She listened hard. Her body tensed up.
Silence.
She relaxed, breathed out, certain she was hearing things that were not there.
It came again, the scraping.
She flung back the duvet and shot out of bed in an instant, crossing the room, drawing the curtain back just far enough to see out. Her car was parked in the short driveway in front of her house, partly obscured by a tree in the garden.
She put a hand over her eyes to eliminate the glare from the nearby street lamp.
Nothing. No movement. Bugger all.
Just imagination. Or cats screwing.
She uttered an expletive, let the curtain fall back, trotted to the 100, then dropped wearily back into bed.
At 4.10 she closed her eyes and was immediately asleep.
At 4.11 a full house brick, expertly aimed, exploded through her bedroom window, shattering glass with a sound like a shotgun blast. It powered its way past the curtain and landed on Danny’s pillow, only inches from her face, showering her with glass.
A particularly nasty shard sliced into her left cheek.
‘ This is nice, Steve, I’m really impressed,’ Myrna nodded approvingly. She heaped another forkful of the excellent Arroz con pollo into her mouth and licked her lips after she had consumed it.
‘ Yeah, and it’s also owned by Mario Bussola,’ he said, adding begrudgingly, ‘and every damn cent we spend in here goes from our accounts into his. We are helping to support his lifestyle.’
‘ Aw, it don’t stop it being nice though,’ Myrna said through another mouthful of chicken. ‘We might as well get something good out of this before we all lose our ‘jobs,’ she concluded wickedly.
Kruger frowned, unhappy at being unable to relax. Had the circumstances been different he could really have enjoyed the evening and no doubt have chanced it with Myrna, even though she was strictly a ‘no no’ on his list as far as women were concerned — i.e. married and employed by him. A very uncool combination.
He tried to chill out and soak in the atmosphere. It wasn’t easy, not least because of the radio under his left arm, gun at his back, earpiece in his ear and transmit button stuck to his palm.
The Club Montoya was a nightclub situated in the basement of the Hotel Montoya. The hotel was perhaps one of Bussola’s finest establishments, if not the finest of the seven hotels he owned. It was also one of South Beach’s hottest locations. The hotel was Art Deco done to death, all the rage with the young business end of Miami, with four themed restaurants, two pools, a sports complex and very, very superior-priced rooms.
The nightclub, open from 6 p.m. to 6 a.m. every day, and soundproofed from the hotel, had become very much the place for everyone who was anyone to be seen in. Gays, Latinos, cross-dressers. Even white male heterosexuals.
It had a dozen bars and two restaurants, one of which clients had to skirt through to enter the nightclub proper. This was the one in which Kruger and Myrna were sitting. It served expensive, but highly palatable Cuban food.
Kruger hoped the information given by Felicity about her wayward husband’s whereabouts ‘sometime tonight’ was good gen. Otherwise it would be a wasted evening and Kruger wanted to spend as little time and effort on a case which would bring his company nothing in terms of money or kudos.
He hoped to end it tonight by jumping onto Bussola’s trail, finding him with a piece of unofficial ass, reporting the news back to Felicity, together with some evidence, and then — zap! — calling it quits.
Kruger was enough of a realist, though, to know things were unlikely to turn out as smoothly as that.
‘ You told hubby you’re dining out with the boss tonight?’ Kruger smiled.
‘ Of course. He’s away in Salt Lake City for a couple of days at a seminar. We spoke on the phone earlier.’
‘ Is he very liberal?’
‘ He trusts me, Steve.’ She leaned forwards, elbow points on the table, and rested her chin on her thumbs. ‘He knows I would never be unfaithful with you.’ She stressed the last two words with a light sneer.
Kruger raised his eyebrows. But before he could respond with a feisty remark…
‘ He’s here!’ Their earpieces blurted into life, making them both jump out of their skins.
It was Kelly’s voice, broadcasting from the back of the comms van parked a little way down the street outside the hotel. She commanded a good view of the entrance of the Hotel Montoya through the lens of a high- powered night intensifier camera mounted in the side of the vehicle. She was sitting in the back of the van in a cosy little room with a bank of miniature TV screens and radio equipment. ‘He’s getting out the back of his car… accompanied by another guy and two bodyguards… they’re going into the hotel… they’re out of my line of sight… now!’
‘ And coming into the foyer,’ Jimmy Armstrong said, taking over the commentary from his position half-hidden by a huge marble pillar near the reception desk.
‘ I hope the two assholes with him are not the two who were with Liss yesterday, the ones who kidnapped me,’ Kruger mused, thinking out loud. ‘If they are, we might as well call it off right now. Damn, shoulda thought about that.’ He wasn’t too concerned about Bussola slapping eyes on him because Kruger believed the mobster had never seen him before.
‘ Now he’s headin’ towards the club entrance,’ Jimmy continued. ‘It’s his usual firepower,’ he added, referring to the bodyguards, meaning they were Bussola’s regular minders.
Kruger sat upright. He reached out, gently took Myrna’s hands and held them across the table. He looked into her bright brown sparkling eyes.
‘ Kruger received,’ he said into his radio. He tried to give Myrna a look of love tinged with lust.
Myrna eased herself into her role. She leaned further forwards, making the scenario seem more intimate, but also giving herself a good, unobstructed view over Kruger’s shoulder to the club entrance.
Bussola, A.N. Other, and two bodyguards came into sight.
‘ Here he is,’ she whispered to Kruger, fluttering her eyelids. ‘Got him,’ she said into the miniature mike which was positioned, secured by tape, between her breasts. In her present lean-forwards position, Kruger could see it there. By angling his head forwards a few more degrees he could have spoken into it. He caught his breath and concentrated on the task in hand.
‘ He’s coming towards us,’ Myrna warned, seeing that Bussola and his small entourage had entered the club.
Myrna lifted an arm languidly and placed a cool hand around Kruger’s neck. She scratched him naughtily, drew his face a little nearer to hers, then suddenly pulled him even closer across the small table so that her mouth was next to his ear and his mouth was only millimetres away from her cleavage. He became very hot.
She pretended to whisper love things into his ear.
‘ He’s only feet away now,’ she said. ‘I confirm he’s with another guy and two goons.’
Kruger was content to receive the information from his present position.
‘ Now walking around the perimeter of the restaurant.’ Kruger felt Myrna’s big soft mouth brushing his ear. Her voice became very husky. Her lips tickled him as they moved. ‘He’s right behind you, babe,’ she murmured. ‘I didn’t realise he was such a big, fat bastard, and the guy he’s with is enormous too… I could reach out and touch them
… now he’s gone past… approaching the entrance to the Tropicana Bar.’
As Bussola and company went through the doors to the bar, a roar of loud music boomed out.
‘ And now I’ve got him,’ Dale Armstrong confirmed from his position inside the bar.
Myrna leaned back and pushed Kruger gently away.
He blew a long breath and loosened his neck-tie, sadly aware that he had been as close as he would ever get to Myrna’s breasts.
‘ Enjoy, big boy?’
‘ Not in the slightest,’ Kruger lied, wiping his forehead with his napkin.
Danny held the flannel tightly against her bleeding cheek. Though some thirty minutes had passed since the
