by J. D. Robb
Roarke’s voice took on an edge; then he paused as if to control it. “You’ve tried for my wife, and she’s tossed what you’ve sent at her back at you.”
“She’s been lucky.” But Ricker’s mouth was tight as he reached for one of the glasses of amber liquid that came through the serving slot. “Luck eventually breaks.”
Roarke’s hand shot out. As if he caught himself at the last moment, he drew it back, glancing out toward the guard who had moved closer, whose own hand had drifted under his coat.
“What do you want in trade for a guarantee of her safety?”
“Ah.” Pleased, Ricker sat back again. “That’s a reasonable question. But why, I wonder, should you think I’d offer a reasonable answer to it?”
“I’ll make it worth your while,” Roarke said quickly. Too quickly for pride or business sense.
“That will take some doing.” Thrilled, already desperate to push, he leaned forward. “You see, I find I enjoy hurting your wife.”
“Listen—”
“No, you’ll listen. You’ll shut that arrogant mouth of yours as I should have shut it for you years ago, and you’ll listen. Do you understand?”
“The man must have a death wish.”
Roarke heard Feeney’s voice clearly enough, appreciated the truth of his observation. He fisted both hands on the table, let his breath in and out audibly. “Yes, I understand. Just give me some terms, damn it. We’re businessmen. Tell me what you want.”
“Please.”
Christ, you miserable prick, Roarke thought. Carefully, he cleared his throat, picked up his whiskey. Drank. “Please. Tell me what you want.”
“Better. Much better. A number of years ago, you rashly severed our association, and did so in a manner that cost me one point two million in cash and merchandise and twice that in reputation and goodwill. So, to start, I’ll take ten million, in U.S. dollars.”
“And what, precisely, will that ten million buy me?”
“Precisely, Roarke? Your wife’s life. Transfer that amount to an account I’ll give you by midnight tonight, or I will initiate the contract on her that I have pending.”
“You need to give me a little time to—”
“Midnight, or I terminate her.”
“Even you should hesitate before contracting on a cop, and such a high-profile one.”
“I owe you a great deal more than one cop. Your choice. Keep the money, lose the woman.” He ran the saber points of his nails over the side of the glass in a nasty, shrieking sound. “It’s not negotiable.”
“That’s enough right there,” Eve murmured. “It’s enough to put him away.”
“He’ll get more.” Feeney shifted in his seat. “He’s just warming up.”
“She’s worth ten million to me, but . . .” Roarke lifted his glass, sipped slowly now, as if calculating. “I believe we forge a truer trust in this matter by adding to the arrangement. I’m interested in more than a single deal. I have some funds I’d prefer to invest in a manner that doesn’t require government scrutiny.”
“Tired of being an upstanding citizen?”
“In a word? Yes.” He shrugged, glanced around, and let his gaze linger just a moment too long on the dancer grinding out her routine on the other side of the dome.
And in doing so, he felt Ricker’s amusement.
“I’m considering changing my home base, doing some traveling. I’m looking for some new business ventures. Something with some juice.”
“And you’re coming to me? You would dare to come to me, as if we’re equals? You’ll have to crawl before I throw you a scrap.”
“Then this conversation is pointless.” Roarke shrugged again, but made it jerky, drained his glass.
“You used to be so cocky, so cold. Now look at you. She’s sucked you dry. Gone soft, haven’t you? Forgotten what it’s like to give orders that change lives. That end them. I could end yours now with a snap of my finger.” Ricker’s eyes gleamed as he leaned close, whispered. “Maybe I will, for old times’ sake.”
It was brutally hard not to smash that leering face with his fist and take out the guard with his hand under his coat. “Then you won’t get your ten million or anything else from me. Maybe you have a right to be angry with the way I backed out on you before.”
“Backed out? Backed out?” He pounded his fist on the table, shouting so that at the control station, Feeney’s ears rang. “You betrayed me, stole from me. You threw my generosity back in my face. I should have killed you for it. Perhaps I still will.”
“You want payback, Ricker, for what I did, or didn’t do, I’m willing to pay. I’m willing. I know what you’re capable of. I respect that.”
For effect, Roarke added a slight tremor to his hand as he ordered a second round. “I’ve still got sources and resources. We can be an asset to each other. My connection to the NYPSD is valuable in itself.”
Ricker let out a short laugh. His chest was hurting from the pounding of his heart. He didn’t want another whiskey. He wanted his beautiful pink drink. But he would finish first. Finish Roarke first. “I don’t need your cop, you pathetic fool. I’ve got a whole damn squad in my pocket.”
“Not like her.” Roarke edged forward, eager to deal. “I want her out, but until I convince her, she can be useful. Very useful to you.”
“She’s barely useful to you. Rumor is you and she are having some marital difficulties.”
“Just some bumps. They’ll pass. The ten million will help that,” Roarke said as he took the second round of drinks. “It takes the pressure off. And I’ll get her to resign before much longer. I’m working on it.”
“Why? As you said, a police connection’s useful.”
“I want a wife, not a bloody cop. I prefer having my woman available at my convenience, not running around all hours of the day and night investigating cases.” Scowling now, he drank deeply. “A man’s entitled to that, isn’t he? If I want a cop, I’ll buy one. I don’t have to marry one.”
It was better, Ricker calculated. Even better than he’d expected. He’d have Roarke’s money, his humiliation, and his obligation. And he could hold all of them until he killed him. “I can arrange it for you.”
“Arrange what?”
“Her resignation. I’ll have her out in a month’s time.”
“In return for?”
“This place. I want it back. And there’s a little matter of a shipment I’m expecting. The client I anticipated for it hasn’t proved financially solvent. Take it off my hands for, we’ll say, another ten million, turn the deed to this club over to one of my subsidiaries, and we’ll have a deal.”
“What’s the merchandise?”
“Pharmaceuticals.”
“You know I don’t have the contacts to deal in illegals.”
“Don’t tell me what you do or don’t have.” Ricker’s voice spiked, all but cracked. “Who do you think you are to turn your nose up at me.” He lunged over the table, grabbed Roarke by the collar. “I want what I want!”
“He’s unstable. We need to move in.” She was already striding out of the room when Feeney called out.
“Hold on! Let it play out.”
“I can’t stay up here.”
“I’m not turning up my nose,” Roarke said quickly, nervously. “I haven’t developed the sources for illegals distribution.”
“That’s your problem. Your problem. You’ll do what I say, all that I say, or get nothing. Take the deal or the consequences.”
“Let me think, for God’s sake. Pull your men back. Let’s not have any trouble in here.”
“Fine, that’s fine. No trouble.”
Well, he’s mad, Roarke thought. Stark and raving. The rumors of Ricker’s instability hadn’t touched on the reality.
“Twenty million’s a lot of money. But I’m willing to risk it to get what I want. And to . . . pay the debt I owe you. But I need to know how you’d work her out of the department without it coming back on me.”
It
was Ricker’s breathing that was audible now, but he didn’t hear it. He picked up his whiskey, and his hand trembled, but he didn’t see it. All he saw was the fulfillment of a long-cherished wish.
“I can ruin her career inside of a week. Yes, in no time at all. Strings to be pulled. The case she’s working on now . . . she annoys me. She insulted me. Laughed at me.”
“She’ll apologize.” Roarke all but crooned it. “I’ll see to it.”
“Yes, she’ll have to do that. Have to apologize. I won’t tolerate anyone laughing at me. Especially a woman.”
He had to be pushed, Roarke thought. Gently and quickly. “She will. You have the controls. You have the power.”
“That’s right. Of course. I do. If I let her live, as a favor to you, I’ll take a fee for moving her off the case and out of the department. Misinformation, skewed data in the right computer. It works.”
Roarke rubbed the back of his hand over his mouth. “The cops who’ve been killed. For Christ’s sake, Ricker, you’re behind that?”
“And there’ll be more before it’s done. It amuses me.”
“I don’t want any part in cop killing. They’ll bury you.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. They’ll never touch me. I didn’t kill anyone. I simply put the idea in the right head, the weapon in the most vulnerable hand. Just a game. You remember how fond I am of games? And how I enjoy winning them.”
“Yes, I remember. No one did it better. How did you pull this off?”
“Arrangements, Roarke. I enjoy arrangements and watching how the pieces fall into place.”
“I sleep with a woman in the department, and I can’t get that close.” Roarke’s voice filled with admiration. “I underestimated you. It must have taken years to set up.”
“Months. Only a few months. It’s simply a matter of selecting the right target. A young cop, too stiff-necked to play the game. Eliminating him is simple enough, but the beauty is how it can be connected, how it can be expanded upon by planting the seeds in the heart of the grieving father. Then I simply sit back and watch a once-dedicated cop kill. Again and again. And it costs me nothing.”
“Brilliant,” Roarke murmured.
“Yes, and satisfying. Best, I can do it again, any time I like. Murder by proxy. No one’s safe, certainly not you. Transfer the money, and until the wind changes, I’ll protect you. And your wife.”
“That was twenty million?”
“For the moment.”
“A bargain,” Roarke said quietly, brought the hand he’d slipped under the table, under his jacket back into view. And the gun with it. “But I find the idea of doing business with you turns my stomach. Oh, tell your man to hold, or it’ll give me great pleasure to use this. Recognize it, Ricker? It’s one of the banned weapons you trafficked in, years back. I have quite a collection of twentieth-century handguns—and a collector’s license. They leave a horrible nasty hole in a man. This one’s a nine-millimeter Glock and will blow your face right off the skull.”
The shock of having a weapon aimed at him robbed Ricker of speech. It had been years, a lifetime, since anyone had dared. “You’ve lost your mind.”
“No, indeed. Mine’s sound enough.” He slapped a hand on Ricker’s wrist, twisted viciously until the laser scalpel fit into his own palm. “You always had a weakness for sharp things.”
“You’ll die painfully for this. Painfully. Do you think you’ll walk out of this place breathing?”
“Certainly. Ah, there’s my wife now. Lovely, isn’t she? And by the sound of things through the scanner your inferior sweepers missed, it appears your team of fools is even now being rounded up and moved along.”
He waited while Ricker focused beyond him, through the dome, and saw for himself.
“One of us has lost his touch, Ricker, and it appears to be you. I set you up, and it was child’s play.”
“For a cop.” Eyes wild, Ricker leaped to his feet. “You rolled on me for a cop.”
“I’d have done it for a mongrel dog, given half the chance. Ah, please, try for it,” Roarke murmured. “And make my life worth living.”
“Enough. Roarke, back off.” Eve opened the door to the booth, slid her police issue into Ricker’s ribs.
“You’re dead. You’re both dead.” He whirled, backhanded Eve as he leaped. She took the blow and dropped him.
“Tell me you had it on full.”
“He’s stunned, that’s all.” She wiped the blood from her mouth with her sleeve and ignored the scramble of people who rushed away from the trouble. Onstage, the strippers continued to dance.
Roarke handed her a handkerchief, then reached down, lifting Ricker’s head off the floor by his throat.
“Don’t—”
“Keep back,” he snapped as Eve crouched to hold him off. “You’ll bloody well keep back till I’ve finished this.”
“If you kill him, it’s been for nothing.”
He stared at her face, and all the strength, the purpose, all the danger he hadn’t shown to Ricker leaped out of them. “It would be for everything, but I don’t mean to kill him.” To prove it, he handed her the Glock.
But he kept the scalpel and, holding its keen point to the pulse in Ricker’s throat, imagined. “You can hear me, can’t you, Ricker? You can hear me well enough. I’m the one who took you down, and you’ll remember it while you’re pacing the box they’ll put you in. You’ll think of it every day with what’s left of your mind.”
“Kill you,” Ricker choked out, but he couldn’t so much as lift his hand.
“Well, you haven’t managed that as yet, have you? But you’re welcome to try again. Listen to me now, and carefully. Touch her, put your hand on what’s mine again, and I’ll follow you to hell and peel the skin from your bones. I’ll feed you your own eyes. I take an oath on it. Remember what I was, and you’ll know I’ll do it. And worse.”
He straightened again, his body rigid. “Get someone to drag him out of here. This is my place.”
chapter twenty-three
She didn’t sleep long, but she slept deeply, knowing Ricker was in a cage. He’d screamed for his lawyer, quite literally, once the effects of the stun had worn off.
Since she’d whipped right around and dumped Canarde in a cage as well, Ricker’s lawyer was going to be a very busy boy for awhile.
She’d made two copies of every record disc of the operation in Purgatory. She sealed all of them, and secured one copy in her home office.
There would be no lost evidence, no missing data, no damaged files this time around.
And they had him cold.
She told herself it was enough, would have to be enough, then had tumbled into bed. She switched off like a frayed circuit, then came awake with a jolt when Roarke put a hand on her shoulder and said her name.
“What.” Instinctively, she reached down where her weapon would have been had she not been naked.
“Easy, Lieutenant. I’m unarmed. And so are you.”
“I was . . . whoa.” She shook her head to clear it. “Out.”
“I noticed. I’m sorry to wake you.”
“Why are you up? Why are you dressed? What time is it?”
“A bit past seven. I had some early calls to take. And while I was at it, one came in. From the hospital.”
“Webster,” she whispered. She hadn’t checked on him the night before after the operation was complete. And now . . . too late, she thought.
“He’s awake,” Roarke continued, “and it seems he’d like to see you.”
“Awake? Alive and awake?”
“Apparently both. He improved last night. He’s still in serious condition, but stable. They’re cautiously hopeful. I’ll take you.”
“You don’t need to do that.”
“I’d like to. Besides, if he thinks I’m guarding my territory . . .” He lifted her hand, nipped the knuckle. “It might cheer him up.”
“Territory, my ass.”
“Your ass is, I’ll point out, my exclu
sive territory.”
She tossed the cover aside, and gave him a good view of that territory as she dashed toward the shower. “I’ll be ready in ten minutes.”
“Take your time. I don’t believe he’s going anywhere.”
She took twenty, because he bribed her with coffee. And she indulged in a second cup as he got behind the wheel. “Do we take him flowers or something?”
“I think not. If you did that, the shock would likely put him back in a coma.”
“You’re such a funny guy, and so early in the morning, too.” She sipped her coffee, bided her time. “That, um, phrase—feed you your own eyes? Is that some kind of Irish curse?”
“Not that I’m aware of.”
“So you just made it up on the spot last night? I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: You’re scary.”
“I’d have killed him for striking you if you hadn’t been in the way.”
“I know it.” So she’d made certain she’d stayed in the way. “You had no business bringing that handgun. Carrying a banned weapon into a public place. You know how much dancing I’m going to have to do on that one?”
“Who says it was loaded?”
“Was it?”
“Of course, but who’s to say? Relax, Lieutenant. You brought him down.”
“No, I didn’t. You did.”
“Compromise,” he decided. “Which we’ve neglected to do just lately. We brought him down.”
“I’ll take that. One more thing. All that business about a man having this right and that right, and wanting your woman when you want her. That was just show, right?”
“Are you going to share that coffee?”
She moved it just a little farther out of reach. “No. It was just show. Right?”
“Well, now, let me think. It might be nice to have the little woman puttering about the house and meeting me at the door of an evening, after a hard day’s business, with a smile and a drink. That’s a lovely image, isn’t it?”
He turned to see her snarling at him and laughed. “How long before we’d be bored brainless with it, do you figure?”