'Gotta be the hero, huh?'
I can't say I felt terribly heroic. The weight of the suitcases kept me from being particularly jaunty. It looked as though one of the men had a gun, not the one holding the girl, and it looked as though the gun was pointed at me, but I didn't feel in danger of being shot, not unless someone on our side panicked and got off a round and everybody just let fly. If they were going to kill me, they'd at least wait until I'd brought them the money. They might be crazy but they weren't stupid.
'Don't try a thing,' Ray said. 'I don't know if you can see it, but the knife's right at her throat.'
'I can see.'
'That's close enough. Put the bags down.'
It was Ray holding the girl, holding the knife. I knew his voice but I would have made him from TJ's description, which was right on the money. His jacket was zipped so I couldn't see the lame sport shirt, but I was willing to take TJ's word for it.
The other man was taller, with unkempt dark hair and eyes that looked in the half-light like a pair of holes burned in a bedsheet. He wore no jacket, just a flannel shirt and jeans. I couldn't see his eyes but I could feel the anger in his stare and I wondered what the hell he thought I'd done to provoke it. I was bringing him a million dollars and he was itching to kill me.
'Open the bags.'
'First let the girl go.'
'No, first show the money.'
The pistol Kenan had insisted on giving me was in the small of my back, its barrel wedged under my belt, its bulk concealed by my sport jacket. There is no terribly adroit way to draw it quickly from that position, but I had my hands free now and could go for it.
Instead I knelt and unfastened the snaps on one of the cases, lifting the lid to show the money. I straightened up. The man with the gun started forward and I held up a hand.
'Now let her go,' I said. 'Then you can examine it. Don't try to change the ground rules now, Ray.'
'Ah, sweet Lucy,' he said. 'I hate to see you go, child.'
He let go of her. I'd barely had a chance to look at her, half-shadowed by his body. Even in the darkness she looked pale and drawn. Her hands were clutched together at her waist, her arms tight against her sides, her shoulders hunched. She looked as though she was trying to present the smallest possible target to the world.
I said, 'Come here, Lucia.' She didn't move. I said, 'Your father's over there, darling. Go to your father.
Go ahead.'
She took a step, then stopped. She looked very unsteady on her feet, and she was gripping one hand tightly with the other.
'Go on,' Callander told her. 'Run!'
She looked at him, then at me. It was hard to tell what she was seeing because her gaze was unfocused, vacant. I wanted to pick her up, toss her over my shoulder, run back to where her father was waiting.
Or tug my jacket aside with one hand, draw the gun with the other, and drop both of the bastards where they stood. But the dark man's gun was pointing at me, and Callander also had a gun in his hand now, a companion piece for the long knife he was still holding.
I called out to Yuri, told him to call her. 'Luschka!' he cried.
'Luschka, it's Papa. Come to Papa!'
She recognized the voice. Her brow contracted in concentration, as if she was struggling to make sense out of the syllables.
I said, 'In Russian, Yuri!'
He replied with something that I certainly couldn't understand, but it evidently got through to Lucia. Her hands unclasped and she took a step, then another.
I said, 'What's the matter with her hand?'
'Nothing.'
As she drew alongside me I reached for her hand. She snatched it away from me.
There were two fingers missing.
I stared at Callander. He looked almost apologetic. 'Before we set the terms,' he said, by way of explanation.
There was another burst of Russian from Yuri, and now she was moving faster, but hardly running. She couldn't seem to manage more than an awkward shuffle, and I wasn't sure how long she could sustain even that much.
But she stayed on her feet and kept going, and I stayed on mine and looked into the barrels of two handguns. The dark man stared silently at me, still a study in rage, while Callander watched the girl. He kept the gun pointed at me but he couldn't keep his eyes from turning to her, and I could feel how much he wanted to swing the gun, too, in her direction.
'I liked her,' he said. 'She was nice.'
* * *
THE rest of it was easy. I opened the second suitcase and stepped back a few paces. Ray came forward to inspect the contents of both cases while his partner kept me covered. The bills got only a cursory examination. He flipped through half a dozen packs, but he didn't count any of them, or make a rough count of the number of
