by Amy Vansant
The large, one-story brick building appeared quiet. Though it possessed a counter and a glowing “Open” sign, she suspected in this more industrial part of town, this branch of Irony served more as a cleaning hub than a customer center.
As they grew closer, Charlotte spotted an alley running along the left side of the building, large enough for a car to enter.
“This looks like it leads to the back of the building.”
“You don’t just want to go in the front and tell them you came to pick up your old man?”
Charlotte chuckled. “I don’t have my ticket.”
They slipped down the alley and entered a fenced backyard largely consisting of dirt, cars and dumpsters. It appeared the employees used it for off-street parking.
Charlotte headed for the back door. She felt a hand grip her shoulder.
“Hold on there, Kojak. Let me go first.”
Charlotte rolled her eyes. “I think I liked it better when you were hiding your past and let me take the lead.”
“I never let you put yourself in danger just to keep my secret.”
“You did a little.”
“Did not. How about this. Did you bring a gun?”
Declan had caught her off-guard. Though she had the permit, she hadn’t gotten used to the idea of carrying one.
“No. I haven’t decided if I’m more of a Batman or a Punisher.”
“Wow. Keeping your goals in check I see. You’ve gone from you know, I think I might want to be a detective to I’m basically a superhero in three months.”
“I didn’t say I’m a superhero, I just meant no-gun vs gun.”
“But a hero, either way.”
“Well sure, hey, here’s an idea. Can we try and find Ryan please?”
She gave him a playful shove towards the door.
Declan crept up the short stairs to the windowless back door and tried the knob.
“Locked.”
Charlotte grimaced. There were windows on either side of the door, but both hung too high to see through.
“If I stood on your shoulders, I could look in those windows.”
“If you stood on my shoulders? What are we, a circus act now?”
“Come on. There has to be a way to do it. I’ll take my shoes off. I know your main issue with the idea is getting footprints on your shirt.”
“Very funny. Fine. But then we need to leave this to the police.”
Charlotte offered a non-committal grunt and yanked off her sneakers as Declan took his position beneath the first window.
“How do we do this?” asked Charlotte.
“I’ll squat down, you climb up and stand on my shoulders and use the wall to keep your balance. Then I’ll stand and you walk yourself up the wall with your hands.”
“So you’re basically going to do squats with me on your shoulders.”
“Just the one.”
“Okay.”
With a little trial and error, suppressing giggles, Charlotte managed to perch on Declan’s shoulders.
“Ready?” he asked.
“Ready.”
He stood and she worked her way up the brick wall with her palms to keep her balance as she rose.
“That was too fast,” she said, nearly toppling.
“The slower I rise the harder it is. You’re not one of those super petite girls, you know.”
“Are you kidding? I’m like a tiny little flower—”
Charlotte cut short. The window had a shade over it, but it was torn. Through the hole, she could see a dark-haired woman sitting in a chair. She had a white shirt tied around her head. It looked as though her hands were bound to the arms of the chair. Charlotte squinted. On the woman’s finger sat a large golden ring shaped like a frog.
Gloria.
How could Gloria be captured here too?
She gave the window a jerk and it opened easily. She thrust her top half through, hanging there while she tried to get the rest of herself in.
“Charlotte!” she heard Declan hiss beneath her.
Charlotte half-slithered and half-collapsed to the ground. Jumping to her feet, she searched for signs that someone had heard her. The room was empty but for Gloria, who’d heard the commotion of her entry and now strained to catch a glimpse.
Charlotte moved to her friend and pulled the makeshift shirt gag from her mouth.
“What are you doing here?” she asked. She’d never seen Gloria so distraught. Her cheeks were streaked with tears that had fallen as far as they could before being absorbed by the gag.
“Oh Charlotte, I’m so glad you’re here. They’re going to kill us.”
“Us?”
“They have Ryan, too.”
Charlotte plucked at Gloria’s bindings, cursing to herself that she didn’t carry a pocketknife of some sort. She made a mental note to add that to the list of things she needed to carry at all times. No wonder Batman wore a utility belt.
“I need to let Declan in. Stay here.”
“Don’t leave me!”
“I won’t. Shh!”
Charlotte peeked through the room’s only door into an empty hallway. To the left, she could see down to a windowed door. Through it, workers pressed clothes. To the right, she saw the door to the backyard. She tiptoed down the hall to unlock and open the door. Declan was there looking irritated.
“There you are. I didn’t know if you’d crawled in the window or if someone had grabbed you.”
“Sorry. I found Gloria.”
“Gloria? Your client?”
Charlotte put her finger over her lips and motioned for him to follow her.
As they headed down the hall, a toilet flushed behind a door across from the room where Gloria sat.
Declan and Charlotte looked at each other. Charlotte scampered into the room with Declan on her heels and they shut the door.
“Declan, Gloria, my client. Gloria, this is Declan, my boyfriend.”
“I think we met before,” said Gloria.
“Okay, we’ll do the social stuff later.” Charlotte looked at Declan. “I need to get her untied. Do you have a knife?”
He shook his head.
“There’s no way to get these zip-ties undone without scissors or something. I’ve tried to chew through them before. It’s impossible.”
Declan frowned. “Should I ask when you were in a position to chew through zip-ties?”
“I was just seeing if it could be done. It can’t.”
Declan shook his head. “I worry about you sometimes.”
Gloria stomped her zip-tied little feet. “You have to hurry. Dallas will be back.”
“Dallas?” She looked at Declan and knew they both suspected that’s who they’d heard in the bathroom.
As if on cue, they heard a door open in the hallway and a man whistling.
“Here he comes,” said Charlotte.
“Don’t leave me here!” wailed Gloria.
The door began to open and Declan and Charlotte threw themselves against the wall behind it.
A skinny young man entered, fiddling with the leather belt that held up his baggy jeans. He looked up at Gloria.
“Hey, what happened to your gag—”
Declan reached past Charlotte and grabbed Dallas by his t-shirt with one hand, striking him hard in the face with his opposite fist.
Charlotte thought she saw Dallas’s eyes cross as he slumped to the ground.
Charlotte and Declan stared at him. He didn’t move.
“Did you kill him?” asked Charlotte.
Declan squatted beside the body, feeling for a pulse. “No. Glass jaw I guess. He’s unconscious.”
Charlotte shrugged. “That works. I need to get Gloria out of here.”
“He has a knife in his pocket,” said Gloria, nodding toward the motionless body. “I watched him pick his teeth with it. It’s one of those poppy kind.”
Charlotte squinted. “Poppy?”
Declan searched Dallas’s pockets and retrieved a switch blade. He h
it the release and the blade popped forth.
Charlotte nodded. “Ah. Poppy.”
Declan cut the zip-tie binding Gloria to the chair and helped her to her feet. “Let’s go.”
Charlotte put her hand on Declan’s arm. “Gloria said Ryan is still here. She said they’re going to kill him.”
Declan scowled. “Don’t even think about going after him. Call the police. We need to get her out while we can.”
Charlotte nodded and retrieved her phone to dial 911 as they made their way out the back door. By the time they’d reached Declan’s car, they could hear sirens.
“They’re coming,” said Charlotte.
Declan helped Gloria into his back seat. The tiny woman was shaking.
“We should take her to the hospital.”
Charlotte stared down the street in the direction of the dry cleaning. Just past that brick building, the nose of a car poked from an alley.
The hood had flames painted on it.
“That’s Pirro’s car,” said Charlotte, pointing.
Declan followed her direction. The car pulled out of the alley and tore off away from the dry cleaning.
“He’s getting away.”
“You want me to chase him?” asked Declan.
“Yes—we don’t have to catch him, but we can keep eyes on him.”
Declan shook his head. “I don’t know...” he mumbled, but he’d already pulled from the curb. They drove ten feet before a cop pulled in front of the dry cleaners, blocking their way. Declan attempted to circumvent the officer, but a mob of workers poured from the building, filling the streets and making it impossible to go anywhere without hitting someone.
“He got away,” said Charlotte.
Declan put his car into park.
Chapter Thirty
“You again,” said Frank.
Charlotte grinned. “I told you I’d be coming by for an update.”
An ambulance had arrived on scene at Irony to take Gloria in for a checkup. Other than some friction burns on her wrists and shot nerves, she seemed fine.
Declan needed to go back to work, so Charlotte dropped him off—promised she’d stay out of trouble—and borrowed his car to visit Frank, her direct hotline to the police. She needed to know if they’d caught Pirro.
Frank tapped his computer keyboard to spring the darkened screen to life. “Yeah, yeah. I called them for you. They found that car with all the flames and plaid you told them about.”
Charlotte perked. “They did? Did they find Ryan? He wasn’t in the building. Pirro must have taken him hostage.”
Frank shook his head. “No people, just the car.”
Charlotte slumped. “Where’d they find it?”
“Out off of route sixty. Not far from Jackie’s disco.”
“How could they just disappear?”
Frank shrugged. “If it makes you feel any better, from what I understand there were two sets of footprints, but they lost them in the swamp.”
Charlotte stared at the floor, thinking.
“You look like you just lost your best friend,” said Frank.
“Pirro must have taken Ryan to be sure he had leverage in case the cops had him cornered. But now that he’s free, there’s no reason for him not to kill his hostage.”
“They didn’t find a body. That’s a good sign, right?’
“I suppose. I’ll get out of your hair. Thanks again.”
“No problem. Hey, good work finding Gloria.”
“Thanks. Tell me if you hear anything about Ryan.”
Frank nodded. “I will.”
Charlotte returned to Declan’s car and pointed it in the direction of his shop. She was nearly there when she found herself making a U-turn and heading toward Jackie’s club.
Why would Pirro head right for the swamp?
There had to be a hideout there she’d missed. He wouldn’t return to Jackie’s club. That wouldn’t make any sense.
Something was eating at her.
The pipeline they’d followed to escape their own personal disco-Alamo had a hatch that popped up in the middle of the swamp.
Could he have headed for that?
No. There wasn’t any reason to try for that entry point. First, it was locked from the inside—she’d made sure of that—and the only other place it lead was—
The diner.
That’s what’s eating at me.
Mariska said the diner hadn’t had any pie. There’d been a kitchen, but no food. There had been some men sitting in the dining area having coffee...
She recalled the map Jackie had found in her parking lot and the half-hearted second pipeline leading from what turned out to be the diner.
What if it wasn’t a diner at all. What if it was a pretend diner, serving as a nexus between pipelines. A popping out point.
If Jackie’s club had been the warehouse, maybe the diner served as the pickup spot for distribution, a spot where they could supply dealers without revealing the location of their warehouse.
And if there was a second pipeline leading from the diner, where would it go?
Warehouse, distribution center...
Safe house.
They needed a safe house. Stash houses and warehouses could be discovered and raided. They needed a safe place to hide if things went bad.
Wouldn’t that be where Pirro would go?
Charlotte hit the gas. She needed to find the entrance to the second pipeline. It would lead her to the safe house.
It would lead her to Ryan.
Chapter Thirty-One
Stephanie’s chest hurt. The operation had gone well, her lung had been inflated like a beach ball, but everything hurt.
It had been a terrible twenty-four hours.
First I forget my gun, then I get shot...
It was like she’d never even killed someone before.
She wasn’t sure how much longer she could lie in bed. There was no way she’d be eating hospital food, so they’d have to set her free or watch her wither away and die of starvation.
There was a thud on the door of her room and she watched it shudder. It opened six inches, and a face, about waist-high, appeared.
An angry old woman muttered beneath her breath.
“Will you give me a push, Ruslan?”
A young man appeared above and behind the woman. He opened the door wide enough to roll the wheelchair-bound woman into the room.
Stephanie recognized the young man. He was Louis’s flunky, the boy who’d popped his head into the room during her last meeting in Louis’s office.
“What are you doing here?’ asked Stephanie. It still hurt a little to talk.
Ruslan nodded toward the old woman as he parked her beside the bed.
Stephanie lowered her view to focus on the old woman. She had an impressive coif of dark hair and a determined glare she used to hold Stephanie’s attention before speaking.
“I need you to earn your million.”
Stephanie arched an eyebrow. “My million?”
“My son offered you a million dollars to wipe out his rival.”
Stephanie pictured the photograph she’d seen in Louis’s mother’s bedroom. The woman posing with her husband was considerably younger in that image, but Stephanie could see the similarities. She also detected the touch of a French accent.
“You’re Georgette? I thought Louis put you away in a home.”
Georgette smirked. “You’re charming.”
Stephanie chuckled, stopping when the pain started.
“Do you want to know who eez rival eez?” asked Georgette.
Stephanie licked her lips. Lying in her hospital bed with nothing else to do, she thought she’d pieced together the identity of her target. She felt stupid, not having realized it sooner.
She smoothed her blanket. “Let’s assume I know what you’re talking about.”
Georgette nodded. “Let’s.”
“Good. Now, if I were an assassin, hired by your son to kill his rival, I would gu
ess the mystery man was...” Stephanie looked at the tall young man standing against the wall behind Georgette. “Can I get a drumroll?”
Ruslan’s eyes widened. “Me?”
“Who else?”
He glanced at Georgette. She didn’t turn to give him any indication of her feelings on the topic, so he stuck out his index fingers and pretended to drum while fluttering his tongue to approximate the rhythm.
“Thththththththththth...”
Stephanie held up her right hand—holding aloft her left hurt too much—and made her announcement with flair. “Pirro!”
The drumroll ceased.
Georgette’s expression didn’t change.
Stephanie frowned. “Pirro. Right? He’s pretending to help Louis while building a gang of his own?”
“Wouldn’t ’ee have killed you when you started snuffing his underbosses?”
Stephanie shrugged with her right shoulder. “He did. I mean, he tried to.”
“And then?”
“And then?”
“’Ee didn’t try again?”
“Aah...no.” Stephanie pouted. The old broad had a good point. “I figured he was too afraid Louis would be mad at the news of my death?”
Georgette laughed, coughed, and then laughed again. “Have you met my son?”
“Yes. I—”
“Do you think Pirro would ever worry about disappointing Louis? Of losing control over him?”
Stephanie sighed. “I guess not.”
“Why?”
“Because your son is a schmuck. No offense.”
“None taken. You’re right. Eez an idiot. But eez my idiot. Which is why I always keep eyes on him.”
Stephanie and the young man exchanged a glance.
“So you had spies.”
Georgette jerked a thumb in the boy’s direction. “Ruslan is on loan from a Russian business associate of mine.”
“So you know about me. And you know Pirro is using Louis.”
Georgette nodded.
“But Pirro isn’t his rival on the streets. Pirro genuinely wanted me to wipe out the rival leader and his crew?”
Georgette nodded.
“But that man waiting to kill me—only Louis and Pirro knew—”
Georgette used her eyes to point at Ruslan behind her. “You suspected a mole, perhaps?”
