Free The White Gold Score (A Daniel Faust Novella) by Craig Schaefer Page A

killed Dino here and now.
    I crept forward, daring to peek around the edge of the threshold. Dino—untucked salmon shirt draped over his beer gut, sporting a graying ponytail—paced back and forth in front of the muted television set. Phone in one hand, a nearly empty glass of scotch in the other. And the glimmer of white gold on his wrist. The son of a bitch hadn’t just taken the watch off Monty’s dead body; he was wearing it like a trophy.
    “Can we—can we do this in English, please?” He tossed back the last swig of scotch and set the glass down on the end table beside a long black leather sofa. “
Thank
you. Look, we’ve gotta make this happen. Winter Court is going on national tour next week. I’ve got everything in place. We do it just like last time. Simple, easy, everybody makes a mint.”
    As he paced, he loosened the Rolex, dropping it next to the empty glass.
    “Yes, ten keys, on credit.” He paused, frowning. “You know I’m good for it. Come on, have I ever not come through with—no. No,
señor
, I’m not—yes. Thank you.
Gracias
. I’ll call with the details as soon as we’re ready to move.”
    Dino hung up and set down the phone, cursing under his breath as he traded it for the empty glass. He stomped off, presumably in search of more booze, and I craned my neck to follow as he vanished through another arch and into the dining room.
    Now was my chance. I motioned for Caitlin to hold back, then scurried across the living room floor, head ducked, to drop down behind the sofa. The watch, abandoned on the end table, was just a quick grab away.
    Instead, I took his phone. Moving on instinct now, letting my gut call the shots. I pulled up his incoming-call log. The “Max” he’d been talking to—I’d bet fifty bucks it was our friend with the tire iron from the fight on Tanesha’s porch—was listed as “Dunsborough Security Solutions.” The second call came from a Red Bee Supermarket, weirdly enough. I took out my own phone and copied down the numbers as fast as I could, fighting to keep my hands steady and listening for footsteps.
    He was coming back. I put his phone right back where I’d found it and looked at the watch.
    And left it there as I scrambled back into the shadows, out of sight.
    In the darkened hall, Caitlin gave me a quizzical look and wriggled her empty hands. I shook my head and nodded for her to follow me, back to the kitchen, to the open door and our waiting getaway. We slipped out of the house in silence. Dino never knew we were there.
    A plan percolated in the back of my head, a map with lines drawn between the players in this little drama. Dino. Monty. Tanesha.
    And in the intersection of those lines, an opportunity waiting to happen.
    *     *     *
    Caitlin and I sat snug in a scarlet booth at Fred 62, an all-night retro diner in Los Feliz where black-and-white movie stars adorned the wall and hipsters clustered at the long central bar for black coffee and breakfast at midnight. Caitlin ordered milkshakes—chocolate peanut butter for me, strawberry banana for her—and they came tall and thick as cement in fifties-style fluted glasses.
    “Best in the city,” Caitlin said, tearing the paper from a fat plastic straw. “So, now that we’re away from the scene of the crime, mind explaining why we apparently forgot to
commit
the aforementioned crime?”
    “Would I be remiss in guessing that you’ve got plans of your own for Dino Costa?”
    She wrinkled her nose. “After what I heard? I like Tanesha’s music, Daniel. I’d like there to be more of it for me to enjoy in the future, and art produced under duress is rarely worthy of being called art. You said yourself you’d have no problem seeing Dino dead. So why did you stop me? And why didn’t you at least steal the watch so you can finish the job you’re being paid for?”
    I took a long sip of the shake. It tasted like a frozen peanut-butter cup melting on my tongue.
    “Greenbriar’s paying me