“If you tell me why he’s after you, maybe I can help.” And maybe that was enough, the whole “damsel in distress” motif. Although, from what he’d seen so far, she was doing pretty good on her own, and if it hadn’t been for Smollett and Bleak, he might have let it be.
But it was Smollett, and it was Bleak, and if she knew what he’d heard about Bleak, she wouldn’t be quite so nonchalant.
She seemed to consider his words, weigh his offer, and see what it might be worth.
“I saw the LeSabre,” she finally admitted. “But I can’t imagine any reason for some guy from high school to get on my case, let alone abduct me- present company excluded, of course.” The last was delivered with the arching of one delicate eyebrow.
He got the point.
Smart-mouthed Easy Alex didn’t mince words, and she was right. He had abducted her off the street, and done a damn good job of it. He had her, and Dovey Smollett was sucking air out there on Sixteenth and Wynkoop.
“Dovey was staring at you so hard when he got out of his car, I’m surprised your hair didn’t start on fire. He had a tractor beam on you.”
“Guys stare at me all the time.” She was stating a fact, not dabbling in vanity, and he didn’t doubt her for a second. Hell, he’d hardly taken his eyes off her since he’d spotted her up on Seventeenth.
But he shook his head. “He was waiting for you, parked on Wynkoop with a good line of sight on the Faber Building. If you hadn’t been dressed in your flavor-of-the-week getup, I’m guessing he would have recognized you when you first went to your dad’s office and tried to pick you up then.”
“Are you sure you’re not a cop?”
“No, I’m not, but I know a stakeout when I see one.”
“Congratulations. So do I, and you’ve been following me since the Oxford. But we’re done.” She looked up at him from underneath her lashes. “Right here, right now. I’m walking out of here, and if you touch me one more time, I’m going to take deep, personal offense. No more nice girl just because we’re old school chums. Do you understand me?”
Well, when she said it like that, he guessed every guy in the bar would understand her.
“Yes, ma’am.”
Her eyebrow arched again, and she started to step by him-but he stopped her with a simple lift of his hand, being damn careful not to deeply and personally offend her.
“I just have one more question,” he said. “Do you know who Dovey Smollett works for?”
“No.” She shook her head and gave him a small, indulgent smile. “Dovey and I haven’t kept up.”
She started to move again, but his hand stayed where it was, blocking her path, but still not touching her.
“I do.”
Her look said she wasn’t impressed and didn’t give a damn.
“He’s a local guy,” he said anyway, whether she wanted to hear it or not. “He makes book up in Commerce City, a guy named Franklin Bleak.”
CHAPTER SIX
Esme’s heart caught in her throat, and for a moment, she was frozen in place. But just for a moment.
Bad news, she told herself. Take the hit, and move on, very carefully.
Goddammit. Franklin Bleak.
Commerce City, five A.M., a warehouse on Vogel Street -the payoff had been set. So why was the bookie pooching the deal?
Only one reason came to mind, and the bad feeling she’d had in the office suddenly got a whole lot worse. Strong-arming people for money sometimes required a little extra leverage. A wife or child, or both, worked pretty good. A guy who might be willing to sacrifice himself could usually be spurred a little harder to come up with cash when his other choice was having his family take the hit for him, possibly quite a bad hit. If they owed money to Franklin Bleak, the prognosis could be elevated to “definitely bad.” The Commerce City bookie had a very unsavory reputation, and thus the.45 for tonight’s work. Even with the money to pay her dad’s debt, she’d known presenting herself to Bleak in her father’s place entailed a certain amount of risk. For her own peace of mind and to keep potential problems at a minimum, she’d purposely left her dad out of the night’s proceedings.
But now. Hell, the risk factor had just gone through the roof-which in no way meant she didn’t still have to deliver the money. It did mean she couldn’t afford even one loose end, not so much as a thread out of place. She needed to tighten up her plan, get her contingencies in place and lock them in, and for that she needed the name Thomas had promised her father, and she needed Dax. She hadn’t planned on walking into a Vogel Street warehouse with eighty-two thousand dollars without guarantees. If the name Thomas delivered didn’t do the trick, the information Dax had gone to Colorado Springs to get was her backup-and if that didn’t work, then it would be just her and Dax, and that was as close to an ironclad guarantee as a girl was ever going to get.
At least it had been. Now she had to wonder if the only guarantee was to walk away. Come up with another game plan.
Dax had gotten her out of Bangkok -but it had cost him. She didn’t know what. He’d never said, not in eighteen long months, no matter how many times she’d asked, no matter how obliquely she’d approached the subject-but the price of her freedom, whatever back-room deal he’d cut with Erich Warner, had cost him, and now this damn deal was twisting in her hands.
That bastard Bleak had sent somebody to snatch her off the damn street, and if it hadn’t been for John Ramos, that somebody might have succeeded.
So what did Bleak want here? His damn money? Or blood?
Goddammit.
Something had gone wrong somewhere, and she needed to find out what.
“Are you sure it was Dovey Smollett you saw?” She wasn’t surprised to hear Dovey had taken to a life of crime. Hell, half their graduating class had been headed for a life of crime. And she wasn’t surprised to hear that Dovey worked for Denver ’s most dangerous bookie. What made her head spin was the screwing of the deal eight hours before it was supposed to go down.
That was all bad, all dangerous, all totally disastrous, and she was running out of time, standing around in a bar.
“Look for yourself,” John Ramos said, making a slight gesture toward the door where they’d entered.
She turned to look, and swore under her breath. He hadn’t been lying, and he hadn’t made a mistake. It was goddamn Dovey Smollett coming into O’Shaunessy’s off Sixteenth-stringy blond hair, pockmarked face, narrow shoulders, a cheap suit.
He hadn’t changed nearly enough since high school.
“I think he’s working the room with somebody,” she said. Dovey had a phone to his ear.
“Check out the Chicago Bear at two o’clock.”
She turned and looked in the direction he’d given.
“Yeah. I see him.”
Dammit. The guy coming in O’Shaunessy’s front door was big, brutish, dark-haired, bulbous-nosed, and needed a change in football team affiliation. Denver was a Broncos town, all the way, and this guy was wearing a Chicago Bears jacket. Esme didn’t know him. She didn’t have to know him. All she had to know was the look of somebody’s untrained chump looking for somebody else, and this guy had it-gaze blatantly quartering the room, phone to his ear, standing straight and tall, neck craned. He might as well have been wearing a sign that said, “Can you help me? I’m looking for ____________________.” Fill in the blank.
“I think…” God, she couldn’t believe what she was about to say.
“What?” he asked next to her.
“I think we should get a cup of coffee.”
There, it was out, and from the shit-eating grin forming on his face, Johnny Ramos knew exactly what she meant-inside joke, all the way. A person had either double-dog-dared their way through Campbell Junior High, or they hadn’t.