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Authors: Blair Bancroft

Limbo Man (5 page)

BOOK: Limbo Man
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He was not a mobster. Couldn’t be. Every cell in his brain recoiled at the thought.
Nyet!
Never. They were fucking with his mind.

Nick sat up, keeping his eyes straight ahead. “My name?” he demanded. If she didn’t tell him, he’d squeeze it out of her. His fingers itched for a good grip on her slender throat.

“Sergei Tokarev.”

“Your source?”

“Fingerprints on file at Interpol.”

Govnó!
It still wasn’t possible. He didn’t believe it.

“You’re top man in the east coast branch of the
Organizatsiya
that specializes in international arms deals, mostly smuggling. Homeland Security doesn’t know if you were hit in a takeover coup by a rival or if your own people turned on you. But they think you have knowledge about something big. I was assigned to help you get your memory back, hopefully get you on our side. Unfortunately”—Nick looked up to find her deep blue eyes staring straight at him, as if she could penetrate his soul—“it was all highly need-to-know. I hadn’t been briefed yet. Just hints that there was a great deal more at stake than just another arms deal. Maybe a major terrorist attack.”

If she was lying, he was quite certain she must be the best he’d ever known. Sincerity oozed from every delicate pore. He didn’t like the warring emotions surging through him, the insidious temptation to swallow the
Feds
’ juicy bait, at least long enough to get out of the current mess.

There she sat, dangling her hook. Wounded blue eyes wide, almost begging him to understand. And, God help him, he did. Spending the night running from a mutual enemy had made its mark.
The enemy of my enemy must be my friend
.

Maybe. Nick no-name was nobody’s fool. And neither was whatsiname—Sergei Tokarev. That much was certain. So he would use her, as the
Feds
were using him. Food, shelter, a warm bed partner. When he was well enough—with or without his memory—he would run. If the woman got in his way,
nichevo
. She was expendable.

A shiver that had nothing to do with the cool September morning ran up his spine. Perhaps, after all, he really was a major wiseguy named Sergei Tokarev.

The train to New Haven was a definite improvement over the Metro. They had two comfortable seats, facing forward. When the train made its journey back to the city, it would be packed with morning commuters, but at the moment it was nearly empty. A young couple slept in seats near the front of the car, the man leaning back against the window, while the girl curled up on his chest. The loud voices of two male party-goers gradually faded as they finished the bottle they were carrying and apparently passed out. In spite of the intriguing sight of the sun coming up, casting its glow on the waters of Long Island Sound on the right, Nick decided he might as well catch up on his sleep. Ninety minutes’ rest on a night like this was a gift not to be ignored. Besides, it might spare him the awful ignominy of falling flat on his face in front of Ms Frosty.

 

They took a taxi to a car rental agency in New Haven. Vee handed over a fifty so the taxi driver would wait with Nick in the back seat while she made all the arrangements—always a bit tricky when not using a credit card. No sense adding to the number of people who could recall seeing the two of them together.

On the drive to the eastern suburbs they paused long enough for a fast-food drive-thru and a visit to a discount store to pick up clothes and essentials like toothbrushes, soap, and g
roceries, plus a prepaid
cell phone
and a ball cap to shadow her face. Vee might be ready to drop, but she couldn’t put off the shopping. The trip back from where they were going wasn’t easy. And with the acquisition of a prepaid
cell phone
she restored their lifeline to Homeland Security.

Small-town New England—despite the urban sprawl along Route 1, the old Post Road from Boston to New York—was a plunge into a different world. Here, the Thirty-fourth Street dirt that lingered on their clothes, the bandage and distorted face peeking out from under Nick’s floppy hat provoked second glances, swiftly lowered eyes, and not a few questioning frowns. To the most blatantly curious at the discount and grocery stores, Vee murmured, “Auto accident,” and marched straight on, while Nick, using the shopping cart as a walker, followed on her heels. Now, as she drove toward the center of one of the country’s oldest towns, the humor of it struck her. Big, bad Sergei Tokarev pushing a shopping cart through Target at eight-thirty in the morning, meekly heeling behind a female FBI agent. If she’d had someone to take a picture, she could have blackmailed Nick into talking. If, that is, he ever remembered what was locked inside that gargoyle head.

They drove down Main Street in the classic New England town, which had once been a center for religious rebels intent on escaping the strict tenets of Massachusetts Puritans. Two churches and the Town Hall were perched on a central green, facing a row of two-story buildings with shops below and living space above. Post office, bakery, candy store, stationery, clothing boutiques, cafés. One of the churches—the one attended by Vee’s Great Aunt Victoria when that venerable lady was in town—had celebrated its 350
th
anniversary a few years ago. Although the building itself had been replaced a time or two, this was the church where the local ministers met to lay a contribution of books on a table and plan the founding of a university named for philanthropist Elihu Yale. And, just in case anyone wondered, the church archives held bills of sale for the land it had bought from the local Indians.

A lot of history, Vee thought as she turned sharp right at the end of the green and headed south toward the shoreline. Surely, here they could find respite, catch their breath, re-group. This town was part of bed-rock America, its very air filled with the right to
live out one’s life in freedom.

Just before a low underpass that flooded with each full-moon high tide, Vee turned left, swiftly moving from town center to an area of tree-shaded late twentieth century homes with perfectly landscaped yards fronted by a line of mailboxes along the winding road. “Not my world,” Nick said, with something that might have been wonder in his voice. “I recognized the city. This, I am sure I have never seen before.”

“Good. Then no one will think to look for you here.”

“They will look for you instead,” he pointed out with cool reasoning that exploded in Vee’s head with far more punch that the remark deserved. He thought her an idiot, negligible at best. A pretty face, to be tolerated until he was strong enough to ditch her with all the regret of ridding the world of a gnat. He’d be off and running without a single twinge of regret.

She was his bodyguard. The keeper of a man who might hold thousands of lives in his hands. She couldn’t afford to be angry, hurt, or dwell on worst case scenarios. Vee unclenched her teeth and told him the truth. “We’re going to a house that’s registered in the married name of my father’s aunt. You got that? In the name of the husband of the sister of my father’s mother. It’s really, really unlikely that anyone outside my own family is going to figure it out. And my family is about as reliable as . . . as God. So give me some credit here. If not for me, you’d be dead already.”

Nick shrugged. “
Nichevo
. Is your show. Without you, I am roadkill, yes?”

Vee frowned. What happened to Nick’s perfect idiomatic English? Was he turning into Sergei Tokarev before her eyes? “There are a few other things I haven’t passed along,” she said as she took a left fork onto an even narrower, more winding road, enclosed in a solid phalanx of trees. “In addition to qualities like ruthless and efficient, they told me Sergei Tokarev was handsome, a man with an eye for the women. Capable of amazing charm when it suited him. That he spoke good English, but with a heavy accent.”

He pounced. “So I not Sergei Tokarev.”

“Not until now.”

Out of the corner of her eye Vee saw Nick stiffen, his lips drawing into a thin line. He was silent as they drove across an old bridge over the mainline railroad tracks that ran along the Connecticut shoreline to Providence and Boston. “Told you,” he finally muttered. “With this face I couldn’t possibly be handsome. I’ve got about as much charm as Attila the Hun, and my English is as good as yours. No way am I some Russian wiseguy.”

Wow
. Just like that, the cloak had dropped back in place. This was Nick, beating vic, fresh out of the hospital. So who was the man behind the green eyes that had lit up at the sight of her black leather mini skirt and tight silk knit? For a moment, just a moment, she had caught a glimpse of Sergei, the charmer, the man who liked women. After that, it had been Nick, the sick guy. Angry, hostile, frustrated. Bewildered. Ready to seize any helping hand in a crisis. Nick, who would use her, then toss her away like an old bone.

Almost, she preferred Sergei.

Obviously, there was something about this man they’d all missed. But no time to think now. The last link in their long escape was in sight. Vee drove out of the trees and down a
steep
hill into a tiny shorefront community. Docks to the right, businesses along two short blocks on the left. A few Victorian-style homes scattered along the fringes.
Dear God, they’d made it
. They were almost home free.

Thankfully, this wasn’t high season. Early morning in mid-September enabled her to find a parking space near the largest dock. Vee locked the car, handed one of two large canvas carryalls to Nick, took the other one herself. Dutifully, he followed behind as she crossed the dock toward a sturdy tour boat. She waved to the captain. “Hey, Charlie! Glad you’re still running. I’d have hated to swim for it.”

The forty-something captain with dark curly hair grinned up at her. “Hey, yourself. Long time no see. Not to worry. Things get pretty quiet after Labor Day, but I’ll be around another month or so, mostly on call. Or for charters.” He paused, took a good look at the two of them. “Need a little R & R, Vee? This is the place.”

As they crossed the short, steeply canted gangplank—the tide obviously at low ebb—the captain grabbed both heavy canvas bags and heaved them into a corner of the aft deck. “Mind giving it another ten minutes to see if anyone else comes along?” he asked.

“To tell you the truth,” Vee said, “I’d just as soon nobody knew we were here. Let’s call this a charter, Charlie, and you never saw us.”

The captain didn’t so much as raise as eyebrow. “Can do,” he announced cheerfully and swiftly shipped the gangplank. He entered the wheelhouse, and twin diesels roared to life.

Nick scanned the harbor with narrowed eyes, decided he didn’t like what he saw. It looked like he was about to be marooned on some damned island. Trapped. Surrounded by water and so many nasty-looking rocks he couldn’t count them all. Everywhere he looked, rocks. Treacherous little rocks visible only at low tide. Rocks the size of train cars scattered starkly over the horizon. Rocks big enough to support trees and houses. All in all, an area that screamed, “Boaters, beware!” He could only hope the captain knew his business.

One consolation: any stranger trying to navigate his way through this nightmare of granite obstacles was going to end up swimming. Or worse. So maybe Ms Frosty wasn’t so crazy. He could turn being marooned with Valentina—a good Russian name—to his advantage, he knew he could. Or Sergei could. The trouble was, he’d lost his looks, and he didn’t much like Sergei. Gangster, mobster, wiseguy. Lover. He was none of those.

Not that lover was bad, but women weren’t his top priority; that much was conviction, not speculation. And besides, no matter what her orders, Frosty wasn’t going to fall into the arms of a guy who looked like Vin Diesel after a bar fight followed by a car wreck.

Vin Diesel. Hollywood. Extreme action movies
. The memory played odd tricks. He could recall a rough, tough action hero, but not himself. “Black houses?” he grumbled to the woman slumped at his side.

“They say Captain Kidd used to hide his ship in a cove over there,” she told him. “The houses on that island like to promote a pirate atmosphere. Among other things, if you live there, you have to paint your house black.”

“Right.” Nick shook his head. Add one more proof to the theory that people with money were weird. Not that it might not be cool to live in a black house tucked under trees on a hunk of granite that once sheltered pirates, but right now close neighbors they could do without. And there seemed to be a whole cluster of ominous black homes squeezed onto the island, as many as eight or ten. But Captain Charlie never slowed, keeping the boat on a steady pace for wherever Frosty was taking him.

How many islands were there? Nick wondered. They seemed to go on forever. There was even one that was only large enough to support a single home, built on stilts. No trees, not even a blade of grass. Frosty’s island seemed to be the end of line, with open blue water beyond. No more rocks. So maybe not so good, if the bad guys moved in from the west. But what the hell, it was better than camping out in a some no-tell motel.

Only one house on this island and lots of greenery. A three-story white clapboard Victorian with elaborate gingerbread, set in a nest of tall trees on the crest of the island. Definitely the queen of safe houses. As the captain pulled up to a well-maintained dock next to a equally sturdy boathouse, Nick had to restrain a smile of satisfaction. He bet those big double-doors hid a boat as perfectly kept as the dock.
Escape
. They weren’t going to be marooned, after all.

BOOK: Limbo Man
10.8Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
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