Loose and Easy (16 page)

Johnny didn’t mind the ride down even though it seemed to last a helluva long time for being part of a house. He had no problems with elevators. But when the door opened, he did have a problem.

They weren’t in the house any longer. The elevator had opened onto a tunnel dug deep into the mountain, like a mining tunnel, with raw earth walls shored up with lumber. Lights hung from a rock ceiling, a string of lanterns snaking into the far darkness, but Johnny didn’t really give a damn. Lights or no lights, he had a problem, and fighting the urge to draw his pistol and slide up against one of the walls took everything he had.

He clenched his left hand into a fist to hold himself in check, to make sure he didn’t do it.

In front of him, Isaac Nachman shuffled out of the elevator and headed down the tunnel. Esme Alexandria Alden followed the old man, and he, Johnny Aurelio Ramos, stood stock-still in the elevator and started to sweat.

CHAPTER
TWENTY

This was just too perfect. Dax’s luck couldn’t possibly be running this good. Kevin Harrell standing across the street from Burt’s office, looking like the stakeout king of Dumbsville with his linebacker build and his highlighted blond hair. Of all the jerks Bleak could have put on the Faber Building, Kevin would have been Dax’s first choice. He had some unfinished business with the guy.

He cruised around the block, looking for a parking spot and finding one half a block north of Wynkoop. For what he had in mind, it would be better if Kevin came up to the office, rather than the two of them having their little discussion on the street.

Pulling up to the curb, he turned off Charo’s ignition and took the cuffs out of her jockey box. He dropped the restraints in his pocket, then checked his watch—ten-thirty, and all was well in lower downtown. People were still bar-hopping and piling out of the restaurants. There were a couple of cops around—more than a couple, actually. He could see a squad car in the alley coming off the back of the Oxford Hotel, and another one parked up on Wazee.

He swung out onto the street, sliding the Folton Ridge folder inside his jacket, then turned and locked the ’Cuda. Kevin Harrell was still standing on Wynkoop, eyeballing the Faber Building, like he could get it to ignite if he just gave it his all.

Fat chance. The guy didn’t have those kinds of chops.

Knocking a Faro out of the pack he’d bought off Rick, Dax checked the street in both directions. Another cop car was parked on Wynkoop, which seemed excessive even on a busy Friday night, and which he hoped to hell didn’t have anything to do with Easy and Otto Von Lindberg.

It shouldn’t. She’d finished with Otto two hours ago, should be finishing with Nachman right now, and then be on her way back into town. When he’d gotten to Denver, he’d called and left her a message to call as soon as she did the same. Phone reception could get sketchy up in the mountains, but once she made it back to the interstate, it should be all systems go.

Walking down toward Wynkoop, he stuck the cigarette between his lips and reached for his lighter, and at the corner he took a moment to fire up the Faro. There were plenty of people on the sidewalk, but he was the only one staring straight at Kevin Harrell across the street, and it didn’t take the guy long to feel it.

When he was sure he had Mr. Harrell’s attention, he took one more long drag off the cigarette, holding the guy’s gaze, hard and steady. Then he exhaled, taking his time.

Yeah,
pendejo,
take a good look at your midnight cowboy over here.

Dax wasn’t shy about his looks. He wouldn’t have given a dollar for them either, but he knew the value of a well-cut jacket over a hand-tailored dress shirt, a pair of 501s that fit like a glove, and a pair of custom-made cowboy boots.

Finished exhaling, he dropped the Faro on the sidewalk, crushed it with his boot, and headed into the Faber Building.

It was a come-on, sure enough. One he didn’t think Harrell would be able to resist. There was a reason the jerk had gotten rough with Easy that day back in high school, trying to prove how tough he was, trying to prove his manhood. It was because he had plenty to prove, and nothing he
could
prove, not in a month of Sundays. Big old brawny Kevin Harrell was gay.

Dax didn’t hold personal sexual orientation against anybody, but he sure as hell held Kevin Harrell’s treatment of Easy against him. Besides the incident in the locker bay—and, yeah, suddenly, he remembered
exactly
who John Ramos was, which only reinforced the wisdom of having Esme stick with the guy—well, besides that incident, there had been some verbal harassment that had even included Esme’s mom, his aunt Beth.

And now here was the idiot, leaving himself wide open on the off chance he was going to get lucky.

Lucky, hell.

Dax used his key on the building’s outside door, and used the doorstop just inside to keep the door open. He was going to make this as easy as possible for Harrell.

Once inside the door, he stepped back in the shadows and waited.

It didn’t take long.

Harrell no sooner stepped inside the door than Dax spun him around hard and slammed him into the wall even harder. In the instant Harrell was stunned, Dax cuffed his hands behind his back, and in the next instant, he had a 1911 jammed up against the back of the guy’s neck, right on the old brain stem.

“Come on, asshole. Get up the stairs.” Dax jerked the guy’s hands higher up behind his back. “I’d just as soon drop you as talk to you, so don’t fuck with me, Kevin.”

“You…you broke my fucking nose,” the guy blubbered between gasps for air.

Tough.

Dax moved him even faster, getting them out of the stairwell as quickly as possible.

Harrell stumbled, shaking his head, and Dax damn near lifted him off his feet, keeping him upright. “Move.”

At the door to the B and B Investigations office, Dax forced Harrell to his knees.

“Stay put.” He kept the automatic pistol pressed against the guy’s neck with his left hand, while he unlocked the door with his right.

“You…you asshole. You broke my…my nose.”

Yeah, yeah.

“Get inside.”

Harrell lumbered to his feet and stepped inside the office. Dax closed the door behind them.

“Have a seat.” He shoved Harrell toward the client chair in front of Burt’s desk.

The big guy dropped into it with a groan.

“Who the hell are you?” Harrell asked, looking up from under a fringe of streaked blond bangs.

Dax had a hard time with questions like that one. The urge to overdramatize was damn near irresistible. Really great lines came to mind, like “Your worst nightmare,” or “The last thing you’re ever going to see.”

He refrained.

“Esme Alden’s cousin.” That was his business with Kevin Harrell, the high school thing. “That makes me Burt Alden’s nephew.” And the Franklin-Bleak-wanting-to-beat-the-crap-out-of-and/or-kill-Uncle-Burt problem. The two items were more than enough reason for Dax to get in Harrell’s face. Those two reasons, and that Bleak had sent this goon and Dovey Smollett to snatch Easy off the street. He’d break them all for thinking that was a good idea. He knew more than enough about Bleak to know sometimes the people he made a point of getting up close and personal with never made it out of the meeting alive.

Like he said, he’d break them all before he let them get their hands on his bad girl—and it wasn’t because he was such a family-orientated guy. He had relatives, everyone did. But Easy? She’d struck a chord with him a long time ago. Skinny?
Geezus,
she’d been a skinny little kid. She’d also been smart, controlled, self-possessed, and self-contained—all that at eight, and he’d noticed. Out of all the ragtag bundles of energy and mischief that had made up the cadre known as “the younger kids” in his family, she’d stood out.

And then three years ago, fresh diploma in hand, she’d come and asked him for a job. To date, he’d never had a regret for taking her on. Not even with that damn Bangkok thing hanging over his head.

“Burt Alden owes my boss money, a lot of money,” Harrell said belligerently, as if the fact gave him the moral high ground.

He was mistaken. Dax owned every last inch of the high ground, and he wasn’t giving any of it up.

“You put your hands on my cousin once,” Dax said calmly, leaning back against the desk and sliding his pistol back into his shoulder holster. “Don’t do it again. Ever.”

He reached over and hit “play” on the answering machine.

“Do you understand?”

Harrell’s hard brown gaze didn’t waver. “I understand you’re gonna be in deep shit with Bleak, if you don’t let me go right now, you asshole.”

The first message was Aunt Beth, and Dax pressed the skip button. The next message was a good one, from Thomas in Chicago—but he wanted a callback. He didn’t leave the name.

Geez,
Dax thought. What was it with these old guys? Why couldn’t Thomas have just left the damn name?

“What were you doing out on Wynkoop?” he asked, picking up a postcard lying on the desk. It had a picture of an angel on the front, and Johnny Ramos’s name and some loopy-looking girl handwriting on the back. He stuck it in his back pocket. “Waiting for Esme? Waiting for Burt?”

“Fuck you.”

“Burt’s a problem. I’ll grant you that, but we’re going to take care of it.” Uncle Burt’s dentist came on line next, and Dax hit the skip button. “On the other hand, if I ever hear of you waiting anywhere for Esme ever again, I’ll fuck you, and not the way you’re hoping, Kevin.”

Some static ran on the answering machine, and Dax let it play, in case there was a message in it somewhere.

“F-fuck you.”

Spoken like a scholar.

The next message was his to Easy. He skipped it, and then hit pay dirt.

“Burt,”
the same male voice as before came over the answering machine. “
It’s Thomas. Why the hell haven’t you called me back? I’m not going to be here much longer, so you better get a pencil…Lindsey Larson…that’s it, Burt. Her friends call her Lucky. Lucky Larson kinda sounds like a hooker, doesn’t it? That’s funny, given what her old man does for a living. It sure is. Call me.”

Dax watched Harrell while the message played, and the names Lindsey Larson and Lucky Larson didn’t register on the guy’s face at all. Dax wasn’t surprised. He’d have been more surprised if Franklin Bleak had bandied his daughter’s name about with his peons. The important thing was that the name registered with Dax, it registered with all the impact of half a dozen vanilla-vodka shooters.

Bleak’s daughter had about as much class as her dad.

Dax pulled the Folton Ridge file out of the inside pocket on his jacket and leaned over the desk to turn on the B & B Investigations paper shredder.

Burt had a few more messages piled up on the machine, one from a betrayed spouse wondering if he’d gotten the photos from the Bluebird Motel, another from some guy named Joe wanting to borrow fifty bucks, one more from a guy named Brad who wanted to borrow a hundred.

Walking around behind Harrell, Dax flipped through the file folder. When he reached the other side of the desk, he stopped and started shredding. One by one, he got rid of Nancy Haney, Jessica Durst, and Kim Stiple, the last two being the good girls. That left him with the photos and chat room chitchat of dear Lindsey, Bleak’s baby.

“So what were you doing out there on Wynkoop, Kevin? What’s Bleak want here? His money, or something else?”

He’d known it was “Lucky” Lindsey. She had her dad’s nose, and the same low forehead, and she wasn’t an inch over five feet—short, like her dad.

“He wants his damn money.”

“He’ll have it at five o’clock tomorrow morning. Do you want to go back to the warehouse and remind Bleak the deal is set?”

“Alden’s said that before and not delivered. The bastard never delivers. Everybody knows that.”

Dax looked up from the Lindsey file at the guy. Kevin Harrell was nervous, rightly so. Broken nose, handcuffed, bleeding, sweating, he was two hundred and thirty pounds of pure helpless. He was shaking in the chair, a low-level trembling. He also had a tattoo on the back of his neck.

“How long have you been out of Canon City?” Dax asked. The tat was classic prison ink, one capital C interlocked with another, the two letters sitting on top of a pair of dice showing snake eyes.

“Fuck you.”

“Ah, come on, Kevin,” he said, modulating his voice to a slow drawl. “We might still have a party here. I just need some information.”

The guy went still in his chair, and after a second, cast a glance back at Dax.

Dax met his gaze without flinching.

Weaknesses—he had a few, but unlike Kevin Harrell, he wasn’t telegraphing his in pink neon, and sex was just too simple. Nobody should get taken for sex.

Okay, for the sake of honesty, Dax needed to retract his last knee-jerk opinion. He’d been taken for sex, more than once, but he’d never given up the bank for it. Consolata Rodriguez had definitely taken him for sex. He’d given that girl everything he’d had at seventeen. He’d even let her drive his car, let her use it to impress her girlfriends, right up until she’d hit a stop sign with it—head-on, no brakes, no blinker, no sense. His ardor had cooled a bit after that, and he’d gotten away thinking he’d learned something about women, not the least of which was that they couldn’t goddamn drive.

Yep, he’d learned his lesson, right up until the next woman, Debbie Thanatos. She’d left his car alone, but she’d sure taken him for a ride. Adriana, Bridget, the car-wrecking Consolata, Debbie—he hadn’t covered the whole alphabet, but in retrospect, and he’d given his love life plenty of retrospective consideration, he’d probably gotten taken for sex more often than he wanted to admit.

Still, Harrell must have been an easy mark in prison. He sure as hell was an easy mark here on Wynkoop in the Faber Building.

“Two weeks,” the guy said. “I been out for two weeks.”

“Check in with your parole officer lately?”

“Yeah.” The guy nodded, then cast another furtive glance back at Dax. “I’ve been right on time.”

Two weeks wasn’t long.

“How long have you been working for Bleak?”

“This is my first job. A friend of mine called me this afternoon and got me on, said I can do real good with this outfit. He told Bleak I knew this girl he wanted, that I would recognize her real easy, from high school, and be a good guy to have around.”

Well, that was a helluva resume—“I knew this girl in high school.” And in other words, Kevin Harrell was a bust. He didn’t know crap about Bleak. It was possible he’d never even met the bookie.

“Is your friend’s name Dovey Smollett?”

“What’s it to you?” Kevin shot back, rallying in defense of a buddy.

Okay, Dax would give him that, the whole honor-among-thieves thing that never really held up very well, not for very long, not under pressure, not with guys like Kevin, and not with guys like Dovey.

There were guys who would give up their lives before they gave up a buddy. Dax knew a lot of them, but the tie that bound wasn’t friendship.