“Never had any issues with the cops?”
“No, though I try to stay out of their way. Not sure what they’d think of our business.”
No kidding. I wasn’t even sure what I thought of the business.
“So, what do you think this is?” I curled the tube like a dumbbell, trying to judge its weight.
A sly grin crossed Clay’s face and he grabbed the tube from my hand.
“Let it go, kid. It’ll drive you nuts.”
Sun Consulting was on the forty-third floor, a longish elevator ride that caused my ears to pop. There was good news, though — the woman at the reception desk looked like she modeled swimsuits in her spare time. Long blond curls, perfect teeth and lots of curves. She smiled at me, and Sun Consulting moved onto my list of favorite customers.
Clay introduced me, and I turned on the charm. At least, I thought I did. I am definitely hit and miss with the ladies, a fact that my brother Ted reminds me of more-or-less daily.
After a brief chat, it was back to business. I passed over the packing tube along with my handheld, for the receipt signature.
“Kara said you also had a package for us?”
“That’s right. I’ll get one of the mail room guys to bring it down.”
While Clay waited with her, I wandered the office lobby. What appeared to be an original painting by Canaletto hung above a cream-colored leather sofa. I’d seen several paintings by the Venetian landscape master at the National Gallery in Ottawa, but was more than a little surprised to see one hanging in a downtown office. Considering Sun Consulting’s apparent link to the world of the occult, I might have expected a Picasso with skewed eyes and arms in the wrong places. Either way, it seemed to be an original. Muchos dineros in the consulting business, apparently.
Seated in a chair to one side was a fellow in an immaculate pinstripe suit that likely cost as much as my first car. He barely glanced in my direction, seemingly hypnotized by the screen of his cellphone. Addict.
When I circled back to the reception desk, Clay was comparing an entry on the handheld with the label on a package the size of a toaster. He smiled, and handed the box to me to carry.
“We’ll see you soon.”
“Thanks.” The blonde smiled in my direction. “Nice meeting you.”
“You too.”
In the lobby I winked at Clay.
“She likes me.”
Clay snorted.
“Nice try, kid.” For Clay, everyone was a kid. His wife, my mother… age appeared irrelevant. “She’s married and has a newborn daughter.”
“How the hell do you know that?”
They stepped into the elevator and Clay hit the button for the ground floor.
“I’ve seen her every week for the past few years. You get to know little things about people.”
“Hmph. Well, seems you don’t know her well enough to recognize when she’s fallen for someone.”
He snorted again.
The seconds ticked by as the elevator cab descended, until our smooth ride came to a stop at the eighteenth floor. No surprise there. I can’t remember ever having made it all the way to the ground floor in an elevator without some damned person interrupting my ride.
The doors opened, and we began shuffling to the back of the car to let a man in. It took a lot of shuffling. At first all I could see was a leather bomber jacket so big it must have required a whole cow hide to make. I just caught a glimpse of the floor behind the intruder — a jumble of plastic sheets and ladders. Maybe the big guy was in construction.
The fellow stared at us as he entered the elevator, and continued to do so as the elevator began its descent. Not a good sign, in my mind. No one does that, even if it means turning your back on a glamourous model in thigh-high boots and a low-cut top.
“Help you?” Clay was that kind of guy.
Big Ugly looked six five at least, maybe three hundred pounds. That gave him a four inch height advantage on me, and a big weight advantage. Clay must have felt like a Hobbit.
Nicotine-stained teeth, thin sneering lips, a nose broken more than once, and stringy black hair greased back from his forehead. He had a pseudo-beard, the unshaved look that seemed so popular in Hollywood twenty years ago, and wore a black shirt open most of the way to his navel — a considerable distance. But it was his eyes that caught my attention. Small, steel grey eyes.
“Who is this?” Big Ugly said. He had a definite accent, drawing out the e’s. It came out ‘hoo eez dees’. “I thought you worked alone?”
The question was directed at Clay, but Clay looked as mystified as I felt. What the hell was this guy talking about?
“Never mind.” Maybe Russian? Whatever the accent was, I was struggling to understand him. “As they say in your country, this is a stick up. Give me the package.”
I was ready to tell him where he could shove the package, but Clay’s calm voice cut in.
“I’m sorry, I don’t know who you are, but our client provided us with a destination, and we’re going to deliver it there. If you have any issues with that, take it up with the client.”
A nice, reasonable response by Clay. Unfortunately, the big guy wasn’t listening.
“You want to know who I am? My name is Niki Kuzmenko. The Bull.”
He said it in a way that suggested one of us should recognize the name, but I drew a blank. From the look on his face, it seemed Clay had too.
“Sorry. We have a contract with the client.”
“I don’t care about your client. Give me the package.” Big Ugly turned slightly and hammered his fist into the Stop button, bringing the elevator to a halt.
“No.” Clay was getting angry, his jaw jutting out slightly and his shoulders drawn back.
I took a deep breath, trying not to lose my temper. Most days, it was just a flickering pilot light. But this guy…
The big man stepped forward, clearly intimidating Clay by his sheer physical presence. My pilot light flared, and I stepped between the two men.
“Cool your jets, pal-.”
That’s when Big Ugly reached into his jacket and pulled out a gun.
A few things to point out. First, like most Canadians, I’ve never seen a handgun up close. Hunting rifles are one thing, but most Canadians have only seen handguns on American TV. They’ve also seen what handguns can do to Americans on TV. My presumption was that handguns have the same effect on Canadians.
“Okaaay.” I shifted a half step to my right, shielding Clay. Last thing I was going to do was let this goon threaten a man nearing sixty.
“You don`t listen.” The big man shuffled his feet, the gun now above me and pointing down at my skull from an awkward angle. “Give me the box.”
A ping sounded, and the elevator began descending again, the display counting off the floors.
“Man, what’re you doing? Armed robbery? Christ, there’s a bank downstairs-.”
“Shut the hell up.” Now the barrel of the gun was pressed against my forehead, and two bloodshot eyes were right in my face. The big man’s index finger twitched and I tensed, bracing for the bullet that would plow through my forehead and leave nasty bits all over the elevator.
Clay inched forward and offered the delivery carton to the man. Out of the corner of my eye I could see Clay’s face, red with anger. Big Ugly took the package in his meaty hand. Plain brown wrapping paper, destination marked on the label, one of Arcane’s standard overnight stickers in plain view.
Then a muscular arm lashed out and cracked me on the side of the head with the pistol. I fell to one knee, unable to distinguish up from down. There was an angry shout from Clay, and I tried to hold my position between the other two men. It didn’t help that I could feel my lunch working its way back up my throat, and the lights seemed to be flashing on and off in the elevator.