BORGO PRESS BOOKS BY JOHN GLASBY
The Dark Boatman: Tales of Horror and the Cthulhu Mythos
The Lonely Shadows: Tales of Horror and the Cthulhu Mythos
The Mystery of the Crater: A Science Fiction Novel
The Johnny Merak Classic Crime Novels
1. Rackets, Inc.
2. The Savage City
3. A Time for Murder
COPYRIGHT INFORMATION
Copyright © 2002 by John Glasby
Published by Wildside Press LLC
www.wildsidebooks.com
DEDICATION
For Edmund
CHAPTER ONE
It was a little after six in the morning when I turned off the freeway and swung the old Merc towards downtown LA. A misty November morning with a thin drizzle smearing the windscreen, making it difficult to see clearly.
The telephone call that had woken me nearly an hour earlier had come from Sam Rizzio, Carlos Galecci’s right-hand man, and I knew better than to ignore it.
I’d met Galecci for the first time three days before in a little Italian restaurant well off the main thoroughfares, with two of his bruisers sitting a couple of tables away. They’d made themselves as inconspicuous as possible, but they still stood out like sore thumbs.
Galecci was still one of the top men in the Organization if you believed everything you read in the papers. But to look at him you’d scarcely credit it. Short, going to fat in middle age, he looked mister average nice guy until you looked into his eyes. Cold and hard like those of a snake, they drilled right through you.
The conversation, which had lasted no more than fifteen minutes, was mainly one-sided. He did the talking and I did the listening. The gist of it was that he believed somebody was out to kill him, and he wanted me to dig into things and find out who it was.
I knew that with his money and connections he could have hired the best private eye in town, maybe the best in the state. The fact that I’d been a small-time hood myself, until I’d got a lucky break and went straight, didn’t seem to bother him in the least. In fact, it seemed to make him more determined to hire me.
When he’d offered a thousand dollar retainer plus generous expenses, I’d figured—what the hell? At that rate, I’d take the Devil’s money so long as it didn’t land me in jail again. After all, I had my license to think of.
Now this unexpected phone call and here I was, driving up to Galecci’s place at this ungodly hour of the morning and wondering what I’d let myself in for.
I’d never been in this part of town before, but it looked just like hundreds of others I’d known all my life. Sleazy bars, nightclubs and girlie shows: all blue, red, and yellow strip lights still showing through the mist and rain. Shadows moving silently along the sidewalks; the night people you never saw during the day.
I gunned the Merc a little until I’d left that area behind. In front of me there were now fewer cars parked in the streets and I knew I was entering the more residential area. Here, the big, flashy Cadillacs and Pontiacs were either stashed away in lock-up garages or parked on wide driveways behind locked gates. The houses were all set back from the road, discreetly out of sight from other residents behind screens of trees.
I deliberately drove past the address I’d been given and parked on the opposite side of the road. Switching off the ignition, I got out and pulled up the collar of my overcoat. Lighting a cigarette, I drew on it while I gave the Galecci place the once-over.
There were a couple of big iron gates facing the street and a wide gravel drive leading up to the house. It had been built in the old Colonial style, with white stone columns on either side of the front door. Lights still shone in several of the windows and there were four cars parked directly in front.
It looked about as impregnable as Fort Knox.
Tossing the cigarette butt into a puddle, I watched it wink out, then walked across. Just as I drew level with the gates, a couple of guys appeared out of nowhere and stood looking at me. The expressions on their faces said I’d better be there on business and not some nosy pedestrian.
The taller of the two said, “You Johnny Merak?” His voice sounded like metal being sharpened on stone.
“That’s right,” I replied, trying not to look as nervous as I felt.
“Mister Rizzio wants to see me. Said it was urgent and I was to come over right away.”
A pause and then the other guy pressed something at the side of the entrance and the gates slid aside. Once inside, the big guy frisked me like a professional and relieved me of the .38 nestling in my shoulder holster.
“Hey, is that necessary?” I asked. “I feel naked without that.”
“You’ll get it back when you leave,” he grated. “Now follow me.”
There seemed no point in arguing any further. So long as I was on that side of those gates, I did as I was told if I valued my health.
What I couldn’t figure out was why it had been Rizzio who’d made that phone call. Galecci had made it perfectly clear he wanted any information I got given to him personally.
The way I saw it, if it wasn’t some other mob in the Organization that wanted Galecci dead, the most logical suspect had to be Rizzio. That was the way these people normally operated. After a while, men like him would get tired of playing second fiddle and want the top job for themselves, and it was seldom they had the patience to wait until the boss died of natural causes.
Then there wasn’t much time to consider such possibilities. We had reached the imposing front door. When it opened, I expected Rizzio to be there to welcome me, but instead it was a flunkey, one of the house staff.
Without a word, he led me along a wide corridor. Here, the walls were lined with paintings, all of which appeared to be originals. Evidently, Galecci was some kind of art collector and he certainly knew his stuff. None of this was trash. I figured there wasn’t a single painting there which hadn’t set him back less than a hundred grand.
The guy in the monkey suit showed me into a room at the far end of the corridor. There was a massive colonial desk in the middle of the room, but there was nobody sitting behind it. I’d thought Rizzio would be there to give me the lowdown on why he wanted to see me in such a goddamned hurry. That, and the fact that apart from the manservant there didn’t seem to be anyone else around, made me nervous.
Something was clearly going on here that I didn’t understand, and I certainly didn’t like the feel of. I took the opportunity to examine the room.
If this was Galecci’s office, like the pictures on the walls, it showed he had real taste. I had to give him that. Rich, thick carpet, hand-carved chairs, heavy plush drapes across the windows. He probably claimed it all back from taxes as expenses for entertaining his rich business clients, I reckoned.
Just at that moment, the door at my back opened. I turned quickly. It was Rizzio and he didn’t look too pleased.
“Merak,” he acknowledged with a slight inclination of his head. He made no attempt to shake hands or motion me to a chair.
“I gather you want to see me,” I said. “You got something on your mind?”
He brushed a hand over his black, slicked-back hair. He seemed even more nervous than I was and that was a bad sign.
“I understand Mister Galecci hired you to do a job for him,” he said smoothly. “Do you mind telling me what it is?”
“I’d sure like to tell you,” I said. “But client confidentiality, you know. All of that is between Mister Galecci and me.”
“No;