Running Scared

by Linda Ladd

  “Go inside, Yuri. See what you can find out,” Dmitri said, but as Misha made to get out the passenger's door, he stopped him with a curt order. “You stay here."

  “I want to see this place. Yuri's brochure says a billiard table's in the men's room."

  “Shut up."

  Annoyed with his nephew, with the whole stinking mess, Dmitri watched a pair of elderly couples get out of the shiny white Lincoln Continental parked next to them. Every one of them reeked of money. He wondered where they were from and how much they had invested in the American stock market. Or if any of them had the taste to acquire a Fabergé masterpiece, had ever visited an art museum in their lives. He was tired of this po-dunk part of the country but getting his hands on Kate would be worth everything he'd been through. He planned to enjoy making her pay; maybe he should prolong her punishment, keep her locked up somewhere for his amusement, but only after he'd gotten the baby safely back to Vince and Anna.

  Dmitri grimaced. Furious, Vince had called Dmitri on the cell phone and yelled incoherent curses for a good ten minutes before he'd calmed down from his insane temper tantrum enough to listen. Anna was upset over the baby's disappearance, was on the verge of a total nervous collapse, and he wanted his son found, and found now. Vince hadn't even gotten to see his kid before Reed snatched him because he'd been in New York facing racketeering charges when Anna went into labor. He was fucking going to open up the hit to anyone with a goddamn, fucking gun in their hand since Dmitri was screwing around while he had to sit there and watch his poor wife suffer and cry.

  Dmitri had almost hung up the receiver and headed back to Moscow, not willing or used to taking verbal abuse from anyone, not even Vince Saracino. He would have returned to Russia, if they weren't closing in so quickly on Kate Reed. Now it was a matter of principle and pride. Kate would be his, and her lover, John Booker, would die a painful death before her eyes. Maybe he should make Kate kill him herself. If Dmitri held a gun to her baby's head, Kate would do anything he said, anything at all. His smile was cold, his eyes hard. They'd been worthy opponents, he'd give them that much, more than most of his targets, but now time was up. He'd finish the hit, then take his time deciding what to do with Kate.

  “Mac Sharp lives in a trailer park on the lake called Taneycomo.” Yuri was back, sliding into the driver's seat. He turned and rested his forearm on the back of the seat. “It's just below the bridge. The lady in the ticket booth said it's got a boat dock and a lattice screen covered with purple flowers."

  “Was she suspicious of you?"

  “No, she was friendly like all the people here. She asked if I knew Yakov Smirnov. Said we talked with the same accent.” He grinned. “I said I was Yakov's brother and he wanted Mac Sharp to work for him."

  “Very clever, Yuri."

  “She was most eager to tell me where he lived and what he drove. A silver Mustang convertible with a black top. These Americans, they are much too trusting."

  “Lucky for us. Let's go."

  “She also said he started his vacation this very day."

  “That probably means they're ready to take off. Step on it, Yuri. I'll be damned if she'll get away this time."

  As Yuri started the motor, Dmitri spread the map of Branson atop his knees. A moment later he stabbed his ringer on the bridge that spanned Lake Taneycomo just south of the historic downtown area of Branson. If the silver Mustang automobile was parked at this man's trailer, they had them cold.

  “Mac has an idea how we can do this, if you want to hear it."

  Kate nodded, but inside she felt dead, as if her heart had shriveled up and crumbled to dust. Joey was her heart; she'd have no life if they took him away from her. She fought the burn of tears, fought the intense compulsion to run, to keep the inevitable at bay. Earlier on the dock she'd wept until she hung limp and weak against Booker's chest, hard, racking sobs, despair such as she'd never felt before. But he was right. She had little choice but to return Joey to his family. She'd known that the minute she'd watched his mother's face twist with agony and loss. Kate had seen the woman's terrible pain, felt complete and total empathy because she knew how she felt. Oh, Lord help her, what would she do without Joey? He was all she had, all she'd ever wanted.

  Mac was outlining his plan for dealing with Saracino, and Kate stared dully at him, thinking he was crazy if he believed they could deal with such people. She finally blurted it out. “He's a cold-blooded murderer. How can we trust him? Trust any of them?"

  “We can't, of course. But it's our only shot at getting you out of this mess alive. Besides that, we'll be telling him the truth."

  “He'll kill us, no matter what we do,” Kate insisted, thinking the two men surely must see that. The man was insane, evil, had ordered Dmitri to hunt them down and shoot them like ducks in a carnival gallery. “Why wouldn't he? He's holding all the cards."

  Booker had been sitting silently, listening to them discuss the situation. He leaned back in the kitchen chair and propped his foot atop his knee. “Mac's right, Kate. It's worth a try. Otherwise, we have no chance. If they don't get us now, it's only a matter of time until they do. We've been lucky to make it this far."

  Kate searched Booker's serious face. She had begun to wonder if she really cared if she lived or died, but Booker and Sharp were different. Both of them were involved because they'd tried to help her. They'd put their lives on the line to save her and Joey. She couldn't just stand back and let them die for her. She didn't have any choice but to go along with their plan. Her mind had accepted that already but her heart hadn't, and never would.

  “I'll do whatever you think is right,” she said at length, rising as she spoke. She carried Joey to Mac's La-Z-Boy rocker beside the television set. Booker and Mac glanced at each other, questions in their eyes, but she didn't elaborate, really didn't care how they did it. All she could think of was that Joey would be gone soon, out of her life forever. She'd never rock him again, never warm to his melting smile that carved the dimples under his eye, or hear the chortling little laugh that so delighted her. She wouldn't see him crawl or take steps, or call her mommy. A gigantic lump rose at the bottom of her throat, expanded until she lowered her head so the men wouldn't see the tears filling her eyes.

  “I've already asked for time off so I can drive you to St. Louis. We've got to decide on a place. Somewhere full of people so they can't work an ambush or hit us without a lot of witnesses around. Whatever we do, we've got to do it right. Vince's crazy; everybody knows it. He's got a hair-trigger temper, and he's pissed off as hell right now, insulted that anybody'd dare mess with his kid. Who knows what he'll do?"

  So Joey's father was crazy, a crazy murderer who'd involve his son in his Mafia lifestyle. How could she hand an innocent baby over to a future with the mob, a life where he might be cut down in some bloody gun battle before he reached manhood?

  The shrill ring of the telephone startled them all. Booker sat forward as Mac came to his feet. Kate held Joey closer.

  “It's probably somebody at the show. Take it easy."

  At Mac's words Booker relaxed a little but his nerves were quivering on the brink. They'd been at Mac's place too long. They needed to move on, get out of Branson. Kate was so stressed out she was ready to snap. They needed to end this, get it over with, once and for all.

  Mac picked up the receiver and was talking. He immediately turned to Booker and held out the phone. “It's for you. Some woman who won't give me her name."

  “Nobody knows I'm here except Jumbo."

  Mac shrugged and waited. Booker hesitated, then walked across the room.

  “Hello."

  “John Booker?"

  “Yeah."

  “It's Mavis."

  Booker frowned, immediately aware something bad had happened. “What's wrong, Mavis?"

  “Jumbo said to call. Said to tell you some guys paid us a visit."

  Tensing up, Booker's fingers squeezed more tightly around the receiver. “Is he all right?"

&nb
sp; “No."

  “How bad is he?” Booker asked tightly but inside he could feel rage already beginning to build. A kind of anger he hadn't felt in a long time.

  “They beat the shit out of him. Broke his jaw and all the fingers on his right hand.” Mavis's voice caught and she stopped talking.

  “Goddammit."

  “He's in Mountain View, at the hospital. He can't talk much but he told me to make sure you know that he didn't tell'm nothin’ till I walked in and they grabbed me, too. When they started in on me, he said he had to tell them who you were and where you were headed. He said you gotta get out of there quick."

  “He told them we're in Branson?"

  “Yeah, with a guy named Mac Sharp. He told them he worked at the Shoji show but only after they got hold of me, Booker. He wouldn't've told'm shit if they hadn't been hurtin’ me."

  “Are you hurt bad, too, Mavis?"

  “Not like Jumbo. They broke some bones in my hand. Hit it with Jumbo's steel meat tenderizer."

  Booker shut his eyes, fighting the fury that was roiling around inside his gut, building, building, streaking through his blood like a torched stream of gasoline. “I'm sorry. Tell Jumbo that, tell him I didn't mean for him to get hurt, you either."

  “The doc says he's gonna be all right. They got his jaw wired up and all his broken bones set."

  “Which one of them did it, Mavis?"

  “A kid with blond hair and blisters peeling off his face. The guy givin’ the orders called him Misha or something like that. He grinned when he hit us like he was havin’ lots of fun. There was three of ‘em, but the one in charge had a beard. He was real calm and business-like, eyes cold as ice, just watched and told the kid where to hit us. They would've killed us both, Book, if some cops hadn't knocked on the door wantin’ to fill up their coffee jugs. They took off out the back and got clean away."

  Booker's jaw clenched and his knuckles whitened around the phone. “Thanks for warning us."

  “Yeah. Well, gotta get back to Jumbo's room and help him with his dinner. A malt's all he gets. Hasta eat through a straw. Good luck."

  “Yeah."

  The line went dead. Booker hung up, turned and found both Mac and Kate on their feet. Mac looked wary. Kate looked alarmed.

  “We gotta get Kate out of here. Right now. They know we're here, Mac. They know your name and where you work."

  Mac needed no further encouragement. “Okay, let's get going, but let me call the theater and see if anybody's nosin’ around up there."

  Booker watched Kate run into the bedroom to gather her things, then withdrew his .45. He pulled back the curtains and watched the road while Mac spoke briefly on the telephone. He looked back as Mac hung up. “They've already been there. Talked to a friend of mine at the ticket counter. They're coming."

  Booker nodded but said nothing as Kate rushed out with Joey. He took her outside and waited until she was in the backseat with the baby before he spoke quietly to Mac. “Take her and wait for me on the bridge up there.” He jerked his head downstream. “I can make my way there on foot easily enough."

  “Why, man? We gotta get out of here."

  “They busted up Jumbo and his girlfriend. Hurt them bad."

  Mac shook his head but he knew better than to argue. “All right, but be careful. These guys don't mess around."

  “Get going. I won't be long. If I'm not there in half an hour, go on without me."

  Mac got in and started the car, and Booker could see Kate motioning to him from the backseat. He watched them pull up the road onto the highway and out of sight. Then he went back inside the trailer to wait.

  Twenty-Nine

  BOOKER DIDN'T have to wait long. He squatted down behind the front door, back against the wall, and watched through the curtains as a big white Suburban turned off the access road. It stopped about thirty yards up the graveled road from Mac's place. Two men sat in the front seat, and Booker set his teeth as Misha, the psychopathic punk who'd accosted Kate in her kitchen, who'd had a jolly good time busting up Jumbo and Mavis, got out of the car.

  Something terrible moved deep inside Booker, visceral emotions lain dormant for years, stirring again, struggling for life, for release. His muscles flexed, went completely rigid, trembled with leashed power. He clamped his jaw until he feared his teeth would crack. Rage, the deadly, helpless anger he'd suffered in the Sandinista camp was bubbling free, heating up, hotter, hotter, lethal, all-encompassing, uncontrollable.

  Propping his head against the wall, he shut his eyes and fought to keep himself under tight control. The moment was at hand. He had to be patient now that he'd made up his mind to act, now that Kate and Joey weren't around to get hurt. Flight was over; the time had come to fight back. He was ready. He took a deep, steadying breath but the tugging, twisting urges inside him would not stop, the eagerness to strike back like an atrophied muscle learning to flex again. He had taken down men before, kill or be killed, a concept he knew only too well, at times more than one enemy at a time and nearly always under worse conditions than he faced now.

  He'd been trained by the best, he thought bitterly, taught to murder at eighteen by the best killers the United States Army had to offer. He'd be rusty but it'd come back and he felt deathly calm, mind cold and detached from what was about to go down. He knew what to do and how to do it. He thought of Jumbo and Mavis, the pain they'd endured at the hands of the snot-nosed sadist who liked to smile as he tortured people. But Misha'd chosen the wrong people this time. He'd chosen Booker's best friends.

  Through a crack in the drapes he could see that the Russians knew exactly where Mac lived. Misha was coming in alone. Booker was surprised by that, wondered if there were others, if they'd split up to surround the trailer. He moved quickly, silently to a rear window with an open view of the access road but saw neither men nor vehicles approaching the trailer. Then he was back in place, watching Misha come down the gravel path into the shade of Mac's metal carport. Now Misha was behind the lattice privacy screen shielding the front door, out of sight of his backup man in the car.

  The guy sitting in the driver's seat had yet to emerge but Booker recognized him as Dmitri, the boss man who wouldn't give up on killing Kate and taking her baby. Dmitri didn't know it yet but he wasn't going to get another chance to hurt her. Booker supposed he was letting Misha secure the place before he followed him in. Through the dark window glass he looked to be speaking on a cellular phone but Booker couldn't be sure.

  Misha stopped by the front steps and examined Mac's trailer for signs of life. Booker had a feeling the kid was salivating at the idea of hurting Kate, payback time for the pan of boiling water. He wondered how tough the kid would be when he met up with a man his own size instead of helpless women and unarmed men.

  Booker stuck his gun into his waistband and took down Mac's pride-and-joy Stan Musial bat from its shelf, one the famed Card used to crack homers during the sixty-six season. He kept his back flat against the wall behind the door. His senses had sharpened considerably; he could smell the sweet scent of baby powder and realized Kate had left a can of it and a box of Luvs on the floor beside the door. That alone would bring Misha inside for Kate and the baby. He got the bat handle in a good, comfortable, two-handed grip. He was ready.

  Within minutes he heard a knock, which probably meant they thought no one was at home because the car was gone. If that was true, he'd get the jump on Misha. Scratching sounds came next as the kid slipped the lock with a credit card. He was inside seconds later, quickly and quietly, bent low, efficient killer with silenced gun out and ready to kill an innocent woman. Booker saw red and gave him no time to go looking for him. He swung Mac's baseball bat down atop Misha's forearm so hard he heard bone crack. Misha let out a scream as his weapon hit the floor and went skittering into the kitchen. Booker got him in a brutal uppercut under the jaw that cut off his cry and sent him down hard.

  Finished with the bat, Booker propped it against the wall, then checked to make sure the guy in th
e car hadn't decided to join the party. He hadn't. He glanced down at the man lying on the floor. He lay unmoving and bleeding from the head. Only a few seconds had elapsed. Booker shut the door and locked it. He wasn't finished with Misha yet.

  Booker moved into the kitchen and picked up Misha's weapon. He stuck it at the small of his back, turned on the tap and filled a glass with cold water. He walked back to the unconscious Russian and flung the contents into his face. Misha roused with a sputter and moan but he was aware enough for Booker's purpose. Booker grabbed his ponytail and a fistful of his blue denim shirt and dragged him bodily to the door that closed off the hall. Misha groaned and tried to open his eyes as Booker pushed the kid's right hand into the crack of the door just beneath hinge.

  “Hey, Misha? Can you hear me, Misha?” he said softly, jerking him up by the shirt and holding his hand in the door with one knee. He spoke to him in Russian, so he'd be sure to understand.

  The kid opened bleary eyes but his vision cleared quickly enough when he recognized Booker. “Think back, tough guy. Remember my friend named Jumbo? A black guy wearing a white apron? Remember him, Misha, my friend? Him and the pretty lady you messed with the other night?"

  Misha stared bug-eyed at him, apparently stunned that Booker was speaking his own language. Booker watched fear steal across his face like a stalking black cat.