because if you just wound me, I’m coming for you.” Creighton raised the cruelly tipped weapon.
“I’m pretty quick, and if I make it across the room, I’m going to bury this in your belly. How’s that for an offer?”
“Now, now. Don’t I even get a thank-you? Your bail was no small sum, and we both know you won’t show up for the trial.
That’s quite a little chunk of change I paid just to have you come here and threaten me.”
Creighton tried to catch the tenor of the person’s real voice, but whoever it was, he must have had a microphone up to his mouth that changed the pitch and tone of every word as he spoke.
“Well,” said Creighton. “I never asked for your help.”
A coarse voice coming through the mic. “Mr. Melice, I’ve been, how shall I say, following your career.”
“So, you’re a fan. Well, that’s just great.”
“In a manner of speaking, yes. I am a fan. You have a great gift.”
“Oh, is that what you call it.” It wasn’t really a question. Silence stained the room. Creighton waited for the guy to reply, and when he didn’t, Creighton turned his head and tapped the broken bottle against the back of his neck. “The base of the neck, right there, or maybe the back of the head, would be your best choice. Although from that range you better know what you’re doing. I’m turning to go now. Take your best shot.” Creighton expected to hear the click as the guy snapped off the safety; it would tell him a lot if he did. None of the guys he’d worked with ever used a safety.
Creighton took two steps. Then heard the voice again.
“I know why you chose this door.”
Creighton paused.
“I can get you what you want.”
Creighton turned. “No one can get me what I want.”
“My friend, you wouldn’t be here unless I could. I never would have bothered with you. You’re the one who posted the videos. I read your blog. I know what you want.”
Creighton wanted to ask how he’d been able to link the videos and blog to him, but obviously it had happened, and at this point that was all that mattered. “I’m listening.”
“There’s something I would like you to help me procure. Your background, skill set, and… unique tastes… make you eminently qualified for this job. When I have it in hand, I’ll give you the one thing no one else on the planet can give you.”
“What do you want me to ‘procure’?”
A dismissive wave of the gun barrel. “More in due time, my friend. For now, I’d simply like to know if you’re interested enough to continue this discussion. If not, you’re free to go. I’ll just consider the bail money an investment that didn’t pay off.”
“Free to go, huh? The next time I turn my back, you’ll put a bullet in my brain.”
“No,” said the voice. “I choose the base of the neck instead.”
A sudden chill. Miscalculation. “What?”
An instant later, Creighton heard the simultaneous crack of the gun and the bright explosion of glass beside him. He didn’t feel the bullet’s impact but quickly scanned his body for an entry wound, for a growing stain of blood. Found none. It was only the bottle. The guy had shot the bottle out of Creighton’s hand.
Right at the base of the neck.
“That,” Creighton said, holding up what little remained of the bottle, “was an impressive shot.”
“If I wanted you dead,” the voice said, “you’d be dead. I want your help.”
As Creighton threw the remains of the bottle to the ground, he noticed a spray of glass shards embedded in his thigh. Blood began to creep from a dozen wounds. He reached down and started wrenching the pieces of glass from his leg, thinking about how badly it should have hurt. “How do I know I can trust you?”
“You don’t. And I can’t trust you either. But that’s the nature of these relationships, isn’t it?”
Lately, Creighton had been working alone, but it hadn’t always been that way. “Yeah,” he said. “It is.”
“So, are you in?”
Creighton didn’t answer, just finished removing the glass from his leg and dropping it to the floor. But he didn’t turn to go either.
“All right. Good. Then I have a surprise for you.”
“And that is?”
“Your girlfriend. She’s waiting for you out back, in the car.”
Creighton straightened up. “My girlfriend?”
“Mmm-hmm.”
He glanced around the room. “Where?”
The man waved the gun toward the far wall. “Door’s over there.
Keys are in the car. So is your plane ticket, driver’s license, FBI iden-tification badge, and a little spending money, Mr. Neville Lewis.”
Creighton let out a harsh sigh. “Neville Lewis? That the best you could do?”
A crackle of electronic laughter. “Go on. We’ll talk soon. I know you must be anxious to see her.”
“Wait. You know my name, what am I supposed to call you?”
“You can call me Shade.”
The light blinked off, and Creighton found that he couldn’t see a thing except for the flashing residue of color swirling through his vision. The passageway he’d come from spit out a tiny pool of light, but other than that the room was pitch black.
He heard a faint brush of movement beside the chair and realized that if he couldn’t see the shooter, the shooter couldn’t see him.
So.
One chance.
Take care of this guy now. Then you won’t have to worry about trusting him, or working for him, or paying him back for any favors.
Creighton crouched low and skittered along the wall. Rushed toward the chair.
Groping through the dark, he knocked over the work lamp, and it clattered to the ground, the hot bulbs exploding on impact.
Creighton’s hands found the chair and he lifted it, swung it, hoping to find the person who’d shot the bottle from his hand, but he found only empty air instead.
He swung again. Shuffled around.
Nothing.
He prodded at the emptiness with the chair for a couple more minutes but found no sign of the man who’d invited him there.
Finally, he decided the guy must have slipped away somehow, perhaps out another door.
Rather than waste any more time stumbling around in the dark trying to attack a phantom, he threw the chair to the ground and started for the far wall. The guy had promised that his girlfriend was waiting for him. He wasn’t sure what to think about that, but he definitely wanted to find out.
Creighton found the door, eased it open. Stepped into the alley behind the club. A sedan with tinted windows sat beside a reeking dumpster. Night had fallen, but a jaundiced street lamp at the end of the alley managed to give Creighton just enough light to see.
He made sure no one else was in the alley, then approached the car and tried to peer through the windows. Too dark.
He didn’t trust the guy with the gun, and he wasn’t sure what to expect when he opened the car door.
A car bomb?
But why? Why waste the bail money? Besides, the guy could have killed him inside the building.
Sounds, soft sounds from inside the car. He reached for the door handle. Clicked it open. “Hello?” he said.
No one in the front seat. He slipped into the car. “Hello?” Turned around.
And found her, lying in the backseat.
A woman he had never met.
