Queens Ransom (Sofie Metropolis)

by Carrington, Tori

  My turn to laugh.

  I’d had him tail Sara Canton. Yes, I knew where she was. She’d called early this morning to tell me and ask if her daughter had been found yet. I withheld mention of the bonus attached to her, and my second snatch and grab after warning her away, and shared as much as I could.

  Then I put Eugene on her.

  I was guessing his skin-whitening experience? Had to do with her gun-loving brother Bubba.

  ‘Sum-a-bitch tried to fit his shotgun up my mutha-fucking ass,’ Eugene confirmed.

  I giggled at the image.

  He did, too, shaking his head. ‘I ain’t even joking. I fell asleep in my car. Hell, been watching the boring-as-hell woman, keeping all discreet and shit . . . the next thing I know, I’m being hauled out by the ugliest white ass gorilla you ever saw.’

  Yep, definitely Bubba.

  ‘It ain’t even funny!’ he said, although he was laughing. ‘Swear to all that’s holy, that guy bent me over the front of my own car and looked like he was gonna fuck a nigga right there in front of God and everyone.’

  I laughed harder, more at him than the situation. I wouldn’t put it past a sicko like Bubba to do exactly that.

  ‘If I’m lying I’m dying.’ Eugene held his hand up as if taking an oath. A gesture that may have held much more weight if a joint wasn’t squeezed between his index and middle fingers. ‘Shit. Tell you, I ain’t ever been so glad to see the NYPD roll up in my life.’

  ‘The police showed up?’

  ‘Showed up? That cop friend of yours? He was all over it.’

  ‘Pino?’

  ‘Yeah, that be him.’

  I imagined Pino going toe to toe with the likes of Bubba. Almost worth the price of admission to watch the dick-measuring contest up close and personal.

  ‘What happened next?’

  ‘What do you mean what happened next? Shoot, ain’t that enough?’

  I waited.

  ‘Nothing happened. That Bubba guy couldn’t have run faster back into that rat hole they staying at. Didn’t say two words. All I knew is that damn gun of his was missing from between my goddam legs and he was gone.’ He pointed at me. ‘And that Pino guy wasn’t too happy that I didn’t want to talk about it.’

  ‘I bet.’

  The squeal of tires.

  We both turned toward the street, laughter gone as the tire of a black SUV. bounced against the curb and three guys got out, grabbing me and stuffing me into the back seat.

  Not again . . .

  The last thing I heard was Eugene’s scream.

  At least I think it was his scream. Sounded so feminine, I had to wonder about it.

  Talk about a buzz kill.

  I could only hope that my buzz was the sole thing on the chopping block.

  Eighteen

  Ransom time already?

  That was the first thought that popped to mind when I came to Lord only knows how much later to find myself propped in a chair, hands bound behind my back, ankles tied to the chair legs.

  OK, this was new.

  I looked around the plain, windowless room that held nothing but the chair I was sitting in, a small table and then another chair across the way, currently empty.

  The silence was absolutely deafening.

  Aw, hell. David Hunter had been offended by my rejection and now Homeland Security was going to deport me. I could only hope to go someplace warm and friendly.

  I rolled my too big tongue around my teeth, hating the pillowy feeling. Chloroform was my bet. But who knew nowadays.

  At any rate, I was mildly glad Bruno wasn’t behind this latest kidnapping.

  The door opened and I found myself hoping I was still glad when he was done with me.

  I silently watched him. At six foot something, with a slender build, I guessed he’d look like a runner if he were wearing something other than a plain, navy blue suit.

  Crud.

  FBI.

  He put a pitcher of water on the table along with a glass. No file. No notes.

  I had a run-in with the Feds a few months back. They hadn’t caught up with me, but I suspected it was because they really hadn’t wanted to.

  Of course, this could also be Homeland Security.

  Nah. This guy had Federal Bureau of Investigations stenciled all over his too calm, too collected butt.

  He finally sat down, back rigid, attention finally focused on me.

  ‘Water?’ he asked.

  He picked up the pitcher and slowly filled the glass.

  It made me want to pee.

  Which, I suppose, might be desired response Number Two.

  Pun intended.

  I felt the ridiculous urge to giggle. Which told me my buzz hadn’t been entirely killed. In fact, I was beginning to wonder if maybe the chloroform had enhanced it.

  ‘What’s next? Waterboarding?’

  ‘Wrong agency.’

  ‘Right. Because that would make you with . . .’

  He didn’t answer and his face didn’t shift. But I caught the slightest trace of amusement in his dark eyes.

  ‘If you’re going to deport me, you might as well just put me on a plane now and get it over with. Just make my destination someplace nice.’

  He blinked.

  The door opened and a woman looking exactly the same as the agent across from me, except for the bun at the nape of her neck, entered, putting a file down on the table and then leaving again without saying a word.

  The agent didn’t move.

  ‘Mine?’ I asked.

  My arms and legs were beginning to go numb, but I determined to ignore them. Asking to be freed wouldn’t get me anywhere anyway. The way these guys worked was you show me yours and I’ll grant you one wish.

  And I wasn’t showing anyone anything.

  ‘Yours,’ he said.

  I stared at the file. It must have been at least an inch thick.

  Wow.

  Of course, I knew that elementary and high school transcripts, printed email correspondences, utility bills and medical records could easily account for most of what was in there.

  I also knew it wouldn’t account for all of it.

  I moved my hand to scratch my head but got a chair squeak instead.

  ‘How thick is yours?’ I asked.

  A whisper of a smile.

  He got up, took a pocketknife out of his jacket, and cut my restraints without my asking.

  Cool beans.

  I told myself not to do anything as unoriginal as rub my wrists, but I couldn’t help myself.

  He sat back down and slid the glass of water my way.

  ‘Pass. Thanks.’ I nodded toward the file. ‘But I wouldn’t mind a look at that.’

  ‘Not on offer. But something else is.’

  I took some comfort in knowing that why I was pulled in had nothing to do with anything I had done wrong. Well, nothing they knew about, anyway.

  Although I was pretty sure they could have pressed the issue of tampering with a federal case. Because those had definitely been FBI agents at Abramopoulos’ office.

  ‘Oh?’ I asked.

  So they wanted to know what I did about the kidnapping. Good enough. Problem was, they likely knew more than I did.

  I narrowed my eyes. Or did they?

  ‘What is it? And what do I have to do in exchange?’

  ‘Do as Abramopoulos asks. And keep your cell phone on you at all times.’

  I winced.

  While I’d basically resigned myself to my fate as official ransom dropper, I was coming to think maybe I should take a taxi to Homeland Security strapped with fake explosives and shout at them in Greek.

  ‘That’s it?’

  ‘That’s it.’

  I had the sinking sensation I was being set up for something.

  ‘And in return I get . . .?’

  He smiled. ‘The name of the person who set up your friend the baker.’

  I went cold.

  Was there anything these guys didn’t kno
w about?

  The sound of my cell phone ringing in my coat pocket made me jump. I was surprised they hadn’t taken it off me.

  ‘Go ahead,’ he said.

  I warily slid my cell out to see PRIVATE CALLER displayed.

  I answered, watching the agent’s face as I did so.

  Bruno. ‘Date’s been cancelled for tonight.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Weather.’

  I recalled my earlier wish that there would be a snow delay and nearly laughed, but it would have revealed my nerves, so I didn’t.

  ‘Tomorrow night. Same time.’

  He hung up.

  I stared at the agent. ‘Why do I have the feeling you knew exactly who was calling and what they had to say?’

  He moved the file to sit in front of him, his nicely manicured hand on top of it.

  Why did I suddenly have the sinking sensation that my making the drop wasn’t what was truly behind my little involuntary visit?

  And why was it I also feared that by the end of all this I was going to regret trading my waitress apron for a PI apprenticeship?

  I was dropped off the same place I’d been picked up, Lucille exactly where I left her, Eugene nowhere to be found.

  Not that I expected to find him. I was thinking it would be a downright miracle if I ever saw him again.

  Still . . .

  ‘You wanted juicy,’ I told him when he finally picked up his cell phone.

  ‘Sweetness, that ain’t juicy; that’s flat out, motherfucking suicide.’

  I laughed and asked him for a favor.

  ‘You ain’t putting me on that Canton woman again?’

  ‘Now that you’ve been made? Nah.’

  I did want to switch him with Pete, however.

  I pondered whether or not I should tell my cousin about Waters’ experience, then decided against it. I had a feeling Bubba fell a bit on the racist side and probably thought Eugene’s interest had been strictly of the larceny variety, even though from what I saw, the guy didn’t own anything outside his guns that held any value.

  I told him what he wanted and he reluctantly agreed.

  ‘Thanks, Eugene.’

  ‘Thanks ain’t what I want. What I want is a big fat check to make up for today’s mess.’

  I rang off without saying anything, although I fully agreed with him.

  I stood for long minutes on that sidewalk, ignoring the looks I got from those exiting and entering the bar behind me and the fact that it was freezing cold and snowing again. There was such a stillness about moments like these. Quiet. The snow muffling the sounds of the cars rolling by on the street in front of me. Softening the lights from the bar behind me.

  All things being equal, I would have preferred the drop have been made tonight. In fact, had it gone ahead as planned, I might have been done and be home in bed right now.

  OK, maybe it was too early for bed, but . . .

  The thought of my bed – or more specifically the gifts behind my bed – brought three things to mind: first, that I needed to get rid of them; second, that my ex-groom was marrying my ex-best friend; third, that had the drop happened tonight, I’d know the name of the person who had set Dino up.

  I blinked against a random snowflake that had drifted into my eye.

  But I already knew the name of that individual, didn’t I? It had been sitting back there, parked at the back of my brain since that morning I stopped by and saw the ‘Closed’ sign on Dino’s bakery. I just had been ready to turn the key.

  Now, I was.

  I started walking toward Lucille, thoughts and ideas swirling around in my head as lazily as the snow around me. But my mind was focused on one thing and one thing only: confronting the person responsible for the closing of my favorite bakery.

  Well, until my mother reopened it. Now it was the one bakery I could go to.

  ‘You got a cigarette?’

  A girl about my age asked as she passed. ‘Nah, sorry. Don’t smoke.’

  But something did make me reach inside my coat pocket and pluck out a tenner.

  ‘What’s say you go buy a pack and enjoy it for the both of us.’

  She squinted at me and then the money, as if unsure what to say.

  ‘Merry Christmas.’

  I got into Lucille.

  ‘Same to you,’ she said, standing and watching as I pulled away from the curb.

  Nineteen

  Forty minutes later I sat in my car near the East River, damning myself for not having thought this all the way through; I was freezing! And I couldn’t turn my car on to warm up.

  As far as bright ideas went, this one was turning out to lean toward the dim side.

  Oh, wait. Here he comes.

  My heart valve closed as I watched Jake’s truck drive by. At least I think it was his truck. Sure looked like it. As dark as it was, I couldn’t get a good look at the plates, but . . .

  I rubbed my forehead. If it was Jake’s truck, why wasn’t he stopping?

  The vehicle disappeared down the road. I slumped down in my chair remembering my phone conversation with him twenty minutes ago, right after I arrived at the park.

  ‘Hey,’ he’d said upon answering on the first ring.

  ‘Hey, yourself. Need a favor.’

  He’d fallen silent.

  OK, so my calling him asking him directly for something? Part of what made this idea so dim.

  Wasn’t it me who was usually asking him to go away, butt out, leave me alone?

  And now I was calling him?

  Headlights flashed in my rear-view mirror. I looked to find the truck approaching again.

  Was he checking to make sure I hadn’t been followed?

  Couldn’t say I blamed him. I’d had so many people trailing me lately I was considering charging a fee.

  Speaking of which, I found it interesting that I hadn’t spotted Chaney behind in a good, long while. I wondered what was up. Had Pino finally scared him off me? Or had that jarhead given him a beating that left him in the hospital after scratching the bumper of his Chevy?

  The truck drove by again.

  ‘Come on, come on, Jake. I’m one degree away from hypothermia.’

  Finally, he swung around again, parking directly behind me.

  I got out of my car the same time he climbed from his truck.

  Was it me, or was he wary?

  Then again, I could be projecting.

  ‘Car problems, huh?’ he asked.

  ‘Yeah.’ I motioned to where Lucille’d been sitting dormant for the past twenty minutes. ‘I don’t know what’s wrong with her. She just wouldn’t start when I turned the key.’

  His eyes narrowed. ‘Uh huh.’

  We stood face to face, no more than two feet separating us. The wind was colder here next to the East River and I swore I could feel the frigid dampness coat my skin with ice.

  ‘And you were here because . . .?’

  I had chosen there because it was remote, I couldn’t hop a subway, and it wasn’t within walking distance of my apartment.

  ‘Meeting a source.’

  ‘Uh huh.’

  It’s the second time he’d said that and I was growing even more irritated than I already was.

  Especially since I was the one who was supposed to be doing the interrogating.

  That’s right. I’d called Jake here to grill him. Not on what he’d done. I was already sure on that. No, I wanted to understand his motives.

  ‘You know,’ he said simply.

  He knew that I knew.

  I wondered if I ever was going to get the jump on anyone or if I was doomed to go through life revealing my cards the instant I picked them up.

  Still, it didn’t mean I couldn’t learn how to play them better once they were in my hand.

  ‘I know,’ I said.

  He looked out over the river, his face drawn in hard lines.

  ‘What I want to know is why?’

  It appeared he hadn’t heard me.

  ‘W
hy would you go through the trouble of getting Dino deported?’

  ‘. . . I did it because I love you . . .’

  I tossed and turned and tossed again for good measure, wanting out of the dream but not sure where the exit sign was. It took a good Muffy face-licking to finally snap me out of it.

  I jackknifed upright, sputtered and coughed and pushed him away.

  ‘Ewww. That’s some morning breath you’ve got going on, dog. And I don’t even want to know where your tongue has been.’

  Tee got up and shook himself on the pillow next to mine, flicked his tail at me, then snuggled up presumably to go back to sleep. I squinted at the clock on my bed-stand. Six twenty-eight. Two minutes until the alarm was due to go off.

  Damn. I felt like I hadn’t slept a wink although I’d crashed somewhere around midnight. Probably it had to do with my non-stop dreaming about all that was going on in my life at the moment, one scene morphing into the next and the next so that it had been my mother who had been kidnapped, David Hunter who had been deported and Eugene Waters who had kissed me outside the restaurant last night.

  Double ewww.

  The words I’d woken up to circled my mind like one of those air banners pulled around by small planes you usually saw while you were at a baseball game.

  ‘. . . I did it because I love you . . .’

  I snatched the blankets back from my legs and Muffy commenced running back and forth over my bare legs, excited that it was time to get up.

  Of course, Jake hadn’t said those words. He’d said very little at all. Merely stood there gazing at me as if the key to the universe lay somewhere there if he only knew where to look for it.

  All I wanted to do was sock him one.

  The alarm buzzed, scaring the holy hell out of me.

  I smacked it off, further exciting Muffy and annoying Tee. I told them that if they weren’t happy with it, they were more than welcome to go find another room. And that, in fact, there was another room to be had. The second bedroom that I’d turned into Muffy’s dog cave.

  Not that he ever used it.

  I pushed from the bed, wincing at the coldness of the floor before putting on my slippers, and then cut a path for the bathroom, Muffy zigzagging in front of my legs and leaping up to lick my chin.

  Damn fool dog.

  I got to the bathroom, ducked inside and closed the door enough so he couldn’t get in, before saying, ‘Me first. And, no, you can’t watch,’ before closing it all the way.