Temporarily, I let go of the gun and found the burner cell, thumbing Arch’s number as I took a glance behind me. The biggest guy was bulldozing a path through the bodies behind me, a juggernaut for Nestor and Taras, who stuck close to his shoulders.
I couldn’t hear anything on the cell, couldn’t even be sure it was ringing. I’d have to count on Crystal to carrier pigeon the message. Clicking off, I pocketed the phone and put my hand back on the PSM at the same time we steered around a waitress with a round tray of Longnecks.
Dahlia caught the arm of a woman in a red sequined dress as we danced around the employee without incident. She tried to say something or maybe she did. The woman gave me a questioning look.
“I’m her dad,” I shouted. “She shouldn’t be in here.”
That melted the expression a tad. I might not have convinced her, but it allowed a detachment, and we moved on, inching through the bodies, jostling people who only wanted to clap and giggle.
“Trying to get my daughter out of here,” I said, maintaining the lie as an apology as people reacted to the jostling.
I could have told them a Spetsnaz battle tank would be a few seconds behind me, but I didn’t take the time. I tried to maintain focus. The door was getting closer, but I encountered a column of college girls, dancing and twisting their way toward a restroom. They followed each other by some kind of bat radar, inches apart, tipsy, arms raised and waving with the music throb. It might have been a pleasant and provocative display, if you didn’t have pain and death vendors bringing up your rear.
I couldn’t get their attention to break through easily. I paused, watching them snake along. Dahlia seized the moment to make a fresh tug on her arm. I felt her forearm sliding through my hand and almost lost her when her wrist reached my palm.
Clamping tighter just before she freed herself, I realized I needed to do something. The co-ed procession wasn’t getting any faster.
Putting ethics aside and letting go of the idea that I wouldn’t be remembered here, I took the obvious action. I yelled: “Fire.”
Chapter 17
The reactions along the conga line were immediate. Panicked expressions flared, and for a second or so girls looked at each other, left, right, eyebrows raised, quizzical, eyes wide. Then they bolted, looking for the door.
“Fire’s in the back,” I shouted to one frozen girl who for some reason looked to me like she’d be named Amber. That jarred her to attention. “I’m trying to get my daughter out of here.”
She spun and joined the fleeing sorority, and collected a few companions in the process, and the crowd began to funnel toward the exit, dismay becoming viral.
I hoped no one would be trampled. Behind us Alexeeva and even his bull dozer were jostled as news was picked up by those over their way.
I let go of my weapon again and dialed Arch once more, hoping he’d made it outside. I pressed the cell to my ear even while wrapping an arm around Dahlia from behind and pressing forward with her struggling form.
She bumped into a guy who reacted negatively. I gave him a forearm smash with the cell phone arm and sent him teetering then returned the cell to my ear.
If I’d made a connection and if Arch was talking, I couldn’t hear him. I kept it handy but concentrated on following the crowd funneling toward the exit. Behind me, the guy I’d smashed went into someone else, causing more animosity. Punches were thrown. That placed more confusion between me and Alexeeva’s men. I couldn’t complain.
Turning sideways, I tugged Dahlia through a narrow space, keeping my grip locked around her wrist like a handcuff. She did everything short of starting to gnaw her own arm off to get free. I managed to hang on anyway and found a spot in the bottleneck at the doorway that eventually pushed us forward, even as bodies crushed in on us from all sides. I worried Dahlia might get crushed and remembered old news stories of concert tragedies.
Pulling her toward me, which was like tugging someone out of quicksand if Tarzan movies are to be believed, I lifted her, wrapped my arms around her and forced my way into open space on the sidewalk.
In frenzied situations, people don’t get to freedom and move in an orderly fashion to the side to let others out. They cluster where they emerge, blocking the way. We slammed through a group of club goers who stood with folded arms, chatting. They shrieked and complained but happily scattered.
I moved on through them, planning to step from beneath the overhang onto the street so that I could look for Arch, who I prayed was finding the vehicle. I didn’t get as far as I hoped.
More shrieks and complaints sounded behind me. The bulldozer had emerged. He clapped an arm on my shoulder and mumbled something I didn’t understand, but I got the impression he wanted us to come with him.
Un-diplomatically, amid the confusion, I slipped the PSM from my spine. I thought about aiming above the knee but trying to avoid his femoral artery. I wanted him to leave us alone, but I didn’t seek to cripple him or cause him to bleed out, though I suspected getting him medical attention wouldn’t be an immediate priority for Alexeeva.
I chose instead to hammer his lower face with the handle. He groaned and went down as his nose crunched under the weapon’s force. I left him fighting the blood flow which held his attention. That dispersed the crowd a bit as well. They drew away, repulsed, sending rippling confusion outward where calm had settled.
Chapter 18
I towed Dahlia toward the opposite side of the street, aiming for shadow as I stuffed the diplomatic weapon into a pocket and found the cell again. The noise level remained high, but I thumbed Arch’s number one more time and pressed it to my ear.
“Can you hear me now?” I asked.
“Got you. Where are you?”
“Front of the club. I hope you’re getting the car.”
I tugged Dahlia toward me, and we leaned against a stone wall as sirens filled the air and the clamor before us escalated. More people spilled through The Runnell exit, some tripping over the downed Bulldozer and people who’d knelt to help him.
“Finding it. I see a garage.”
“You’re never going to get it up the street here. We’ll get away from this crowd and meet you at the garage exit.”
“I’ll call when I’m headed out.”
“You’re never going to get away. You’re just going to get us both fucking killed.” Dahlia looked up at me, eyes blazing with anger.
“Your mother wouldn’t want you talking like that.”
“She wouldn’t want me getting everyone killed either. You don’t know what he’ll do.” She tried to make herself an anchor. “He’ll do anything if he hates you. He’ll find a way to get even. To make you sorry you ever fucked with him.”
I contemplated the repercussions of shooting her in the leg and just carrying her. She’d keep talking regardless, probably even get noisier with the inevitable whines and screams.
Her family could deal with her Stockholm Syndrome later. I needed to focus on immediate concerns. Alexeeva and his pals had just emerged from the club, and he shouted instructions.
I looked to my right. A hurricane fence covered the mouth of a gravel alley. I wouldn’t be able to get Dahlia over that. The area around The Runnell hadn’t enjoyed quite the gentrification Alexeeva had brought to his club. We hoofed the other direction. I kept myself to the street side, masking Dahlia as much as possible as we moved past a drab cinderblock building with a barred window and a grungy beer sign. Beyond it, a parking garage’s sign flared. Looked to be six or seven floors. Had to be where the valets were stowing Runnell vehicles.
The building beside us proved to be open for business. Canned music and beer fumes wafted through the open doorway at the corner. A few neon signs provided most of the light inside, but patrons had come out to see what was going on. They were grim, working class guys who’d already downed a few.
I pushed past them and a circle of still panicked girls in chiffon and sequins. Then we crossed the street. The garage’s ramp, marked with exit o
nly signs, was midway up that street and lighted. I didn’t want to tarry there until Arch was close, so I edged Dahlia into a nook behind a dumpster where the garage parked golf carts, little maintenance vehicles and a shuttle to take vehicle owners to nearby venues. Had to be a security guard around but I didn’t see him.
“Keep quiet,” I said.
I tried to think of a viable threat as I watched for Alexeeva’s pals, but she kept her mouth shut for the moment without inducement. Maybe a part of her wanted to go home or maybe she worried about what they’d do.
I tried Arch.
“Where are you?”
“They must have the cars on the seventh level.”
OK, it was seven floors. He panted.
“It’s getting hairy down here.”
“Since when do you say hairy?”
He had the wind for that?
“Don’t soldiers use that term?”
“Maybe in Full Metal Jacket. Embrace the suck and wait for me.”
So, that was surly Arch in his debut.
On the Runnell side of the street Nestor and Taras headed our way, scanning the chiffon and blue collars for Dahlia. If I’d known I would have brought a prom dress to stuff her into.
I put my hand on top of her head and forced her down further beside a security truck, checking the handle as I kept my eye on the boys.
Locked.
The boys: across the street, scanning.
I willed them to move on, past the garage, on up the street. The next street would be a boulevard that ran in front of the convention center. Would they think that was a likely destination for a getaway?
What would I have thought as a cop, when I’d been on the other side of hunts like this? Probably that the shadows were worth checking but that this operation was well organized and that transportation waited there.
I didn’t like being the one hiding. The one sweating. When you’re a cop you can almost pick up the scent of that sweat and the fear. You’re usually on the trail of a stupid kid who’s botched a job that seemed easy enough when all the factors weren’t weighed.
Now I knew how it felt.
Icicles were melting in my arm pits and spilling down my torso. I’d acted on impulse, thinking I could pull it off with bravado and will power. I was starting to feel like I’d knocked over a liquor store and found my car blocked in, forced to flee on foot.
Nestor and Taras must have noses like a pair of cops. They started our way.
Chapter 19
I couldn’t risk a call to Arch now. Short of a coat hanger, lock jock, or tennis ball I didn’t have an easy way into one of the security vehicles. I know. I know. The tennis ball trick’s an urban myth anyway.
I raised my head an inch, looking across the hood of the vehicle we crouched behind. The boys were checking both directions but coming our way, catching just a little strobe from the police car that must’ve made it to the front of the club by now.
I dipped again, looking at Dahlia, who’d stopped making me grip her quite so hard.
“Don’t you want to shout and get your friends over so you can go back with them?”
“I’m gonna get caned for letting you drag me this far.”
“Get ready to run then. We’re going up that exit ramp.”
“They’ll catch us in no time.”
“I’m going make it seem wise to keep their heads down. Get ready to run.”
I raised the weapon barrel up to press it against the vehicle window.
“Head down, sweetheart. Fingers in ears.”
I pulled the trigger.
Sounded like a cannon blast and started a stitching pattern of cracks through the glass an instant before the slug shattered the window on the other side then exploded a window on the security truck parked beside.
If I’d been in their place, approaching, I would have dropped and expected Uzi spray. Or a Howitzer.
I hoped that’s what Taras and Nestor were doing while I was taking Dahlia’s hand and sprinting for the exit ramp. I weighed other flight possibilities and all of them left us exposed longer. The best plan B had been to get to the next street and jack a car. I couldn’t come up with a timing count on that that didn’t allow the boys time to catch up with us. Heading into a maze, we’d have cover and a few seconds to think of something else. You’d have done it differently? Well, I was improvising as fast as I could.
With Dahlia puffing at my side, we charged along the sidewalk, past the yellow curb and up the exit ramp incline. A surprised attendant in his little lighted booth jerked his head around but didn’t have time to speak as we dashed right then up a parking row.
I got the cell free and thumbed redial.
“Talk to me, Arch.”
“Found my car. Working on getting in. Valets had the key.”
“Expedite.”
Dahlia and I ducked into a space between a couple of SUVs that could have accommodated the Saints defense and sank down onto cold and gritty pavement, panting. Over our puffs, I could hear quick shouts somewhere behind us, then staccato speech that sounded like Belarus street slang.
“Should we go?” Dahlia asked in a whisper?
“Wait a while. We’re needles in a haystack at the moment.”
I tried listening for footsteps but couldn’t pick up anything, and voices had silenced. Nestor and Taras had decided I didn’t need to track their whereabouts any more than I wanted them knowing mine.
“My parents hired you to look for me?” Dahlia asked. I realized she trembled in spite of the night’s heat.
“Something like that. It’s better to keep quiet right now.”
“Are they okay?”
“Other than the debilitating depression.”
The longer we sat, I could smell oil and antifreeze along with remnants of exhaust and a faint, acrid waft of urine. Plenty of smells. Still no sound.
The absence of sound or any sign tightened my insides. They could be creeping up on us, or moving up the ramp beside this level. I looked through the space to our side, but I saw only tires and axels.
I needed a look. My intellect told me it was better to sit still, but that squeeze in my gut kept telling me I needed to look over the top of the car. I patted Dahlia’s arm and motioned her to sit tight, then twisted and rose on the balls of my feet, looking through the rear windows of the SUV. They were tinted to keep out Crescent City sunlight, but they made the garage look like midnight. I thought I saw a smudge moving down at the mouth of this level. I couldn’t tell if it headed our way.
I thumbed the phone.
“How are you?”
“Rolling,” Archie said.
“We’re on Level 2. We’ll be watching.”
I inched back along the SUV and looked around the rear taillight. Taras stood at the mouth of this level with his back to us. He focused somewhere to his right, motioning with a handgun. The shattered windows must not have caught the attention of the cops.
I twisted around, wincing as grit sounded under the soles of my shoes.
I nodded toward the space near the SUV’s hood that opened to the next level ramp. The concrete angled upward, but there wasn’t much of a barrier. Dahlia moved that way, and I gave her a boost to squeeze through the space. After a glance back, I followed and we crawled between an Accord and a silver sedan.
“Keep moving,” I whispered. I wasn’t sure where Nestor might be, but running to meet Arch seemed worth the risk. We trotted up the incline and jagged to the right toward the next rise.
Headlights hit the wall near the end of that ramp. I pulled Dahlia back an inch and watched then breathed easy when I saw the front fenders of Arch’s car round the corner.
I waved an arm. He screeched down our way and slowed as we dashed in front of him, grabbing for handles on the passenger side. I put Dahlia in the back seat and ordered her to buckle then dived into the front.
“She going to stay with us?”
“She’s worried this has gone on so long they’ll kill her for re
al. Let’s roll. Let’s head for the entrance.”
He stomped the gas, wheeled past the pillar that marked the ramp’s corner and shot down the ramp we’d just climbed, wind whistling through the hole in his window.
“Down,” he shouted.
Spider webs appeared on the windshield as one of the boys fired. The slugs sighed into the back seat, inches from where Dahlia’s torso had been before she’d rolled into the floorboard upon his command.
“Get us outta here,” I shouted.
“You got it.”
Tires screeched, the odor of burned rubber entered through the window hole, and we were through a couple of turns that pointed the car toward the entrance.
Happily, no one was trying to pull inside at the moment. Another astonished gate attendant peered through a booth window with wide eyes, and we ignored him as the car shot through the narrow entryway, the grill ripping a gate arm away as we exited into the night.
Chapter 20
The Holsts looked like they’d had a bad time at airport security. They’d thrown some of the previous day’s clothes back on, stuffed things into suitcases and hustled out of their house. Sleeves were rolled up. Shirttails not quite tucked right and items stuck through the cracks of their bags.
They hadn’t flown anywhere. We’d all converged after a drive to a spot just north of New Orleans. In a parking lot at a deserted office complex in Mandeville, an awkward bit of hugging and sobbing transpired. They looked at Dahlia not quite the way they would have looked at a ghost. She reacted to them with the silence and stiffness of a kid forced to greet an aunt and uncle she didn’t really remember and certainly didn’t want to be hugged by.
I’d called Rose from the Pontchartrain Expressway following a series of turns and twists and minutes of sitting against a curb with the lights off here or there to make sure no one picked up our trail, cop or otherwise. Putting twenty-five miles of water between us and Alexeeva didn’t mean much, but it had a soothing effect.
Fool's Run Page 9