‘I’d argue that point,’ I said, and offered a smile, but it really wasn’t the time for jokes. Trey genuinely was concerned that her husband would follow up on his promise to hurt her.
I finally hit the down button and the elevator surged as if eager to please. We were only three floors up, travel time to our destination only seconds away.
‘I won’t let him hurt you,’ I said.
‘That’s quite something,’ Trey replied. ‘You don’t know me. You don’t owe me a thing. And hey! Thanks for getting me out of a sticky situation but really, you’ve done all you need to do. Hell, I don’t even know your name, and here you are pledging to be my protector.’
‘I guess I was being a bit presumptuous,’ I agreed.
‘Presumptuous, huh?’ She made a sound of disdain in the back of her throat. ‘I’m half expecting you to demand a damn blow job for your help.’
‘I’m sorry if I gave you that impression. I don’t want anything from you.’
‘Then why promise to help me, saying you won’t let Mikhail hurt me? How can you do that? We only just met. I don’t even know…’
‘My name’s Joe Hunter. Most of my friends use my second name, but you can take your pick.’
‘You’re still a stranger to me.’
‘Then tell me your name.’
‘Tracey Vis… No, don’t call me that. I’m Tracey Shaw. Most of my friends call me Trey.’
I nodded. ‘There, we aren’t strangers any more.’
The elevator settled at the ground floor and the doors swished open.
‘This is my stop,’ Trey announced. ‘I wish I could say it was nice meeting you, Hunter, but under the circumstances…’
‘Do you have a room here?’ I asked.
She gave me a look of reproof. ‘Didn’t I mention I wasn’t a slut?’
‘And didn’t I mention you got the wrong impression of me? I only ask because it’d be a better idea for you to move elsewhere. Stay here and Mikhail will be kicking down your door in no time.’
‘I’m not staying here. It’s like I told you, I was a guest. We have our own home here in Miami.’
‘Which you really shouldn’t return to either if you intend avoiding this punishment that Mikhail promised.’
She hadn’t yet stepped out of the elevator car, which was a good sign. ‘So where should I go?’
‘Come back to my hotel.’ Before she could again remind me that she wasn’t a swooning damsel – or loose woman – to be taken advantage of, I calmed her. ‘You can stay in my room, but I’ll double up with one of my buddies. It’ll allow you some thinking time, and if you decide you want my help, then you can let me know in the morning. Deal?’
She thought about it for a long beat. ‘No deal. Thanks, Hunter, I do believe your intentions are honourable, but it’s like I said, we barely know each other. I think it’s best for us all if we just say goodbye.’
I was disappointed, but her response was understandable. I was just some guy who’d busted her husband in the chops. What right had I to offer to be her protector? She didn’t know about my true line of work – how could she? She could be forgiven for suspecting I was some seedy creep who’d latched on to her with hopeful delusions about what the future could hold for us both.
‘Here.’ I passed her a Rington Investigations business card I’d slipped from my wallet, on which I’d previously written my personal cell number on the rear. ‘In case you change your mind.’
She eyed the card, then snapped it thoughtfully against her thigh. ‘You’re a private detective?’
‘I’m not just a performing monkey in a cheap suit,’ I said, quoting Mikhail’s insult back to her. ‘And I’m not only in the investigations department, I specialise in…’ I thought about it. ‘Other areas.’
Trey left the elevator and strode away, head up, shoulders back. I stepped into the grandeur of the central courtyard and watched as she headed for the exit. I was glad when she didn’t throw away the card at the first artfully disguised trashcan she passed. She wasn’t carrying a regular purse, just a tiny clutch bag, so cupped the card in her palm and held it tight alongside her right thigh. She understood its value, and I think that she got that Mikhail wasn’t the only one whose promises should be heeded. Before she exited the hotel she glanced back. Our eyes met, and she mouthed the words thank you. I winked. Then I turned to watch the elevator and adjacent stairwell should Mikhail appear in swift pursuit.
Instead I spotted McTeer coming down.
‘Sorry for the holdup,’ he said by way of greeting – he again toted a bunch of liberated canapés folded in a napkin, ‘but some inconsiderate asshole was holding the elevator.’
I didn’t admit to being said inconsiderate asshole. But he still eyed me suspiciously. ‘What did you do, Hunter?’
‘Me? I didn’t do a thing,’ I lied. ‘Just thought I’d take a look around, admire my surroundings while I got the chance. You know, just in case I don’t get asked back again.’
‘Oh, man,’ McTeer wheezed. Visions of being added to the hotel’s approved supplier blacklist must have cavorted through his mind. ‘Now I know you goddamn did something.’
6
Mikhail Viskhan stooped over, dribbling bloody saliva into the porcelain washbasin, periodically hitting the faucet with the heel of his left palm to sluice away the evidence of his humiliation. He worked his tongue around his mouth and was certain that the security man had loosened two of his teeth: he was livid, when really he should be grateful that his jaw wasn’t broken. The man’s swift uppercut had been delivered more with sharp intent than for brute impact, designed not for lasting injury but to concuss him and drop him on his ass. Mikhail couldn’t recall being hit. One second he was winding up to punch the guy’s face, next he was sitting down, brain flashing scarlet to white to scarlet again. He must have been knocked unconscious, but only for the briefest of times. Mikhail had experienced similar knockouts in the past, but he’d always managed to stay on his feet long enough to recover, and then rally, and go on to defeat his opponent. He was an undefeated kickboxer. As a youth he’d fought many incredibly skilled opponents in the ring and on the streets, and others after that where no rules applied and the arena was formed of bloodstained concrete and bomb-blasted walls. In those life or death matches Mikhail had killed with blades, guns, grenades and, only where unavoidable, his hands. Those battles were in the arena of warfare. He considered himself a seasoned warrior, and it shamed him that a lesser man had humiliated him with such ease.
He spat blood once more, then teased at one loose tooth with the tip of a finger. He swore savagely in his native tongue.
‘You’ll have to slow down, Mikhail, I’m not following you.’
The voice emanated from his smartphone, where he’d set it aside to avoid the splashing water.
‘Then listen closer,’ Mikhail spat, again in his native language.
‘English please,’ said the man at the other end.
‘I want him found and humiliated, the way he humiliated me!’
‘This comes at a most unfortunate time,’ the speaker reminded him. ‘Do you really want to get mixed up in this when we’re on such a tight deadline?’
‘I promised him I’d have his balls and I fucking want them.’
‘Mikhail, carrying out a personal vendetta jeopardises the successful outcome of the operation.’
‘Fuck the operation!’
‘Mikhail, be reasonable, my friend. Months of planning have gone into this; to disrupt our schedule now could prove disastrous. Let this man go, there’ll be other opportunities to salve your bruised ego after the operation’s completed.’
‘Salve my bruised ego? Is that what you think I’m concerned about: my fucking ego?’
The man kept silent. It was apparent from his lack of response that he did indeed believe that the dent in Mikhail’s ego was what was most troubling to him. Mikhail was narcissistic in the extreme, and any blemish to his reputation was as bad as an ugly
wound on his handsome features.
‘I’m pissed, Sean. And rightly so, but I don’t want him dead simply because he knocked me down; didn’t you listen when I said he took Trey with him?’
‘I heard.’ Sean Cahill’s tone was nonplussed. ‘But from past experience, she’ll be back.’
His wife had tried to walk out on him before, but on those occasions it had been different. She had nowhere to go, nobody to turn to and everything to lose: rapidly she’d come crawling back, begging forgiveness and had taken her punishment for her defiance. This time she had left arm in arm with a gallant white knight. Who knew what she’d tell the security man if she thought she’d found a sympathetic ear to cry into for the first time.
‘If Trey speaks, she’ll jeopardise more than the fucking successful outcome of the operation. We’ll be hunted like rats through this sewer of a country.’ Mikhail spat a final time, then grabbed at a tissue dispenser on the wall; he yanked out a wad and wiped his lips and chin. He returned and bent over his smartphone. ‘She cannot be allowed to speak.’
‘If she tells anyone what we’ve planned then she too will be scooped up by the FBI. It’s in her best interest to keep her mouth shut or risk spending the rest of her life in prison.’
‘She is a woman,’ Mikhail snapped. ‘When does a woman ever show good sense? No, Sean, she will talk. I know this. She’ll talk to spite me! The way she spited me this evening! It’s in her nature, she knows no other way.’
‘I warned you about taking a wife… especially a wilful wife.’
‘I was confident I could bend her to my will. I did bend her. But I won’t lie, she always strained to resist me.’
‘And now she has sprung back,’ replied Cahill.
‘She has outlived her value. Whether she talks of our plan or not, her betrayal shows where her true loyalties lie, and they’re not with me. I have given her everything, and I’ll take it all back. I should have killed her the first time she tried to resist me, not married her.’
‘Yes, I did suggest it at the time.’ Cahill grunted at the memory. ‘But she was of more value to you alive than dead back then. We both knew that. But you might be right, perhaps now is the time to end your marital agreement. Divorce is not an option, I guess?’
Theirs was a marriage of convenience. Mikhail sought US residency, and therefore required an American spouse. Tracey Shaw was a desperate young woman forced into white slavery in a former Eastern bloc state who needed free passage home. Mikhail had yanked her from one form of sexual servitude into another albeit more glamorous one, at the price of her hand in marriage. Love had never been a factor in their relationship, only a seething undercurrent of hatred, but each of them had got what they desired. But Mikhail had been in Florida for a decade now, having supposedly forsaken Chechnya for his new American wife. He had established himself as a valued contributor to the economy, a highly successful businessman – at least that was his public persona. It was unlikely he’d be deported if his wife perished. Not that deportation would ever become an issue, when he was already on the cusp of leaving.
Ten years.
Not once in that decade had he ever felt that Trey appreciated what he had done for her. Without his intervention she’d be a drug-addled hag still whoring to stinking labourers in a Bulgarian brothel, or dead. She deserved no less now that she had scorned him so badly.
He no longer needed her.
As it was, should she die, it would matter not if his residency status came into question, because it would be too late to make a difference. Once his plan came to fruition he intended returning to Chechnya a hero, so fuck the American Dream, and fuck his American wife.
And fuck the pig that had loosened his teeth. He wanted that bastard dead too and his balls brought to him in a pickle jar.
‘We have other assets on standby,’ he reminded Cahill. ‘Use them. Trey and her white knight must die painfully.’
‘You want me to run two operations at the same time? You’re asking a lot of me, my friend.’
‘No. I can manage the final details of the operation, and coordinate our teams, and will have them ready. Trust me, Sean, things will go with a bang. A colossal fucking bang! You can oversee the second operation.’ His tone grew sarcastic. ‘I trust you’ll be more successful if you are not guided by a bruised ego.’
Cahill didn’t reply. His words had insulted Mikhail – hardly surprising of a narcissist – and he was now calling in penance.
‘I expect you to be at my side when the parade begins and things get noisy, Sean,’ Mikhail went on, ‘and will not accept tardiness. You have a little less than thirty-seven hours to complete your mission and bring me proof of both their deaths. Cut off the man’s balls, do what you will to Trey, I don’t care, but she must be punished before she dies. I gave them my word; see to it that it’s fulfilled.’
‘This is a distraction we could both do without,’ Cahill replied cagily. ‘But it shall be done. I owe you, Mikhail, and I always repay my debts.’
‘Thank you, Sean. You’ve saved me the trouble of reminding you. So here… I’ll give you a head start. Trey won’t have returned home, she’ll be in hiding. But if you find the bastard that punched me, you’ll find her. He worked here in a security role. Speak with the security manager, Greville-Jones, and find out who he is. He will have the names of all those on his payroll and where they are currently staying. When you find them, kill them both and make it painful for them. Do not let me down.’
Cahill began to say something, but Mikhail cut the line with a hard jab at his phone screen. He straightened up, dabbed his chin a final time and dropped the wadded tissues in the nearest washbasin. He tested his rakish smile in the mirror over the sink. The right side of his face was inflamed, but otherwise he was as ravishingly handsome as he always had been. He straightened his tie and cuffs.
He left the washroom, found the elevator down. The courtyard was empty as he strode across it, as was the reception area. He stepped outside under the awning, and was immediately blanketed by heavy damp heat. He was the final guest to leave the gala event, but was not neglected. A valet, dressed in a button-down vest and bow tie despite the intense humidity, jumped to it and went to fetch his Ferrari.
Mikhail deftly spirited a folded hundred-dollar bill into the valet’s hand while they exchanged places in the driver’s seat. The valet nodded his gratitude even before checking the denomination of the tip, and felt he must say something. ‘Thank you, sir, and please take care driving home. I hear there’s a hellish storm coming.’
‘That there is,’ Mikhail responded from the driving seat. He gunned the gas and the supercharged vehicle surged away. ‘And I am the bringer of thunder and lightning,’ he added, thinking of the storm of his making that was about to hit Florida.
7
An hour after arriving back at our own hotel, McTeer forgave my heavy-handed response to the idiot in the washroom: he knew of the playboy from previous events where he’d proven an insufferable boor, and McTeer conceded he was overdue a punch in the face. Possibly through shame, or more likely through a need to protect his own reputation, Mikhail hadn’t admitted to being knocked on his backside for acting like a dick. There was still the possibility that he’d make a complaint once he’d slept on it and sobered up, but for now all was well. Despite the very late hour McTeer received a telephone call from the head of security to thank us for our invaluable service at the gala event – we’d apparently pulled him out of a pinch where sourcing the necessary level of experienced security cover had been proving difficult – and to reward us with a personal gift. McTeer said it was appreciated but not required, but Albert insisted. He had offered to send over some expensive champagne, and McTeer had caved in after agreeing the caveat that a pack of beers would suffice. We were in the wee small hours, but that I learned wasn’t a problem: parties extended through until dawn in this part of town and Albert didn’t expect we’d be retiring soon. He said he’d send over a courier with our beers tout de sui
te.
‘Is that guy for real?’ I asked.
‘He’s a pompous asshat,’ McTeer said, ‘but when he’s sending us over free beer he’s OK in my book.’
‘Albert?’ I asked, thinking of the butler in the Batman comics.
‘Albert Greville-Jones no less.’
‘With a highfaluting name like that he was born for the role, I guess.’
Velasquez had a set of eyes like split pomegranates. ‘Don’t know about you guys but even the thought of an ice-cold beer isn’t enough to keep me awake. I’m gonna hit the sack. Any objections?’
I wasn’t that excited about a couple of gratis beers either. ‘None from me, buddy. I might not be too far behind you.’
‘Jeez, where’s Rink when I need him?’ McTeer sneered in mock distaste. ‘I’m stuck with a couple of lightweights while he’s off dancing till dawn.’
Rink had rung his lady admirer and been invited to join her at a party at a nearby club. We didn’t expect him back until morning.
‘C’mon guys,’ McTeer cajoled us. ‘We should go along to that party too. Rink’s not the only one can give a pretty girl the People’s Eyebrow.’
‘It’s not his damn eyebrow Rink plans on giving that hottie,’ Velasquez told him. ‘Let him be. We’d only cramp his style.’
‘Speak for yourself, melonhead.’ McTeer leered for effect, and his grizzled features puckered up like Winston Churchill’s after a hard night on the booze. ‘The girls can’t resist my Irish charm.’
‘My grandma is more Irish than you, McTurd,’ Velasquez said. ‘And has more chance of pulling a date for the night, and she’s been dead for ten years.’
McTeer spread his palms in a whaddayamean gesture. He looked at me. ‘C’mon, Hunter, the night’s still young.’
I didn’t bother reminding him that I’d had a long day. I’d risen at 3 a.m. to make my flight out of Panama City, so had been on the go for the best part of twenty-three hours already. ‘You’re on your own, I’m afraid.’
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