Critical Space ak-5 Page 18

  I wondered what would happen if we got pulled over for having open containers, then took my can and set it again behind my seat.

  Dan laughed and lit himself a cigarette, and when he caught me looking at him, asked, "What?"

  "You're surprising."

  He drained what must have been half of his beer before asking, "Why?"

  "She's not this sloppy."

  He grew instantly serious. "Oh, no, Mr. Kodiak. I am not sloppy. I know where there are police in Brooklyn and where there are not, and there are none in our way. 'Tasha, she trusts me to do what she asks."

  "And what has she asked you to do with me?"

  He smiled and didn't answer, and when the next song started, he sang along.

  ***

  We ended up in Brighton Beach, which wasn't astonishing, since it's one of the major enclaves of the Russian mob in New York City, and Dan had "mafiya" stamped all over him. He stopped us outside of a bodega not too far from Coney Island Hospital, parking the car illegally right in front and then hopping out as soon as the engine died. He waited courteously for me to join him on the sidewalk, then held the glass door into the store wide for me, following close behind as I entered.

  It wasn't a very nice bodega, dusty groceries stacked sloppily on the shelves, and the fruit and vegetables on display looked minutes from rotting. The cashier worked behind a smudged bullet-proof screen, and was a teen girl with bright red lipstick and eye shadow that made her whole face look tubercular.

  Dan put a hand on my shoulder, gently, guiding me forward, and said something to the girl in Russian or Ukrainian or Georgian. Her response was surly, and he raised his voice at her, and she didn't say anything more, though she flicked two fingers his way in a gesture that could be universally translated.

  At the back of the store was a steel door, and Dan reached past me to push it open, then gave me a shove through. The back room was twice as large as the store, and two other men were seated at a Formica table there, watching the Mets play baseball on a flat-screen television that had been propped on some cardboard boxes. The boxes had labels of different electronics manufacturers. Neither of the men looked our way.

  A flight of stairs ran up to the left, and Dan indicated I was to start climbing, so I did. Best as I could figure, Drama just wanted me moved around right now, and my guess was that I'd get shuffled about for a while before we got to settle down.

  I found myself in a carpeted reception area, with peeling wallpaper of yellow and orange flowers, three new leather couches, and a desk. An air conditioner whirred in a nearby window whose glass had been covered with orange paint. The carpet was green, an old shag peppered with stains.

  Behind the desk sat an overweight white woman in her forties, wearing a hot pink tank top that revealed the fact she'd gone braless for the day. She had a can of Diet Coke beside her, a telephone, an intercom, and an open copy of one of the Russian-language dailies. She sat waiting for us with a bored expression that lasted until she saw Dan. Then she smiled.

  Dan draped his right arm over my shoulders, speaking rapidly to the woman and giving me a friendly shake as he did. As she listened she nodded, and when he had finished she pressed a button on the intercom and said something, quickly.

  A door at the back opened almost immediately, and a young woman who couldn't have been older than eighteen emerged wearing something that would only ever look arousing in lingerie catalogues. Her hair was black, loose about her face, and she was just close enough to pretty that I supposed she would be if I saw her anywhere but here. Her body was entirely visible under the fabric, her breasts still winning against gravity and her nipples erect from their contact with the air-conditioned air. Her pubic area was barely hidden by a black thong.

  She stopped in the doorway and put one arm up on the frame, striking a pose, then turned to give me a view of her from behind. Her body was small and slight, and there were bruises on the back of one thigh. All of her nails – fingers and toes – were painted red.

  "This is Katrina," Dan said. "You're going to go with her."

  I realized I was in a whorehouse, and I saw where this was heading, and I said, "No, I'm not."

  Then I stamped my right foot down on his, going for his instep. The move clipped him, enough that he growled, trying to pivot and drive his knee into my stomach, but I twisted away from him, out from under his grip, and the knee missed, but his right grabbed the collar of my jacket, keeping me from backing away. Before I had the HK up he'd grabbed the gun with his left, twisting it down so fast and so hard that I had to let it go or risk him tearing my index finger off in the trigger guard. The gun landed on the floor between us and I pitched myself forward, hitting him in the nose with my forehead. That rocked him, but he didn't let go of my collar, and with his left he shot two quick and mean punches into my right side, going for my kidney. Heat and pain chased each other around my middle and I almost lost control of my bladder, and the part of my brain that thinks these kinds of things at the worst possible moment wondered if I'd ever been hit so hard in my life.

  He still had my collar, and I tried to get my arms up to his, turning to break his hold, but the kidney punches had done a number on my legs, and I got halfway through the turn before he shifted his balance and drove me into the desk, ramming the edge into my belly. I doubled over and he used his left to slam my face down onto the desktop so hard, the can of Diet Coke fell over. As the pool of carbonation swept into my eyes and hair, he changed his grip, using both hands to hold my head down, putting all of his weight against me, and I could feel his thumbs digging into my right temple.

  Points of light began swimming before my eyes. The soda had found its way into one nostril, the carbon dioxide burning, and I sputtered and struggled, and Dan didn't relent.

  "No more, okay?" He sounded as if I'd hurt his feelings more than his body. I probably had.

  There really wasn't any choice. I tried to nod, realized that was never going to work given my current posture, and choked out a noise of assent. Again, his grip changed, and while one hand remained on my head, thumb still applying pressure, the other ran down my leg and located the Smith Wesson. He threw that aside, then went through my pockets and took my wallet, my knife, every slip of paper I'd gathered during the day.

  Satisfied that I'd been disarmed, he released me, and I pushed myself back up, feeling humiliated and angry and in a fair amount of pain. Katrina was still in the doorway, looking bashfully at her red toenails. The fat woman was already mopping up the spill on her desk, as if this sort of thing happened all the time.

  Dan took me by the shoulders, straightening me up, and adjusting my glasses before letting me go. His mouth and nose were leaking blood, but he smiled as if he was having the time of his life.

  "Okay, we're friends again?" he asked.

  I sneezed, trying to get the carbonation out of my nose. "Friends," I said.

  Dan tucked his arm around my shoulder once more, and together we followed Katrina into the back.

  ***

  The room had a queen bed, a wet bar, and a speckled mirror on the ceiling. Attached to the head and footboard of the bed were leather manacles, lined with fur. There was also a couch, a Sony television with a Toshiba VCR, an ornate coffee table, and a cheap particleboard armoire. Despite all I've seen and done in my life, it was my first time in a brothel, and for some reason, I hadn't believed that people really liked this sort of thing.

  Katrina crossed the room to another door, holding it open and beckoning for me to follow. It was a bathroom, the main fixture of which was a raised Jacuzzi. A shower filled the opposite wall, separated by a toilet and sink, both of which could have used a scrubbing. There were more mirrors.

  As soon as I'd stepped inside, Katrina started to remove my jacket.

  "Don't," I said.

  Her attention stayed focused on my chest, and she cooed something I didn't understand and tried to lift my jacket off again. I caught her hands, felt them small and cold, and tried to get h
er to meet my eyes.

  "I don't want to get undressed," I told her.

  She turned and looked at Dan, who was standing in the doorway, said something in whatever it was they all seemed to speak. Dan, who was wiping at his nose and mouth with a handkerchief, grunted a response.

  "You have to strip," he told me, studying the bloodstains on the fabric in his hand. "Either she helps you or I do."

  The frustration made it into my voice. "I'm not looking to get laid."

  Katrina glanced from me to Dan, then back, then cooed something again. Dan shook his head in response. This seemed to satisfy her, because she reached out for the side of my face, touching my skin where the soda had dried.

  "Huh?" she said. "This? Yes?"

  "You don't have to fuck her," Dan told me.

  I brushed her hand away, trying to be gentle about it, though the truth was that my anger was threatening to get the better of me. She understood or she didn't, but either way she mimicked the gesture, perhaps mocking, and then moved to the Jacuzzi and sat at the edge.

  "I gave you a choice." Dan dabbed at his nose once more, then folded the handkerchief tidily and put it in his back pocket. "Look, Mr. Kodiak, this is how it goes. You're staying here couple hours, okay? Maybe five, six. All paid for, best girl in the house, best room in the house, you get everything, all paid for."

  "I don't want…"

  "Yeah, I know, you don't. That's okay, you don't have to have her, nothing like that. But I need your clothes."

  At the Jacuzzi, Katrina was gently splashing the water with her feet.

  Dan was watching me closely, serious, and I saw in his eyes that I had misread him earlier. If he was a hood now, he hadn't always been one, and something in his expression reminded me of Moore.

  This was what I'd been afraid of, what I knew would happen, and if Dan and I mixed it up again, I was pretty sure the result would be the same. Only this time, he wouldn't be concerned that we remain "friends." When he said he needed my clothes, I knew he meant that he needed all of them, and I knew that once I lost them they'd be gone for good, most likely burnt or dumped. I wasn't going to be able to keep the tracker, either; there was no way I'd be able to get it loose and hide it on my person with him watching.

  I could only hope that the tracker had worked, that Natalie or Corry had been able to mark my location, and that someone was on the way.

  "All right," I said.

  He looked relieved, spoke quickly to Katrina, who swung her legs out of the water and reached around to the back of the door, pulling a terrycloth bathrobe from the hook there. I took my jacket off, then my shirt, and when she saw my vest, she made a comment to Dan. He answered, and she nodded, as if his explanation was perfectly valid.

  I stripped down and stood in the middle of the bathroom, both of them looking at me, and I decided that I was still too pissed off to be embarrassed, so I looked right back at them. Katrina moved forward with the robe, and Dan stopped her.

  "Your watch," he told me. "Your earrings."

  I unfastened the Oris and handed it to him, saying, "I'm going to want that back."

  He was turning it in his hand, and he nodded, and I was pretty certain I'd never see it again.

  The earrings were another matter entirely. I hadn't removed the two hoops since I'd first gotten them over twelve years earlier, and while they moved easily enough in their holes, I couldn't get them unfastened, even using the mirror over the sink as a guide. My fingers kept slipping off the tiny bead that closed the gap in each hoop, and I couldn't get a grip to free them. After almost two minutes of my struggling, naked, tugging on my ear, Katrina took pity on me and draped the robe across the sink, then moved in to help. She had to lean against me to get a good grip on the hoops, and the heat of her body touched mine, and her breasts pressed against my arm and chest, and my body reacted.

  When they were out, she handed them to Dan, then offered me the robe.

  "You have anything up in your ass?" Dan asked.

  I needed a second to properly parse the sentence. "No."

  "You telling the truth or do I need to check you?"

  "I'm telling the truth."

  He rubbed at his goatee, then held out his hand. "Glasses, now, please. You will get them back."

  I gave him my glasses, and finally felt naked.

  "Okay, this is good, now," Dan said. "Take the hot tub or the shower, Katrina will stay with you."

  Katrina closed the door after him, then went back to the Jacuzzi, shucking what little she was wearing and lowering herself into the water with a gasp and a sigh.

  "You come in?" she asked, and I caught a blurry motion of her hand that I assumed was an attempt to beckon me closer. "Come here, da?"

  I took a shower instead.

  ***

  When I emerged wearing my robe, Katrina was on her back on the bed, idly toying with one of the manacles from the headboard, her hair carefully draped across her breasts. I shook my head and she finally took the hint that I had no plans to avail myself of her body. She left the bed and took some clothes from the armoire, putting on a pair of cutoffs and a yellow Powerpuff Girls T-shirt, then moved to the couch and switched on MTV. Every so often she would glance my way, and a couple of times she tried communicating with me in broken English, asking if I wanted anything, and each time I said no.

  There were no clocks in the room but for the VCR, and that one hadn't been set. Best as I could figure from the television, it was over an hour before the woman who had been at the desk came back to check on us, carrying my glasses. I checked them before slipping them back on, but nothing seemed different about them. Katrina and she had a brief conversation that seemed to be about me, with the older woman making some interesting gestures and sounding unhappy or, at least, displeased, though whether that was with Katrina or with me, I never knew. Then she left us alone again.

  This was clearly a holding position, someplace Drama wanted me stored until she was ready to move me to the next phase of the game, ideally the return of Lady Ainsley-Hunter. The longer I was in the same place, the greater the chance that someone would be able to locate me. What they did then would depend on whose head prevailed, but I suspected it would be Moore who assumed command in the field. Bridgett would be all for rushing in to save me – she felt I was one up on her in that regard, and I think it bothered her – but Moore would try to set up surveillance and wait for me to move again.

  That was what I thought at first.

  Sometime in the afternoon, though, I started wondering if maybe it had been more than simple radio trouble that had made me lose contact with everyone but Bridgett. Until I'd met Dan, I was relatively confident that Drama was working solo, and in that case she couldn't have been in two places at once, which meant she couldn't have been in position at the cemetery and have been in position to do harm to Moore, Dale, and Corry. But Dan's presence meant that she knew people, was willing to work with them, and consequently it was possible that she'd had someone take my friends out, in one fashion or another.

  It wasn't a thought that made sitting on the couch, watching yet another overproduced and underlit music video, easy to take. I got up and started to pace around the room. I opened the armoire, looked inside for something that might fit me. Not only was there nothing I could put on without splitting, there was nothing appropriate to my gender. I contemplated trying to leave the room, but had a strong suspicion that I'd just end up in a lot of pain, or worse, unconscious. I didn't want that; I didn't want to miss anything.

  Just as I thought I was going to go well and truly stir-crazy, the door opened and Dan returned, carrying a paper sack from The Gap.

  "Clothes," he informed me, throwing the bag on the bed. "Put them on quickly, please, we have to go."

  He turned to Katrina and the two began talking as I dumped out the contents. None of my original clothes were there; everything was new. There was a set of replacement underwear still in its wrapping, and a box of Nike sneakers. The pants were black wi
th cargo pockets, and the shirt was a simple white T-shirt with a pocket over the left breast. There was even a belt.

  Everything fit, and I was dressed before Dan and Katrina had stopped talking.

  "Where's my watch?" I asked.

  "Sorry."

  "My father gave me that watch for my thirtieth birthday. I want it back."

  "You talk to 'Tasha about the watch, okay?"

  "Am I going to see her?"

  "Soon now, very soon." He studied me with something like approval. "Katrina says you didn't touch her."

  "She's lying. We broke the bed."

  He laughed. "Sure you did, sure, okay. Now we go, you follow me."

  "I follow you," I said, and I did, right out the door and into the two men I'd seen downstairs when I'd first arrived.

  It was my own fault, I'd let my guard down and I walked right into it, and as each of the men grabbed my arms, Dan turned around and nailed me in the solar plexus. I lost my breath and most of my balance and before I'd begun to recover either, he'd taken my glasses and pocketed them. From another pocket he produced a black cloth bag, and he had it over my head, had it tied, before I could protest, yet alone resist.

  "Sorry," he said. "Saves time."

  Then something hit me on the back of the head, and instead of just seeing black because my head was in a bag, I saw a whole different darkness.

  Chapter 16

  He used ammonia to bring me back, waving the broken ampoule under my nose until the shock and pain charging through my sinuses forced my eyes open. The disorientation was instant and, for seconds, total, and my first instinct was to fight, so I tried swinging at the man who was causing me pain. The punch connected with his jaw and he grunted, dropped the ammonia, and grabbed my arms. It took another couple of seconds with him shouting at me before I understood what it was he was trying to tell me.