The Given (16 page)

The prices had changed in the ensuing years, but the decor had not, and as Grif stared at the mahogany wainscoting and deep velvet wallpaper dotted with landscapes of the Old West, he felt himself being dragged by the collar right back into the past. The burgundy carpeting muffled even Kit's heels as they sidled into the bar. Tuck-and-roll booths could be seen lining the walls, offering both intimacy and a clear view of the entire dining room. The waitstaff, all male and tuxedoed, looked like they'd been there for almost as long as Grif had been dead.

“My God,” Grif said, turning around. “Some things never change.”

He glanced at Kit, who was watching him carefully. So the old-school atmosphere wasn't a mistake. It'd get Zicaro talking, yes, but after the events of the past day, and in a world where everything changed too quickly, it was nice to take refuge in a place that had roots.

“Thanks,” he said softly.

“Don't thank me,” she said, and smiled sweetly. “You're paying for it.”

The maître d' approached. “Reservations?”

Grif peeled off a bill that made even this jaded man's eyes go wide. “Table for three.”

Kit immediately corrected him. “Four, actually,” she said, and gestured back to the entrance. Grif turned just as Dennis Carlisle spotted him, and they both scowled. The intimate dining room no longer seemed as homey.

“What?” Kit said, as Dennis joined them. “You called him when we were out at Sunset.”

“I called the cops.”

“I'm still a cop in my off-hours,” Dennis reminded Grif, his gaze almost shining it was so hard.

“And a friend, remember?” Kit said, voice gone soft. Grif's eyes flashed between the two of them, though he relaxed a bit when he saw Dennis doing the same with Kit and him.

And Dennis
was
off duty, his jeans cuffed high, T-shirt sleeves rolled, hair now slicked with enough grease that the candlelit tables might prove a danger. He, too, looked like he'd just walked out of the fifties, though the maître d' didn't seem to appreciate it as much.

Dennis caught the look. “I brought a jacket,” he said before the man could speak, and he shrugged into a sports coat while Kit nudged Grif. He sighed, dug into his wallet for another bill, and handed it over.

“This way.” The maître d' led them to a corner booth where Zicaro shunted aside his wheelchair and squeezed in between Dennis and Kit. Oblivious to the tension at the table, he proceeded to pore over the timeless menu, face stretched in glee. “Look at that! Beef and spuds!”

Grif and Dennis, seated across from each other, propped their menus in front of their faces.

“So,” Grif finally said, eyes trained on his menu. “Still like the beat?”

“Why wouldn't I?” Dennis replied flatly. Kit swallowed, almost audibly, and bent her head over her menu, too. “Every day is different. You never know if you're going to get a domestic disturbance, a routine traffic stop. An anonymous tip about a dead woman in a high-rise apartment.”

Dropping his menu, Grif speared a look at Kit, and this time Dennis's gaze, too, stuck.

“It's
Dennis
,” she said, with a lift of her slight shoulders, causing Grif to sigh and pinch the bridge of his nose.

“So are you going to tell me about it?” Dennis asked, flicking his napkin to his lap.

“We all are,” Kit said, but didn't look him in the eye.

Nope, Grif thought, as the waiter poured water and brought bread. They hadn't been seeing each other. He'd have felt good about that except that his relief came at Dennis's expense. And what had the poor sap done, really? He'd fallen for Kit, he'd taken a bullet for her and almost died because of it. Nothing Grif wouldn't have done himself.

Except that he hadn't.

“And how's the head?” Grif asked, more softly, jerking his chin at Dennis's right ear. The hair had grown back in the months since his hospital stay, but a bright red scar still peeked from underneath.

“Pretty good,” Dennis admitted, unconsciously touching the scar. “The doc gave me a clean bill of health. Said it was a miracle I didn't die.”

Grif nodded. Miracles were commonplace when one was possessed by the Pure. Even if the angel was only using the body to manipulate his environment, and, he thought, looking at Kit, those in it.

“I'm glad, Dennis,” Grif finally said, lowering his menu and nodding once. “Really. You saved Kit's life, you did it square. It was the bravest damned thing I've ever seen.”

And just like that, the tension eased from the room. Dennis's hunched shoulders dropped, and the hardness left his gaze so that he looked both younger and more himself. Kit let out an audible sigh next to Grif.

“And now that we've got that settled,” Kit said, which was clearly what she'd intended all along, “let's eat.”

CHAPTER NINE

B
reaking bread with another person went a long way toward smoothing over old hurts. What started out as a tense reunion between Kit and the two men who had most defined her personal life over the past year gradually eased into an amicable evening. Following up that broken bread with seared filets; fat, round wines; and tableside Bananas Foster settled both bellies and old grudges for good, and Kit smiled to herself as she leaned back in the booth, mentally patting herself on the back.

The stop at the Golden Steer had been a spontaneous but inspired bit of theater. However, her gut had told her they all needed it. There were bad things coming in the next few days—Kit could feel it even without Barbara's death or Grif's sudden reappearance in her life—and her gut also whispered that she was going to need both Grif and Dennis working as a team if she was to survive the forces she'd put into motion by visiting Barbara in the first place. There were more balls to juggle now that her unlikely team also included Zicaro and Marin, but she'd acted as ringmaster in this sort of circus before.

And if grilled meat in the belly and burned sugar in the air were needed to keep the lions tame, then so be it.

Otherwise, it was a hell of an almost-last supper.

“Schwear to God,” Zicaro was saying, spilling gin over the lip of his martini glass for a half-a-dozenth time, “I saw Monroe sitting right in this very booth. Saw her with my own eyes. She was with DiMaggio, though they were already divorced. And she was throwing her head back, opening her mouth with that wide, beautiful smile. Showing her neck . . .” He threw his head back to demonstrate. Grif and Dennis both cringed. “But when she stopped laughing with him, man, she was looking right at me.”

“Bullshit,” Grif snorted, looking relaxed for the first time since Kit had seen him. He'd taken off his jacket and hat, and had one arm flung over the back of the red leather booth, his shirtsleeves rolled, candlelight sparkling in his stubble. “You were even a scrawnier sonna bitch then than you are now, and Monroe liked 'em beefy.”

“How do you even know that, Shaw?” Dennis asked, while Zicaro scowled into his drink. Fortunately, Dennis was no longer entirely sober, either, and scoffed as he said it.

“I know that because this old stringer was a reckless fabulist. He'd catch scent of a story and run it down like a bloodhound, often to the same effect.”

“I told the stories everyone else was afraid to tell!” Zicaro said defensively, then waved his spotted hands in the air with practiced drama. “I brought things that were festering in darkness right into the glare of the neon-splattered night!”

Grif raised one dark eyebrow. Dennis just continued staring at Zicaro as he rolled a toothpick between his fingers before turning to Grif.

“Is that why you're carting him around hours after you were supposed to have returned him to an assisted-care facility where a man the size of a freight train is waiting for him?”

Zicaro, belly full and tongue loose, came to life. Bringing his fist down on the table, and spewing a string of profanity that was nothing short of astonishing, Zicaro alone managed to bring Dennis up to speed. Kit listened, sipping her after-dinner cappuccino.

“Lemme get this straight,” Dennis said, throwing his arm over the back of the booth when Zicaro had finished. “You were taken from your room in the middle of the night, questioned to the point of exhaustion, and then relocated and held against your will by the men I met today?”

“Poor guy,” Kit said, earning a soulful look from Zicaro.

“And they were questioning you about Barbara? Of the old DiMartino gang?”

Zicaro's thin lips pursed into a solid line at the doubt underscoring Dennis's words. Sure, the criminal element was alive and well in Vegas. But Italian mobsters? Those days had died with Spilotro . . . and Dennis said as much.

“Here's what you greenhorns can't seem to understand,” Zicaro said, and hiccupped before he continued. “A made man can't just jump into normal life like the rest of us schleps. They operated outside of normal for so long that living by the law would be akin to living on the moon. And that goes for the women, too. The woman who died yesterday was Barbara DiMartino long before she was Barbara McCoy.”

“So?”

“You don't know anything about the DiMartinos, do you?”

Dennis shrugged.

“They ran the Marquis, best hotel and casino in town. But they weren't the only outfit here.”

“The Salernos owned Vegas Village,” Grif put in.

“And old Nick Salerno was after more,” Zicaro said, nodding. “He began running chip hustlers and card counters through the Marquis, bragged about it, too. That's when things got nasty.”

“What happened?” asked Dennis.

“It was never proven, but rumor was Sal DiMartino retaliated by donning a ski mask, walking into the Vegas Village at the height of midday, and holding up the cage himself. But unlike old man Salerno, he didn't flaunt his take. Instead, he bought his wife, Theresa, a gift with it.”

Dennis held up a hand. “Wait, I thought Barbara was his wife.”

“Theresa was his first wife,” Grif told him. “Love of his life.”

“She died in nineteen sixty-one,” confirmed Zicaro. “He married Barbara in 'sixty-two.”

“Fast,” commented Kit.

“Can I finish my story here?” Zicaro said, glaring until the table was silenced. “So Sal spends every stolen dollar on this necklace he had designed for Theresa. Lemme tell you, it could rival anything in the Queen Mother's jewels. Three perfect diamonds, each the size of a silver dollar. He then parades her around in it at the city's annual Fall Festival. Really stuck it to the Salernos, right in public. As you can imagine, this doesn't go over well with Nick. So Sal DiMartino gets a phone call. ‘You take something precious from me, I'll take something precious from you.' “ Eyes gleaming, Zicaro leaned forward. “The call comes at the exact same time DiMartino's twelve-year-old niece, Mary Margaret, is abducted from his front yard. I believe this is where you come in.”

Feeling Dennis's frown on him, Grif just shrugged. “Sure, I'll tell the rest of the story, but it's real basic. The Salernos kidnapped little Mary Margaret. The DiMartinos got her back. End of story.”

“Except it's not,” Zicaro argued. “These families are like the Montagues and the Capulets . . . except for the lost love. There's none of that. But there is a code.”

Grif nodded. “You don't mess with a Family's children.”

“So the feud hinges on this: The DiMartinos say the Salernos planned the attack, but the Salernos maintain that someone inside the DiMartino home told them there was a way to get their diamonds back. She—and they were clear it was a woman—told them when to be in front of the DiMartino estate. She said ‘a little doll' would appear, and to take it. So Mary Margaret showed up, and they did.”

“Who did the DiMartinos trust with their children?” Kit asked, wondering about Barbara. If she married Sal DiMartino within a year of Theresa's death, then she'd been around before then.

“Just one person. Gina Alessi, Mary Margaret's longtime nanny. But Gina disappeared right after Mary Margaret's return, and for years everyone thought Sal showed her the back door . . . and not in a good way.”

“Ugh.” Kit made a face.

“But Barbara didn't think so,” Grif muttered, closing his eyes to better see the picture that was beginning to emerge.

“Now you're using your noggin',” Zicaro said, tapping on his own head and poking himself in the ear. “She was on a cold rant the night she came to see me. Going on and on about Gina. Said she was back in town and that she had one of the diamonds all these years.”

“And Barbara wanted it.”

“No,” Zicaro said simply. “Barbara was after the other two.”

“So why'd she come to you?” Dennis asked.

“Because of one of my old stories. Of a map that's still out there,” Zicaro said, licking his lips and leaning forward. “It supposedly shows the location of the diamonds. A literal buried treasure. Anyone wanna take a guess as to who she thought had that map?”

“Shit,” Kit whispered, head whipping to Grif.

“Ol' Griffin Shaw,” Dennis said, aping the way Justin and Larry had so knowingly said his name earlier that day.

Zicaro toasted Grif, and then drained the rest of his gin. “Good ol' Griffin Shaw.”

J
ustin called exactly four minutes after the appointed time, and the man—who'd been pacing his room, nearly ready to howl at the full moon—answered immediately.

“The cop's name is Dennis Carlisle,” Justin said without being asked. It was a good sign. He still knew how things worked. Despite the events out at Sunset, he was still aligned with the man's greater plans. “He's a longtime friend of Craig's, and was a detective up until a few months ago.”

So he had some skills. “Demoted?” the man asked, wondering why a detective would end up pounding the streets again.