the loading dock. It looked like a rental car. Probably the one picked up by Madriani’s investigator at the airport. Tony was beginning to relax. Given his initial concerns, things were starting to look up. The location was conveniently close to the airport and best of all, it was private, certainly better than the restaurant.

He climbed the stairs onto the loading dock and headed for the large overhead door that was rolled back and open.

“Hello? Anybody there?” Tony waited and listened. He could hear the vibration of his own voice as it echoed off the walls inside the cavernous building. But there was no reply. He called out again and listened. Nothing. He wondered if there was an office at the other end of the building. Maybe the guy was still tied up in his meetings.

Tony stepped into the building and took five full strides before he put his hands out in front of his face and stopped. The inside of the building was a black hole. Two feet past the open door and every hint of light from the outside seemed to be swallowed up. Tony didn’t know what caused it. All he knew was he couldn’t see a thing. It must have been human radar, the prickly hairs on his face and neck that stood out, to warn him. There was something directly in front of him. Something big.

As Tony stood there perfectly still, he could just barely make out the dark edges of its gigantic form. He waited for thirty seconds, then a minute for the cones in his eyes to adjust to the darkness. Whatever it was it was massive, at least fifteen feet tall, and five or six feet across at what might be its shoulders, and still. It didn’t move, but in the darkness it looked as if it were alive. It had black shimmering hair. Tony’s eyes slowly adjusted. He could now see tiny glints of quiet blue light as they reflected off the outer coat of the frozen beast. He reached out and touched it.

The hair came off on his fingertips. Magnetized metal filings, millions of them, black as crude oil and smooth as baby powder. Unless, of course, you got them in your eyes or your lungs.

It was part of the reason the building was so dark. The black filings adhered to the walls and swallowed up any particles of light that wandered in.

As Tony slowly regained his vision, even in the faint light he realized that the tiny shavings coated everything inside the building, including the massive beast that stood in front of him. It was a drop-forge hammer. This one was big. They were used in tool-and-die work to hammer and shape metal parts. Tony had seen one before in a small factory in Ohio that was looking for a loan from his bank.

This one was much more powerful and the elevated tempered steel hammer looked as if it was primed and ready to be tripped. Whoever left it in that position should have had their head examined. The hammer if dropped probably would have produced close to two tons of kinetic energy, enough force to crush a granite bolder the size of a watermelon and turn it into sand.

“I thought I heard somebody down here.”

Tony turned and looked. There was a man, tall, dark-haired in a sport coat and slacks just stepping out of the shadows off to his right.

“You must be Tony Pack.”

“I called out several times. Nobody answered,” said Tony.

“Yeah, I was upstairs.” The guy held out his hand. “Vic Palma from Paul Madriani’s office.”

Tony took his hand and they shook.

Nino Toselli sized him up as if Pack were a customer being fitted for a coffin. Tony had a firm grip, perhaps a little more fit than Nino had thought. But surprise was the thing, that and the fact that Nino had a sharp blade ready for him and waiting, spring-loaded under the sleeve of his jacket on his right arm. Two more steps in the dark by Pack and he wouldn’t have needed it. Nino would have pulled the hundred-pound-test monofilament line releasing the trip on the hammer and Tony Pack would have lost both arms up to his shoulders. Nino could have finished him on the floor, cleaned out his pockets for the key, and the thumb drive and would have been gone in three minutes.

“Paul said you would be coming by. I was just getting ready to lock up. I was going to wait for you in the car out in front. But as long as we’re here . . .” Nino fished in his jacket pocket with his left hand and came up with a brass key. It was, in fact, a safe-deposit key. As far as Nino was concerned they all looked alike. He held it out at arm’s length in the open palm of his left hand, the bright sparkle intended to divert Tony’s attention.

Pack reached out with one hand. Just as he started to lean into the man he realized something was wrong. Even in the dim light he could tell that the bow on the key in Palma’s hand was elliptical. It was a different key. Not the one Paul showed him. But it was too late.

Nino’s thumb pressed the button on the spring-loaded blade as he jammed it into Tony’s back. The needle-sharp point skidded off the bottom rib and out through Pack’s side, piercing him like a giant safety pin.

Tony tried to fling him around, but Nino rode him like a bronco. He wasn’t going anywhere. All the while he worked the blade in Tony’s side, pushing and pulling, gouging flesh.

Tony reached over his shoulder and clawed Nino’s face with his fingers. He tried for an eye and missed. On the way down his finger caught on the inside pocket of Nino’s jacket. He ripped the pocket and Nino’s wallet and keys to the rental car went flying. Tony pulled and shredded the lining of the jacket.

Toselli went wild. He was furious. He reached around with his left hand, caught Tony under his eye, and clawed his face. At the same time he bit into Tony’s neck from behind, sinking his teeth like a vampire. Nino felt Tony going down under his weight. Toselli could sense the end coming. He dropped his feet to the floor and steered the taller man toward the anvil on the drop hammer.

Tony reached back with his last ounce of strength. He twirled them both around, two figures dancing in the shadows in a death waltz. He lashed out wildly and spun his body, picking up speed like a bronco trying to dislodge the man from his back.

A hand went up in the darkness, head down on the anvil, fingers gripped the trigger pull. The two tons of brute force stored in the massive hammer dropped. The collision of tempered steel shook the walls of the building. A cloud of metallic dust filled the air and fused with the red mist of blood.

Vibrations from the corrugated metal roof and the walls resounded for several seconds and slowly ebbed. Finally there was nothing to fill the silence but the wheezing breath of the silhouetted man, standing, stooped over, hands on his knees, panting in the darkness, trying to recover his strength and catch his breath. It took more than half a minute before he composed himself enough to reach down and pluck the wallet and the keys from the floor. Then the shadowed figure rose up, turned, and walked toward the loading dock and the car parked outside.

FORTY-SIX

W
hen I finally get to the restaurant in Las Vegas I am running late, about twenty minutes. I fully expect to see Tony sitting there waiting for me, but he’s not. Assuming it was on time, his flight should have landed an hour ahead of mine. I look around the restaurant to see if there might be another room. Someplace where he might be seated where I can’t see him. But there isn’t. I sit down in one of the spacious booths and order coffee. I wait and watch the door as I drink. Each time it opens I look up expecting to see his smiling face, but I don’t.

By the time I’m working on my third cup I am starting to get the jitters. I’m thinking Tony’s flight must have been delayed, or else it was canceled.

I check the flight status using 4G from my iPhone. According to the airline site, Tony’s plane landed on time, almost two and a half hours ago. I wonder if perhaps he got to the restaurant early, got tired of waiting and left. I was less than twenty minutes late.

I tried to connect with his cell phone on the way in, to tell him I was running late, but there was no answer. The second it started to ring, it rolled over immediately to voicemail. I try it again sitting in the booth and I get the same result. Either his battery is dead—it happens fast on flights if you forget to put it on airplane mode or to turn it off—or his phone was off. Perhaps Tony forgot to turn it back on after landing. I have done that more than once without realizing it. But it still didn’t answer the question, why wasn’t he here?

I check my voicemail, e-mail, and texts, thinking he might have left a message. But there are none. I call the office and talk to Sally at reception and Brenda to see if he called there. They haven’t heard from him. I am beginning to worry.

He might have missed his flight, but if so, I am sure he would have called. There was one other possibility. He might have gone to his hotel room to check in. Tony said he was tired, the reason he was holding over. If he was that bushed he might have fallen asleep in his room. The problem is, I have no idea where he’s staying. All he said was that he got a good deal. It was one of the big resorts along the Strip. That would narrow it down to a couple dozen places.

I’m thinking the only one who might know for sure is Lillian, Tony’s wife. But I don’t want to call her. She might know the name of the hotel, but the minute we hang up she would call it, and if Tony wasn’t there she’d start to worry. Lillian struck me as being tightly wound, especially when it came to Tony and the kids. Her life seemed to revolve almost entirely around them.

I wait a few more minutes. Then I call Tony’s number again and get his voicemail once more. This time I leave a message. If his phone is turned off, at least when he turns it back on he’ll see my message and call.

The waitress comes by to fill my cup again. I put my hand over it to stop her. Before she can leave, I tell her I’m waiting for someone. I describe Tony and ask her if she’s seen anyone matching the description.

She says no. She has been working here all morning.

The restaurant is out of the way and it’s not exactly Grand Central. In the time I’ve been here there have been fewer than ten customers. If Tony had come through the door, the waitress would have remembered him. It was possible he could have been involved in an accident coming in from the airport.

I hit the button and look at my phone again. I am running out of options. I punch up my “Favorites” and look at the list. As soon as I see it, I touch Herman’s name. When all else fails.

On the second ring he answers: “Yeah, what’s up? They told me you were back in Vegas.”

“I am.”

“Don’t tell me you’re going to see Menard,” says Herman. “Not alone, at least.”

“No.”

“Good.” Herman sounds relieved. “You don’t want to be goin’ near that place. Cuz if Ricardo doesn’t get you, Joselyn will,” he says.

“Stow it,” I tell him. “I’ve got a problem.”

“What else is new?”

“I was supposed to meet Tony Pack at a restaurant here in Vegas today. He never showed. His flight arrived on time. He should have been here ahead of me, but I haven’t seen him. And his phone is not answering. I’ve tried to call it several times for more than an hour. It goes immediately to voicemail.”

“You mean . . .”

“I mean immediately. Almost before it rings.”

“That ain’t good.”

“I know.” I tell him it’s possible Tony could be at his hotel, but I don’t know which one, and I don’t want to call his wife. I ask him if he has any ideas. “It’s also possible he might have been in an accident.”

Herman thinks for a moment. “You got his cell number?”

“Yeah.”

“Give it to me,” he says.

I do it.

He tells me to hang up and sit tight. He’ll call me back in a few minutes.

Twelve minutes go by before my phone rings. I punch the button and lift it to my ear.

“Paul.”

“Yeah.”

“Pack’s cell phone is down.”

“What do you mean ‘down’?”

“No power,” says Herman. “Either the battery is dead, or someone has removed it. Or . . .”

“Or what?”

“Or the phone’s been destroyed.”

“How do you know?”

“The carrier pinged the phone. Nothing came back. No signal. No data.”

I would ask Herman how he got them to do this, but I’m afraid to.

“Maybe he just turned it off,” I tell him.

“If that’s the case, it’s been off for hours,” says Herman. “The last time the carrier had any record of a signal from the phone was a little over two hours ago.”

“Do they have any record as to location, a tower?”

Herman says: “No. That’s more than I can get, especially on short notice.”

FORTY-SEVEN

F
or the next six days following my return from Las Vegas I am on and off the phone constantly, several times each day with Lillian Pack. She is holding up better than I thought. Probably because she is busy, desperately trying to find out what happened to Tony. Lillian has convinced herself that he probably had an accident. She’s even gone so far as to suggest that he might be suffering from amnesia, wandering around somewhere, lost. But no matter what she hears, she refuses to accept the possibility that he is dead.

She has been calling every hospital and clinic in the Las Vegas area trying to find him, her own one-woman missing persons bureau. In the meantime I had Herman dispatch two of his investigators back to Sin City in an effort to smoke out leads, starting at the airport, talking to anyone who might have seen Tony coming off the plane, getting into a car or a taxi. Herman has been working the Vegas police long-distance by phone. He had one of his investigators from the airport file a missing persons report and check with the Clark County coroner’s office, the morgue. So far we have turned up nothing.

If I didn’t know better I might think that Tony Pack had wandered out to Area 51 or off to Roswell and gotten himself beamed up to a mother ship by aliens.

I called Lillian from Las Vegas before I left, and asked her if she knew where Tony was staying, the name of the hotel he had booked. She told me that she didn’t know. According to Lillian, Tony traveled frequently on business. There were times when he didn’t tell her where he was going or what hotel he might be staying in. Not because he was secretive, at least according to Lillian, but because they were busy, like two ships passing in the night. His mind was on a lot of things. According to Lillian he was under constant pressure at the bank. It was part of the reason he was so tired. She said she never questioned him on trivial matters like travel arrangements, or for that matter about his work. She trusted him implicitly, and besides, she was often busy with the girls. Tony would tell her how long he would be away, and when to expect him home. It was all the information she needed.