He was tough, whoever he was. He flinched at the bullet, then immediately shoved the girl toward Jack. Even if Jack had shot her, her momentum would have carried her into him. Jack leaned out of the way, trying to fire, but a red-hot bullet bit him on the right shoulder and he felt his gun arm go numb. His right arm again! He stumbled to the floor and lost his weapon. He saw the black-jacketed man slow and steady himself for a finishing shot.
At that moment someone else roared and surged out of the dining room, slamming into the assassin from behind. The newcomer was a big Latino man wearing a wife-beater. But his hands were tied behind his back. He used his shoulder and momentum to ram the Slavic gunman, who stumbled forward into the couch. He spun with an elbow, catching the bound man in the temple.
Endorphins masked the pain in Jack’s right arm, but he couldn’t move it, so he jumped up onto the couch and landed heavily on the gunman’s shoulders. He wrapped his left arm around the Slavic man’s neck and grabbed the barrel of his gun. Jack couldn’t seal a proper choke this way, but then the gunman couldn’t reverse his weapon and shoot Jack, either. At the same moment, the Latino man rose unsteadily to his feet. He kicked the man once in the stomach.
The Slavic man clearly had had enough. He let go of his weapon, leaving it in Jack’s hand, elbowed Jack in the stomach, and dropped out of his hold. He bulled past the Latino and sprinted out the door.
Jack paused a moment, gasping for breath. His right arm hung heavily at his side. The bullet seemed to have plowed a furrow along the width of his forearm, glancing off the bone. He forced himself to flex his fingers. He could move them, but it was going to hurt like hell in a minute. He looked up at the other man. The Latino was in his mid-twenties, red-faced and angry, still staring out the front door as if he wanted to chase down the other man.
“Smiley Lopez?” Jack said.
“Yeah,” the other man said. “Who the fuck are you?”
“I think I’m the guy who just saved your ass.” Jack dropped the gun he still held, stepped off the couch and behind Lopez. His hands were tied together with flexcuffs. “You have any wire cutters?”
Lopez said something to the girl in Spanish, and she replied. “The kitchen,” Lopez said. “The drawer by the back door.”
Jack went into the kitchen, found the right drawer, and came back with a pair of red-handled cutters. He snipped the plastic cuffs off and gave them to Lopez, who freed his girlfriend.
“Who was that?” Jack asked.
“Don’t know,” Lopez said, “but when I find out, I’m gonna pay some people a visit.” Lopez casually picked up the weapon Jack had dropped and pointed it at him. “So who the fuck are you?”
Jack ignored the threat of the weapon. His right arm was more mobile now, but it was also on fire. “I came here for information. There’s a guy I’m after, and I think you know how I can find him.”
Lopez gave the girl an order and she scurried off to the kitchen while Lopez sat down in a chair. “Fuckin’ cop. I’m not giving you shit.”
Jack sat down, too. “He’s not one of yours. In fact, he’s a guy who left MS–13.”
“Nobody leaves.”
“He did. Tell me where to find him, and I’ll make sure your guys at the Federal Holding Facility get out.”
Jack wasn’t prepared for the effect this had on Lopez. The gang leader laughed, showing big white teeth and huge dimples. When he smiled, his face changed from a sneer into something oddly jolly. “You guys must be desperate. You’re the second
“I want Zapata.”
This statement had a totally different effect on Lopez. He went suddenly cold and serious. “You aren’t a cop. Not a regular cop.”
“You’re right. But I do want Zapata. So give him up, and your boys go free.”
Smiley Lopez studied this stranger. If he’d been raised in a different neighborhood, he might have grown up to be a lawyer or a businessman. As it was, he was a shrewd entrepreneur, but he dealt in drugs and muscle. This blond man struck him as someone to bargain with. “Maybe I could do it,” he said at last. “But not just for my homeboys. I want to get back at those
“This guy who tried to kill you.”
“Fucking Russians or Ukrainians or whatever. We’re in a war with them.”
“You want me to go after him?”
But this still wasn’t enough for Lopez. “More than that,
“I don’t have the time to find them—”
“Make the time,
“I take down these Russians and bring you the crystal meth, and you’ll tell me where to find Zapata?”
“You got it.”
“Why should you trust me?”
Lopez grinned. “What trust? I get the tina or I don’t. You come back, we’ll talk about Zapata.”
Jack considered, but he had little time and less of a choice. “Deal.”
The Biltmore Hotel was unusual because the front of the hotel had become the back. Modern traffic needs had forced the owners to create a modern entrance in what had been the rear of the hotel. The tragedy was that the original front doors had opened onto a grand lobby with a beautiful double marble staircase leading up to a mezzanine. So that this glamorous room would not go to waste, the management had turned it into an opulent dining room.
Martin Webb was having breakfast in that dining room with his grandson. Jake was a bigger, stronger version of Martin as a young man. In his early twenties, Jake was over six feet and solid, but not so muscular that it slowed him down. He was a good-looking kid, too, and he turned lots of heads as they walked through the lobby to the restaurant. There was a minor scuffle among the waitresses arguing over who would serve his table. Jake took it all in stride.
Martin ordered eggs and pancakes — even in his seventies, he had a healthy appetite — while Jake ordered egg whites and fruit.
“For a man’s man, you eat like a girl,” Martin joked.
“One more day, Grandpa,” Jake said. “Tomorrow I’m going to stuff my face. But I can’t feel heavy today.”
“Then you’re going to quit this stuff and go into finance like your grandpa and your dad, right?” Martin said lightly.
Jake laughed. It was a long-running joke between them. They both knew well that Jake had neither the brain nor the temperament for financial matters. He had inherited all of his grandfather’s athletic genes and none of his financial ones. He was ready to let the joke pass, as it usually did, but his grandfather turned suddenly serious.
“Actually, Jakey, I have to say at this moment I’m jealous of you. This life you’re leading right now, it’s a good life. Stick with it for a while. I can’t say that having a lot of responsibility is all that fun.”
Though not a CPA, Jake was no idiot. He understood the responsibility on his grandfather’s shoulders. “You’ll find a way out of it, Grandpa. You’re the Wise Old Man of the Fed, right?”
“Old,” Martin agreed. “And I’m what’s left of a man. But wise?” He sighed. “Well, I have to go on the TV tomorrow and sound like it, anyway. I lost sleep last night, thinking of it. Oh, hey,” he said, brightening. “I saw you. ESPN was doing some late night preview of the fighters for the Professional Reality Fighting matches tonight. They did a big story on you.”
Jake smiled. “They like pumping up the young guys sometimes.”
“The ones with a future,” Martin said. “I know how business works. They think they can market you.”
“If I win tonight,” Jake agreed. “Are you going to watch on TV?”
Martin sighed. “You know, my boy, I’m going to do one better. I’m going to come to the fights.”
“Great! I mean, don’t feel like you have to, Grandpa, I know what’s going on—”
Martin held up a hand to stop him. “I already made some calls. I canceled my dinner, and I got a ticket. As for tomorrow” —now he waved his hand dismissively— “I’ve been saying what I say for years. No one’s going to surprise me with a question. Tonight, I’m coming to watch my grandson.”
