Down & Dirty: A McCray Crime Collection

by McCray, Carolyn

  And he found it. In fact, he found more than one example. Ripped abs, clearly defined cheekbones, rippling biceps. And Josh didn’t even want to get started on their hair. And all that was without even looking closely.

  That was half of the problem here. He couldn’t even be angry at Allie, much as he wanted to be. Of course she was going to stare. If he were a girl, he’d probably be staring, too.

  In point of fact, he was staring, Josh realized. He glanced in Allie’s direction and saw that she was looking straight at him. Crap. Busted. He hung his head, his cheeks flaming. Good thing it was mostly dark.

  Another intrusion blasted its way between them, this time in the form of a group of girls dressed like angels. Well, they had wings, at any rate. Josh was sure he’d remember if he’d seen any angels like that in the paintings hanging up in the church building back in his neighborhood.

  One of the group, a girl who seemed to be made up of all curves and danger, floated her way over to Josh and draped a hand around his neck, pulling him in toward her. Without even thinking about it, Josh used a move that his priesthood advisor had shown him. He grabbed her arm, pulling her even farther in the direction she was already headed, while he darted off to the side, neatly evading the embrace. He propelled her into the arms of one of the hot guys who, strangely, seemed to have no idea what to do with her.

  That had worked. That had totally worked. Josh turned from watching the two scantily-clad bodies pushing away from each other and locked eyes with Allie. He grinned at her, thinking that she would be as impressed with his move as he had been.

  Instead, she had stopped dancing altogether. Her jaw was agape, and she looked like she had been hit by a truck or something. It was the look of someone who had just had an epiphany, but not the good kind. She looked from Josh to the girl to the guy, and then back to Josh.

  Josh reached out for her, but Allie shied away, shaking her head. She gave one last backward glance at the hot guys, then turned back to Josh. Her eyes were hurt, but somehow kind at the same time.

  “You can go dance with them if that’s what you want to do.”

  For a minute, Josh had no idea what she was talking about. But then she pointed…directly into the gang of male models. The very pretty male models. The very pretty male models that didn’t seem to know what to do with hot girls.

  Allie thought he was gay.

  He opened up his mouth to protest, but right at that moment, a huge glob of foam poured from the ceiling, blocking off his view not only of Allie, but of everyone else, as well. He couldn’t see anything, which very quickly proved to be a big problem. At least before he’d been able to partially anticipate the random dancing attacks. Now, they were coming out of the middle of the foam.

  Josh headed in the direction he had last seen Allie, trying not to let the random body blows get to him too much. He found an arm that looked like it might belong to Allie and latched on, hoping he was right as he started dragging whoever it was back to where he thought the entrance to the club was.

  It was time for Allie and him to have a heart-to-heart.

  * * *

  It didn’t take much time for Keaton to realize that things were not going well with Stavros. Regrouping, Keaton decided that tactical retreat was perhaps the better part of valor. Didn’t mean he was giving up. Not at all. Just meant he was living to sell another day. Like, maybe tomorrow. He could try selling Stavros his X tomorrow, right? Or maybe he should give it a day or two, just to be on the safe side. No problem.

  In the meantime, it was time to get outta Dodge. “I think it might be time to get you back to your limo. Unless you want to stop by and talk to the guys who formulate my cleansers?” Stavros didn’t answer so much as he screamed with his eyes. “I’ll take that as a ‘no.’ Okeydokey. Your chariot awaits.”

  Keaton figured this time called for a direct route, so within thirty seconds, they were at the front door. Stavros’s eyes registered something akin to shock at their hasty arrival, and Keaton watched as the drug kingpin swiveled his gaze left and right, apparently trying to figure out where in the world he was. The Hive had that effect on people.

  But now, Keaton just had to find the right key. For the very first time in his life, he questioned the wisdom of having a deadbolt that only had a key turn. It had seemed like such a great idea when he’d had it installed.

  Stavros, typically such a bastion of quiet strength, was starting to show his apparent impatience. His foot was tapping a steady and rather rapid rhythm on the laminate entryway, and he cleared his throat. Twice.

  Keaton kept trying key after key, but nothing was working. The right one was on here somewhere. It had to be. There was no other keychain. Maybe it was just his nerves, but it did seem like he had gone through every single key on the ring.

  After another agonizing minute, Stavros confirmed Keaton’s fears. “You’ve tried them all. Three times now. Give me the keys.”

  Hesitating for just a millisecond—after all, the key to every micro in the house was right there in his hands—Keaton ceded the keys to his future boss. Well, probably his future boss. Hopefully.

  Stavros’s fingers were long and elegant, the hands of a piano player. They appeared to be swift and deft, as well, seeing as it only took him a fraction of the time to make it through the keys. Still with no luck.

  “Nothing. You’re sure the key is on this ring?” Stavros queried.

  “Yeah. Positive. Never let the thing out of my sight. Hell, never let it off my person. Well, not before today, that is.” Keaton’s hopes that Stavros would feel honored by the trust he’d been given were immediately dashed as the dealer squatted down next to the lock and ran his fingers around the circle of metal.

  “When did you put in this lock?” Stavros’s tone was direct and focused. Very masculine.

  “Uh, had to have been like five years ago.” It had only been three, but Keaton wanted to plant the idea of longevity in Stavros’s mind. No one took you seriously until you’d been in business at least five years.

  “This looks like it was just recently installed. See where the paint around the lock doesn’t quite match up with the size and shape of the metal?”

  Keaton took a second look. He wasn’t in the habit of examining hardware, but it didn’t look like the lock that had been there before, did it? Thinking harder, Keaton was pretty sure that one had started to look a little tarnished, desert air being what it was.

  But that didn’t sound so good. “Wait. So, someone changed the locks?”

  “It looks like it. Where’s another exit? We need to get out of here as fast as we can. This place is starting to look an awful lot like a death trap.”

  Keaton hemmed and hawed over that one for a bit. He really hated disappointing people. It was kind of his “thing.” And he really didn’t want to disappoint Stavros. But there wasn’t a way around this one that he could see.

  “Um. There isn’t one. This is it.”

  At that, Stavros stood and turned away from the door, slowly pivoting on one foot until he was completely facing Keaton. “This is the only door?”

  Not sure that he liked this quiet, intense and rather scary new voice coming out of the near-perfect Stavros, Keaton’s own voice ended up coming out of him as a little bit of a squeak. “Yes.”

  Stavros stood stock-still for a very long moment. He was mouthing something to himself as he breathed deeply in and out. It looked like he might be counting. Finally, he seemed to finish whatever ritual he was engaged in.

  “We need weapons. Where’s the kitchen?”

  Man, this guy was cool. We need weapons. Where’s the kitchen?

  The reality that someone was trying to kill off his Micros hit Keaton. Boy, was he glad that Stavros was on his side.

  Well, he hoped Stavros was still on his side.

  * * *

  Still clutching Allie’s hand—and at least now that they were out of the foam, he could tell for sure it was Allie—Josh made a beeline for the entrance. All
ie and he had a few things to talk through. Like, right now.

  Glancing back, Josh could see that Allie still wore the overly concerned look she had been sporting since she told him he could hang out with the gay models if he wanted to. He’d seen that face before on his parents’ faces when he didn’t make the soccer team. And on his teacher’s when he’d failed that science test after pulling a 4.0 all semester. And unlike pretty much every other expression he’d ever seen on Allie’s face, this one annoyed the heck out of him.

  It wasn’t that he was offended. At least, not in the normal way. His best friend back in Kansas had come out to Josh before he left. Josh had been surprised, sure, but it hadn’t done anything to ruin their friendship. If anything, he’d felt honored that Kyle had felt comfortable enough to come out to him first.

  No, what worried Josh was that maybe he just wasn’t masculine enough. And what hurt was that he thought he’d been pretty clear about how attracted to Allie he was. And she clearly had decided that he was into guys. Josh must just really suck at sending the right signals.

  They passed by the attendant-slash-bouncer chick, who was busy extorting another couple. Josh paused for a second and directed his attention to the guy who was about to pay to himself and his girlfriend into the club.

  “Hey…you might want to make sure you’re giving her exact change.”

  The guy stopped in the act of handing over a fifty dollar bill, then reached back into his wallet for smaller bills. The bouncer glared daggers at Josh.

  “Dude. You do not want to get on my bad side.”

  “Wait. That implies you have a good one?”

  Her eyebrows rose, and if Josh didn’t know better, he’d say she was impressed. “That’s it, young padawan. Embrace your dark side.”

  At that, Allie stepped in between the two of them. “You’re the only person I can imagine saying this to, but maybe you should take some of the X that’s floating around this club. Make you more pleasant to be around.”

  The girl’s face fell. “But I’m on X. Right now.”

  Allie managed to mouth the word “wow” to Josh before he started moving once more toward the relative peace of the outdoors. He dropped Allie’s hand as they exited the noisy club, leaving its alternate reality behind. He walked over to where the pool of light from the club ended.

  Josh breathed in the fresh air, his lungs pumping in and out. The smell of sagebrush was almost overpowering out here. It mixed with the scent of the baked rock, creating a feeling of burning that matched what was going on inside Josh’s chest.

  And then Allie was by his side, her hand on his shoulder. It felt…horribly awesome, actually. So nice to have her touching him. So sucky to realize that she was trying to ease him through some kind of non-existent transition in his life.

  She spoke, her voice full of tenderness. “It’s okay, Josh. It doesn’t make you a bad person, no matter what your parents or anyone else might think.”

  At that, something shifted inside of Josh. There wasn’t anything tragic about this. It was just funny. Really funny.

  He started chuckling. The chuckle turned to laughter, and pretty soon, Josh was laughing so hard he was almost crying.

  Allie was looking at him like he was a total alien. Laughing at the girl you wanted to be your girlfriend when she was trying to be helpful probably wasn’t such a good idea.

  Too bad he couldn’t help it.

  CHAPTER 6

  Sprinting along behind a panting Keaton, Stavros assessed the situation, looking at it from every angle he could think of.

  It didn’t look good.

  The target was clearly Keaton, however much the little man might protest that he had no enemies. Targeting the micro-businesses was like targeting Keaton’s lifeblood. Stavros had only spent an hour with the guy and he could tell that.

  But not only was this place like a maze, it was a Halloween maze of terrors with no way out. As they raced down the hallway, hopefully toward the kitchen, they passed by another two open doors.

  In one, the Russian mail-order matchmaker had been dressed up in a wedding dress and beaten to death with what looked like an antique ball and chain. In the next, all of the white guys speaking with Indian accents had been throttled with their own phone cords.

  Everywhere they went, death preceded them. Or was it stalking them? Stavros was beginning to feel like a mouse being played with by a very large and crafty cat.

  Finally, they arrived at the door to the kitchen. Keaton burst through the door ahead of Stavros and moaned loudly. Bracing himself, Stavros strode through the entryway behind him.

  The kitchen was immaculate. Nothing seemed to be out of place.

  “What are you moaning about? I thought there were more bodies in here.”

  “No, man, no.” Keaton was staring at the sink. “The crafty ladies left the blender in the sink, again. I keep telling them the thing will corrode if they do that, but do they ever listen? Nooooo.”

  Stavros sank into a chair beside the small kitchen table and massaged the bridge of his nose again. He took another deep breath. Then one more, for good measure. When the throbbing had been reduced to a dull thud, he pushed himself back up to standing.

  “Okay, time to arm ourselves.”

  Pulling open every drawer he could find, Stavros began raiding the kitchen, looking for anything even remotely sharp. He pulled out several butcher knives, handing one to Keaton, then sliding another under his belt, and one into his sock.

  Keaton looked at the knife in his hand, which he was holding between his thumb and index finger. “What am I supposed to do with this?”

  Stavros pointed at him with an apple corer before sliding it into his pocket. “It’s to defend yourself.”

  The knife dropped to the ground with a clatter. The noise made Keaton yelp.

  “I can’t do that. I’m a businessman.”

  Staring at Keaton, Stavros tried to make logical sense of that statement. Knowing Keaton, it had to be in there somewhere, and it more than likely had to do with money.

  “What are you talking about? I’m a businessman too, and I will sure as hell protect myself, as well as my investments.”

  “Yeah, yeah. I get that. It’s just that…” Keaton shrugged eloquently. “If I kill someone, that’s one less potential customer, you know?”

  And there it was. Twisted to the point of breaking, then pulled back a hair. Rather than argue the point, Stavros grabbed the knife and slid it beneath his belt on the other side.

  Rummaging in the sink, Stavros found a smaller paring knife with what looked like the remnants of a mango clinging to it. He wiped it off on a dish towel, then pocketed the knife. Thinking for a moment, he also grabbed the dish towel and wrapped it around his hand.

  Keaton watched with what seemed to be fascination. “What’s the dish towel for?”

  “Watch and see.” Stavros grabbed the blender out of the sink, reached in with his towel-wrapped hand, and pulled out the very sharp blade in the bottom. “One more weapon for the arsenal,” he muttered, as he slid the improvised throwing star into his pocket. He was starting to get loaded down, his pockets clanking with every addition. This was going to throw off the line of his Armani suit.

  Keaton opened up the fridge door and, mumbling something about wasted inventory, pulled out two more blenders filled with fruit juice. He moved over to the sink and started pouring out the liquid.

  “Hey, wait.” Stavros grabbed onto Keaton’s arm to keep him from dumping the juice. “Who knows when we’re going to get another chance to eat or drink. Might as well down this while we’re here.”

  “Dude. This mix is for Tori Spelling.” Apparently reading Stavros’s look of confusion, Keaton continued. “It’s made for her. And let me tell you, she ain’t got no twenty BMI.” He dumped out the rest of the fluid, then rinsed the blenders in the sink and handed them to Stavros for the extraction of the blades. “Man, is she gonna be pissed.”

  That task completed, Stavros turned
back to Keaton. “Anything else here that we can use?”

  “No.” Keaton started moving off, then stopped. “Wait. Take this.” He reached into a drawer that was hiding under the tiny kitchen table and pulled out a corkscrew. “Don’t know what you’ll use it for, but hey…it has a sharp, pointy end.”

  Stavros grabbed the tool, folded it up, and let it join the growing stash in his pants pocket. Now, what next? “You’ve got all kinds of stuff happening in this place. Anywhere we can find more weapons? Preferably something that isn’t made for slicing steak?”

  Keaton scrunched up his forehead, which seemed to be his version of deep thought. “Well, we could try the basement, but…”

  “Basement? This place has a basement?”

  “Yeah, but…”

  Stavros placed his hands on Keaton’s shoulders, spinning him around and directing him to the door. “Less talk. More action. Take me to the basement.”

  “Okay, but I…”

  Poking Keaton in the shoulder blade, hard, Stavros propelled him down the hallway. Whatever reservations Keaton had could wait. If there were more weapons to be had, Stavros wanted to put his hands on them. Now.

  Rounding a turn in the hallway, Keaton pushed open a door that revealed a dark, narrow staircase heading down. A single bare lightbulb flickered on a chain swaying above them, causing crazy shadows that careened from side to side like drunken sailors.

  There was a musky scent, something Stavros felt like he should be able to identify, but couldn’t put a finger on. It grew stronger the deeper and deeper they went.

  As they neared the bottom of the stairwell, Stavros heard a muffled cry of pain. He pushed past Keaton, brandishing one of his chef knives. He held the blade with the dull edge laid back against his forearm, sharp edge out for slashing up and across.

  Keaton tried to grab onto his shoulder. “Dude, there’s something you have to know before you…”

  Stavros shook the little man off with ease, barreling through the surprisingly heavy and old-looking oak door. What he saw on the other side left him with his mouth hanging open.

  There in front of him was a tall and muscular black woman clad in red leather, holding a riding crop. Off to her side, there was a man tied with his hands pulled up behind him in a harness, a ball gag in his mouth. Right next to him, another older man groveled at the woman’s feet, licking the heel of her five-inch stiletto thigh-high boots.