by Lois Greiman
“Was he mystical?”
“Oh.” I couldn’t quit staring at the knife. The one in his hand seemed particularly mesmerizing. “The horse was better.”
“He had a horse?”
“Yeah.”
“On stage?”
“Weird, right?”
The left corner of his lips twitched just a little. Was it anger or humor? Anger or humor? “What did he call you?”
“Menke or the horse?”
“Was it a talking horse?”
“Talking horses are pretty rare…even in Vegas.”
“The magician, then,” he said, and rotated the knife slowly in his hand.
“Scarlet.”
“I thought you performers had stage names.”
“Oh. You meant my…” The mesmerizing sheen of the knife was making it difficult to remember my real name, much less try to think of another alias. “Athena.”
“And the name of the hotel?”
I would never hold up under torture. He hadn’t even brought out the bamboo slivers yet and I was ready to turn over blood kin. Of course, if he was willing to torture my brothers I would have been happy to hand him the instruments, so maybe that wasn’t a true test. “The um, the Pyramide.”
“So you’ll be listed on their website?”
My bladder quivered. Menkaura Qufti’s real assistant had been hotter than hell, with bushels of blond hair and boobs like cannonballs. “They, ah…” My voice was squeaky. Almost as if I was lying through my teeth. “They’ve probably replaced me already.”
“In four days?”
I tried a smile. It was gritty at best. “That’s Vegas for ya.”
“Did you steal from him?”
“What?” I stepped back a pace.
“Take his…” He shrugged. The motion was almost negligible. “Rabbit or something?”
“No, I—”
“Were you trespassing?”
“Why would I…Oh,” I said, remembering I had kind of been doing just that when he caught me. “No.” I shook my head. “I had my own computer.”
He stared at me, maybe thinking I was nuts. Maybe he was right. But if so, it was justifiable insanity. “Where is it now?”
“My computer?”
“Was that not what we were discussing?”
God only knew. “It’s at home.”
“In Reno?”
I almost agreed, but recognized the trap and caught myself before it snapped. “Vegas. A little condo on…Mulberry Street.” Enough! No more bogus information, my mind screamed, but my mouth seemed to be functioning without the dubious benefit of my brain. “Just up the road from ah…”
“Sesame Street?”
“What?”
“Why’d he fire you?”
I raised my chin a little and tried desperately to catalog the area around me without turning my head. Surely there was something I could use to defend myself.
“What makes you think he did?” I asked. “What makes you think I didn’t…” He ran his thumb along the edge of a blade. Fainting was looking like a more viable option all the time. “What makes you think I didn’t just quit?”
He examined me in silence for a hopeless eternity. “You do not strike me as a quitter.”
“I would never strike you,” I said, but it was a lie. If I thought I could get away with it, I’d hit him with everything but the dog.
For a second, I actually thought he might laugh. But he spoke instead, using that scary-as-hell quiet tone that set my hair on edge. “So you quit?”
“He…” My mind spun for some kind of story. Some kind of lie. Some kind of anything that would keep him talking. “He made a pass.”
“And?”
“He wasn’t as attractive as the horse.”
An elongated moment of silence passed before he drew an electronic tablet from a drawer. Setting it on the table beside the knives, he bent, fingers flying on the keyboard.
In an instant, the image of the Mystical Menke was smiling at me from the screen. I swallowed my bile and glanced at the door.
“I can do a six-minute mile,” he said. I jerked my attention toward him; he didn’t bother to raise his gaze from the screen. “Faster if the footing is favorable.”
I believed him, but even though it generally takes me about an hour to cover the same distance, I thought I might be able to beat him; fear changes everything.
“Shikoku is considerably faster.”
I glanced at the dog. She smiled evilly, silver eyes shining.
I fisted my hands and steadied my bladder. “What do you want from me?”
He glanced up, casual as a cactus. “You might try the truth.”
“I told you the truth.”
He raised his brows, first at the screen, then at me. “Gertrude Nelson is a blonde.”
I fisted my hands beside my thighs and tried like hell to be strong. “Madam Clairol.”
“Tall.”
“High heels.”
“And extremely well-endowed.” He gazed at the screen for several seconds. “Hard to fake that when you are bereft of a shirt.”
I pursed my lips. “I don’t gotta explain myself to you.” Maybe I was going for hillbilly haughty. Maybe I had entirely lost my mind.
He straightened to his full height, which, quite suddenly, seemed pretty full. “How long have you known Cal?”
“Cal?” I had no idea what he was talking about. It was nice not to have to play stupid. So much easier to employ the real deal.
“Big man,” he explained. “Crooked nose. Likes to break arms.”
“I don’t know Cal. And I don’t believe I’d like him very well if I did.” I tipped my nose toward the ceiling and took a step to the rear. He followed.
“What’s your specialty?”
“Specialty?” I didn’t know what the hell he meant, but an answer of some sort seemed to be a great idea. “I was really good at being cut in half.”
His face didn’t do a lot of expressions. Moderately quizzical was a nice change of pace.
“For the great—”
“Menkaura,” he finished for me.
“And pretty good at prideful awe,” I added.
Quizzical was leaning toward dumbfounded.
“Ta da,” I said, and lifted both hands toward the right, as if extolling the magical powers of some unseen performer.
There was a moment of silence, then, “Who sent you?”
“What do you—” I began, but there was no time to finish the sentence. He had already thrown the knife.
Chapter 17
Build man fire, he be warm for a day. Set man on fire, he be warm for rest of life.
—Confucius…maybe
I jerked to the right. The blade sliced past my nose. I lunged for the door, grappling for the lock, but Hiro was right behind me. There was no hope of escape. I pivoted toward him, trapped. The knife reverberated in the timbers beside my head, but I barely spared it a glance; his eyes, so close, so silvery blue, held me spellbound.
Without glancing away, he tugged the blade from the wall.
Light flashed along the razor-sharp edge.
“Don’t!” I pressed my back against the wall, groveling and sniveling. “Please.”
“Thirty-two seconds,” he said, and touched the tip of the blade to my throat.
I would like to say he looked insane. But bored would be a more accurate description. Did that mean he was especially crazy? I swallowed, closed my eyes for an instant, and attempted to calm my clattering nerves. It was like trying to civilize L.A. “What?” I said.
“Do not play stupid.”
“I’m not…” I managed to shake my head the smallest degree without slicing my own throat. “I’m not playing.”
“Thirty-two seconds. That is how long it takes to bleed out when the saphenous artery is severed.”
“Then I’d like to request…respectfully…that ya refrain from doing that.” My voice was barely a whisper.
He stared
at me, an impossible mix of intensity and boredom, then pulled the knife away abruptly and stepped back a pace. “Who are you?”
I swallowed, hoping I wouldn’t throw up. “I’m Scar—”
“Don’t say Scarlet.”
I licked my lips. “Okay.”
“If Cal didn’t send you, who did?”
I searched rather hopelessly for an answer that wouldn’t get me dead. It was impossible to guess what that might be.
“Were you simply sent to find me? Is that it?”
“I—”
“You are not equipped to kill me.”
My fingernails curled against the wall behind me. “You do irritate me,” I admitted. “But most people do, and I’ve never killed any of ’em. I mean, Bomstad’s death was just bad luck. And Peachtree…he was really old. Altove, I’m sorry about that one, but it wasn’t my fault. He had a gun…and a grudge and…and Albertson…you gotta admit, dirty cops…” I stopped myself, breathed, licked my lips. “I don’t wanna kill you,” I said, as if recapping my rambling message. “I don’t want to kill anyone.” Hardly.
His eyes took on a vague what-the-fuck-are-you-talking-about quality. I’m fairly familiar with the expression.
“I don’t even know who you are,” I added.
The world stood absolutely still for what seemed like an eternity, and then he drew back a couple more inches. “Go sit on the couch.”
“If I do, do you promise not to kill me?”
He contemplated that for several seconds. I don’t like to be fussy, but I would have been happier with an immediate response. “I will not kill you today.”
I nodded, cautiously hopeful. “Do you mean…like…until midnight or for a full twenty-four hours?”
“Gott!” He said the word with quiet exasperation. I didn’t know what it meant, but if he was cursing me he had lasted longer than most men in my acquaintance.
“I mean…” I began, careful not to upset him further. “I’m just wondering how long I have before I should panic.”
“You have not panicked yet?”
“This is actually me being stoic.”
“Sit down,” he said. “I will not kill you before dawn.”
I actually felt myself relax, then chided myself for my low standards. A woman with a PhD and secondhand Manolos should probably aim higher. “You’re not going to torture me until then, are you?”
“I will ask the questions.”
I tried to nod and found with some satisfaction that my neck was just able to manage the necessary motion.
Shuffling toward the couch was more difficult. My knees seemed wooden, my muscles oddly flaccid. I turned, sat, gazed up at him.
“Cal did not send you,” he said.
I shook my head.
“Manato would have taught you the location of the saphenous artery.”
I scowled. “It’s not in my neck?”
A strange blend of disdain and awe flickered across his face. “You are ignorant,” he said. “So Arseny would not have hired you.”
I almost argued, but I try not to be stupid even when I’m being called stupid.
“Which means you are hiding from someone,” he said, and speared me with his ever-knowing eyes.
It took me a moment to realize I should object. “What? Hiding…” I tried a hissing sound, but my mouth was too dry. It ended up sounding a little like a lisping stutter. “What would I possibly have to be—”
He raised a hand. It still held the knife, but the motion was almost casual, as if he’d forgotten its existence.
“Did you…” He frowned. “Surely, you were not foolish enough to cross D.”
I swallowed, mind tumbling over memories of one Dagwood Dean Daly, the gangster I had met years before and with whom I still shared a dysfunctional relationship. He’s fascinating in a scare-the-pants-off-you sort of way. “What?”
“You are from Chicago,” he said. It wasn’t a question; still, I felt a need to object.
“No. I told ya. I been in Las—”
“Bartlett, perhaps.” He ignored me completely, pacing a little. “Or Elgin.”
I almost opened my mouth to ask how he could possibly guess so accurately, but again with the trying not to be stupid.
“You left some time ago. Why?” He stopped his pacing to stare at me. “Was it D’s presence that precipitated your move?”
I shook my head.
“But you know him.”
I prepared to shake my head again, but he beat me to the punch with a warning glance and an order. “Do not lie to me.”
“I know him,” I admitted.
“Biblically?”
I did shake my head now.
“So you work for him.”
I shook again, pretty much all over.
He drew a deep breath, bending back slightly as if to fill his lungs to full capacity.
“I shall make an agreement with you,” he said. “If you tell me how you know D, I will vow not to kill you for a full twenty-four hours.”
“Forty-eight.” The counteroffer slipped out as if we were bidding on a steamer trunk at Granny’s Antiques.
He scowled. “Thirty-six.”
“Okay.” I’m ashamed to admit the amount of relief that sluiced through me. I mean, really, a girl should probably hold out for more than thirty-six hours of continued survival, but beggars and all that…“What about—”
“Torture is a great deal of work.”
“I don’t really…” I folded my hands in my lap and tried to be inoffensive. It’s easier for some than others. “I guess I’m not really concerned with whether it’s strenuous or not,” I said. “I’d prefer you didn’t do it anyway.
“In fact”—I said this like it was a brainstorm shooting lightning through my cranium—“how about if I tell you the truth, and you let me go?”
“That will depend on the truth,” he said.
I licked my lips and opened my mouth, but my mind had been bled dry. “What was the question again?”
“How did you become acquainted with D?”
“Oh.” I nodded and swallowed, thinking back to the first time I had met the gangster (or, as he liked to be called, collection engineer) on Chicago’s famous Gold Coast. “I…uh…paid him some money.”
He watched me narrowly. His dog did the same. “A cheating boyfriend?”
I blinked, confused.
“He is a good person to know if you want someone to discontinue breathing.”
“I…no,” I said, and shook my head vigorously. As long as it was still attached, I might as well use it. “No, I didn’t hire him to…” I glanced at the knives and swallowed. “I was just paying him back.”
“Perhaps you should start at the beginning.”
I nodded. It was a dumb-ass story and kind of long-winded, but maybe that just meant I could postpone my own demise. Though stretching it out past thirty-six hours seemed difficult. “I have brothers. Three of ’em,” I said.
He watched me in silence, as if that wasn’t reason enough to pay a trained assassin. Others might agree with him…but only if they hadn’t met the brothers in question.
“They’re, um…” I probably shouldn’t slander my family during the final day and a half of my life. I tried to think of something positive to say, but he’d been pretty specific about wanting the truth. “They’re idiots. One of them…Pete…” I cleared my throat. “Peter John, he borrowed money from D.” There was a shitload more to this little tale, of course. But I wanted to keep some of my dirty laundry for later. “And, um, failed to pay it back.”
Hiro raised his brows a good quarter of an inch. It was like a shouted expletive from an Irishman. “Your brother does not know where the saphenous artery is either, does he?”
It took me a moment to realize his implication. “Lots of people don’t know where that stupid artery is. It don’t mean we’re dumb.” I drew a breath and continued on. “Could be it wasn’t one of Pete’s best decisions,” I said. But, honest to God,
it was light-years from his worst.
He watched me. “Are you aware that D has been known to take people’s livers without their consent?”
“Well, to be fair, who would consent?” I asked, and wondered vaguely when I had begun justifying the actions of an organ thief.
“What of your brother? Was he aware?”
“I kinda think so.”
“Yet he borrowed the money.”
“Yeah.”
“And left you to send the payment.”
I shifted my gaze sideways. Silence echoed around us. His brows rose another quarter of a millimeter.
“Do not tell me you delivered it in person.”
“Okay.”
“Did you?”
I didn’t respond. I’ve never been good at taking orders, but I was desperately trying to turn over a new leaf.
“Even knowing about his liver fetish,” he added.
For a moment, I considered informing him that I was as brave as Natalie Portman and as fully deserving of Thor’s adoration…or maybe I was just a really devoted sister, but in the end I settled for honesty. “Mom woulda blamed me.”
That quizzical brow rose again.
“If Pete went missing, she woulda blamed me.”
A quiet rumble issued from his caramel-colored throat. If I hadn’t known better I would have sworn it was a chuckle. “How much did he owe?”
“Twenty thousand dollars.”
“You must have been quite good at ‘ta da.’”
I tried my utmost to make sense of his words, but my mind was shutting down.
“Your former occupation.”
I blinked.
“With the Mystical Menkaura. I assume you paid your idiotic but fortunate brother’s bill for him.”
I didn’t respond immediately because, while I consider defaming my family as entertaining as a Jagger concert, I don’t like to share the fun with others. “What makes you think he didn’t get the money together by himself?”
He didn’t even bother to address that ridiculous notion. Which was fair; so long as there was beer to be purchased, brother Pete wouldn’t have enough dollar bills to kindle a campfire.
I cleared my throat. “I borrowed the money from a friend.”
“What friend?”
