Black On Black (Quentin Black Mystery #3)

by JC Andrijeski

  “He got bullied into a minimum six month contract with him,” I added. “...doing God knows what. So... you understand my concern, right? He’s working for a mafia lord based out of Russia. A human and drug trafficker who’s rumored to cut his opponents into pieces and feed them to his dogs when they piss him off. I’ve been reading about him... this ‘Mr. Lucky.’ In your very own files. They say he keeps children as pets. That he has women chained to his dining room floor to give blowjobs to the guests at dinner parties...”

  Seeing Kiko in particular wince and grimace, glancing around us in the restaurant, I glared between the two of them, ignoring her unspoken request to keep my voice down.

  “If I’m not mistaken, Mr. Lucky is the human trafficker operating out of Europe these days. Maybe in the whole world. You really think Black would work for him willingly?”

  Could that be true? I heard Kiko think. Why the hell would Black tell her that, even if it was true? Adjusting her butt on the seat, she glanced around the restaurant again nervously. Black wouldn’t work for that psychopath... would he?

  I felt her doubt, even as she wondered at possible angles.

  Dex’s thoughts made it more swiftly to his lips.

  “No way Black would work for that piece of shit, doc,” he said, shaking his head. “I don’t know where you got that information, but it’s wrong. And yes, I know who ‘Mr. Lucky’ is. You don’t know Black at all if you think Black would work for him... for any reason.”

  “You’re not listening to me,” I said coldly.

  “I’m listening just fine––”

  “No,” I cut in. “...You’re not. I just said he was doing it under duress. Do you get what under fucking duress means? It means he’s not doing it of his own volition.”

  I saw Dex’s jaw harden, enough to push out the muscles in his face.

  He glanced at Kiko, and again I didn’t need to read him to pick up his thoughts.

  I bit my lip, controlling my anger with an effort.

  “...Or were you going to give me another condescending speech about how that could never happen? Even given what I just told you about who’s putting pressure on him?”

  “How could you possibly know that, doc?” Dex said, holding up his hands. “How? You wanna enlighten us on your source?”

  “Black admitted it to me,” I snapped. “He fucking admitted he’s working for him. He cut a deal with him in Bangkok... not only for me, but for his friend Lawless, too. And for those kids he’s been protecting through his organization. He thinks it’s the only way to keep us alive.”

  Kiko held up a hand, looking between me and Dex.

  “You need to talk about this quieter, doc,” she said, her voice warning.

  She looked worried now as she stared at me, though.

  She really believes that, I heard her think. She really thinks Black is running some kind of contract with that group out of Russia. Her full lips pursed. But why the hell would he do that? He’s had that Moscow network under surveillance for years...

  I felt her dismiss the possibility again seconds later.

  ... He wouldn’t work for Lucky. Not for any reason. And why would Lucky care about Miriam? Or about Black himself for that matter, assuming Lucky’s using her to get to him? Black’s rich but he would barely register to someone like Lucky...

  That time, I had to bite my lip to remain silent.

  I looked back at Dex.

  “Just look into it, will you?” I turned to stare at Kiko. “One of you. Look into it... please. I’m telling you, he’s working for Lucky and he’s in over his head.”

  Dex shook his head, his brown eyes even more skeptical.

  When I pressed my lips together, struggling to control my temper, he laid a hand on the table, an obvious calming gesture that really didn’t help.

  “Look,” Dex said, taking a deep breath before talking lower. “You’ll get no argument from either of us that Lucky and his private army of butchers out of Moscow are some scary-ass motherfuckers. But truthfully, doc, if Lucky and his ilk wanted Black dead... boss’d more than likely be dead already. I know you think we’re so stupid we don’t understand that, but believe me... we do. Black’s good. He’s really fucking good. Which means he’s also good enough to know when he’s out-gunned. He’s always been pretty careful to keep us well away from organized crime, particularly at the level of that group. That’s been true of anything within our direct operating scope, and even with his humanitarian work, where he’s crossed paths with them in minor ways but never in a way that would truly threaten them...”

  I was already shaking my head.

  “I know all that,” I said.

  “Then what, doc? What are you saying right now?”

  “They don’t want him dead. They’re trying to, I don’t know...” I fought with how much to say, waving a hand vaguely over my plate. “...recruit him. They want him to work for them. Full time. This contract is just an excuse... a way to keep him close and probably test him until they can win him over all the way.”

  When I looked up, Dex’s eyes had narrowed.

  “Why the hell would they want that?” he said, his voice openly skeptical. “Black’s not a trafficker. He’s about as far from a trafficker as a person could get.”

  “I don’t know,” I lied. “But I know I’m right. Black hasn’t admitted that part to me, but he hasn’t denied it, either.”

  “If Black tells you so much,” Dex said. “Why do you need us at all, doc?”

  I didn’t have to read him that time, either.

  Dex’s voice made it crystal clear he thought I was lying.

  My jaw hardened to stone. I started to answer but Kiko held up a hand between us as if to head off the explosion, glaring at Dex.

  “Stop needling her, Dex,” she said to the broad-shouldered man, her voice an open warning. “I mean it. You’re just pissing her off. Black’s not going to thank you for it.”

  When Dex frowned, but seemed to acknowledge her words, she turned to me.

  “Look, doc... there’s only so much we can do.” Her almond-shaped eyes grew serious. “You can think it’s stupid if you want, but Black has strict protocols around when he goes dark like this. We can’t go against those... not without a really damned good reason. Dex is being an ass about it, but what he’s trying to tell you...” She glared at the big ex-soldier, who rolled his eyes. “...Is that you’ve probably got more power in this situation than we do.”

  “And then some,” Dex seconded, grunting.

  “You’ve got a personal relationship with him, Miriam,” Kiko said, her voice softer. “Ours is strictly professional. Moreover, you may have noticed, but he demands military-strict chain of command with all of us when it comes to how he’s set up his company. There’s a reason he hires mostly vets. That doesn’t give us the luxury to question orders...”

  “Damned straight,” Dex muttered.

  Kiko glared at him again, but he only shrugged, his eyes unapologetic. Picking up his fork, he went back to attacking his spinach ravioli with vodka cream sauce.

  I watched him eat, shaking my head a little before I purposefully calmed my voice. “You have absolutely nothing in place for when you believe your boss may be acting under duress?”

  Dex let out another disbelieving snort, dropping his fork with a clatter.

  I ignored him, looking only at Kiko.

  “I get that you both think I’m just some hyper-emotional girlfriend who doesn’t know Black as well as I think I do,” I said, my voice a notch colder as I glared at Dex. Since that’s more or less exactly what he’d been thinking while he’d been eating his ravioli, I saw him blanch. “...But maybe you’re forgetting what happened in Bangkok not that long ago?”

  Dex’s broad shoulders stiffened. He glared at me, his warm brown eyes suddenly a few shades colder as well.

  “You were wrong about that too, doc,” he said, his voice openly angry. He aimed his fork straight at my face. “That fucker didn’t go after Bl
ack, like you said he would. He went after you. Like Black said he would. Like I said he would, if you recall...”

  “I know that,” I said, exasperated. “You’re missing my point.”

  “I don’t think we are,” Kiko said.

  Her voice came out sadder than Dex’s, and held more of an apology, but I heard the firmness there, too.

  “...We’re telling you there’s not much we can do when Black specifically orders us away like this, Miri. We could be putting him in danger by disobeying him. For that reason alone, we’re not going to do it. We’ve no concrete reason to believe anything is wrong on his end. He’s never given us any reason not to trust him when he tells us that everything is fine.”

  When I shook my head, clenching my jaw, she laid a hand cautiously on my arm.

  “Miri. We do have protocols in place for when he’s acting under duress. Code phrases, key words. He hasn’t used any of them. Not one. Given that, we have to assume he knows what he’s doing. He could be undercover, or working with someone with ties to––”

  “I get all that,” I snapped, shaking off her hand. “Are you fucking deaf? I’m telling you... that’s not what’s happening!”

  I didn’t realize how loud I said it until our segment of the restaurant grew quiet.

  Glancing around at the stares I’d gathered with my little outburst, I bit my lip.

  Looking back at Kiko, I kept my gaze flat.

  Dex gave me a disbelieving look from where he sat by the window, once more holding his fork. Outside, I could see rain coming down as people passed by, now holding umbrellas.

  “So you’re not going to help me.” It wasn’t really a question.

  “Help you?” Dex said, exasperated. “Help you with what?”

  Kiko held up a hand, silencing him. “Give us something concrete, doc. That’s all we ask. You give us that, and we’ll help however you want.”

  Dex let out a louder grunt. “Help. You want us to help you get him killed.”

  When I glared at him, feeling my fingers tighten into fists on my lap, he aimed his fork at me again, another gesture of his I remembered from Bangkok.

  “Listen to Kiko, doc,” he advised. “We’ll help like gangbusters, if Black really is in trouble. But you need proof if you want us to go against Black’s word. Telling us you’ve got a feeling in your little pinky toe that tells you he’s got a gun to his head? After he’s told us to leave him be? Well, shit. What do you want me to do with that?”

  I didn’t flinch, but glared right back at him. “I want you to listen to me when I tell you I’ve been talking to him... and that he’s admitted to me that he’s working for Lucky. I want you to listen to me when I tell you that something’s wrong,” I said through gritted teeth.

  But I might as well have been talking to my gnocchi.

  “...Remember orders, doc?” Dex said, as if I hadn’t spoken. “Chain of command? Remember what that’s like? He’s not just your boyfriend...”

  I stiffened but he didn’t miss a beat.

  “...he’s our fucking boss. Hell, he’s your boss, doc. You need to act accordingly... and think with your mind. Not with whatever the hell it is you’re thinking with...”

  He waved the fork in the general area of my torso.

  Fury caught in my chest, enough that I gritted my teeth more.

  Kiko glared at him too, telling him with her eyes to be silent, but Dex looked only at me, once more aiming his fork at my face.

  “You talk to your man, you got an issue with what he’s doing,” Dex said. “Leave us out of it. Unless you’ve got something we can act on, we’re not getting involved in whatever...” He gestured up and down at me again vaguely. “...Whatever the hell this is.”

  I bit my tongue harder.

  That time I remained silent because I didn’t trust myself to speak.

  I knew exactly what he was implying.

  I didn’t need my psychic ability to discern any aspect of the meaning there. He thought I was trying to drag them into some kind of domestic situation. He thought Black was giving me the brush off... that he’d succumbed to his usual wandering eyes and lost interest in me... and that I was deluding myself into thinking it was because he was in some kind of danger.

  Dex was telling me, in his own way, to wake up and smell the cheating bastard.

  Of course, the thought had already crossed my mind.

  But that had been months ago.

  When Black first left, I’d entertained all those doubts.

  I’d gone back and forth in my head about why he hadn’t told me where he was going or why. I’d agonized over what I’d done to him the night before he left, and whether he’d been lying to me when he said he didn’t mind that I’d done it. I’d questioned why he still didn’t trust me enough to confide in me, why he’d been so distant with me in those last few minutes before he walked out of his apartment on California Street.

  I’d gone through the whole process of feeling abandoned, of feeling like he’d jerked me around, of feeling lied to and probably cheated on. I’d already processed my anger that he’d done his usual disappearing act without telling me a damned thing.

  And yes, I’d been angry with him.

  I’d been really angry at first. Angry enough that I didn’t take his calls for weeks after he first took off. Angry enough that I kissed Nick one night in a somewhat misguided attempt to get revenge on Black.

  Really, it was more than a kiss.

  I might have slept with Nick, if I’d been a little drunker.

  Some of that had been the difficulty of not having Black around while I still felt unsafe from what Solonik had done. Some of that had been the difficulty of not having him around when I could feel myself changing... seemingly more every day... and I didn’t know how worried I should be about those changes. Some of it had been that Black still hadn’t told me jack shit about who or what I was. Some of it was that I missed him and wanted him to regret leaving.

  But I went through all those different stages, and I got over it.

  Around Christmas, we started talking again.

  Fingering the Native American pendant I wore around my neck, my Christmas present from Black, I bit my lip until I tasted blood. This wasn’t in my head. This wasn’t me being delusional or paranoid. This wasn’t just Black being a commitment-phobe, either.

  I no longer believed Black took off because he didn’t want to be with me.

  Truthfully, I don’t know that I ever believed that, despite my fears.

  Dex implying that I was too delusional to see the difference between being rejected by Black and being worried about him infuriated me. The fact that I could feel some sympathy on Dex for my situation didn’t help at all. He thought he was doing me a kindness. Giving me some tough love, rather than enabling me in my fantasies about Black and wherever he might be right now, and whoever he might be with.

  The bottom line was, I knew I wouldn’t get any help from him.

  I wouldn’t get any help from either of them.

  Like in Bangkok, I was on my own.

  Five

  WAKING UP

  HE CROUCHED IN a high alcove, looking down over the pews of a church. I had to figure he was on a balcony to be so high above the floor.

  Wherever he was, it was dark.

  It was also quiet despite the time of day. A few whistles and whispers of wind snaked through the pockets and curves in the high-domed ceiling, but otherwise, the nearby area exuded silence. I heard a few voices carrying from outside. Despite the darkness of where Black waited, blue sky showed through white pillars around him, the sunlight hitting the white walls above where he knelt. White clouds scuttled by as he watched, high and pushed by a fast wind.

  He was cold, being out of the sun.

  Wherever he was, it looked familiar to me, although I couldn’t quite place it. Some of that might have been the strangeness of the angle where he sat. In fact, as I continued to look down through his eyes, I realized he wasn’t in an balcony
at all.

  He was somewhere higher––likely in the dome itself.

  Wherever he was, it was high enough to give him a bird’s eye view of the church pews below, as well as a section of the gilded and white-clothed altar.

  The church was closed. Repairs, maybe. Or maybe for some other reason.

  Gold and royal blue and white, a curved mosaic of Christ with arms outstretched hung over the altar itself, just visible from his angle.

  Christ in Majesty... Black thought, looking at the same mural. Same as our world. I saw it... in a book maybe? I know I never saw that version of Paris...

  I felt the voice listening too, listening to Black think.

  He would definitely want a body here. Just like in Notre Dame... Black thought.

  Even so, I felt Black’s skepticism. He didn’t think Ian would come here today. This felt like a set-up to him, a way to wear him down, to keep him dancing when they said dance. He’d already been informed his presence was expected at some religious meeting that night, along with a handful of others new to the organization. He would have to meet with his handler before that. He’d be up all night.

  He honestly wasn’t sure which was worse.

  They usually went after his light while he slept.

  The voice whispered, He’s right. Your ex-lover will want a body here... but he won’t come today. Lucky knows.

  Do you know him? I asked the voice softly, so Black wouldn’t hear. Ian?

  The voice exuded his answer, even before he spoke it. No.

  Do you know Lucky? I pressed.

  No.

  The wind picked up, whispering through the high dome. I feel Black scanning the floor of the church. I feel how tired he is, how long he’s been awake.

  Guilt always worked with him, the voice tells me.

  My throat tightened.

  I didn’t answer. I can feel Black’s mind wandering, remembering things from that other world. I can feel that he didn’t travel much, in that other place. When he did, he had no control over the destination. He moved when people bought him, when he had his ownership papers transferred to new owners.