An Inner Fire (17 page)

A large scar crossed his nose just like George, her battered tom-cat patient. No one answered.

Ole Joe and Tom drifted away.

His blood shot eyes focused on Hollie. “You holding?”

Not one to decline a challenge, Hollie moved closer to him. “No way.”

He spoke into Hollie’s face, “Haven’t seen you before?”

Hollie didn’t flinch. “So?”

Grayce cleared her throat and spoke in her most commanding voice. “Remember, we’re meeting Jess. We should get going.”

The kid’s reddened eyes zeroed in on her. “Stick around. I feel like talking.” Although said offhand, it was clear he wasn’t offering a choice. “You liked talking to those two idiots.”

When he leaned closer to her, she could feel his aggression and his lack of control. A blur of Vuitton passed at the periphery of her vision.

The kid lay on the sidewalk, holding his stomach and gasping.

After his kick, delivered to the kid’s abdomen, James bent down and wiped off his shoe.

“Did you just kick my friend?” A new voice from behind grated on Grayce’s already hyper-sensitive nerves and had her neck hair bristling. She focused her center, shifted her weight to the balls of her feet and waited.

She felt a rush of air pass close to her ear. The newest antagonist was bringing his hand down on her shoulder to push her out of the way, to get to James. Using his downward momentum, she swung her arm in an arc in one swift motion, striking his forearm.

His knees buckled from the pain she had delivered to his radial pressure point. She wrapped her arm around his head, rotated his body and dropped him to the cement.

“Oh my God, Boss, that was incredible!”

James pulled Grayce away from their attackers. “Get in the car. Go! Go! Go!”

The first guy pushed himself to his knees, breathing hard. “Get up, Jarred. Let’s kick their asses.”

Jarred made a feeble effort to roll over. Not because she had injured him badly, but because he knew she could take him down again.

James took Grayce’s arm. “We’re leaving. Come on Hollie.”

They sprinted to the car. Hollie grumbled from behind, “Those chicken shits aren’t going to chase us.”

In seconds, they were in the safety of her car with the doors locked.

James spoke in his British voice, “I almost lost my Vuitton with that kick.”

They all burst into laughter. The adrenaline was flowing, making them punchy.

Hollie was exuberant. “Awesome. I didn’t know you knew karate, Boss. It was like a video game or a movie.”

Grayce pulled the car out of the parking spot. She tried to calm down, but neither her heart nor her body was listening.

Hollie leaned forward from the back seat. “Next time, I wanna be the one to take them down. Can you show me how?”

“There isn’t going to be a next time. And aikido isn’t something you just take up.”

“Aikido. I don’t know what it is. You were better than a video game.”

Grayce basked a bit in the high praise since she had never used aikido in a real fight. “I used the reverse kubishme on him.”

“I had no idea you were so cool.”

James feigned a cough into his hand.

“Your karate kick was cool, too, rad, man.”

“I don’t know, kid.” James grabbed his groin in mock pain. “I should’ve stretched before coming. I need a martini to ease my pain.”

James and Hollie laughed. Grayce wasn’t so entertained. Her body was relaxing, but she grappled with the depressing, low vibrations of aggression. The thugs just wanted to cause trouble, nothing personal to them. Men who just needed to beat someone up to feel alive.

“Thanks for all your help tonight. I shouldn’t have involved you,” she said.

“We weren’t in danger. I could’ve taken the guy down. Not quick and pretty like you two did, but I grew up handling mean sons of….” Hollie said.

Hollie, needing to learn to fight to protect herself, made Grayce feel discouraged. She was feeling the after effects of dealing with anger and hostility.

“I can see you’re not in the mood for El Gaucho.” James reached over and rubbed Grayce’s neck. “Darlin, don’t start berating yourself. We’re all okay. We just got a little too close to street-living.”

Grayce looked at James. He winked at her, not his affected pick-up wink, but a wink that bolstered her. “No need to don the shroud. We’re okay. And we did learn that the police are still looking for the guy.”

“And it sounds like he’s foreign,” Hollie added.

“But we didn’t disprove Davis’ theory of a drugged assailant,” Grayce said.

They drove in silence over the Fremont Bridge.

“Hollie, should I drive you to your apartment?”

“Nah, drop me off at the office. I’ll go check our phone calls before I head home.”

She should’ve known that Hollie would maintain her privacy. All she knew was that Hollie shared an apartment with some other gamers.

“These night duties aren’t in your job description. And, come in late tomorrow. I’ll take the messages off later.”

“I’m not tired. This was better than any night of World of Warfare.”

Grayce wondered if she was the only one whose energy was depleted.

* * *

Grayce plunked down on her couch with a bag of Hawaiian chips. Since the night of Davis’ near stabbing, she had begun stocking potato chips in her house.

With the sound of the crinkling paper, Napoleon appeared and wrapped his 25-pound body around her feet. He didn’t eat potato chips but seemed to understand her need for comfort.

She knew junk food wasn’t the answer, but she still succumbed to the comfort of chips and Diet Coke. She reached into the greasy ocean blue bag. She should be meditating on the calmness of the blue water. Instead, she savored the burst of sweet onion flavor and salt lingering on her tongue.

Diet Coke and chips echoed a time in her childhood when she felt secure. On Friday nights, she and Cassie were allowed special treats and TV. The sisters shared a refuge in a world of their own making, where nothing bad could happen.

If Cassie had lived, she wouldn’t have allowed Grayce to eat alone. Grayce thought of her growing relationship with Elizabeth Marley, the unspoken understanding and acceptance between the two women. And she didn’t feel the intensity of loneliness she usually felt at these times without her sister.

She wasn’t sleeping more than four to six hours a night since the wharf fire, and when asleep, her dreams were mostly filled with visions of reflective eyes in the dark, staring at her intently. Sleep deprived, she was having trouble sorting out what was real. When awake, she got the prickly sensation of being watched, and followed, and she was afraid to turn her head, to look over her shoulder—even in her own living room.

She continued to munch chips out of the bag. If someone was following her, it was time to return to practicing aikido.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

He never came to Capitol Hill, a place filled with tattooed kids and gays, except for his dirty dealings with the Russians. The wail of police sirens punctuated the noise of the crowded streets. They wouldn’t kill him in a public place, around the corner from the police station, would they? They could and would, once he had served his purpose. He was expendable.

He paused to look through the darkened window of the bar, lit up by a three-foot neon cocktail glass. Inside, the first floor bar was dark and nearly empty, with just a few regulars drinking away their Sunday.

He glanced over his shoulder to make sure no one was in close enough range to see him climb the stairs and join the Russians. At the top of the iron stairs, he heard the low murmur of voices.

The large mezzanine featured leopard-skin couches, blood-red walls, and gold frame mirrors. The upper floor was completely deserted, except for the mob boss, Ivan Zavragin, with his body guard, Kirill, and another minion he had had never met.

His palms were already sweating. He was tempted to wipe them on his church pants.

“Come, sit.” Zavragin pointed to the chair opposite him. The gold from Zavragin’s tooth glowed in the dim light.

The boss was flanked by his stocky underling and Kirill, the bodyguard, at the end of the spotted couch.

He sat down, imagining the leather straps around his feet and wrists, immobilizing him for the torture.

Kirill’s stare burned into him, marking him as a potential dead man. He stared straight back at the pock-marked heavy. Kirill’s flat, dark eyes were a soulless black void, those of a killer who had been to hell and taken the long way back.

Zavragin poured from the bottle that had been propped in the ice bucket at his side. “Genuine Russian vodka. Nothing better.”

There was always a ritual when he met with the Russians. He would drink and smile. It was all part of the game they played. Bowls of nuts and olives sat on the table that separated him from Zavragin and Kirill.

He never got used to the thugs who were always present. The new thug, half his size, stood behind Zavragin, his tattoo of four turnip-shaped church spires symbolic of his four prison terms boldly displayed across his arm. He recognized the intimidation, but it wasn’t necessary. They had him by the balls. He threw back the shot, matching Ivan and waited.

“How is the investigation going?”

This was no social tête-à-tête. “I’ve got it under control.”

Zavragin watched him, his dark eyes hooded, his face hidden in the shadows. “Really?”

He had given the wrong answer. Fear traveled at warp speed through his body, settling into his gut.

“Under control?” Zavragin’s tone had gotten smoother, unlike the harsh Vodka that burned your throat and guts.

“Did you know Lieutenant Davis has been down at the wharf asking about crab shipments?”

He didn’t know. How could he know? He knew Davis would be a problem. His usual machinations wouldn’t deter a man like Davis.

“By your silence, I’m assuming you didn’t.”

“Let him poke. There’s nothing to find.”

“Easy reassurance from the man who said he had the situation totally under control.”

“It’s under control.” He hoped it was under control. He only needed two more weeks and it would be finished.

Kirill sat up straighter. Ivan laughed, contorting his face into a grimace, frozen like an Egyptian death mask. “I want to be back on the wharf. Now! It’s been almost a month.”

These criminals acted like it was his fault that their drug smuggling business had to relocate. He had done what they asked. “I warned you. The investigation could go on for several months. If you didn’t want the heat, why burn the shed?”

Kirill unlocked his crossed legs and leaned over the table; he clenched and unclenched his fist over the nut bowl.

He imagined Kirill’s lethal hands around his throat, tightening, closing off his airway. He tried to appear relaxed. He had learned over the last months not to show any fear to these sadists. He refused to give them the pleasure of watching him squirm. “The other fires I managed for you weren’t under public scrutiny. Why such a conspicuous building this time?”

“So curious today? You weren’t so particular about our work when you wanted to bargain.” Zavragin leaned forward. “The shed fire was a message to the greedy bastard who decided to help himself to a few crab cases. No one cuts me out and lives.”

Did Zavragin suspect his escape plan? His lungs were trapped in his rib cage. The air didn’t move in or out.

“But there was no body in the shed.”

“I didn’t want to make your job too hard.” Zavragin smiled, but it didn’t move beyond his lips. “Fishing accidents happen, especially around the dangerous brine tank.”

Zavragin didn’t want the police involved. The police would take over the investigation if a body had been found on the wharf. An icy chill settled over him. He was a dead man once Zavragin learned of his double dealing.

“I can trust you to take care of things in the fire department. Just one more little difficulty…”

“Just one?” Fear twisted his guts into tight ropes.

“Davis’ girlfriend, the vet, she’s been asking around Belltown about the stabbing. My guy is long gone. She learned nothing, but I don’t want problems.”

Grayce Walters, Davis’ witness was in Belltown?

“Don’t hurt her. You’ll only make things worse.” Zavragin gave another of his contrived laughs.

He would never kill for them.

Zavragin stood. Kirill followed. “Nice seeing you.”

Kirill descended the steps ahead of his boss. The ex-inmate followed Zavragin down, covering his back.

Did they think he’d shoot Zavragin in the back? If he was going to kill anyone on this earth, it would be the evil mobster, but he’d like to see the fear and pain on Zavragin’s face, the same pain and fear Zavragin had caused so many to suffer.

The waiter appeared a few minutes later.

He was in no rush to go home. “Glen Livet—neat. Make it a double.”

Why hadn’t Benson told him about seeing Grayce Walters on the wharf? Nothing had changed. Benson required supervision, just like when he was a firefighter. He had needed Benson to light the fire, and now he needed him to follow Grayce Walters. He hoped Benson could keep it together until this atrocious charade was finished.