Dead Cold Mysteries Box Set #1: Books 1-4 (A Dead Cold Box Set), Blake Banner [classic children's novels txt] 📗

and fell sprawling onto a coffee table, which collapsed under his weight. Blood was streaming from his nose, and he was making incoherent noises. I got the idea it hurt. “Get on your belly and put your hands behind your head.”

“Just what I was going to suggest you do, Stone.”

I raised my eyes. I might have guessed. Vito and the guy who’d been sitting with his ass on the Audi. I figured in that moment it must have been Vito who tried to shoot me in my room. But he looked down at Pro and said, “We were sitting in the car and heard the shots. You okay, boss?”

I frowned a second. Then I slapped a smile on the right side of my face and said, “Is this what you’d call an Italian standoff?”

Pro got up on one elbow. “You’re funny, Stone. Deep down funny, where it ain’t like funny anymore. But you’re not going to shoot me, because if you do, Vito is gonna shoot you and this sweet family you care so much about.” He staggered to his feet, pulling a handkerchief from his jacket to stem the flow of blood. “Drop the gun and sit down. Now, you and hubby here are going to watch while a certain little lady starts losing fingers, until somebody tells me where my fuckin’ money is!”

The last was a scream of rage. Maria’s husband put his arms around her. I shook my head. “I’ll tell you what’s going to happen, Pro. Vito and his pal are going to die now. And you are going to stand trial in Texas for the murders of Maria Garcia and Mick Harragan. I gave you your chance. You didn’t take it.”

Pro sneered, “Bullshit!”

There was a kind of “Hunh!” sound from the door. He turned to look. Vito’s pal was sinking to his knees, and his neck looked awful floppy. Vito had a look of vague astonishment, because he was looking into Dehan’s face, and as beautiful as she looked to me right then, to Vito she must have looked terrifying.

Her hands moved too fast for the eye to follow. Two blows went to his floating ribs, and as he doubled up, her elbow smashed his jaw. Then she had his head in an armlock, and she gave a little jerk, which was the last thing Vito ever experienced in this world.

Pro was looking down the barrel of his own Sig Sauer p226. I smiled at him. “Hello, Detective Dehan. If you have quite finished showing off, would you like to cuff Mr. Levy here?”

“Love to.”

The next hour was spent giving vague and evasive answers to Detective Armstrong of the SFPD, who arrived on the scene after I called in the incident, and explaining repeatedly that this was now, in fact, an FBI investigation, and that Detective Dehan and I had been assisting the FBI in their inquiries when Pro and his men had invaded Mary Browne’s home.

Eventually a couple of Feds, Special Agents Turner and Caruso, arrived on the scene. They confirmed what I had said and told Detective Armstrong, politely, that they would take it from here. I explained again that Mary Browne was a case of mistaken identity and that this family had nothing to do with the investigation.

Turner said, “We are only here representing the New York field office, Detective Stone. They may have more questions for you when you get back.”

With that they left, taking Pro with them. The ME arrived with a couple of meat wagons and the bodies were removed, and the last sirens and flashing red and blue lights withdrew into the early fall San Francisco night. I turned to Mary Browne. “Where are your children?”

She looked me straight in the eye. “After your visit this morning, we imagined this would happen, so we sent them to stay with friends.”

Her husband spoke to me for the first time, and I could see a repressed rage in his eyes. “I don’t know whether to thank you or bust your head open, Detective Stone. Why couldn’t you have left us alone?”

Dehan had her ass on the windowsill, and I lowered myself into a chair. I leaned my elbows on my knees and looked him in the eye.

“Sam, you are an intelligent man, but you let your anger and your passion get the better of you. Men like Pro never give up. He didn’t even know that you existed, but in his mind your wife and Mick had taken what belonged to him. He’s been searching for you for ten years. Sooner or later he would have found you. So you can thank me.”

I turned to Mary—Maria. “I said it’s over. You don’t need to hide anymore. The official version is that Mick ordered Kirk to kill Nelson. It’s an explanation that the authorities can live with. You can let them think that you died in Palo Duro with Mick, or you can resume your real identity. Nobody is going to care. Because there, the official line will be that Pro killed Mick and his passenger.”

Sam reached out and took Maria’s hand. I knew he wanted to talk. Maybe she did too, or maybe she had come to terms with it all already.

“I know what you were both feeling. All you wanted was to be together and to be left in peace. But you had the immense, invincible power of Nelson’s gang on the one side, and Mick and the law on the other. Your choices had all been taken away.” I turned to Sam. “Your mother told me you were a real mensch, with a big pair of balls. I’d say she’s right. What you did took real courage. You committed suicide, so that nobody would ever look for you again. Actually, you blew away one of Nelson’s men. I should arrest you for that, but frankly I can’t