Foxy Roxy Part 18

He dropped his spoon and reached under the sofa cus.h.i.+ons.

Roxy pointed the tip of her baseball bat at his nose. "Don't do it, Jimmy."

Jimmy swallowed his mouthful of SpaghettiOs and eased his hand out from inside the cus.h.i.+on.

His brother-swinelike down to the stubble on his double chin-sat still on the sofa. He had a guttural whine. "Did you have to bust down my door?"

"It was already busted, Vincent." She jerked her head at Henry. "This is a guy from the DA's office, Henry Whatsit. He wants to know about the bribe you paid me."

Henry endeavored to look official and tried to remember if state statutes included a mandatory sentence for such an offense.

Vincent sat up straight, and the bulge of his hairy belly popped out from under the bottom of his sweats.h.i.+rt. "That wasn't no bribe," he said to Henry. "She tricked me. She pretended she worked for the city, that's all."

Roxy said, "And you're in the habit of bribing city officials?"

"In the habit-? Hey, no, man, that's not what I meant. She's doing it again, see?"

"Take it easy," Henry said. "n.o.body's accusing anybody."

"The h.e.l.l I'm not," Roxy said. "I want him arrested."

"For what?" Vincent demanded.

"Influence peddling," Roxy shot back. "It's a felony, right? And you're already on probation, Vincent. This could land you in jail."

"What the h.e.l.l are you talking about?" Jimmy asked.

"I'd like a little clarification myself," Henry said.

"Here's the deal." Roxy bulldozed them all. "You tell us what the story is with Kaylee Falcone, and we let the whole matter slide."

"Who?"

"The chick," Jimmy clarified. "Hyde's girlfriend."

"You took some shots at her yesterday," Roxy said. "Remember? Down in the Strip. Only you missed. Or did you just plan on scaring her?"

"We don't know nothing about that," Jimmy said, trying to bluff.

"And afterward, you tried to shoot me and Henry here. We were in the car in the cemetery."

"We didn't!"

"Where'd the new TV come from? You win the lottery? No, somebody paid you to shoot at Kaylee Falcone."

"It wasn't me," Vincent insisted. "I had nothing to do with it. All I did was drive the car."

"Jesus," Jimmy said. "Do you have to be such a moron?"

He hurled his can of SpaghettiOs at his brother's head. The glancing blow prompted Vincent to throw a punch, connecting with Jimmy's upper lip, splitting open the sore. In an instant, the two were pounding each other. Vincent wrestled Jimmy off the sofa onto the floor in a splatter of tomato sauce.

Grunting and punching, they rolled clear of the sofa, whereupon Roxy stepped over the two brothers and dug under the cus.h.i.+ons until she came up with a handgun. She picked it up by the barrel and smoothly handed it off to Henry.

Before he knew what was happening, he was standing there holding a gun on the two brothers.

Roxy started kicking them and yelling. "Cut it out, you idiots! Stop it! I'm gonna bash both your heads in!"

Eventually, Vincent sat up, dazed and rubbing his ribs where Roxy's boots had done some damage. Jimmy clutched his bleeding lip and cursed. His eyes streamed tears of pain. Then they both noticed that Henry had a gun on them, and they fell silent.

"That's better," Roxy said. "Now come clean, the two of you. I know you do work for hire. You've been auditioning for Carmine for years. It was the two of you who tried to cap Duke Slansky two years ago. Everybody knows that."

Vinnie stared at the muzzle of the gun. "It wasn't-"

"Shut up. Everybody but the cops knows you did it, so don't bother lying. Who else is stupid enough to use Duke's credit card at a gas station with security cameras-except you, Jimmy? You were just lucky everybody in your family covered for you when the TV stations ran the tape. Tell us who hired you to shoot Kaylee Falcone."

Jimmy was mesmerized by the gun, too. "I didn't-"

Roxy kicked him again, then put both hands on the grip of the baseball bat and prepared to hit a line drive.

"We weren't supposed to shoot her," Vincent quickly confessed. "Just scare her."

"Who bought your new TV?"

Vincent shook his head stubbornly and didn't answer.

Lightly, Roxy tapped Jimmy upside his head. "How about it, Jimbo? You want to know what it feels like to have your brains all over the floor?"

Henry raised the muzzle of the gun a little higher. "Tell the lady a good story, okay?"

Sullen, Jimmy said, "It was Hyde himself."

"What?" Roxy said, "You mean Trey?"

"No." Jimmy cut his eyes at Henry. "The old man."

"Are you lying? Because I'll bash-"

"I'm not lying, b.i.t.c.h. It was the dead guy."

"Why would he want to intimidate his own girlfriend?"

Jimmy was pouting. "How should we know?"

"And if he hired you, why did you wait until he was dead to follow through?"

"He paid us a grand to shoot at her, that's all. We took the money, so we figured we better do the job."

Roxy laughed. "A grand? That's it? What are you, discount hit men?"

"Roxy," Henry said. Taunting seemed pointless at the moment, and he could see her getting out of control. The circ.u.mstances had pumped her up. Even her voice was different-harsher, louder. Any minute she was going to splatter somebody's brains all over the room.

"Yeah, okay." She held the bat loosely at her side. "When were you hired? The night Julius Hyde was killed?"

"We had nothing to do with that," Jimmy said quickly. "He hired us before. I dunno-a couple of weeks ago, maybe We met him down on the river, and he said-"

"Along the river?" Roxy asked. "Where?"

"An old steel mill." Jimmy looked at his fingers to see how badly he was bleeding. "Down off Butler Street. He said he owned the place. My uncle worked there twenty years."

Vincent said, "Who's the blabbermouth now?"

"Shut up," Jimmy said. "You got us into this in the first place."

"Did not."

"Did, too."

"Moron!"

"a.s.shole!"

Suddenly they were beating up each other again. Rolling on the floor, kicking and throwing punches, gouging at each other's eyes.

"Oh, h.e.l.l," Roxy said.

She swung the baseball bat and hit the aquarium. Gla.s.s smashed, and then the huge snake began to uncoil into the room.

She dropped the bat and walked out of the house. Henry bolted after her, hearing the screams of the Delaney brothers as they scrambled to escape their pet.

In the car, Roxy was breathing hard, as if trying to get her temper under control. "Jesus, I hate snakes. But you did good work in there, Paxton. I'm impressed."

"Thanks. You're no slouch, either. Setting the snake loose was a nice touch. They'll be busy for a while." As his heartbeat returned to normal, Henry fastened his seat belt. "But are you sure it was wise to take their gun?"

"I figure removing guns from the possession of idiots is a public service." She started the car. "It should happen more often. Got a handkerchief? Use it to wipe off your fingerprints. Mine, too. Then put it under the seat for now."

"A wise precaution." Henry did a thorough job of erasing his partic.i.p.ation and stowed the gun as she requested. "What was that business about the steel mill?"

She frowned as she pulled out into the street. "I dunno. Something rang a bell. Kaylee mentioned a building. She said Julius gave her one."

Caught off guard, Henry said, "He did? Officially? With a deed and everything?"

"I don't know the details. But she claims he showed her a building and said he was giving it to her. I a.s.sume she means the old steel mill the Hydes used to operate. You know anything about that, being the family retainer?"

"The family did own a steel mill down on the Allegheny. It went out of business years ago."

"Believe me, I know that part. A lot of people in my neighborhood were put out of work back then. You want to see ma.s.s exodus? A spike in domestic violence? Drinking? Drugs? Fire everybody at the same time." She darted between a school bus and a slow-moving Buick, driving the car like a jet fighter.

Henry said, "If his will names his girlfriend, I can think of a few family members who'd have a motive to kill Julius. They wouldn't want such valuable property to leave the family."

"Why would he pay the Delaneys to shoot at her? Not just shoot her dead?"

"Maybe he regretted giving love tokens to her. Wanted to convince her to give back his gifts?"

"And he decided to bully her to get them back? That doesn't make sense."

"No, it doesn't."

"I mean, it's totally nuts. They're lying. I'd go back now to find out, except the snake is probably still loose Hyde's wife's still in the picture, right?"

"Unless she goes to jail for torching the house."

Roxy gave a wry laugh. "Anybody who can afford the right lawyer can stay out of jail these days."

"Miss Abruzzo, your prejudices are showing again."

She stopped for a traffic light and grabbed a pack of gum from her jeans. She thumbed out a stick and offered it to Henry. "You don't know anything about me."

He accepted the gum. She peeled a stick for herself and folded it into her mouth. He could see her thinking. He realized his own prejudices were showing, too. He hadn't expected her to be smart. And despite her rough edges, he was starting to like her.

She said, "Tell me about the Hyde family politics."

"Have you heard of attorney-client privilege?"

She ignored that. "Julius Hyde wasn't a bad dude. He liked his pleasures, that's all, and he could afford them. Why would somebody want to b.u.mp him off? He never really harmed anybody."

"Depends on what you call harm. I just learned he tried to stage his own mother's accidental death."

"Oh, yeah? That's not nice."

"No, it isn't. And in addition to physical harm, say, done with a baseball bat, there's financial harm."

"Financial harm. Twenty years ago, there would have been a list of guys who'd want to kill the man who closed the steel mill. Not now."

"But Julius never ran any of the Hyde businesses. His father was the steel magnate. His brother runs Hyde Communications."

"What are you saying? Wait-when Julius died, what happens? Do his kids get his money right away? Do not pa.s.s go, collect your two hundred dollars?"

"It's his share of his mother's estate that's got the most value. And his share doesn't necessarily go to his children. Julius has two brothers, plus two sisters. Don't forget about them." Henry couldn't afford to forget about the dragon sisters. They demanded their fair share. "And n.o.body gets money immediately. All the lawyers will start revising the estate plan."

"Aren't you the lawyer?"

"In a family like this, everybody has his own lawyer. Plus shared lawyers. And lawyers to watch the other lawyers."

"What about more girlfriends? He thought he could get away with anything, right?" Roxy asked. "A guy like Julius only needs a checkbook and a v.i.a.g.r.a prescription to keep a lot of women happy."

"As far as I know, he had the manicurist, that's it. But of course, I can't be sure."

"What does his wife say? If anyone knows the truth about that, it's probably the wife."