Bikini Planet Read online

  Norton was a cop, he had an instinct for such things. He turned the wheel and drove up the side street.

  The guy wasn’t hard to spot. He was dressed all in red, like some out-of-season Santa. His hair was also red. And green. And blue.

  He glanced back over his shoulder, noticed the squad car was following him. That was when he started running. He sprinted for half a block before diving down an alley.

  Norton smiled to himself, knowing he’d been proved right. He swerved into the alley. Narrow and dark, it sloped steeply downward. It was a service entrance, and at the bottom of the ramp there was a loading bay. The shutters were down, and nothing moved.

  There was no sign of the man in red. The only red Norton could see was one of the three cars parked in front of the bay. It was a red convertible, a Jaguar.

  Susie’s red convertible Jaguar.

  Alongside it was a stretch limo. Norton recognised that, too. A black Lincoln with Illinois plates.

  “Heck,” he muttered, as he stopped at the end of the ramp.

  He reached for the mike, but the radio was dead. There were too many tall buildings all around. He climbed out of the car and drew his revolver. Twice in one day, he realised. That had to be a record.

  Everything was still and silent as Norton walked over to the Lincoln. Holding the gun in his right hand, he pulled the driver’s door open with his left. The car was empty. So was Susie’s. The third vehicle was a white Chevrolet. Nevada registration. Also empty.

  He climbed the concrete steps to the door at the side of the loading bay and looked in through the small window. It was too dark to see anything. Whatever the building was, this was basement level. He tried the handle. It turned. The door opened outward. He thought of going back for a flashlight. There wasn’t time. He went in.

  There was a light in the distance, over by the far corner, and he slowly made his way in that direction. He kept glancing around, but there was nothing to see.

  The basement was used as a storeroom. In the dark, it could have been stacked with anything. He paused for a moment by one of the thick pillars which supported the floors above. Next to him was a broken fruit machine, a no-armed bandit. Above, he realised, must be a casino.

  He began walking again and almost tripped over something on the ground. Not something. Someone. He bent down, reaching out. Someone big. The Lincoln driver. Big and dead.

  If there had been any light, he’d have seen more red. The driver had lost a lot of blood. As well as the gun from his holster.

  Norton wiped the sticky liquid off his hand and onto his pants leg. He knew he had to go back, but he also knew he must go on.

  Then he heard voices. At least two men, maybe three. Arguing and shouting. He cocked his pistol.

  There were four of them. Two with their hands on their heads. Two with pistols in their hands, covering the first pair.

  He stood in the shadow of one of the concrete pillars, his heart beating so loudly he thought they must have been able to hear him. His whole body was filmed with sweat, and he held his revolver in both hands to keep it steady.

  When he peered around the other side of the pillar, he saw a fifth man. He was sitting on a wooden box between the two gunmen. With thinning white hair, he looked quite old. He was the one doing most of the shouting, aiming his cigar at the first two as if it were a weapon.

  “Think you could kill me?” he demanded. “I’m immortal, you know that.”

  Then Norton stopped listening to what he was saying because all his attention was focused on one of the men being threatened.

  It was Mr. Ash. Susie’s father.

  Norton wondered what to do.

  Two shots, he thought, and both of the gunmen would be down.

  Yeah, sure. Knowing his luck, he’d probably hit Mr. Ash and the other guy, then the gangsters would wipe him out.

  Gangsters. They really were gangsters, he realised. And his pulse raced even faster.

  He stepped slowly forward, out into the half-light. Mr. Ash and the other man noticed him. He raised his left index finger to his lips, but they didn’t need warning.

  “You’ve got it all wrong,” said Mr. Ash, doing his best to keep all the attention on himself.

  “Wrong?” said the older man. “I thought Luigi’s goon tried to shoot me. Am I wrong?”

  “It was a misunderstanding, Carlo,” said Mr. Ash.

  “It wasn’t a misunderstanding,” said the man called Carlo, “it was a mistake. And you made it.”

  Norton drew his nightstick with his left hand and crept forward, getting nearer and nearer to the first gunman.

  Until the man spun around toward him.

  He brought the baton down, hard, smashing it against the man’s arm. The man shouted in pain. The gun fell.

  Norton quickly stepped back out of reach, aiming his pistol at the second gunman.

  “Don’t move,” he warned.

  The man didn’t move. No one moved.

  “Drop the gun,” said Norton.

  The gunman turned his head, slowly.

  Norton aimed at his head, carefully.

  Carlo looked around, his eyes widening in surprise when he saw Norton.

  “Is there a problem, officer?” he asked.

  “Not if he drops his gun,” said Norton, and he changed the direction of his aim. From the gunman to Carlo.

  “If he does,” asked Carlo, “can we talk?”

  Norton nodded, and Carlo gestured to the gunman. But instead of dropping the gun, he slid it into its shoulder holster.

  “Hands on your head,” said Norton. “And you.”

  The two gangsters put their hands on their heads. As they did so, Mr. Ash and the other man lowered theirs.

  “Good to see you, Wayne,” said Mr. Ash. “Nice work.”

  “He’s one of yours?” said the old man.

  “You don’t own the whole force, Carlo.”

  “Where’s Susie?” asked Norton.

  “Susie?” said Mr. Ash. “She’s at home, I think. Why?”

  “Her vehicle’s outside.”

  “I borrowed it.”

  “She’s not in any danger?”

  “No.”

  Norton nodded. Susie wasn’t here. Neither, it seemed, was the man in red. But what was going on?

  That didn’t matter for now. First he had to arrest the three who’d held up Mr. Ash. He only had one pair of cuffs, and he still had to disarm the second gangster.

  “Step back,” he told the first one, and the man moved away from his dropped weapon.

  “We can talk,” said Carlo. “However much they’re paying you, I’ll double it.”

  What Norton needed was someone to keep the three men covered.

  “Can you handle a gun, Mr. Ash?” he asked.

  “Yes.”

  Norton kicked the fallen automatic across the ground.

  “No!” yelled Carlo.

  Mr. Ash picked up the weapon.

  The second gunman reached into his holster.

  Mr. Ash shot him.

  Then he shot the first gunman.

  “Ciao, Carlo,” he said. “See you in hell.”

  And then he shot the old man.

  Norton stared at him in amazement, before bending down to examine the three fallen men. None of them needed handcuffs. Each one had hole in the centre of his forehead.

  “You shouldn’t have done that, Mr. Ash,” he said. “I was going to arrest them.”

  Mr. Ash walked toward Norton.

  “Sorry, Wayne,” he said.

  Then came the pain. It hurt. It hurt so bad. But it lasted only a moment. Then it was gone. And so was Norton. The whole universe opened up and he dropped down down down into the infinite void.

  “Is he one of your men?”

  “No.”

  “Then why didn’t you kill him?”

  “He’s my daughter’s boyfriend.”

  “Great! I wish I’d killed my daughters’ boyfriends when I had the chance. It’s too late
after the wedding because by then the bastards are family. Take my advice, Mario, finish him off while you can.”

  Mario Catania, alias Mark Ash, glanced down at Wayne Norton’s crumpled body. He’d be unconscious for about an hour, have a headache for a day or two, and be bruised for over a week.

  “I can’t kill him,” he said. “He’s just saved our lives.”

  “You’re getting sentimental in your old age,” said Luigi Sciacca, and he kicked Carlo Menfi’s dead body.

  Ash looked at the pistol. It had been a long time since he’d even held a gun, but pulling a trigger was something you never forgot.

  Three shots, three kills.

  He felt quite pleased with himself. Because it was a lot better than what might have happened.

  Slipping the automatic into his jacket pocket, Ash frowned, not liking the way it spoiled the line of his suit. He’d have to get rid of the weapon. As well as the three bodies. Or four, including Sciacca’s torpedo.

  But the biggest problem was what to do with Wayne.

  “It’s my daughter’s birthday in a couple of days,” he said. “She’d be upset if he wasn’t there.”

  Sciacca took Menfi’s billfold, unstrapped the watch from his wrist, and tore the rings from his fingers. He’d started his career as a pickpocket, stealing from the living. Now he robbed the dead.

  “What was he doing here?” asked Sciacca.

  “He must have seen my daughter’s car and thought she was here.”

  “You came in her car in case you were followed?”

  “No. Because mine was stolen.”

  “Stolen? Some people got no respect.” Sciacca undid Menfi’s silk tie, holding it against his own shirt to see if it would go with his suit. Then he ripped the silver cross from the corpse’s neck. “Can’t trust nobody these days.”

  Ash nodded, realising that the biggest problem was what to do with Sciacca.

  “How did he see the car?” asked Sciacca, as he moved over to the first bodyguard. “The parking lot is out of sight from the road.”

  “He must have been on patrol and—”

  “On patrol?” Sciacca found a pack of cigarettes in the corpse’s pocket, stuck one between his lips, lit it with the dead man’s lighter. “He really is a cop?”

  “Sure.”

  “So that’s why you don’t want to kill him.” Sciacca pocketed the cigarettes and the lighter. “You always thought ahead, Mario. It’s going to be useful having a cop in the family.”

  And Sciacca never thought ahead, not even as far as opening his mouth. Although it might be useful having a police commissioner or a district attorney in the family, Wayne was only a rookie cop. But whoever he was, he wasn’t good enough to marry Susie.

  “He’s not going to be part of the family,” said Ash. “I don’t like him.”

  “Then kill him.”

  “I can’t kill him just because I don’t like him.”

  “Why not?” Sciacca went to the second bodyguard. “In the old days, you used to kill people who you did like.”

  “Things don’t happen like that anymore.”

  “Don’t they?” Sciacca glanced at the three dead bodies. “This reminds me of the old days, Mario.” He counted out the change from the guard’s pocket. A nickel fell between his fingers and rolled away. It didn’t get far. He flattened it with his shoe and picked it up. “The good old days.”

  Although he took everything he could find, he was careful to leave the bodyguard’s gun in its holster.

  “The good old days were never good at the time, Luigi. Forget the past, like I’ve done. This is now, and my name is Mark Ash.”

  “Carlo calls you Mario.”

  “Not anymore.”

  Sciacca laughed. He looked at the tip of his cigarette, at the ash.

  Ash guessed they were both thinking the same thing: There were now only two of them left alive who knew his real identity.

  He’d chosen Mark because it wasn’t very different from Mario, and Ash by going through the telephone book until he found a surname he liked.

  “You know something?” said Sciacca. “A few minutes ago they were bodyguards. But they ain’t guards anymore, they’re just bodies!” He glanced over toward the entrance, where the other hoodlum lay. “A pity about Piccolo, I’ll miss him. Great sense of humour.”

  “Sure,” said Ash, “I nearly died laughing. What was the idea of getting him to pull a gun on Carlo?”

  “The idea was to kill him.”

  “Luigi, you came here for a conference.”

  “With Carlo dead, who needs to talk? It’s all worked out well.”

  Only thanks to Wayne, thought Ash. He watched as Sciacca dropped his cigarette to the floor and stepped on it. On the paper, on the tobacco, on the ash. That was when he knew what had to be done with Luigi Sciacca.

  “What did Carlo say?” added Sciacca. “Being immortal, was it? Ha!”

  Ash looked at Carlo Menfi, who was dead. He looked at Wayne, who wasn’t. He realised what he could do with him.

  “We’ve got to freeze him,” he said.

  “Who?”

  “The cop.”

  “Ice him, you mean?”

  “No, we freeze him. That’s what Carlo meant when he said he was immortal. Give me a hand.”

  Sciacca held out his left hand.

  “Two hands,” said Ash, as he slid his arms under Wayne’s shoulders, raising him off the ground.

  Reluctantly, Sciacca took hold of Wayne’s legs. They carried him down to the lowest level, hidden deep below the casino, but had to stop and rest a few times on the way.

  “No more,” panted Sciacca once they reached the lowest level. “I’m not carrying any of the stiffs. Your boys can get rid of Carlo and the others.”

  “My boys?” said Ash. “They take groceries out to customers’ cars. You want them to hide dismembered bodies in paper bags?”

  “I forgot,” said Sciacca, lighting a cigarette. “You’re just a supermarket owner.”

  “Sure. It’s all legit, Luigi. I’m respectable. I’m honest.”

  “Only the rich can afford to be honest. And the only way they got rich was by being crooked. Like you. You might have changed your name, Mike—”

  “Mark.”

  “—but nothing else has changed.”

  That wasn’t true. At one time, Ash could have carried a corpse for miles. Alone. Dug a deep hole and buried it. Then gone back and partied all night. Now, even sharing such a weight for a few minutes was too much. It wasn’t the sort of thing he should be doing, risking a heart attack for this. He ought to have someone he could trust, someone younger, someone who was family.

  Carlo Menfi never had anyone. Because he had no family, no son, he’d had to trust Ash. Ash hadn’t betrayed him, but Menfi was still dead.

  None of this need have happened. If Sciacca hadn’t interfered, if his muscle hadn’t pulled a gun, Ash would have inherited everything when Menfi died.

  Except that Menfi had no intention of dying. Or not permanently.

  “What’s this?” asked Sciacca, as he finally noticed the huge insulated cabinet next to them.

  “A cryogenic freezer,” said Ash.

  “A freezer? You mean like a meat store?”

  “Almost, but for living meat. Carlo wanted to live forever, and it was my job to make sure he did. Before he died, I was to bring him down here and put him into suspended animation.”

  “Huh?”

  “He’d be more than dead, less than alive. He hoped his body would be revived in the future, and anything wrong with it would be fixed. He figured that by then they’ll be able to cure anything. If there isn’t the right medicine, people can have replacement parts fitted.”

  “Like getting a car repaired, you mean?”

  “Sure. You’ve heard of that guy in South Africa, the one who does heart transplants?”

  “Yeah, but I’ve never heard of one of these.” Sciacca studied the huge box. “Must be a scam. Who sold it
to Carlo?”

  “Some scientist guy.”

  “Ha! A mad scientist.”

  Ash shrugged. He also had his doubts about the entire scheme, even though he’d seen the equipment working. He knew it could keep someone in suspended animation for at least a week. That was as long as the scientist had frozen himself. He might have been mad, but he wasn’t stupid.

  Carlo Menfi had read about the man in some magazine, arranged a meeting, then offered to bankroll his project. The scientist had built two cryogenic units: one for Menfi, here in Las Vegas, and one for himself, wherever he lived—and wherever he planned on not dying.

  “But not as mad as Carlo,” added Sciacca. “You know something? He should have asked for a lifetime guarantee! What a waste of money.”

  “You can’t take it with you, Luigi. And what did he have to lose? He might only have had a very small chance of being revived, but without it he had no chance.”

  And he had no chance now, not with a bullet in the brain.

  “Death is permanent,” added Ash.

  “I hope so. I wouldn’t want to meet up with any of the guys I rubbed out.” Sciacca ground out his cigarette with the sole of his shoe. “Why freeze the cop?”

  They both glanced down at Wayne, who lay on the floor between them.

  “I don’t want him around until things have settled down. In a couple of days, I’ll thaw him out.”

  By then, Ash would know exactly what to do. About Menfi. About Sciacca. About Wayne.

  He owed Wayne something for saving his life. Something? Everything. He also needed someone he could trust. Someone who was family. If the price of an heir was marriage to Susie, well, maybe that was the way it had to be.

  He’d just have to offer Wayne a deal he couldn’t decline.

  Sciacca helped lift the unconscious police officer into the cryogenic cabinet, then lit another cigarette as Ash started to connect the life-support systems. He’d smoked two more by the time Ash swung the heavy door shut.

  “That’s him out of the way,” said Sciacca. “Now what do we do?”

  “We?” said Ash.

  Two days later, Mario Catania, alias Mark Ash, was arrested and charged with numerous state and federal offences, including the murders of Carlo Menfi and Luigi Sciacca. At his subsequent trial, he was found guilty on various counts and sentenced to a minimum of two hundred and eighty-nine years’ imprisonment. He didn’t live that long.