Play Nice (29 page)

It only took a moment, but Anna held her breath the whole time, sure that someone would spot him, that the people on the receiving end of the transmitter would screech up to the station any second, that they had stayed in one place too long and this was it.

Dade stepped away just as the doors of the bus hissed shut. A cough of smoke churned up from the tailpipe where he had just been, signaling movement again.

He grinned as he jogged back to Anna. “That should keep them busy for a while.”

She nodded, watching as the bus pulled away, taking the tracking device with it. “Now let’s get the hell out of here.”

CHAPTER 21

“I need to speak to our employer.” Dade shifted his phone to the other hand, then punctuated his request with a sharp, “Now.”

The man on the other end sighed. “I told you that is not possible.”

Dade looked across the expanse of damp grass at Anya. She was walking Lenny in slow circles, the “slow” part a clear sign the dog was still shaking off the medication. He stumbled a little, listlessly sniffed the grass, clearly groggy. In the distance, across the lawn, Dade could see workers erecting the stage Senator Braxton would be standing on in a few short hours.

“Bullshit. I want to speak to him,” Dade said.

“Whatever you have to say to him, you can say through me,” the man countered.

Dade looked down at the readout on his cell. The tracking software was homing in on his location. The man was in the City, that much he could tell. If he could keep him talking another two minutes, he’d have an address. “Fine. Then tell our employer that I’ve had a change of heart.”

The man paused. “
Another
one?”

“Very funny.”

“I’m not laughing, Mr. Dade.”

“Yeah, well, neither am I. Nothing about this job has been particularly funny, the least of which this conversation. Give me his name.”

“As far as our employer is concerned, your relationship with him terminated when you reneged on your contract to eliminate his problem.”

Dade looked across the lawn at the “problem.” She was leaning down on one knee, feeding the dog a slice of jerky. She rubbed the fur on his head, made some sort of baby-talk face and grinned at him.

Dade forced himself to look away.

“I’m ready to take care of his problem now.”

“I’m sorry, but it’s too late. He’s already hired a replacement.”

“No shit! Speaking of which, you can tell our employer that I don’t appreciate being shot at.”

“I’m not sure our employer cares what you appreciate anymore, Mr. Dade,” the man on the other end said.

Dade looked down at the readout. The guy was downtown.

“Does our employer still care about Anya? Because I can deliver her.”

“I told you. Other arrangements have already been made. Your services are no longer required.”

Dade could feel the man hanging up.

“Wait!”

There was a sigh on the other end.

“Yes?”

Dade looked down. The man’s location was narrowed to a two-block radius. He just needed a few seconds more …

“The payment. I wired it back to our employer. Did he get it?”

The man on the other end paused a moment. This was clearly not the question he’d been expecting. “Yes,” he said slowly. “The refunded deposit was received as promised.”

“Good. At least you know my word is good.”

“Honestly, Mr. Dade, I don’t care about your word and neither does our employer. Our business with you is finished. Good-bye,” the man said, then hung up.

Dade looked at the readout. A red dot flashed at four-fifteen Sutter, just across from Union Square Park.

Dade grinned. “Gotcha.”

“Got what?”

Dade looked up to find Anya jogging toward him, dragging Lenny along on his lead.

“What did you get?” she asked again.

Dade shrugged. “Information on another job.”

For a moment, her eyes clouded. As if the mention of his work suddenly jolted her back from some spot just this side of reality.

“Oh.”

“And there’s an errand related to that job that I need to run now.”

She bit the inside of her cheek. “Errand.”

“Yeah. I’ll be back before the rally. You’ll wait for me here?”

She paused just long enough to make him nervous before slowly nodding.

“I’ll be here,” she said.

In anyone else, he might have doubted the sincerity of the statement. But he knew how badly she wanted to corner Petrovich, and knowing he would be at the rally, Dade trusted that Anya would be, too.

“One o’clock. I’ll meet you back here.”

She nodded. “One o’clock.”

Dade hoped he could trust her.

*   *   *

Dade jumped on the light-rail, heading toward Sutter. He stopped off only once, at a gun shop off Geary to purchase more ammo, then rode the line until it dropped him off just a block from the tall glass building matching the address on his phone. He entered the lobby and paused at the directory of offices housed inside. There were several financial firms, a couple of tax consultants, a few Internet start-ups, and one attorney’s office. Dade took a stab in the dark, and entered the elevator, hitting the button for the fifth floor that housed the attorney’s office. The man on the phone had immediate knowledge of the funds transfer, which led Dade to believe he was the one setting up the overseas accounts for his employer in the first place. If it were Dade, he’d have hired a lawyer to do that.

Dade was alone in the elevator, listening to the Muzak being piped in through hidden speakers. Instead of being soothing, the soft rock was just irritating, adding to his antsy mood. Normally he would finesse someone for the type of information he needed now. But he was out of time for that sort of option.

The elevator doors slid open to reveal the lobby of Johnson, Davidson, and Burke. A large, modern desk in an oval design took up most of the area, a woman in a headset behind it, fingers clacking away at her keyboard. She looked up briefly, but Dade plowed past, not bothering to make eye contact, his cell already out and in hand as he dialed the number for his contact.

“Dade,” the man said, clearly not excited to hear from him again. “I told you we’re done.”

“I’m giving you one more chance,” Dade told the man as he walked onto the main floor of the offices. Cubes filled the center of the room, admin and junior members of the firm humming with activity. “One chance to tell me where I can find our employer.”

“Now you’re just wasting both of our time.”

Dade quickly walked the maze of cubes, watching faces, scanning for anyone talking on their phones. “What you’re wasting is an opportunity to see this mess taken care of for our employer.”

Along the perimeter of the room sat glass-walled offices, home to those promoted out of the sea of cubes. Dade could see at least three senior members inside their offices on phones. He approached the first, where a man with grey hair in a navy-colored suit was talking into a Bluetooth, arms waving animatedly in the window.

“Our employer is well able to take care of matters himself. You’ve proven yourself unstable. We’re through.”

“What if
I’m
not through?” Dade said.

The man paused, and Dade could hear his breath coming hard through the phone.

But the guy in the suit kept talking into his Bluetooth. Not Dade’s man.

“Is that supposed to be a threat?” the man finally asked.

“Take it however you like,” Dade said, moving on to the next window. A woman with a handheld receiver sat at her desk. He quickly moved on. In the next office, Dade could see a man with dark hair standing at the windows, his back to the main floor. He had a cell in hand.

“I’m going to say this once more and only once more. Your contract is terminated. Our employer wants nothing more to do with you. You are to lose this number and forget you ever knew it.”

“Give me a name,” Dade barked out, watching the man with the dark hair closely.

The figure in the office shook his head in the negative.

“You know I can’t do that.”

“Last chance.” Dade took a step toward the office door.

“Good-bye, Mr. Dade.”

The man in the office pulled the phone from his ear and hit the
OFF
button.

The line in Dade’s ear went dead.

“Don’t say I didn’t warn you,” Dade mumbled under his breath, quickly shoving through the door.

The man with the dark hair spun around, phone still dangling from his hand. “What the…”

He didn’t finish the statement, his eyes immediately going big and round as he recognized Dade.

“How the hell did you get in here?” he asked, taking a step toward his desk.

But Dade was faster, drawing his gun from his waistband and pointing it at the man. “Don’t.”

The man froze, his eyes going from the gun in Dade’s hand to the windows looking over cubes behind him.

“Don’t move,” Dade instructed. “Don’t speak. Don’t even think of alerting anyone out there.”

The man’s eyes flickered to the glass once more, but he nodded.

“Now, go close the blinds. Slowly,” Dade added.

The man nodded again, crossing the room to the glass windows and letting down the horizontal privacy blinds.

“Lock the door,” Dade said.

The man did, hands shaking as he turned the latch. “What are you going to do?”

“I’m going to ask you nicely to tell me who our employer is.”

“You know I can’t—” the man started.

But Dade was already across the room, pinning the man to the wall, the muzzle of his gun pressed against the man’s temple.

“Yes, you can,” he ground out.

The man let out an involuntary whimper.

“And if you’re smart, you will.”

“Please,” the man said.

“This is not an idle threat,” Dade told him, pressing the cold steel into the man’s skin until it turned white from the pressure. “I kill people for a living, and you’re just one more number to me. I’m out of time, out of options, and out of patience. You can either give me the information I want, or I can shoot you and tear your office apart until I find it myself. Your choice.”

The man’s breath came fast and hard. “I can’t,” he whispered. “He’ll kill me.”

“So will I.”

“Someone will hear you,” the man said, his voice going higher. “They’ll hear the gun shot and come running.”

“You really think that concerns me now?” Dade asked.

The man looked up into his face. “You’re crazy if you think you’ll get away with this.”

“Last. Chance.” Dade ground the words out through clenched teeth.

“You can’t do this…”

“One,” Dade counted off.

“No, please. You don’t understand…”

“Two.”

“I have a family…”

“Three.”

Dade changed the angle of the gun, aiming at the wall behind the man and fired. The loud report went off right in the man’s ear, the bullet shattering a diploma of some sort hung in a frame on the wall, glass crashing to the polished hardwood floor. The man let out a strangled sort of sob, and Dade saw a wet trickle of liquid soil the inside leg of his pants.

“Oh, Christ. Oh, God, please don’t shoot me. Jesus,” the man whimpered.

Dade moved the gun back to the man’s temple. “A name.”

The man closed his eyes, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down. “Demarkov.”

“Demarkov what?”

The man swallowed again. “Vladimir Demarkov is his name.”

Dade narrowed his eyes at the man. “Call him,” he demanded.

“I don’t have a number.”

Dade pressed the muzzle harder into his flesh.

“I swear I don’t have one! He conducts all business in person. If I had a number, don’t you think I’d tell you?”

“I don’t know,” Dade said, pressing until the man’s head bowed under the pressure. “Would you?”

“Yes! Jesus, yes. Look, he…” He faltered, swallowing hard again. “He’s always at his club. Moonlight. It’s a strip club in the Tenderloin. He had me set up accounts, gave me the job details, and told me to find someone to make it happen. Which I did.” He paused. “Or at least, I thought I did. You came highly recommended.”

“I know about me,” Dade said. “Tell me about Demarkov.”

He swallowed. “Okay, um … he’s older. Graying hair. Thick accent.”

“What kind of accent?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know. European maybe?”

“Go on,” Dade prompted.

“Look, I don’t know much more than that. When I need to talk to him, I go to the club. He’s always there.”

Dade opened his mouth to ask more, but a knock at the door stopped him.