Downfall (4 page)

Glenn said, “I didn’t kill him. The bartender did.”

Holly’s heart sank.

“Again the bartender. Explain?” Roger asked.

“You said we had to get this woman. Bring her to you.” Glenn licked his lips. He spoke with what Holly thought of as his negotiating voice—firm, calm, reasonable. Same voice he’d used when he told her just because he was leaving her and the kids, she didn’t need to make a scene. “I didn’t want to put Holly at risk. We’ve never done a kidnapping before. This is in fact the riskiest job you’ve ever asked us to do.”

Holly stepped behind Belias and Roger, and over their shoulders, she shook her head at Glenn.

Glenn ignored her. “So I hired a guy to help us. Big man, used to be Russian Special Forces.”

“And you and he went into the bar together to grab Diana,” Roger said.

“She made a scene. The bartender confronted him and the Russian went for his knife.”

Roger inspected his fingernails. “Why did I bother training you and Holly? Seriously. It’s good we never needed candy stolen from a baby.”

“She had a gun, so I was right. You said she was the biggest threat we ever faced. I wasn’t going to take chances, even if you were.” Defiance armored Glenn’s tone.

“And this…bartender killed your hired thug.” Roger always wanting to understand the tactics of the situation.

“Yes.”

“You didn’t make a very good investment this time, Glenn,” Belias said. “I thought you had a perfect record.”

“I wanted to protect Holly, and I wanted to be one hundred percent sure we got your so very important target.”

“Glenn,” Holly said, “calm down, please.”

Belias didn’t appear to be bothered by his tone. “You broke a rule, Glenn. We do not involve outsiders. Did you mention my name?”

“Of course not.”

“Can anyone connect me to this dead, useless Russian?”

“No. Never.”

“Only you and Holly.”

“Only me,” Glenn said. “He didn’t know Holly. He had no contact with her until tonight. I never told him her name.”

“What did you tell the useless Russian was your reason for finding Diana?”

“He didn’t ask for a reason. He didn’t care as long as he got his cash.” Glenn’s words came out in staccato bursts.

“What was his name?” Roger asked.

“Grigori Rostov,” Glenn said. “It wasn’t a bad decision; he should have been able to grab Diana with efficiency and deal with any random threat like a do-gooder bartender.”

“A Rostov.” Roger glanced at Belias. “There’s a Russian crime family in New York by that name. Notably disciplined and vicious.”

Holly watched Belias. She’d thought Glenn’s plan stupid, even patronizing to her, but he’d already hired the Russian when she met him at the rendezvous point in Golden Gate Park, and they’d set out, trying to track Diana from where she’d gone before she realized they were tracking her movements and abandoned her car. The Russian was an impulsive decision by Glenn, and she thought, with a blaze of anger, that he made too many of those. Like when he divorced her.
We’re over. I’m sorry, Holly. We had good years. Let’s concentrate on that and the children.

“I hate Russians, but this is just spilt milk,” Belias said in a light tone. “I think we can wipe it up with a rag. Holly, why don’t you go home? Nothing more to be done tonight.”

“I don’t understand why you don’t tell Diana’s mom to call her…”

He put his hands on Holly’s arms. “Because Mama doesn’t need to know Diana’s running. Mama’s working on something that will take us to the next level, to borrow a cliché from Glenn’s world.”

“Whatever her mother’s doing won’t be so important if we get exposed,” Holly said.

“If our merry band cannot capture a ditzy, spoiled twenty-three-year-old, we deserve to lose,” Roger said.

Belias looked at her with a gaze that was supposed to be sympathetic but instead just made her cringe. She hoped her flesh wouldn’t goose pimple under his cool grip.

“We build each other up, Holly. Brick by brick. But we’ll have to come up with another strategy. So go home. Tuck in the kiddies, watch some TV,” Belias said.

She patted Glenn on the shoulder. “C’mon, you. I’ll take you home.”

“No,” Belias said. “I think it best he not go home to the new wife, not with an unexplained injury. Not to mention he should be under medical observation, isn’t that right, Roger?”

Roger nodded.

“Audrey will worry about me…” Glenn began.

“Send her a text,” Belias said. “You can talk to your wife without really talking to her. Should have been invented right after the wheel.”

“She’ll freak out if I don’t come home.”

“Tell her you have an emergency meeting. May run all night.” He put a hand on Glenn’s shoulder. “You’re injured, Glenn. You go home and collapse, you get taken to the hospital, you have to answer questions. Let Roger take care of you.”

A cold itch worked its way at the base of Holly’s spine. “He can come home with me. The kids would love to see him.”

“And explain a head injury?”

Holly said, “He fell down some stairs.”

Belias said, “If the police are looking for an injured man, better he lay low. Someone might have seen him get into your car. This bartender, perhaps.”

“But…” Holly started.

“It’s a good idea, Holly,” Glenn interrupted her. His voice was soft. “I’ll be fine.”

Shielding me again
, she thought. “Please don’t be upset with him.”

“He’s just trying to protect you, Holly. I would do the same.” Belias flicked her a smile. He made her think of a grinning crow.

Holly said, “I don’t need protection.”

“You never have,” Belias said. He never underestimated her the way Glenn did, and for a second she felt terrible, thinking better of him than she did of Glenn. But Belias had never hurt her the way Glenn had.

“Give the kids a kiss for me,” Glenn said.

She ruffled his hair, the way she always had, careful now not to touch the bandage. Old habit. She had to stop caring. But how did you turn love off? She thought when he left her she’d grow to hate him and instead she missed him. She glanced at Roger. “Take good care of him.”

And Roger, who could teach you how to kill with a knife or a gun or the ballpoint pen on the desk, smiled at her. “He’ll be fine.”

“Holly?” Belias said as she reached the door.

“Yes?”

“Don’t lie to me again. It’s hard for me to make proper, reasoned decisions if I don’t have complete information.”

“Of course.” She looked at Glenn again, and he gave her a weak smile and a nod, and she went downstairs.

She got back into the car. The blood dotted the leather, but it wasn’t on the carpet pad. His jacket had soaked up most of the flow. She stopped on the way home and bought cleanser, and she wiped up the blood.

We could have died tonight
, she thought.
Is this all worth what Belias gives us?

Instinct told her to avoid the stretch of Haight where The Select was, but she could not help herself. Only one lane was open, an officer letting the traffic take turns. She eased the car past the police lights, the silent red-and-blues throwing shadow and light like cards across a table. She saw a cop talking to homeless people outside the bar, a small fleet of cop cars in the front. Had anyone seen her, noticed her in the Audi before all hell broke loose? But no cop stopped her car as she inched by; no one had reported the vehicle’s license plate. She wondered what she would have done if they had. The nightmare would be over but at a terrible price. She shivered, and then she drove the Audi back to the rendezvous point, a parking lot off Stanyan. Several other cars sat in the lot, and she wondered if one was the Russian’s. Did you take a bus or your own car when you were hired to kidnap someone, when you didn’t have to worry about the transportation? She felt ill. She’d seen the terror in the young woman’s face, in a momentary gleam of a car’s headlights, as she ran away from the bar. She shoved it to the back of her mind, out of the light.

She wiped the prints off the car. Glenn had another key; he would pick it up tomorrow, assuming he could drive, or Belias would take care of it. She walked out of the lot. A homeless man ten feet away entreated her for loose change, and she tossed him a five-dollar bill she had tucked into her jeans pocket. She didn’t know why she did it; she never gave to bums. He looked too young to be a bum. She could never figure out the young homeless in the Haight; what were they looking for, sitting around, doing nothing, playing drums? It scared her to think that her kids could ever make that choice; that was why you had to do everything right for them, everything you could to give them every advantage. So they didn’t make a grand mistake.

She walked the four blocks to her own car and she drove home, wondering who had made the bigger mistake tonight: Glenn in hiring the Russian or her leaving Glenn with Belias.

Y
OU’RE MINT TO ME
. So valuable,” Belias said. “I know I shouldn’t have sent you on a kidnap job, but…I trust you and Holly so. You were my first. My best.”

Glenn’s voice was sluggish with painkillers. “I’m sorry we failed.”

“Because of this bartender.”

“You think she knew the bartender?” Roger asked.

“He was certainly the right guy at the right place for her,” Glenn said. “You’re sure she won’t go to the police?”

“Diana Keene doesn’t want her mother in jail,” Belias said. “I’ve erased several rather panicked voice mails she’s left for Janice where she’s said she won’t go to the cops until she talks to her mom.”

“You seem very sure,” Glenn said.

“It’s what I do,” Belias said. “Understand the way people program themselves to behave in certain ways. Describe this bartender.”

“About six feet, very lean build. Midtwenties unless he’s got a boyish face. Dark blond hair, wearing a fitted suit. At one point Rostov spoke to him in Russian and he spoke back.”

Belias’s gaze narrowed. “Did they know each other?”

“I don’t think so. But the bartender clearly knew how to fight. The Russian was bigger than him, by four inches and fifty pounds, but the bartender took him down. I was fighting with Diana then, trying to get her purse…”

Belias laughed at him. “You couldn’t even snatch her purse, Glenn? You’re so handy at wresting money from people on a good day.”

Glenn stared at him, and Belias saw a flash of anger in the dulled gaze, cutting through the painkillers. “You and Roger go find her, then. It’s not my fault we’re in trouble. If there’s a problem, it’s yours to fix.”

“You do what I tell you to do. You were supposed to be the fix.”

“I can’t be kidnapping women on the streets of San Francisco. A career, a reputation. Children. A wife. I shouldn’t have agreed to do your dirty work.”

“And you have Holly to consider.”

“Yes. I have everything; you only have the little world you’ve built for yourself.”

“
I am a little world made cunningly
,” Belias said.

“What?”

“John Donne. You lack a poetical soul, Glenn; read a book now and then. You’re right. But you have benefited tremendously from my little world.”

“Have I?” Glenn’s stare was steady. “When you ask me to risk everything I’ve earned, I wonder.”

Belias smiled. “Earned?”

Roger laughed.

Belias touched Glenn’s jaw. “You have nothing without me.”

“It’s occurred to me you have nothing without
me
. Without
us
. All of us.”

Belias let ten seconds tick by. “Did Diana call the bartender by name? Was he wearing a name tag?”

“No. But if he works at that bar, then we know where to find him, and he has no idea where to find us.”

“But he could have seen your car.”

“I’m sure he didn’t.”

Roger made an unconvinced noise in his throat.

Glenn closed his eyes, and Belias reached down and opened one of Glenn’s eyes with his fingertips.

“Look at me. Him helping her to the point of killing the Russian would suggest he
did
know her.”

Glenn was silent.

“So we have an unknown in the equation now.”

“The bartender was just some guy who interfered.”

“Oh no, I don’t just mean him.” Belias nearly laughed. “I mean
you
. You hiring thugs, you and Holly lying to me, you failing to follow my incredibly simple orders regarding Diana.”

“Can we speak privately?” Glenn’s gaze slid to Roger.

“Roger. Give us a moment, would you?”

Roger left, shutting the door behind him.

“I sense honesty is about to break out all over,” Belias said.

“I don’t think your orders make sense anymore.”

“Mutiny. Of the bountiful.” Belias sat down. “You must still love Holly, breaking my most important rule to be sure you did the job and she didn’t risk a broken nail.”

“Holly’s a good thief and good shot. A kidnapping is different.” Glenn closed his eyes.

“You’re still in love with her.” Belias patted his heart. “Very touching. I’m getting misty.”

“Could we not discuss her?”

Belias tapped his finger against his own lip. “And you seem more worried about Holly now than when you were married to her. That’s psychologically very telling, Glenn.”

“What are you now, my therapist?”

“I don’t need to see into your soul. I own it.”

Glenn started to speak and Belias shushed him. “I want to know where this Rostov lived.”

“I…I don’t know.”

Belias sat down at the computer. “It won’t take me long to find him. Try to rest, Glenn. I want that brain of yours functioning at peak capacity tomorrow. You know how I rely on your advice.”

Roger came back into the room, and Belias gestured him toward Glenn.

“John…I’m sorry.” Glenn spoke in a tone that made Belias wonder if he were apologizing for more than one mistake. He started to sit up, and Belias nodded at Roger, who grabbed Glenn’s arm and slid the needle home—using the syringe Glenn had meant to use on Diana.

Glenn closed his eyes and fell into a regular, drowsy pattern of breathing.

“He needs to be in a hospital,” Roger said.

“When I say so,” Belias said, eyes locked on the laptop’s screen. “He’s never disobeyed me before. I want to know what’s special about today.”