With a sigh, he leaned back toward the blonde, who’d risen on one elbow to take a noisy sip of her melting piña colada through the straw. Stroking a hand across her dimpling rump, he kissed the shallow indentation at her waist. “Would you mind? A small business matter needing attention.” Lest his accent confuse the simple English, he nodded to the bathroom to make himself clear.
“Oh. Of course.”
Grabbing up the tulip glass, she launched herself off the bed.
Borodin watched pale flesh jiggle and wiggle until the door shut behind her. Sighing over the injustice of it all, he sat up again and said into the receiver, “All right, tell me. But, pojalsta, resist names.”
He was as cautious regarding security as he was meticulous to detail in his business, and vengeful with anyone who cost him, whether it was profit, embarrassment or anything else. This Lev and the dolt with him weren’t expected to blend into society with the ease that he did with increasing success. Such ability was virtually impossible, and counterproductive to why he’d hired them in the first place. But he had not come this far to be undone by clumsy apes dropping their guard, speaking without always assuming that there were others eavesdropping, or otherwise targeting them for the next big sting to parade before their media. He was the progeny of one of the most controlling of governments. He’d been weaned on the nectar of suspicion, and at the virile age of thirty-five, believed in nothing and trusted no one.
“I remember,” Lev replied. “We only mean to assure.”
He wouldn’t be assured until they had both women. “Which did you find? No names.”
“The…the elder, gospodin.”
Borodin stared at his reflection in the bar mirror waiting for a reaction and felt none. He was disappointed, hoping for at least a twinge of something. But then, it was early yet for satisfaction.
Rising, he stepped closer to examine his right cheek, scarred by an angry hook-shaped gash. A fraction of an inch higher and he would have lost the eye. “And the other?”
“We are temporarily to lose contact.”
His image in the mirror vanished in the white-hot heat of his anger. “There are only two fucking decent highways across the goddamn state!”
“Da, da, but the doroga, the way, is not easy once you get off. And she go to—to the pole—”
“Ground.”
“Da, the ground like rabbit. We think she is miles in front.”
“You’re wrong. She isn’t ahead of you.” Borodin remembered the fierceness of his prey as she’d cursed him seconds before meeting fire with fire. “She may have plans, but they’ll mean nothing to her without her mother. Stay put, and keep looking. And check in more often.”
“But gospodin, sir, our phones do not work. One must drive miles, the other stand guard. You understand what I try to say?”
Borodin glanced over to make sure the bathroom door was, indeed, shut. “It’s not my job to understand you, and I don’t give a shit if you have to stick a pole up your ass and hoist yourself like a flag to get a signal. Keep me informed, and if you value your life you won’t be outsmarted again.”
He disconnected before he went into a full rage. Actually, he enjoyed the passion triggered by his anger; it was one of the few times he felt truly alive. But soon, he thought as he caressed his wound, soon his restraint would be rewarded. In the meantime there was much to do.
For as long as Melor Borodin could remember, he had been plotting. The art of strategy was his favorite subject next to deception. Even his name was illusory of the person he truly was. As their only child, his parents had given him a patriotic Soviet name to honor the party and its national heroes—Marx, Engles, Lenin, October and Revolution. It had a nice ring to it, but at a precocious nine years of age, he concluded it was complete crap for someone who would never feel the slightest alliance to a political persuasion. His devoted party-member parents could be satisfied with their little cubbyholes of power in decaying Moscow, but he always knew he was destined for better things. If he’d had any doubts early on, Gorbachev and Yeltsin had convinced him. If those two geniuses could line their pockets with American currency, he’d reasoned, why shouldn’t he?
And now here he was, surpassing his own imagination, so close to being a legitimate businessman and potentially legally untouchable that he occasionally found himself laughing at the thought. But the betrayal endangered all of that. Fortunately, his absence of trust and preference to place “eyes behind eyes” justified itself. There was still vulnerability, but he would address that in the morning. Right now he needed to be sure everyone else in his circle remained loyal.
As though on cue, the bathroom door opened. Back to drudgery, he thought with a sigh. But what he saw had him frowning.
“What is this?”
Crossing to the woman who was now dressed again in her LVMPD uniform, he stilled the hands securing her belt, then began unbuttoning her dark brown shirt. “You misunderstand me, blini.”
“I thought—” she moaned as he reached inside her bra to lift her plump breasts and stroke his thumbs across her nipples “—you said you had business.”
“I delegate,” he said, falling back on his broken English to disarm her. “Is correct, yes? My business tonight, blini, is you. Say you will stay. I am not giving you your present yet.”
She giggled, leaning into him as he thrust his cock between her khaki-clad legs. “Are you sure? That’s a pretty big present I just had. But I do like when you talk to me in your language. For example, what does that word mean? You’ve called me it before.”
If he told her he was comparing her to a pancake, and not just any pancake but a Russian-size one, she would probably neuter him with those fake talons she called fingernails. Instead, he gave her the crooked smile she said made him look like a young Clint Eastwood. “Is what you Americans call…endearment, da? Blini, my lovely.”
Her odd yellow eyes, already evidencing the two big frozen drinks she’d downed, grew dreamier. “You think I’m pretty?”
His laugh rumbled in his chest as he spun her around and pushed her none too gently onto the bed. “I will show you what you are.”
10
Bitters, Texas
Friday, August 25, 2000
6:02 a.m. CST
The door to the guest bedroom stood wide open and the bed looked as if it hadn’t been slept in. Stopping in midstep on his way to the kitchen, Gray’s insides clenched with an increasingly familiar dread. So much for being certain when he’d said good-night to Sasha Mills that she would be here in the morning. No, she hadn’t made him any promises, but he believed he’d impressed upon her the seriousness and vulnerability of her position.
“Slaughter, you are a certified dumb shit.”
What ticked him off as much as her leaving was that he hadn’t heard her take off, not even the damn van’s crappy engine coughing to life like a chain-smoker in the last stages of emphysema. And all he had for his troubles were eyes that burned as if they’d been dipped in baked sand and a head he could swear a six-month-old pit bull had been using as a chew toy.
But a second later, he came into the kitchen and picked up the scent of coffee, spotted the pot of fresh brew on the machine and momentarily forgot his aching head and raw belly. It helped that the kitchen door stood wide open, and beyond it she was pacing across the yard, alternately cursing the tiny phone in her left hand and sipping from the mug held in her right.
Gray exhaled and took his time pouring himself a mug of the aromatic, he hoped stabilizing, coffee. Sasha Mills was proving altogether too capable at getting under his skin. After almost two years of not giving a damn what anyone said or thought about him, not caring about anything, period, adjusting to her was as easy as waking to a muscle cramp. He wondered if she was feeling half as pleased with his appearance in her life.
Stepping outside just as she failed again to make a connection, he said, “You can always use the one in the kitchen.”
She looked far better than she des
erved to after the night she’d been through, a vast improvement to the face he dealt with in his bathroom mirror. Her wet hair indicated she’d also showered—another thing he’d slept through—and had changed into clean clothes, although the outfit was more of the same, a denim shirt and jeans. But the shirt was of a lighter denim than yesterday’s. Trying not to notice how damp tendrils cupped her breasts like fingers, he focused on the darker shadows under her eyes. They made her older, vulnerable…yet still nowhere near as ancient as he felt.
“What do you people do in an emergency?” Sasha asked with the sardonic drawl he’d used.
“Oh…empty a .12 gauge into the air, drive through town pounding on the horn…use the standard phone. Wireless service is inconsistent out here.”
“I was hoping things might change with the time of day. I’ve had that luck elsewhere.”
“You’ve stayed in one place that long?”
She shot him a wry look. “Nice try.”
The realization that he would very much like to see her really smile caused him to misdirect the mug and it clicked against his teeth. Hoping she missed that, he nodded inside. “As I said, you’re welcome to use it. The kitchen phone.”
Sasha shut the lid on the tiny mechanism, slid it into the front left pocket of her jeans and reached for the wide-toothed comb on the decrepit picnic table. “You know I can’t do that.”
Just what he needed, he thought as she lifted her arm to run the comb through her hair. He turned away from the sight of her breasts lifting and the dawn reflecting in her glistening hair. “I don’t know anything of the kind. I’m the guy left dangling out in the dark, remember?”
“Well, I can’t, or won’t. Take your pick.”
“And you don’t much care which I do.” Gray took a longer, more sustaining sip of his coffee. “I’ll bet men underestimate you all the time.”
“It’s my favorite wet dream.” She nodded toward the police station. “What time does your friend show up?”
Gray shot her a droll look, but let that one pass. “When he decides to leave whomever he’s bedded down with at the moment, and my bet is that’s Gerri Rose Pike, considering her husband was probably tied up most of the night.” At her questioning glance he explained. “Tim Pike. You might remember us mentioning him. He almost single-handedly runs the volunteer fire department.”
“The one with the thing for horns and sirens.”
“When he’s not at the station, he’s the manager at the convenience store. A hardworking, dedicated guy, but away from home a lot…and there’s just no genteel way to say this, but Miss Gerri isn’t a stay-at-home kind of gal.”
“It sounds as though you have a regular little Peyton Place going on around here.”
Gray shrugged. “What else is there to do?” He glanced around. “Sonora or El Dorado would need a major oil find, or we’d have to reinvent Microsoft to lure Fortune 500–type investors out this way. Add to that we’re in a pretty bad dry spell. Ranchers tell of having to use cattle prods to get the bulls to show any interest in the cows.”
“Sounds as though your old friend Elias should have that problem.”
“Ex-friend, if you don’t mind. I have my share of shortcomings, I don’t need any of his via association.”
“Fair enough. What time do you open the clinic?”
“When I feel like it.”
He felt her gaze linger on him, but was relieved when she didn’t verbalize the obvious questions. He’d about worn down the latest, hopefully last do-gooders on his case suggesting that he talk to ministers and doctors to get himself out of his…whatever it was he was in. He rejected calling it depression, though others did. He wasn’t depressed, he was done. Finished. His body just hadn’t gotten the message yet. Besides, she had no right to ask questions when she answered so few herself.
All she said was, “That hangover must be worse than I guessed.”
Gray rubbed his several-day-old beard that increasingly had more silver than brown in it. He knew exactly how it added to his overall look of neglect. “I’ll live. Your cheek looks better than I expected. How’s the side? You shouldn’t have gotten that wound wet.”
“I didn’t. I took a sponge bath. Washed my hair out here with the hose. By the way, when I changed the bandages, I noticed your ointment seems to be working.”
“Watch out, that came dangerously close to sounding like gratitude.”
“It was.” She tilted her head as she studied him. “It rattled you to find that I was already up. Or did you think I’d left? You’re a strange man, Slaughter. On the one hand, you’re not happy that I’m here, on the other you insist I stay. You can’t have it both ways, you know.”
When had he become so transparent—and illogical? Scowling, he asked, “Why didn’t you make another run for it?”
“Maybe I believed you.”
Nothing was that simple, especially not with this woman, and that made him uneasy even as he experienced another of those odd little rushes. Nuts, he fumed silently.
“Well, you make good coffee, I’ll give you that. Are you as talented with a skillet?”
“That sounds suspiciously like the fee for room and board.”
“You have to eat, too.”
“What would you do if I wasn’t here?”
“Go down to the café. We can do that if you like, but I figured you wouldn’t want to attract attention.” The sudden consternation in those dark eyes told him he’d guessed right.
“I’m only surprised you have anything edible in there.”
“Good point. Could be I don’t.” In all honesty, he couldn’t remember the last time he had looked.
“You do. I checked.”
Wondering what else she’d looked into, he murmured, “Do the best you can, and I’ll track down J.M., then catch a shower.”
“Who’s J.M.?”
“Jules Malachi Moffett. Your legal counsel.”
“You were serious about that? Why can’t you walk over to the station with me when Elias does show up, and serve as my witness? Surely he’s not going to cop an attitude or try anything after what he pulled last night?”
“And what if he’s already run a check on Anna Diaz?”
Sasha shook her head. “Trust me, he hasn’t. For some reason he put it off. Otherwise he would have been pounding on your front door hours ago. Maybe the computers were down. It happens.”
“So we need somebody to keep his mind off trying again. Someone to press home the point of how much trouble he could get into over his behavior. J.M. is the best BS artist I know.”
“He is?”
Her hopeful expression had an irritating effect on his conscience. “No. The truth is he’s the only attorney for miles.”
“What an endorsement. Any other good news you’d like to share with me?”
“Yeah.” Gray figured he might as well get it all out at once. “He may prove to be my second mistake in less than twelve hours. But there’s one thing about him that should make him useful to you.” Starting back toward the kitchen, he said over his shoulder, “Gerri Rose is his niece, meaning he’s as fond of Frank as I am.”
11
J.M. entered Gray’s kitchen without knocking or any other greeting. He looked about as cheerful as a mercenary pulled away from his war for a financier’s kid’s bar mitzvah. Dressed as a world-weary soldier—the TV variety—his khaki shirt had enough pockets to qualify as luggage, a bushman’s hat swallowed his small head and his camouflage pants were baggy enough for double occupancy. Sasha hoped against hope that he was a long-lost in-law or a lost tourist, but it was his baby-blue terry-cloth slides that left her unable to voice the guess for fear of the answer.
When J.M. noticed her staring at his feet, he made a face and said simply, “Bunions.”
He went straight for the coffeemaker and poured himself a mug of the brew. Returning to the table, he stretched to eye the egg-sausage-potato hash Sasha had barely touched. He flipped up cheap plastic sun shields to
expose fashionable wire-framed glasses beneath.
“Are you done with that?”
“If you’d like some, I could—”
He dragged her plate to his side of the table and sat down.
“Or better yet, help yourself.” Sasha wouldn’t have minded making him something, but it seemed communal pot feasting didn’t turn him off.
“Any more toast?” he asked just before scooping a forkful into his mouth.
Mesmerized by the odd-looking little man who didn’t appear to be any fonder of shaving than Gray was, Sasha rose and popped two more slices of wheat bread into the toaster. He was even using her fork, she thought in disbelief.
Behind her, Gray drawled, “You’d better take off that hat, or you might end up swallowing the chin strap, too.”
“Still too bright in here.”
That had Gray rising and closing the door. After pulling down the miniblinds on the window, he repeated the process for the blind over the sink. It cast the room into a gloomy dusk, but J.M. did brush the hat off his head, letting it dangle off of his shoulders by its rawhide straps. The move exposed silver hair cut in a burr.
“Five minutes,” J.M. mumbled between mouthfuls. “If you’d called five minutes later, I’d have been on my way down to the coast.”
“Planning on driving straight in this time?”
J.M. gave Sasha a pained look. “The curse of living your whole life in one small community. Everyone’s a narrator of your life. No,” he added to Gray. “My ex’s ex invited me to go deep-sea fishing with him on his yacht.”
“Then maybe you should thank me, since it was undoubtedly a setup. Isn’t he living on it now that Cleo has taken a healthy chunk out of his assets? He probably blames you for not warning him what he was in for.”
J.M.’s growl sounded more like a settling house. “Who warned me? What the hell, though. With this hangover, I wouldn’t have made it past San Antonio anyway.”
Sasha shot Gray a sidelong look. “Your mentor?”
Final Stand Page 7