The thing got hold of her and she had to grab its muzzle with the gauntlet, which crushed the beast’s mouth together like a garlic press. The thing howled in pain, and she squeezed tighter.
They rolled across the floor, debris flying everywhere. She kicked and punched, squeezed and wrestled. The smell of it was unbearable.
The rolling and straining and howling and everything else went on for an interminable period. Plaster fell from the walls, windows shattered.
At some point, her memory of specific actions trailed off . . . another discontinuity. Then time resumed and she was on her feet and hitting the thing. She struck it again and again with all her might, summoning all the strength of the Witchblade. She took a step back, hauled off, swung and landed a horrendous blow.
The thing lurched back.
She advanced and struck again. And again, and once more. The creature keened, shrinking under a rain of blows that could have reduced an elephant to hamburger. The beast backed off and hit a wall, fell to a sitting position.
She stood looking at it, arm raised for another smash. She froze.
The thing looked at her.
“Well?” she thundered.
The creature got up, shook itself, and stalked off in a huff, grumbling.
Okay, if you’re going to be nasty about it . . .
She couldn’t believe it as she watched the critter shamble back into the bedroom, presumably whence it had come.
Bitch.
The door slammed.
Sara bounded over to the door and threw it open. She wasn’t surprised to find that the creature was gone.
Some semblance of mundane reality resumed. She finally found a light switch and flicked it on. Her Witchblade accoutrements had withdrawn back into the bracelet, leaving her in tattered clothing.
The place was . . . indescribable. Splinters of wood, scraps of paper, potsherds, blood, body parts—almost nothing in the room was in one piece save the sofa. She didn’t want to inventory body bits. Not her job. She knew what had happened to Anton and Sergei. If indeed the parts added up to Anton and Sergei. She saw a severed head in a far corner. She did not want to identify it. Leave it to the forensic examiner.
The door flew open and two uniformed officers rushed in. They stopped in their tracks and gaped. She turned and regarded them, feeling rather odd.
One of them said, “What in the name of all that’s holy . . . ?”
She tried to smile. “Uh, I can explain . . . .”
CHAPTER
TWELVE
The study of Kenneth Irons was a study in itself, lavish with objets d’art and all manner of fine things. Busts of the legendary crowned the bookcases, deistic statues posed in corners. Egyptian antiquities occupied prominent places, the plunder of ransacked tombs lending an ancient resplendence. The room boasted many Oriental pieces as well.
Two Asian gentlemen were ushered in and seated.
“Good evening,” said Irons as he seated himself across the lacquered table.
The two men nodded.
“Mr. Fong,” he said to the one on his right. “Mr. Kitisawa,” to the other. “The Triad and the Yakusa, together at last.”
The two Asian men looked at each other and grunted.
“We do business all the time,” said Kitisawa.
“Though at times we do compete,” Fong said.
“No doubt,” Irons said. “I will leave it to you to coordinate your activities with Asian organizations of other ethnic flavors: Viet, Thai, Indonesian, etcetera. There really is quite an assortment these days. Mr. Fong, your operations center in Hong Kong and extend to San Francisco?”
“Yes.”
“Mr. Kitisawa. Tokyo and Los Angeles, is it?”
“Quite so.”
“And you both have networks here in the States, of course. I could have called a general conference, but this is more economical. Between the two of you, you control the vast, vast Pacific Rim.”
“There is no problem about coordination,” Mr. Fong said. “I should not worry, Mr. Irons.”
“I rarely do. Gentlemen, by reputation, I know you to be modern-minded, forward-looking leaders. You know what the new spheres of activity encompass, what they entail. And, of course, the key is the computer and the infinite worldwide web it spins.”
“Like a steel spider,” Kitisawa said.
“One of silicon?” Fong ventured.
Kitisawa smiled.
“They say,” Irons went on, “that no one can control the web. I think they are wrong.”
Both his guests grinned broadly.
“I need you gentlemen to help me tame it. You need my . . . considerable resources.”
“Yes, indeed,” Fong replied.
“Quite so,” Kitisawa agreed.
“Together I think we can impose some order on the chaos. I don’t like wild, anarchic things. I like to control them. For instance, stock markets are wild, anarchic things.”
Both men nodded.
“We are entering an entirely new era of world finance. I can infuse your organizations with seed money that will reap not billions, but trillions, in return. You will cut yourself a piece of that. A large piece. I can afford to be generous. I’m interested more in control than in money. In fact, I have other interests entirely. But they are my private concern.”
“We won’t inquire,” Kitisawa said.
“Thank you, gentlemen. My subordinates will contact you with details.”
The two men across from Irons sat back, ready perhaps for a nice chat. Tea?
“That is all,” Irons said.
The two sat up abruptly. They rose and bowed, then left the room.
Irons leaned back and irreverently put his feet up on the immaculately polished table.
He laughed.
“Okay, let’s go over this again,” Seltzer was saying. “You were conducting an undercover operation on your own . . .”
“Not exactly,” Sara told him.
The room was crowded. At least a dozen crime scene investigators swarmed through the place, swabbing and gathering, scooping and bagging.
“Not exactly. Now, you know these guys. You went to a concert with them last night.”
“With their boss, really.”
“With their boss, a known organized crime figure.”
“Yes.”
“And you went out with this criminal for what reason, again?”
“To gather intelligence on his operations.”
“On your own hook.”
“On my own hook,” Sara informed him.
“And you came up here, broke in . . .”
“Had the keys.”
“Which you confiscated from the bartender, who, by the way . . .”
“He was there all night. He served me three drinks.”
“And now no one’s ever heard of him.”
“Right. There’s a different bartender down there now. He must have reported on duty when I came upstairs.”
“But the new guy never heard of this other bartender. The baby-faced kid.”
“That’s what he says.”
“So you have nothing and no one to back up your story.”
“It’s not a story,” Sara told him. “It’s a preliminary oral report.”
“Yeah. Yeah.”
“Seltzer!”
Sara and Seltzer turned toward the door as Joe Siry stormed in. He was about to say something when he caught sight of the carnage.
“Jesus Christ!” Appalled, he scanned the room with disgust. “What in God’s green earth went on here?”
“We don’t know,” Seltzer said. “Detective Pezzini might, but she’s not saying.”
“Why do you assume she knows anything? Didn’t she phone this in?”
“No,” Seltzer said. “Patrons downstairs heard a ruckus upstairs and called 911. The local precinct answered the call. The officers who responded found your detective here, dressed like this.” He gestured at her torn clothing.
“You
off-duty?” Siry asked her.
“Yes,” Sara said.
Siry turned back to Seltzer. “Then what’s the problem?”
“The problem,” Seltzer began, “is that no one else was in the apartment. No one saw anyone go down the back stairs to the bar, and the front entrance, which you get to via stairs on the other side of that door, is deadbolted from the inside. She sat in the bar all evening and even she says no one came down those back stairs. She was the only one seen in this apartment all night. No other way in or out.”
Siry had wandered over to a shattered window and looked down. “That so?”
“There’s reason to believe,” Seltzer went on, “that the window was broken just before the officers arrived. They got here fast. They were cruising the neighborhood.”
“Yeah? Okay, so you think my detective did all this?”
“I don’t have any opinion. She says she found the place this way.”
Siry whirled and roared, “Then why the hell don’t you believe her?”
“I think I’ve outlined why there are some questions,” Seltzer said mildly.
“The ruckus they heard,” Sara put in, “happened after I went up.”
“What happened when you went up?”
“I was attacked.”
“Who did it?”
“Don’t know, Cap. The apartment was dark.”
“You fought this guy?”
“Uh . . . yeah.”
“And what happened?”
“He got away. Ran into a bedroom and I guess went out a window.” She inclined her head toward Seltzer. “So much for the ‘no other way out’ theory.”
“You didn’t pursue?”
“As I said, Cap, it was dark. His eyes must have adapted. I was blind.”
Siry nodded. “Uh-huh, uh-huh. Okay. Well, that explains that. I guess.”
“We’ll have to check the neighborhood for any sightings of somebody coming out that window,” Seltzer said. “As I mentioned, there are questions, that’s all. Plenty of them, including the question of how the guy could have jumped two stories onto concrete.”
“Lots of second-story men can jump two stories,” Siry said. “What’s so hard to understand?”
Seltzer smiled unctuously. “I like a commanding officer who backs his men to the hilt. Loyalty is a two-way street. Admirable. Well, listen. I have to run, and the techs have to do their job. I’d like to see the report as soon as you can get it to me, Detective Pezzini.”
“You’ll get it,” Siry said.
Seltzer shrugged amiably. “Fine.” He turned and exited via the back stairs.
Siry walked slowly toward Sara. He crunched something underfoot, stopped, looked down, and kicked. A shard of china went skittering.
“Disturbing evidence?” Sara asked.
“This isn’t evidence. This is a goddamn disaster.”
“Sorry for another screw-up. Sorry I let him get away.”
“What could you do? It was dark. You said.”
“Yeah, I said that.”
“Is it true?”
“It’s true it was dark. It’s also true that I don’t know what the hell it was I tussled with. It was something weird, and yet another thing I can’t really explain. Nor do I have an explanation for this mess. Except to say that the strange thing I encountered must have done it. Beyond that, I’ll be novelizing my report again.”
Siry laughed mirthlessly.
“Jesus H. Christ!”
They both turned to see Jake McCarthy standing at the back door. His jaw was hanging.
“Excuse the mess,” Sara said. “We didn’t have time to clean today.”
“My God,” Jake breathed. He extended his arms helplessly. “What . . . ?”
“Don’t ask,” Sara said. “What’s even worse,” she added to Siry, “is that I don’t have an explanation for why no one heard anything before I went up. Because if the perp was hanging around, that sort of implies he’d just done it, and I walked in just after. But how did he do this butcher job without making a sound?”
“I see what you mean,” Siry said. “That is a problem. You have any solutions?”
“Not at the moment.” Sara sighed, shaking her head.
“Got any idea about a motive?” Siry asked.
“Nope. I do know that these two guys did the hit on Ashkenazi.”
“How? I mean, how do you know?”
“Because I was out with them, and they disappeared at just the right time.”
“You were out with their boss. Kontra.”
“Yeah, and they were his bodyguards, his muscle. They left the concert about forty-five minutes before the hit went down. The victim was probably the guy who put out the contract on Kontra—the hit that failed.”
“So Kontra’s good for the hit,” Siry said.
“Sure.”
“So we can go to a judge and get a warrant. Easy.”
Sara frowned and looked at the floor.
“Easy,” Siry repeated. “Right?”
Sara started moving toward the door. “See you, Cap.”
“Yeah, good night, Sara. Thanks. Oh, by the way . . .”
She stopped.
“You’re to stay away from organized crime cases. I don’t want you near anything resembling a mob-related incident. Leave it to the Task Force and the feds. And that’s an order.”
“Sure,” she said in a small voice.
CHAPTER
THIRTEEN
Mrs. Kontra?”
A dried husk of a face appeared in the crack between door and jamb.
“Who are you?
Sara held up her badge. “New York Police Department, ma’am. Some questions?”
“Who are you?”
As if the question had never been answered. Sara tried again. “NYPD? Police? We have some questions for Mr. Kontra.”
“Who?”
“Mr. Lazlo Kontra. He lives here.” That was not a question.
“No one lives here but me.”
“We’ve talked to the super. We know who pays rent here.”
“Go away, devil woman.”
“Mrs. Kontra . . . if that’s who you are.”
“I’m his grandmother.”
“Okay. Your grandson’s name isn’t on the lease, but he lives here, full time. At least that’s what the landlord will admit. Your grandson pays the rent. Do you live here, too?”
The old woman widened the door and looked at Sara for a long moment. “Come in. I want to see you.”
“Uh . . . sure.” And what Bela Lugosi movie did you walk out of, Madame Ouspenskaya?
Sara’s idle thought got pushed aside as she entered what was a perfectly conventional apartment. The only thing Slavic about it (were Romanians Slavs?) was a faint odor of cabbage.
“Sit.”
Sara sat in an easy chair with a flower-print slipcover. Very Wal-Mart. She watched the old woman disappear into the kitchen.
The babushka-headed woman returned shortly with a glass and a bottle. She sat the glass on the coffee table and poured out about two fingers of an amber liquid.
“Tuica,” she said. “Plum brandy.”
Ah, a traditional Romanian drink? It sounded good. Should she throw it down or mutter the usual dodge about being on duty? Well, she wasn’t officially on duty, was she?
To hell with it. She lifted the glass and took the shot in one gulp. It was thick, sweet, and damn good. “Very nice. Thank you.”
The woman sat on the matching sofa. She was smiling oddly.
“Where is Lazlo?” Sara asked.
The old woman shrugged. “He does not tell me where he go.”
“My files say he has a farm upstate. Someone else owns it, but like this apartment, he has complete use of the place. But he makes the mortgage payments on the farm. Is that where he is?”
“I never go there.”
“Are you saying it’s true? That he does visit this farm now and then?”
“We were all farmers in the old coun
try. Nothing else to do.”
“I see. How often does he go there?”
“He doesn’t tell me his business.”
“And he has a lot of businesses. Right?”
The old woman shrugged.
Sara sat back. “You wanted to see me, you said.”
“You are beautiful girl.”
“Thank you, Mrs. . . . Madame Kontra?”
“I am Lazlo’s father’s mother. He calls me Baba. You can call me Baba, too.”
“Baba, I need to talk to your grandson. He did a nasty thing to me.”
The old woman raised her eyebrows. “He touched you?”
“I’m not talking about anything . . .” Sara sat up and unconsciously arranged her blue-jeaned legs more primly. More ladylike? Boy, this was going to be a hard interview. “He wasn’t completely honest with me, Baba. He compromised me. Uh, I don’t mean . . .”
“You are a strange one. That bracelet on your wrist.”
Sara glanced at the Witchblade. “This? What about it?”
“It is old, very old.”
“Yes, that’s true. How did you know?”
“I don’t know much. I am stupid old woman. But I can see things. I see fire around this bracelet. Ghost fire. It is from a far place, somewhere men cannot reach. It is from hell, but it is not the devil’s hell. It . . .”
Sara waited.
The old woman looked off. “I don’t know,” she said simply.
“Do you do magic?” Sara asked.
“I know some magic. I protect my grandson. He is in danger. He has enemies. He always has enemies. He needs protection by the spirits.”
“Which spirits?”
“The good spirits. Not like the colored boy’s.”
Sara did a take. “What colored boy?”
“The colored boy, works for Lazlo. I see him here once. He is one of Lazlo’s men, but not like the two big ones. He is like an owl. Very, very smart.”
Witchblade: Talons Page 9