An Unexpected Addition
Page 13
Hank reached the house at the same time Kate was stepping into the van to go looking for Risto. She regarded him with surprise.
“I thought you went out with Meg.”
“You saw her?” he asked grimly.
She nodded, taking in his disheveled appearance, the fury and fear that seethed beneath a facade of rigid control. “Fifteen, twenty minutes ago, maybe less. In your car.” Her concern showed. “We assumed you were with her.”
“No.” Short and succinct, the single word stated volumes.
“She bolted?”
“That’s one way to put it.”
“What’s another?” she asked softly.
Arrested by her tone, he looked at her, then away. “It’s Gen’s birthday. I guess she thought... No—” He shook his head, confused and angry. “I don’t know what she thought. Anyway, she was all dressed up when I came in, made up to look like Gen. I said the wrong thing. She pitched a long tantrum, then waited until I got in the shower to steal my keys and the car.”
His jaw worked. He gazed at Kate without seeing her, his eyes haunted. “She’s never gone this far before, Kate. When she was little she had rages, but this...this one was worse than the one she had the morning before I called you. I don’t know where she went, how much money she’s got or if she’s coming back. I hoped maybe she’d taken the car for spite and cooled off by the time she got up here. I guess not.”
“You want to call the police?”
“I don’t want to involve them unless it’s necessary.”
“It might be,” she said.
Then she filled him in on Risto’s disappearance and what the kids had told her about him, Megan and the alleged blind pig.
The basement was dark and hazy, raucous with laughter from voices that had yet to change, loud with music.
Just inside the doorway, Megan filled her lungs with the taste of secondhand tobacco and looked around, letting her eyes adjust Kids milled everywhere: at the makeshift bar, the jukebox, congregated thickly around the two pool tables, piled together on vinyl makeout couches and chairs in the corners and along the walls. She scanned the crowd quickly, spotted her quarry slouched forward at the bar, one booted foot propped on the rail that ran its squared-off bottom length. Hand on hip, she put on a fulllipped pout and swayed over to drape a possessive wrist over his shoulder and blow in his ear.
“Hey, Zevo.”
Zevo took a negligent pull on a squat-necked Pabst, threw back a shot of something cheap and vile-smelling before acknowledging her. “Hey, Megan.” He shrugged out from underneath her wrist, deliberately turned to inspect the room, appearing to ignore her. “Long time.”
“Been out of town.” She ran an idle hand up his chest, playing the scene from old movies. She knew the difference; Zevo didn’t. “I missed you, baby.”
“Yeah,” he said sarcastically, still refusing to look at her, “That’s why you spending the summer hangin’ with the brainiacs and llamas out at the Christmas-tree castle, cuz you miss me.”
Megan’s hand flexed on his chest, nails digging in sharply, suddenly, startling his attention her way. “Wrong,” she said flatly. “I’m spending the summer with the geeks and the llamas because I want to, and you don’t tell me what to do.” Her voice changed timbre, softening to a purr. “But that doesn’t mean I haven’t missed you, too, babe.”
“Yeah, okay, all right.” Verbally backing off, Zevo rubbed his chest where the marks from her nails stung. “I missed you, too, Meg. A lot.” He wrapped a diffident arm about her waist, no longer sure where they stood physically. Megan hung back for an instant, making sure he knew who held the power, then pressed into his embrace, caressing the line of his jaw with her cheek. He smirked out at the room at large and slid his hand possessively down her hip, turned his head to take her mouth in a boy’s sloppy, greedy kiss. “Yeah, we back,” he murmured. “Whataya want, doll?”
Megan’s response was a sizzle of breath against his mouth. “Dose of herbal ecstasy and the usual.”
Zevo grinned and hauled her more snugly against him. “Mmm,” he muttered. “I like it when you get tight.” He kissed her, with a lot of tongue, then tapped money on the bar. “Hey, Earl. Packet of ma huang ‘n’ a tequila shooter, lime, no salt.”
Within moments a labeled plastic packet containing ten little blue editions of legal herbal speed, a shot of tequila and a piece of lime appeared beside Zevo’s fist; the money disappeared. Zevo picked up the packet and handed it to Megan.
“Here ya go, doll.”
“Thanks, Zevo.”
Carefully she slit the packet open, collected five of the blue pills, and handed the rest to Zevo. He accepted them with a grin, offered her the tequila, watched her wash her dose down. She shut her eyes and shivered slightly when the liquor hit her throat, then quickly bit the lime, chasing tart squirts of juice after the tequila. A sigh of anticipated artificial well-being escaped; hazy eyed and calm she leaned out of Zevo’s arms and peered through the atmospheric murk at him.
“You seen Risto?” she asked.
The feel of Kate’s fingers in his hair in the fading daylight might have been immensely gratifying—if not for the circumstances and the number of other people watching her fluff and consider the strands. Unfortunately Hank’s rebellious body didn’t see it that way and he was having great difficulty paying attention to particulars, namely the unmarked sheriffs’ and state policemen’s cars sitting in the shadows off Kate’s front drive and the reason her fingers were playing with his hair in the first place.
“So buzz it and carve your initials in it,” he snapped, feeling the heaviness of Kate’s breasts against his upper arm, much too near his face. All he had to do was turn his head to find that damp, inviting cleavage at mouth level. What his body wanted was nothing more than to drop her on her back and bed her on the spot. What he was getting instead was flak. He was tired of the ongoing argument over whether or not he’d be of any assistance setting up the blind pig for a raid—and delivering Megan and Risto from it, assuming they were inside, before it occurred. “I don’t give a—” He bit back an obscenity, controlling his temper with an effort. “I don’t care what it looks like in the polite world, as long as it does what it’s supposed to for the moment. If there’s a chance Meg’s inside, I’m goin’ in.”
“I could give you a mohawk and paint the number of the beast on your face and you’d still look like somebody’s narc-enforcement parent in jeans and a T-shirt,” Kate snapped back. She was finding Hank’s proximity equally distracting.
She’d never before found the scent of hot male particularly alluring, never had so much trouble giving an adult a haircut. No matter what she did to stay out of the way, every time he moved some part of his arm came in contact with her nipples, irritating, teasing and stimulating. She could barely think under the influence of that unintentional friction, let alone skin his head to resemble something—oh, for cryin’ out loud, who knew what he needed to resemble. Something extremely neat and military probably, but with him distracting her by living, she couldn’t guarantee the result without worrying about lopping off his ears in the bargain. And she rather liked his ears exactly where they were. Lord, maybe she should have gone parking with Steve Heckerling the single time he’d invited her back in tenth grade. Then at least maybe she’d have a little experience to fall back on in dealing with whatever this was she was feeling and Hank wasn’t doing to her here.
She yanked his head firmly in the direction she wanted it and tightened her hand on his chin to hold him in place, the same way she had to with Bele and Mike. Perhaps she’d have better luck ignoring her body’s importune announcements if she thought of Hank as just another one of the boys. Yeah, right, her mind snorted. As if. “And if you don’t sit still, I’ll be carving scalp with these clippers in a minute instead of hair.”
“If you want my opinion,” Tai said, not for the first time, “Hair or no hair, if this joint’s teen geared you’re gonna be too old to get in.”
“I don’t give a fig what you do to him,” the local sheriff muttered peevishly to the commander in charge of the local statepolice post standing beside him. “I don’t want a civilian screwin’ up my operation—”
“I’m not a civilian,” Hank pointed out for the hundred and fifteenth time. “I’m a—”
“Even if,” the sheriff continued emphatically, glaring at Hank, “he is some sort of glorified used-to-be-undercover desk-jockey fed. Civilians and any kind of feds always confuse the issue and muck things up, cuz they don’t understand local sensitivities.”
“Not to mention the amounta paperwork ya gotta file and the Infernal Repairs malarkey ya gotta deal with if anything happens to ‘em,” the statie concurred mournfully, deliberately referring to the department’s IAD team by one of its more repeatable aliases. “And they’re so outta touch with the bottom line that somethin’ always happens to ’em.”
The sheriff scratched his thinning pate and chuckled morbidly. “You got that right,” he agreed. “And the worst of it is, they always find a way to put themselves in charge and drag you down with ’em.”
Hank eyed them without rising to the bait. He wasn’t dragging anybody anywhere. He was going after his daughter and leaving them the rest, that was all. Then they could be up to their eyeballs in jurisdictional squabbles over disposition of seized booty with the ATF—Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms—and the FBI to their hearts’ content and leave him out of it.
His own opinion of the state, city and county cops represented here—unvoiced from necessity since Kate still had his mouth and chin squinched between her fingers, holding his head in place while the hair clippers buzzed beside his ear—was that the locals were the ones who had a tendency to drop the ball in joint operations, which was why he was a fed in the first place. Feds, or at least the DEA anyway, simply did it—
Kate’s fingers brushed the sensitive skin at the side of his throat, interrupting the completion of his thought; reaction was quick, a straight fizzle of heat to points south, all senses wrenching awake and alive with the adrenaline rush preparing an undercover brought. Hank shut his eyes and his jaw clenched against bad timing; his mind wryly rejoined the thought in progress. As far as he was concerned, the DEA simply did everything better. Period.
And some things even better than others. He caught Kate’s eye. Reaction and recognition were physical, mutual, immediately denied. But that was an assertion best pursued some other time, if at all.
If.
He shut himself off from the sudden tang of wistfulness on the back of his tongue, forced himself to feel only the itchy drift of hair down his cheeks and neck. Megan liked Kate. Maybe that would make it okay, someday when he and Megan got done with this insanity, to entertain the unchaste thoughts and daydreams of this autumn-haired former nun that he could no longer avoid.
Never depend on someday, his father’s voice whispered at his mother’s funeral. All you can ever be sure of is now.
But now was impossible, and both he and Kate knew it.
The clipper’s drone ceased; his shorn head felt almost cool in the heat.
Kate released his chin and stepped back, cocking her head to regard him critically. “I dunno.” She handed him a mirror, picked up a second and angled it so he could see the back of his head. “I can take more off the top if you want, but that’s about all I can do with the back and sides.”
Tai shook his head. “I don’t know,” he told Hank dubiously. “Seems like a heck of a lot of hair to leave to the birds for five minutes’ work, if you can even get into the pig.”
“Oh, I don’t think it looks so bad.” Carly leaned her chin on Tai’s shoulder and combed her fingers playfully through his straight, collar-length black hair. “Looks cool and comfortable.” She grinned into Tai’s neck. “Maybe you should try it, Tai. Be cute on you.”
Tai’s response was an impolite snort.
The waiting cops’ observations were both ribald and largely unprintable. Kate glanced back at the house, but if any preteens or adolescents with big pitchers had escaped Li’s watchful eyes to eavesdrop on adult conversations, they weren’t visible. Good, she thought. Ilya’s and Grisha’s American vocabularies were quite unprintably large enough as it was.
For his part, Hank didn’t bother with the mirrors, disregarded the comments. Instead he ran a hand over his head, closed his eyes and felt.
Yes, there it was, the soft bristly sensation of a military buzz cut with enough left over on top to satisfy vanity. He dug a little deeper, getting into character. And there, hiding in the corners of his psyche, was the clean-shaven military washout with the offkilter smile and the axe to grind against the world. He was a notquite-scary sort of guy who never wholly fit in anywhere. He’d been different from his classmates in grade school and the two years of high school he’d managed. Not terribly intelligent, but narrowly read and lately liking to think himself an intellectual. He was a loner who gravitated to the edge of trouble without quite participating in it. He wanted to, though. That was why the marines had appealed to him. Tough guys, ready for trouble, willing to take it to the limit. But they’d rejected him. Psychologically unfit. The reasons were nonspecific. He knew he was marine material—special-forces quality—even if they didn’t. One day he would prove it. Maybe soon. But not tonight. Tonight he just needed a few beers in an out-of-the-way place. Maybe lay out a few feelers because he’d heard maybe somebody with a special project in mind was recruiting guys like him.
Guys who were ready to do anything.
The corners of Hank’s mouth lifted slightly, part of the rough contours of the character he was creating and becoming. The keen edge of a familiar rush, more potent than any drug, teased at his system, promising more to come. He opened his eyes and looked at Kate.
The change was subtle but distinct, a trifle frightening. Her eyes widened; she stepped back.
“Hank?” she asked uncertainly.
He nodded, looked at the cops. Ready to chuckle some more, their laughter died aboming.
“Judas-stinking-Priest,” the statie muttered—respectfully. His hand swept in the direction of his weapon, paused, suspended like his laughter somewhere between incredulity at what he was seeing and what he knew to be true.
The sheriff merely shook his head, disbelieving, a testament to Hank’s “talent.”
Tai’s comment was succinct and to the point, a word he rarely used. “I guess this is why you worked undercover, huh?”
“Guess that means I don’t remind anybody of somebody’s narc-enforcement dad anymore,” Hank responded quietly.
Kate shook her head. “If this was how I first saw you, I’d warn the neighbors and not let my kids anywhere near you.” “Good,” Hank said. He turned to the locals. “So, we ready to do it?” he asked.
Risto was playing poker at a rickety round trestle table in the center of the attic casino. His normally ruddy-complexioned Scandinavian features were pale; the pile of chips in front of him was sparse. He acknowledged Megan’s approach by pulling his handful of blue-backed cards tighter to his chest and ignoring her. She laid a hand on his shoulder.
“Time to go, Speedy,” she said, calling him by the nickname he preferred.
He shook his head, impatient. “Not yet.”
“Risto—”
“Do you have money?” he asked without looking up.
“Not for you,” she said, short and irritated. They’d had this conversation before and she understood compulsion too well. She wouldn’t give him away to Kate or Tai, but she also had worries enough of her own without feeding Risto’s addictions, too.
“Meg—”
“How much you down?” Brutal and direct was the only way she knew how to deal with a friend who’d lost control of his limits. It was the way Li dealt with her, the way she’
d learned from Kate.
“It does not matter.” Risto smiled crookedly up at her. “I will win it back this hand.”
Megan peeled his cards away from his chest, viewed them scornfully and let them slap back into place. “Not with these cards.”
The other poker players grinned; the one to Risto’s left made a big show of tossing a pile of chips into the pot, which the exchange student couldn’t match. Risto threw his cards face down on the table, swearing vehemently at Megan in Finnish.
“I’m out,” he said, shoving back his chair to rise.
One of the other players, older than the rest, stayed him, holding out his hand, rubbing thumb over fingers in the universal symbol for money.
Risto shook his head. “You know I don’t have the money with me.”
“Make sure we get it—with interest—within seventy-two hours.” The man’s voice and face were avid with threat and anticipation, a reminder that an opportunity for violence would be almost as welcome as cash.
Risto nodded, looking only at the fist around his arm. “You hold my...” He hesitated, searching nervously for the term momentarily lost from his English. “You have my IOU.”
“Let him go, Danny.” Megan stepped forward to take Risto’s arm. “You’ve got his marker and his word, you hear what I’m saying? He’s never welshed before, so give it a rest.”
“He’s never been down over a grand before.” Danny’s voice was lazy, his features were anything but. “That’s serious green, so you hear what I’m sayin’, little girl. Speedy comes through, or we work out a payment plan that could include you.”
Megan’s lip curled with contempt. “You’d like to be tough, wouldn’t you, Danny?” she asked. “But bein’ tough’s hard when you keep wearin’ a little boy’s name.”
She turned to go, but Danny released Risto and grabbed her wrist, jerking her back. “You better watch your mouth, babe, ’fore it winds you in a world of trouble.”