Dead Is Dead (The Jack Bertolino Series Book 3) Read Free Page A

debt, never recovered from the shock of having to give up her membership at Wilshire Country Club. She turned to the comfort of Dr. Jim Beam, rarely leaving the sunroom in the rear of the family’s bungalow, just east of the canals in Venice. The empties stacked up outside her door as she exponentially shrank in size. The boys knew it was just a matter of time before she disappeared altogether. The more they tried to help, the more ornery she became, until they finally threw in the towel. His mother had chosen to march inexorably toward her own prepaid burial site next to her philandering husband in the family plot.
    All the while Terrence had constructed a well-defined business model for the family’s criminal enterprises: five more years of pinpoint assaults, continue to launder their dirty money through the family store, keep a low profile, make conservative investments, and then cash out and buy a compound in Costa Rica and a summer home on the Scottish coast. They would all retire young enough to enjoy the fruits of their discipline and labor.
    Nothing wrong with that plan, Toby thought. Live for the pump, and then live like gentry. He was all in.
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    “How was the surf?” Sean asked as he slid the cutting board onto an upper shelf, flipped the cabinet door shut, and turned to face his brother. At six-foot-three, he stood two inches taller than Toby, as wiry as the rest of the family. The main difference, though, was that Sean’s time in the slammer had rendered his face unreadable.
    “Two-foot swells, but nice curls,” Toby answered as he swept the watch cap off of his head, shook out his hair, and tossed the cap onto the kitchen table. He avoided Sean’s probing gaze as he opened up the fridge, grabbed a bottle of water, and sucked it down in one tilt of the head.
    “You there all day?”
    Toby didn’t like his tone but played dumb. “Yeah.”
    “With your buds?”
    “Yeah, why?” he said with attitude.
    Sean opened the dishwasher, banged a plate in, and closed the door with more force than intended. “Friend of yours met his maker today. You didn’t hear?”
    Toby had already rehearsed the right face. “What the fuck, Sean? What’re you talking about?”
    “Tomas Vegas,” he said, devoid of emotion. “Shot dead.”
    “No shit?”
    Sean focused his stony eyes on his brother. “You didn’t know?” It wasn’t a question.
    Keep the face. “No.”
    “You had nothing to do with it?”
    “Fuck you, Sean!”
    Sean took in a deep breath and let it out with a labored sigh. “Good to hear,” but he wasn’t letting his brother off the hook just yet. “’Cause a little girl took a bullet to the back of the brain pan. She’s dead, too.”
    Sean’s eyes lasered into his brother. Toby didn’t blink, but his mind was whirling. That’s what the lady was crying about. He knew it couldn’t be Tomas Vegas. The pause that stretched out between them developed an uncomfortable life of its own.
    “That sucks,” he finally said, tossing the accusation along with the empty bottle into the recycling bin. His shot banged slightly off the 1950s red Chambers stove that dominated the large kitchen.
    “Yeah,” Sean said. “You know we don’t need any heat, of any kind. We’ve got a lot going on.”
    “I know.” Toby was loose again, in control.
    “There’re a lot of people who are aware of the threats you made against the scumbag.”
    The older Dirk brothers, overly protective of Toby by long habit, didn’t sanction his relationship with Eva Perez. The beautiful blonde had the good looks of a Valley Girl, but her roots were gangland. Eva’s mother was an exbanger who eked out a better life for her daughter. She’d cut off ties with her set and raised Eva as a single mom. Terrence and Sean didn’t buy the conversion. They thought Eva was trouble in spades.
    “Hey, I’m not the only one,” Toby said. “I’m cool. If it happened today, I was on the water. It couldn’t have been me.” He kept