Ray Hoy - Jack Frost 01 - The Vegas Factor (2 page)

Thinking aloud, he said, “Felicia will be at Flynn’s funeral, which will probably be held in Reno. Perfect!”

Varchetta buzzed his secretary. “Get Benny Florentine in here, right now.”

He slammed the phone down and began pacing his office again. After a few moments, he walked to the window and stared down at the Strip, far below. Then he heard the high-pitched voice behind him: “Boss, it’s me, Benny.”

Varchetta turned to face the huge granite wedge in a rumpled business suit. The man’s eyes were gray and dead behind drooping eyelids. His short blond crew cut glistened with perspiration, and his massive forehead jutted over his eyebrows, adding to his simian appearance. His neck bulged over his collar where the necktie was knotted.

“Sit down, Benny.”

Varchetta felt comfortable when the brute was around. He was a reminder of the Good Old Days, when muscle was the way to get things done: six-seven, three-hundred-forty-five pounds of brute force and solid muscle. Varchetta realized that a lot of that muscle rested between Benny’s ears—but at least he was reliable.

“I want you to find Felicia and bring her back.”
 

Benny nodded, concentrating on the boss’s instructions, but the voice in his head distracted him:
Mr. Varchetta don’t like screw-ups. The last time, he took all the girls away for two whole weeks! Remember that?
He nodded gravely at his unfortunate loss.

“What the hell are you nodding at?” Varchetta barked. The hulk began to mumble an explanation. Varchetta cut him off with a look of disgust. “Christ, Benny, sometimes you give me the creeps!”

Varchetta wrote down an address, then repeated his instructions to Benny several times, slowly and clearly. He took a sheaf of bills from his inside coat pocket. “Here’s enough money to do the job. And Benny, don’t let Jilly catch you or your ass will be in a real sling.”

“Don’t worry about Jilly, boss. He’s old. He won’t give me no trouble.”

Varchetta’s eyes widened and he slammed his fist on the desk. “Jilly’s old, but I pity you if you think he won’t give you trouble! And he’ll probably have help of some kind.”

Ain’t nobody gonna stop me
, said the voice in Benny’s head.
Jilly won’t be no trouble. Just grab Felicia and bring her back. It’s gonna be easy.

Chapter 2

“He looks so natural.”

I glanced at the old woman, so properly dressed in black lace, and wondered how anyone could think that a man in a casket looks natural.
 

Jonathan Flynn looked dead. The undertaker had done his best, I suppose, but makeup can’t capture the look of life, that “natural” look that people like the little old woman in black swear they see.

The heavy smell of flowers permeated the little chapel, adding to the gloom. Mourners filed by the casket. Most of them were business associates of Jilly Evans, Flynn’s foster-father and one of my oldest friends. Some I recognized as Jonathan Flynn’s friends and competitors, great and near-great race car drivers. They were a curious bunch. Each man shared an obvious, common trait—a detachment, a denial of the finality of the funeral rites. This was something they had to do now and then when a friend made a mistake, but it certainly did not apply to them. In this instance, it applied to Flynn. Next week or next month perhaps, it would apply to one of the other drivers in their elite circle—but never to Number One.

Andy McGuire, Jonathan Flynn’s friend and car owner, sat alone, well away from the open casket. His head was bowed, his shoulders stooped. He was the picture of a broken man. Andy had tried, but was ultimately unable to bring himself to walk to Flynn’s casket and look down at the face of his dead friend.
 

I sighed and looked around. The church had an odd effect on me. I found myself examining the high beamed ceiling. I noted dust on the pews, and a piece of lint on the collar of an old gentleman who sat in the pew in front of me. I found myself wondering why Catholic funerals are so long.

 
I snapped back to the present when I realized mourners were beginning to leave. At the front of the church, Jilly led Vi, his wife of many years, to the casket. She looked very frail. I stood and quickly walked up next to her.
 

She never noticed me. Her beautiful seventy-year-old face sagged with a weariness I had never seen before. I watched her go through the pain of saying farewell to her son.
 

Leaning against Jilly, she closed her eyes. When she opened them again, a wistful smile appeared on her face.

“Oh, Jilly,” she said in a voice so soft I could barely hear her, “I just can’t say good-bye.” Her voice trailed off and she stood there with tears streaming down her cheeks.

Jilly wore a dazed expression as he stared at his son’s face with horrible fascination. He patted his wife’s arm, shaking his head in disbelief as he did so.

Finally, Vi leaned over her dead son, her gloved hands resting on the edge of the casket. As she kissed him, tears dropped onto his face and she dabbed them away with her hankie. She straightened, then stood for a moment staring down at the marble face, not wanting to leave.

Jilly swallowed, then touched his son’s cheek. His hand recoiled; he took an involuntary step back from the casket.
 

I sympathized with him. I knew only too well the eerie feeling of cold flesh.

Vi turned and looked up at me, surprise on her face. “Jack, oh thank you for coming. I … we appreciate it very much.”
 

She turned toward her husband. I caught Jilly’s eye and made a “Come along,
please
” motion with my head, and with a quiet sigh of relief saw that he comprehended. He straightened, and a bit of color came back into his ashen face. He put his arm around his wife, and together we walked slowly away from the casket.

Outside, I accompanied them down the great wide stone steps leading to Jilly’s limousine, which was parked behind a black hearse. The line of cars in the funeral procession stretched two city blocks.

Jilly’s driver opened the rear door of the limo, and steadied Vi as she slowly got in and sat down. The blue funeral flag on the car’s antenna popped in the wind. I touched the driver’s shoulder to let him know that I would take care of closing the door. But before I did that, I leaned down and looked in. Vi sat quietly, her mind elsewhere. “Jilly,” I said softly, “I’ll take care of Felicia.”

His face took on a shocked expression, and for a moment I thought he was going to burst into tears. “Oh my God, Jack … I forgot about her!”

He was close to losing it. “It’s okay, Jilly, just look after Vi, okay?”

My old friend nodded, his face stricken. He took one of Vi’s gloved hands in both of his and began the impossible task of trying to comfort her.

I closed the limo door and stood there for a moment. Then I took a deep breath and turned and walked back up the stone steps.

I walked into the church, which was now eerily quiet. Felicia Martinez stood by the casket, a peaceful look on her face. Her fingertips trailed over Flynn’s face. She touched his eyes and traced the bridge of his nose. Her fingertips paused on his lips. A slight smile appeared on her face, and she gently caressed his hair, as if remembering some long-ago act of love. Then she leaned over and kissed him, a gentle good-bye kiss.

She looked up at me. Her eyes were wet, but she was in there. “He’s safe now, until I can be with him again.”

We made the somber trip to the quiet little cemetery, just a few miles from Jilly and Vi’s home, and there we buried Jonathan Flynn. Afterward, we drove away, a limousine full of people with nothing to say, each of us lost in our own thoughts.

Chapter 3

As Jilly’s black limo swept us down the streets of Reno, I was filled with misgivings about accepting his invitation to go back to their home for coffee. If it were me, I’d have to be alone. But I had a feeling my old friend wanted to talk to me about something very important.
 

Jilly Evans had enrolled in the brutal school of the underworld forty years earlier, a hungry, tough young guy determined to make it to the top. He got there in record time, climbing over God only knows how many dead bodies—figuratively and perhaps literally—in the process. Somewhere along the line he had gone legitimate, or at least semi-legitimate. Now he lives a safe, comfortable life as a member of The Establishment.

When we got back to Jilly’s mansion, he managed to talk Vi into going to her room to rest. I hugged her and tried to say something meaningful, but couldn’t find the words. She patted my hand, and quietly left the room.

I turned to Jilly. He stood in the middle of his living room, a drink in one trembling hand, eyes brimming with tears. He was a stocky, muscular man with a bulldog look emphasized by heavy jowls. His hair had receded long ago, leaving patches of gray on the sides of his head.
 

The words poured out of him as he paced: “Jonathan and Felicia fell in love years ago. He was one of the top drivers on the Grand Prix circuit, and she was a beautiful Puerto Rican entertainer with a great voice. She was making a big name for herself in Vegas. Jonathan loved her … God, how he loved that woman.”
 

He paused and swallowed hard. “She loved Jonathan, too, but his profession just terrified her.”

Telling the story took its toll, but he gamely went on: “Jonathan demolished his car during a practice session several months ago. He wasn’t badly hurt, but for her it was the last straw. She told him she loved him, but couldn’t stand the waiting and wondering and … she left him.” Jilly shook his head, “They were both devastated.”

He cleared his throat and stared into the fire, fighting back the tears. I stirred the hell out of my drink as I listened, wishing I were somewhere else.

Jilly’s voice weakened as he spoke: “Jonathan visited us for a few days after they broke up. He had a commercial to shoot, and couldn’t stay long. You met him, Jack, at a little dinner party we had here.” He stared at the floor. “That’s the last time we saw him alive.”
 

My old friend turned to the bar and poured another drink. “Jonathan was the Grand Prix Champion last year, as you know,” he said. “But when Felicia left, it took the heart out of him.”
 

Jilly gave me a long look, but his mind seemed elsewhere. Finally, he went on: “He decided to retire, but Andy McGuire persuaded him to drive one more season for him. He promised Jonathan a great racing machine, but it just didn’t work out that way. They had a terrible season; I don’t know all the reasons why. Jonathan’s desire to win might have been less intense after losing Felicia … but I’ll never know that for sure.

Jilly turned his back to me and stared into the fire again, trying to hide his emotions. He continued, but spoke so softly I had to strain to hear him. “He had to see her again, so he flew to Vegas. What he found wasn’t pretty. Felicia had gone downhill—way downhill.”

Jilly took a deep, ragged breath and turned to face me. “Harry Varchetta, the owner of the hotel she sang for, had set his sights on her.” Jilly’s eyes narrowed, and he clinched his jaw. When he continued, there was bitterness in his voice. “Varchetta ‘befriended’ her, gave her a ‘little something’ to ease her pain, make her forget. She was shaken, sick at heart—and vulnerable.”

Jilly took a long pull at his drink. “Once he had her hooked, he made damn sure he kept her that way. Later, Jonathan discovered that Felicia had married Varchetta, but she had no recollection of the ceremony. She was a shell of the woman he loved, a virtual prisoner in Varchetta’s hotel.”

Muscles twitched in Jilly’s face and his thick, pale lips trembled. “Varchetta discovered the two of them talking, and he went crazy. He ordered one of his goons to work Jonathan over. Fortunately, Jonathan had the presence of mind to warn Varchetta that I wouldn’t want to see him hurt.”

At my questioning look, Jilly said, “Varchetta’s a real bastard. He and I are old enemies. We go way back … way back. He’s scared shitless of me, and he has every right to be.”

Jilly stood there, drink in hand, looking for all the world like something out of an old Edward G. Robinson movie, a mob leader planning revenge on an enemy—and I suspect that was more-or-less what was running through his mind. But the years had mellowed him. He choked down the rest of his drink and leaned against the fireplace, staring down into the flames. “That saved Jonathan from a beating, maybe worse.”
 

Jilly cleared his throat; he was determined to finish his story. “Toward the end of the season Jonathan walked into his apartment in Monterey, and there she was, standing in the bedroom door, scared and sick. Somehow she’d found the courage to slip away from Varchetta. When Jonathan called me, he said they would come back to visit after his next race—Las Vegas.”

His face crumpled and for a moment I thought he was going to cry openly. I stood there, feeling totally helpless. The last thing I wanted to do was embarrass him, but I guess I knew in his grief he was beyond that.

He finally went on: “The two of them flew to Las Vegas. Jon checked into a downtown hotel under an assumed name, because he feared for her safety. She still couldn’t stand to watch him drive, so he left her in the hotel room the following morning while he did some tire testing at the track.”