Unleashed (A Sydney Rye Novel, # 1) (28 page)

“He tried to kill me. Do you get that?”

“But if you killed him you’re going to be in serious trouble.”

“He’s not dead.”

“How do you know?”

“Trust me.” I picked up my bag, felt around inside, and made sure I had my keys, wallet, phone, and Taser.

“Where are you going?”

“Home.” He followed me into the hall.

“If you wait five minutes, I’ll come with you.”

“No.” I turned back to him. “I need to rest. I’ll call you later.”

“I don't think you should be alone.”

“You really can’t follow me. Just don’t, OK? I need to be alone.”

“Alright.”

“I’ll call you later.”

“Alright.” I left him in the hallway in his funny silk robe, and I wished to God that he would follow me, and I prayed that he wouldn’t.

Death

I opened my door, and Blue greeted me. He pranced in the hallway, his claws clicking on the wood. “Hello,” I called to the living room, adrenaline coursing through me, making me feel strong and out of control.

“In here,” the mayor answered. Blue followed me to the front room. James was tied to a chair. We’d bought it together at a flea market when I first moved to the city. It was covered in a deep-pink upholstery. I used it to throw my clothes on when I was too lazy to put them away. Now James, a dark bruise on his chin and a bright red hand print on his cheek, sat on it with his hands behind him and his ankles tied to the legs. A scarf I wore in my hair at the beach filled his mouth.

Blue picked up a bone that sat near James’s feet and brought it over to me. The bone was large, and bits of whatever animal it came from still clung to it. “I got that for him,” the mayor told me. “He likes me.” Blue wagged his tail and encouraged me to take the bone. I ignored him, keeping my eyes locked on the mayor’s face. He looked gray. His neck was bandaged, and I imagined the burn marks my weapon must have left on his neck.

“OK. You can let James go now. I’m here.”

The mayor laughed and raised a black pistol with a silencer screwed to the end. He aimed it at my face. “No one is going anywhere.” A cigar smoldered on my coffee table. He picked it up. “Not until I get what I came for.” The smoke caught the light pouring in through the windows. “Don’t you know you should never trust a politician?” He bit the cigar and smiled largely, showing me his teeth.

“I don’t know why you’re doing this. I don’t think I am who you think I am. I’m not a threat to you. I’m just a dog-walker,” I tried to sound small. It wasn’t that hard.

“Don’t be silly Joy. You and I both know what you know. You know all about Joseph and Tate, those imbeciles.” His knuckles turned white gripping the cigar. He lowered it from his face.

“All I know about them is that they’re dead, and I don't want to be.”

“That’s a good attitude to have. Joseph and Tate could have learned something from you.” He looked at the tip of his cigar with narrowed eyes. “That Joseph. He had a real future if only he had known how to be faithful. You know, loyalty, faithfulness,” he said as he brought the cigar to his lips and took a long puff, “they are very hard qualities to find.”

Smoke seeped out of his mouth, rose above his head, and dissipated into the air. “Especially in men.” He stood for a moment, the pistol trained on my face. “That’s why my closest associates are women—my deputy mayor, my wife,” he smiled at me, “my secretary. These women would not abandon me for anything. They are loyal. Joseph Saperstein was not loyal; he was not faithful. He wasn’t even interesting,” Kurt said snickering at his joke. “I let him in on it. I didn’t need him. I could have sold the stuff myself. I don’t need an accountant to tell me how to hide things.” His eyes turned cold. “I was willing to make him a rich man. But he wanted to run off with some hooker half his age. And that wife of his, Jesus. She didn’t do anything to stop him,” he lowered his voice. “That’s OK, though. She’ll get what she deserves.” He looked out the window to Mrs. Saperstein’s dismal future and smiled.

Kurt Jessup turned back to me and continued his monologue. “You know, it’s OK to leave your wife. If he wanted to marry this—” he paused to find the right word, “this girl, that’s fine. He just should have done it without my gold.” His eyes glistened with a nervous excitement, and his cheeks flushed a deep red. “Nobody steals from Kurt Jessup. Nobody.” He looked like a man with a bad fever. “But you know all of this already, don’t you?”

“I know that Joseph and Charlene were having an affair. I don’t know anything about gold or stealing.” I tried to sound reasonable, like this was a normal conversation, like he wasn’t a gun-toting, cigar-smoking, gold-loving maniac.

“Charlene didn’t show you the gold?” He raised his eyebrows and watched my face intently. “I can tell that you’re lying, Joy. If there is one thing I can’t stand, it’s a liar.”

“I’m sorry,” I said.

He liked that, and a smile spread across his face. “That’s alright. Just don’t do it again.” He sat down on my couch and motioned for me to sit next to him. I moved around James’s bound body and sat. He put his cigar-holding hand around my shoulder and spoke softly, intimately into my ear. “Tate was a liar.” His breath was hot. “He lied to women to make them sleep with him. He lied to men to make them like him. And he lied to me to make me trust him. But I don’t trust anyone.” He squeezed my shoulder, being careful not to burn me with the hot ember of his cigar. “Do you want to know why I killed Tate?” he asked in a whisper. Goose bumps spread over my skin, and I was stunned into silence. The mayor stood up. “Don’t act so shocked, Joy!”

“I'm not shocked,” I said recovering myself.

“Don’t lie!” he yelled.

“I’m sorry.”

He took a step back and turned away from me. “I’m getting sick of your apologies,” he snarled with his back to me.

“OK.”

“Do you want to know why I killed him or not?”

“I don’t know how to answer that.”

“Honestly. Just answer it honestly.” He turned back to face me. “All I ever ask for is honesty.”

“Tell me.”

He smiled. “He got greedy.” Kurt did not continue. I sat on the couch with my knees together trying to figure out how to survive. The silence lasted a long time. Blue chewed on his bone, I stared at the floor, and the mayor watched me. “Don’t you want more details?”

“Yes.” I felt as if I were standing outside myself, watching. I noticed the way my eyes were fluttering around the room, like a scared little bunny rabbit caught in a trap, struggling against the metal talons holding me, fighting toward my death.

“He tried to take more than his share,” the mayor started. “There was plenty to go around. The H.M.S. Hussar is one of the greatest finds in history. Not only is she a piece of Revolutionary history, a veritable time capsule of the late 1700s, but she also carried millions upon millions of dollars’ worth of treasure." He liked watching my face when he said treasure. “It was right after law school when I started looking,” his eyes unfocused and appeared to drift back to that period in his life. “It wasn’t on purpose, you know. I wasn’t thinking about the Hussar when I found the map. I’d heard of the wreck, of course, every diver has, but the map was misfiled. I was looking for the blueprints of a recently demolished building in the Rare Books Room when I found it. Joy, you have no idea how I felt when I realized what it was, what I had.”

“Why all the secrecy? Why not tell the world what you’d found?”

Kurt glared at me. “Do you know the number of regulations involved in something like that? We are saddled with endless laws, rules, regulations, statutes, ordinances, mandates, and acts of Congress that it makes me wonder if this country is even a democracy at all or just a bureaucratic artifice.” He was spitting with every word. “Since the late 1800s, Congress has slowly strangled the ability of Americans enterprise. Why shouldn’t a person just be able to do what he dreams? Why must he plead with the government to let him make an attempt?” His face was red and his eyes wide with fury.

“But aren’t you a member of the government?”

“You are so naive, Joy. You think that I am a representative of the people, ey? That I am a law-abiding public servant, that I am your leader.” He moved close to me, and I concentrated on not squirming.

“I just was thinking that if you hate government so much, why be a part of it?”

“What else would I be? On the other side with the likes of you? Unable to do anything? A sheep. You think I'm a sheep?”

“Absolutely not.”

“Of course not.”

“I just don’t understand why you’re doing all this. I just don’t get it.”

“Don't you see? Being the mayor means nothing. I control nothing. Well,” he paused for a moment, “I control more than you control but not much. You think I don’t owe people for the power I have? It’s not like you get to the top and you’re free. There are a lot of people who I owe Joy.” He paused and then in a quieter voice he continued, “But the Hussar is mine, all mine. I can take her treasure and it will make me free.” He was looking at me with his eyes wide and wet. For a brief moment, I felt bad for him. Here was a man who believed treasure would make him free, when clearly nothing in the world could grant him liberty, not with a mind like that.

“I found her, Joy. And she is mine. I found the map. I found the first chest of gold. I almost missed it.” He laughed, looking at something far away. “It’s almost impossible to see down there, you know? The East River has some of the lowest visibility in the world, but I’ve got a nose for these things.” He tapped his gun to his nose, just in case I didn’t know where it was. “We found more than I ever could have hoped for—jewelry and coins, raw gems. Fantastic!”

“That’s a lot of treasure,” I said.

“Yes, it is.” The mayor became thoughtful. “But Tate didn’t think his half would be enough. It wasn’t even all to the surface, and he tried to steal it. Can you believe the man?”

“What a fool.”

His face lit up. “That is exactly what I thought when I realized what he was doing. Wasn’t there enough for everyone? Especially after I killed Joseph. Wasn’t half enough? Wasn’t it enough to warrant a little loyalty?”

“You would think.”

“You would, wouldn’t you?” He was pacing, gesturing first with his gun and then with his cigar. “But Tate was not a loyal man. He was a greedy liar and now,” he stopped pacing and looked directly at me, “he’s dead.”

“Good riddance. Sounds to me like he deserved it.”

“You’re smart, Joy. It’s too bad about you.” He was smiling down at me.

“What do you mean?” My skin felt hot and my gut frozen.

“I mean that it’s too bad we didn’t meet under different circumstances. I think you could have worked for me.”

“Well, I did vote for you.”

He laughed. “Indeed you did, and I appreciate that.” He sat back down next to me and sniffed my hair, then stood up again.

“You know what I need, don’t you?”

“What?”

“I need Charlene Miller and the coins she’s got.”

“I don’t know where she is.”

“Wrong answer,” he raised his gun and aimed it at James’s foot.

“No!” I yelled, but with a silent thwap, a bullet raced through space. James’s foot began to pump out blood. He screamed through the scarf. James’s eyes filled with tears and turned red. “Stop! Stop!” I ran toward James, but the mayor knocked me back. Blue jumped to his feet and let out a warning growl. The mayor laughed.

“I can shoot you, too, you know,” he told Blue and then looked at me. “And you. Now, Charlene.”

“OK. I’ll find her. I just need to make a phone call. Give me a minute.” I looked over at James. His eyes were wide and he was pleading with me. “I’ll get her.”

The mayor motioned to my phone on the coffee table. My mind was racing. I had no way of reaching Charlene. Mulberry would never tell me where she was, and I didn’t have a clue. “Her number’s in my purse,” I said, buying myself a few more precious moments to think. The mayor nodded and waved at my purse. Picking it up, I rifled through it. My Taser was in there, but I had no way of pulling it out in time. James was already shot, and I could never make it to Kurt without getting a bullet wound myself. I pulled out my wallet and picked through the business cards.

“Hurry it up. Your brother is bleeding. I wouldn’t want to have to put another hole in him.” My hands were shaking as I stared at a business card for a fish restaurant in Baltimore I’d been to about a year ago. I dialed the number quickly forming a plan, hoping that a woman would pick up.

“Charlie’s Fish Shake,” a woman said.

“Charlene, I’m glad I caught you. I really need you to come over.” The woman tried to say something, but I kept talking. “It’s really important. It’s for your own safety.” Kurt smiled at that. I let the woman tell me I had the wrong number and then said, “Good, I’ll see you soon.”

“She’ll be here as soon as she can,” I lied.

“Where is she now?” he asked, sitting on the couch, just behind James.

“On the Lower East Side. That’s where she’s been living.”

“Clever girl.”

“Can I please bandage my brother’s foot?” The blood was slowly forming a puddle of red on the floor. Beads of sweat dotted James’s pale face.