Between HeVan and Hell (2 page)

One of the other men looked her
over—he made her skin crawl and she tried to ignore him as best she
could.

“I wouldn’t mind giving this girl a
workout. She’s prettier than that other one you sent over,” he
said.

“Andre!” Mr. Kadyrov said in a sharp
voice. “Grace is a good girl. She is engaged to be married; isn’t
that right, my dear?”

“Mr. Kadyrov, I didn’t say that! I
said that before he went out of town, he told me he’d have an
important question to ask me when he got back. If you keep talking
like that, you’re going to jinx it for me,” Grace said shyly as she
shuffled and started to deal the cards to the group of
men.

“And where did you say he was, my
dear?” Mr. Kadyrov asked as he threw in two cards and got
replacements.

“Oh, he’s on a road trip with his
younger brothers,” she said.

Now, why did I say that?
That’s not my cover story.

“Not a business trip?”

“He’s taking care of business, too.
It’s just that since he had to drive, he thought it would be best
to take his brothers with him,” she said.

Okay. Saved that
one
, Grace thought.

“You never said what kind of business
he has. Why did he have to drive?” asked Mr. Kadyrov before upping
the bet.

He’s completely ignoring
the other players and grilling me; what’s up? Better turn up the
super-power, I need to see if he’s fishing and get him to back
off.

“He had to drive because of what he’s
carrying. I’m not supposed to say what it is, Mr. Kadyrov,” she
answered.

He nodded and seemed to become
engrossed in the game. For the next thirty minutes, the four men
played without talking, other than to place their bets. From what
she could see, the creepy guy seemed to be winning. By the end of
an hour, he’d won around ten thousand dollars. At that time, they
stopped playing, and it seemed that the game was going to break
up.

The three men left. Mr. Kadyrov turned
back to her as she was straightening the cards and putting them
away.

“My dear, you see how I lose? It is
because there is a mystery. You are the cause of me losing because
my curiosity is now consuming me. So you will tell me what your
boyfriend does, yes? And also what he looks like. I pay attention
to my staff, we’re family. Your own father is gone; you must let me
guide you. I will check him out and let you know. You don’t want to
go out with someone who doesn’t pass my checks; it could be
dangerous.”

Shit, he knows something.
But he doesn’t know everything.

She’d been using her powers to get a
bead on this old man since they first met. He might look like a
kindly old man, but she knew he was a stone cold killer and would
have no hesitation in having Thug One hold her down while Thug Two
raped and murdered her right in front of him.

“It’s so sweet the way you look out
for everyone, Mr. Kadyrov. All right, I’ll tell you. You promise
not to tell anyone else?” she asked.

At his nod, she bent towards him and
whispered, “He deals in rarities, old weapons, usually, and other
antiquities. He brokers deals between parties and handles the
transactions. He doesn’t like people knowing about it because the
things he handles are worth a lot of money.”

Leaning back, she continued, “He has
dark-brown hair and light blue eyes. He’s tall, really tall, just
over seven feet. He’s not a tank, although like a body builder on
steroids, he’s lean and strong like an athlete. He makes me feel
small and delicate,” she finished with a sigh.

Oh, shit! What did I just
do? That’s not what Detective Anthony looks like! How can he be my
undercover boyfriend now?

“And he’s returning to town tomorrow?”
he asked. Grace was too shocked at herself to think, so she just
nodded.

“Well, you will bring him by to meet
us. You work for us now, and we look after our own. Now, I think
your shift was over some time ago, and we’ve kept you late. Here,
take this and catch a cab home,” he said, as he pressed a couple of
twenties into her palm. Then he walked her to the door. Just as he
opened it, he said to her, “You never did tell me your young man’s
name, dear.”

So she blurted out the names that had
been burning through her brain for days.

“It’s Jalen. Jalen Contadina. His
brothers are Justyn and Jett.”

After she left, he turned to one of
his henchmen. “Andre has received his payment; that operation will
be carried out as planned.” Watching Grace walk through the crowd
to the employee area. “I’m still not sure about her; even though we
haven’t been able to peg her as a cop. If she shows up with that
Detective Anthony you recognized talking to her on the
street...well, then, I’m afraid that as pretty as she is, I’ll have
to hire a new dealer. This one will be fired,
permanently.”

Grace changed into her street clothes
in one of the dressing rooms as quickly as she could. It felt good
to get out of that horrible outfit and back into her faded jeans
and t-shirt advertising the restaurant she worked at last. Mostly
it felt good to take off the spike heels and put on her soft
leather, low-heeled boots. Like millions of other women, she spent
too much money on shoes. If she didn’t show her face on the street
in fifteen more minutes, the cavalry would come in and the
operation would be blown. So she quickly grabbed up her purse and
lightweight coat. It was always colder when she got off work than
it was when she came in. She’d take the cab home to her cover
apartment, as this was deep cover, and she couldn’t go home to her
condo on the lakefront. Kadyrov had eyes all over Chicago, so they
were pulling officers from unlikely places.

Fareed Singh had worked in records for
all of his years in the police force in a big warehouse. He’d never
worked the streets. They’d had him take a job as a cabbie four
months before she started this assignment. He could have retired
with his pension any time in the last ten years; he just liked his
job, so he’d stayed on. Now his age was working in his favor. He
looked like many other Indian cab drivers, older than most and
working the night shift to eke out a living.

He’d taken legitimate cab fares for
all that time and had started a habit of buying a midnight snack at
the all-night café at the end of the block. He was usually there
when she got off work. If she was ever in trouble or had important
information, she was supposed to wave him down and take a cab home.
She’d only been on duty for three days, and she was already going
to wave him down. The Captain was going to think she didn’t have
what it took to get the job done. Either that or after three days
she already had something hot, unlikely as it was. If possible,
she’d report the possible payoff to this Andre character and his
crew.

She stepped outside and was swinging
her purse over her shoulder when Gregor appeared at her
side.

“Mr. Kadyrov asked me to get a cab for
you.”

“Thanks, Gregor, I am tired. It was
awfully nice of him to give me cab fare home,” she said.

She almost laughed when she saw that
the cab he waved down was the one she wanted. She was reminded of
the danger she was in when Gregor handed her inside and told the
driver her address; just a subtle reminder that they knew where she
lived.

Noticing a tiny, red light on his
radio, she waited until they’d driven several blocks and turned a
corner before she spoke. “Hello. How do you like driving a cab?”
she asked in a friendly voice.

“Miss? Well, it’s alright, Miss. I
like to drive and I get to see the city. Not be closed in,” he
answered.

“I’m glad you like it. I knew a guy
named Tony who drove a cab once. He said it was a dead-end job. He
liked to drive, too, though. He ended up working as a long-haul
trucker. He didn’t even mind being out of town for weeks at a
time.”

“Young men these days, off on
adventures. I’m an old man; I’ll stick to driving a cab. Here's
your address, Miss. That will be eight dollars and sixty cents,” he
said.

“Here,” she said, handing him a
twenty. “I worked late tonight so my boss was nice enough to pay
for the fare. Especially since he lost ten thousand dollars to an
associate, some guy named Andre. The guy gave me the heebie
jeebies. I hope you don’t have to drive all night long and you can
go home soon,” she added, as she stepped from the cab and shut the
door.

She thought it was nice of Sgt. Singh
to wait until she’d opened the door to her apartment building
before driving off.

After he watched her enter the
building, Fareed picked up another fare at the end of the block.
Detective Briggs, from the Norwood Park District, was pulled in for
this operation. They wanted to bust Vasily Kadyrov badly and had
put aside jurisdictional arguments and were working together.
Glancing at the car radio, he saw the green light; there were no
listening devices in the car.

“She’s only three days into the
assignment, and she’s got something already?” Briggs
asked.

“She didn’t call me; one of Kadyrov’s
men came out and waved me down. They must have run a check on me
because they’ve used my cab before. My wife’s second cousin owning
this cab company has really worked in our favor.”

“Then she didn’t have anything for
us?” asked Briggs.

“As a matter of fact, we have a big
problem. She said that Anthony’s cover is blown and that he should
get out of town for a while; he might be a target. She wanted me to
get this information in fast. And she’s under suspicion, too. It
was probably because of the meet with Anthony on the street two
days ago. She also mentioned that she watched a possible payoff
tonight; all she got was a first name ‘Andre,’ said he was an
‘associate’ and that he gave her the ‘heebie jeebies.’ I’m not sure
what that’s code for but it doesn’t sound too good. We should
probably do a search on known associates with a first name of
Andre. When she was in the cab, the light was red; they must have
bugged her coat or more likely her purse,” said Fareed.

His cab was approaching a popular
late-night bar, so he pulled over and asked for the fare. They
played this strictly for show, staying in character even when they
knew they weren’t being watched. No one wanted this operation to go
bust the way so many had in the past. He planned on taking a few
more fares before he turned in his cab for the night.

When Grace walked into her apartment,
the first thing she did was kick off her shoes. Dealers made an
average paycheck, but her cover was supposed to have been working
as a restaurant hostess. So the apartment was a furnished rental,
blah brown furniture, eggshell white walls and beige wall-to-wall
carpeting. The door opened onto a small living room. Since this was
Chicago, there was a hall closet to handle the different outer
layers people wore through the seasons. She hung up her coat and
after extracting her cell phone, she hung up her purse.

“Ooh, it feels good to get
those torture devices off my feet,” she said, as she stepped into
her slippers.
Who knows what lurks in that
rug
.

She walked over to the entertainment
center and turned the radio on low, humming along with it as she
started her winding down routine. She was lucky to have a bedroom
instead of a pullout. She passed through it into the bathroom, and
began to fill the tub. Then she put a headband around her forehead
and ears to keep her hair away from her face while she creamed off
her make-up. As she was taking off her make-up, she looked at the
small, satellite clock sitting above the sink. There was a small,
red light; looks like she had a bug. What she needed to know was
whether it was audio only or audio-visual.