Sure enough, Lucky barked with such violence that he was nearly frothing at the mouth, hackles raised along his spine. For all the good it would do, since the dog outweighed her and was powerful enough to drag her wherever he wanted to go, Lori clicked the leash onto his collar and swung the door open. He is out there and Lucky will tear his throat out! But there was no one in the hallway other than Mrs. Granauche from two doors down, who had stepped out of her apartment and was giving her a sour, accusatory look. Lori had convinced herself that when her boogeyman came he would bring a stench of death with him, but there was nothing other than a jasmine scent that must’ve come from Janice Howell, who lived in the neighboring apartment.
Mrs. Granauche, a seventy-two-year-old widow, complained that the dog’s late-night barking had woken her. Lori apologized profusely and promised it wouldn’t happen again. Mrs. Granauche grudgingly accepted this and disappeared back into her apartment. Lucky, for his part, stood in the hallway sniffing, his barking having turned into a low, rumbling growl.
“What was it?” Lori demanded.
The dog fixed his yellowish-red eyes on her and whimpered.
She wanted to take Lucky outside to see if he could sniff out whoever it was that had set him off, but she didn’t have her keys, so she had to first run back inside to get them. Once she had her apartment locked up and secure, she brought Lucky to the elevator. The dog was still sniffing in the air as if he were trying to pick up the scent of what had spooked him so badly. He continued making his aggrieved rumbling noises as they rode the elevator down to the lobby.
Once she got him outside, the dog stood sniffing in the air, searching for a scent he couldn’t find. She lived in a residential area, and at that hour there were no pedestrians walking about and no cars driving away. If it was her boogeyman who had upset the dog, he had since disappeared. It occurred to her then that Lucky might’ve only had a nightmare. After all, he had his own baggage, and God only knew what abuse the poor thing had suffered before ending up at the rescue shelter. Lori stood silently as she scratched the dog behind his ear and studied him.
“Is that what happened,” she asked, “you had a bad dream?”
Lucky sneezed, the action loud and violent.
“Or maybe something in the movie spooked you? What was I thinking playing anything called Furious after what we’ve been through?” She watched as Lucky looked at her with utter befuddlement, as if he had no idea why he had gone Defcon One minutes earlier. “What do you say we go for a long walk? See if we can rid ourselves of these bad dreams?”
Lucky sneezed again, this one seemingly an agreement to her suggestion.
Chapter 13
Scalise was doing the chauffeuring. He explained earlier that night that he loved driving. “It don’t matter to me whether I’m stuck in traffic or cruising the freeway at eighty,” he had told Chandler, “where else am I going to be that’s as comfortable as the front seat of my Lincoln?”
Chandler didn’t share Scalise’s appreciation for driving around Los Angeles, but he tactfully agreed with him. What the hell, it meant he didn’t have to drive.
Soon after leaving Palace 21, Scalise’s mood darkened. It came quickly, like a thunderstorm blowing in, and as the gangster sat brooding behind the wheel, the tension seemed to roll off him in waves. It became suffocating, and Chandler almost asked to get out of the car, but he was curious about what was behind this change. What held him back even more was that filming for his new gangster movie started Monday, and he knew he wouldn’t be able to channel the necessary bravado on set if he chickened out now. He tried to ignore his growing unease, but after several minutes he couldn’t help himself from nervously asking Scalise if something was wrong.
Scalise gave the actor a quick sideways glance, a glint showing in his dark eyes. “Why should something be wrong?” he asked in a soft, menacing voice.
The implied violence in Scalice’s tone was unmistakable. “I don’t know,” Chandler stammered, his voice dropping to a whisper. It wasn’t just a single butterfly fluttering around in his stomach but a whole swarm of them now. “I just thought you looked worried, that’s all.”
“What was it you said? I couldn’t hear you with the way you’re mumbling under your breath.”
Reluctantly the actor repeated himself.
“So you’re telling me you can just look at me and know that, huh? Or are you saying you’re a mind reader?”
“Neither,” Chandler said.
“You’re sure you can’t tell what I’m thinking right now?”
“That I should keep my mouth shut.”
“What do you know, you can read minds after all.”
Scalise’s brooding continued until he stopped the Lincoln in front of a shuttered warehouse advertising that it was available for rent. As quickly as someone snapping his fingers, his moodiness lifted and he returned to his earlier buoyant self. He gave Chandler what appeared to be a playful punch in the shoulder, but the pain from the blow radiated all the way down to the actor’s wrist.
A grin cracked Scalise’s face. “Benny boy, you look like you’re about to get sick. What’s wrong, you can’t take a joke?”
Confused, Chandler asked, “What was the joke?”
“The way you’ve been acting like I’m some sort of mob guy, I thought I’d play the part and give you my best Joe Pesci from Goodfellas. Look, I’m no gangster, I just know a few people from the old neighborhood, that’s all. This errand shouldn’t take no more than five minutes, and afterward we’ll go to the poker game I’ve been telling you about. While I’m busy, I need you to stay in the car.” Scalise’s eyes dimmed as a thought came to him. He added, “If you see some clown sneaking up on me, hit the horn. You got it?”
If you see some clown sneaking up on me… The actor didn’t trust himself to speak. He knew his voice would crack if he said anything, so instead he bit his bottom lip to keep his emotions in check. This had long ago stopped being fun and games, but now this? What had he gotten himself into?
Scalise slapped him playfully twice on the jaw, both slaps making Chandler wince. A deadly smile froze the gangster’s lips as he pulled the car away from the curb and drove onto the shuttered warehouse’s driveway and continued to a parking lot in back. A man was leaning against a car parked along the far end of the lot. The headlights hit his face, and Chandler recognized him. Bobby Gallo, Big Joe Penza’s right-hand man. He had the reputation of being a full-blown psycho. His friend Billy Dunn had promised him that while Vincent Scalise was colorful and an evening with him would be memorable, Chandler would walk away with at worst a few scrapes as long as he behaved himself. That promise was the only thing that had kept Chandler from jumping out of the car earlier. He knew the same wasn’t true of Bobby Gallo. But both men worked for the same boss. This was just a quick errand. There was no reason for Chandler to be feeling cold sweat dripping down his back.
Scalise stopped the car fifty feet from Gallo. The keys were left in the ignition with the engine running and the car in neutral. A growing sense of terror took hold as Chandler realized this meant Scalise thought there might be a need for a quick getaway. His nerves weren’t helped any when he saw Gallo looking past Scalise so he could stare right at him. He thought about opening the door and running, but his leg muscles had turned to jelly and he knew he wouldn’t get far if he tried. Instead he watched Scalise approach Gallo and then the two men engaging in what looked like an amicable conversation. When a third man emerged from the shadows behind Scalise, the actor froze. Before he remembered the horn, the man grabbed Scalise in a bear hug. Gallo stepped forward and pulled a switchblade from Scalise’s pocket. The Lincoln’s headlights glimmered off the steel blade as it sprung open. Chandler watched as the blade was