“You gonna hit the Summerland brothers?” Joe asked.
“This is all quiet ordnance.” Reo nodded. “Nobody will hear anything. Those two are packing, and they’re main line resistance. If we take them out first, it eliminates any possibility they’ll bring smoke during the action.”
“Okay, let’s go. Let’s do it,” Joe said impatiently.
And the two sharpshooters put on their helmets while Joe and Reo went out in the hall to meet Doughboy and Reefer. Doughboy was carrying a room service coat and an empty champagne bottle he had removed from a cart outside one of the rooms. He shrugged off his jacket and put on the white coat with epaulets on the shoulders, then knocked on the door.
It opened a crack and Tommy stuck his face out. “Yeah?” he said.
“Complimentary champagne from the Manager,” Doughboy said, holding up the dark glass bottle.
When Tommy unlatched the door, Reo and Reefer hit it hard, knocking Tommy backwards into the room. He stumbled and fell. “Take this fuck,” Tommy yelled as he was going down.
Wade and Keith pulled their guns and, simultaneously, two holes appeared in the wall. Both of the linebackers went down from the kill-fire, like head-shot buffalo. Immediately blood started to stain their white shirt collars.
Joe walked in and looked disdainfully down at his brother, a black mixture of anger, betrayal, and disappointment filling his eyes. “Yeah, without Joe we sure wouldn’t have a pot to piss in. You sure got that right, Tom.”
Tommy was up on his elbows, astonished by the presence of his brother. “What are you doing here? I thought you were in Jersey.”
“I thought you were in Sabre Bay till I found out you were robbing my bank in Nassau.”
“Joe … you ain’t gonna believe this. We’re rich!”
“Where’s my money, Thomas?” It was cold the way he said it. He had never called Tommy “Thomas” before. It was almost as if he were addressing somebody he didn’t know.
Then Victoria came out of the bathroom. She had removed the body appliances and she wasn’t wearing the wig. She looked like herself now as she swept into the room, laughing. “Tommy, honey, there’s no toilet paper in the …” And she stopped to look at Joe Rina and the room full of strangers holding silenced automatics.
Tommy finally realized where he’d seen Laura Luna before, but it was too late.
“It’s you… you’re Victoria Hart,” Tommy said.
“You’re actually fucking the bitch who was prosecuting me?!” Joe was so mad, he was actually shaking. Tommy had never seen him like this. “Where’s my money, Thomas?”
“It’s gone, Joe. I bought us an oil company. Look’t this,” and he moved to the table and grabbed for his open briefcase to show his brother the stock certificates, but they were gone. They had been printed on flash paper, which bookies used to keep their betting records. Victoria had scooped them up on her way to the bath-room and dropped them in the toilet…. They’d disappeared in seconds.
“You cunt! You took them. They were here a minute ago, I swear, Joe. Tell him!” he screamed at Beano. “Tell him about the oil company.”
“I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about, Tommy. What oil company? There’s no oil company. Just give him his money back. Please, we shouldn’t a stolen it in the first place. I knew it,” Beano pleaded.
“Whatta you mean, there ain’t no fucking oil company?” Tommy said. “Whatta you talkin’ about? We used the money to buy the stock.”
As Tommy started to get up, Joe kicked him in the face with his shoe, sending him back against the wall. Tommy flashed his anger, jumped to his feet, and started to charge his brother, but two guns were pointed at his face and he froze.
Joe had the hammer back on a nickel-plated revolver and now, slowly, he moved the barrel toward Tommy’s eyes. “Where’s my money?” he said.
“It’s gone but we own the company,” Tommy said.
“The money’s in the trunk of his car,” Beano corrected him.
Tommy looked over, confusion and panic in his beady, lizard eyes.
“Let’s go see,” Joe said coldly.
They took the elevator to the underground parking area and Tommy was forced, at gunpoint, to give up the keys to his rented Lincoln. Joe popped the trunk open and there, in the back, were the two suitcases that Tommy had brought from Nassau. Joe reached in and opened the suitcases and pulled out several stacks of money, still with the Nassau bank bands around them.