Scorpio's Eight- Don't Believe Your Eyes

Chapter Twenty Six

Carly was wiping down her bedroom, removing or smearing beyond recognition, Sonny's fingerprints when Todd's cell phone rang. Using her rag she reached into his pocket and pulled he phone out. Though she knew that both of these dead bodies would have to be burned and tossed into the ocean where only the sharks would ever see them again, she didn't want to take any chances with getting her fingerprints on either of them or their stuff.

Ring. Ring.

The caller ID said B.C.

Blair Cramer, Carly figured. She said "He ain't coming home, sweetie. You are going to have to find a new psychotic killer to be your kid's daddy, I suppose."

Carly dropped the phone back on top of Todd.

She couldn't work up any sympathy for either Todd or Sonny. Both men would have killed her in a second. Sonny, if he knew the truth about her conning him. And Todd would have put a bullet in her tonight just for witnessing what he had done.

These men had moved in a ruthless underworld that allowed no mistakes or second chances. Carly knew that her own number could be up at any second, it was part of the risk she accepted every time she went into a new con. But it had never gotten this bloody before now- only that one time when Robert got shot and he recovered quick enough. They had all pulled guns before, fired shots; Luke even wounded a federale in Panama during that crazy job in '95.

But this- having two dead dudes cluttering up her bedroom floor- was new. And she didn't like it.

Carly only hoped that Jason was having a better night than her.

XXXXXXXXX

Zander was deep into his con personality now- the Corinthos pool boy Teddy. He acted over the top and also clueless in an attempt to get Frank Gianni, a mob boss from Chicago who dropped in unexpectedly on Sonny- to think that Zander could be no help for him in finding Sonny.

Zander had already sent away the security team from the alarm company after convincing them that he caused the power outage by overloading the system with a machine he was using to drain the pool of water.

Now Zander stood right outside the front door, with Frank and his three guards, because if they went inside they would find passed out men who worked for Sonny all over the downstairs. Lucky was good at disabling the ones that didn't run into their trap in the garage and knocking them out with a sleeping agent that he carried on a rag. It wouldn't have worked as well as it had but the house was plunged into darkness only moments before and none of them had night vision goggles like Lucky did. He got the drop on each of them without much trouble.

Frank said, "Mr. Corinthos left you," he looked at Zander, with his shoulder length blond hair and thick glasses, like he was a walking joke "in charge of his whole estate while he is away? What are you trying to pull? Even Sonny ain't that ass backwards." Frank laughed and hit the chest of the closest man to him. His three guards laughed.

Frank asked them, "Right? Even Sonny don't leave this thing with the keys to the compound." The mob boss' smile fell away and he glared at Zander "I know he's inside. And whatever the hell he is trying to do by killing the lights and hiding, like a little bitch, is not gonna work. I stopped by here tonight as a courtesy, but I can see that I should not have treated your boss as a man. No, he has not been that since Faith cut off his balls in the divorce. Letting a punta steal a piece of his territory..." he spit on Zander's feet "disgusting."

"Hey, my man," Zander said in a spaced out voice "I don't know what to tell you, dude. I just get the leaves out of the pool, dude. Cause he's got that big tree right over the center of it, man, and I don't know no nothing 'bout what goes on around here, dude. Like I could try to hit up my cellie, man, if you want. But I don't think I can get Mr. Corinthos, the big man himself, dude, cause he has me get my check from some lawyer over on 5th and that's the only digits I gots. You want her number? She's hot, dude."

Frank pushed Zander against the door.

Zander grabbed at his head, pretending it was hurt, but really he wanted to keep his wig on. "Oh, DUDE. That hurt. Come on, now, I don't know nothing bout nothing..."

"Shut the fuck up."

Zander shut up.

Frank said "Now you tell Corinthos I said he better be at that meeting on the island on Thursday. He will give me access to the docks here in Port Charles or he will lose whatever Faith didn't already take from him." Frank flicked Zander's forehead and said "You think you can remember all that, little pool boy?"

"Yeah, dude, I got it."

Frank stepped back and motioned for one of his men. The man stepped up and punched Zander in the stomach.

"The name is Mr. Gianni and I am not your dude." Frank said before turning and walking back to his limo.

XXXXXXX

A black four door came flying off a side road at top speeds, then slammed on its brakes and blocked the road.

"Go around it!" Anna ordered as she reached down to her ankle holster and pulled out a gun.

Suddenly red and blue flashing lights started to spin on the dashboard of the car blocking their way.

"Cops," Mac muttered. "We better play along or else we'll have a pursuit on our hands. Pull down the backseat and shove the painting in the trunk. Hurry. We'll have to talk our way out of this."

Anna scurried to get the painting hidden away, while Mac shoved there gloves and masks into the glove box. Anna got back in her seat just as two men got out of the four door and approached them. Two more cars were stopped behind Anna and Mac's vehicle.

Mac rolled down his window "What seems to be the problem, officer?"

A flashlight glared down at Mac, obscuring his vision of who the man was. The man also had a hat pulled down over his eyes. He wore a black trench coat.

"Road block," the man's voice was gruff and deep. "Open the trunk."

Mac thought he heard a trace of something in the man's tone- and it sent up a red light to him. The hairs on the back of his neck went up. He smelled a con. But if he was wrong, both him and Anna could be behind bars for a good long while.

He tried to look around the light and see the man's face but he couldn't. "What are you looking for, officer? I was just on my way home from my nieces place with my sister-in-law here. We ain't got anything in the trunk but some leftover tuna casserole that the dog probably won't even touch."

"Fugitive escaped tonight from Pentonville. We got to check every car. Pop the trunk, now, sir."

It was the last word that gave him away. No cop had every called Mac sir in his life. He looked at Anna. Without a word she knew that he suspected this was not on the up and up.

The second "cop" headed toward the car. His aimed his flashlight right into the car to blind them and called out "We got a problem, Mike?"

"Might have to run this guy in, Bob." Then to Mac, he said "License and registration, sir."

The second cop walked around the back of the car.

Mac opened his wallet and passed out the I.D. His hand bumped against the flashlight and knocked it away. His eyes locked on those of the cop. Mac went to throw the car in gear and take off when the "cop" jerked open the door.

He threw all his weight on Mac, causing Anna to jerk out her gun in response. But she wasn't the type to ever risk shooting a police officer and going to the slammer for the rest of her life- she had a grandbaby to watch grow up, after all. She tried to get a good look at the cop's face, from his build alone she knew he was not one of Scorpio's Eight.

Mac and the cop were struggling with each other. Anna grabbed hold of the cops neck and did a move that made him pass out, but the second before she did, his hand grasped the trunk latch and it opened.

Mac groaned as the dead weight of the passed out "cop" fell on him . Mac looked back through the windshield and saw the other "cop" grabbing the painting and running back to his car. He called out "Take good care of my brother for me, Bomber! I'll collect him later." He laughed, jumped in his four door sedan and peeled out.

Anna cursed as she looked down at the face of the man who had pulled them over. It was Stone Cates. They had seen him and Jagger at Lucky's wedding a few days before. Stone had been using a fake accent to talk to them, a sort of podunk lazy drawl.

"Lucas Lorenzo Spencer! Hell," she cursed in frustration. "Mark my words, he was behind that. He sent those Cates boys after us."

"Yeah, he did," Mac agreed. He gently removed Stone from the car and then waved off the cars behind him, telling them to pass him.

One car stopped and the driver asked "You guys need some help?"

"Nope. My drunk buddy just passed out."

"All right, then." The man drove off.

Mac asked Anna "You wanna help me get him in the backseat or what?"

"I want my painting back is what I want. This is not over."

Mac said "Faith will flip her crazy little head when she finds out she ain't getting no painting tonight."

"She's getting her painting."

XXXXXXX

Robert felt the feeling come back into his limbs slowly over a few minutes. When he could finally speak, from his seat in the backseat of Skye's car, he said "Turn this car around. The painting is still in the house."

Skye had left the van with Jason, Lucky, Spinelli and Zander at Greystone and she was taking Robert to see Robin and Patrick, so they could make sure he wasn't seriously injured. Though, it was only a precaution cause Skye had faith that Anna wouldn't actually do any permanent damage to him.

Skye kept driving toward Robin's apartment. "Sorry, Boss, but Anna has The Ever Faithful now."

"No, Anna, has a fake. I was on the roof when I spotted her watching me from behind the stone wall, so I had to leave the real painting there and pull the look alike I had made up out of my bag."

Skye turned the car around. She pulled out her cell and called Jason. "Send the kid up to the master bedroom and have him pull the painting out of the panic room."

Jason asked "Didn't Boss already do that?"

"No. It was a Houdini." An illusion.

"We're on it," Jason said.

She hung up and asked Robert, "You actually went through the trouble to make a look alike and drag it along?"

"Chandler, when this much money is on the line you got to be ready for the double cross. We always make a look alike of jewelry we heist. Remember that Paris job? This painting is no different. I just didn't think the thief that would be coming after us would be my own wife."

"Ex-wife, Boss."

"Hmm. She thinks she got me. I can not believe she stooped to drugging me. I would only drug a stranger. I have standards, you know."

"Of course." Skye smiled. "Feeling all right now?"

"Good enough to finish this job and then track down Anna and have a nice, long..."

"Talk with her?"

"Yeah, talk." But that is not what he wanted to do, not at all. There was nothing hotter to Robert than a woman who could beat him at his own game and Anna had nearly done that tonight. God, he missed her like crazy. How, he wondered, could she have all she wants in Mac when Mac isn't me?

Note- if you go back to Chapter 23 you would see this-

Anna knew it was Robert repelling off the roof- dressed in all black with a large canvas bag hanging around his neck

in that bag was the painting.