Devil's Bargain (25 page)

“Safe? Like where?”

Lucia’s smile flared impossibly white and gorgeous. Whatever she’d been about to say was interrupted by the arrival of Pansy, who poked her head around the door and waved a good-natured hello, then opened it wider as she said, “Guess who’s here?” She looked like a canary-fed cat. A well-satisfied canary-fed cat.

Standing with her, shuffling his feet uncomfortably and looking desperately as if he wanted to be anywhere else on earth, was Manny Glickman.

“Manny?” Jazz got up so fast she felt her throbbing head swim. “Everything okay?”

“Yeah,” he mumbled, raised his muddy green eyes to hers for a bare second, and then looked down. “I, um, was just—on my way to—”

“Manny,” Lucia said slowly, and got up, too. She took a couple of steps in his direction, and stopped when he backed up a little in alarm. He liked her well enough, Jazz knew, but Manny didn’t like
anything
coming at him that quickly. “Sorry. Listen, maybe you can help. You know something about security.”

“Pretty much everything,” he agreed, without any arrogance. “Why?”

“Jazz needs secure accommodations.”

Manny looked up sharply, and fastened a laser stare on Lucia. “What’s going on?”

Careful,
Jazz thought, wishing she was telepathic. If she was going to be so god-awful
special,
she ought to at least have some particular power beyond getting thumped on and kind of enjoying it.

“Jazz has somebody after her,” Lucia said. “I don’t think she’ll be safe in her home as it is right now.”

Manny’s stare transferred to Jazz. “After you?”

She sighed. “Yeah.” Any second now, there would be a cloud of dust and an end to her relationship with Manny Glickman. Danger was something Manny just didn’t do. Not that he’d ever been Adventure Man, but his turn under the ground had stripped away whatever bravery he’d once pretended to own. Not that she blamed him. She knew she wouldn’t have survived it at all. “Never mind, Manny, don’t worry about it. You go on and—”

“You can stay with me,” he said. A simple, declarative statement. No shifting, no stuttering, no nervous flutters. He was rock still, his eyes steady and his face set. “There’s no place safer in this city than mine.”

Oh, God,
Jazz thought, and a wave of hilarity cascaded over her. She saw Lucia bite her lip, eyes wide.
Manny Glickman as a roommate….

“I won’t let you down,” he said, and suddenly all of the funny stuff fell away, and she was looking not at the screwed-up Manny she’d known for years, but at an entirely different person. Somebody who might have been able to pass the FBI’s stringent tests and personality profiles and background checks. Somebody who had strength and dignity and courage.

Somebody who’d always been there, underneath all of the panic and worry and tics.

“I won’t,” he repeated, and took a step toward her. “Jazz, let me do this. I want to help you.”

She had no idea why he was offering. “Manny, look, you don’t understand. People may be trying to hurt me. Kill me. This isn’t a game.”

He swallowed hard. She saw his Adam’s apple bob up and down convulsively, and he squeezed his eyes shut. He was trembling a little, but only a little, and he jammed hands into the pockets of his tan raincoat to hide it. “Fine,” he said. “Just, you know, leave it outside. Don’t bring it in.”

Lucia stepped smoothly into the silence. “You set the time and method for us to move her,” she said. “Just let us know.”

“Hey!” Jazz said. “Don’t I get—”

“No,” Lucia answered without looking at her. “It’s Manny’s call, not yours. Let’s face it, Jazz, you gave up the right to make the decisions when you decided to run off to L.A. and get a contract put out on your life. So from now on, you go nowhere without me. You live in Manny’s house. And you
do not
get a vote.”

Jazz’s temper—never far from the surface—flared into bubbling lava. “I’m not living like a prisoner!”

The window behind her exploded in a shower of bright, sharp-edged glass, and she felt a rush of wind that blew her hair forward violently. Lucia was heading toward her, but she was already diving for the carpet, squirming to get under the desk, twisting on her side to see if anybody else had been hit.

Manny was still standing, staring uncomprehendingly at the shattered window and the clanking, wind-tossed blinds. Pansy screamed something unintelligible at him and tackled him; they tumbled together, off balance, back out into the reception area between the offices. Lucia hadn’t gone for cover. She’d hit the carpet, rolled gracefully, and fetched up against the far wall under the windows. By the time she made the last rotation, she had her gun out and in both hands. She shook hair out of her face, panting, and stared at Jazz. “You all right?” she shouted. Jazz made an okay gesture with one hand as she yanked open her desk drawer with the other and felt around in the depths. She found a cold metal box and pulled it out to thump on the carpet next to her head, then punched in the combination with trembling fingers. The lock snapped open.

She took the Sig Sauer and scrambled to join Lucia at the window. They sat there together, backs to the wall, guns ready, and exchanged a look.

“Now,” Lucia said, and rolled right, over the broken glass, coming up on one knee and aiming out the open window. Jazz angled to cover her own side. There was a second’s tight silence as they searched for targets.

“Clear,” Lucia announced.

“Yeah, here, too.”

“If he’s any good, he’s already gone,” Lucia said. “Snipers don’t hang around waiting for a second chance. They take the shot and go without seeing how it came out. If it doesn’t work, they come back for another try.”

Jazz nodded jerkily and narrowed her eyes against the glare, still looking. The morning looked bland and bright. Traffic crawled along outside without incident. Nobody seemed to have noticed a thing, so far, though there was a nice glittering spray of glass on the sidewalk below.

“Get out,” Lucia said, still maintaining a rigid focus outside the window, gun at the ready. “Stay low.”

There wasn’t any reason to argue about it. Jazz did a combat-crawl across the floor, keeping close to the wall, and when she was far enough, rose to a crouch and moved fast out into the darker area beyond. Manny and Pansy peered at her from the cover of Pansy’s desk.

“Over here!” Pansy whispered, and gestured her urgently on. “Get down!”

“There’s no reason to keep your voice down, they’re not stalking the halls with Uzis,” Jazz said in a normal tone, and straightened up. “Also, there’s no way they can see in here from any of the windows. We’re fine.”

“Thanks, we’ll just—stay here,” Pansy said. “I called nine-one-one.”

“Good idea.” Jazz realized her heart was still pounding, and she was breathing too fast, and reached up to run her hand through her hair. Something bit in a sharp hot line on her finger, and she bent over and shook her head. A rain of glass fragments came out and bounced on the carpet. “You both okay? No holes in you?”

“Fine,” Pansy said. Manny wasn’t speaking, evidently. “Jazz? I’m thinking I might, you know, take a personal day.”

Jazz nodded calmly, ejected the clip from the Sig Sauer and checked it before slamming it back in and ratcheting the slide to put one in the chamber. “You know,” she said, “I personally think that sounds like an excellent idea. But wait for the police.”

“Don’t worry,” Manny said. Like Jazz, he sounded extremely calm. Unnaturally calm. “I’m not moving until there’s three-hundred-sixty degrees of Kevlar.”

She had no doubt that was true. She expected the next time she saw Manny, he’d look like the Michelin Man, only in black body armor. “Pansy. You didn’t see Borden when you came in this morning?”

“No, was he here?”

“Yes.” No need to go into details. “I’m going to check the rest of the offices.”

“Um…” Pansy made a vague gesture toward Jazz’s legs. “You might want to put on some shoes first.”

She’d forgotten, but it came back to her in a weirdly warm rush of feeling, Borden sliding her shoes off her feet and dropping them to the floor…they must have landed next to the couch. She turned back to the office but met Lucia at the door coming out. Lucia had holstered her gun and was holding Jazz’s shoes in her left hand. She thrust them out without a word and slammed the door behind her.

“Off-limits,” she said flatly. “You said Borden was here somewhere?” As Jazz bent to slide on the shoes, she turned her attention to Manny and Pansy. “Wait there. I don’t care what you hear, don’t come running, all right?”

Two nods. Jazz straightened up, and Lucia performed that magic trick again, the one where she started empty-handed and ended up with that gleaming little gun in her hand. Only this one, Jazz noticed, wasn’t so little. It was at least a .38. Still elegant looking, though.

“Do you match your guns to your outfits?” she asked. Lucia threw her an exasperated look. “Kidding.”

“Go left,” Lucia sighed. “No heroics.”

Borden was nowhere in their offices. Nowhere, as it turned out, in the building. Police arrived within five minutes and turned the entire place inside out, coming up empty. They also turned up nothing on the sniper. Jazz wasn’t shocked. As she and Lucia finished giving statements, she felt her cell phone buzz against her hip, and stepped away to answer.

“Borden?” she asked. It was his number lighting up on the panel. “Where the hell are you?”

It wasn’t his voice that answered. “Go to your secretary’s desk. Right now.”

She froze for a second, mind racing. She didn’t know the voice, had never heard it before, but it had a ring of authority. She turned away from the cops and Lucia, trying to look casual about it, plugged a finger in her left ear and tried to make it look as if she was seeking a quiet place. Pansy and Manny were still behind the desk, watching the cops move around. Jazz stopped at the low counter on the other side of the barrier from them.

“I’m here,” she said. “Where’s Borden?”

“Shut up and listen. Look through the mail. There will be a FedEx envelope.”

There were three, in fact. Jazz spread them out quickly on the counter, looking at addresses.

One was from Gabriel, Pike & Laskins.

“Open it,” the voice said.

She picked up the GPL envelope, jammed the phone between her shoulder and ear, and ripped the tab. When she turned the stiff cardboard upside down, a familiar red envelope fell out.

“You have the envelope?” said the voice.

“I’m holding it,” she said. “Want me to open it?”

“If you break the seal on it, your lawyer friend dies. I want you to turn and walk with it to the stairs. Proceed down to the lobby, go outside and turn right. Walk exactly two blocks, then turn left and go one block. No cops.”

She tapped the red envelope on the counter, staring at Pansy’s frown, Manny’s worried expression.

“Any particular reason I need to take this stroll? Other than for my health?”

A shockingly loud scream burst out of the phone, wild and full of agony, a full-throated bellow. She flinched, nearly lost the phone and slowly straightened up. She felt the blood drain from her face.

“You know what I call a half-dead lawyer?” the voice asked. “A good start. Move your ass, bitch, or he gets something else cut off. Maybe something that he can’t live without.”

The phone went dead in her hand. She closed her eyes for a second, felt a hot bead of sweat trickle down her back. She turned slowly, keeping the phone to her ear as an excuse to stay where she was, and looked at the cops and Lucia.

Lucia, who was talking, glanced over at her, away, back again to stare. She paused for a breath, smiled at the cop and murmured something that sounded like a graceful apology. Then she walked over to where Jazz stood, red envelope in hand.

“What?” she asked softly.

“Borden,” Jazz replied. “They have him. They want this.” She moved the envelope slightly, drawing Lucia’s attention to it. “They sound real serious.”

Lucia nodded. Something sparked bright in her eyes, and her expression smoothed into an unmoving mask. “You want to get real serious?”

“I do.” She was still vibrating from the force of the scream.
Maybe that wasn’t him,
she thought, but she knew that was a stupid wishful lie. She’d felt that scream go deep. She’d
known
it. “I want to get real fucking serious, right now.”

“We have visitors.” Lucia crossed her arms and tilted her head toward the cops.

“I go first. You back me up.” Jazz fixed a hard stare on her. “I need you on this.”

“I know. I’ll be there.”

Jazz nodded once, took the envelope and shoved it into her coat pocket, then walked, in no great hurry, around the corner.

“Where’s she going?” one of the cops asked behind her.

“Bathroom,” Lucia said. “Do you think we should get away from the windows? In case he’s not really gone?” She suddenly sounded vulnerable and scared.

“Sure. No problem.”

Jazz heard them moving away, and grinned without humor. She was just moving for the stairs when someone hurried around the corner and almost collided with her. She jumped away, ready to punch, and Pansy staggered back to catch herself against the wall, hand flat against her chest and an expression of shock all over her face. She straightened her glasses and fanned herself.

“What?” Jazz demanded.

“Here!” Pansy pressed something into her hands. “Manny gave it to me. Give me this one. Go!”

She hurried off, back the way she’d come. Jazz, mystified, looked down at what she was holding in her hands, and felt a sudden surge of wild, strange glee.

She shoved it into her pocket and hit the stairwell door at as much of a run as she dared to keep noise to a minimum. Rocketing downstairs on tiptoe was a trick, but she managed, checking her momentum with an outstretched hand raking the walls at the turns. At the lobby door she paused and risked a look outside. More cops down there, but they were all on the street by the patrol cars. She eased open the stairwell door, hurried across the lobby and made it to the service entrance.