But if she were looking, Nico might be up close to the top of the list. Even if he reminded her of somebody else.
She put that thought away.
“I’ll think about it, Nico. I got to tell you, I’m not sure if I’m up for it. Not just the PT, I can get back in shape…I just don’t know if I want to deal with the bullshit about being the only woman. I got a short fuse, as you know.”
He laughed. “Yeah, I know about the fuse. Just give it a think, Nina. Some of the guys will be breaking balls irregardless. But you got some fans on the team, too. I’m not the only one mentioning your name.”
“Let me guess,” Nina said. “Personnel is worrying about the underrepresentation of women and people of color in the “elite” units of the Lake City PD?”
Nico looked away, then back, slight embarrassment but no bullshit. “Yeah, there’s that. There’s always gonna be that. Don’t take away from you.”
Nina walked away, said over her shoulder. “I’ll think about it, Nico. And thanks for the offer, I appreciate it. But don’t hold your breath. I got other things to do, things I’m more passionate about than kicking in doors. I like catching the creeps I catch.”
Nico watched her walk away.
***
I was waiting for Deon in the back of the bar, sipping coffee instead of a beer. I’d had a late, late night with Ms. Lizzy, and I didn’t want to dull my memories of that with boozes. I wanted to linger in that. I wanted to linger on the image of her sleeping in my bed, the coffee together in the late morning, small talk for once, warm silence.
Warmth.
Around her I felt as though I had been out in the cold for so long that I’d lost any sense of what it was like to be warm, to be comfortable…to be human. Was that what she was supposed to bring out of me? That warmth, that humanness…had I really been so far away from that?
I didn’t know.
I felt uncomfortable with that kind of thinking. It was new to me, alien, something I never did, a country I’d never crossed into. But then, this whole thing with her was alien country. Strange attraction, to someone I thought was a beautiful hooker…and turned out to be beautiful, yes, but something entirely different. Appearances were so facile…you never really know what someone is like, till you spend the time with them, get past the surface, just like you can’t judge a book by it’s cover, despite the best efforts of the marketers, not until you’re deep in the pages and lost in the story does it’s true value, it’s true worth rise up, like something swimming across a still pond, something unseen.
I put those thoughts away and turned to the task of killing.
Or not killing.
That was the territory I had to traverse today. And that was familiar ground to me. I let my thoughts roll back, to all the places, all the faces…
That was familiar territory.
I felt Deon come in before I saw him. He waved to Theiu and came right to the table instead of lingering to pick up a beer. He saw that I was drinking coffee, and nodded.
“Good idea, oke.”
He waved to Theiu, who came right over. “Darling, a cup of coffee, cream and sugar, lots of sugar, please.”
“You sick today?” Thieu said.
“No, my sweet. Just need a change.”
He crossed his hands, like the class cut up pretending to be well behaved, waited until Thieu brought him his coffee. He wrapped his hands around the mug, inhaled the aroma.
“Bloody awful coffee she makes, oke.”
I shrugged. “It’ll put lead in your pencil.”
“That it will.”
“So?”
“We talked,” he said. “She’s considering it. I think she’s putting together a strike package just in case. And she may go for it anyway. She is not the logical thinker necessarily; quite cold, but there’s something real dark and nasty coiled at her core. She may want to take me out on general principle.”
“Does she buy the story?”
He sipped. “I don’t know. It appealed to her. But she will always question. Always wonder. What would you do in that case?”
“Same thing you’d do.”
“Yes. So. Do we wait and see what her move will be, or do we go ahead and clear the board right now?”
His eyes were clear and focused, and for a moment my attention wandered, and I wondered what had made him the way he was. We were so much alike at the core, and I had, since meeting Lizzy, began to consider for the first time about how I had come to be the man that I was now. And I wondered then, if it was true that a man’s closest friends reflected his self-image, what Deon and his journey told me about myself.
“Oke?”
That brought me back to the reality I had to deal with here, and that was one of blood and guns and impending violence, something I knew a lot about. But I didn’t know if I wanted to know about that anymore. I didn’t know if it was a world I wanted to inhabit any longer. Lizzy had done that to me, or rather, led me to do examine that in myself? How had that happened?
“I don’t know, Deon. I feel like just walking away.”
“Bit late for that, oke. In for a penny, in for a pound.”
“There is that.”
He nodded sagely. Drank coffee. Grinned at me, as though he were watching an amusing show.
“What are you laughing at?”
“Just watching your brain work, Jimmy Wylde. I would have liked to have been to war with you.”
“We’ve been to war, Deon.”
“You know what I mean.”
I did.
“Let’s wait,” I said. “Give her the room. Line up our own troops, get a plan together. See if she’ll go for the peace, peaceful coexistence kind of thing. But if not, hammer her flat, burn down the village, pick up the pillage.”
“Right, then. I’ll brief the boys. Send them out to snoop and poop on the perimeter, work something out. Won’t be a frontal at that place.”
“Hard target?”
“Yep.”
“Then let’s make it so.”
Laughter, the deep kind. “Aye aye, Captain. Beam me up.”
Some days, life felt just like a Star Trek episode. New Generation. Or else The Twilight Zone.
***
Dee checked into the Lake City Hyatt, driving herself in from the airport in a rented Taurus. She liked the Taurus; it was just like the one she’d trained in when she went through an offensive driving course at Bill Scott Raceway in West Virginia. And it sure blended in, though it seemed as though every cop in the country drove one now instead of the old Crown Victorias. Tauruses got better gas mileage though.
“Hello there!” Dee said to the young man at the counter -- goatee, ear ring, nice dark taut bodied boy, maybe Italian. “Think you could help me out?”
She leaned into the counter, giving him the full cleavage shot under the soft wool low cut sweater, her denim taut ass at a jaunty angle.
“I’d be glad to,” he said.
“You have a package for De Vore Cossak, right? FedEx, big box?”
“Yes I do. You would be Ms. Cossak?”
“That I would be, thanks.”
“Let me get you checked in and we’ll get that box taken up to your room.”
“That would be so sweet of you, thanks so much…”
He handed her the key card with a flourish, let his hand brush against hers. “Anything else I can do for you, Ms. Cossak?”
She gave him the maybe smile. “If I see you later…ciao!”
She walked away, secure in the knowledge that his eyes were glued to her ass twitching merrily along inside her Lauren jeans.
In her room, she took a slow look around, checked the locks, the windows. A knock at the door, and a bellman with a cart wheeled in a large FedEx box.
“Just there, hon,” she said. Fished out a fiver and the young Puerto Rican man backed out thanking her the whole way.
She regarded the box, then turned to her small rolling suitcase and opened it up. Inside, in a small box
, was a razor edged Hideaway knife, a utility version with the two inch blade. She plucked it out, put it on her fingers, then sliced away the packing tape that held the FedEx box closed in two deft swipes.
Always training, that was her motto.
Inside were some tools of the trade.
A custom built featherweight bullet resistant vest. Two pistol cases with two pistols in each: matched Glock 19s, and two miniscule Kahr-9s. A lightweight sports bra with holsters sewn in under each armpit, a handbag with a holster concealed in it. Some camera equipment, small binoculars. A case with several knives -- a Gryphon M-10 in a concealment sheath by Sastre, a custom Hossom Narc in another concealment sheath by Hummelbaugh.
A girl had to have the right accessories.
No long guns, though. Dee was an up close and personal kind of girl. She liked to get close. And she wasn’t much of an innovator, like some of her competition. Keep it simple, she thought. Most of her hits were fast close work with a knife or a pistol. She could work a long gun, but found it didn’t suit her personally. Explosives were an option, and she’d inserted some tactical devices before, but the logistics were always a hassle. She liked to keep it simple and clean -- get close, get done, get gone.
And then off to count her money and spend it.
There were several prepaid cell phones in there as well, with chargers. Fullly paid up and good to go. She took one, dialed Irina’s number.
“Yes?” Irina said.
“I’m ready to go to work,” Dee said. “Where shall we meet?”
“There’s a boutique called Nordstrand,” Irina said. “They have wonderful shoes. Downtown, on Harvard Street.”
“Oh, goody,” Dee said. “A girl can always use new shoes.”
“Two o’clock?”
“Two it is,” Dee said. She waited till Irina disconnected, closed her phone. Checked her look in the mirror, touched up her lips a little. Nothing a little lip gloss can’t cure for a girl. Took a loaded magazine for the 19, topped up with 124 grain +Ps, the Federals, locked it into the Glock, racked the slide back, let it go. Then pressed it back to make sure the round was chambered. Tucked it into the hollow between her hip bone and her navel, just above where her appendix would be if she still had one, next to her skin and the almost unnoticeable scar where the appendix had come out and the little tummy tuck had gone in. Let her sweater fall. Nothing there, unless someone ran their hand over her.
And she only let that happen when she wanted it to happen.
Clipped a Hideaway into the strap of her bra.
Rock and roll, sister.
***
The advantage of being a regular customer at Nordstrand’s was that Irina got use of the private fitting rooms and a personal assistant, as well as cold champagne or Perrier when she came in. The privacy made for an excellent meeting venue. She was curious about this woman Kozak. They’d met once before, business related, though Sergey had handled her on the recommendation of a friend in New York City who had used Kozak before. The job had gone very well, a mid-sized dealer who had let his cash flow issues stretch out into a blatant disrespect and rip off. Irina didn’t know the details, but the man was found dead in a hotel room in mid-town Manhattan, his throat cut, and no clue as to who had been in the room with him.
The sales girl showed Kozak into the back room.
She was a very attractive woman, Irina thought. Fit, tall, blond, tanned, a light array of lines around her eyes and the corner of her mouth that she didn’t bother to hide, casual and expensive elegance from her Jimmy Choo straps, designer jeans (Lauren?), and a form fitting wool sweater, a Hermes leather shoulder bag. Good taste.
“Hi! Irina, right?” she said.
“Yes. I shall call you…”
“Just Dee. That’s all.”
“If I need to get hold of you?”
“The phone number you captured on your phone,” Dee said. “That will be good as long as I’ll be here.”
Irina nodded. Handed Dee a manila folder. “This is what we have.”
Dee sat down, folded herself with the ease of an athlete into a velvet settee. Pulled out a black and white surveillance photograph and studied it. “And who do we have here?” she said.
“I want him. And there will be at least one or two others who may be involved with him.”
Dee gave Irina a professionally neutral smile. “You contract for one at a time with me, Irina. That’s the way I work.”
Irina sighed with impatience. “Well then, if you develop enough information to target the others, then I will pay your rate for each one.”
“Now you’re talking! I can do that. I aim to please. Let’s see how it pans out, shall we?”
She turned her attention to the two pages of single spaced typing for a moment. A very fast reader, Irina observed.
“South African?” Dee said. “How…exotic. He’ll be my first! I’m a South African virgin. Do they have virgins in South Africa, I wonder? Likes a drink, so do I, likes to shoot, well, so do I! Hangs out in one bar and one bar only…well, that won’t be too hard to find, now will it? Does his business there…owns a gun store…this is the kind of guy I can never meet in LA!”
“You seem very sure of yourself,” Irina said. “This is a dangerous man.”
“There’s no other kind in this business, honey,” Dee said, letting a hint of coolness into her voice. “You’re welcome to find someone else.”
Irina took a deep breath and controlled herself. “I apologize. You are the one I want to do this. Your reputation…precedes you.”
“Of course you want me to do it, hon. I’m as good as it gets. You’ll get your $50K worth out of me.”
“Fifty? I thought it was forty-five.”
Dee leaned forward. “That’s my asshole tax, sweetheart. Don’t make it fifty-five.”
Chapter Thirty Nine
“I’m too old for this shit,” Marcus groaned.
“I thought Rangers thrived on this. Hooah, hooah, Rangers lead the way, all that happy horse shit,” Joe hissed back.
“What does a SEAL know about the woods? Closest you’ve ever been to the woods was when you got lost at the park.”
“Shut up.”
The two of them were sprawled out, side by side, touching at their hips and feet, proned out behind a 36x spotting telescope with a night vision adapter. Their faces were painted in alternating stripes of green and black, and they wore the latest issue Army digicam fatigues.
Joe farted, and Marcus had to bite his lip to stop from bursting into hysterical laughter.
“What…the…fuck…did…you…eat?” Marcus said, stifling his laughter.
“Goddamn burritos. Goddamn burritos,” Joe muttered.
“Really…tactical…” Marcus choked out.
“Shut the fuck up.”
Marcus dropped his head onto his arms, his shoulders shaking with barely suppressed laughter, all the more violent at Joe’s barely suppressed rage.
“Don’t hold it in,” Marcus said. “You’ll burst a gut.”
“Asshole.”
Below them, through the stand of trees that ringed the low hill they were half way up, several of Irina Komorov’s security men walked a perimeter around the house.
“Wonder if any of them have problems with gas?” Marcus said.
Joe fought to ignore him. “They’re not really…”
Marcus dropped his head again, convulsing with laughter, wheezing to hold his laughs down. “Oh, you’re really tacti-cool, Joe-Seppi…”
“I’m going to kill you someday, Marcus.”
“Get in line, asshole. Get in line. Better men than you have tried and died. Now tighten up and squeeze for me, baby.”
***
Nina sat on the edge of Special Agent Myron Ali’s desk, her muscled ass and thigh outlined through her snug fitting Prada cargo pants. She always dressed a little better for her visits to the feds, Feebs or the State DipSec boys…they liked a little girlishness in their lady cops, especially since
most of them were scared to death of a street animal who’d killed more times than they’d probably had sex -- with human beings. Myron Ali was the product of an extremely improbably union between an Israeli sabra woman and her Palestinian beau -- and like most children of immigrants, obsessively upwardly mobile, and his languages gave him a big leg up in the world of the Feeble, Bureaucratic and Incompetent. Or FBI, as he liked to say every time he broke out his badge. Skinny as a rail, hook nosed to the point of caricature, with thick glasses that perched precariously on the thin bridge of that nose, a nervous darting look that fixed on her tits and ass (she wondered if he’d ever seen her face, sometimes).
But smart as a whip, and one of the virtuosos of the Feebs computer system, and her main go-to guy when she needed to deep dive the federal computer systems and get the goods on somebody she couldn’t get to any other way.
“So, Myron,” Nina said. “What you got for me? On the guy?”
“Guys,” Myron said. “You gave me two names.”
“Guy, guys. What you got? You looking a bit thin, you working out again, Myron? Running, what?”
He tapped his glasses nervously. “I am taking tae kwon do. Purple belt.”
“Wow,” Nina said. “Breaking boards and stuff?”
“Yes,” Myron said shyly. “But only one so far.”
“I’m proud of you,” she said. “Some time you should ride along with me, check out the streets.”
“We have policies,” Myron began.
“Oh, I wouldn’t want you to get into any trouble,” Nina said. “I understand perfectly. So….?”
“You got some interesting friends here,” Myron said, his voice falling into a confident, pedantic tone that reminded Nina of her high school English teacher. “I’ll start with Deon Ooosthuizen. As far as ICE has him, he’s clean, a good citizen, and he’ll be a citizen this year. No record, nothing here in the states, not even a parking ticket. But we get some interesting hits from Langley, NSA, and State…he’s rumored, rumored only, nothing hard, to be involved in some arms dealing in Africa…”
Johnny Wylde Page 21
