Both looked up at her entrance.
“What happened to dessert?” she asked.
“What happened to Castle?” Dave shot back.
She waved a hand dismissively.
Stanley nodded sadly and opened his refrigerator. He pulled out a tub of ice cream, and handed it—and a spoon—to Joan.
She took both to the couch. Dave put on a record and began air-conducting the music.
All at once, a huge thump shook the building.
“He’s at it again,” Stanley said. “All he ever does is work.”
Joan stabbed at the ice cream, lifted a frozen hunk the size of a softball from the container.
“It’s what he loves,” she said, and took a bite.
Castle hid behind the bathroom door and waited. He’d been very, very careless, and now he would have to be very, very careful. This could not be a fair fight—he’d die in a heartbeat. An ambush was his only chance.
And Castle had been preparing for an ambush—preparing himself and the apartment—for weeks now.
Castle clutched the crowbar in his hand as the Russian’s footsteps grew closer, then stopped.
Castle risked a peek out from behind the door.
Ivan stood in the middle of the room, flexing his hands, weight on the balls of his feet, rocking gently from side to side. Listening. Eyes scanning the room, alert for—
The Russian turned and smiled right at Frank’s hiding place.
Castle saw the mirror directly opposite him, realized he’d been spotted, and charged, crowbar raised high above his head.
He’d been afraid the shoulder wound would slow him down; it didn’t. His leap from hiding was perfectly timed; his swing was straight and true and backed with every ounce of strength he could summon.
The crowbar slammed down, full force, on the Russian’s head. It made a horrible sound.
Ivan smiled.
“Ah . . . Baseball! I like baseball.”
He ripped the crowbar from Castle’s hands and, before Frank could move, swung it hard into his chest.
Castle felt a rib crack, and gasped. The Russian swung again and broke another one. A third swing, and then a fourth, and a fifth, and Castle staggered backward into the bathroom.
Holding the crowbar with his hands, like a baseball player heading toward the plate from the on-deck circle, the Russian followed.
Castle slid open the drawer of the vanity and smiled.
It pays to plan ahead, he thought, and he pulled out the grenade he’d hidden there.
He looked up.
The Russian stood in the doorway, a sudden frown crossing his face.
Castle pulled the pin and threw the grenade. At the same instant, he reached for the lever he’d installed next to the vanity and pulled that as well. The spring-loaded steel door above the bathroom entrance began to descend.
The Russian batted the grenade back into the bathroom.
The steel door slammed down.
The grenade exploded.
The needle on the record player skipped. The turntable arm lifted, and the machine shut off.
“Did you feel that?” Stanley stood at the stove, poised to begin making the Florentine.
Dave frowned.
“You think something’s wrong?” he asked.
On the couch, Joan took another bite of ice cream. “I didn’t feel a thing,” she said.
Stanley looked at her and shrugged. He continued cooking.
Dave turned the music back on.
Plaster sprinkled down on him. Castle looked up from inside the cast-iron tub that had saved his life and saw the Russian looming over him.
“Castle,” he said, and grabbed both of Frank’s legs. Ivan picked him up then, swung him through the air once, and let go.
Castle went through what was left of a wall and landed in the bedroom.
He lay on the floor a moment, stunned.
“Castle. Message.” He heard the Russian’s voice, and then heard wood splinter. He struggled to his feet.
The Russian was holding his toilet. His entire toilet.
Castle charged at him. Ivan used the toilet the way he’d used the crowbar, like a baseball bat.
He hit Castle with it and sent him flying again. Castle slammed back into something very hard. His head spun. The refrigerator. He was in the kitchen.
The Russian’s face was suddenly inches from his.
“Message from Howard Saint,” Ivan said. “Message is: Die.”
All at once, the Russian’s hands were around his throat. Tightening. Castle couldn’t breathe.
His eyes scanned the kitchen, searching for the weapons he’d hidden. No grenades here; the gun emplacements out of reach, the knives in a drawer all the way on the other side of the room.
Out the window, he could see into Bumpo’s apartment. Stanley stood at the stove, cooking, his back to Castle. Dave conducted an orchestra. Joan sat on the couch, eating and staring off into space.
Castle gasped for air, tried to dislodge the Russian’s hands.
Ivan slammed his head back against the refrigerator again.
“How do you say in America: Just chill.” He smiled, and repeated the word and the action. “Chill. Chill. Chill.”
From somewhere, Castle found the strength to kick him in the knee. The Russian grimaced, then tried to step back, his hands still wrapped around Castle’s neck. The move took Frank out from in front of the refrigerator . . . and put him in range of the hidden gun emplacement.
Castle punched a button on the wall, and the revolver shot out from its hiding spot. Castle grabbed it and turned to fire. The Russian, however, scooped a barbell off the floor and smashed it into the gun.
Castle looked down at his weapon. The barrel was oval.
Ivan hit him with the barbell, and Castle flew backward, out through his still-open door and into the hall.
The Russian followed.
THIRTY-SEVEN
Dave had always taken grief about his taste in music.
Growing up, while his friends were into Nirvana and Soundgarden, he was listening to big band stuff: Glenn Miller, Benny Goodman, the Dorsey brothers—his grand-father had gotten him hooked the year he was six and had to stay with them while his mom detoxed. After that, he just couldn’t listen to anything recorded past 1950. Okay, some Blue Note stuff, but otherwise . . .
Bill Haley was the Antichrist, as far as he was concerned.
It wasn’t a big deal until puberty, when every girl in the eighth grade was dying to talk about the latest, greatest records, and Dave was revealed (not for the last time in his life) as a clueless geek.
He had suddenly become cool for about a month in high school when swing was briefly in, but, soon enough, everyone was mocking him again. It got even worse his senior year when he discovered classical, because then the music teachers all wanted to play him stuff, which earned him a teacher’s pet rep and several bruises. By the time college rolled around, he’d bought an expensive pair of headphones and learned to keep his taste—and his CD collection—to himself.
Which was why Bumpo’s record collection had come as such a pleasant surprise. The day he’d moved in, he’d heard Wagner coming from underneath his new neighbor’s door, and he’d beaten on it till Stanley answered. When Stanley showed Dave the record collection his mother had bequeathed him . . . well, he’d felt as if he’d died and gone to heaven. There were 78s of Caruso; the original Decca Callas collection, the actual vinyl, which to his ears sounded so much better than the CDs burned from those original recordings; Olander conducting Beethoven’s ninth.
