Finders Keepers

by Shirl Henke

  “At least keep that ‘rental’ gun loaded and ready,” Matt cautioned her.

  Sam studied him, trying to read whether he really cared about her or was just concerned that she keep Tess safe. “Hey, snooping around mob strip joints isn’t exactly the safest way to spend an afternoon, either,” she replied flippantly. “Watch yourself.”

  “I’ll try. Not easy driving around in this death trap on wheels,” he said.

  “Remember, if I don’t bodyguard you, I don’t get paid. You said Aunt Claudia’s a savvy old dame.” There was a dare in her eyes as she met his steady gaze.

  “I’m a big boy, which I hope you’ve noticed by now. I can take care of myself,” he said, chucking her beneath her chin.

  Something loosened in Sam’s chest.

  “Take my cell, in case you find Jenny and the girls and need help,” Tess interjected, handing him a phone to replace the smashed one.

  “Good idea,” he said. “Thanks.” He and Sam exchanged another long searching look, then he climbed into the Charger and turned the ignition. It sputtered to life on the third try.

  He couldn’t quite make the transition through the gears. Sam grinned at him in the rearview as the perverse machine died at second. Gritting his teeth, he started it up again and departed the marina lot in a series of teeth-rattling lurches.

  Sam stared after him as Tess asked, “You’re in love with him, aren’t you?”

  Sam blinked. Was it that obvious? “Yeah,” she admitted with a sigh. “Guess I am, but it’s complicated.”

  “It always is,” Tess replied softly.

  Thinking of Alexi Renkov, Sam said nothing as they walked to the office. Granger might be a handful, but at least he was one of the good guys, not an international playboy gangster.

  “You are not happy here, Stefan?” Mikhail Renkov asked his grandson, who sat picking at a pile of fries smothered in ketchup just the way the boy liked them. The old man had his grandson smuggled from his beach house on Fisher Island back to his home in Aventura as soon as he was certain the police had no idea the boy, his aunt and cousins had been kidnapped. “I have Kiski make all your favorites—hamburgers with all trimmings, Cokes, even we have ice cream. Double chocolate chip for dessert.”

  His cajoling tone and thickly accented English, which usually brought a smile to Steve’s face, now only elicited a shrug. “Guess I’m not hungry, Grandpa. Where’s my mom? And Aunt Jenny and Tiff and Mellie?”

  Mikhail sighed. “I have explained this. The police would arrest your mother and aunt for your father’s death. We both know they could never do such a terrible thing. I have your aunt and cousins safely hidden until I can find the men who did this to my son. Your mother is with them now.”

  Steve had overheard bits and snatches, a lot more than his mom or aunt thought he knew, about his dad’s death and his grandfather’s involvement in some kind of illegal dealings. They said he was part of the Russian Mafia and Steve knew that was bad. He suppressed a shudder, thinking of what such a man might do to Nancy if he found out about her lover. She had been off for a day of shopping at Bal Harbor when he was brought here this morning. He would never tell on her but he didn’t want to face her, either.

  “It isn’t safe to talk to Mom because the police might have your phones bugged and find them.” Steve repeated the story he’d been told over and over again by his grandfather and all the staff here. He did not believe Mikhail or his employees.

  “Da, yes, that is right,” the old man said, tousling his grandson’s hair affectionately. “I will always protect you—and your mother. You must have faith, Stefan. Only faith. Come now, finish your lunch. Kiski will be hurt if you do not eat.”

  Steve forced down another bite out of the burger and ate a few fries to humor his grandfather. He even ate a small portion of his favorite ice cream to keep the old man happy. If he suspected his grandson was trying to escape, Mikhail would never relax his guard over him. The boy knew his grandfather’s big house and the grounds around it as well as he knew his own home. He also knew several places where his mom and aunt and cousins might be held. He was going to find them.

  “Now, it is time for your schoolwork, is it not?” Mikhail asked. He had arranged for the boy to have a private tutor while he was “visiting” his grandfather and could not attend his usual classes for gifted students. Before lunch, Mr. Mathis had given him chemistry and English assignments to complete for tomorrow.

  Steve thought it was just another way to keep track of him without making him feel as if he was a prisoner. “Yes, Grandpa,” he said, glad to get away from the old man who he had once loved unconditionally.

  Matt drove along a particularly unsavory section of Washington Avenue in the South Beach area, searching for a parking place. Sam would skin him if her classy rental got sideswiped—or just plain swiped, although given the profusion of Hummers and Jags to choose from, a smashed-up ancient Dodge didn’t seem a likely target for thieves. As for being sideswiped? How could she tell?

  He pulled into a public parking deck and resumed his search. So far, it had yielded nothing. He started at the top of Kit’s list of clubs owned by the local mob, but had struck out at the first three he’d visited. After taking some pretty dicey chances sneaking into the back rooms, he only found discarded pasties and rats chewing their way through cardboard cases of booze. No prisoners, however. Deciding to try his luck farther south, toward the Art Deco district, he chose the Blue Dragon, even though it wasn’t next on the list. It took up nearly a city block and was surrounded by dense, poorly tended tropical vegetation. It looked seedy and overgrown, perfect for hiding kidnap victims behind the barred windows on the second floor.

  “But how the hell do I get upstairs?” he muttered to himself as he ambled into the dimly lit interior. At once cigarette and other less legal smoking aromas assailed his nostrils. Since quitting the cigs five years ago, a real battle for a newsman, he’d grown to hate the filthy habit. The air was heavy with human sweat and cheap liquor. He could feel his sternum vibrate from the mind-numbingly loud music blasting across the big low-ceilinged room.

  The usual weekday lunch crowd of tongue-lolling perverts had assembled to watch an exotic dancer make whoopee with a neon pole on an elevated platform behind the U-shaped bar. He slid into a corner booth near a door leading, he hoped, upstairs. A waitress wearing more jewelry than clothing slithered over to take his order. She offered a lap dance to go with his beer—for a substantial additional charge.

  He smiled at her and settled for the seven-dollar draft beer. Nursing the tall glass until he was sure no one was watching him, Matt slid out of the booth and tried the door. Locked. He cursed silently, then headed for the men’s room. The doors along the narrow, barely lit wall were unmarked except for restrooms. Pretending to be drunk, he staggered against one, then a second, attempting to turn the knobs. On the third at the end of the hall he struck jackpot. A genuine drunk lurched out of the men’s room just as he was closing the door but paid no attention to him.

  Matt saw a narrow flight of stairs leading up and another down to the basement below. He hesitated for a moment but the sound of someone coming from the upper landing made the decision for him. He ducked down and descended into stygian darkness, flattening himself against the wall until the sounds of a conversation in Russian died away.

  Flicking on the penlight he always carried on his key ring, he followed the cold stone steps to a dirt floor. The smell of mold and rat droppings wasn’t much worse than the cheap perfume and hormonal slobber upstairs. A long corridor stretched before him. The walls were thick stone blocks and the doors looked like they were padlocked. Possibilities. He started cautiously toward the first door, calling softly for Jenny.

  They might be drugged. Or worse. He refused to consider the possibilities. Poor scatterbrained Jenny and her two bright kids didn’t deserve such a horrible fate. Besides, Tess had spoken with her sister only this morning. No, Mikhail would keep them alive until he got his grimy paws
on his daughter-in-law. At the third door, he whispered again, “Jenny?”

  A faint whimper seeped through the heavy wooden door. Looking over his shoulder at the stairs first, he tried again, this time louder. “Jenny? Is that you?”

  “Mr. Granger?” a hoarse voice replied from inside. “Oh, we prayed someone would come—the police, that bounty hunter lady or even—”

  “Shh,” he cautioned, hoping her increasingly louder voice didn’t bring uninvited company from anywhere in the vicinity. “Just sit tight until I can find a way to pry the lock open. Don’t make a sound.”

  “Mom, is that Mr. Granger?” Tiff piped up.

  He could hear Mellie sniffling in the background. “It still smells icky in here and I see another big mousie.”

  “That’s not a mouse, dummy, it’s a rat,” Tiffany corrected her.

  More wailing followed as their mother tried ineffectually to shush both daughters. Matt searched for something to use on the padlock. He found a small ice pick sticking in a wooden slat on a pile of crates across from the door. It was rusty and thin but better than nothing. He flicked open Tess’s cell and hit 911, giving his location and circumstances quickly and quietly, then set to work on the padlock.

  It might be wiser to wait for the cops, but they could be dead before the Beach PD arrived. The pick’s tip snapped off when he tried using it for leverage against the rusty padlock. Great. Now he didn’t even have the sharp end to serve as a lock pick. Not that he possessed any skill at the art.

  Sam would have this open in a heartbeat. He cursed and tried again. Fat chance. That’s when he noticed the wood around the lock. The door was heavy but very old. Years in Miami’s damp, mildew-drenched subtropical climate had partially rotted it.

  “I think I might—” He stopped suddenly. The sound of voices drew near the stairs. They were speaking Russian. “Someone’s coming. Be quiet,” he whispered, then slipped behind the jumble of crates, praying that he wouldn’t knock them all tumbling around him.

  As usual, the little dragons did exactly the opposite of what they’d been told by an adult. Both Tiff and Mellie started squalling like banshees on a bender. Maybe he should’ve promised them Happy Meals. It’d worked for Tess.

  The goons, two of them, shambled down the hall using a heavy cell flashlight to illuminate their path. They headed directly toward the racket, laughing and jabbering in a polyglot of Russian and English. One carried a tray. Lunch? Or something to drug their captives into silence. The other carried what appeared to be a damned artillery piece. Matt thought longingly of the wonderful arsenal back in Sam’s van in Phoenix.

  Shit, what I’d give just to have the stunner! The mobster packing the cannon tucked it under his arm and opened the padlock. The door swung wide and Mellie stood in front of the hulking brute, screaming her lungs out.

  Then suddenly, the younger sister stepped aside and Tiff appeared out of the darkness, running directly toward him. Her head connected with a delicate part of the Russian’s anatomy. He folded like an accordion.

  But his companion dropped his tray and pulled a long-barreled revolver out of his jacket, aiming it at the little girls.

  Chapter 18

  Matt figured he had only one chance. With the dull, none-too-sturdy ice pick in his fist, he lunged toward the gunman, who started to pivot at the sound of his approach. Then the thug heard a noise behind him. Jenny appeared from behind the door with a length of pipe in her hand. The Russian was left with two choices—either deal with Granger or face the woman. He chose to deal with Granger, raising his Ruger six-shooter to fire.

  It was a bad mistake. Jenny swung the pipe like Babe Ruth swatting one over the right field wall at Yankee Stadium. Before he could squeeze the trigger, her blow connected solidly with the back of his head, pitching him toward Matt, who gratuitously punched him in the face with everything his six-six body could put in it.

  “Mommy, the bad man’s getting up!” Mellie screeched.

  The second thug had struggled to his feet, preparing to grab the little girl and use her as a shield when her sister intervened, sticking her leg out to trip him. Tiff gave an ineffectual push, but it was Matt’s big tackle that sent him back to the ground. Granger then grabbed his gun hand, trying to seize the weapon from him as they rolled around on the floor.

  A dim beam from his penlight, dropped during the altercation, suddenly moved and Matt felt a sharp pain in his left shoulder. “Ouch! That’s me, dammit,” he grunted as a second blow from Jenny’s pipe glanced off his ribs.

  “Oops, sorry, Mr. Granger,” Jenny said, poised over the two men as they fought.

  “Get…the other one’s…gun,” he managed to grunt as he pinned his opponent’s gun hand to the floor. The instant he finished the sentence, he would’ve kicked himself if he’d been able. Put a gun in Jenny Baxter’s hands! Was he completely crazy?

  Sheer desperation drove him to pin the thug to the floor and smash his fist into his throat, ending the contest before Jenny could obey orders. He swung around, gasping out, “Don’t touch the gun! For Christ’s sake, don’t touch the gun!”

  Still clutching the penlight, Jenny backed away as Matt crawled toward the downed man in the hall. Granger snatched up his weapon. Oh, my God…a MACH 10, fully automatic, large-pistol-size machine gun! He checked the action. Yep, safety off. She could’ve shot the whole lot of them—him and the girls, the thugs, the strippers upstairs, everybody! By the time he got up off all fours, he was shaking from a combination of adrenaline, pure terror and disgust for his own stupidity.

  “Did we do okay, Mr. Granger?” Tiff asked.

  Taking a deep breath, he patted her shoulder awkwardly. “You bet, Tiff. You all did just great.” He bent over and picked up the other unconscious man’s weapon, then asked Jenny to shine the flashlight directly into their faces. “Now you should be able to identify two of your kidnappers in a lineup.” He knew for damn certain he could. “Let’s get out of here before someone upstairs hears the commotion and comes to investigate before the cops arrive.”

  “They’ll arrest you,” Mellie accused him.

  He could’ve sworn there was a hint of a grin lurking behind those guileless six-year-old eyes. “That’d be very bad for you and your family,” he replied, scooping up the tyke as Jenny took Tiff’s hand and followed him. Surprisingly, Mellie didn’t protest but laid her head against his shoulder as they went up the steps.

  “We can’t go out there,” Jenny hissed, knowing what kind of a place lay on the other side of the door to the lounge. The sound of loud music and stink of tobacco surged through.

  “Yeah, Mikki’s boys might object, too,” Matt said, turning toward an exit sign across from the steps. “Here we go. Be ready for a loud noise,” he warned them as he pushed the bar down and an alarm began to screech. “I doubt anyone inside will even hear over the racket, but this might plug into some kind of system,” he said, shoving Jenny and Tiff through, then closing the door.

  They were in a narrow alley filled with garbage and delivery vans. He led them behind the cover of a beer truck before a couple of Renkov’s gunsels burst through the door. Handing Mellie to her mother, he whispered, “Stay behind the wheels so they can’t see your feet.” Then he moved quickly to the front end, hiding behind the cab as he watched the two men looking up and down the alleyway. They conferred in Russian and obviously decided to split up, but just as one took a step toward the truck, police sirens sounded from down the street.

  Both men turned to each other, perplexed expressions shifting to alarm. One took the initiative of yanking open the door and ducking back inside. The other quickly followed. “Bet they’ll try to wake up their buddies before the cops find them and start asking questions,” Matt said to Jenny. “Let’s get out of here.”

  They avoided the commotion out front of the Blue Dragon where half a dozen Miami Beach police cars had blocked off the street, escaping before the cops were able to cordon off the alley and surround the building. “Where are Tess
and Steve?” Jenny asked anxiously as they entered the parking deck and reclaimed Sam’s wreck.

  “Steve’s with his grandfather. Don’t worry. The old bas—man,” he quickly corrected himself when Tiff gave him one of her narrow-eyed looks, “Mikhail won’t hurt his only grandson. Tess is with Sam. They’re searching for some evidence that might send Mikhail to prison for a long time.”

  When he applied the usual “unlocking technique” to the driver’s door, Jenny and the girls looked at him as if he’d lost his mind.

  “Is that thing safe?” Jenny asked.

  He jerked the door open with a loud screech. “Runs like a champ,” he lied, reaching over to open the passenger doors from the inside so they could climb in.

  “I don’t like it. It’s a piece of junk,” Tiff said, eyeing the backseat cover that was regurgitating upholstery in unsightly tufts.

  “Now, mind your manners, young lady,” her mother admonished her.

  With a snort of indignation, Tiff climbed in and made room for Mellie, who dug her small hands into the grey cotton mess and started pulling more of it out. “This is fun,” she squealed.

  Matt decided little kids liked anything they could destroy. “Knock yourselves out,” he said, then turned to Jenny. “I’ll stash you and the kids somewhere safe, then join your sister and Sam.”

  Distracted from dismantling Mr. Obregon’s backseat, Mellie said, “I wanna go along. Tricking those bad men was fun.”

  “Mom and I figured out the plan,” Tiff said proudly.

  Feeling the bruises on his shoulders and ribs beginning to form, Matt wasn’t altogether certain the plan had been exactly what he’d call “fun.” Jenny must have noticed him wince as he shifted into First, because she said, “I’m sorry I hit you instead of that Russian but it was so dark and you were moving so fast…”

  He grunted a noncommittal agreement as the Charger lurched forward.

  “Can’t you drive better?” Mellie complained.