Di Filippo - The Deadly Kiss-Off

Copyright 2019 by Paul Di Filippo
E-book published in 2019 by Blackstone Publishing
Cover design by Djamika Smith
Book design by Kathryn Galloway English
All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
The characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
Trade e-book ISBN 978-1-5384-4097-1
Library e-book ISBN 978-1-5384-4096-4
Fiction / Thrillers / Suspense
CIP data for this book is available from the Library of Congress
Blackstone Publishing
31 Mistletoe Rd.
Ashland, OR 97520
www.BlackstonePublishing.com

To Deborah, who inspires noirish thoughts.
And to my siblings, Cathy, Frank, and Bob, who form a whole mob on their own.

PROLOGUE

The fake bills turned up in my wallet the morning after an extended debauch.

Counting with bleary eyes the contents of my nice Burberry leather bifold (a present from my girl), I immediately spotted the bogus bills, which were of a quality achievable, perhaps, by a couple of nine-year-olds using a process of Silly Putty color transfers. I spat out a few choice phrases, then replayed the previous evening in my head.

Feeling lonely with my woman away, I had decided to treat myself to a solo night on the town. With over five hundred thousand dollars to my namenot quite as much as I once dreamed of having, but not chicken feed, eitherI could afford it.

To avoid leaving a potentially embarrassing credit card trail that I might have to explain later, I took out a wad of cash from the bankmostly hundreds. So far, so legit. No fakes likely from that respectable source.

My first stop after the bank had been my favorite restaurant, Jerusalem & Galilee, a high-tone seafood place. There I disbursed only cashslightly over three hundred with tip, for some Malpeque oysters, a bottle of Bollinger La Grande Anne Brut, and a large trencher of jumbo lump crab cakesand did not receive any bills back. Likewise for the strip club I visited next, Captains Curvaceous, where the interior decor resembled a Sponge Bobthemed stage set intended to background the Adult Video Awards. So it had to be my next and last stop where I was slipped the bad bills. And it made sense.

Around 2:00 a.m., after several expensive alcohol-abetted lap dances with two ladies named Perfidia and Celestina had left me feeling moderately degenerate but hormonally unsatisfied, I had been pretty woozy but not ready to call it an evening. So I headed to an exclusive shot house I knew from my days as a louche young lawyer.

The after-hours place was still there, behind the ordinary facade of a building that might have been a showroom for vinyl replacement windows. I gained entrance with a fifty-dollar solicitation to compensate for not being known to the doorman.

Inside, I discovered that the establishment had expanded from mere illegal bar service, adding gambling tables, complete with chips and croupiers. I bought a stack, got busy at the roulette wheel, and somehow came out a thousand dollars ahead. I cashed out and hailed a ride home.

The bad Benjamins had to be part of my winnings.

The night of the day I discovered my loss, I went back to the blind pig and buttonholed the manager, a slim young white guy with bad skin, dressed in a Gucci tracksuit. The shaved sides of his head contrasted with a shock of blond hair above that would have done credit to a North Korean dictator. About the time I was in prison, he was no doubt mourning the dissolution of the Beastie Boys while doodling heavy-metal insignia during study hall.

We conducted our conversation in a secluded anteroom, out of the customers earshot.

I need to see the owner.

The kids voice was way too high and creaky to deliver the requisite tone of managerial competence and authority. What for?

Last night, you guys paid me part of my winnings with a couple of fake hundreds.

His eyes narrowed. Oh, yeah? Who says?

This sort of stupid, mulish hostility was no way to run a customer-service window.

If you had anything between those ears to stop my words from going unimpeded from one side to the other, youd know I just said it. Now, let me see your boss.

All right, smart-ass, you just wait here.

He left and returned with two guys in jeans and hoodies who could have been cast as Russian weightlifters from some future cyborg Olympics. They quickly bookended me, marched me into a back office notable for its drab utility, and took up positions on either side of the closed door.

Behind a beat-up gray-green Steelcase desk adorned with a condensation-flecked Big Gulp cup sat a figure I recognized: Vincent Weeping Ear Santo.

Santo, who looked like a dissolute, boozy Friar Tuck in a frowsy off-the-rack suit, was the acknowledged head mobster of our fair city. Hailed before judges and juries at least a score of times during his career, he had always managed to beat all chargesoften thanks to the convenient disappearance or amnesia or stammering recantation by key witnesses.

Suddenly, being compensated for my two-hundred-dollar loss did not seem so vitally important to me. But it was too late simply to back out.

Santo eyed me like a TSA worker who has spotted an ISIS loyalty card in someones plastic tray of surrendered possessions. Then he said, You know who I am?

Luckily, I knew that Santo did not enjoy being addressed by his abjured nickname (derived from a childhood ailment that had fostered an attitude of brutal reprisal against all mockers, real or imagined). Nor did he care for Vincent or Vince or Vinny.

Youre Vin Santo.

Very knowledgeable. Nice, very nice. And I know who you are. Youre Glen McClinton.

That surprised me. Right. But how ?

How is easy. Your face was plastered everywhere, thanks to your recent little crazy-ass dustup. But you should be asking why .

Why you bothered to even remember my name?

Exactly. So I will tell you. It is because you took down Barnaby Nancarrow, who was getting to be like a thorn, or even a small, dirty, filed-down-toothbrush-handle shiv, in my side, trespassing on many of my trademark ventures.

Barnaby Nancarrow was the sleazy real estate guy who had been the target of a scam that three coconspirators and I had runa deal we dubbed the Big Get-Even. We came out of it not with the premium prize we had aimed for, but with some consolation dough of a million apiecenow reduced by taxes and expenses to my current assets.

That we did, I said. I dont think he will see a parole board for about twenty years, minimum.

Santo canted his large butt to one side, to dig in the pant pocket of the upraised hip. He withdrew a roll of greenbacks that would have sent a lesser man to the chiropractor.

You did me a real solid there, Glen, and I am going to show my appreciation. Now, my manager tells me you somehow left here yesterday with some bogus dough. I am truly sorry for that. We try not to burden our good local customers with such trash. The bad papers supposed to be reserved strictly for obnoxious hicks from out of town. But nobody here knew your face. So, what was it? Two hundred?