Better Read Than Dead (38 page)

A moment passed, then another and another, until finally Andros hit the speaker button on his phone and said, “What’s the number?”

“Two-four-eight, five-five-five, twenty-four, twenty-nine.”

Andros punched in the numbers and we waited as the phone rang once, twice, then was picked up by a female voice saying a tentative, “Hello?” into the line.

“Yes, this is Andros Kapordelis; who is this, please?” Andros said. I could see the tension on his face as he waited to hear more of the voice I knew he recognized.

“Oh, Andros! Thank God. This is Dora, and I’d like to see you.”

“How do I know it’s you?” Andros said, leaning a little closer to the phone.

“Ask me a question about when we were together,” she offered.

Andros thought for a moment, then said, “What did you give me on our first wedding anniversary?”

There was a silvery laugh on the other end, and the voice said, “Lollipops! I wanted you to give up those smelly cigars, and I thought as long as you had a substitute you might give it a try.”

As she said the word “lollipops” I watched Andros’s jaw drop, and involuntarily he brought his hand up to caress the phone. “Dora? Is it really you?” he asked, his voice choked with emotion.

“Yes, darling, it is. Can I see you so that I can explain everything?”

“Yes,” Andros said, quickly leaning forward to speak directly into the speakerphone. “Yes, yes, of course. Where are you? I will come to you,” he said excitedly.

“First, darling, you must promise me something,” she said.

“What? What do you want me to promise you?”

“That you will bring Abby, and that she won’t be harmed under any circumstances.”

Andros looked quickly up at me, almost puzzled that I was still in the room; then he looked back at the phone and said, “Of course, of course. Where are you?”

“Well, I thought it would be appropriate to meet at the place where I disappeared from you twenty years ago. I know that sounds odd, but I just think that once I tell you what really happened, you’ll be able to understand. I can take you through that day and show you exactly what happened. Will you come?”

“I’m on my way, Dora,” he said, getting up.

“When will you be here?”

“It will take us a little time, about half an hour. Will you wait for me?”

“Yes, yes, of course, darling. Hurry.” And she clicked off.

Andros walked with difficulty around his desk, his breathing coming rapidly as he forced his legs to support him. Grim moved quickly to his side and helped him into his coat, while the hit man kept a wary eye on me. He wasn’t buying it, which was exactly what I was hoping for.

“Andros,” he said softly.

Andros turned slightly and regarded him. “Yes?”

“I don’t like it,” the man said.

“It was her, Sal. I’d know that voice anywhere.”

“Oh, I’m not saying it wasn’t her, my friend. I’m just saying I don’t like it.”

Andros looked at Sal, a silent conversation passing between them; then he looked at me, and I met his stare with confidence. He looked back at his personal assassin and said, “You may be right. Bring the boys.”

With that Sal walked over to the phone and picked it up. He spoke quickly in Greek, replaced the receiver, then came around to me and grabbed me by the shoulder. His grip was firm, but not hurtful, and we all exited the room, Andros walking slowly and carefully, Grim holding him by the arm.

In the hall we met Demetrius, who smiled at his father and hurried toward him. “You wanted to see me, Pop?”

Andros stopped and regarded his son. “Yes, Demetrius, I need you to go down to the casino tonight and help Fitz.”

“Awww, Pop,” Demetrius complained, “I had a date tonight. . . .”

“You will do as I say!”
Andros thundered, and we all jumped a little at the cannon of his voice.

Demetrius glared at his father and sniffed stubbornly, then gave in and said with a winning smile, “Okay, okay, Pop. I’ll go, but I’ll have you to blame when there are no grandchildren.” And he leaned in to kiss his father on the cheek.

As he did so he brushed into me, and I flinched a little. “Excuse me,” I said automatically.

“No sweat, cutie,” he said, and winked at me before trotting away.

We reached the car a short time later, and instead of being taken to the silver sedan, I was forced to ride in the limousine with Andros and Sal. Grim, Gargoyle and Goblin got into the sedan, each toting a semiautomatic. Another car came out of the garage, also with smoked windows and filled, no doubt, with another group of men. As the limo pulled forward, I could see the other cars tag along behind.

All the way over Andros was lost deep in thought, his memory probably replaying happier times with his wife. Sal looked only at me for most of the ride, waiting and watching as I stared straight ahead, my outward appearance one of calm neutrality.

We exited the highway a while later, and headed through a familiar neck of the woods. We passed my office building, and it took some effort on my part not to look at it. Just a few blocks farther and we pulled into a small market plaza, taking up a parking space toward the back left corner of a Rite Aid Pharmacy.

The two other cars pulled up to our left, and with all the engines running we watched and waited.

Andros was now so anxious that he leaned forward across me to stare out the window, his tic even more pronounced as he watched everyone who entered the parking lot. We waited close to thirty minutes when finally a woman came out of the building. She was tall, elegant, with blond hair and high heels. In her arms she carried a small plastic bundle, her purchase from the pharmacy.

“Dora . . .” Andros said into the quiet of the car. “That’s her!” he said louder, growing excited as she neared our side of the lot. “That’s her, I’m sure of it!” he said again.

Suddenly a figure appeared out of the shadows from behind Dora. He was tall, cloaked in a long black trench coat, and his face was obscured by a black ski mask. We all watched with astonishment as in one swift motion the masked man’s arm snaked around Dora’s neck, and he jerked her violently backward.

“No!”
Andros shouted as he came out of his shock and desperately tried to climb over Sal and me to get out of the car.

“No! Dora!”
he shouted even as the woman was being dragged backward toward the shadows. I sat back and watched, pinned beneath Andros’s tremendous bulk and unable to move—not that I tried. Sal, however, was also pinned, but he was frantically struggling to get free of Andros so that he could open the car door. No one in the other cars moved as the henchmen all waited to take their cue from us, and because the windows in our car were smoked, they couldn’t see Andros’s frantic attempts to rescue his wife.

In the next moment, however, everything changed as the parking lot flooded with lights and the loud squeal of sirens drowned out all other noise. Andros and Sal stopped midmotion and watched with disbelieving eyes as from every direction police cars appeared and patrolmen lunged out of their cars with their weapons drawn. The masked man was instantly surrounded, and quickly he let go of Dora and put his hands in the air, dropping something long and metallic to the ground.

In the light of the spotlights, the woman Andros thought was Dora pulled off her blond wig, shaking out her dark hair even as she spun around, the bundle in her arms now a gun pointed directly at the masked man’s face.

Andros and Sal watched in stunned disbelief from inside the car as the woman playing Dora reached forward and yanked off the mask of her attacker. Andros heaved a great sob as he recognized his son Demetrius standing menacingly in the pool of lights surrounded by police.

For a long, tense moment nobody inside the car moved; then Andros shouted “My son!” into the stunned silence, and again he did his best to try to scramble over me and Sal and get out of the car. This time he was successful, and when he opened the car door his momentum carried him forward to the pavement. From the ground Andros shouted, “Demetrius! Demetrius!” And quicker than a man that sick and that heavy should, he got up and pulled out his gun, waving it above his head and firing a shot.

“Fuck!”
Sal said angrily, still next to me in the car. Quickly he turned his head from side to side, assessing the situation and trying to decide what to do, as his boss was now out in the open, waving a gun at police. He caught my eye suddenly, and despite myself I couldn’t hide the satisfied smirk plastering itself onto my face. In that moment Sal knew I’d set the whole thing up. With an angry snarl he grabbed my arm and wrenched me from the car as he bolted toward Andros, who was now running toward his son, still waving his gun in the air.

Upon seeing Andros fall out of the car and run toward police, Goblin, Gargoyle, Grim and the other henchmen scrambled out of their cars, their own weapons drawn and pointed at the police, who had been prepared for just such a scenario and quickly moved behind their patrol cars, getting into position and taking aim.

While the police organized their defensive Demetrius wasted no time taking advantage of his father’s distraction by grabbing the female police officer posing as Dora, wrenching the gun from her hand and pulling her body close again. Quickly he scuttled backward toward his father’s car with his hostage in tow and the gun now pointed at her temple.

Meanwhile Sal caught up with Andros, still dragging me along, but before Sal could do anything more, Andros raised his gun, leveling it at police, and fired. It was the last thing he ever did.

In the next instant a bullet ripped a small hole right between his eyes, and a much larger one found its way out the back of his head. Before my eyes Andros fell backward like a giant side of beef, hitting the ground with a dull thud and splattering my shoes with his blood. I stared as a thick pool of the dark red stuff formed more quickly than I’d imagined it could, leaking out to soak the pavement by my feet.

Just then, to my right, Sal jumped behind me, using my shoulder to steady his gun, and fired off a shot, the sound sending a cannonlike shock wave through my ear-drum as gunpowder burned my cheek. I ducked down from the sound, but Sal dragged me back up, pulling me to his chest and crossing his left arm over my shoulder and across my sternum to grip my right arm tightly in a binding embrace. Out of my peripheral vision I could see him raise his gun again, and it occurred to me that I was now a human shield.

For some reason I didn’t seem to care, and a feeling of disconnectedness settled over me like a gentle blanket as my eyes drifted hypnotically back to the pool of blood growing bigger around Andros. As I gazed at the shocked expression frozen in place on his face and forming his death mask, all I could feel was an odd sense of relief. He was dead. “Good riddance,” I muttered at his corpse even as gunfire exploded all around me. I couldn’t hear most of it; my sense of hearing was oddly off balance as the ringing in my right ear became more intense and vibrated through my head.

Finally, when I’d had my fill, I looked away from Andros just in time to watch as, off to my left, Gargoyle went down in a wild display of bullets and blood, beating Goblin in death by mere seconds as I watched him fall too.

From behind me Sal continued to fire away at police as they ducked behind cars, but periodically I could see an officer peeking up to rifle off a few shots in our direction. Meanwhile, Demetrius continued to snake his way backward toward our three cars, dragging his hostage with him. Suddenly, a mere ten yards from us, his captive gave him a solid elbow jab to the ribs, which bent him double while she dove out of the way. In the next instant he took a bullet to the shoulder and one to the leg and was down for the count.

I continued to watch in my sort of hypnotic trance, held tightly by Sal as men on both sides dove for cover and fired off shots, comprehension of the imminent danger I was in slow to make its way to my brain. I seemed disconnected from everything—it was too surreal for me to grasp—and I kept asking myself if all this was really happening.

Then, out of nowhere, something huge and heavy barreled into me, knocking both Sal and me to the ground. As the force hit us I tried to break my fall, but Sal had hold of my arms and all I could do was squeeze my eyes shut and brace for the impact. A second later my head hit the pavement with a thud and I went out like a light.

The ringing wouldn’t stop, and the world was spinning around and around like a top. I wanted to open my eyes, but it was really, really hard. I pushed my hand out to stop the spinning motion, and it met the warm flesh of another hand. One eyelid fluttered open, and the searing pain in my head intensified. “Owwwww,” I moaned, quickly shutting the eye.

Someone stroked my cheek, and a moment later I felt a featherlight kiss on my forehead. I struggled again to open my eyes, and this time managed to peer through one eye long enough to see who was showering me with love.

Midnight blues looked worriedly down at me, and I fought to comprehend who they belonged to. “Hey, Edgar,” came a husky baritone.

I blinked the one eye, and with great effort got the other to open as well. I stared at a face I thought was lost forever, and then it dawned on me how this could be. I must be dead.

“I didn’t know there was pain on the other side,” I mumbled.

“Yeah, sorry about that, babe, but you were just standing there in the line of fire, and I had to do
something
to get you out of the way.”

I blinked at him; I had no idea what the hell he was talking about. “What?”

“You hit your head pretty hard. Just try to lie still. The ambulance is on its way.”

“There are ambulances over here?” I asked. “God, this is just like earth!”

Dutch laughed at me and leaned forward again to kiss me lightly. “I think we may have scrambled your brain a little, honey. Just lie still, okay?”