Jimmy’s eyes blazed with interest. “Hey, I never thought about it before, but you’re right. Wait’ll I tell my dad. He’s always trying to get me away from the horses, keep me from gambling. Makes me trek around with him to fundraisers and speeches and factory tours. Boring shit. Wait’ll I tell him we’re really in the same business.” He laughed. “What’d you say your name was again?”
Before she could answer, a gruff voice with a slight accent sounded from behind her. “Hey, Jimmy, long time no see.”
From the way Jimmy’s face whitened, she assumed the newcomer wasn’t a friend. Casually, she turned around as two men approached. The man in front was younger, about her age and height, with expertly barbered hair and beard, an expensive tweed coat over dark green slacks, and a pair of horn-rimmed glasses. He looked like the dean of a prep school. The older man trailing him looked more like Sydney’s idea of a mob enforcer: burly, bull-necked, and with a suspicious bulge under his left arm.
“Mr. Avdonin,” Jimmy stammered. “I’ve been meaning to—tell Uncle Mat that—”
The men had drawn level with them by this time and Avdonin studied Sydney with dark, detached eyes. “Does your fiancée know about this rendezvous, Jimbo? A stable. At first glance, not as convenient as a Motel 6, and yet there’s something about a stable that makes a suitable setting for infidelity. Pheromones in the air. Stallions ‘covering’ mares. It’s primal. There was a Tom Hanks movie some years back … never mind. I’m faithful to my wife, married nineteen years next Wednesday, but I can definitely see the attraction.” He gave Sydney a considering look, like she was a Thoroughbred mare, she thought, and he a prospective bidder. “Definitely. But if she’s going to rob the cradle, surely she can do better than a loser like you?”
“I’m not—” Sydney started, just as Jimmy said, “We just met—”
Avdonin acknowledged his mistake with an uplifted hand. “Ah. My apologies. Perhaps you’d excuse us then, miss? We have some business to conduct with Mr. Montoya.” He scanned the fields behind Jimmy, apparently taking Sydney’s departure for granted. “I saw your fiancée, the lovely Emily, in the newspaper this morning. At the American Bar Association ball last night. In the photo, she was dancing with her father. Nice. I assume you were there, too? My wife really liked that gown she was wearing, the white one with the ruffle. It looks like she’s doing much better. The wedding’s coming up, right? It would be a shame if she were to suffer another accident that would make it impossible to walk down the aisle. Or walk again ever.” He shook his head in mock sorrow at the thought.
It was like listening to him discipline a student, Sydney thought, unable to get the image of him as a prep school headmaster out of her head.
“But we don’t need to consider such an eventuality, do we, because I’m sure you’re going to come up with the half mil you owe … very, very soon.” His eyes drilled into Jimmy’s and beads of sweat pimpled the younger man’s brow. A horse neighed loudly from the barn.
A half a million? That was serious money.
“Leave Em—I don’t want—Banger’s how I’m going to raise the money, Mr. Avdonin,” Jimmy said, his voice a pathetic mix of enthusiasm and fear. “You can tell Uncle Mat he’s a sure bet for the Derby. I’ll be able to pay it all when he wins. And I’ll keep up with the vig—”
“The Derby’s not til next May, you moron,” Avdonin snapped, the veneer of civility cracking like a thinly iced pond under a snowmobile. “Your uncle isn’t going to wait nine months for his money. Your being his great-nephew isn’t going to get in the way of business. Maybe your daddy can pull the half mil from one of his campaign coffers.”
A touch on Sydney’s shoulder made her turn. The burly man who’d accompanied Avdonin jerked his head toward the stable, suggesting she follow his boss’s advice. A piece of blood-dotted tissue stuck to his stubbly jaw. Sydney’s eyes fixed on it as she debated whether to do the smart thing—return to the stable and let Jimmy fend for himself—or the stupid thing and ask these men how badly Matvei Utkin wanted his money back. Bad enough to put a contract on Fidel Montoya, for instance? For all she knew, one of these men had killed Jason.
The thought brought a flush of anger to her skin. Her expression must have telegraphed something, because the man took her upper arm in a bruising grip and gave her a shove.
“Syd! You done yet?” Reese called from the barn, pointing at her watch. “You know we promised Ella and Shonda we wouldn’t be late this time.” Her manner and voice suggested she was an impatient friend or even lover. She held her cell phone up, as if to indicate a text from the fictional girlfriends, but Sydney saw it as a warning to Matvei Utkin’s men. One touch and the police could be on their way. The bruiser dropped her arm, giving his boss a doubtful look.
All three men turned to stare at Reese. Avdonin’s eyes narrowed at the sight of the cell phone. His sidekick unbuttoned his jacket but stopped there when Avdonin gave a slight headshake. Jimmy gawked, his mouth hanging open, and shot a look at Sydney.
“I got lots of horse photos,” Reese yelled. “That one behind you is my fave. I just love gray horses.” She steadied the phone, ostensibly to photograph a horse prancing past, but Sydney was sure she’d managed to get Avdonin and his sidekick in the frame. She felt an unwilling spark of admiration for her sister’s tactics.
“Coming!” Sydney called in reply. “Nice meeting you gentlemen,” she said, repressing the urge to rub the tender spot on her arm. “Jimmy, maybe we can talk more about your horse another time?”
He nodded, looking between her and Avdonin and Reese, completely out of his league. “Uh, sure.”
She felt Avdonin’s eyes stabbing her back as she made her way up the slight rise to Reese. He might look like an academic, but she had no doubt he’d order her death without blinking. She had to force herself not to break into a trot as she neared her sister.
“That’ll teach me to let you go off on your own,” Reese said, tossing Sydney the keys. “You drive. I leave you alone for ten seconds and turn around to find you hobnobbing with Misha Avdonin. He’s Matvei Utkin’s top man, you know.”
“I gathered. How do you know him?” They buckled up and Sydney backed out and pointed the SUV down the mile-long drive.
“I don’t personally know him, but his name’s come up in conversation, especially when I was working on the union story. One of my sources got a bullet through the elbow. He told the police it was a hunting accident, but he quit talking to me after it happened. Avdonin’s name was floated.”
Rolling pastures, gnarled oaks, and two colts racing each other flashed past. Sidney filled Reese in on her conversation with Jimmy, adding, “So now we have proof that Jimmy Montoya has a relationship of sorts with Matvei Utkin, and that he probably knows a killer or two. We also know that Great-uncle Mat is impatient to get his money, so even if Jimmy didn’t try to have his dad killed, Utkin might have. Probably did. There’d be no percentage in his killing Jimmy, but if he could arrange for Jimmy to get his inheritance soon … ”
“Possible,” Reese said noncommittally.
Sydney took her eyes off the road long enough to look at her sister’s unrevealing profile. Reese’s lack of enthusiasm for her hypothesis stung. “Okay, what’s your theory, then? If not Utkin or Jimmy, then who?”
Reese adjusted her sunglasses and said, “Don’t get your panties in a wad. I didn’t say it wasn’t Utkin or Jimmy, although you said Jimmy didn’t even blink when you mentioned people putting hits on politicians, so I’m thinking that’s a point in his favor. He doesn’t strike me as the deep, devious sort who could keep a straight face when confronted with something like that.”
“Unlikely,” Sydney reluctantly agreed. “Avdonin mentioned a fiancée, Emily Something. Know anything about her?”
Reese turned her head and gave Sydney a look over the top of her glasses. “You really do live under a rock, don’t you?”
&n
bsp; “Bite me.”
Reese laughed. “Emily Favier, daughter of Montoya’s best friend and chief of staff, John Favier. Longtime friends of the Montoya family. Emily and Jimmy grew up together and got engaged, oh, eighteen months ago. The wedding was supposed to be in May, but she cut herself on a rafting trip in Texas—some sort of freak thing, sheet metal in the river—and almost died. As if that wasn’t enough tragedy, her mother was killed just a couple weeks later. Hit and run. Emily’s been rehabbing somewhere in the area and I think the wedding’s back on for Thanksgiving or Christmas time—the holidays, at any rate. It’s going to be family only, not the extravaganza that was originally planned.”
“Poor girl. I did read about that,” Sydney said, negotiating past a moving van that rattled the SUV with its wake.
“Are you thinking she might figure in this somehow?” Reese asked, considering the idea.
“I don’t see how, other than as a means for Avdonin and his thugs to keep Jimmy in line. Do you think they’d really hurt her?”
“In a heartbeat,” Reese said. “Utkin’s crew is famous for it. They don’t damage the gambler—it might get in the way of his ability to pay them back. They hurt someone he loves. Surely even you heard about Donetta Hernandez, that boxer’s wife, getting acid thrown in her face? That was Utkin. Her hubby didn’t go down like he was supposed to, take a dive as was apparently prearranged. Donetta paid for his inconvenient attack of conscience or pride.”
Sydney felt slightly sick, remembering the photos of the young Mrs. Hernandez after the attack. She’d been blinded in one eye and had most of her nose and her right cheek eaten away by the acid. She swallowed hard. “What exit do I take? We’re due at Emma Fewell’s in half an hour.”
35
Paul
Paul’s Sunday started with following Sydney Ellison to church and went downhill from there. The remains of a dream refused to dissipate, leaving him unable to focus on the homily or his target. He’d dreamed about his pop, dreamed he was on fire, flailing about in a long nightshirt like the kind Scrooge wore in movie versions of A Christmas Carol. Nobody wore those anymore. But his pop had one on in the dream and it burned with a clean orange flame before he dove into a rice paddy. A flaming swan. Hiss. Paul put twenty dollars in the collection plate when it passed.
“We have sinned against you in thought, word, and deed,” the congregation mumbled in unison.
It wasn’t the thought of confessing his sins, so much, that had kept him away from church since his return from ’Nam. It was the realization that he and God didn’t have much in common. No meeting place. He’d set out to serve his country four decades ago and become a killer. It was as simple as that. He didn’t figure God had much to say to a killer, and an unrepentant one at that. And he sure as heck didn’t have anything to say to God.
He blocked out most of the service by reading the announcements in the bulletin and thinking about his two uncompleted tasks. Rarely had an assignment carried with it this much frustration. He’d hoped to have a shot at Ellison that morning, but the woman with her complicated the scenario. The way she held herself, her fitness and alertness, suggested she might be a pro, a hired bodyguard. Studying the rangy woman seated beside his target, Paul recognized he might have to take her out, too. It might be impossible to get Ellison without eliminating her bodyguard. He was prepared to do that. The woman was a combatant. Fair game. Paul bent over, pretending to search the floor for something, as they passed him on the way out of the church.
He trailed them part of the way back to the townhouse, then broke off. Montoya was the primary target and time was running out. He wouldn’t get paid if Montoya were still breathing come election day. He made his way back toward his target’s Capitol Hill garage apartment, wanting to be in place before Montoya showed up at the café. Habits. Paul shook his head. The past two Sundays, Montoya had wandered down to the café at noon, bought a newspaper, and read it while eating his brunch at an outdoor table. Once he’d gone into the office for a couple of hours and once he’d met friends for dinner. Paul was prepared to follow up on any opportunity that presented itself today.
None did. Despite stationing himself on a bench in the small park across from Montoya’s place, Paul never saw the man. He did the New York Times crossword, read for a bit, and watched a pair of sparrows fight over a hot dog bun. No Montoya. His shoulder began to throb; when he’d drained it that morning, he’d noted streaks of red shooting from the wound. It hurt like hell now and he swallowed four aspirins dry. He knew he would have to give in and see a doctor within a day or so.
By early afternoon, he was contemplating his options. Did he dare knock and force his way into the man’s house in broad daylight? He’d made that approach work once before, in a suburban neighborhood with a man mowing his yard right next door. His vibrating cell phone cut into his planning.
“Paul, it’s me. Pop. I think something’s wrong with Moira.” His father sounded lucid, but a cold chill ran down Paul’s spine.
“What do you mean, Pop?” he asked, keeping his voice low so the two young skateboarders practicing tricks in front of him wouldn’t hear. Their wheels rasped over the concrete, making it hard to make out his father’s words.
“She’s not moving.”
“Where is she? What happened?”
His pop’s voice became uncertain, perhaps in response to his sharper tone. “She’s … after I … ”
“After you what?” Paul tried to keep his voice calm, but he knew that his tension, his imaginings—had his pop found another gun, used a knife, hurt Moira?—oozed through the phone connection. “Let me talk to Moira.”
A strange choking sound issued from the phone. Was his dad crying? “Pop? Pop?” Paul’s voice rose to a shout, just as movement across the street caught his attention. Montoya, headed toward the café. Of all the shitty timing. With his cell phone pressed to his ear, Paul pushed to his feet, trailing Montoya, who eyed an attractive jogger as he ambled down the sidewalk. Across the street, Paul kept him in sight, saying, “Are you still there?” into the phone.
“Paulie … I’m scared. I’d better—”
The line went dead.
Cursing, Paul punched in the number and got the buzzing of a busy signal. Shit! He hung up and redialed. Still busy. He glanced at Montoya from under his brows. The man had settled into a chair at the nearby café. He was sorting the newspaper into piles that looked like actual news on his right and the inserts and advertising fliers that doubled the size of the paper on his left. Pausing near a bus stop on the corner, Paul repeated the dialing and busy signal sequence fifteen or twenty more times before his battery died. He shook the phone.
Fuck. He didn’t realize he’d said it aloud until a heavyset Hispanic woman waiting for the bus glared at him and ostentatiously shifted her bulk to the farthest end of the bench. What could be going on with Moira and Pop? Paul ground his teeth with frustration and indecision, his eyes glued to his target, who was now drinking a glass of grapefruit juice. The bus arrived with a whoosh of air brakes and a cloud of diesel fumes, cutting off Paul’s view of Montoya. As if it had severed an invisible line, Paul broke into a jerky run, headed for a cab, his motel, and the phone charger.
Tossing T-shirts and socks into a gym bag an hour later, Paul tried to decide whether to just drive up to Pennsylvania or call Johanssen and have him send a car around to the house, check on things. But he was afraid of what they might find. If his father had done something … no, he’d have to make the trip, he decided as the phone rang in its charging dock. He lunged for it. “Hello?”
Moira’s voice came over the line and he sank onto the bed, his legs suddenly unable to bear his weight. “Paul.” She sounded weak, out of breath.
“Moira, is everything all right? My pop called … I’ve been worried sick.” God, he sounded like a father whose daughter had stayed out past curfew.
“He saved my
life.”
“What? Who?”
“Your father. I must have miscalculated my insulin today. I got dizzy, passed out, couldn’t get to the orange juice. He called 911 and saved my life.”
“You’re diabetic?” What else didn’t he know about Moira King, the woman who lived in his house half the time and cared for his father? He’d thought he was the only one with secrets.
“Type one.”
“Are you okay now?” he asked belatedly, his breathing returning to normal and a hint of anger making its way from his roiling gut to his voice. She should have told him. Guilt punched at him for the thoughts he’d had about his pop.
“Yes, thanks. The EMTs got me stabilized. They didn’t even have to take me to hospital. Is something wrong?”
He debated telling her she was goddamn right something was wrong. She had a medical condition that could make it impossible for her to give his father the care he needed. She hadn’t been honest with him. She’d probably scared Pop to death by falling into a diabetic coma. She—he stifled all the recriminations that jumped to his lips. They needed to talk in person. “No, nothing. I was just worried.”
“Okay.” He could tell she wasn’t convinced. “Will you be home soon? Your dad misses you.”
Did she? Where the hell did that thought come from? “Tuesday night.” Come hell or high water.
As he ended the call, he thought again of another phone call, the automated voice from the dentist’s office confirming Sydney Ellison’s appointment … Tuesday morning. It hadn’t been hard to find an address for Dr. Field’s office. He wouldn’t get a better shot at her.
And he was beginning to think she was a jinx. He’d had the Montoya assignment under control until she’d swiped his phone. He rubbed a hand across his forehead and it came away damp. He was burning up. Too much sun outside Montoya’s apartment, he told himself. Heaving himself to his feet, he entered the bathroom and splashed cold water on his face. A little better. He chewed a few aspirins and winced at the sour taste. He stumbled to the bed. He’d rest just a short while before doing a recce at the dentist’s building.
Close Call Page 17