Lady Justice and the Ghostly Treasure by Robert Thornhill Page A

after the guy?”
        “That’s about it.”
        “Good Lord, I haven’t seen you for two days and I’m out of the loop. When were you planning to fill me in on all this?”
        “Give me a break. You just got there a few minutes before the phone rang.”
        When we pulled up in front of the hotel, once again the lawn was full of tenants.
        Mr. Feeney grabbed my arm. “They’re upstairs, Mr. Walt. Mary and the new guy. Everyone’s okay, I think.”
        “Easy for you to say, Feeney,” Mr. Barnes muttered. “You wasn’t the one nearly got his head blowed off.”
        As we walked by, I noticed the dark stain on the front of his trousers.
        We found Mary and James sitting on the bed in his room.
        “Are you two okay?”
        “Yeah, we are now,” Mary replied, obviously agitated. “Can’t say the same for those other two. James, tell Mr. Walt what you was tellin’ me.”
        James took a deep breath and hung his head. “It’s all my fault. I was stupid. The two goons were Randy and Dominick. They work for Sammy ‘the Shark’ Saldano. I owe him a lot of money and they came to collect. When I told them I couldn’t pay, they were going to cut off my pinkie. Aunt Mary got here just in time.”
        Kevin gave a low whistle. “Sammy the Shark. He’s one mean dude. Somewhere out there is a very long list of people with broken kneecaps who owed money but couldn’t pay.”
        “What on earth possessed you to borrow money from that creep?” I asked.
        “Like I said, I was stupid. When I put Mom in the nursing home, I knew I only had enough money for a month or two. I was feeling lucky and thought maybe I could go to the casino and win enough to take care of her for a while. I lost it all. I should have just cut my losses and moved on, but I didn’t. I borrowed money from Saldano. I figured my luck would have to change, and it did. From bad to worse. I lost that too.”
        “So how much do you owe?”
        “Ten grand.”
        “Oh, Lord!” Kevin moaned. “You are in deep doodoo.”
        “Thanks for your encouragement,” Mary said, sarcastically. “So what are we gonna do? We can’t have these guys disfiguring my nephew.”
        “So what happened here?” I asked.
        “They were about to cut off my finger when Aunt Mary showed up with her bat. She whacked the guy with the nippers, then knocked the gun from the other guy’s hand. I grabbed the gun and they took off. Mary got off two shots as they were running down the hall, but missed.”
        “I guess that explains the puddle outside Mr. Barnes door.”
        “I promised I would pay,” James said, “but I don’t think they believe me.”
        “Even if they did,” Kevin replied, “Sammy isn’t usually interested in long term loans. He wants his money now.”
        “Tell you what,” I said. “I may have an idea. Mary, you get everyone calmed down and restore order. James, try to stay out of trouble. I’ll get back to you both, hopefully with some good news.”
        When we were back in the car, Kevin said, “I hope you’re not planning to pay Sammy the Shark a personal visit. He may be pissed enough he’ll take it out on anyone connected to James.”
        “Nope, I’m going over his head. From what I’ve heard, loan sharking is run by the mob, and I’m betting Sammy works for Carmine Marchetti. Maybe the Godfather can buy us a little time.”
        “I thought you and the don were all squared away. You really want to get back in bed with him?”
        “Not really, but I don’t want to see Mary’s nephew crippled or worse. You got any better ideas?”
        He didn’t.
     

     
          It was never my intention to become involved with the Kansas City mafia, but on four different occasions, fate had brought Marchetti and me together. On two of those occasions, he had saved my life, and on the other two, I had