Chapter Fourteen: Me and You

"So they lead the guy down to the cell, and lock him in for the night. This guy had everything on the mob, including the names of all the cops on the Maselli family payroll. In the morning they find him lying there, his neck snapped. Dead. And no-one ever found the book listing the city payoffs."

"How do we even know the book still exists?" Marco asked skeptically. He was wolfing down his steak, his appetite not even slightly weakened by the ex-cop's gruesome stories.

"Yes, how do we know?" Mary's voice was a little faint, her face a little pale. She could visualize the stool pigeon lying in the cell, dead, his neck snapped like a twig. Her grandfather Harry O'Hara had run the city, his word was the law. Yet he was more brutal than any mob killer. Mary's cousin Elizabeth was cut from the same cloth. She was just as deadly, and just as ruthless. Mary saw herself in the stool pigeon's place.

She reached for her wineglass and drank deeply.

"You two are crazy if you think you can bring Elizabeth down," said Captain McCluskey. He was a wrinkled man, with sagging features and sad blue eyes. "Me, I'm happy just to be collecting a city pension. I'm not taking a chance on breaking into Elizabeth's mansion, just to prove some guy was executed on her grandfather's orders thirty years ago."

"We don't have to break in," Marco pointed out. "Miss Mary here is Elizabeth's cousin. She could get invited over to play tennis or drink cocktails, and then snoop around while Elizabeth is busy with the other guests. Unless you're scared, baby. You do look a little green around the gills."

"I wouldn't have to break in, or be invited. I have a key," Mary blurted out. "The O'Hara mansion is rightfully mine, remember?" She hadn't meant to tell anyone about the key, but she didn't like the idea of Marco thinking she was scared. "But Captain McCluskey, are you saying that Elizabeth continued to take drug money from the mob even after her grandfather's death? I thought she cleaned up city hall when she took over. Her platform was that of a gutsy modern woman ending the old-boy days of corruption and graft."

"Yeah," Captain McCluskey said. "The press fell in love with that story. And there's no way to get them to print the real story. Not without the evidence. I guess it's something I'll never see in my lifetime." The old cop sagged in his seat, sighing deeply. "The beatings, the forced confessions, the murders we got away with. Sometimes I feel like I ought to eat the gun."

"Eat the gun?" Mary asked. Her soft green eyes were wide, and her lovely face wore a rather puzzled expression.

"That's cop slang," Marco explained, his midnight black eyes flat and hard and his swarthy face unreadable. "It means you stick your weapon in your mouth and pull the trigger."

"Oh, dear." Mary felt a bit sick, picturing the image. But immediately her caring nature made her give McCluskey all her attention. "Captain McCluskey, Marco and I will not have you talking that way. You will help us to make things right, and I will see to it that you are rewarded for bringing the truth to light. Now give me your gun."

"What?" McCluskey and Marco both said at the same time.

"Give me your gun, please." Mary spoke softly but firmly. Both men were looking at her like she'd gone crazy.

"Baby, you don't want to go after Elizabeth that way," Marco finally said. His voice was a little hoarse.

"Of course not!" Mary gave a soft laugh of triumph. "Finally, I have your attention. Now show me how to take the bullets out of this thing, and then I'll hand it back to the Captain."

Marco did as he was told, though he seemed a bit shy of actually touching the gun himself. Mary had to do all the work herself, finally handing the gun back to the captain with the bullets removed. The shaken old man took the weapon barrel first, and put it in his pocket without touching the hand grips or the trigger.

"Now you just go home, and remember that I'm counting on you to pray for Marco and me. The two of us are going to get the goods on Elizabeth, just wait and see!"

Captain McCluskey's faded blue eyes were a little watery. "Miss Mary, if there were any justice in heaven, there's no question who'd be running this city. Between you and Elizabeth there's no question who is more of a true lady."

Marco was quiet after the two of them left the restaurant. Mary touched his arm as he was holding open her car door. "Something on your mind, Maselli?"

Marco shook his head. "You had that old cop eating out of your hand in five minutes. But he's right, you know. There's no use digging into the past. This town is rotten. I just hope you don't bring the whole roof down on our heads."

Mary looked at him for a moment, her green eyes keen and probing. "You were once a part of the Maselli family, weren't you? The top mob family in this town. Are you afraid we'll dig up dirt on your own people?"

Marco shook his head. "No, most of my father's people are already dead or in jail. I just don't see why you would want to publicize your own connection to the Maselli family. I mean, how will it look for your public image? Me and you, I mean."

"Ah," Mary said. "Me and you. You mean, as in a couple?"

"Yeah." The word was little more than a primitive grunt. Marco was a beast who tied her up when they made love. But this time he was the one all tied up in knots.

Mary gave him a look, her green eyes shining. Then she stepped on the gas, not even caring where she was going.