Her Man Friday (38 page)

"Chloe?" he called out.

"Here," she replied. But the word emerged as little more than a sob.

Leo moved forward again, slowly and cautiously again, until his eyes finally adjusted to the darkness. The first two booths he passed were empty. But in the last one, in the very corner of the bar, beneath the spastic half-light of a nearly burnt out Schlitz sign, he found what he was looking for. Unfortunately. Because Chloe was crowded into that booth, her eyes wide with terror, wedged between the wall and a very large, very menacing-looking man. He had shoved his face into her neck and was licking her throat, had unbuttoned her shirt and stuffed his hand inside her bra. He didn't even appear to notice Leo's arrival.

"Let her go."

Leo was surprised by the even, steady timbre of his voice, seeing as how, at the moment, what he wanted to do more than anything else in the world was rip the sonofabitch's hand off his wrist and turn it into chicken fingers. What he did instead was curl one hand into a tight fist, and cup the other—roughly—over the big man's shoulder to jerk him back.

Only then did the guy seem to realize that Leo had been talking to him. "What the hell is your problem?" he demanded. But he didn't release Chloe.

"I said, 'Let her go,' " Leo repeated as levelly as he could. "Because if you don't, I'm going to hurt you. Badly."

The man made a derisive face and snorted. "Who're you? Her old man? Tough. I got 'er now. You can have 'er back when I'm done. Beat it."

"Oh, don't tempt me," Leo said, still masking his fury. "Because I'll be more than happy to beat it—right into a bloody pulp. I promise you that."

The man belched loudly and, clearly feeling put upon, pushed himself away from Chloe. She exhaled loudly and closed her eyes tight when he did, and two fat tears tumbled down her cheeks. As she had been the first day Leo had made her acquaintance, she was wearing about ten pounds of makeup and an outfit that was anything but appropriate for a fourteen-year-old girl. But her tears left white tracks on her cheeks as they washed the cosmetics away, and to Leo, she looked every bit her age. Immediately, she gripped the sides of her shirt and jerked it closed, then, crowding her body into the wall even more than it was already, she turned her face away.

"Get out of the booth," Leo told the man. "Now."

"If I get outta dis booth," he said, clearly unbothered by Leo's presence, "it's only gonna be for one reason. To knock you on your ass."

Leo smiled with feigned indifference. "I'd like to see you try it."

The man eyed him for a moment, obviously puzzled by Leo's concern, then asked again, "What the hell is your problem?"

"The problem is that you've got your hands on someone you shouldn't have them on," Leo said simply.

But he ground his teeth painfully in an effort to keep things as civil as possible. On top of everything else she'd been through tonight, the last thing Chloe needed was to see two grown men beating the hell out of each other. And he feared that any altercation that ensued between him and this big ape would spill over into the rest of the bar. God only knew what kind of chaos would result after that.

"Now go away," Leo added quietly, "and leave her alone."

"She's wid me," the man said. "
You
go away and leave
us
alone."

"Mr. Freiberger, no," Chloe said, jerking her head up, her expression frightened, beseeching. "Don't leave me here. Please."

As if he would, Leo thought. God. The kid honestly looked like she thought he would leave her here with this guy. Just what the hell kind of life had she lived before coming to Philadelphia?

Putting that thought on hold for now, he turned his attention back to the gorilla still seated in the booth. "She's fourteen years old, Humbert," Leo informed him. "A little young for you. Not to mention jailbait. But if you leave right now, I'll be real nice and pretend you never touched her."

The man laughed. "Fourteen. Yeah, right. Like I'm supposed to believe that. Lookit 'er." Following his own advice, he turned to offer Chloe a salacious perusal. "Ain't no fourteen-year-old looks that good, pal."

Leo opened his mouth to comment, but a third voice cut him off before he could say a word.

"Yes, well, if you think she's pretty, you should have seen her mother."

Leo snapped his attention around at the voice that came from behind him, and was surprised to see Schuyler Kimball standing just behind Eddie.

"Where did you come from?" he asked.

Instead of looking at Leo when he answered, Kimball took a few steps forward and focused on the scene in the booth. He frowned when he noted the belligerent expression on the ape man's face, then, when he saw Chloe crying, he went absolutely rigid. Funny, but Leo had never noticed before how big and threatening-looking Kimball was. But dressed in black trousers and a black turtle-neck, with every muscle he possessed flexed that way, he cut a pretty damned intimidating figure.

But as furious as he obviously was, all the billionaire said in response to Leo's query was, "As luck—or, perhaps, irony—would have it, Freiberger, I was on my way to see you, hoping we might have a little chat. Then Lily darling called me on the cell phone to alert me to this other matter. I wasn't far from here. It was just a matter of having Claudio turn the car around."

That was when Leo noted that Kimball wasn't alone. Behind
him
, shadowing Eddie, stood another man—or something—who was even taller than Leo was. Gee. Suddenly the odds seemed much more workable than they had when he'd first entered Smoky Joe's.

"Oh, great, another one," the ape man said when he saw Kimball standing by Leo. He turned to Chloe. "Just how many men are you doin', sweetheart? You must be better than I thought. I can't wait to get between your sweet—"

He never finished what he was going to say, because Kimball lurched past Leo then and reached into the booth, grabbing the man by the throat and squeezing hard.

"Your next word," he said in a surprisingly calm voice, "may be your last. If I were you, I'd think very carefully before I chose it."

The man's eyes bugged out, and his face began to grow purple, and Leo wondered if he should step in and intercede before Kimball killed the guy. Nah, he decided. No reason to be hasty. Might as well let this thing run its course.

"Now then," Kimball continued in a benign voice, loosening his grip just the tiniest bit. "You were saying… ?"

The man had reached up to circle both of his beefy hands around Kimball's wrist, but he hadn't managed to alter the billionaire's grip one bit. He uttered a feral, guttural sound, then surrendered to Kimball's fury and loosened his hold. Roughly, raggedly, he somehow managed to mutter, "Who the hell
are
you?"

Kimball gritted his teeth in a way that made Leo take an involuntary step backward. In a voice that chilled him further, the billionaire announced quite clearly, quite threateningly, quite adamantly, "I'm her
father
, you bloated, revolting pig. And if you
ever
come near my daughter again, I will kill you. With my bare hands. And I shall take great pride in committing the act. Do I make myself clear?"

The ape man stared into Kimball's face for another moment, and Leo was pretty sure the guy's bowels were about to fail him. Sure enough, the instant Kimball loosened his grip, the man scrambled out of the booth and through a door nearby that was labeled in peeling letters,
Res ro ms
.

Kimball, however, didn't move. He only stood bent over the table with his white-knuckled fist gripping nothing but air. Chloe continued to cower in the corner, her shoulders shuddering in silent sobs, her face turned away, her entire body shrunken into a ball. Then slowly, very slowly, Kimball's fist unclenched, his fingers uncurled. But instead of dropping his hand to his side, he moved it toward Chloe's hair. For a moment, his hand only hung suspended there without touching her. Then he cupped his hand over the crown of her head in much the same way a father would if he were trying to comfort his daughter.

Chloe's head snapped up at the contact, her face a mess of running mascara and rouge. Still cradling her head in one hand, Kimball reached into his pocket and withdrew a handkerchief, which he used to wipe away the worst of her tears and makeup. Awkwardly, Chloe reached up and took the scrap of silk from his hand, then blew her nose indelicately into it.

"I'm sorry," she said in a very small voice. "I didn't mean to—"

"
I
understand," Kimball said, cutting off her explanation before she could even begin to offer one. His voice softened some as he added, "Believe it or not, Chloe, I do understand. And I'm sorry, too. We can talk about it on the way home."

Chloe started crying harder then, as if in doing so, she were releasing years' worth of pent up emotion. But somehow, she managed a brief smile through her tears. Kimball brushed his hand over her head one more time, then extended a hand toward her to help her out of the booth.

"We'll talk later," he said to Leo, the statement in no way inviting comment. Then, to the other men present, he added, "Gentlemen, if you'll all excuse me, I'm going to take my daughter home now."

Without a word, the big man who'd accompanied the billionaire into the bar extended Kimball's coat, and Kimball draped it around Chloe's shoulders. Then, after only a small hesitation, he dropped his arm around her shoulders, too. Gently, he led her toward the exit with the massive bodyguard right behind them. And all Leo could do was stand there watching them go.

Unbelievable, he thought. Kimball really had come through.

"Thanks, Eddie," he said to the man who stood gaping as he watched the scene conclude.

"No problem, Leo," he replied. "What can I say? I got a soft spot for kids. I'd like to have a couple of my own someday."

Leo started forward, more than a little anxious to rid himself of Smoky Joe's for good, but he halted mid-stride when the door to the bar opened again, and Lily Rigby came stumbling through.

Her long black hair was half-in and half-out of a ponytail caught at the top of her head, and an oversize leather bomber jacket hung open over gray sweats and a big, man-style shirt. She'd accessorized the ensemble with her enormous hiking boots, and, as a result, she didn't exactly look like a Victoria's Secret model. In spite of that, every male eye in the place—which was pretty much every eye in the place period—homed in on her, and she gazed about the room with much apprehension.

"Yikes," she said to the room at large, obviously not having seen Leo standing back in the shadows. She glanced around at her surroundings—and her companions—and went pale. "Um, hi. Nice place you've got here," she muttered. Smart woman that she was, she clearly sensed immediately that she shouldn't be there alone, and she quickly turned to go back out the way she'd come in. Unfortunately, another of the bar's missing link patrons entered behind her, halting when he saw her, blocking her way.

"Ah… okay," she said, spinning around again, evidently trying to make the best of a fast degenerating situation. She cleared her throat discreetly when two men at the bar rose and began to approach her. Then, once again, she directed her comments to the entire room. "I wonder if you… lovely gentlemen… could help me out. I'm looking for someone. Have any of you… lovely gentlemen… seen, um…"

She faltered a bit when the first of the two lugs from the bar stopped within a foot of her. Then, suddenly, she brightened.

"My husband?" she finished. "Have any of you seen my husband? He's a big, hulking guy, about six—" She hastily sized up the man nearest her before continuing, "Uh, six-five." She cleared her throat again when another man began to approach. "He weighs about, ah, two-fifty? Two-fifty-five? And he has big, beefy fists and hair all over his back. And no neck. None whatsoever. He, uh… he carries a switchblade in his sock. And… and numchuks, too. His name is, um, Rocco. Rocco Corleone. Do you happen to know if he's come in here tonight?"

The man nearest her reached out a hand to clamp it over her shoulder, chuckling evilly as he did.

"Did I mention that he's also insanely jealous?" she added halfheartedly as she recoiled from the man's touch. "And that he's out on parole for killing a man who tried to sell me some encyclopedias?"

"Here I am, honey!" Leo called out from the back of the room, wondering when he had decided to intercede on behalf of a criminal. Probably because she was a really cute criminal, he thought. That was why.

He took a step out of the shadows, tugging Eddie Dolan along for the ride. "And I brought my friend, Vito, with me," he added as the two of them strode forward. "He's in town visiting his godfather."

She was obviously more than a little relieved to see him. "Oh, darling!" she cried in a pretty convincing June Cleaver voice. "I'm so glad you're here. It's your Aunt Sybil. She's got an ingrown toenail again, and you know you're the only one she'll let near her with a pair of tweezers."

"Damn," Leo said blandly. "Oh, well. Duty calls. Gentlemen?"

He made a dismissive gesture with his hand, hoping the men who had formed a ring around Lily would let them all leave with their lives—and limbs. Evidently, the guys at Smoky Joe's had bigger fish to fry that night—or else they were stupid enough to believe that bit about Eddie's godfather—because, as one, they parted to allow Leo and Lily and Eddie through.

Leo pretended that his heart wasn't pounding in his throat as he passed through the throng, nudging Lily ahead of him, hoping like hell that Eddie would pull up the rear. The moment they were outside, however, he grabbed her by the upper arm and propelled her forward as fast as he could, toward Eddie's apartment building at the end of the block.

But Lily struggled free and stopped dead in her tracks. "Chloe," she said.

"She's safe," Leo told her.

Her entire body seemed to relax at his assurance. "Oh, thank God. Where is she?"

"She's with… her father," Leo said.

Lily eyed him warily. "Schuyler made it in time?"

Leo nodded. "The guy came through. Big time. He and Chloe are going to have a lot to talk about during their ride home."