Shark's Instinct (Shark Santoyo Crime Series Book 1)

  The Shark Santoyo Crime Series

  by

  Bethany Maines

  FREE Short Story

  Start at the very beginning with the short story – The Shark Tank – and meet Shark before Peri, before prison, and before everyone wanted him dead. But not before he found the perfect couch.

  Go to: BethanyMaines.com/Shark-Giveaway

  Prologue

  Monday ~ October 9

  Peregrine: Tonya

  “I’ve never liked you,” said Tonya, which startled seventeen-year-old high school senior Peregrine Hays into looking away from the bouncing green line of the heartbeat monitor. Behind the bed, the ventilator wooshed, overly loud, in aggressive counter point to the monitor beep. Peri had been trying to estimate how many of Tonya’s heartbeats would go by until Trey returned from the cafeteria with a sandwich that everyone knew Tonya wouldn’t eat. But now she focused on the woman in the bed.

  “You knew that, didn’t you?” asked Tonya, looking at her through half-closed eyes that were glazed with opioids. Tonya’s once beautiful umber skin was now sallow and ashen. It was hard to remember that she was only forty-two. Cancer had hollowed her out and left a shell behind.

  “Yes,” said Peri. Although outright war had never been declared, her boyfriend’s mother had never been more than cool toward her. They never said anything about it. Just like they never said out loud that Tonya was dying.

  Up until now.

  “I wasn’t sure you’d come today,” said Tonya.

  “Trey said you asked for me and it’s important to Trey, so.” Peri finished her sentence with a shrug and went back to watching Tonya’s heartbeat.

  “You’re not good enough for him. And I’ve never been able to prove it, but I’ve always known you were up to something. I can smell the dirt on you like I could always smell it on my brother.” Tonya pushed the button that raised the bed to a sitting position. “But now I’m glad. Because now I need your help.”

  Monday ~ October 16

  1

  Shark: Rolling Thunder Lanes

  Shark Santoyo rubbed a hand over his prison buzz cut, and considered his options. They appeared to be death or accounting.

  He wondered if he could make it to Mexico before the FBI caught up with him. His jailhouse college degree had given him a basic understanding of American History, Psychology, Criminal Justice, and a hatred for the Grapes of Wrath, but higher-level accounting had not been part of the curriculum.

  That was unfortunate, since his current mission in life was to find where Big Paulie had put Geier’s money, and Big Paulie had chosen to rather inconveniently die of a heart attack mid-beating rather than reveal that information. Shark’s only clue was the red leather ledger with the rambling, scribbled out, crisscrossing columns of numbers, and the gold-stamped Fred Abernathy on the cover. There had been efforts to find the wayward accountant, but so far he was in the wind.

  A vacuum cleaner started up on the far side of the room. Shark both ignored and enjoyed the sound. He didn’t know if the layer of filth covering every surface was due to Rolling Thunder Lanes being a closed suburban bowling alley or because it was the base of operations for wise guys, but he was starting to feel like the OCD germophobe in his cell block who had eventually tried to scrub his cell mate’s face off with a potato brush. Fortunately, Shark was now at the top of this particular pyramid. He might be dead in a week if he couldn’t find Geier’s money, but at least he’d go out in a damn clean bowling alley. He’d even had them open the blinds on the front windows. Bright October sunlight streamed in, illuminating all the grime and blinding him as it bounced off the white pages of the ledger.

  He put on his sunglasses and flipped another page. He had no idea what he was staring at. He sensed a YouTube video on accounting in his future. Later, once he was alone, and no one would know.

  Someone slid into the booth across from him and he looked up, expecting one of the low-level scumbags that floated through here. He wasn’t sure why these suburban dipshits seemed to think he could be pushed around, but he was getting tired of correcting their misunderstanding. But sitting across from him in the booth was a girl—thick brown hair pulled into a loose braid on the right side, purple hoodie, hazel eyes, no make-up. She looked somewhere between fifteen and twenty. He had a hard time judging, since every sixteen-year-old girl he’d known since he was ten had looked over twenty-one. He had no idea what to say to her.

  “We’re closed,” he tried. “No bowling.”

  “Do I look like I’m here to fucking bowl?” His mysterious apparition had a potty mouth. It was an incongruous as it was cute—like an aggressive Corgi.

  He looked around the empty bowling alley. He had no idea what bowlers looked like; he’d never actually been bowling. His supposed bodyguards were lounging against the bar, unaware of the five foot four inch security breach sitting across from him. He flipped the ledger closed.

  “How did you even get in here?”

  “Through the kitchen. If you look like a kid and stay out of people’s way, they assume you belong to somebody.”

  “OK,” he nodded, trying to figure out how he was going to block that in the future. “How about, why are you here?”

  “I’m here because you just took over from Big Paulie, so now you run the Fives and Blue Street,” she said.

  Took over, that was a polite way of putting it.

  “And what is any of that to you?”

  “Blue Street.” She pulled his unused fork over to her side of the table, then paused to make a disgusted face when the fork proved to be sticky. He sympathized. “Blue Street is in an ongoing turf war with the 38th Street crew”—she pulled the spoon into an L shape with the fork, bowl to tines—“which is where Lincoln High School is.” She put a sugar packet in the corner of the adjoining silverware.

  Shark heaved a sigh. This had been going somewhere. She had been interesting. “And you want me to call them off your high school?”

  “No, I want you to apply your foot to Blue Street’s ass and get them to do their fucking jobs.”

  Behind his sunglasses, Shark blinked.

  “Look, I get it,” the girl said. “You’re new, and you’re probably hearing a lot of chatter about how they can’t push too hard because one dead kid in the schoolyard and the police will crack down, and then everyone gets rolled up like a window shade.”

  “The metaphors haven’t been as good as that, but yes.”

  She flashed a smile. “They’re not wrong. Dead kids equals bad. But everyone is stuck staring at the problem from here.” She tapped the fork. “When you need to be looking at the problem from here.” She laid the pepper shaker down parallel to the fork, but at the end of the spoon. There was a huffing sound as Zip and Marko jogged up. “Oh good,” the girl said, showing zero fear. “Which one of them is the waiter?”

  Shark looked at his bodyguards. Marko was Italianish, heavyset and forty-something, usually in jeans and a black leather jacket, and hadn’t said one word about working for a younger man. Zip was a decade younger, equally well-padded, always dressed in a track suit, and had been pissy about the assignment, but so far he had followed Marko’s lead on everything. “Either one,” Shark said. “Seems like that’s what they’re good at.”

  “Great. I’ll take a cherry Coke,” she told Zip.

  Zip looked at Shark.

  “You heard her,” said Shark.

  Zip’s expression said he wanted to argue. “I’ll just…” He glanced at Marko for s
upport, who gave him nothing. “I’ll just go do that then.” He headed for the bar, while Marko unfolded his Sports section and took a seat a few tables over. It was a location that said I know you can handle a kid, but I feel like I should look like I’m doing something.

  The girl watched them leave. “What are the odds that Coke comes back spit-free?”

  “Not good,” said Shark. He slid his Jack and Coke across the table to her and she took a sip.

  “Oh.” She made a face. “How do you drink that stuff?”

  “It’s an acquired taste.”

  “But why acquire it?”

  “Because at some point,” Shark said, “you like feeling bad.”

  She didn’t say anything, but looked like she was thinking it over. She tried another sip and slid the drink back. “Not today.”

  “So tell me about the pepper.”

  “The pepper is everything above Jackson.”

  “That belongs to the Ukrainians,” he pointed out.

  “Yes.” She smiled, and this time there were teeth. “I know. And up until now the Ukrainians have been staying out of it.”

  “What do you mean up until now?”

  “38th Street’s been getting restless. They want a bigger slice of the pie. They’ve been intending to take it out of Blue Street, but would it be such a huge surprise if they hit the Ukrainians’ stash house on Jackson?”

  “Not a surprise. But what would they make them do it?” She had a firm grasp of the politics of the territory—probably better than he did. He hoped it didn’t show.

  “They don’t really have to do it. You can do it. It just has to look like they did it.”

  Shark did a quick mental calculation about the amount of money they could expect to find in a Ukrainian stash house at the end of the month. It seemed like a possible solution to Geier’s money problem. Although, the last time a girl had come to him with a plan he’d ended up in prison, so maybe he should be hearing alarm bells, not seeing dollar signs.

  He wasn’t sure what to make of her. Most girls, most women, if they wanted something from him, they hedged, they angled, they hinted. Things were suggested, but never actually stated. Also, there was generally a lot more cleavage. He stalled, trying to get a feel for her. “And what if the Ukrainians decide to just roll through 38th Street and onto Blue Street? Then you’re right back to where you started.”

  “My focus is on 38th Street’s current personnel; I need them gone. But for what it’s worth, the Ukrainians are set to have a civil war.”

  “There haven’t been any indications of that. My intel says they’re stable.”

  “Your intel doesn’t sit next to Andriy’s younger sister in Pre-Calc. They don’t know that she’s been sleeping with his second-in-command and that she’s pregnant. The right words to the right people at the right time and the Ukrainians could be pretty damn unstable.”

  “Cherry Coke,” offered Zip.

  “Cherry Coke,” said Shark. “That sounds good. Why don’t you give me that one, and go get another for the kid?”

  There was silence. Shark didn’t have to look up to know Zip was sweating.

  “You know,” said Zip. “I didn’t do the garnish right. I’ll be right back.”

  Marko looked after him with a frown. “I’ll help him,” he said, folding his paper. Shark ignored them both, focusing on the girl.

  Shark took off his sunglasses and set them on the table. Born with pale gray eyes, he knew most people found a hard stare from him creepy, an effect enhanced by the scar running through his right eyebrow. Leaning forward, he stared at the little shark who didn’t like alcohol. She met his stare levelly. “Why come to me? Why not take this directly to the Blue Street crew?”

  She shook her head. “Blue Street won’t listen to me. Too many boobs, not enough dick. I did some recon and I think you’re the first person on the food chain with more than two brain cells to rub together and enough power to make it happen.”

  “What’s in it for you? Why do you care?”

  “No one owns the school because all the crews have family there. That makes it an open territory for independent operators.”

  “Such as yourself?”

  “Such as myself. But that arrangement doesn’t mean we’re unaffected by what goes on out here. And right now 38th Street is inconveniencing me. I need them, and specifically their leader Tall Jimmy, to go away. Preferably permanently, and without a lot of fuss or a long lead time.”

  “Two cherry Cokes,” announced Marko, setting down the glasses with a flourish. This time there were cherries dangling from the rims.

  Shark leaned back and put his sunglasses back on. “What are you bringing to the table?”

  “Intel, a plan, and a few other items.” She took a cherry off the glass and crunched it between her teeth, leaving the stem on the table.

  “I’ll think about it.”

  She slid a card across the table. “This is my number.”

  It was blank except for digits. How did she have better business cards than he did?

  “I need to know by tomorrow.”

  “What happens tomorrow?”

  She slid out of the booth. “I move on to plan B.”

  Shark watched her walk out the front door. She walked quickly, with firm feet. No hip wiggles, but no tripping or awkwardness either. She knew they were watching, but she didn’t waver. Even some of the guys who had been around awhile couldn’t walk from the table to the door without looking back. The girl had balls.

  He tapped the card on the table. “Call Blue Street,” he told Marko, when the door closed behind her. “Tell them I’m coming for a visit. Tell them to call in anyone in their crew who goes to the high school.”

  2

  Shark: Blue Street

  All gangs, from drug cartels to the Sicilian mob, are set up to enforce order on a group of people who inherently don’t like order—and Big Paulie’s territory wasn’t any different. The younger members were street-level thugs and dealers who purchased their various illegal substances from their boss, a nineteen-year-old they called Paper because of his pasty complexion, or maybe because of his desire for paper money. And if any of the kids made it to adulthood, they could go work for Two Tone, a bookie with a crew of leg-breakers he called the Fives. Ruling over all of them had been Big Paulie, who was supposed to pass on an appropriate percentage of the profits to Geier. Obviously there had been a breakdown in communication about what was supposed to happen. Shark had been sent to remind everyone of their obligations.

  Shark parked in front of Paper’s dilapidated house on Blue Street. The front lawn was littered with brown leaves blown down from the trees. A smashed jack-o-lantern scummed the front curb next to a washing machine overgrown with weeds that had the word male painted on the side. He craned his head and saw a stack of circulars and ads. The mailman had apparently figured it out.

  “This place is worse than the bowling alley,” muttered Marko.

  Shark grunted his agreement. It reminded him of any of number of flophouses he’d spent his youth in.

  Most of the crew was squatting at Paper’s house, and he could feel their eyes on him as he picked his way through the mess. He knew that dressed in slacks and a button-down he stood out from the rest in their tracksuits, sagging jeans and oversized t-shirts. He knew he looked more menswear than street wear, but he couldn’t pull off the classic gangster look that Marko was sporting in black leather and he was over letting his underwear hang out.

  He came to a halt in front of Paper who was sitting in a brown, broken La-Z-Boy, and looked at the assembled group of children. He wasn’t quite sure when they had all started to look so young. At twenty-six he didn’t feel like the divide ought to be that big.

  “I’m looking for a girl,” he told Paper.

  “We can get you plenty of pussy,” said Paper, look
ing around for a laugh. He was wearing a wife-beater, brown sweats, and a pair of down-at-the-heel slippers.

  Shark sighed. Paper verged on chum. “I’m looking for a specific girl. She’s about this tall. Brunette. Wears Chucks and a purple hoodie.” One of the peewee players holding up the wall twitched. Marko walked over and nudged him forward while Shark sat down on the couch, wrapping his pea coat around his legs to avoid contact with the upholstery. “What’s your name?”

  “Domingo,” said the kid nervously. Behind him, Paper looked annoyed. Probably because the entire focus of the room had shifted away from his recliner throne.

  “OK, Domingo, tell me about her.”

  “Well, I mean, I don’t know if it’s the same girl,” the kid said. “But I heard things about this one girl.”

  “What kind of things, and who did you hear them from?”

  Domingo looked embarrassed. “Well, from my cousin Martina. She was dating this guy and she broke up with him, but he wouldn’t leave her alone. And I didn’t think it was a thing, but we come home from the movies and there’s her cat on the porch with its neck broken. And I said I’d go tune him up for her and she said not to bother because she’d already taken it to the Godmother.”

  At this point, some of the other boys shifted.

  “And I was like, please, what white chick is going to take care of a cat killer? But Martina said, don’t worry about it. But I did worry about it, so the next day at school I went looking for him. And I see him in line for lunch and then I see Martina walk in. But he sees her walk in too, and he just drops his tray and he runs out. And I go after him, and I find him in the bathroom and he’s got no pants on. And at first I’m like—what’s wrong with this fuck? And then I realize he’s all trying to wipe his pants, cuz he pissed himself. He saw Martina and he literally pissed himself. I mean, I don’t know what the Godmother did, but he hasn’t been within fifty feet of Martina since. In fact, he changed schools.”