Shady Cross

by James Hankins

  Stokes didn’t think so. Something as serious as kidnapping, Grote would want as few people to know about it as possible, so Amanda probably wasn’t in the house. She was likely being kept somewhere with no connection to Leo Grote, just in case the whole thing went sideways.

  Stokes couldn’t believe he was there to try to get into debt with Leo Grote for more than $100,000, just so he could turn around and hand the money back to the asshole’s toadies, along with the rest of the ransom money. And this, after finally climbing out of debt with Frank Nickerson after a year of being into the guy. Damn, this was nuts. And ironic. That’s what this was, ironic. He couldn’t believe it. In fact, he still couldn’t believe that he hadn’t just taken the money and run like hell hours ago, right after Paul Jenkins and his car became one with a tree.

  Brower’s voice crackled from the box. “It’s your lucky night, Stokes. He’ll see you. Then again, maybe it really ain’t that lucky for you.”

  Stokes heard a chuckle before the box went dead again. A moment later, a buzz sounded and the gate swung slowly open with a faint electric hum. Stokes stepped through and heard the gate hum closed behind him. It shut with a soft but solid clang.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  12:20 P.M.

  STOKES COULD HAVE DRIVEN HIS borrowed Camry up to Grote’s imposing mansion, but he felt better with as much distance as possible between his quarter of a million dollars and Grote and his men. So he hoofed it up the long driveway, toward the grand fountain. Even without spouting water illuminated by underwater lights, the fountain was impressive. Stokes remembered seeing it when it was working, and that was really something. He wondered whether Brower would turn it on for him when he left later, if Stokes asked nicely.

  As he reached the front door, it opened. Brower stood in the doorway, just as Stokes remembered him. He was big and solid and round with muscle, an oil drum with limbs and a head. Stokes didn’t really think he’d have fared too well if Brower had accepted his invitation to come out and fight, but he’d spoken that way because that kind of talk, up to a point, was expected and even respected in Brower’s world. Again, up to a point. Stokes could push it sometimes, and had done so in the past, with unfortunate results. He told himself to try not to do so tonight.

  He expected Brower to back out of his way and let him into the house, but Brower took his time about it, playing the tough guy, and Stokes waited patiently for the one-sided bigger-balls competition to end. A moment later, with a smug look, Brower stepped aside and Stokes walked into a foyer six times the size of his whole trailer. He’d been in the house before but had forgotten how grand the place was. Yellow marble on the floor, marble columns giving support to split staircases curving gracefully up to the second floor. The foyer’s ceiling was so high a helicopter would have room to lift off and hover, provided Grote could get a chopper in here somehow. Hell, he probably had one out in the garage, so maybe he’d given it a try.

  “You’re a fucking idiot,” Brower said as he began patting Stokes down.

  “Coming from a true genius like yourself, that hurts.”

  “Fuck you. And I meant you’re an idiot to get Mr. Grote out of bed like this.”

  He ran his hands up Stokes’s right side, into his armpit, before moving over to the left side. When he reached Stokes’s left armpit, his hand bumped against the bandage covering the bullet wound on Stokes’s biceps. Stokes sucked in breath with a sharp hiss.

  “Did that hurt?” Brower smiled and gave the area an extra squeeze.

  “Did what hurt?”

  “This.” Brower squeezed again. Stokes winced and hissed again.

  “Nah.”

  Brower smirked as he continued his pat-down. “I really hope Mr. Grote turns me loose on you, Stokes. I’ll kick every tooth out of that wiseass mouth of yours. Hey, what’s this?”

  He pulled Officer Martinson’s pepper spray from the front pocket of Stokes’s jeans. Stokes had forgotten about it.

  “Pepper spray,” Stokes said.

  “I’ll keep it.”

  “You think I came here, got Mr. Grote out of bed, just so I could shoot him in the face with pepper spray?”

  “I’ll just hold it for you anyway. Wait in the living room over there.”

  He nodded toward a huge arched doorway to Stokes’s right. An elephant could have walked through it with ease, though a giraffe might have had to stoop a little. Stokes headed through it, his booted footsteps echoing in the cavernous foyer. He could hear the heels of Brower’s Italian loafers clacking behind him.

  “How about fetching me a beer, Brower?” Stokes said over his shoulder.

  “Tell you what. After Mr. Grote tells me to throw your ass out, I’ll get you one. Shove the whole bottle down your throat.”

  The living room was enormous and, Stokes thought, tastefully furnished, though he honestly had no idea if that were truly the case. The furniture and paintings and knickknacks and whatever else he could see looked nice, though. And expensive. A lot of leather and carved woodwork, brass and stained glass. Either Mrs. Grote had taste to match her looks, or she spent a bundle on a decorator’s “vision.” Either way, the room looked like it was ripped from a magazine. Maybe Better Mansions and Topiary, or whatever the hell those bushes outside were called.

  Stokes took a seat in a comfortable wing chair before Brower could tell him to do so, which Stokes knew would piss off Brower. The bruiser glared at him and took up a position in the archway. He leaned against the wall and crossed his brawny arms, something Stokes was surprised he could do over his barrel chest.

  Five minutes crawled silently by, with Brower trying to make Stokes uncomfortable with his tough-guy glare, and Stokes trying to piss Brower off by looking completely at ease. Finally, a soft slapping-sliding sound came from the foyer, getting closer by the second. A moment later, Leo Grote walked into the room in his pajamas and slippers.

  The man was just as Stokes remembered him. Bigger than Stokes but smaller than Brower. Thick arms that used to be strong and probably still were under the little layer of fat covering them. Hair too dark to be natural on his sixty-year-old head. And goddamn ugly. Dark eyes too close together, a bulbous nose far too big for his pitted face, the awful craters left long after his adolescent acne had cleared up. And it wasn’t just his features that were ugly, but the way he kept them arranged. A look like he was perpetually smelling fish that had gone bad. He just never looked happy, which Stokes had a hard time understanding, seeing as he was rich as hell, had people around him to do anything he asked, and slept with a different woman decades younger than he every night. Stokes couldn’t figure it out, unless all of that simply didn’t make up for being butt ugly.

  Grote was standing in the room now, looking down at Stokes with half-lidded, impassive eyes. Stokes realized he should have gotten to his feet the instant he heard Grote’s slippers slapping their way across the foyer. Belatedly, he stood. He knew Grote wouldn’t want to shake his hand, so he nodded in what he hoped passed for a submissive gesture. Doing that rubbed him raw, but he wasn’t stupid. Well, at least he was going to try not to be stupid in Grote’s presence.

  Grote sat on a sofa. Stokes remained standing. Grote let him.

  “It’s late,” Grote said.

  “Sorry about that,” Stokes replied.

  Grote nodded to himself. He pulled a nail clipper out of the breast pocket of his pajama shirt and started carefully clipping away. Stokes expected him to ask why he was there, but he didn’t.

  “The reason I’m here is—”

  Grote looked up from his nails. Something in his eyes made Stokes stop talking.

  “Last time I saw you,” Grote said, “you wised off to me. Said some smart-ass things. Things I had a hard time overlooking.”

  Stokes nodded. “We both said things. I’ve decided to forgive and forget.”

  Grote looked like he might have been trying to
decide whether to tell Brower just to start beating the hell out of him right then.

  “You always had a smart mouth, Stokes. It’s gonna get you killed.”

  “Tonight?”

  Stokes thought Grote might have chuckled to himself at that one. Probably not, though. “We’ll see. Your father had a mouth like that. Only he was funny sometimes.”

  “He was also an asshole.”

  Grote nodded. “Yeah, but that asshole kept me from having Brower and McCutchen put you in a wheelchair for the rest of your life two years ago. He was my friend, before he split town. When was that, Stokes? When did he walk out on you and your mother?”

  Stokes smiled. This ugly bastard wasn’t going to get to him. “Thirty years ago, I guess. I stopped counting a long time ago.”

  “Amazing that he could be gone so long, have left you when you were so young, yet you could be so much like him now. A loser with a smart mouth. Well, you know what they say about the apple falling from the tree.”

  I hope it lands on your head, splits your goddamn skull open, Stokes wanted to say. Instead, he just nodded respectfully. If he wanted the bastard to loan him over $100,000 so he could ransom little Amanda back from the son of a bitch, he was going to have to eat some shit.

  “Sorry about those things I said back then, Mr. Grote. I really am. And I’m sorry to be bothering you tonight. I wouldn’t have come if it wasn’t important.”

  Grote regarded Stokes for a moment. “Important to who?”

  “To me.”

  “Why should I give a shit about you?” He was back to clipping his nails. Three snips per nail, the little pieces flying everywhere.

  “Because of my father.”

  Grote nodded and went to work on the nail of his ring finger. “Your father saved my life. That was a long, long time ago. I did something stupid, almost got killed, and your father saved me.”

  “Well, everybody makes mistakes.”

  “True, and I was young at the time, but too careless that night.”

  Stokes meant that his father was the one who made the mistake by saving Grote’s ass. He was actually surprised he’d been able to stop himself from saying so out loud. It was exactly the kind of thing he might have said nearly any other time, the kind of thing he’d said two years ago to make Grote almost kill him.

  Grote stared hard at him and Stokes wondered if the wiseass comments in his head showed on his face. Grote turned his attention to the nail on his pinky. “You have someplace else to be?”

  “Huh?”

  “That’s the third time you looked at your watch. Usually, I see that one time, I have my guys take your watch. I see it again, I think about having your hand broken. I cut you slack here because of your father, but be careful.”

  Stokes nodded.

  “So why’d you get me out of bed?”

  Stokes drew a breath. “I need some money.”

  Grote stopped snipping. He seemed to stop breathing for a moment. It felt like the air had been sucked from the room. If Stokes thought he could look at his watch without pissing off Grote, he wouldn’t have been surprised if it had stopped ticking.

  “You got me out of bed for a fucking loan?”

  Brower snickered.

  “I figured maybe you thought you had some bright idea for me, something you thought I’d be interested in investing in. Some heist or shady land deal or something. There’s no way I would have even considered whatever the hell you were talking about, of course, but I thought there would have at least been something in it for me. But no, you came here, got me out of bed, to ask for a loan?”

  “Well,” Stokes said, “I’m under a time pressure here. I need the money fast. I can’t wait until the banks open tomorrow.”

  “Yeah, and I’m sure they’d be dying to open their vaults for a guy like you. What’s this about? The money you owe Frank Nickerson? What was that? Seventy, eighty grand, right? Plus interest.”

  Stokes shouldn’t have been surprised to hear that Grote knew about that loan.

  “Nah, I paid Nickerson off.”

  “Really? All of it?”

  “A hundred thousand.”

  “When?”

  “Today.”

  “And you need money again already?”

  Stokes shrugged.

  “How much?”

  “A hundred and three thousand.”

  “Why the fuck did you pay Nickerson off if you still needed the money?”

  “His sons didn’t seem like they were in the mood to negotiate.”

  Grote chuckled. “Yeah, those two are crazy.”

  “So how about it?”

  “What? A loan?”

  “Yeah.”

  “A hundred and three thousand bucks?”

  Stokes nodded.

  “What was it you called me last time you saw me? I can’t quite remember.”

  Stokes sighed. “I can’t remember, either.”

  “Try.” It wasn’t a request.

  Stokes sighed again. “An ugly fuck.” Grote nodded, like he was just now remembering. Stokes quickly added, “It was in the heat of the moment, Mr. Grote. I didn’t mean it and I’d never say anything like that again.”

  “No? You called me something else, too, I think. What was it?”

  Stokes hesitated before saying, “Don Corleone wannabe.”

  Grote nodded again. “Right again. I remember now. But I think it was ‘Piece of shit Don Corleone wannabe.’ ”

  Stokes lowered his head.

  Grote asked, “You have any idea how many people have ever talked to me like that and lived?”

  “Two dozen?”

  “Goddamn smart-ass.”

  Stokes thought he heard Brower crack his knuckles. He knew if he looked at the bruiser, the guy would be grinning savagely from ear to ear.

  “And what was it I said to you?” Grote asked. “Before my guys pushed you out the door.”

  “You mean pushed me through the door. It was closed at the time.”

  “Yeah, I remember. So what was it I said as you were leaving?”

  “I don’t think it was ‘Have a nice day.’ ”

  “What did I say?”

  “You said not to let you see my face ever again.”

  “And what am I looking at right now.”

  “Your thumbnail.”

  “How about now?”

  “My face.”

  And he was. He was looking at Stokes with a predator’s cold eyes . . . the way a snake looks at you, without emotion, like he doesn’t care you’re there, you don’t piss him off, you aren’t even worth consideration, until he swallows you whole. Stokes dropped his eyes, which turned out to be a bad idea.

  “Jesus Christ, Stokes, what’d I say about looking at your watch?”

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Grote.”

  “What did I say?”

  Stokes sucked in a breath. “First time, you take the watch.”

  “Then?”

  Stokes sighed. “Something about breaking a hand.”

  Grote nodded, only he was nodding to Brower, who was suddenly striding across the room. Stokes backed up a step, bumped against a chair, and Brower shoved him down into it. Before Stokes could react, Brower pinned his left hand to a table, picked up an iron statue of a guy on a horse, and slammed the base on Stokes’s fingers. Stokes howled. Brower smiled. Broken fingers throbbed. At least three of them. Grote clipped another fingernail.

  Stokes rested his battered hand in his lap. His thumb and index finger seemed unharmed. The other fingers screamed in pain.

  Grote gave Stokes a moment to collect himself. As long as his head was down, he stole a peek at his watch: 12:35. Holy shit, his hand hurt.

  Stokes sucked in a breath, then another. He tried to speak without letting them h
ear the agony in his voice. “So what about the loan, Mr. Grote? I really need the money.”

  Grote looked surprised for a split second, as if he thought the finger-breaking incident would sour Stokes on the whole loan idea. He started in on the nails on his other hand, letting Stokes twist in silence for half a minute or so.

  “What do you need it for?”

  To pay to your goddamn thugs, you ugly bastard, to get a scared, innocent little girl out of your goddamn custody and back into her own life.

  “I’d rather not say what the money’s for, Mr. Grote.”

  Grote shook his head. “Your balls are way too fucking big, Stokes. They’re gonna get you killed.”

  “I thought you said my mouth was gonna get me killed.”

  “Your mouth or your balls. One of them will get you killed.”

  “Tonight?”

  This time Grote definitely didn’t chuckle.

  “So how about the money?” Stokes asked again.

  “You came here thinking I’d give you a hundred thousand dollars because your father saved my life decades ago.”

  Stokes nodded. His broken fingers pulsed with the blood flowing through them, and each beat of his heart intensified the pain.

  “Even though you don’t have a dime to your name,” Grote said, “and no collateral but that shitty trailer you live in, and no obvious means of repaying the loan.”

  “When you put it like that . . .”

  “And you think I’ll do this just because your dad saved my ass a lifetime ago.”

  “That was my plan anyway. So how about it? For good old, piece-of-shit, walk-out-on-his-family dad.”

  Grote fixed Stokes in the sights of his eyes. “Your father was a buddy of mine. He saved my life a long time ago. That’s why I gave you a job a few years ago when you came knocking. That’s why, when you pussied out and couldn’t follow orders and only broke one knee when I told you to break two, and when you mouthed off with your smart-guy wisecracks, saying things no one without a death wish would say to me, thinking you were bulletproof because your old man saved my bacon one time, well, your father was the reason I only had my guys rough you up a little. It was why I didn’t have them break every bone in your body, turn you into a vegetable, and leave you in a gutter, or maybe just put a bullet through your face. All that, I did for your father. Debt repaid, as far as I’m concerned. He saved me, I spared you. A life for a life. So I don’t owe you a loan now. In fact, I ought to let Brower here loose on you again. He looks like he enjoyed smashing your fingers. I can only imagine how much he’d like to do whatever the hell he’d like to do to you.”