Rarities Unlimited 02 - Running Scared

3
    Afternoon
    J ohn Firenze stared at his nephew and wished his sister had exercised better taste in men. The guy who had sired Cesar had been muscle, pure and simple. Mostly simple. Cesar was his father’s son in every way that mattered, except one: he was Firenze by blood. Family had to be protected from stupidity for as long as possible. When it no longer became possible . . . well, his dear sister was dead, and his sainted mother would never have to know what happened to her only grandson.
    Socks shifted uneasily from one foot to the other and moved the weight of Tim’s backpack on his thick shoulders. He felt like a kid called into the principal’s office for pinching a girl’s tit. Firenze even looked like a principal. Dark suit and white shirt, dark striped tie, thinning hair combed straight back, hands that still showed the scars of a youth spent as a bare-knuckle brawler in the waning days of Las Vegas and the Mob. When he thought about it, Socks had a hard time believing that Kid Firenze had grown up to be a suit with a thin mouth.
    But he had.
    Firenze leaned back in his big leather executive chair and watched his nephew with unblinking black eyes. “Let’s see if I have this straight. You just killed two men—”
    “I didn’t do Joey,” Socks cut in quickly. “Tim did. So I killed him.”
    “Whatever. Two men are dead.”
    Socks shrugged. “Yeah.”
    “Where’s the gun you used?”
    “Down a storm drain. Hated to do it. Cost a lot.”
    Firenze grunted. “You wore gloves?”
    “Shit, yes. I ain’t stupid.”
    “Where are the gloves?”
    “Flushed ’em in the men’s room.”
    “Here?” Firenze asked sharply.
    “Nah. An all-night gas station by the interstate. I told you, I ain’t stupid.”
    That was a matter of opinion, but at least the boy was trainable. He hadn’t forgotten how to do a clean job of dirty work.
    “Are the cops onto you?” Firenze asked.
    “Far as I know, they don’t even have a body yet. I hocked my police-band radio, so I can’t be sure.”
    One of the five phones on Firenze’s desk rang. He ignored it, just as he ignored the subtle beep of his computer every time a new e-mail arrived.
    “Anybody see you?” Firenze asked.
    “I went out the alley and then down to the burger joint where I parked. I always remember what you told me about not parking near a job.”
    Thinking of Socks’s screaming purple car made Firenze wince. He could park it on the far side of the moon and someone still would notice. One of these days Delia’s dumb little boy was going to get into the kind of trouble even his well-connected uncle couldn’t get him out of.
    This had all the earmarks of just that unhappy day.
    “Did you see anybody?” Firenze asked.
    Socks frowned. “A drunk pissing in the alley over from Joey’s pawnshop. Does that count?”
    Firenze sincerely hoped it didn’t. “Okay. You got away clean.”
    Eagerly Socks nodded.
    “Then why did you come to me?” Firenze asked.
    “Well, it’s kinda about Joey. He really hosed me.”
    Firenze waited. Getting hosed by a pawnbroker wasn’t the type of news that would lift his heart rate.
    “I mean, really, ” Socks insisted. “Stuff I had was worth a million, at least, and he only—”
    “A million?” Firenze cut in, leaning forward sharply. “What the hell were you doing robbing jewelry stores? How many times do I have to tell you that those high-end places aren’t—”
    “No jewelry,” Socks interrupted, talking fast. “I remember what you taught me, Uncle John. And this shit didn’t come from no high-end place.”
    Firenze settled back again. “What were the goods?”
    “Gold.”
    “You’re strong as a bull, I give you that, but even you couldn’t carry a million in gold.”
    Socks didn’t quite follow what his uncle meant, so he stuck with what he did understand. “Tim’s bitch said the stuff was worth a million, and it was gold—little statues like toys and stuff—and she’s so fucking smart she oughta know, right?”
    Firenze felt a headache coming on. A big one. Its name was Cesar. “Tim, the guy you whacked, right?”
    Socks nodded.
    “So where’s his bitch now?” Firenze asked.
    “I was getting to that,” Socks said, his voice close to a whine.
    “Get to it faster.”
    “Okay. Right. She killed the old man, took the gold toys, gave ten to Tim and kept more for herself. We sold four to Joey and he hosed us big time. We went to get the gold back and he had already