Today’s
excerpt is from Horace Goes Home, Book #2 of the Bader Trilogy. Elmer and those with him reach the mob
hangout too late…to find bodies all over the grounds. With one of the two men who can implicate the
mob boss in several murders, Elmer comes up with a plan. Enjoy and have a great day.
m.j.
When the
helicopter was down, those aboard carefully started checking out the ranch
grounds and buildings. In time, they
found all ten bodies. Elmer was the
first one in the building where Sgroi and Mosello had been staying, and he
recognized Mosello from his pictures—and the sketch Horace had done of
him. The other two he didn’t recognize,
but he had little trouble piecing the scene there together. After finding the bodies, they all compared
notes. No one had found the body of
Sgroi. They had all agreed to leave the
bodies where they found them, so the scene could be reconstructed later. Homer looked at Elmer. “You figure Prudi put the hit out on those
two, but his hit-men weren’t able to pull off the deed, so Sgroi split?”
“What it looks
like. You recognize any of these dead
guys, besides Mosello, as his men?”
“Yeah—two of
‘em. Wonder if Sgroi was hit?”
Elmer shrugged,
“Don’t know, but if he is, I hope it’s not bad.
We need the guy because now he’s the only one left who can nail Prudi,
with Mosello dead.”
Hector asked,
“Well, what do we do about this, Elmer?”
“I got an idea.”
Alan joked, “Oh,
boy—here it comes. Let me guess—you’re
gonna pull some slight-of-hand deal, to confuse good old Prudi.”
Elmer laughed,
“Yeah, as a matter of fact,” as he took out his cell phone and called Helen
Bledsoe.
She answered,
“Well, well, my old friend, Elmer—how are you?”
“Got a
sensational story for you, if you agree to fudge on the facts just a bit—with a
promise of the bigger story, when we get to the end of a nice chase.”
“I just got back
off of vacation and you’re dumping a story in my lap. That’s nearly as good as I bet sex with you
would be.”
“Better.”
“I doubt
it—what’ve you got?”
“Would you, with
a portable crew, like a chopper ride to where I’m at, with a bunch of dead
bodies laying around?”
“Oh, hell—yes!”
“Go to the
heliport at FBI Headquarters. Wait for
the chopper. Homer Spradling…you
remember him I’m sure…will be getting off with a few other people. You take his place and come on back up to
where I am.”
“Which is
where?”
“Near Big Sur.
“I’m in. I’ll be waiting for my ride.”
Everyone from
the helicopter—except the pilot and co-pilot, who were still aboard—was looking
at and listening to Elmer. When Elmer
finished, Greg looked at him. “You gonna
feed her the story that two of the dead guys here are Sgroi and Mosello?”
“Yup—plus add
one to the count. Okay, I’m thinking
Greg, Homer, Alan, and Bert fly back to FBI Headquarters to work on coming up
with a plan to find Sgroi, without putting out any kind of bulletins on
him. Anyone got any other ideas or
suggestions at this point?”
Hector nodded,
“Yeah, I do. What in the hell do I tell
this lady newshound about the use of my helicopter? Maybe something like I just happened to be in
the neighborhood, dropped by, then you gentlemen asked me to fly you all over
the state?”
Elmer laughed,
“Say nothing. Just bring her to me—I’ll
take care of the rest. She knows Red, so
he gets stuck right in the middle of what I’ll tell her—part of which is sorta
true…that Red is leasing the chopper to give an old friend a hand. She’ll get the rest when we wrap up what
we’re working on.”
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