girlfriend of yours to Vegas, married her, and made lots of fat babies. He’d been a happy-go-lucky son of a bitch who’d been born into the business, same as I. Always one to go with the flow, he’d drifted here, drifted there, and now had ended up facedown on a sticky bar floor. When you drifted, you risked getting caught in a rip-tide. Paulie had been sucked down and gobbled up by a merciless sea. If it hadn’t been for that pain-in-the-ass Sevastian, I’d have probably gone down with him.
The other two were just as lifeless, and I rubbed a hand hard across my face. For all my big talk, I hadn’t seen much death before, not like this. Before becoming a
“Go. Tell Sevastian to bring a cleanup crew.” Those transparent eyes moved from me to the stirring form of Gregori. “I wish to speak with my cousin.” The ice abruptly was stained the color of shadows. “Apparently he is unhappy with his current position.”
I left without a backward glance. One killer, two killers . . . and a bloodstained bottle of expensive vodka. It was like a very nasty version of a nursery rhyme, and I wasn’t particularly wild about catching the live show. It only struck me halfway to Sevastian and the door that I was still carrying one bottle of Mosko. Cracking it open, I took a swallow as I kept walking. It was going to be a long night.
Chapter 2
Watching the sunrise was a tradition for lovers, nature enthusiasts, or poets. It wasn’t for the likes of me. But I sat there anyway, on the beach with sand gritty between my toes. Rays the color of a beautiful woman’s hair spilled across the horizon, strawberry blond silk gleaming bright. Crimson and gold, it reflected onto the ocean, transforming it into a fractured kaleidoscope. The colors of the peacock and phoenix mingled into an incomparable whole. I laughed without humor. Maybe I was a poet after all.
I’d discarded my shoes, worn black loafers, at the water’s edge. They were probably halfway to Cuba by now. I had spent nearly a half hour standing in the water, the salt scouring the skin of my ankles and feet cleaner than they cared to be. If it would’ve helped, I would’ve dunked my head and let the salt scrub my brain. Last night was a memory I wouldn’t have minded having wiped clean—four bodies wrapped in plastic tablecloths and duct tape. I hadn’t been in the room when Gregori was “promoted,” but I’d felt the heavy weight of an erased life in my hands when I helped load his still body into a car trunk and watched as he and the others were carried away. Death no longer rode astride a pale horse. He’d traded up . . . Mercedes, Jags. The Grim Reaper had expensive taste.
Now I sat, my legs unwilling to carry me back home. Drifting, I’d gotten carried into some damn black water, and I wasn’t sure I cared enough to try to swim out. Almost half my life had revolved around finding my brother. I hadn’t paid attention to much else, and this was where it had landed me.
And I wasn’t sure there was anything I could do about it.
Lukas wouldn’t have gone this way—never; not even if things had been reversed and something had happened to me. If I’d been stolen away and he’d blamed himself, he still wouldn’t have fallen into a violence of convenience. Lukas had been made for better things. He’d been made a better person. He was only seven, but you could still see that difference in the tranquillity of the eyes, a quality that seemed to belong to someone much older.
Ignoring my stubborn legs, I stood as sand cascaded off me. Soon it would be time to meet Saul for lunch. It could be he had information pointing to Lukas. And if not? Head down, I trudged on, long strands of hair hanging in my eyes. If not, maybe I would go back to the bar and kick the
By the time lunch rolled around, it felt as if the sand I’d showered off had ended up beneath my eyelids. I hadn’t slept and I was sure it showed in the lines bracketing my mouth and the annoyed twist of my lips. I was old at the age of twenty-four. Saul didn’t comment on my rough look; he just raised his ginger eyebrows and returned to checking out his menu. Feeding the man could be a chore. He was a vegan—meat or any animal products whatsoever were verboten. Breaking a finger or two for information, that was no problem. Scrambled eggs with cheese? That was a blasphemy against God and nature. Yeah, you had to respect a man with morals.
Not that I was in any position to judge. “Jesus,” I snapped as he lingered over the choices. “Go with the fungus of the day and let’s get this show on the road, Saul.”
“Temper. Temper.” He snapped the menu shut and motioned for our server. “Does baby need a nap?”
Our server arrived just in time to receive the full force of my scowl. Understandably, she turned to take Saul’s order first. Skoczinsky had no problem with that. Running a hand across his highlighted auburn hair, he flashed a blinding smile framed by a prematurely white-streaked goatee. I waited impatiently as he and the equally interested blond waitress flirted endlessly. Finally, I rapped my order, cutting off the mutual drooling. Offended, improbably aquarmarine eyes narrowed at me as she scribbled on a pad, and, pushing out her equally improbable breasts, stalked off on heels high enough to give that stalk a helluva bob and sway for Saul to watch. Watch, he did, too . . . on my time and my dime.
“You need to get married,” I grumbled. “It’d keep these meetings shorter if you got your rocks off at home.”
“The things I’m thinking about her aren’t legal, even if I were married. There are still a few states lagging behind the times,” he said, putting the leer away as he turned his attention back to me. “No leash for me. A stallion’s gotta run, baby.”
That line, so old and hackneyed, had me snorting into my ice water. “Yeah, you’re a real beast, Skoczinsky. A walking cologne commercial, tackled by women wherever your ass goes.”
“The day I see you wearing something you didn’t buy at Wal-Mart . . . then you can mock me. You couldn’t pay a woman to screw you, much less get her to give it up for free,” he shot back the barb with the good- naturedness I’d gotten used to from him. Switching to a much soberer mode, he massaged the back of his neck and straightened in his chair. “We’d better get down to business, Stefan.” That was my cue. I slid an envelope plump with cash across the table and watched it disappear like a rabbit in a hat. But while the payment-up-front process was familiar, Saul calling me by my real name was not. As his work was only slightly more legal than mine, he gave his clients nicknames. That meant if he was in public with them or someone of a federal nature was listening in, the client’s identity was protected.
He usually called me Smirnoff. Russian vodka. Big leap, but I didn’t care. With Saul’s lethal verbal jabs, I was only grateful he hadn’t gone with Rasputin. The most infamous death in history: poisoned, shot, beaten, stabbed, his dick cut off, and then what was left of him heaved into an icy Russian river. Good luck couldn’t go with a nickname like that, and I needed all the luck I could get.
“Give,” I said impassively.
Saul and I weren’t friends. I wasn’t sure either of us was equipped emotionally in that department, but we did have a mutual respect for each other. It tended to be oiled by my money and his skill, but it was there regardless. In the past it had him making a gruff attempt to ease the blow when he came up empty. This time he didn’t make an effort. This time, for the very first time, he didn’t have to.
“Don’t get your hopes up.” The hazel eyes were grim, but the finger he tapped repeatedly against the table gave away his excitement. “But I think I might have found something.”
Under the right circumstances a moment can last forever. This was that moment. There was an eternity of clinking glasses, midday chatter, and the soft strumming of a sidewalk musician lounging against the patio rail. I was a fly stuck in an empanada-and-paella-scented amber. Not twelve hours ago I’d seen death come and go, barely missing me in the process. It had been more than a hiccup in my routine; I had the bloodshot eyes to prove it. But this . . . This staggered me. This rocked me at every level in a way nothing else could.
“What?” The word fell between us, hoarse and choked. Clearing my throat, I went on flatly. “What did you find?”
Did you ever hope for something so fiercely, with such devotion, that when you closed your eyes you could all
