The Florentine Deception (21 page)

Ronald stood up and walked over to the workbench. “Well apparently Khalimmy isn't the only one who wants it. Let him deal with the fucking Russians. Hopefully they'll all kill each other. How about this?”

I turned around to see him holding a weighty, three-foot piece of rusted steel rebar.

“Where'd you find that?” I hadn't seen it among the jumble of tools on the bench.

“It was in a box under the counter.”

“Now we need one more for me.” I rotated and advanced to the next box. “You had no idea at all what your brother was up to? He never mentioned the diamond?”

“I try, tried rather, to stay ignorant of his antiquities dealing. Once bitten, twice shy. I have no desire to go to prison.” I assumed he was referring to his and Richard's indictments (and subsequent exoneration) on smuggling charges. The second crate held a few weathered leather gloves, pruning shears, and other gardening paraphernalia, but unfortunately nothing lethal.

“To be honest, before the funeral I hadn't talked with him in over a year, and then this Khalimmy guy puts a gun to my head in my garage and drags me here. I figured my brother had cheated him for some antique before he died. I kept trying to tell him that Rich was dead, but he didn't believe me, thinks he skipped town with this Florentine thing … will this do?” He held up a four-foot length of white PVC piping.

“Better than nothing, but I'd prefer something heavier.” I returned my attention to the locker and lifted its latch.

Without warning, the chorus of Jethro Tull's
Thick as a Brick
filled the air. Ronald spun toward the sound, ominously swinging the crowbar in tight circles above his head.

“Steven!” I screamed—it was his personalized ringtone. Ignoring a thousand stabbing needles of pain, I spun and ran toward the card table. By the time I reached the table, my phone was vibrating madly across the vinyl surface in time with a second iteration of the chorus. I snatched it up, careful to prevent the battery from falling out of its bay, and placed it by my ear to answer.

Miraculously, the phone stopped ringing.

“Hello, Steven. Can you hear me?” I paused. No response. “Steven, my phone's busted. I can't hear you.”

“Listen. If you can hear me, I found Richard Lister's brother but we're locked in Khalimmy's basement. The basement is accessible through a trapdoor from the kitchen pantry. Call the police as soon as you can. 19591 Gilmore. 19591 Gilmore in El Segundo. Call the police.” I repeated the entire plea several times, then put the phone back onto the card table. Lister had dropped the crowbar to his side and looked longingly at the phone.

“Did it work?”

“I don't know, I couldn't hear him. Who knows if he could hear me.”

“But you know it's your friend?”

“I programmed that ringtone for him. It's his favorite song. It's him.”

Chapter 33

“All set?” I asked in a whisper.

“Yeah, I think so,” responded Ronald. After finding a five iron in the locker, I'd unscrewed the basement's two bulbs and by the beam of my keychain flashlight, both of us had taken positions flanking the staircase.

“So the Russian is looking for the diamond too,” I said. “It seems your brother was trying to find the highest bidder.”

“No. He didn't say anything about a diamond. When I told him I knew nothing about this Florentine thing, he said he was looking for a flash drive that he said Richard had taken, or … rather … stolen.”

“A flash drive? You mean like a thumb drive?”

“Yeah, I guess. He kept asking me if my brother ever sent me a flash drive to hold onto. ‘Did your brother ever give you a flash drive? A portable hard drive? Did he ever give you a password to an account?' Flash drives and account passwords? My brother dealt in antiquities, not computers. I had no clue what the hell he was talking about.”

Maybe the Florentine wasn't a diamond after all? Maybe Russian intelligence data? Or maybe it was a diamond and the drive held a digitized map of some sort?

“So what did you do?” I asked.

“I told him I had no idea what he was talking about. What else could I do?”

“And he believed you?”

“No.” Ronald shuddered. “He pulled out a knife and threatened to remove my fingers if I didn't tell him. He said he'd work on you next.”

“Me? He was going to question me about the Florentine?”

“Yeah. I figured that was it for both of us.”

Jesus Christ. “Then what happened?”

“He grabbed my hand and pressed the edge of the blade against my finger. I nearly soiled my pants. And then his mobile rang. God help me, his mobile rang. He answered it, listened for a good thirty seconds, hung up, and began cursing. Then he bolted upstairs and took off. That was it,” he crossed himself. “You woke up a few minutes later.”

“Unbelievable,” I said, “I wonder …” A noise. “Shhhh. Someone's upstairs.”

“What?” he whispered.

“I heard the floor creak.” The floorboards squeaked again, this time closer, louder.

“Ahh. I hear it.”

“Aim for the shins. Hit as hard as you can as soon as you've got a good shot.”

“Okay,” he said.

After a nerve-racking minute of groans and creaks the hardwood floor's protestations ceased, plunging the basement into an unnatural silence.

“I wonder what the bastard's doing,” commented Ronald in a full-volume whisper.

“Shhhh.”

An instant later, the footsteps recommenced, this time from the far edge of the basement ceiling, and worked their way toward the trapdoor. Again, silence. I tensed. Then another groan, this time from shifting weight, followed by the unmistakable scrape of a screwdriver being withdrawn from the latch. I redoubled my grip on the leather-wrapped handle.

The hatch raised a crack, projecting a dim wedge of light along the stairs and directly in front of my feet.

“Alex? Tell me you're down there.”

Steven!

“We're here!”

“Thank God.” Steven grabbed the underside of the hatch and swung it open with a grunt. I'd never seen him so anxious; a dense film of perspiration covered his face.

“Did you call the police?” I asked, then gestured Ronald up the stairs. “Hurry.”

“Yeah. They should be here soon.”

“Last thing we need is Khalimmy throwing all three of us in the basement, covering the trapdoor with a rug, and telling the cops it's a false alarm.”

“I don't think I want to wait around for the cops to arrive,” replied Ronald uneasily.

“I don't blame you, this place is disturbing,” responded Steven. “I say we get out of here and go straight to the police.”

“Fine.”

“This way,” I motioned toward the front of the house. Ronald and Steven followed me down the entryway toward the front door. Like the rest of the house, the entryway's heavy curtains immersed the area in near darkness. With a quick twist, I rotated the deadbolt latch into the vertical position and then yanked the handle. The door stuck.

“Dammit.” It was already unlocked, undoubtedly by the Russian. Exasperated, I grabbed the latch again, but before I could turn it, I heard a scratching noise and the latch began to rotate, of its own volition, between my fingers.

“Oh shit,” I mouthed. “He's back.” I tightened my grip to prevent the latch from turning. Khalimmy fought briefly with his key, then retracted it.

“Hold it,” whispered Steven into my ear. “Don't let go.” I reinforced my grip with my left hand.

A second later, Khalimmy reinserted the key, tried one more light turn, and then, failing, torqued it hard. Fortunately, my years of rock-climbing had developed cable-strength tendons and I had no problem immobilizing the latch; the key, however, was less fortunate and snapped immediately.

“
Ibn himar!
Goddamn lock.”

I gently released the bolt and backed several feet from the door, followed by my companions.

“What now?” I whispered.

“Where are the fucking police?” whispered Ronald.

“They've got to be here soon. I called almost ten minutes ago,” said Steven.

“Are you suggesting we just wait until they arrive?”

“I don't know. How should I know?”

“All right, calm down,” I said. I tiptoed back to the door and peered through the peephole. Khalimmy had disappeared. “Shit, he's gone.”

“What should we do?” asked Steven, panicked.

“I guess we could bolt out the front door.”

“What if he's out in front of the garage or something? He'll kill us. What about the back? We could jump into a neighbor's yard.”

“That could work—if he hasn't already gone back there. Shit.”

“What?”

“Did you leave the back door open?”

“Crap. You think he'd go arou—”

Phut
. Smoke emerged from a newly punctured, dime-sized hole in the doorjamb just left of Ronald's head. For a second, I stared dumbfounded at the wall, then at Ronald, wondering where such a smoking hole could have come from. I began to turn around, then heard a second
phut
and a sickening, organic crunching sound—the sound of splintering bone—and it clicked. I dove headfirst into a maze of waist-high-stacked newspapers in the adjoining study, landing hard on my bad arm. Teeth gritted, I shimmied behind a heavy wood desk and out of sight of the hallway.

“Oh fuck!” screamed Steven.

Phut
. A door slammed.
Phut
. A half-second delay.
Phut
.

I shifted onto the balls of my feet and surveyed what little of the room I could see from behind the desk's stacks of yellowing paper. Only one door: back to the entryway. A fireplace to my left—was there an iron poker? Something I could use as a weapon? I couldn't tell. A blacked-out window to my right.

My eyes returned to the desk. A grapefruit-sized glass paperweight sat partially hidden behind the piles at the edge. I grabbed it and ducked back.

“Please, my friends, it's time to stop playing.” The hallway lights flicked on.

I said nothing. Neither did anyone else.

“All I want is what I've been promised. Give me … for God's sake,
sell
me the Florentine, and everyone lives.”

He paused and again the house went silent, save for the subtle background whistle of the vent. I heard the stomp of a foot, then Ronald screamed.

“No more games or your brother dies. Right now. Your friend is next.”

“Wait!” I yelled, still crouching behind the desk. “Don't shoot him. I'll get it for you.”

The study's floorboards squeaked from several tentative steps, and a moment later the dim form of Khalimmy's shoes filled the gap beneath the desk's back paneling.

“Stand up, please. Hands above your head.”

I rose to my feet, leaving the paperweight on the floor, palms out-facing above my head.

Khalimmy stared at me, clearly confused, and motioned me from behind the desk.

“Who the hell are … what?” Then, recognition. His eyes showed surprise, but recognition. “What the hell are you doing here? Where the hell is Richard?” He pointed the barrel of the pistol at the bridge of my nose. “Who the fuck are you?”

“I … we're …” I paused, befuddled by the prospect of my impending death. Then I heard it. The ever so faint, far-off wail of a police siren.

Undeterred by the siren, or perhaps still unperceiving, Khalimmy pressed the warm mouth of the silencer against my forehead and reiterated, “Let me repeat again, who the fuck are you?”

“I'm … I'm Alex … Fife,” I responded, now completely distracted by the rapidly intensifying scream of the siren.

“Alex … Fife.” He stared at me, utterly bewildered. The swelling sirens brought him back to his senses. “Did you call the fucking police?”

The screeching of car tires answered his question well before I could utter a word. Khalimmy twisted and shot a look back over his shoulder, inadvertently shifting his gun a few degrees from my face's midline. It was an opening … an opportunity, however small. Guided by the most basal, fight-or-flight regions of my brain, I balled my right hand into a fist and sent it flying upward toward Khalimmy's chin. My ring finger and thumb just barely caught his jaw, jerking his head sideways. Khalimmy staggered backward, his hand reflexively pumping several muffled rounds above my head into the ceiling's stucco, and fell with a crash between the yellowing stacks.

I dove just as another round left the chamber, my head smacking into something hard. I blacked out.

Chapter 34

“Help!” I screamed. “We're being held hostage.”

“He's coming to,” said an unfamiliar male voice.

“Careful, he has a gun!” I shot up and opened my eyes. My head reeled. Had I been drugged?

“Relax, Mr. Fife, everything's okay.” A hand gently eased me back down onto the pillow. “You're in the hospital.”

A heart monitor's metronome-like beat started breaking through the haze. I tried to focus—it took a few seconds to reorient. I was in an eight-by-ten, beige-colored room, medical equipment everywhere. And tubes. Tubes taped to my arm.

“I'm going to go get the doctor, I'll be right back,” said the male voice.

“You're in the hospital, Alex. Everything's okay now.” It was Steven. That was Steven's voice.

“Steven? What? Where? Where are we?” My fingers found their way up to a bandage on my shoulder. “Was I shot?”

“No—it's nothing serious. Just relax, the doctor will be here in a minute.”

I tried to concentrate, to remember what had happened.

“How did I…?” I scanned the room. “What happened?” Things were coming back slowly. “I heard the police cars, then I think I hit Khalimmy and then I … I …”

“You're okay, Alex. Everything's okay. The police rescued us and the paramedics brought you here to Torrance Memorial.”