“My name is Victor. And I believe you all know Mr. Loverin?”
“Motherfucking right they do.” The fat man glared from one to the other. “Kern, you ungrateful prick. After all I’ve done for you, you pull this on me? And you,” his eyes narrowing at Ian. “Still got the shiner, huh? Wait till I get done with you. That’s going to seem like a day at Wrigley.”
“Be quiet, Johnny.” Victor’s voice was calm, but Loverin immediately shut up. He crossed his arms and leaned against the wall, the tough-guy demeanor not gone, but certainly throttled back.
Which made her throat go dry. Who was this guy?
“Alex, Ian, Mitch, Jenn,” Victor said, looking at each of them in turn. “Let’s not waste time, OK? I know what you did.” He paused, raised an eyebrow. “Can you guess who I am?”
Mitch said, “You’re the guy Johnny was buying for the night we robbed him.”
Victor practically beamed. “Got it in one. Good. I’m glad that you aren’t going to play around. That will make this easier.”
Ian said, “How did you-”
“How did I find you?” Victor stood behind a leather conference chair, his hands resting lightly on the back. “A piece of advice. When you rob someone, you should be careful who you tell about it in advance.”
Ian’s jaw fell, and his face went pale.
“Wait.” Alex turned to him. “What is he-who did you tell?”
Mitch said, “He told his bookie. The man who got him the guns in the first place.”
“Oh, you stupid-”
“Also, showing up to pay your thirty-thousand-dollar debt the day after you steal a quarter-million is something of a dead giveaway.”
“Katz.” Ian had a hand to his forehead. He turned to look at them. “I had to, you understand? I didn’t have a choice.”
“So,” Victor continued. “Mitch, you seem to be on a roll. Why don’t you guess what I want?”
“The money back?”
“As a matter of fact,” Victor said, “no. The money you stole from Johnny. Not from me. Part of it was mine, it’s true. But it was money that was already earmarked for a purchase. Do you understand? I spent my money. But I didn’t get what I paid for.”
“What”-Alex paused, looked around-“I’m sorry, I don’t understand. What do you want us to do about that?”
“I want you to get it for me.”
“How? I don’t even know what we’re talking about.”
“How old is your daughter, Alex?”
Alex’s shoulders clenched into iron ripples under his T-shirt. “My daughter is none of your business.”
“Cassandra? Sure she is.” He jerked his head toward Mitch. “As is Mitch’s brother, Michael, and Ian’s dad in Tennessee. I haven’t had the chance to check in on Ms. Lacie’s parents yet. But I will.”
This couldn’t be happening. None of it. Her parents? This total stranger, a guy she’d never seen before, was threatening her parents?
She looked at the others, saw them thinking the same thing. Her leg started to shake, and she leaned on it.
Alex stepped forward. “I don’t know who you think you are-”
Moving with uncanny speed, both the men by the door brushed back suit jackets and drew pistols. One lined up on Alex. The other moved from target to target.
Jenn felt the floor shift beneath her, reached for the chair, barely got it.
“Be careful, Mr. Kern.” Victor’s voice was level. “You should all be very careful. Last week you may have been normal people, but now you’re in my day planner. Believe me when I say that’s worth your attention. Right, Mr. Loverin?”
Leaning against the wall, Johnny had the pinched expression of a child facing a bully he knew would make good. He cleared his throat, then nodded.
Alex took a deep breath. Paused. “Listen, I’m sorry about my language,” he said. “I didn’t mean any disrespect. It’s just that this is none of my affair.”
Something in his tone caught Jenn’s attention. His shoulders were down, his hands up and open in a placating gesture. She knew what he was about to say before he opened his lips. It hit her with a sick shame and disappointment.
“I was in on robbing Johnny,” Alex said. “But I was tied up inside the office when your friend came. I didn’t shoot him. I didn’t have anything to do with that part.”
“Are you kidding me?” Mitch looked back and forth. “You’re seriously putting this on us?”
“It is on you. I wasn’t there.”
Mitch shook his head. “You coward.”
“Gentlemen.” Victor’s voice was cold. “A couple of things you need to understand. The man you shot wasn’t my friend. And I don’t care which of you pulled the trigger. All I want is what’s mine. Now. Where is it?”
Jenn’s pulse was pounding. She looked at Mitch, could read his thoughts. He was going to tell Victor that they had found what he was after, that it was in the back of a purple Eldorado parked down the block from her apartment. And maybe that was best. Give it up to him and get on with their lives.
Only, what if that’s not what he has in mind? This is a man who has Johnny clearly terrified. What happens when you no longer have what he wants?
It was all happening too fast, event piling on event. She needed time to think, to figure this out. It was like being back in the alley, that sense that everything hung by a thread, but that she had a chance, a slim, delicate ribbon of a chance, to make things work out. Even just to buy them time to talk and make a plan. Only how? What could she possibly say?
Mitch said, “Victor, sir-”
Suddenly she knew. Jenn cut in. “Before we dumped the car, we went through it. And we found a bag in the trunk.”
Ian and Alex both whirled to look at her. Mitch was staring, and she could see him thinking, God bless him, see him trying to figure out what she was doing. She hesitated a moment, then said, “It had four one-quart bottles in it.”
Victor said nothing, gave no outward sign of menace. Nonetheless, the air seemed to coalesce around him, a subtle hardening and cooling.
“We didn’t know what they were. But we figured that if someone was willing to pay that much for them”-she shrugged her shoulders-“we kept them.”
“Where are they?”
Her palms were moist, her armpits soaked. An old line flitted through her head, something to the effect of women didn’t sweat, they dewed. She almost laughed, fought off the hysteria. She looked at Mitch, tried to beam the thoughts over to him, praying that he would somehow telepathically understand.
“Ms. Lacie?”
“They’re in a safe-deposit box. At my bank.” She managed to say it without her voice cracking.
“A safe-deposit box? Why?”
Mitch said, “We didn’t know what they were. And they were worth so much.”
The urge to smile rose like champagne bubbles, but she fought it away.
“I see. Let’s go get them.”
This was the risky part. She opened her mouth, closed it. Tried to think coolly, to let the panic show but not the calculation. “It’s Saturday.”
“So?”
“The bank is closed.”
“Convenient.”
She shrugged helplessly. “Not to us.”
“Funny, though, isn’t it? What I want is somewhere you can’t get it?”
“Hey,” she said, “you picked the time to bring us here. Not me.”
Victor made a sound that was a cross between a laugh and a hmm.
“Listen, cunt.” Johnny came off the wall. “Stop fucking lying and get the man what he wants, and you do it right fucking now. Or so help me-”
“I have the key,” she said.
“What?”
“The key. It’s in my purse. Can I get it?”
Victor made a why-not gesture. Hands shaking, she dug into the change compartment of her bag. The key was a simple brass thing, unmarked, about the size of the one she used to get her mail. She held it up. “See?”