A Song to Die For (49 page)

“Mel!” Hooley shouted, having stopped in his tracks.

Mel turned back to look at him, exasperated. “What?”

Hooley beckoned him closer. When Mel approached, Hooley tossed his head toward the poker game behind the glass. “That older feller in the poker game is Luster Burnett.”

“You're sure?” Mel said.

“I saw him on TV in Austin just last week. That's him!”

Mel turned to Biggerstaff. “That wouldn't happen to be your son playing poker with the old guy, would it?”

Biggerstaff shook his head. “That's not Charlie.”

Hooley led the charge into the private, glassed-in poker room.

*   *   *

Creed was shaking his head over losing the hand to Luster. “This is just your night, Boss. Only you could turn a pair of deuces showing into four-of-a-kind.” In an instant, Creed's mood changed as he caught sight of movement at the glass door. His eyes focused on three men rushing the door—a tall white man in a cowboy hat, a young black man, and another white guy bringing up the rear. Instinctively, he stood so his body would protect Kat, who had been watching him play.

The tall older guy, wearing a cowboy hat, burst into the room.

“Hey!” the dealer said. “This is a private game!”

“This is a public badge!” the young black man said, flashing a shield.

“Luster Burnett?” The cowboy hat asked.

“Who's asking?”

“Hooley Johnson, Texas Rangers. This is Mel Doolittle, F.B.I. This guy is Charles Biggerstaff from Conroe, Texas. You got a band member in your outfit named Charles Biggerstaff Jr.?”

“No,” Luster said.

“Trusty Joe Crooke.”

“Well, yeah,” Luster said. “Trusty Joe's our fiddler. Is he in some sort of trouble?”

“The worst sort. Where is he?”

“He was backstage about forty-five minutes ago.”

“Oh, no,” said Charles Biggerstaff Sr. “Forty-five minutes!”

The Ranger waved Luster out of the room. “Lead the way. Quick!”

Luster jumped up and stormed out of the glass room, followed by the Ranger and Charles Biggerstaff Sr.

The F.B.I. agent grabbed the dealer. “You come with us. I don't want you blowing the whistle.”

“I don't even own a whistle,” the dealer complained.

“It's a figure of speech. Come on.”

“What the hell's going on?” Kathy said.

“I don't know, but I better go along,” Creed replied.

Kathy went with him as they followed the men out of the glass room. Creed thought to look back at that room before he got too far away. He saw the other poker players—from Brazil and Canada, respectively—heading for the front desk. Heading for hotel security? Mob backup? He remembered Trusty Joe wanting to come clean about something. What the hell was going on?

Luster led the way through a door marked “Employees Only” to the backstage area. Trotting now, down a long hallway, they crossed paths with the hired barmaids who had bedded certain band members last night.

“Where are you girls going?” Creed demanded.

“To powder our noses,” said the tall Asian chick.

“Is the band still backstage?”

“Yeah, sure,” said one of the blond twins. Creed couldn't help noticing that the other blond twin was not in the bunch. As they rushed by the wings of the theater stage, Creed heard Dixie wailing off-key. She always sang a little sharp when she was high.

When he piled into the green room behind Luster and the lawmen, Creed's heart sank. He saw Trusty Joe nowhere.

“Where's Trusty?” Luster demanded.

Lindsay was making herself a drink behind the bar. Metro and Tump were sitting on stools across the bar from her.

“He was just here,” Lindsay said.

“How long ago?” Mel asked.

She shrugged, smiled at Mel, and fluffed her Afro. “I don't know—a minute?”

“Where'd he go, boys?” said the Texas Ranger. “We have to find him,
now
! For his own protection.”

Tump swiveled on his stool. “That girl, Clarice. Or maybe it was Sharice. Anyway, she said she wanted to take Trusty over to her place tonight. They just left.”

Over the music coming from the stage, Creed's trained ears heard the rattle and rumble of an overhead metal door slamming against a concrete floor. “The loading dock!” he said. “I just heard the door close.”

Now
he
led the way. It was a short distance to the loading dock door where he had watched as the stagehands loaded in the band's amps and instruments yesterday. He got there first, and in the dim light filtering through the wings from the stage, he grabbed the door to lift it.

“Wait!” the F.B.I. agent ordered, drawing his gun. He took his place at the side of the door, along with the Texas Ranger, who was also drawing a weapon. Creed lifted the back of his shirt, put his own pistol in his hand, and noticed that Luster had produced his revolver from somewhere. Creed shoved Kathy behind him and the F.B.I. agent pushed Charles Biggerstaff Sr. to the other side of the door, behind the wall.

“Now!” F.B.I. ordered.

Creed lifted the door in one sudden swoop, ducking under it as it rose, stepping out onto the loading dock. He met the guy he knew as Bandit stepping toward him, lifting an automatic forty-five. He grabbed Bandit's wrist and slammed it against the corner of the cinder-block wall, dislodging the handgun. He followed by striking Bandit on the bridge of the nose with the butt of his own forty-five, rendering him instantly unconscious.

Now he looked down off the loading dock, and everything seemed to slow to a crawl, though he knew it was going to happen lightning-fast. Surprised faces were looking up at him and the others on the loading dock. One of the faces belonged to Franco, who had a pistol drawn, and was trying to shove Trusty Joe into the backseat of a Lincoln Continental where the blond twin waited. Goldie was there, too, also armed, also pushing Trusty Joe in the car. It seemed that Trusty had been putting up something of a fight. On the other side of the car, an older man in a sharp business suit was waiting at the driver's side door, apparently ready to drive Trusty Joe away.

Creed took all this in within a fraction of a second. Then the F.B.I. agent spoke:

“F.B.I. You're all under arrest. Drop your weapons.”

Creed was looking over his pistol sights at Franco, for Franco had his weapon aimed at Trusty Joe's head. Yet Creed knew he couldn't fire, for Trusty and the girl were both in his line of fire. Then the girl in the car screamed.

“Screw you!” said the driver, who had the car between him and the lawmen. He reached into his jacket where a shoulder holster might await.

Trusty Joe took advantage of the fact that Franco was looking away from him, and grabbed Franco's gun hand, sending a bullet through the top of the car and forcing the blonde's scream into another octave.

The driver started blasting away over the top of the car and bedlam broke loose at the loading dock. The lawmen and Luster were ducking bullets and firing back toward the would-be driver of the Lincoln. Glass from the car windows shattered as muzzle blasts lit the dock area. Creed couldn't shoot at Franco or Goldie, as Trusty and the girl were still right behind them.

Franco grabbed Trusty Joe by the shirt, pulled him out of the car, got a choke hold on him, and used him for a shield as he and Goldie began firing at the lawmen, moving toward the back of the car, seeking cover.

Luster and the lawmen were still shooting at the driver, who hid behind the car. Now Luster saw an angle on Goldie, and hit him with a bullet in the stomach, taking him down to his knees.

“Damn it, Goldie!” Luster said, as if pissed off at the man for needing to be shot once again, after all these years.

Bullets from Franco and the driver were flying all around him, some ricocheting around inside the concrete dock area, yet Creed stood his ground and awaited a clean shot at Franco. He saw the F.B.I. agent jump down off the dock and scramble toward the front of the car to get a shot at the driver. Franco was gaining the rear of the car now, which he would use as cover, so Creed followed the example of the F.B.I. man and jumped off the dock to take the fight down to ground level. He landed on his stomach on the oily concrete deck. He saw Trusty Joe's footwear: lizard boots. Franco wore shiny patent leather shoes. Creed took aim and ruined the shine on the left shoe, inducing a scream from Franco, and taking him to the ground as the impact from the forty-five slug yanked his foot out from under him. When he got hit, he lost his hold on Trusty Joe Crooke.

Trusty, free now, sprang to his feet and ran toward the loading dock door, in the process becoming the number one target of the hit men. But the mob gunmen, all under heavy fire now, let bullets fly wild, only clipping Trusty Joe's flesh a time or two as Trusty ran for the safety of the open loading dock door. Goldie fired at close range from the ground, until Luster's revolver finished him off for good.

Charles Biggerstaff Sr. stepped into view. “Run, Charlie!” he screamed.

Creed heard the mob driver swear violently, and knew the F.B.I. man had wounded him. The wounded driver dove onto the front seat of the car, crawled all the way through to the passenger side, firing the last rounds in his handgun at Trusty. The F.B.I. agent scrambled to the open car door, slamming it on the gunman's hand, disarming him.

Now only Franco was still putting up a fight. He drew another autoloader, grabbed the blonde by the hair and pulled her in front of him as his new shield. Her screaming rivaled the gunfire, curdling the blood. The Texas Ranger, having descended somehow from the loading dock, passed Creed, looking for a way to get a shot at Franco.

Trusty was running toward the steps that led up to the loading dock, when a bullet from Franco finally hit him, taking both legs out from under him at the bottom of the steps. Charles Biggerstaff Sr. screamed, “Charlie!” and ran into the line of fire to help his wounded son.

The blonde bit Franco on the wrist, causing him to release her.

Creed heard Kathy scream. He turned to see that she had picked up the gun dropped by Bandit, who had recovered consciousness, and was wrestling with Kathy for the weapon. The struggle took them both to the loading dock surface, where they rolled down the loading dock steps, onto the Biggerstaffs.

Creed scrambled toward them all, pinned Bandit's handgun to the oily concrete, put his own gun against Bandit's head, and pulled the trigger, killing the gangster in a splatter of blood and brains. He realized now that the two cops were closing in on Franco from both ends of the car, so he pulled Kat behind him to protect her. Franco continued to fire everywhere, wildly. Creed clicked his autoloader, realizing he was out of ammunition. Suddenly, Luster was in front of him, shielding him, Kathy, and Trusty.

In his last living act, Franco sent his last thirty-two-caliber bullet through Luster's right lung, and through Creed's, where it lodged against the inside of Creed's rib, short of doing any damage to Kathy. An instant later, Texas Ranger Hooley Johnson succeeded in blowing Franco away with a bullet sent through the back windshield of the Lincoln Continental.

The gunfire ended. Luster fell forward, and rolled over, holding his chest. Creed toppled over to the side. He felt no pain, but knew he was hit. The shock would take over soon, but for now, he heard and saw everything clearly. He could see Luster's eyes blinking. He saw Trusty Joe pick up Bandit's pistol from the loading ramp, and put it to his own head.

“Charlie!” yelled Biggerstaff Sr. “No!”

Great sobs burst from Trusty Joe's chest. “This is all my fault!” he blubbered.

Creed felt Kathy hovering over him, felt her hands pressed against the bullet hole in his chest. Then he saw Luster reach a hand toward Trusty Joe.

“Put the gun down, son,” Luster said, in a quiet voice. He coughed and spewed blood, but continued. “This is not your fault. Things are never quite as bad as they seem. Put the gun down.”

Trusty lay the gun down on the grimy concrete, and wept, falling into his father's arms.

 

54

CHAPTER

About sunrise, Hooley looked out through the emergency room windows at the gathering of press hounds who had been ordered to wait at the end of the driveway so they wouldn't interfere with ambulances. In his head, he rehearsed what he would say to them until he felt a hand on his shoulder, and looked back to see Mel smiling wearily at him.

“You sure you want to go out there?” Mel said.

“I can face one last press conference before I retire,” Hooley said. They had already talked this over for quite some time, so there was nothing more left to say on that issue. “You performed well under fire, Agent Doolittle.”

Mel shrugged. “I'm gonna miss you, Hooley.”

“Likewise, sport. Now go home and get some sleep.”

They shook, and Mel slapped him on the shoulder before turning away. Hooley doubted he would see the young man again. He pushed the door open and walked toward the cameras. Anxious reporters fired questions about the shootout, the mob figures, the famous country singer. He raised his hands and waited for them to quiet down. He heard Lucille's voice telling him to stand up straight.

“I'm Texas Ranger Hooley Johnson. I have a brief statement to make.” He coughed.

“Yesterday, in Texas, I received a tip on a kidnapping and murder plot that was about to take place at The Castilian Casino and Hotel here in Las Vegas. The intended victim was a musician who played in a band with the legendary country music singer Luster Burnett. In cooperation with an agent from the Federal Bureau of Investigation, I attempted to intervene. We arrived as the intended victim was being kidnapped by Mafia members, which led to a shootout. There were a number of casualties.” He paused to wait for the camera flashes to settle down.

“Wounded was a guitar player in the Luster Burnett band. His name is Creed Mason. He is in stable condition and expected to make a full recovery from a gunshot wound to the chest. Also wounded was another band member—the intended victim—who suffered a bullet wound in the leg, and is expected to make a full recovery. His identity is being withheld to protect him from future mob attacks.