A condition he’d kept, until last year.
His mère didn’t recognize him when she opened the door.
He’d told her he was from the bank, that there was an identity theft problem. There were papers she and her husband would need to sign immediately.
She’d welcomed him in, and together with his father—a stinking old man in a wheelchair, peering at him through cracked and grimy glasses—signed papers that gave him, their only son, power of attorney.
It was only after that, that she recognized him.
He’d made sure of it.
“No … No! Listen to me!”
That was Gillman’s voice, low but urgent, from out in the living room.
Izzy was instantly awake and sitting up—and damn near knocking himself out by hitting his head on the bottom of the conference table. Motherfucker. And it had seemed like such a good idea to put his sleeping bag under here.
He kicked his legs free as he scrambled toward the door that he’d purposely left open.
It was Lopez who’d asked him to play the selfish asshole and claim this room for his own. It was also Lopez who’d been the mediator for the dispute that followed, and who’d made the decree that Lopez, Tony and Izzy would all share the conference room floor, in between their shifts guarding the suite, while lucky Gillman would get to sleep on the comfort of the couch.
It was, absolutely, a concerted effort to keep the Fishboy from taking sweet Jennilyn by the hand, and locking her in here with him. Lopez thought, and Izzy had to agree, that the two lovebirds might benefit from a night of enforced apart-ness, which really translated into time for Jenn to come to her scattered senses. Assuming she had any.
Also assuming that getting banged by Danny was something she really didn’t want to do—which was a very big assumption Lopez was making here.
It was entirely possible that knocking knobs with Gilligan was no big thing for her, and that Fleet Week was her mostest favoriteest time of year.
“You get the fuck back over here!” Danny said from the sofa as Izzy approached. The lamp on the far end table was on—he’d clearly fallen asleep with it burning. He wasn’t shouting yet, but his mutterings were getting louder and more clear.
Lopez had said that Dan had been having nightmares, and if they were anything like the ones Izzy had had a few years back, dude was going to scream the place awake, and then, when the lights were blazing and everyone was staring, he’d be sitting there, shaking and sweating, with tears icing the cake of the what planet is this again? expression that was all over his bewildered face.
“I don’t give a good goddamn!”
“Hey, man,” Izzy said as he got closer, because it seemed like a good idea not to startle him, Dan being a Navy SEAL and all. He wasn’t quite sure the best way to do this—to shake him awake, or to turn on another light, tell him a joke, sing him a song …
Lopez probably knew, but he was out in the hall. Vlachic was no help, since he was making use of his non-watch time by meeting up with Mr. Serious, elsewhere in this very hotel—lucky bastard, gettin’ some.
Alyssa still wasn’t back from wherever it was she’d gone with Jules, and there was no sound or movement from behind any of the three tightly shut bedroom doors.
Izzy tried again. “Hey. Earth to Gillman.”
Dan sat up—a shadowy, backlit shape on the couch. Although he didn’t get louder, his voice was a ferociously menacing growl. “Keep your fucking hands offa her, you piece of shit!”
Ooo-kay.
That was a little too weird—like Dan was going to start speaking in tongues, or maybe his head was going to spin completely around, or his eyes were going to glow bright red-orange with an unholy flame.…
Izzy turned on the other lamp that was right next to him. “Yo, Dan-o. Wake—”
“No, you know, I don’t believe you—”
“Up.” The additional light didn’t seem to work to rouse him, although that really hadn’t been its purpose. It was doing just fine, though, in its job of assuring Izzy that Dan wasn’t in the throes of demonic possession. At least not yet.
“Dan. Look at me, bro.”
His eyes were open, but unfocused. He was in some crazy kind of deep sleep.
Maybe if Izzy just kept talking to him …
“You know, back when I was little,” he said, sitting down across from the couch, in the chair that swiveled, “When I was around eight—and pretty much right up until I turned twelve—I was a sleepwalker. To this day, my brothers won’t let me forget this one time I got out of bed. They were all still up, watching TV—they were older than me. And my mother’s like, What’s that sound? It was this crinkling noise, like plastic being wrinkled or shaken, and she gets up to see WTF. Turns out it’s moi, young Irving, fast asleep, and taking a whiz into the kitchen trash.”
Dan was silent—no more muttering—but he still didn’t give Izzy any eye contact.
So Izzy kept going. “I continue to point out—whenever they bring it up, which they do, like, every fucking time they see me—that it was better that I chose the trash over my brother Martin’s sock drawer, right?”
He’d actually stopped his sleepwalking through sheer will when he hit the early stages of puberty. God forbid he wander the house—filled with his brothers and their various girlfriends and wives—in his thin PJ pants, with one of his relentless tweenage boners.
“You couldn’t pay me enough money,” Izzy told Gillman, “to make me go back and be a twelve-year-old again.”
Still nothing.
“Why don’t you lie down, Dan, and get some sleep,” Izzy suggested.
No movement.
He tried again, pitching his voice higher. Because maybe if he made himself sound like Dan’s mommy … “Go back to sleep, honey. Everything’s okay. Daddy and I can’t plan our surprise trip to Disneyland unless you’re in beddy-bye.”
Nada.
So Izzy moved onto the floor in front of Gillman and tried a little physical contact. Just a hand against Dan’s T-shirt-clad shoulder as he leaned in to try to catch his eye …
Big mistake.
Gillman came to life with a move that pushed Izzy’s hand away, even as he lunged forward, slamming Izzy into both the chair and the coffee table, taking him down to the carpeted floor with a shout and a crash that also took out both lamps—how the hell had he managed that?—and plunged them into darkness.
“Get your fucking hands off me, douche bag!”
Whether Gillman knew who he was wrestling with or not, Izzy didn’t take the time to find out. He had almost two inches and quite a few pounds on Gillman, but that didn’t exactly make for an easy contest. Izzy may have had clarity about where he was and even who he was, but Gillman had his nightmare-induced rage. And that was assuming he’d even truly emerged from his dream-world.
Besides, Izzy wasn’t looking to beat the crap out of Gillman. In fact, he was working hard not to hurt the foo’—as well as to not get hurt by him. Yes, he liked his testicles right where they were, thanks, so he struggled and rolled and pinned and finally got Gillman into a headlock with his left arm, while using his legs to trap the other man in place.
It was like holding onto a beached shark, or maybe wrestling an alligator, only Izzy was also trying his damnedest to not trash the hotel furniture.
“Gillman, you’re safe,” he tried to tell him, “you’re okay, Danny, come on, come on, come on, will you chill, you fucking idiot?”
Those last few words seemed to echo, because the lights went on—all of ’em, not just one little lamp. It was suddenly blazingly bright, and just like that, Danny stopped fighting him. He was looking up and … Izzy turned to see Sam Starrett’s incredibly angry-looking bruise, and yes, Sam’s equally angry face not too far above it.
“What,” Sam said, “the fuck … ?”
He wasn’t the only one who’d come out of their room at the sound of the mêlée. Robin was there, too, his eyebrows raised. And Maria—looking more beautiful than a
woman had a right to, with night cream on her face. And there, indeed, was wide-eyed Jenn, and yes, even Lopez had come in from the hall.
He stood there, just shaking his head, radiating disappointment.
“And you were there, and you were there, and you were there …” Izzy said, because there were just too few times in life when quoting from The Wizard of Oz worked so beautifully. He added “Ow!” as Gillman elbowed him in the gut.
He let go of the other man, who scrambled away from him, looking about as shell-shocked as Izzy had ever seen him.
And, shit, the whole sweating and shaking thing that Izzy had been trying to avoid was happening. In fact, Danny looked as if he were in danger of barfing, right on the rug.
“It was my fault,” Izzy quickly announced, so that the asshole didn’t have to endure the added humiliation of copping to a nightmare of epic proportions. “Completely. I should know better than to ask Gillman about Eden—you know, his sister and my, um, wife? When we’re both tired, it gets … Well, you see how it gets. I just… I haven’t heard from her in a really long time, and I couldn’t sleep and he was still awake, so … I made the mistake of asking him. I’m sorry, sir and …” He looked at Dan. “Sorry. Dan.”
The look Gillman shot him was one that Izzy had never seen before, and couldn’t quite read. Was that gratitude for covering for him, or horror that he now owed Izzy a great big one, or was it just stunned hatred? It was hard to tell. Perhaps a mix of all three …
But Gillman then glanced up at Sam. “I’m sorry, too, sir.” He included the others. “I’m sorry we woke you. It won’t happen again.”
“Damn straight it won’t,” Sam told them both. “Stay away from each other. This does happen again? I’ll send you both home.”
“Yes, sir,” Izzy said, as Dan echoed him.
“And,” Sam continued, “you might want to send up a thank you to whichever god you pray to, that you clowns didn’t wake up Ashton.”
But of course, as if on cue, from the other room, the baby began his siren-like wail. It started low, but quickly grew in both volume and intensity.
The look on Sam’s face almost made Izzy laugh. Almost.
Instead he got to his feet. “Sir, if you want, I’d be happy to take care of—”
“You’re bleeding,” Sam said tersely, and went back to deal with the kid, closing the door none-too-gently behind him.
Bleeding?
Izzy did a quick inventory of all of the places that made him go owie, and discovered that he was, indeed, bleeding. His elbow was rug-burned like a son of a bitch, the skin broken and oozing blood. Not a lot, but enough.
He retreated back toward the conference room, unwilling to be in Sam’s line of sight in the event that he came back out.
Robin, too, had vanished into his room, and Lopez had returned to his post. But Maria lingered. “You should clean that out. You need help?”
Wacka-chicka-wacka-chicka. If life were porn … But it wasn’t. She was just being nice, and elbows were a bitch to see.
“Nah, I’m good with the bathroom mirror,” he told her. “This is not my first scraped elbow.”
She smiled at that. “I didn’t think it was. Dan Gillman’s really your brother-in-law?”
“Yes, he is.” Izzy glanced over to where Jenn was talking to Danny. He was back sitting on the couch, his body language almost as shut down as it had been when he was sound asleep. “It’s been the source of some friction. Truth is, he didn’t like me very much to start with, so …”
“Ah,” she said. “And there you were, you know … Mmphing his sister.”
“Mmphing?” he repeated, delighted.
She smiled back at him, and quite possibly even blushed a little. “There are certain words a politician should never say.”
“Even when they’re mmphing?” He couldn’t resist asking, but to his complete surprise, as she laughed, she actually held his gaze longer than she should have.
In fact, he was the one who looked away first. He tried to see his elbow again, and used it as an excuse. “I should, um, go and …”
Across the room, Dan and Jenn’s conversation was over, too. Izzy wondered if he and Maria looked as stiff and awkward standing there.
“Good night,” Maria said, and he nodded, but then she added, “For the record, if you got sent back home, I’d be disappointed.”
Izzy looked up at her, surprised, but she was already heading for her room, and she didn’t look back.
• • •
As Jules closed the taxi door, the cab lurched away from the curb. Alyssa fastened her seat belt, then checked her messages on her phone.
Max had called with more information about the job in Afghanistan. Her boss at Troubleshooters, Tom Paoletti, had left a long message, too, about the very same thing.
And … oh, good. Detective Mick Callahan had called, four different times, but he’d left only one message.
“What the hell is going on?” his voice was raspy with anger, his speech slightly slurred, as if he’d been drinking. “Suddenly I’m under investigation? Do you know how badly that jams me up? I got guys from my own house looking at me sideways, as well as I-fucking-A coming in on Monday to evaluate whether or not I need a fucking round of sensitivity training. This is the thanks I get for walking away from an assault?”
It took her a second to translate I-fucking-A as IA, which was short for Internal Affairs. Every police department had a division whose focus was to shine a spotlight onto their own, to ferret out possible wrongdoing. And while Jules had told her that he’d kept his promise and hadn’t released the voice mail with Mick’s Nice tits rant to the detective’s superiors, he had sent over a request for an evaluation and review.
“Make this go away,” Mick’s message continued. “You are going to make this go away, you understand? Or I will have that asswipe husband of yours in jail so fast, your head will fucking spin.”
Click.
Well, wasn’t that just fabulous?
Mick Callahan was a drunk dialer. How charming.
It was still relatively early out in California, so Alyssa punched in Savannah’s number. The call went right to voice mail, and she left a message asking about that photograph.
As she put her phone away, she noticed that the cab had come to a complete dead stop in rush-hour-worthy traffic. Of course, they were on a one-way cross street that was only one lane wide.
“Is this theater traffic?” she asked the driver. They weren’t too far from the hotel, which was near both the theater district and Times Square. But as she looked at her watch again, she realized it was too late for that. The theaters had let out well over an hour ago. In the distance, she could hear approaching sirens.
“Accident,” the taxi driver reported.
She opened her wallet. “I’ll get out here.”
The night air was cold, and the street was slippery as she made her way to the sidewalk. And yes, she could see that there was a multi car fender bender completely blocking the intersection.
As she got closer to the hotel, she realized that she was approaching it from the back. This time of night, for security reasons, she’d have to enter through the front doors into the main lobby, and show her key card to a guard.
Which meant that, for security reasons—oh, the irony—she was going to have to walk another block and a half along streets that were suddenly empty.
Alyssa didn’t have what she thought of as a high fear factor, but for some reason, tonight her spidey senses—as Jules would have called them—were tingling. Maybe it was the cold, or maybe the uncertain footing of the ice-and snow-covered sidewalks, but she was on edge, unable to shake the feeling that someone was following her. So she straightened up, walking taller.
Not that she couldn’t kick the butt of anyone who tried to mug her. And not that anyone was actually out here, following her. Nothing was moving and the only sound was that of her own feet, crunching in the snow.
Still, the best time to stop
a mugging was before it happened. And it definitely helped for a woman walking alone down an empty street to walk with shoulders back, head high. To look more like Super-woman with a don’t-mess-with-me attitude than a weak, helpless victim.
And to be aware of all the places where someone, about to jump out at her, might hide.
Between two parked cars.
From the alleyways, and even from darkened entrances of businesses that had closed shop for the night.
Most merchants had metal shields that went down over their windows and doors, but one of them, just up ahead, hadn’t locked the rolling awning-like metal to its anchors in the sidewalk. It was up slightly, just enough for someone to crawl into and … Okay, paranoid much?
If someone were hiding there, they were lying on the cold cement of the sidewalk, and had been lying there at least since Alyssa had turned onto this block. They also would have left footprints in the snow. Which they hadn’t.
Still, she picked up her pace as she went past. Another quarter block and she’d turn the corner, and the hotel entrance should be right … there …
It was. It was well lit and there were signs of life—taxis and a cold-looking bellman unloading a late arrival’s luggage onto a cart.
Alyssa stamped the snow off her boots, went through the revolving door, flashed her key card at the guard, took off her hat, and headed across the lobby to the bank of elevators, which was over by the bar.
“Alyssa Locke. I was hoping to run into you.”
She turned, and yes, it was none other than Mick Callahan—a bottle of beer in his hand.
“What are you doing here, Detective?” She kept her voice cool and unemotional.
“Looking for you,” he said, with a smile that had, no doubt, charmed a lot of women. He was a nice-looking man, and had, also no doubt, learned from an early age to use his appearance to his advantage.
Funny how it was okay for a man to do that, but for a woman … ? The double irony was that Callahan himself would lead the angry mob, pitchfork in hand, to discredit any such woman for being calculating, manipulative, and insincere.
And a ho. He’d also call her a ho.
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