Fastball (30 page)

“Christ, Jake, what the hell’s going on?”

Jake slammed the gearshift into drive.
“Maddie’s been kidnapped, and I think I know where she is.” He
screeched away from the curb. “And if I do, I figure I’m going to
need your help.”

“Kidnapped? Jesus, have you called the
cops?”

“No time. Nazarian got her a while ago. And
by the time the cops got to her apartment and saw her car
abandoned…and even then who knows whether they’d do anything at
this point.”

Nate swore. “Let me guess. Robbie.”

“Yeah. You in for this?”

“All the way,” Nate said without a second of
hesitation.

Jake blew out a tight breath. “Thanks. We’re
close to the Italian Market, right?”

“A few blocks south and east.” Nate gave him
directions, and then brooded for a few moments. “I’m sorry I came
to you about Robbie. Fuck, Jake, this is on me.”

“No way. It’s Robbie’s fault. And I was an
idiot for protecting him.”

Nate grimaced. “You were just trying to have
a friend’s back.”

“Yeah, that’ll teach me.”

“We all make mistakes, man. Don’t beat
yourself up.”

Jake appreciated the sentiment, but this
mistake might end up getting Maddie killed.

Don’t even think about that.

Nate grabbed a hand-hold and braced himself
as Jake swerved the SUV hard around the corner. “Hope these guys
don’t carry too much firepower,” he said, righting himself after
the screeching turn. “I left my Uzi at home tonight, which was
clearly an oversight on my part.”

Jake gave his friend a wry half-smile. If
there was one guy he wanted by his side in a fight, it was Nate
Carter. He never backed down from anybody, and he had the size and
power to be truly intimidating. Jake wasn’t sure what life had been
like for Nate growing up in Brooklyn, but whatever had happened,
he’d come off the streets and into the major leagues with a
tough-guy reputation that had only grown throughout his career.
There wasn’t a guy in the majors any more who dared to charge the
mound after being buzzed back by a hard pitch from Nate. Those who
had tried learned the hard way that Nate’s fists were even quicker
and harder than his fastball.

Jake had no doubt he was going to need that
kind of help tonight.

Maddie stirred as car doors slammed shut in
the alley. She didn’t know how long she’d been left in the dark,
having forced herself as best she could into a trance-like zone.
Not very long, she suspected, although she’d pretty much lost track
of time.

She sat up straight as a complicated mix of
fear and relief surged through her, banishing the lethargy that had
gripped her in the aftermath of panic. The gruesome wait had come
to an end. She just prayed that what followed wouldn’t be
worse.

The door unlocked and the lights flicked on.
She flinched and closed her eyes against the sudden glare.

“Take off the gag.” A new voice. Joey
Nazarian—the bastard.

A calloused hand cupped her jaw while another
one ripped off the duct tape in one quick motion. She cried out a
curse. It felt like half her skin had come off with the tape. Her
eyes popped open but she had to squeeze them half shut when the
overhead lights blinded her.

After a few tense moments, her vision finally
adjusted and she warily studied the man who lounged against a desk,
several feet away.

Joey Nazarian surprised her. She’d heard
about him—he fancied himself a big baseball expert and fan—but had
never run into him at Patriots’ games. He was surprisingly
good-looking, almost model handsome with his wavy black
hair—glistening with an overabundance of gel, she noted
distastefully—dark, hooded eyes, and a strong Roman nose. He was
built, too. Under his black leather sports jacket he wore a tight,
lavender-colored T-shirt that stretched across a powerful chest and
flat abs. His tight jeans emphasized long, muscular legs.

He sure as hell didn’t match Maddie’s
pre-conceived notions of what a bookie should look like. Even the
scar that ran down from his right temple would be seen as more sexy
than sinister. But when he opened his mouth to speak, she blinked,
stunned.

“So, Maddie Leclair,” he said in a
high-pitched, whiney voice as her kidnapper watched from her right,
“you’re the bitch who wants to put me out of business. We need to
talk about that.”

Damn. He sounded more like a silly cartoon
character than a man who stood over six feet tall and was as
muscular as an athlete. It was weirdly disconcerting and almost
amusing, but she kept her lips clamped tightly shut, afraid if she
opened her mouth she’d let out a semi-hysterical laugh. That would
not
endear her to Joey Nazarian.

She gazed back at him, as calmly as she
could. Semi-hysterical laughter aside, she suspected her best
strategy would be to talk as little as possible.

“I guess you must be having an orgasm just
thinking about bringing me and Benton down,” Nazarian said with an
ugly leer. “You’d be a real heroine, saving the purity of baseball
by exposing rotten pieces of garbage like us. Well, I’m afraid I’m
going to have to mess up your plans, cutie-pie, because it’s not
going to happen. One way or another, the only stories you’re going
to be writing about Robbie Benton are how great a ballplayer he
is.”

Cutie-pie?
Who the hell talked like
that anymore? Nazarian was sounding less like a hard-bitten mobster
and more like an extra from Rocky and Bullwinkle.

“Really? Sorry to disappoint you, Joey,” she
replied. “But I’m not backing down.”

Rage flashed across the bookie’s face, and he
suddenly morphed from cartoon guy to scary guy. If she wasn’t tied
up she would have kicked herself. So much for sticking to her
strategy of no talking.

“Tough, are we? A real hard-ass reporter
type. Well, you’re going to have to rethink that position, Maddie,”
he snapped, moving to stand in front of her.

He loomed over her, trying to intimidate her.
It was pretty damn effective, but she had no intention of letting
him know that. She stared silently back at him, determined to keep
her expression impassive despite her roiling stomach.

He snorted. “All right. Sure, have it your
way. But I think you might be interested in this.”

Maddie started to breathe a little easier.
Okay, now he would start dealing. Hopefully he would give her
something she could work with, at least to buy time until Jake
found her. And Jake
would
find her. She had to believe that
or she thought she would dissolve into a puddle of quivering
goo.

“You got a carrot in your jacket?” she
ventured.

He flashed a model-white smile. “Now you’re
getting the picture. Look, one way this could work is I treat this
problem as a business expense. You make a problem for me, and it
costs me a little to make it go away. No harm, no foul. That’s
business, and everybody gets a little of what they want.”

Maddie nodded politely, just to keep him
talking.

“Okay, let’s say you were to take, say, fifty
thousand, and agree to keep your mouth shut about Robbie Benton and
me as long as you’re still breathing. How does that sound? An
elegant solution, if you ask me. Pretty much a win-win, even if it
costs me fifty grand.” He put a finger to his chin and tilted his
head, as if he were thinking. “I suppose that makes me pushover,
doesn’t it, Fish?” he said to Mr. Goon, who had shifted position
and was now quietly standing by the door. “But that’s me. A softie
to the core.”

Maddie swallowed her surprise. The bookie
business must really be booming if he could throw that kind of cash
around. Or else he was into other stuff, too—stuff he wanted to
keep out of a reporter’s line of sight. That idea sent prickles of
anxiety dancing up her spine, but she still had a hard time
believing he would actually kill her. That would rain way too much
trouble down onto his head.

She took her time responding, pretending for
a few moments to be lost in thought. But when the bookie began to
look pissed off, she knew couldn’t string it out any longer.

“I’m afraid not, Nazarian. I’m trying to stop
a crime, not commit one. But I have a suggestion for you. Why don’t
you just let me go? The longer you hold me, the bigger the problem
you make for yourself. At this point, I might be inclined to keep
my mouth shut about this particular little incident if you let me
go right now.”

Nazarian’s brows practically disappeared into
his glistening hairline. “Jesus, Maddie, I always figured you were
smarter than that. But I guess you need a little demonstration that
there’s another way to deal with this.” He glanced meaningfully
over at Fish, who looked more bored than anything else. “Sure you
don’t want to think again?” Nazarian asked in a menacing voice.
“Fish can be very persuasive.”

Maddie’s throat had gone parched with nerves.
Hell, yeah, she wanted to think again, but she couldn’t. She just
could not agree to take a bribe. And if she pretended she could and
then went to the police, Nazarian would deny it all. She could make
things pretty uncomfortable for him, but at the end of the day she
had no evidence against him, especially since this kind of
bookmaking operation could be disassembled and moved in an
hour.

“I can’t,” she responded in a tight voice.
“But
you
should try rethinking things before this gets out
of control. You’re not going be able to get away with this, and you
know it.”

His laugh sounded more like a horse’s neigh.
“Sure, I will. Nobody knows you’re gone. That’s why I got Fish here
on the payroll. He takes care of things very discretely, don’t you,
Fish? Nobody even knows we snatched you, and nothing will ever
point back to me.”

Maddie glanced over at Fish. He looked a
little pale. He was probably thinking the same thing she was—that
he’d forced her out of her car and, in his haste, had left it
parked in a half-assed manner inside the garage door. With her
purse and all her belongings strewn over the front seat in the most
suspicious manner anyone could imagine.

Yep, Nazarian’s hired gun had screwed up, all
right. What blessed luck to end up with maybe the most incompetent
muscle in Philadelphia. She managed a casual shrug. “Think whatever
you like, but believe me, the best play for you is to let me go.
You play the odds, Nazarian. You should be able to figure that
out.”

Nazarian’s eyes went cold and flat, like a
shark’s. “Then I guess we’re going to have to move to the stick
phase of the discussion.”

Reaching into the pocket of his jacket, he
slowly pulled out a switchblade knife and flicked it open. Taking
his time, he squatted down beside her chair so his eyes were more
or less level with hers.

When Maddie got over her shock that he could
be so freaking stupid, she almost gagged at the overpowering smell
of him—cologne and hair gel, body odor and cigarettes.

Please, God. Don’t let me throw up on him.
That will really piss him off.

“I’m not going to kill you,” he mused. “I
admit I don’t want to because, like you said, I don’t need that
kind of risk.” His hot breath wafted into her face, and she had to
swallow hard to keep bile from rising into her throat. “But in the
end I might have to, Maddie. It all depends on you.”

“Do you really think I haven’t talked to
anybody about this?” she asked through clenched teeth. “Jake Miller
knows exactly what’s going on with Robbie, and he knows I’m
following the story. Don’t you think he’ll be able to put this all
together if I disappear?”

Surprise blanked Nazarian’s expression for a
few seconds. He obviously hadn’t thought of that, but he quickly
recovered. “Then I guess we might have to deal with your Jake
Miller, too. What do you think about that, Maddie?”

Her anger flared like a blowtorch,
incinerating her fear. “Good luck with that, asshole,” she sneered.
“Jake will tear your greaseball head off.”

Nazarian grabbed her arm, shaking her and
almost dumping her on the floor, chair and all. “You bitch,” he
yelled. “I’ll cut you up right now.”

He brought the knife close to her face, about
to slash her. Her stomach flipped over and bile surged up her
throat.

Fish bolted out from the wall. “Jesus Christ,
Joey,” he yelped, grabbing Nazarian’s arm. “What the hell are you
doing? You said we were just going to scare her!”

The bookie tried to shake him loose. “Get the
fuck off me. It’s too late for that now, you fucking moron. She’s
not gonna back down.”

Fish tightened his grip. “You know if you cut
her up you’ll have to kill her. And I’m not covering up a murder,
Joey. Not for you, that’s for damn sure.”

Just when it looked like the two glaring men
were going to start throwing punches over whether to kill her or
not, they all heard an engine rumble and then the sound of tires
digging into pavement as a vehicle stopped. Nazarian and Fish
froze, staring at the door, then looked at each other.

“Ah, shit,” muttered Fish.

The cavalry had arrived.

* * *

Jake had careened through the streets of
South Philly, barely missing a couple of parked cars. Nate had kept
silent, although he did mutter a curse when Jake almost took out a
newspaper box when he barreled around a tight corner.

“Okay, this is the street,” Jake had said.
“We look for a meat store on the left side, one with a green
awning.”

Nate shot him a disbelieving look. “Most of
the stores in the Italian Market have awnings, and they’re all
green or red.”

“I think this one is it.” Jake pointed ahead
to a narrow shop with
Santucci’s Meats
in big letters on the
window. He braked hard at the next corner, and then wheeled into
the narrow alley behind the row of stores. Dodging dumpsters and a
parked truck, he spotted the meat store sign that Robbie had told
him to look for and brought the Tahoe to a halt. Just as he got
out, the back entrance to the meat shop flew open and a hulking guy
came out, reaching into his jacket pocket.