A Plain-Dealing Villain (3 page)

Nicky got up and wandered over to his wet bar. He held up a bottle of Canadian Club and a glass, giving me a questioning look. I nodded.

“The name Cameron Drake ring a bell?” he asked.

“Don’t know him.”

He poured three fingers of whiskey and slid the glass across the desk to me. “Guy was a nobody, a roofing contractor or something. Then about a year ago, he bought a lottery ticket on his way home from work. Won the Powerball. Forty million bucks, and he took it all in a lump sum instead of spreading it out. Paid out the ass in taxes, but he just couldn’t wait to get his shopping spree underway.”

“Fool and his money. Drake’s the mark?”

“Drake’s the client,” Nicky said, pouring himself a glass and sitting back down. “He’s got a taste for more than Italian cars and fifty-foot yachts. He’s a collector. And the stuff he’s been collecting lately, well, it’s the sort of thing your crowd is into.”

I sipped from my glass. The whiskey burned its way down my throat, just like it should, and spread a little cloud of warmth in my stomach.

“And how do you come into the picture?”

“He came out to Vegas a few months back, looking to party like a rock star. I hooked him up with some grade-A blow and a couple of former Penthouse pets. I’ve been on his speed dial ever since, whenever he needs something…exotic.”

I turned my hand slowly, watching the amber liquor roll against the sides of the glass.

“How exotic are we talking?”

“I don’t know.” Nicky shrugged. “All I know is the score’s locked up inside a hard target. Security’s part physical, part occult, and he needs a pro with a foot in both worlds. Naturally, I thought of you.”

“Naturally. And what do you get out of the deal?”

“Matchmaker’s fee, that’s all. Three percent of your cut.”

I could live with three percent, but I wasn’t sure I could live with doing business with Nicky again. We’d burned too many bridges between us.

“I’ll think about it,” I said.

“C’mon, just meet with the guy. Hear him out, see what he’s offering. The job’s not in Vegas, I know that much, which means you’ll be out from under the feds for a little while.”

I didn’t let my temptation show. Instead I tossed back the rest of my drink and slapped the empty glass down on his desk.

“Said I’d think about it,” I pushed my chair back.

“Yeah, well don’t think too long. You’re not a unique and beautiful snowflake, Faust. There
are
other guys who can do this kinda work.”

“I’ll call you,” I said and saw myself out.

Nicky was up to something. His “liquor distributor” guest looked like a storm cloud of trouble just waiting to rain, and there were only two reasons for the twins to be more than ten feet away from Nicky: somebody was about to get hurt, or somebody was about to get dead. I tried to tell myself none of this had anything to do with me or mine, but those were long odds.

Agent Black’s little war on the underworld hadn’t made a lot of arrests yet, but everybody saw the writing on the wall. Nicky was cleaning house. He’d already made an object lesson out of a disloyal lieutenant, bringing me out to an abandoned house in the sticks and making me watch while the twins tortured him to death. Nicky wanted the underworld to know he was still the King of Vegas, ready and willing to fight for the throne.

We know each other’s secrets
, he’d said.
I need you quiet, just like you need me quiet.

The idea of leaving town for a few days looked more and more attractive.

*     *     *

Sheets of gray satin swirled around me, and the weight of the comforter pressed me against the supple mattress. Warmth and pleasure beckoned me down into sleep, weighing my eyelids despite the spreading glow of sunrise behind the venetian blinds.

The pale woman in my arms wriggled back against my chest. The faint scent of musk perfume clung to her scarlet hair. I held her close, our naked bodies breathing in unison.

“This is nice,” Caitlin whispered.

I held on to her for a while. Lying together like this, I could forget that anything existed outside her bedroom walls, forget the problems waiting for me right outside the door.

Most people wouldn’t take solace in the arms of a demon, but I wasn’t most people.

“How did it go last night?” she asked. The question I was dreading.

“Didn’t,” I said. “Harmony Black broke up the party. Don’t worry, she didn’t get anything she could use.”

“She didn’t
this
time, you mean. The woman has it in for you, Daniel. I think you should take a break. Go into hiding for a few weeks until things run their course.”

“Can’t do that. Winslow’s already fixing to break my kneecaps over the cash I owe him. He’s not going to wait much longer.”

Caitlin rolled over, turning so we were nose-to-nose, sharing a feather pillow. She poked me in the chest with a sharp fingernail.

“I
have
money, you know,” she said.

“I can’t take your money. Not to pay a debt.”

Four more fingers joined the first, nails pressing lightly over my heart.

“And why not?”

I tried to answer without seeing my father’s face in my mind’s eye. The old man sleeping in front of a television tuned to static, empty beer cans littering the stained carpet. Another six-pack in the fridge but not a damn thing to eat.

The first time I stole anything, I was eight years old, snatching food for me and my little brother.

“Because I need to know,” I said, pushing away the memory. “I need to know that I can provide for myself.”

Caitlin arched an eyebrow. “That’s not all of it. What?”

“You know what I did when I worked for Nicky Agnelli. Helping his crews out, pulling down scores.”

“Mm-hmm,” she murmured, her nails digging into my chest a little harder.

“I was good. I was really good. Then, one night…” My voice trailed off.

It’s strange, the things you remember. The ear-splitting klaxon of an alarm. The rotten smell of the blood from a buddy’s gut wound, the way it made my hands slick and hot. The sound as he shrieked, biting down on a ballpoint pen, as I tried to shove his intestines back inside him.

“The intel was bad,” I said, “and the whole thing went sideways in the blink of an eye. I brought a four-man crew on that job, two of ’em friends of mine, and I was the only one who got out alive. That was the end of working for Nicky Agnelli.”

“Was it his fault?”

I looked up at the ceiling. I’d asked myself that question a thousand times. Usually around two in the morning, when the memories were the loudest.

“Doesn’t matter whose fault it was,” I said. “Point is it knocked me off my game. I floated around after that, pulling a few small grifts and selling vengeance for hire.”

“Which is how you met me,” Caitlin said, swinging up and straddling my waist. Her curls draped down, framing her face as she leaned in close. “So I’d best not hear any complaints.”

I craned my neck to kiss her. Her lips tasted faintly of cherries.

“None. But then Lauren Carmichael and her cult came along. It feels like we spent so much time and energy fighting them—”

“Horseback riding,” Caitlin said.

“Huh?”

“You were an accomplished horseman. Then you were knocked from the saddle, and you didn’t get right back on again. Any teacher will tell you that’s when the fear sets in. Making you wonder…can you still ride at all?”

I clasped my hands around her hips and looked up at her.

“You get it,” I should have known she would.

She ran her fingers through my hair, grazing my scalp with her nails.

“Then ride, horseman.” She brushed her lips against mine. “Find the reassurance you seek. But be swift. I’m going on a business trip in a few days, and I want to see you before I leave.”

“Business trip? Where?”

“Home. My prince is having a celebration, and I’ve been asked to make a personal appearance. I won’t be gone for long, just have to make a few courtesy calls, stand at his side and look imposing, that sort of thing. I’d invite you along, but…well, for
you
, that would be a one-way trip.”

“Give my regards to your family,” I said, half joking.

“Oh, I will. My sisters keep asking when they get to meet you.”

I forced myself to chuckle, ignoring the chill in my spine. “What do you tell ’em?”

Caitlin flashed a toothy smile. “That depends entirely on you, pet. Do be careful out there.”

*     *     *

I crashed in Caitlin’s bed until noon and then myself up with a groan, staggering off to get cleaned up. She’d already headed out, leaving me a note on the bathroom sink written on a sheet of primly lined violet paper: “Hound business to attend to, call me later. Food in fridge. Don’t eat out of the red Tupperware.—Cait.”

While the twin heads in her shower pounded the soreness out of my chest and back, clouds of steam clearing my head, I weighed my options. No matter how attractive the offer was, I didn’t want to do business with Nicky. I’d find another way.

I wasn’t lacking for choices either. All professional heisters carry a list in the back of their minds: places they’ve always wanted to hit, weak targets that look like a quick and easy payday, that sort of thing. Call it a thief’s rainy-day stash, just waiting for the day we might need them.

Now felt like a good time.

An hour later I was cruising the streets of Vegas in my black Barracuda, fingers strumming the steering wheel in time with a Muddy Waters song. The sun rode high and kissed the dusty roads with a dry autumn heat. I followed the map of my memory, scouting my way across town, figuring out which of my old rainy-day scores were still good and which ones were busts.

Around three I found myself sitting in an outdoor cafe, nursing a paper cup of black coffee and pretending to read the
Vegas Sun
. The currency exchange across the street had my real attention, that and the two chuckleheads in tan uniforms who were taking their sweet time loading the armored car out front.

With that fence it’s a total blind approach to the back door
, I thought.
Anyone could be hiding around that corner. Guards don’t care. They’ve run this route a thousand times for a thousand days; they can’t manage to stay alert. Company should mix up their shifts better
—

“It’s embarrassing, isn’t it?” Harmony Black dropped into the chair beside me. She set down a cup of coffee and ruffled her own copy of the newspaper. “No operational discipline, not looking out for each other, it’s almost like they
want
to get hijacked.”

“Agent.” My throat went tight.

“Don’t mind me,” she said. “I’m just getting some fresh air. Please, keep planning your armed robbery. Pretend I’m not even here.”

She set down her paper and picked up her cup. Then she looked me in the eye and slowly, loudly, slurped her coffee.

I folded my newspaper and pushed back my chair. “It’s fine. I was just leaving.”

“Oh? Where to? The Athens Credit Union? That laundromat off Bonanza Road? The Ford dealership on Fairfax? Can I come with? No, never mind, just go ahead and I’ll meet you there.”

I gritted my teeth and walked away.

Harmony slurped her coffee again and gave me a finger wave. “See you soon!” she called out behind me.

I drove two blocks, pulled off to the side of the road, and took out my cell phone. Every instinct screamed that I was making a bad move, but that didn’t stop me from punching in the numbers and making the call.

“Nicky,” I said, “that job still available?”

Nicky gave me a phone number. It rang through to voicemail. There was no message on the other end, just a few seconds of silence and a beep.

“This is Daniel Faust,” I said. “Nicky Agnelli referred me, said you might have some work you need done. Call me.”

My phone rang less than a minute later. A woman with a crisp British accent rattled off instructions before I could get a word out.

“Proceed to Henderson Executive Airport. It’s just off St. Rose Parkway. Hangar four. Your flight leaves in thirty-two minutes. Be prompt.”

“But what is—” The line went dead. I shrugged and threw the Barracuda into drive. I didn’t have long, not with afternoon traffic clogging up the highway, and something told me this was a one-time offer.

Most of the tourist traffic came in and out of Vegas through McCarran International. Henderson Executive was for a better heeled crowd, mostly high-rolling whales and corporate bigwigs winging into town on their company jets for a weekend of expense-account-approved wining and dining. I had four minutes to spare when I jogged into the cavernous white confines of hangar four, and I whistled long and low when I saw what was waiting for me.

A Gulfstream G550 filled the hangar from wall to wall, painted golden tan. A small crew in white jumpsuits was working feverishly to get it air-ready, uncoupling fat yellow fuel hoses and going over the jet’s underbody with penlights and clipboards.

“Mr. Faust,” called out a voice from the far end of the hangar, the same woman from the phone call. She had dark brown skin and sharp eyes, and she strode toward me like she was on a mission. “I’m Ms. Fleiss,” she said, “Mr. Drake’s personal assistant. Come with me, please.”

Fleiss wore her curly black hair pinned in a tight bun, and her tailored suit had shoulders sharp enough to cut glass. I followed her up a wheeled staircase and into the Gulfstream, suddenly feeling like a bum who had wandered into a taping of
Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous
. Drake’s ride was an expanse of white leather and cream, with wall-mounted HDTVs and plush swivel chairs.

It looked like they were doing some remodeling. Toward the back of the jet, a heavy sheet of white plastic dangled from painter’s-tape anchors, and another sheet draped the floor. I was distracted by a new arrival, a tanned wall of meat with chiseled muscles and razor-cut blond hair. He wore a shoulder holster over his tight white T-shirt, showing off a fat chromed .45.

“Mr. Pachenko,” Fleiss explained with a nod. “Mr. Drake’s head of security. Hold your arms out to your sides, please.”

I knew the drill. I stood there while Pachenko’s meat hooks slapped my hips, chest, and back, working their way down to my ankles. Most people don’t know how to do a proper frisk, or they half-ass it, but not this guy. If I’d been carrying anything bigger than a deck of cards, Pachenko would have found it.

“Please, sit down and buckle up,” Fleiss said, walking me over to a chair right in front of the dangling tarp. The plastic crinkled under my shoes. She sat down in the swivel chair opposite mine. A small lacquered table inlaid with a swirling gold leaf design stood between us.

“You haven’t told me where we’re going,” I said.

“Austin. Provided you pass the job interview, you’ll be well compensated for your time.”

“And if I don’t?” I said.

She didn’t answer. The jet’s engines throbbed as it taxied out of the hangar, taking a sharp right turn and pointing its nose toward the runway. I didn’t like this, didn’t like a thing about it, but at least Agent Black wouldn’t be waiting for me at the airport on the other end.

And if she is
, I thought as the jet rolled forward, picking up speed and pushing me back in my chair,
I quit
.

The jet lifted off, took a shuddering turn over Vegas as we hit a pocket of turbulence, then rose over the clouds and into a pale sky. It wasn’t long before we leveled out and a gentle chime sounded over the cabin speakers.

“Good,” Fleiss said, glancing at her wrist. Her watch was a slender gold Cartier, the oblong face encircled with a dusting of diamonds. “Mr. Pachenko? We’re ready to begin the test.”

I didn’t like the sound of that, either.

The slab of beef came back with a wooden box in his hands, about a foot across and half as deep. He held the thing like it was a sleeping rattlesnake, and I didn’t blame him. It radiated power, a purple vortex of seething malice that felt like it might lash out at any moment.

He set it down on the table between Fleiss and me.

The wood was pitted, old and gray, like it had been carved from some dead and lightning-seared log. Engraved symbols covered the face and circled the sides, prickling my memory. Glyphs from old European witchcraft, mostly, but a handful were out of place or misinscribed. While I studied the box, Pachenko unrolled a cloth napkin next to it, revealing a handful of tools. A pair of steel lockpicks. A Phillips-head screwdriver. A tiny mallet, like doctors use for testing reflexes, and a coiled steel spring.

“As I’m sure you can imagine, Mr. Drake deals with a great number of opportunists,” Fleiss explained. “Impostors, pretenders, poseurs. As such, before he takes you into his confidence, he would like to verify that you live up to Mr. Agnelli’s claims. A test of skill.”

“I’m listening,” I said.

Fleiss shot another glance at her watch. “We will land in two hours and fourteen minutes. You have until that time to open the box before you. You may use any of the tools in front of you to accomplish this task.”

Pachenko moved to stand at Fleiss’s shoulder. Then he pulled his .45. I thought his gun was big before. It looked a lot bigger pointed at my face.

“If the box is not open at the moment our wheels touch the runway,” Fleiss added, “Mr. Pachenko will execute you.”

Now I knew what the plastic sheeting was for.

“I suggest you move with haste,” she said.

I took a few deep breaths and weighed my choices. I figured I could spare enough time for that, at least.

The hard way wasn’t an option. If I gave Pachenko the bum-rush, he’d gun me down before I unbuckled my seat belt. I was going to have to play it their way.

The box then. Nicky had told me Drake wanted someone who knew his way around physical and occult security. I’d take this test one piece at a time. I let my eyes slip out of focus and narrowed my concentration, studying the box with my second sight. Violet lines of power wrapped around the wood like a spiderweb or a cargo net, sealing it tight and thrumming with malice. Some kind of potent curse, set to lay a whammy on anyone who opened the box without defusing it first. Simple enough.

Taking it apart wasn’t so simple. The longer I studied the web, the more daunting it became. Every intersection of lines was a trigger, every bend and knot a hammer waiting to fall. If I snipped a single line, the others would trigger and blast their deadly payload right in my face.

Fleiss, emotionless and still, watched me as the minutes slipped away.

I needed to find the trailhead. The place where the curse weaver had started his work. If I could isolate that one single strand of magic, I could cut off the spell at its knees and render it harmless. I stared at the lid and the sides of the box, following this line and that, running into dead end after dead end. The lines seemed to emerge from a wellspring in the middle of the lid, but that wasn’t the trailhead. So how…

I half smiled. Then I turned the box over. There it was. One little clot of concentrated magic, tied off and drilling up through the heart of the box from the bottom to the top. Plain as day and unconcealed, for anyone who could think beyond the pointless maze on the other side. I called a spark of power to my left hand, hovering over the knot, and exhaled sharply as I snipped my index and middle fingers together like a pair of shears. The air tingled as the curse strands whipped away and dissolved, burning to nothing in the space of a few quick heartbeats.

“Occult competence and three-dimensional thinking,” Fleiss murmured, as if taking notes under her breath.

I turned the box back over. The ornamental lock on the lid was kid’s stuff, nothing compared to a serious padlock.

That was what worried me.

It was too easy. Anyone with a delinquent teenager’s grasp of lock picking could get through that thing in two minutes flat. After they’d gone to so much trouble with the curse on the box, I couldn’t believe this part would be that simple. They’d even given me lockpicks.

My gaze flicked to the white cloth napkin and the spread of tools Pachenko had so generously laid out for me. Something was off about them. A faint chemical smell hung in the dry cabin air, and the metal was a little too shiny.

I picked up the edge of the napkin and gingerly lifted it up, peeking underneath. Pinpricks of moisture dotted the underside, soaking through from above.

Not long ago I’d gone up against a sorcerer who had a thing for brainwashing his victims with contact poison. He’d spread his happy juice over business cards, doorknobs and pens, anything he could get his victims to touch. Once they did, and the custom toxins seeped into their skin, it was all over.

The lock was as simple as it looked. The picks—and all the other useless tools they’d offered me to overcomplicate the puzzle—
those
were the trap.

Still, I needed something to get through that lock. Fleiss stared at me, unblinking, almost reptilian, as I worked it through.
You may use any of the tools in front of you
, she’d said.

I unbuckled my seat belt.

Pachenko took a step back and raised his gun as I got up from my chair. I kept my hands easy and open, right where he could see them.

“Stay cool, big guy,” I said. “I’m following the rules.”

Fleiss didn’t move a muscle as I reached for her hair, plucking out the bobby pin that held her bun in place.

“This was in front of me,” I told her, sitting back down.

She shook her hair out. “So it was.”

I snapped the bobby pin in two, carefully bending one half to give it an L-hook, and got to work. This was the easy part. Thirty seconds’ work and the tumblers clicked. I reached for the hasp, then froze.

I was missing something. The test should have been over and done, but Fleiss was still watching me like a mouse in a maze. Like there was something left beyond pulling that hasp and opening the lid. I couldn’t hear a thing but the pounding of my pulse and my instincts screaming in my ear, telling me danger was close enough to kiss.

I lightly touched the sides of the box, keeping it closed, and rotated it to face Fleiss.

She flinched.

She had a hell of a poker face, but she couldn’t hide that. I said, “Thank you,” and turned the box ninety degrees so the lid would open away from the table, toward the far side of the cabin.

I pulled the hasp and opened the lid. The box jumped as two darts launched out, whining through the air and digging into the baggage compartment. One dripped a few beadlets of slime-green venom down the ivory plastic.

A pristine envelope of bone-colored paper sat nestled in the box between the empty launching mechanisms. I scooped it out and offered it to Fleiss.

“I believe this is yours,” I said.

“Yours, actually. Congratulations, Mr. Faust. Out of four candidates for this position, you are the first to successfully complete the interview assignment.”

Pachenko holstered his gun.

I thumbed open the envelope, peeking in on a stack of crisp green bills.

“Two thousand dollars,” Fleiss said, “simply for meeting with Mr. Drake. Whether you accept his proposition or not, the money is yours to keep.”

With the box in front of me like a bomb on a timer, I’d been too focused to feel the strain. Now, with the lid open and the danger gone, I had to squeeze the envelope tight to keep my hands from shaking. Misspent adrenaline flooded into my veins, looked for a fight, couldn’t find one, and started a riot instead. The stress turned to anger, and I wanted to start throwing punches. Instead, I swallowed it all down and focused on my breathing.

I came this far
, I told myself.
I can go a little farther and hear the guy out
.

The wheels thumped down on the runway, and I sank back in my chair as the wing flaps rose and the turbines screamed. I hadn’t even noticed we were going down.