73
The Last Minute Bar, Manhattan
Mila watched the man sitting at the corner table on the security camera. She had never seen him before. He ordered a small appetizer of tapas, slowly finished his pint of lager.
‘Do you know this man?’ she asked Leonie.
Leonie leaned over and studied the face on the camera. ‘No. I haven’t seen him before.’
Mila had stepped back from the monitor and watched Leonie: the lay of her gaze, the set of her shoulders, the curve of her mouth. ‘I guess Sam was wrong, then.’
They watched the man in the corner get up and leave money for his tab and walk out.
‘I don’t think Sam is wrong about much,’ Leonie said.
‘So what is your plan?’ Mila said. ‘You and Sam get to save your babies and live an exciting, on-the-run version of The Brady Bunch?’
‘I’m quite sure I’ll never see Sam again when this is done. Does that make you happy?’
‘Sam is only a friend. I am his boss. That is all.’
‘Then I guess you’ll never know what you’re missing. That parkour running does hone a body. And he’s been alone for so long, poor thing.’
‘Alone I am sure you are not. For long. Ever.’ Mila seemed to stumble over her English.
‘Your jealousy translates clearly.’
‘Do not confuse jealousy with concern for a friend.’
‘I don’t think I’m confusing anything, sweetie.’
Mila gave a thin smile. ‘Do you know what I like about Sam? He is clueless. He does not know he is attractive. He does not think about it and if you told him he is handsome he thinks you are just being nice. He is down on himself right now because he blames himself for Daniel being in danger. He loved Lucy very much and he doesn’t trust his instincts now about women. He does not know he is a really good guy. So it is easy to take advantage of him right now.’
Leonie was silent for ten long seconds. ‘He’s not a fool and I’m not taking advantage of him.’
‘I am sorry for what you are suffering. Your child being taken. I would not be myself.’
The sympathy seemed to take Leonie aback. ‘I understand you want to help us, Mila. Thank you. I’m not exactly myself at the moment and maybe we’d get along fine under other circumstances. But Sam and I have to do what we’re told and you will forgive me if the involvement of others makes me nervous.’
Mila’s phone vibrated in her pocket. She gave Leonie a searching glance and then she answered her phone. She listened. ‘This is a private call, sorry, do you mind?’
Leonie got up from the monitor. ‘I need a cigarette anyway.’ She retrieved her pack from the desk. ‘I’ll be back in a minute.’
Leonie walked downstairs. The bar was full, people milling about drinking, the music stopped. She stepped into the warm damp of the humid evening and lit her cigarette. The first two drags calmed her nerves. The man who’d sat in the corner of the bar now stood on the corner of the street. Watching her.
Did Mila have a camera on the front of the bar? She assumed there must be one. These people – whatever Mila and Sam were – were as organized as Nine Suns. She made a show of her pack being empty, shrugged in annoyance, and then she turned and walked in the opposite direction from the man.
She turned left at the light and walked down to the next corner. She stopped inside a store and bought a fresh pack of cigarettes. Then she stepped outside and fished one out and made a show of patting her pocket.
The man she knew as Ray Brewster stepped forward, offered her a light.
She glanced behind her, scared to see if Mila was following her.
He said: ‘You look well, Lindsay. I’d like to say I’ve missed you but I don’t care to start a chat with a lie. Not when we need each other.’
‘Why are you here?’ She managed to keep her voice steady.
‘Two reasons.’
She waited.
‘First. When you and your boyfriend kill Jack Ming, I want whatever evidence Ming has on the Nine Suns.’
‘That’s not possible.’
‘You make it possible.’
‘I can’t steal it; I need it to ransom my child.’
‘Then you are going to tell me where the exchange happens with Nine Suns. I want to know.’
‘Why do you want it?’ She drew hard on the cigarette. ‘Have you switched sides?’
‘No, sweetheart. I have just the one side, mine, as always.’
‘I can’t.’
‘No, Lindsay, you will.’
She looked down the sidewalk again. No sign of Mila.
‘And the other reason?’
‘Have you seen a woman named Mila? She’s connected to Capra.’
‘Why?’
‘I want her.’
Leonie drew on her cigarette. One problem I can make go away, she thought. Two words – she’s upstairs – and Mila would cease to be trouble. She knew Ray Brewster well enough. That smarmy bitch would be as good as taken or dead as soon as she stepped outside The Last Minute.
But she knew she didn’t want to be that person. She didn’t want to be a traitor to Sam, no matter the acid dislike she felt for Mila. It gave her a momentary pleasure to deny him. ‘I don’t know any Mila.’
‘Any woman who Capra works with? She’s Moldovan, so she’d speak with an eastern European accent. She’s petite, pretty, vicious.’
‘No. He’s not brought his friends around me. I have to go now.’
‘This is my phone number.’ He recited a number and she repeated it back to him. ‘You get me that evidence and you give me Mila if she shows up, you and your child, if you get Taylor back, will be safe. From every threat.’
Her skin went cold. ‘You know about Taylor?’
‘Did you think you could hide from me? Really? That’s awfully self-confident.’
‘Why did you leave me alone, then, the last two years?’
‘I didn’t need you, Lindsay. Now I do. And if you don’t do what I say, exactly, then I will make Taylor go away, and Leonie Jones will never see her child again.’
She wished she could stub the lit cigarette into his eye. ‘And the line to blackmail me forms here. You’re such an asshole. Can’t you just leave me alone?’
‘After what you did? No, sweetheart. I wanted you to feel nice and happy and secure until I could take it away from you. Nine Suns just beat me to the punch.’
She blew smoke into his face.
‘You still forging? Identities, passports? Caring relationships?’ He laughed. ‘Really, the last is what you’re best at faking.’
‘That’s a compliment from the biggest fraud of all.’
‘You can’t wound me. You already cut out my heart, Lindsay, and now I’ve got the knife at yours.’
She smoked in silence.
He tipped her chin toward him. ‘What they know, I know. You really should give up smoking, sweetheart. When this is all done, you’ll be the last one standing, alongside me. And then you can go take your fake self and live your fake life.’
He turned and he walked away from her.
