Kiss of the Blue Dragon

by Julie Beard

  And last but not least, he had left the ignition chip for his SUV. I suppose he expected it would be my getaway car. But how did he know I’d need one?

  “Thanks, Marco,” I said, wiping my eyes. “You’re the best.”

  Then I saw a note he’d tucked under the weapon. It read:

  Dear Angel,

  Thought you might need these accoutrements when you meet with Gorky. I bribed Carl, the waiter, to give me the lowdown. Sorry.

  M.

  P.S. Some rules were made to be broken.

  Chapter 24

  Showdown at the R.M.O.’s Corral

  After poring over the blueprints and reviewing notes Hank had gathered for us, Mike and I climbed into Marco’s SUV just after dark. I brought the Radioart, but hoped I wouldn’t have to use it.

  “Here’s the ignition chip,” I said, tossing it to Mike when we reached Marco’s vehicle parked outside my two-flat.

  Mike caught it in midair with a graceful snap of his hand, then stopped and frowned. “You drive, Baker.”

  “I don’t have a license.”

  “Nor do I.”

  “What? I thought you bought one on the black market.”

  “No, I think about it. But since I do not drive, it seems pointless.”

  I sighed. “I usually subcontract getaway cars when I need them. We’ll just have to use the Optical Guiding System. But you’re sitting behind the wheel. If I get pulled over for driving without a license, I could lose my R.S. certification.”

  “Okay, but we won’t get pulled over if we don’t speed.”

  “From your mouth to God’s ears.” We climbed up into the hydro vehicle. “Gorky’s home, James.”

  “My name is Mike,” he said as he revved the engine.

  “You’re so literal,” I said, chuckling.

  “To read is better than to watch TV.” He put the car in gear and it lurched when the O.G.S. kicked in. The great news about guiding systems is that you can sit back and relax without ever touching the wheel. The bad news is that you always do the speed limit. Unless, of course, you override the system. Not a good idea, in our situation.

  We took Lake Shore Drive, following Lake Michigan’s coastline north, which was a scenic route I could not appreciate for obvious reasons. By the time L.S.D. turned into Sheridan Road, I was nervous. By the time we reached the far north shore, I was sweating bullets.

  It wasn’t just my possible tête-á-tête with the Grim Reaper that bothered me. I couldn’t breathe. The girls flashed in my mind. I felt their anxiety, their terror at being torn from their sisters. But they were in Gorky’s mansion. Why did I feel the oppression coming from behind us?

  “Someone follows.” Mike looked in the rearview mirror, and I twisted around in my seat. Headlights stabbed my eyes with a rude glare and a vehicle I couldn’t make out was soon inches away from our rear bumper.

  “Oh, great. I hope this isn’t Gorky’s idea of a friendly escort,” I muttered.

  The low, black land vehicle rammed us from behind. Our SUV lurched forward. Suddenly two aerocars zoomed up beside us. Their windows rolled down, revealing the noses of automatic weapons and the Mongolian gunmen aiming them at our heads.

  “Shit!” I cried out, grabbing the O.G.S. controls. “Burn rubber!”

  That was one colloquialism Mike had never heard, by the look on his face. But he inferred my precise meaning when I yanked the controls, overriding the computer, and punched 80 mph into the hydroinjection program.

  “Whoa!” Mike shouted as the force of our propulsion slammed our heads back. The Mongolian aerocars were momentarily history. We began to veer to the right and I realized Mike still hadn’t taken over the wheel.

  I reached out and grabbed it, awkwardly driving from the passenger seat. “Mike, you have to steer.”

  “No, Baker, we will crash!”

  “We will if you don’t steer! Now drive!” I looked back and our stalkers were gaining on us.

  Mike protested, “The police—”

  “Are nowhere in sight, unfortunately.”

  I released the wheel and Mike flung himself toward it as if it were a life buoy from the Titanic. We veered wildly until he gained control. I was beginning to feel seasick. Regaining my balance, I glanced at orange-and-green veins illuminated on the satellite mapping console. We were less than a mile away from the entrance to Gorky’s compound, thank heaven.

  What a difference a day makes. I now thought of the man who had been dubbed the R.M.O.’s “massacre mind” as my savior. If we could just pass through his electric gates, we could declare sanctuary.

  With wheels squealing, we rounded a hairpin curve in the road and Gorky’s Palladian mansion came into view with as much grandeur as Tara in the opening scenes of Gone With the Wind. I was beginning to think it was the story of my life.

  “We’re here!” I cried.

  The huge, square home and white pillars had been built on the water just off the edge of the coastline. A high-tech security fence engulfed the footbridge, which was the only way to reach the house, except by boat. Landside, outbuildings dotted the property, including a twenty-car garage, stables, an armory, a lookout tower, servants’ quarters—the usual fare for filthy-rich mob bosses.

  Right now my focus was riveted on the computerized twenty-foot-tall electric fence that surrounded the entire thirty-acre compound. I prayed the gate had been programmed to open for us.

  “We’re close,” I said when we were about a quarter of a mile away. But close doesn’t count in games of life and death. The land vehicle zoomed past us, spun sideways and came to a smoky, screeching halt right in front of us. Mike slammed on the brakes. We stopped just as our front fender hit the car’s side door. We both jolted forward.

  We sat a moment, stunned. Then I began to slam my fingers into console buttons, opening the doors. “Let’s get out of here before they blow our heads off.” They probably would blow our heads off anyway, but at least we wouldn’t mess up Marco’s car.

  As we jumped out, the chasing cars all came to wild stops like Pick Up sticks thrown in the middle of the road. Burned rubber clogged the air. Bullets whizzed near my head. I ducked and scrambled around the car. Mike went the other way.

  I found myself next to the drivers’ side of the black car. The driver was unbuckling. I shot to my feet and through his open window I punched him hard in the jaw. His gunrunner in the passenger’s seat flew out his side, racing around the car’s front end to pump me full of bullets. I crouched, waited, then used the Shaolin hou tiao qian technique—monkey jumping over a wall, or in this case jumping over the hood of a car. I jammed my boot into the short, black-haired triggerman’s chest, taking him by surprise.

  As he staggered back, I moved in, driven by fury over his role, however remote, in the kidnapping of innocent girls. Punching, kicking, crouching, twirling—tou gu zhi, the finger as hard as metal, into the eye; Pi chai zhang, the palm cutting wood, into the throat. I was Jiao long nu kong, the coiling dragon growling in wrath. Pumped by adrenaline like I’d never felt before, I hammered in a relentless and pure explosion of energy until the techniques Mike had taught me worked. Down the Mongolian assassin went, knocked out cold.

  I whirled around. Mike was fighting off two attackers with twice as many moves as I had just employed. He was a blur of motion, but he couldn’t stop all of them. Three others were heading toward him. I was about to call them my way—a suicidal tact—but froze when I saw a convoy of four gray Humvees, led by an honest-to-God armored tank. It was a compact model, to be sure, but still it was a friggin’ armored tank. I had to say, I was impressed.

  So were the Mongolian gangsters. They all stopped fighting and those who were armed dropped their weapons and raised their arms in surrender. When you have a twenty-foot-long cannon aimed at your nose, you don’t really have any other choice.

  Two people got out of one of the Humvees and surveyed the scene. Both wore black ski masks, but I thought I recognized the curvaceous figure of one of G
orky’s operatives. It had to be the James Bond chick Marco and I had seen on Howard Street. She conferred with her masked companion, then jogged to one of the Humvees and drove back to the compound. The masked man stepped forward.

  “You two!” he shouted, pointing at me and Mike. “Come with me.”

  Mike and I eagerly left the melee and climbed into the remaining Hummer. The driver pulled a U-turn, and as we rode away, I felt the vibration and heard the boom of a huge blast behind us. We turned in our seats just in time to see an orange-and-yellow fireball curling up to the sky. The armored tank had obviously taken out the entire scene with one blast. I saw no bodies and only a few chunks of the cars.

  Mike and I looked at each other, then slowly turned face front. I knew I should feel sorry for the men that Gorky had just obliterated, and on some spiritual level I did. But I couldn’t help but wonder how in the hell I’d explain to Marco what had happened to his SUV.

  We were led by a series of employees from the vehicle, over the bridge and into Gorky’s house. I was hoping to see the svelte Svetlana, as I mentally dubbed the masked female bandit who had ordered our rescue on Sheridan Road, but once again she had fallen off our radar screen.

  By the time I reached Gorky’s personal study in the back of the house, I had concluded that for the first time in her life Lola had not exaggerated. The place was gorgeous, and Gorky had incredible taste—at least his decorator did. We didn’t actually see the various wings of the house—each apparently with its own architecture and style, but we glimpsed hints of the decor beyond by the lavish hallways that led off the main artery we traveled. We saw everything from old-style Russian to art deco.

  When we reached Gorky’s private quarters, I was amazed to see architecture that imitated some of Frank Lloyd Wright’s famous houses. There was a two-story dining room with a long mission-style table that might have fit perfectly at the Dana Thomas house. Outside, overlooking the lake, was a concrete patio with Oriental and geometric sculptures similar to those found at Taliesin West.

  We found Gorky in a large sunken room with two walls made of etched glass, shooting out from the floor at a ten-degree angle and met with a low-slung roof of long wood beams. On the far side of the room, the floor actually had steps that led down to the lake some twenty feet below. I suppose that idea was taken from Wright’s most celebrated house, Falling Water.

  “Ah, here is the woman of the hour, and her good friend,” Gorky said, rising from a wooden chair on the circular stone slab floor in the middle of the room. “Come in. I heard you had trouble. I hope you weren’t hurt.”

  I am ashamed to say I almost found Gorky’s European double kisses on the cheeks comforting after our brush with death. But if we were going to get out of here alive, I had to get my head together and have a vision.

  “How do you want to do this, Angel moy?” Gorky asked.

  “Oh, my God,” I said as reality settled in. “Lola’s crystal ball was destroyed.” I didn’t bother to mention that the Radioart weapon had been blown to bits, as well.

  “Not to worry, dorogaya moya,” Gorky said with a gruff smile. “Lola keeps one of her crystals here.”

  “She does?” Good Lord, was she shacking up with the guy?

  “Don’t be disappointed in her,” he said, pushing a button on his chair. “Sometimes she does her readings here when I must keep a low profile.”

  An older woman wearing a floral scarf entered carrying a round crystal. She placed it on the table in front of me in a round stand.

  “Thank you, Alexia,” Gorky said. “Make sure no one interrupts us now.”

  The woman nodded and departed. When we were alone again, Gorky turned to me with anticipation. “Well? It’s all yours, Angel moy.”

  I looked down at the cold, dead ball and felt a cold, dead feeling in my gut. Oh, shit. This time I’d really bought the farm.

  “Where are the girls?”

  “They are here.” Gorky pressed the tips of his fingers together and sat back in his chair to enjoy the show. “You need not fear, dorogaya moya, I am a man of my word. If you produce information for me, I will give you the girls free and clear, as long as you promise to keep them out of Capone’s hands.”

  “Oh, I can promise you that.”

  “Then we are agreed. Have your vision.”

  I looked up at him with a scowl. “Boy, you’re not going to make this easy for me, are you?”

  “It was easy enough for Lola.”

  “That’s because she made things up!”

  Gorky frowned. All humor vanished from his ruddy face. I had a good idea this was a man I didn’t want to anger. “Do not be disrespectful to your mother.”

  I nodded. I was glad to know that “Honor thy mother and father” was a commandment he held near and dear, since “Thou shalt not kill” obviously meant nothing to him.

  “I meant no disrespect. But my mother couldn’t give you the information you needed, remember? That’s why I’m here. But…I’m new at this. If you could just…hint at what you want me to find, we’d be way ahead of the game.”

  “I already told you it is an object inside of which is hidden a priceless thing.”

  “Well, that helps.” Not. “Can you be more specific? Is it, say, bigger than a bread box?”

  “Smaller.”

  I sighed. “Okay. I want you to picture it in your mind. Try to remember every detail and I’ll see what I can come up with.”

  I shut my eyes and breathed deeply. I was surprised how quickly random thoughts faded. I felt energy drawing me toward the crystal. Heat sizzled in my palm.

  Whoomph. I felt a bird flutter around my head. A breeze from its wings cooled my temple. My eyes flew open. I looked around, but there was nothing.

  “What is it?” Gorky asked, moving to the edge of his chair. “What did you see?”

  “Quiet,” Mike said. “Let her concentrate.”

  “I saw a bird.” I looked questioningly to Mike. “An eagle?”

  I focused on the ball and smelled gunpowder. “Someone has been shot. A man with silver hair.”

  “Where was he wounded?” Gorky said in a low voice.

  “Below the heart. He’s going to die…He—no, he’s okay.”

  “That was me,” Gorky said. “Where did it happen?”

  “On a cliff overlooking water. It’s snowing. I see the bird, but he’s not flying.”

  Gorky let out a raspy baritone chuckle. “No, he wouldn’t be flying. It happened in Wisconsin. You have seen it all exactly as it happened. You are right, Angel moy. You have a true gift.” He gripped the arms of his oak chair and pulled his strapping body to the edge of his seat. “Now, to get those girls and yourself out of here alive, you must tell me what happened to the bird.”

  I shut my eyes, trying to lure back the fading vision. I saw snow, even felt the cold flakes on my cheeks, heard the shot and smelled the blood that splattered the white ground, but I could not see the bird. It would have flown at the gun’s report.

  “There is no bird,” I said, opening my eyes. The spell was broken.

  “Look again,” Gorky urged me. “Sometimes things are not what they seem.”

  I licked my lips and willed myself to try once more. I touched the crystal ball. It had cooled and was lukewarm at best. Then a tickling sensation scratched at my palms. I placed them firmly on the round glass. Heat poured from my lifelines. The glass glowed and I was stunned by what I saw—Humphrey Bogart. I blinked, waiting for the vision to pass, but it was still there. He was talking and I could tell somehow that I was watching a movie.

  “I see Bogart,” I said, half-afraid Gorky would laugh me out of the house, but I remembered that he was a Bogart fan.

  “What do you see?” the mobster asked in a prodding, sly voice.

  “It’s a scene from a movie.”

  “What is he saying?”

  I shook my head. It was as if someone had muted the film. This wasn’t Casablanca. Bogart was too intense, almost mean. Then sudden
ly I heard, “It’s the stuff that dreams are made of.” And I knew.

  Risking the loss of the vision, I looked at Gorky as I said, “The Maltese Falcon.”

  His wide mouth broke into a slow, satisfied grin. “Excellent, dorogaya moya. Yes, it is the Maltese Falcon that was stolen from me.”

  I almost burst out laughing. Was this guy for real? I tried to remember what I could from the film. It had to have been shot in the 1940s. It was Bogart’s first roll as a leading man, but he was antihero material. It was a film noir, almost clichéd, and certainly nothing remotely like a true story.

  “There was no real Maltese Falcon, Vladimir. The film was based on a novel by Daschiel Hammett. Pure fiction.”

  “True, but I am a film afficionado, and I chose such a statue to carry my treasure, which I assure you is very real. It was stolen, and you still haven’t told me where it is.”

  I glanced almost casually at the ball, and there I saw a vision so clear it took my breath away. “There is a farm with rolling hills,” I said in a monotone as if I were merely translating a message. “And a covered bridge over a small stream.”

  “Yes?” Gorky whispered.

  “There is a two-hundred-year-old house at the end of the road. An old woman lives there. She has had a stroke—her mouth is pulled down and her one foot drags behind her.”

  “Yes?” he said in a strangled voice.

  “She has hidden your treasure under the floorboard in the dining room.”

  And just like that, the scene I had described vanished. The ball emptied of images. I was fully back in the room. But I still hadn’t told him where he could find the farm.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “I can’t tell you more.”

  “You told me enough.” He leaned back in his chair, his big knees half blocking my view of him. He stared sullenly at nothing in particular. “You described a place I know in Chechnya. I would not have thought it would be there. This is a great knife in my heart, but I now know it’s true. You could not have made that up.”