Devil's Dance (Trackdown Book 1)

by Michael A. Black

  “Not you, Teddy,” Eagan said. “Just us. We’re just going to a different hotel, is all. You can stay here and I’ll make sure you get those two babes I promised you.”

  “Yeah?” Teddy’s emaciated face lit up. “Now?”

  “Soon,” Eagan said. “Have a drink.”

  Teddy’s face twitched. “Ah, I don’t know. I got other things on my mind, if you know what I mean.” He flashed what Eagan took to be a lascivious grin.

  “Just one won’t hurt.” He uncapped a bottle of whiskey, filled the two shot glasses sitting on the bar, motioned to Teddy to take one.

  The thin man shrugged and picked up the glass, bringing it to his mouth and taking a dainty sip.

  “Oh, come on,” Eagan said. “Bottoms up.”

  He hoisted his glass and brought it to his mouth but didn’t drink any of it.

  Teddy did likewise, and Eagan set his glass down and grabbed the bottle.

  “Here, let me freshen that up for you.”

  After refilling Teddy’s glass, he set the bottle down and then placed his arm around Teddy’s shoulders again. This time he steered him toward the door. The hallway was empty and Eagan turned away from the elevators. They walked down the long hallway toward a large window at the end. He’d noticed before that the only PTZ camera on the floor was mounted by the elevators, and there was none along the hallway going toward the stairway exit.

  “Hey,” Teddy said, still holding the glass. “The elevators are back that way.”

  Eagan nodded and smiled.

  “We’ve got one more thing to discuss,” he said. “We can take the stairs.”

  “The stairs? Come on. Who do you think I am? Charles Atlas?”

  Charles Atlas?

  Eagan vaguely recalled those nostalgic comic book ads of the scarecrow guy being insulted by the beach bully, only to reemerge as a new muscleman and hero of the beach. He smiled at the memory as he reached into his pocket and removed a pair of thin leather gloves.

  “You’d rather save your strength for those two babes, huh?” Eagan slipped the gloves onto his hands. They fit snugly, almost like a second skin over his big hands.

  Teddy’s face cracked into a wide grin. “You got it. What’s with the gloves?”

  Eagan responded with a series of miniature nods, which he hoped looked reassuring, as he pressed his hip against the crashbar of the stairwell. He pushed the door open and held it for Teddy.

  “Let’s just step in here for a second while I ask you something,” Eagan said.

  Teddy rolled his eyes and stepped into the stairwell.

  The platform had a zigzag of descending and ascending stairways set into the walls. Eagan scanned the area for any cameras, and seeing none, took out his pocket comb and held it to the metal doorjamb, preventing the door from closing all the way and locking them in the stairwell. When he turned the smile had vanished from his face.

  A look of uncertainty eroded the smile on Teddy’s face. Some of the whiskey spilled over the edge of the glass he still held between his fingers.

  “Whaddaya want?” Teddy asked, his voice cracking slightly.

  “I need to be sure you didn’t mention anything about me to that Wolf guy.”

  “Huh? Are you nuts? You told me not to, so I didn’t.”

  Eagan nodded.

  “I have to make sure you don’t,” he said.

  Teddy made a huffing sound and reached for the door handle. Eagan grabbed his wrist and squeezed.

  “Careful,” Eagan said. “If that door closes all the way, it locks automatically. Then you have to walk down to the first floor to get out.”

  “Let go of my arm,” Teddy said, wincing now from the pressure on his arm. “You’re hurting me.”

  “We wouldn’t want that,” Eagan said, releasing him. “Would we?”

  Before Teddy could answer, Eagan brought his open right palm up and slapped the thin man’s left shoulder sending him sprawling. The glass slipped from his grasp and shattered on the hard cement platform. Teddy took a couple of exaggerated steps, then managed to regain his balance.

  “What the fuck’s wrong with you? You son of a bitch. I coulda slipped and fell down the fucking stairs.”

  “Shoulda, woulda, coulda,” Eagan said as he took a substantial step forward, carefully avoiding the spilled drink and shattered glass, and shoved Teddy’s shoulder. The thin man screamed as he went tumbling, pell-mell down the hard metallic stairs, grunting in pain as he bounced off each step. He flopped down hard on his back on the interim platform and groaned.

  “Help me,” he muttered. “Please.”

  Eagan descended with a steady but unhurried deliberation. He was surprised that somebody as out of shape and unhealthy looking as Teddy had survived the first fall and remained conscious. It would be a bit of entertainment to see if he could do a repeat performance. Stopping at the prone man’s head, Eagan bent down and pulled him to his feet.

  Skin and bones, he thought. No muscle at all.

  He walked Teddy over to the edge of the second stairway, grabbed the thin man’s right hand, and pressed his fingers on the slickness of the metal banister. When he was sure that he’d left some good, recoverable prints, he released Teddy, letting him teeter on the precipice for a few seconds before giving him the merest shove. His face struck the fifth step from the top leaving a crimson spoor as he did a series of somersaults the rest of the way down. The grunts ceased about halfway as the momentum carried him all the way to the next platform.

  He lay there in a fetal position, not moving.

  Eagan went down to check and make sure he was dead.

  No breathing, no pulse.

  He touched the thin man’s half open eye to make sure.

  No reaction.

  As he stood, he marveled at how resilient the skinny son of a bitch had been. Eagan thought about calling up fat-ass Manny and seeing what kind of bounce his corpulent frame would produce going down the stairs face-first, but that would have to wait. He’d find out on the subsequent mop-up trip to Phoenix.

  After all, he thought. It would be a bit too coincidental if two out of town bail bondsmen met their accidental demises at the same conference and in the same hotel.

  Chapter Eleven

  Suite 1836, Las Vegas, Nevada

  Wolf found himself temporarily alone in the huge hotel suite as he looked out the window at the sea of sparkling lights in the darkness below and reviewed the events of the long day.

  After agreeing to do the job in Mexico, he and Mac left the conference to check into their hotel. The Motel 6 was a far cry from the luxury of the Shamrock, and they were sharing a room.

  “Hell, this is almost a throwback to our old army days,” Mac had said. And then he decided to call Dolly and offer to take her and her two partners out on the town.

  “Unless you want to go to that rubber-chicken dinner and see Reno get that damn award,” he added.

  “Not on your life, darling,” Dolly said, her voice so loud that Wolf could hear it on Mac’s phone several feet away. “We done did all the rubbernecking we’re going to do at that place. I got better things to do with my time.”

  Mac laughed and whispered something into the phone that Wolf couldn’t discern, and then hung up.

  “Looks like we got us some dates tonight,” he said. “She asked if I was bringing my handsome, new partner along.”

  “Was she talking about your handsome, new, broke partner by any chance?”

  McNamara chuckled, and then read Wolf’s concern. “What’s the matter?”

  Wolf said nothing, wondering if he should he tell Mac how deeply indebted he felt. The constant and growing indebtedness hung around his neck like a metaphorical millstone.

  McNamara took a step closer and laid a big hand on the other man’s shoulder.

  “Listen, Steve, I know I kind of ramrodded you into this Mexico thing. I know it’s dangerous, but it’s a chance to make some good money, real fast.”

  Wolf nodded, then said, “
It’s not that. You’ve been great. Better than I deserve. But—”

  “But what?” Mac asked. “If you’re still worried about being broke, and how you’re gonna pay me back, we can start keeping a ledger if it’ll make you feel better.”

  “It’s not all about the money,” Wolf said.

  “Then what?”

  Wolf thought about bringing up how he resented how McNamara had used his association with Consuelo to locate Luis Ruiz, but he thought better of it.

  “I’m still working on getting you number two on that list, boy.” McNamara laughed and then gazed at Wolf’s subdued reaction. “Say you’re not still upset about that little ploy I used back in Phoenix with that Latina chick, are you?”

  Wolf still said nothing.

  “Well, it was just the way things worked out, is all.” McNamara shrugged. “When I first encouraged you to go out with her, it was innocent enough. I wasn’t even sure who she was, in relation to that skip I was tracing, even though she had the same last name. But I figured if you could get in good with her, we might be able to use the Latina connection down the road. Then I went by looking for you and just happened to see you walk her to her car. So I figured, what the hell, and followed her. It was a lark and a hunch.”

  “Looking for me? Why?”

  McNamara shrugged. “Just making sure you were keeping outta harm’s way.”

  “Harm’s way?”

  “Yeah. I didn’t want you to get hooked up with the wrong kind of gal.”

  “So you followed her?”

  “Well, yeah. And once I seen where she lived, I had Kasey do some computer backtracking and found that was the same address old Luis had used on a credit card app eight years ago. He’d since moved.” McNamara shrugged again. “Anyway, it was all pure coincidence.”

  “Yeah, sure.”

  “It was, dammit.” McNamara cracked a smile. “Would I lie to you?”

  Wolf smirked. “That’s what I’ve been wondering since we left Phoenix.”

  McNamara clucked his tongue. “Well, get that thought outta your head and start thinking like a professional bounty hunter. And tonight, we’re going hunting for some trim.”

  “Trim?”

  McNamara winked.

  “Like I said, Dolly specifically asked if I was bringing you along, so let’s not disappoint the lady.”

  And so they hadn’t.

  After a steak dinner and several rounds of drinks at a place down the street called The Peppermill, Wolf was actually looking forward to going back to their small, undersized room at the Motel 6. The strain of the long drive and the events of the day were weighing on him. And it was closing in on midnight.

  But Ms. Dolly and the P Patrol had other ideas and seemed intent on demonstrating that the three of them were easily capable of drinking both him and Mac under the table. It was really no contest, though. After a glass of wine with the steak, he’d switched to club soda or pineapple juice for the remainder of their stops. The pending quest to Mexico and the bad blood displayed by Reno and his partner made Wolf want to remain ready and alert. He’d never cared for the vulnerable feeling of an alcohol-induced haze impinging on his ability to defend himself if the need arose. So he tagged along, watching the three gorgeous women imbibing, giggling, and laughing at Mac’s corny jokes. A half a dozen or so bars later, they found themselves back at the Shamrock and Ms. Dolly insisted they come up to her suite for a nightcap.

  “Wait till you shee this place from the inshide,” she said, her words slurring slightly from the all the booze.

  Mac grinned and said it sounded like an offer they couldn’t refuse, holding up two fingers as he and Wolf ushered the women into an open elevator. Wolf wasn’t sure if the fingers meant victory or number two on the list.

  He had mixed feelings about both.

  Ms. Dolly pressed several wrong buttons before Brenda laughed and pressed 18.

  “She always knows what button to press,” Ms. Dolly said.

  McNamara winked again, and Wolf wondered what that meant. The car rose upward, stopping twice before reaching the 18th floor. The hallway was furnished in the same, Irish-style motif, with green and white wallpaper and decorative wall lamps in the shapes of four-leaf clovers along the walls. The overhead fluorescent lights made the place as bright as day.

  Ms. Dolly had obviously spared no expense on the suite. It had two bedrooms and a large party room in between with a fully stocked wet bar, a sink, a counter, and a huge table in the center.

  If you moved the table, Wolf thought. You could hold a hold a dance competition in here. Or maybe on top of it, if you didn’t.

  Once inside, Ms. Dolly and Brenda headed for the bedroom on the right, and Yolanda veered to the one on the left.

  “We’ll be right back,” Ms. Dolly called out. “Nature calls.”

  “Hey, she’s calling me, too,” McNamara said.

  “Well, come on, sugar,” Ms. Dolly said, placing her arm around his neck and pulling him with her and Brenda. “We don’t mind sharing.”

  McNamara started to go along but stopped, plucked his cowboy hat off of his head, and set it on Wolf’s.

  “Take care of this for me,” he said with a sly wink.

  The door slammed shut behind the three of them and Wolf suddenly found himself alone in the expansive suite.

  He’d hardly drunk anything during the prolonged barhopping, and the need to empty his bladder wasn’t that pressing. Taking off the hat, he set it on a nearby sofa and moved to the big window.

  The curtains were drawn across it and he separated them and gazed down at the dappling of mostly white lights with the interspersion of various colored dots mingled into the mix. The huge Ferris wheel he’d seen on the way into town was several hundred yards away doing an incremental rotation, the oval globes now illuminated by purple lights. Beyond that more slashes of bright neon sliced through the darkness advertising hotels and stores and seeming to extend all the way to the distant mountains which were barely visible under a radiance of moonlight. The moon itself hung full and round in the sky against a canopy of black velvet. There was too much brightness below to discern the stars.

  How many nights had he looked up at them from all those different places?

  The nighttime celestial display had always made him feel small and insignificant yet filled him somehow with hope and ecstasy.

  That was one of the things he’d hated most about Leavenworth: he couldn’t see the sky at night.

  At least in a combat zone, the sky was always potentially available for viewing.

  For the most part, anyway.

  Ironic, he thought. In Iraq, half a world away, I only had to look up to see the stars, and here in Vegas the best I can do is look down to see the artificial ones.

  He was wondering where the rest of this night was heading when he heard a door open behind him. Yolanda had come out of the bedroom on the left. Ms. Dolly, Brenda, and Mac were still in the one on the right. That door remained closed, although he could discern Ms. Dolly’s distinctive, whiskey-honey laugh through the door.

  In the reflection of the window Wolf saw Yolanda pick up Mac’s cowboy hat and place it on her head as she came up next to him.

  “What you looking at?” she asked.

  She was close enough that he could smell the mixture of perfume, body musk, and something else. He couldn’t quite figure out what that third scent was, but it was as pleasant as the other two. The combination sent a shiver down his spine.

  “The moon,” he said. “And the absence of stars.”

  He felt her fingers drift over the back of his neck.

  “Pretty, ain’t it?” she asked.

  Wolf’s eyes moved to the faint reflection of both of them now reflected on the glass and noticed she only came up to just above his shoulder. She’d been almost as tall as he during the bar hopping. He glanced down and saw that she’d taken off the cape and her stilettos. When he glanced at her face, she smiled.

  “Where’s your ca
pe?” Wolf asked.

  She shrugged. “Didn’t think I was gonna need it in here. Why?”

  “I was going to ask you what color it was.”

  “Why? You colorblind or something?”

  He shook his head. “I just couldn’t tell if it was supposed to be pink or red. You know, like Supergirl’s”

  “Actually, it’s fuchsia.”

  “What about your shoes?”

  “Louboutin’s. And they were killing my feet.”

  “I was going to ask you how you could walk in them.”

  “Practice, boo. Practice.” She took off Mac’s hat, set it on Wolf’s head, and brought her hand up to slap at her hair several times.

  Wolf raised an eyebrow, thinking about how delicate her features were. A button nose and a pair of dark eyebrows artfully angled against mocha skin so smooth it looked like an elegant painting by some master. Her brown eyes locked onto his.

  “That thing looks good on you,” she said, touching the brim of the hat. “You grow up in Arizona?”

  He shook his head. “Lumberton, North Carolina.”

  She raised her eyebrows and waggled her head. “So your name really Wolf?”

  “It is.”

  “You part Latino, or something?”

  He shook his head. “Half Indian.”

  The dark eyebrows arched again. “I never been with a real live Indian before. Or do you say Native American?”

  “Native American was coined by some guilty, white liberal,” he said. “We call ourselves Indians.”

  Her heavy, red lips moved back over those perfect white teeth.

  “Yeah, just like African American,” she said. “Never been to Africa in my life.”

  “I have.”

  Her brown eyes widened. “For real?”

  He nodded.

  “In the army?”

  “Yeah.”

  “So what was it like?”

  He blew out a slow breath, wondering how much he should tell her. He didn’t want to say the wrong thing, give her the wrong idea. It had been so long since he’d been with a woman, and she was beautiful.

  “Well,” he said. “The parts I saw weren’t the best places. A lot of desert, a lot of slums, a lot of really poor people.”