“Two more days. Twenty-five thousand dollars,” Stonewall said as he walked out the door.
Randy quickly flipped the deadbolt. His hand was shaking so violently he could barely turn the lock. He could feel the sweat dripping off his forehead and he was having trouble breathing. He turned to collect himself only to see Jade motioning toward him with her gun.
“We’ve got work to do,” she said, as if nothing had even happened.
Randy let out a deep sigh. Could this day possibly get any worse?
14
Viktor Petrov emerged from the non-descript office building on the outskirts of Moscow. He slid on a pair of designer sunglasses and took a deep breath, feeling the warm June sun on his face. It was a sunny morning and milder weather had already begun to make the long, wet winter a distant memory. But Viktor wasn’t appreciating the weather. He was thinking about his little brother. Their entire life, Anton had been the fun-loving goof who could always make his serious older brother laugh. In fact, he took pride in cracking the cold facade of his sibling. Viktor had sometimes acted annoyed but they both knew he secretly loved it. And now he was gone. Because of HER.
The thought of Jade quickly pushed Viktor’s memories away to make room for a growing anger. Jade had stolen from him before and was a constant thorn in his side. That’s why he had begun taking extra precautions. Shipping through new sources and hiding the books at the one place where no one would ever think to find them: his brother’s apartment.
The Koslov twins came out of the office building. Leo, the tie-less one with the snake tattoo, was still wiping blood from his hands with a wet handkerchief.
Without looking back at them, Viktor began walking briskly toward a black limousine, the Koslov twins stepping quickly to keep up.
“You think it was her?” Leo asked in Russian.
“I have no doubt,” Viktor answered.
“You think she knows about the goat?” Leo pressed.
Viktor responded with a cold stare as he reached the limo and waited for one of the twins to open the rear door for him.
“So, what do we do?” Peter asked, opening the car door.
Viktor smiled, his lips curling into a devilish, slimy grin.
“I assume she knows about the goat and is going to retrieve it. So we will also go to the goat,” he said.
The smile vanished from his face and he slid in the backseat, followed by the two hulking men.
“We keep her from stealing the merchandise,” he continued. “And we avenge my brother’s death.”
Leo tapped on the tinted privacy glass that separated the driver from the rear of the limo and the limo began to move forward.
“This will be fun,” Leo said with a grin.
“Fun?” Peter questioned.
“I’ve never been to Texas.”
15
Jade and Randy had progressed to the second shelf in The Lazy Goat. Working on the bottom shelves, Jade continued to toss her rejected figurines to the ground, sometimes breaking them, while Randy tried to be as careful as possible while he searched the higher shelves.
“So, what exactly is in the goat?” Randy asked casually, as if it were just too friends out on a shopping trip.
Not feeling any need to be cordial, Jade didn’t answer. Instead, she continued to check each figurine then toss it aside.
“I bet it’s drugs. Right?” Randy guessed. “Or a computer chip. With some sort of secret weapon recipe or something.”
Jade shot a glare at Randy, signaling him to shut him up. But Randy didn’t catch the visual cue and continued his guessing game.
“You’ll at least tell me if I’m warm, right?” he asked. “A map? Jewels? A key to a safety deposit box?”
Jade snapped, her patience completely run down. She yanked the pistol from behind her back and pushed the barrel up against Randy’s nose.
“I will tell you absolutely nothing,” she seethed. “And you will say absolutely nothing in return. Got it?”
Randy nodded meekly. Having made her point, Jade pulled the gun away and returned to the figurines.
“It’s just that, the more I know, the more I’ll be able to help you find it,” Randy persisted.
“You’re doing fine.”
“But what if it’s not here?” Randy asked. “Maybe Clyde hid it. How would you know where to look next?
Jade stopped. She had been moving so fast and furiously, she had barely considered the fact that she didn’t know where else to look.
“You’ll tell me where to look,” she answered, a hint of a threat in her reply.
“It’d be easier, for you, if I showed you.” Randy bargained. “People around here don’t take too kindly to strangers. I could help bridge the gap.”
“First off, I don’t care if they take kindly to me or not. I’m not here to make friends. Secondly, why are you even offering?”
Randy shrugged.
“Sooner you find what you need, the sooner you move on. Plus, I could use the distraction.”
“You think this is a game?”
“No. It seems pretty dangerous. But the way I see it, you’re less likely to shoot me if I can help you, so why not help? Besides, it’s not like I’m hurting Clyde. He’s dead. I’m just fixing his screw-ups.”
Jade thought about the offer. On the one hand, it could speed things along if she had an inside man to help. On the other, she couldn’t really trust him and she preferred to work alone. But he had nothing to gain by helping. Unless…
“I’m not giving you a cut,” she said.
“Don’t want it. I’d just rather help you than have you go around threatening everyone in town.”
The conversation was interrupted by another loud BANG at the door.
“You’ve got to be kidding me!” she exclaimed in frustration.
Randy looked toward the door. “Oh, shit. It’s Mama.”
“Your mother?” Jade asked.
“Who else am I gonna call mama?” he asked. “I better get it.”
Jade grabbed the back of Randy’s belt loop, holding him in place.
“Well, I can’t just ignore her,” Randy protested.
“You can. And you will.”
The unmistakable jingle of keys could be heard from the other side of the door and before Jade could even react, the door burst open. Jade pulled Randy down as she watched the large woman in her late 60s barge into the room. Weighing 250 pounds with long silver hair pulled up in a giant bun on the top of her head and dressed in a blindingly bright floral tunic that billowed over equally bright yellow pants, Mama was not one you could easily ignore. Her presence was so dominating, Jade barely noticed the peculiar, tiny old woman that walked in behind her.
“I gotta pee,” the tiny woman announced.
From her crooked, auburn wig and garish costume jewelry, the little woman was clearly a fan of accessories…and makeup. Lots of makeup.
Randy looked at Jade, unsure what to do. Resigned to the interruption and not wanting a massacre just yet, Jade motioned for Randy to talk to them.
“Hey, Mama! Hi, Pauline,” Randy said as he popped up from behind the shelf. “What are y’all doing here?”
“Your Aunt Pauline needs to go to the bathroom,” Mama answered. “And I want to meet this lady friend of yours.”
Shocked and unsure what to do, Randy looked back in Jade’s direction.
Randy stammered. “How do you–”
“Sheriff told me all about her,” Mama said matter-of-factly. “Now where is she?”
Jade’s stomach dropped as she played out a thousand ways to handle the situation. The easiest solution would be to just shoot them all, find her goat and be on her way. But Randy had been right. There was the outside chance the figurine wasn’t in the store and she could use his help to track it down. If she killed his mother, he probably wouldn’t be as easy to work with.
What am I even thinking? she thought to herself. I work alone.
She took a deep breath and gr
abbed her gun.
16
Jade stood up from behind the shelf, catching the attention of Randy and Mama. She saw the fear in Randy’s eyes and the shock in Mama’s. As she hid her gun on a shelf, she smiled, immediately sliding into her southern belle persona.
“Hi. I’m Jen,” she said with her Texas twang. “Jen Brown.”
Mama stared at the blonde beauty walking toward her. For once in her life, she was actually speechless. Jade extended her hand as she approached the big woman. Mama looked at it and shook her head.
“You put that hand down, Jen Brown,” she said, extending both of her big bear arms. “You give Mama a big Texas hug.”
Before Jen could respond, she was pulled into a death grip. She struggled to breathe as Mama squeezed her tight for an uncomfortably long time. Finally, the big woman let her go, taking a step back to take in Jade like a show pony.
“Randy, you wanna explain why you’ve been keeping this beautiful young woman from your mama?” she said, never taking her eyes off Jade.
“I don’t–”
“We just wanted to make sure it was real before we made it official,” Jade interrupted. “You know how online dating can be.”
“I do not, thank the Lord,” Mama replied. “Call me old-fashioned, but I don’t believe the Good Lord meant for machines to be matchmakers. But I do appreciate you coming to help bury my poor boy.”
She hung her head in reverence, allowing herself a moment of vulnerability before snapping back to her tough-as-nails persona as the tiny woman re-emerged from the backroom.
“You ain’t got no toilet paper,” the woman said matter-of-factly.
“There’s plenty of toilet paper, Aunt Pauline” Randy argued.
Pauline shrugged. “I used a towel.”
She turned her coke-bottle-thick glasses in Jade’s direction and a wide grin spread across her face, revealing lipstick stains on her teeth.
“Is this her?” she asked, walking over to Jade, giving her a thorough once over. “Dang-it-all to pieces. Ain’t you a pretty piece of candy?”
“Thank you,” Jade responded, unsure of what else to say.
“We were fixing to go to Perty’s,” Mama said. “You two lovebirds should come with us.”
“No, I wouldn’t want to impose,” Jade protested.
“She just got here and we’re trying to clean up the store, Mama,” Randy offered.
“Well, we’ll just wait for ya then,” Mama said.
“It could take a while,” Jade said.
Mama reached over and pinched Jade’s cheeks. The thief had to fight her defensive reflex to punch Mama in the throat and throw her to the ground.
“That’s okay,” Mama said. “It’ll give us lots of time to visit.”
Jade smiled and pulled Randy aside, quietly demanding he get rid of his relatives immediately.
“You want to help? Get rid of them,” Jade whispered.
“I can’t just tell my Mama to leave,” Randy whispered back.
“You’re not really comprehending the seriousness of this situation, are you?” Jade asked.
“Can’t we just leave them out of it?” Randy argued.
“I never wanted them in it!”
Randy looked over at his mother and Pauline.
“This could be a good thing,” Randy said.
“Get rid of them.”
“Mama knew Clyde better than anyone. She knows things that I don’t even know. I bet if you got her talking about him, you could find out all sorts of information that could help you find what you’re looking for.”
Jade seemed to be thinking about it, so Randy sweetened the deal.
“We get them to the restaurant. You can talk to Mama and once you get what you need, we excuse ourselves and come back. Trust me. Once Mama knows food is coming, she ain’t gonna get up.”
Jade looked over at the two women. Mama was fussing with Pauline’s wig, trying to straighten it. Realizing it was the least violent option, Jade let out yet another sigh and nodded.
“You’re either extremely gutsy or incredibly stupid,” she said. “But if you try to pull anything at all, your mother goes first. Then the clown lady. Then you. Got it?”
17
Agent Chin leaned forward at his desk, shoveling the last bite of reheated spaghetti into his mouth. Part of him was kicking himself for agreeing to help Dean. Now he was stuck at his desk waiting for the information Dean needed. Still, he had to admit that it was a little exciting. He wasn’t sure what Dean had up his sleeve, but it involved finding unauthorized information on the Russian mob so it had to be something good. And a little under-the-table espionage work would break up the monotony of the day (which was spent doing government-sanctioned espionage work).
As he wiped stray sauce from his face with a paper napkin, his phone pinged with a text notification.
Finally, he thought to himself.
It was from Agent Steve Relinski, who worked at the FBI office in Moscow. Chin and Relinski trained at Quantico together and had casually kept in touch over the years. Still, Relinski had been a little surprised to hear from Chin, though not that surprised about who he was asking about. Viktor Petrov had been a person of interest of the FBI for years.
Relinski had been intrigued by Chin’s request to keep things on the downlow. However, he was never one to question the secretive processes of the bureau and he knew Chin could be trusted. Besides, truth be told, he enjoyed having a somewhat covert assignment for a change. He thought working on a counter-terrorism unit in Russia would be filled with excitement. It turned out, as was true of almost every other law enforcement job, it was primarily paperwork. On the plus side, it was a small Moscow branch, which made it easier for him to get the information Chin requested.
Chin read Relinski’s text then carried his phone down the hall to an empty conference room.
18
After putting in his vacation request, Dean had gone back to his apartment to prepare for a trip. All he needed was the destination.
The modest apartment had come pre-furnished and Dean had done nothing to add to it. In fact, at a glance, you’d wonder if it was even occupied. There were no signs of life. No books on shelves. No framed photos or personal affects to be seen. The small kitchen seemed as if no one ever cooked in it. Any food, plates and cooking utensils were stored out of view.
The kitchen opened up into a living room that consisted of nothing more than a dated, green couch, a faux-wood coffee table, two empty bookshelves and the only sign of occupancy: a 42-inch TV on a black TV stand.
It wasn’t that Dean had no personality, it was just that he never really moved in. It was supposed to be a temporary situation until he could find something he really liked. Then, a week turned into a month which turned into a year. It was his fully-furnished comfort zone. Routine. Low maintenance. And boring. He’d been fine with that for years. But lately, the boredom had started to eat at him. Maybe it was some of the FBI procedural shows he had started watching, or maybe it was his pending birthday. Either way, he had begun to want more out of his career. And his life.
His restlessness had led him toward his fascination with Jade. Or maybe it was the other way around. Jade was everything Dean wasn’t. Brazen. Bold. And not afraid to live on the edge. Not that he was completely seduced by her lifestyle. She was a cold-blooded killer and thief and needed to be stopped. Still, chasing after her would give Dean a chance to step into her exciting world. And bringing her down could change everyone’s perception of him at the bureau.
Dean walked through the small living room into his bedroom. The afternoon sun shone through the faded yellow curtains, casting a pale yellow glow over the maroon bedspread. He opened the sliding doors of his bedroom closet and pulled a black leather travel bag from a shelf. Still unsure where he might be going, he began to fill the bag with a few changes of clothes.
He had walked into his bathroom to grab a few toiletries when he heard his phone ring. Rushing back into the bed
room, he snatched the phone up and checked the Caller ID. It was Special Agent Chin.
“Yeah?” Dean answered.
“Your pal is making a move,” Chin replied. “He’s headed to the airport.”
“I knew it. Do you know where he’s going?”
“Not yet. But we’ll know soon enough, and I’ll call you back. You ready to tell me what this is all about?”
“It may be nothing,” Dean replied. “But I need you to do one more thing.”
19
Randy’s truck pulled into the crowded Perty’s parking lot. Even though it was practically across the street from The Lazy Goat, there was no way Mama was going to walk it.
“That’s not how a dignified person arrives to an eating establishment,” she had argued.
So Randy, Mama, Pauline and Jade had crammed into his pickup to make the thirty-second drive across the street.
When Jade saw all of the cars in front of the restaurant, her stomach dropped again. Now there would be even more witnesses. Thankful that she had chosen a blonde wig and a little extra makeup as part of her disguise, she hoped it would be enough to protect the identity she had worked so hard at keep hidden. Part of her power was her anonymity. Without that, it would be harder for her to slide in and out of people’s lives on assignment.
She assured herself she was fine. This was a small town in the middle of nowhere. And, if all went as planned, she would be in and out before the day ended. A blip in their tiny little lives that would fade from memory before anyone would even know to ask any questions. Besides, it was a risk she would have to take. According to Randy, his mother could hold key information. She could tell from their brief time together that force and threats weren’t going to work with this tough lady. She needed to win her trust. And the quickest way to win over a person is to buy them a meal. So Jade had not only agreed to join Mama and Pauline for dinner, but to also pay for it.
Red Dirt Blues Page 4
