Lost Art Assignment Read online

  Copyright May 2016

  All rights reserved. No part of this book shall be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, magnetic, photographic including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior written permission of the publisher. No patent liability is assumed with respect to the use of the information contained herein. Although every precaution has been taken in the preparation of this book, the publisher and author assume no responsibility for errors or omissions. Neither is any liability assumed for damages resulting from the use of the information contained herein.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  ISBN 0-9762181-6-X

  Cover design by Iconix

  Published by:

  Intrigue Publishing

  11505 Cherry Tree Crossing Rd. #148

  Cheltenham MD 20623-9998

  Printed in the United States of America

  Also by Austin S. Camacho

  The Hannibal Jones Mystery Series

  The Troubleshooter

  Blood and Bone

  Collateral Damage

  Damaged Goods

  Russian Roulette

  Pyramid Deception

  The Stark and O’Brien Assignment Series

  The Payback Assignment

  The Orion Assignment

  The Piranha Assignment

  The Ice Woman Assignment

  Beyond Blue Investigations Series

  Beyond Blue

  PROLOGUE

  “You know, the smell of blood can ruin even the best party.”

  Bumper heard Minelli’s remark, but he chose to remain silent. It was indeed the best party. Their host had invited them out to his very private preserve for some serious entertainment. A lot of money had been poured into this place, somewhere west of Kingston, New York, a good ninety miles upstate from Bumper’s turf.

  Bumper remembered seeing pictures and hearing his father’s stories about the real Cotton Club as a child. Now he sat in what appeared to be an exact replica of that place as it stood before his time, eighty years ago. A dozen girls danced the hoochie-coochie on the wide, raised stage. Their flashing feet tapped at eye level, surrounded by tables on three sides. A big band played a Duke Ellington tune behind the dancers. Yeah, the kid had style, all right. He wasn’t the mob boss he imagined himself to be, not by a long shot, but he had a certain style.

  Still, Minelli was right. He could smell a conflict coming up, one that would spill blood. He just wasn’t sure whose.

  The band executed a sharp, clear climax, and the girls scampered off the platform. From three tables down, their host mounted the stairs leading to center stage, surrounded by footlights. He stood relaxed, in a pair of Timberland boots and loose jeans hanging so low that two inches of his plaid boxer shorts were on display. He was all attitude, as if he belonged in the spotlight.

  “Gentlemen, hope you got into the show,” he said, grinning wide. “I mean, I thought it was dope, myself, and you know J.J. Slash don’t do nothing on the cheap.”

  Bumper leaned back, shrugging broad shoulders inside a tailor-made suit. Here comes the sales pitch, he thought. While he waited for it, he couldn’t help comparing the kid to himself. Slash was at least three inches shorter than Bumper’s six feet, and narrow where Bumper was husky. He had lighter skin, almost what Bumper would call high yellow. Both cut their hair very short, and that meant you could see how Slash’s head looked stretched out, almost peanut shaped, as if his brains barely fit inside.

  “Gentlemen, I invited you up here just so we could all remember what it was like in our business before World War Two.” Slash scanned his audience from behind smoked glasses, and Bumper followed his eyes. Two other men in expensive suits flanked Bumper, each with three others at his table. Bumper had brought them as protection from Slash’s own highly regarded team, known as the Convincers.

  Bumper remembered well his own days as a gang member. At seventeen he was stealing hubcaps and rolling drunks. Slash, not quite eighteen yet, led a vast army of car thieves and burglars, and administered a profitable protection racket. Today he was hosting three of New York City’s major independent crime bosses in his own private playland.

  “What I want to do here, is show you how we can all get in the big time,” Slash said. Martinez, on the left, snorted. “Not that you ain’t big time now,” Slash went on. “It’s just that we need to move up. The economy, you know. I mean, think about what we doing.” Slash started pacing the stage as he warmed to his subject. “Martinez, you still pushing crack to high school kids in the city. Dude, the bucks is in feeding coke to high class kids upstate.” Martinez glanced at his two bodyguards and muttered something obscene in Spanish.

  “Minelli, you got an awesome string of girls,” Slash went on. “If you pushed that gash further out on the Island, cut a deal over in Atlantic City, man you could get you a third Benzo in a week.” Minelli maintained a poker face.

  “And you, Bumper.” Slash looked down, shaking his head. “Bumper, Bumper, Bumper. Brother, there’s more to gambling than running numbers. Now if you gentlemen were smart, you’d let me administer your business. You know I make more on hot cars and insurance than anybody ever did. I could boost what you clear by half, easy. Wouldn’t cost you much, say twenty per cent off the top.”

  “Why?” Bumper asked. He had no more respect for this young punk than anybody else present, and feared him less.

  “Well, it’s like this.” Slash smiled, stepping to the edge of the stage. “I need to get off the streets. I’m about to lose my youthful offender status and… you know?”

  “Nigger, please.” Bumper stood, resting his fingertips on the white tablecloth. “I mean, why should I pay you to run something that’s been working for me for almost thirty years? I’m not Al Capone, or even Frank Lucas. But the thing is, I don’t want to be. I like my low profile. I got no need to call the FBI down on my ass. I run a nice comfortable business, don’t hurt nobody, pay out when it’s due. People like me. I ain’t got to look over my shoulder all the time.”

  “You dumb son of a bitch! I can make you some real money!”

  “What you can do is kiss my black ass, punk,” Bumper replied. While Slash stood frozen in his self-made spotlight, Bumper stood and turned for the door, already preparing mentally for the war he knew would come. One of his men preceded him. The other two backed out behind him. Minelli and Martinez followed suit. Aside from each bodyguard being an ethnic match for his boss, all three teams followed identical patterns of movement. They assembled in three small groups under the false Cotton Club’s front awning.

  Outside, Bumper checked up and down the street. The model town remained deserted. Staying under the awning, he walked to the edge of the twenty foot wide sidewalk. His driver went for his car, sitting under a street sign proclaiming it the corner of 125th Street and Lenox Avenue. The mock town was really just one intersection. The four corners were absolutely accurate in every detail, except things were misplaced. The Cotton Club was a perfect copy, as was The Apollo Theater, but of course the original Cotton Club was on Lenox at 142nd, while the real Apollo is on 125th, but between Seventh and Eighth. From West 52nd, that was definitely Birdland on the third corner and The Hotel Theresa on the fourth, just transplanted for convenience.

  The kid’s private playland, Bumper thought again. A nostalgic paradise. If only they could stop to enjoy it. It was a glorious spring day, with clear blue skies, a warm breeze and a bright glowing sun.

  But he still smelled that s
tink of death.

  “Hey, Bumper.” Slash ran through the club door, his face glowing with embarrassment. “Come on, man, I’m sorry I jumped your shit. Hang out a while, man. I got a hell of a show at the Apollo tonight. This nigga gone be there that does a perfect Sam Cooke.”

  “Let’s just end the weekend early.” Bumper faced Slash and turned on his own fake smile. “We can talk better after some time passes.”

  Slash looked at Martinez and Minelli, saw they agreed, and breathed a convincing sigh. “All right, you guys are letting me down but, okay, it was just an idea, you know. Hey, Daddy Boom, go get the car. We’ll head back in so these guys can follow us. Don’t want nobody getting lost getting back to the city.”

  Slash’s biggest follower, Daddy Boom, was a black giant, six foot five and well over three hundred pounds. His skin was very smooth, as if he was inflated with his skin stretched to its limit. He moved off slowly toward Slash’s Mercedes Benz limousine, parked in front of three Rolls Royces at the corner. One of Martinez’s men and one of Minelli’s also headed that way.

  Behind Slash, the shorter man with the rough skin stepped off to the left. Bumper noticed that his hands seemed too big for the rest of him. Slash’s third follower, thin as Slash but taller and much lighter, stood close to his boss. Slash stepped closer, but not too close, to Bumper.

  “Bumper, man, I don’t want no shit between us.” Slash offered his hand. Bumper considered his position, checked that his men stayed alert, and made sure he could see everybody’s hands. Then he reached out and accepted Slash’s hand.

  “Don’t want nothing messy,” Bumper said. “We can live together without working together. Just don’t get so ambitious you start bringing heat on me.”

  “Don’t worry Bumper. If we can’t work together, brother, ain’t going to be no war. I guess I’ll just have to take over.” Slash’s expression never changed, and the group almost missed his words. He produced a knife from the back of his waistband and slid it into Bumper just under his sternum.

  Bumper had been stabbed before. He smashed a big right fist into Slash’s jaw. As the boy dropped, everybody else reached under their jackets.

  The short man with big hands who worked for Slash pulled two automatics from shoulder holsters before anyone else even knew they were in a fight. He fired the twin automatics as fast as two machine guns. Martinez, his two guards and one of Minelli’s men flew into the street under a hail of nine millimeter fire.

  Slash’s third guard leaped over his fallen boss, thrusting his feet in opposite directions. One kick took Minelli in the back of the neck. The other crushed his second guard’s throat. He landed on his feet as Bumper’s men pointed their guns at him. He chopped down, breaking one man’s gun arm while he dropped the other with a heel-of-palm strike into his face. The first man never had time to feel the pain from his broken arm before an elbow strike fractured his spine.

  Half a block away, the drivers were comparing the virtues of their cars when they heard gunfire behind them. Minelli’s driver spun first, reaching under his jacket. Daddy Boom grabbed his head with one huge hand and pushed it through the nearest car’s door window. The other two drivers pulled their guns, but the giant hardly cared. He lifted one by his belt and shirt, turned him, and dropped him head first onto the concrete. Then Daddy Boom turned to face the other terrified driver, who fired twice into his bulk. Daddy Boom responded with a loud “Ow.” It was all he said before caving in the man’s chest with one punch. Then he reached into the man’s pocket, pulled out a car key and opened Martinez’s trunk.

  In front of the model Cotton Club, J.J. Slash stood up, rubbing his jaw. Smiling, he surveyed his little Harlem. The curb side action had taken no more than eight seconds. In that time he beheaded three established criminal machines. He mentally totaled what it cost him. Twelve excellent lunches. A stage show. Two magazines of nine millimeter ammunition. A sore jaw. Cheap at twice the price.

  “You okay, Ray?” Slash asked.

  “Man, I could have took them all, J.J.,” Ray said, returning his Glock 17 automatics to their holsters. “Thought these guys’d be better.”

  “Nobody’s fast as you, Crazy Ray,” Slash said. “How about you, Ghost? Cool?”

  “As Crazy Ray 9 said, I also could have handled them all alone. This was no challenge.”

  “Right,” Slash said. “Go around back and get the four by four. Follow Daddy Boom as deep in the woods as he can go in the Rolls. Hide that car real good. Ray, get the other car and load these guys in it. When Ghost gets back, you’ll head out the other way and hide it. And hurry it up. We got a great show at the Apollo tonight. We ought to celebrate, my brothers. We just made the big time.”

  -1-

  Morgan Stark looked up from sharpening his Randall Number 1 fighting knife when Felicity shoved the door open, or maybe a moment before. His brown fingers, long and quick, began wiping the oil away from its seven inches of razor sharp steel.

  “You look happy. What’s up?”

  “At last, one of our trackers has run young Mister Cartellone to ground, he has,” Felicity said. “Under the circumstances, I think you and I ought to handle this personally.”

  “If you say so, Red,” Morgan said. “I been sitting in this office too long. I’m ready for some trouble.” Morgan’s blazer hung on the back of his chair, under his custom double shoulder holster. He shrugged into the holster rig now, heavily cabled forearms showing below the rolled up sleeves of his dress shirt. When he raised the knife by its micarta handle to slide it into its sheath under his right arm, Felicity said, “Wait. Can I see that?”

  Puzzled, Morgan handed his knife to Felicity. Feeling a bit uneasy, he watched her examining it with uncharacteristic interest, turning it slowly in her pale hands. She’d seen this knife a hundred times before, but today it held her fascination.

  “Tell you what, Red. I’ll lock up if you’ll drive.” Felicity nodded, and Morgan stepped down the short hall to Sandy Fox’s desk. Fox had been their receptionist since they established “Stark & O’Brien Security and Risk Management” as a legal partnership in this building on the edge of Los Angeles. Since promoted to “office manager”, her desk was vacant now, as was the rest of their suite of offices. The partners had stayed late, like good bosses, working on the part of the business he hated most, the paperwork. Some reports had to be updated by the person on scene. In many cases, it was one of them.

  Now he picked up a pen, smoothed a finger and thumb along his almost pencil thin mustache, and jotted a note to Fox explaining where they were going and why, for billing purposes. She was meticulous in such matters, and had chastised him more than once for being more concerned with results than accounting. As he finished the note, Felicity came up behind him spinning her car keys on one finger.

  “All set.” Morgan thought the long knife looked out of place in her hand. She looked quite businesslike otherwise, her tall form draped in a navy blue business suit complete with knee length skirt and heels. She handed over his blade, and as he slid it into its sheath she held out his blazer and said “You know, maybe if I’m going to stay in this business I ought to learn how to defend myself.”

  “Maybe that’s a good idea,” Morgan answered as they walked out their office door. “After training soldiers, bodyguards and our own security personnel, I guess I could show you anything you want to know.”

  She was behind him as he locked the door and set their alarms. While he couldn’t see her face, she said, “Actually, I was thinking it might be better if I learn from somebody else.” She said it so quietly that Morgan thought perhaps she was ashamed of the thought.

  “Hey, I know a lot of dangerous people,” Morgan said, forcing a smile into his voice. “I’ll hook you up with somebody good.”

  Morgan’s mind wandered while they waited for the elevator. He knew Felicity better than anyone else on earth, and he knew something had happened on their last big case together. Something that changed her. She had been hesitant to share
it with him, and that had damaged the vital closeness which made their partnership work. He had no trouble admitting the experience left him confused and worried. But he was also hurt, because she had not confided in him right away. Admitting that to himself was a good deal more difficult.

  -2-

  Even in the most luxurious hotels, room doors are usually plain and poorly secured. Morgan Stark considered this fact, leaning back against a wall beside just such a door in a corridor of The Beverly Wilshire Hotel. Inside was a man he and his employees had kept under surveillance for three weeks. Morgan wrapped a hand around the doorknob, turning it slowly. The door was locked, naturally, but in this case that was a minor detail.

  His partner, Felicity O’Brien, held the plastic card pass key. She had acquired it in the simplest way just as she had done so many times in her previous life as a thief. She simply bumped into one of the maids in the hall, switching her card for a duplicate that was identical in every way except that it wouldn’t open the hotel room doors. Brushing long red hair from her eyes with a thumb, she pushed the card into the lock, quickly withdrew it, and stood back out of the way.

  Morgan flung the door open and stepped inside. He had mentally written a wish list of what would happen next. He would find his quarry locked in a passionate embrace with the girl, under the covers. They would react slowly, both startled and frightened.

  He didn’t get anything he wanted. Young Tommy sat on the sofa, fully dressed. The shapely blonde across the room was fishing cigarettes from her purse. They looked right at him. Panic flushed into the boy’s face. Anger clouded the girl’s.

  The man lunged at the newcomer in the doorway with all the power and speed he demonstrated last year as an all American halfback for Notre Dame. He was six foot two and two hundred forty pounds. Morgan’s height, with an extra thirty pounds of muscle.

  Morgan stepped forward, spun, and smoothly pulled his attacker into a hip throw. Tommy would have thumped the floor hard on his back, if that wall had not gotten in the way.