Solid Gold

by Stephanie Andrews

  “Keep your hands where I can see them!” he barked.

  “Woah,” I said, but didn’t stop what I was doing. “I just need to rest my feet. I think I sprained an ankle down there in the billiard room. I keep getting this really sharp pain.”

  The man looked over at Negron.

  “It’s okay, Vargas. Just no sudden moves,” he said looking back to me. I finished loosening the laces on both boots and then leaned back against the chair.

  “What’s up with that, anyway? I just fought four of your guys, just down the hall, and you didn’t come help. You must have heard the gunshots.”

  Negron smiled. “Oh, we did. In fact, we watched the whole thing on the surveillance cameras,” he said, nodding toward a flatscreen TV above the bar. “Very entertaining. Nice use of the pool cue.”

  “I could show you how,” I offered, picturing crushing his skull with one enormous blow.

  “That’s quite alright,” he replied. “I can’t really do much physical activity since you broke my elbow and snapped all the tendons.”

  I looked at his right arm, hanging limp. “That’s right. Sorry about that. You should probably have just cut a deal with the Shelbys. They can cause a lot of havoc.”

  “Yes, so I’ve found out today.”

  I jerked my head back toward the stairwell. “So, you just let those guys die?”

  “Well, they needn’t have died. They could have stopped you. I think of it as a kind of natural selection exercise for my men. If they can’t cut it, I don’t really need them around.”

  “Hmmph. Doesn’t look like you have that many men left here.”

  “That’s true, you and your friends did an excellent job of drawing most of them away.”

  “Operation Anthill.”

  He chuckled. “I like that, I see.”

  “Well, Operation Tacky Gold Penthouse didn’t have the same ring.”

  His smiled twitched. I could tell he was getting tired of playing the sophisticated, suave villain.

  “No matter, my men will return shortly, after they have finished dealing with your associates. Though I must say it is going to take weeks to put this place back together again. My only consolation is how much fun it is going to be slowly torturing you and your friends, and then going to Chicago and tearing down the Shelby empire brick by brick.”

  “If you say so,” I said.

  “I do,” he responded. “I think it’s time to begin. Are you comfortable, is there anything you need?”

  I motioned toward Park. “Can your maid get me a bottle of water? I am so thirsty.”

  Negron laughed, and the man standing behind Park laughed too.

  “Nice try, but I know that you know this young lady.”

  “I’ve never seen her before in my life,” I said.

  “Really,” said Vargas, “that’s interesting. We found her sneaking around in the staff offices. What are the odds of two unrelated people breaking into the same remote residence at the same time?”

  “Three,” I said, pointing at Cosmo, who smiled grimly back at me. He didn’t seem to be having nearly as good a time as I was.

  “Oh,” said Vargas. “You don’t know him, either?”

  “I don’t, and I’ve got to ask, what’s with the shirt?”

  Vargas looked down.

  “I’m head of security. I got called in when all this loco mierda started happening in Veracruz. I was at a party.”

  “Well,” I said. “Be that as it may, I only came her with one person, and she’s very excited to have a person to person chat with you. She should be along any minute.” I looked at my wrist, but there was no watch there.

  “Selena?” Negron said, with a barking laugh. I smiled. “I know for a fact,” he continued, “that she is in a hospital in Houston, as we speak.”

  I shrugged. “Have it your way. I’ll just say that someone with a long brown ponytail is in a hospital in Houston. It must be her. The Shelby’s aren’t nearly clever enough to pull that kind of bait and switch.”

  Negron stepped into the center of the room, his confident look faltered slightly. He set his drink on the dining table in the middle of the room and pulled his cell phone from his pocket.

  “If you just tell me where Valentina Salerno is, maybe we can end this peaceably.”

  He ignored me, pushed one more button on his phone, and I heard a series of clicks come from the door at the bottom of the stairs behind me.

  “Should I go take a look, boss?”

  “No Vargas, don’t be stupid. She’d slit your throat before you knew she was even there.”

  Vargas looked like he wanted to argue the point, but Negron returned the phone to his pocket and waved him away.

  “It’s no matter, either way. I’ve activated the lockdown procedures. Nobody is getting in our out of this room until I’m ready.” He picked his drink up again, swirling the ice cubes around, and took a drink. “Now, Ms...”

  “Riley’s fine,” I said.

  “Ms. Riley, you’ve wasted enough time.”

  “Have I?” I asked. “I guess we’ll know in a minute.”

  Negron pulled out a dining chair and sat down. He reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a switchblade, swicking it open. “We are going to begin,” he announced, “but cutting off this young woman’s fingers, and feeding them to the big giant here. He looks like he has quite an appetite.”

  The color drained from Park’s face. She made a move to get off the stool, but the guard put one hand on her shoulder, and touched the back of her head with the tip of his gun. I started to rise. But Vargas clicked his tongue at me and pointed his gun. “Sit. Hands where I can see them.”

  I could see Cosmo straining against the ropes, but they wouldn’t give. By this time, if the plan had stayed on track, Marty would already have control of all of Negron’s computers, and we would not only know the location of Valentina, but we would likely have begun dismantling Negron’s entire empire: draining accounts, wiping files and sending false signals to all his associates.

  But the plan hadn’t stayed on track. The little gizmo that would give Marty the satellite link he needed was still in the front pocket of my jeans. I looked up through the glass ceiling, hoping to see T.C.’s red helicopter heading our way. Surely, they would realize it had all gone wrong and come to save us.

  “Start with my fingers,” I said, holding up my left hand. “I’m already missing a couple anyway. Or my toes. Somethings been cutting into my right foot all day as it is.”

  “Oh no,” said Negron. “You are going to sit right there and watch. If you try to rise from that chair, Vargas will shoot you. You are going to watch, and then I am going to break both your elbows, for a start—”

  He was interrupted by the sudden cessation of the music, which frankly had been beginning to annoy me anyway. Negron cocked his head and listened as the music was replaced with the sound of a radio tuner sliding up and down the frequencies, then that was followed by the elastic bouncing and pinging sound of a dial-up modem. Then a computerized voice came over the speakers:

  “Greetings, Professor Falken. Would you like to play a game?”

  Thirty-six

  “What the...?” said Vargas.

  “Who the hell is Falcon?” asked the man guarding Park. He looked around wildly at Negron, but Negron was scowling, his mind running through the possibilities.

  Suddenly the speakers gave a squelch of feedback, followed by a thumping sound like somebody tapping on a live microphone.

  “Hello?” came Marty’s voice, and I exhaled a long breath that I hadn’t even realized I was holding. “Testing, hello? Mr. Negron, are you there? Tony?”

  Negron jumped to his feet. “Who the hell are you?”

  “Santa. Mr. Claus, if you will. That’s not important. What is important is that I have just downloaded everything from your computers, and now I’m going to wipe them clean.”

  “That’s impossible!” spat Negron. “You’re lying. You’d have to att
ach a satellite link directly to the mainframe to do that, you’d have to...”

  His voice trailed off and he turned to stare at El, who just smiled and winked. Of course! Of course Marty had given her a device as well. I could have been mad at his lack of faith in me, but just then I wanted to kiss him.

  “You bitch!” Negron growled, and his eyes took on a crazy look. He started across the floor toward her, the knife in his hand.

  “Santa!” I shouted. “Can you just unlock all the doors so that Selena can get in?”

  This brought Negron up short, just for a second, and we all heard the door click as the locks released.

  “Waiting out there must be driving her to distraction!” I added.

  Negron paused for a long moment, then smiled when no one came through the door.

  “Distraction!” I said again, my voice straining.

  Negron raised his knife.

  A piercing howl came through the speakers at top volume, a frequency so high that it felt like my teeth would explode. I thought I was going to wet myself. Instead, I kicked my right foot, hard, sending my loose boot sailing off my foot.

  Vargas, who had covered his ears with his forearms, saw it coming at him, but it fell short and landed on the couch next to Cosmo. Vargas grinned and turned back to me, raising his gun hand as he did, only to find the cane chair I had been sitting on flying at his head. He blocked it with his arm, but when his line of sight cleared I was already half way over the bar and dropping behind it for cover.

  Cosmo rolled sideways off the couch, grabbing my boot with his teeth as he went. He had to know there was something good in there. I’d dropped enough hints.

  Meanwhile, the other guard had turned toward the wall and shot out both speakers. The vicious sound stopped, but the distraction cost him. As he turned back, Park whipped her head back, catching him in jaw. The sudden pain made him jerk involuntarily, and his gun went off. Negron screamed and dropped his knife, clutching his thigh. Park fell sideways off the stool and landed on her feet. She jumped straight into the air, tucked her feet up to her butt, and pulled her arms underneath her, landing with her cuffed hands in front. She grabbed the wooden stool in front of her with both hands and spun around one hundred and eighty degrees, smashing it against the side of the guard’s head. He fell to the ground and I rushed out from behind the bar, tackling Park as Vargas shot the air right where she had been standing. I let go of her and rolled on, leaping to my feet but losing my balance and falling again, rolling until I came up against the leg of the dining table.

  Vargas stepped forward, trying to get a clear shot at Park, but Negron was in the way. Frustrated, he turned the gun toward me, but that was when Cosmo suddenly loomed up behind him. He had used the knife from my boot to cut himself free, and now he grabbed Vargas’s head in both his hands and twisted it quickly, snapping his neck.

  “Stop!” yelled Negron as Vargas fell dead to the floor, his pistol clattering away. Negron stood by the end of the bar, looming over Park, who had struggled up to her hands and knees. He was straddling her back, and held the guard’s pistol to the back of her head.

  “Nobody move,” he hissed. Blood ran down his leg, grotesque as it soaked his white linen pants. “I will shoot her in the head.”

  Park whimpered. I looked at Cosmo, he was at the other end of the bar, at least ten feet away from them. He’d never close the distance in time. I was in the middle of the room, also too far away.

  “You,” Negron barked at Cosmo. “In the middle of the room, now!”

  “I’m sorry,” said Cosmo, in his calm, deep voice. His breathing was steady, and he held up an unshaking hand. “I’m sorry but you’ve figured this wrong.”

  “I said move.”

  “If I leap at you, from here,” continued Cosmo, calmly, “you can’t shoot Ellery and then shoot me. There’s not enough time. If you shoot her, I will kill you.”

  “Be quiet,” hissed Negron.

  “If I leap at you, you’ll have to shoot me first. And you might not kill me with one shot.”

  Cosmo took a step forward, and Negron had second thoughts. He shifted the gun suddenly, raising it off Park’s head and pointing it at Cosmo, staring at the big man and trying to assess the situation, which was when I pulled the gun out of the small of my back and shot Negron in the chest.

  Thirty-seven

  You can be against something, on moral grounds, but in the end, we protect what we love. Whatever it takes. Whatever that makes us into.

  On the lighter side, we found a lot of gold! After T.C. arrived and flew Cosmo and Jorge off to the hospital, Park and I gathered all the gold statues and threw them down the elevator shaft. We’d load them into the van at the bottom, along with the two million dollars in American money that we found in Negron’s safe.

  We ziptied the eight guards that we found alive and left them in the billiard room. Eventually, they’d make their way to the kitchen and cut themselves free, but we’d be long gone.

  WHEN I SHOT NEGRON, his gun had discharged and he hit Cosmo in the stomach, right where his appendix scar was. Luckily, Ruby, Don and Nick arrived just a few minutes later. They had been on their way as soon as Marty had picked up the satellite signal. They called in T.C. and he was able to drop a rope and harness right to the overhanging deck.

  Nick and I embraced, but it was awkward and tentative. I was too tired to worry about it right then. Ruby pulled me into her arms, and ushered Park and I down to the kitchen to take a look at our wounds, which were all superficial except for my back, which was going to scab up and take a while to heal.

  We were all going to take a while to heal.

  Thirty-eight

  Three days later, I was diving a Land Rover up a long dirt road in the north of Mexico. The sun was getting low, so I took my sunglasses out of my breast pocket and put them on. I looked over to see how Selena was doing, but she had fallen asleep in passenger’s seat. She still had a lot of recovery left, but she was going to be fine.

  Agent Carter had kept his word, and not charged her with anything. He was pleasantly surprised to receive a massive information download to his home computer in St. Louis, containing detailed information on all of Negron’s bank accounts, safe houses, trafficking associates, and many of the details of his drug trade. When I spoke to him on the phone, he also expressed surprise that we hadn’t drained the aforementioned bank accounts.

  “That would be wrong,” I said, indignantly. I failed to mention the gold and the cash that we had found.

  “Anyway, I just wanted to say thanks.”

  “I think it worked out well for both of us,” I said.

  “Me too. I can’t wait until we work together again.”

  “That, is not happening.”

  “Maybe just a nice dinner, then?”

  “Absolutely not.”

  “You know, I could tell the Chicago police that you are still alive.”

  “You could, but I have to tell you that Selena Salerno owes me a favor, and I don’t think you want to be on the receiving end of that.”

  “Point taken.”

  I hung up.

  DON HAD PRESENTED ME with a bill for $975,000 dollars for the expenses incurred in carrying out his flawless plan. I raised my eyebrows at “flawless,” but was mollified when he told me that my cut of the take would be one point five million dollars, once T. C. had found a buyer for the gold.

  PARK AND RUBY OFFERED to come with us, but I told them to get Marty back to Chicago before Mike took over the company. As always, I was incredibly proud of them. Who knows how many lives we had saved by taking Negron down. Maybe someone else would just step into his place, but that kind of cynicism could wait for another day.

  AS I CRESTED THE LAST hill, the sun was almost gone. The sky over the sea was an amazing orange, darkening to red. Selena stirred beside me, opening her eyes. She looked up at me and suddenly remembered where she was and what we were doing. She sat up straight.

  “How far?”

/>   “We’re here.” I pulled the Rover off the road and onto a set of car tracks that led away from the ocean and wound its way up a hillside, until we came out into a wide clearing at the top. The orphanage was an old abandoned church that had been converted to living space, with a cinder block addition jutting out from one side. There were no other buildings as far as the eye could see.

  When I shut off the engine, we could hear the sound of children playing drifting on the wind. I helped Selena out of the passenger’s side, and we walked slowly around the corner of the building. On a makeshift field, a dozen kids were playing soccer. Standing on the sidelines, talking with Jorge Alvarez, was a woman who had to be Valentina. Not just because of her resemblance to Selena, but because of the way Selena burst into uncontrollable sobs when she saw her.

  JORGE SET HIS CRUTCHES against the side of the Rover and leaned back against the vehicle. Selena and Valentina were in the church, getting dinner ready for the kids.

  “My cousins,” said Jorge, continuing our conversation, “they get my call and they come up here loaded for bear, but there’s just one guard, not much older than some of the kids. He sees them, he just puts his gun down. He only had this job because he had pissed Negron off. It’s a long way to anywhere, if she tried to escape, and Negron had told her he would kill all the ninos if she did.”

  “Strange man. All this time, we thought she was being sold into the sex trade, and he has her out here, teaching orphans.”

  “Valentina thinks half of the kids are probably his, or that this is where he takes the babies when some of his workers get pregnant.”

  “Cheery.” I looked at the sky. “I better get going if I’m not going to be stuck on this road in the dark. Are you sure you don’t mind staying here a few days, just to be sure it’s safe?”