Hit Me (The Bailey Boys #2) (2 page)

“But
you
do, Fearless. That’s why I’m here. I’m asking for your help. A few introductions. A chance to prove myself.”

“This isn’t London, Lee. Worst mistake you can make is thinking it is.”

Was that it? Was he giving me the brush off, just like that?

Then he stood, clapped one of those heavy hands on my shoulder and nodded towards the harbor. “Come with me, son,” he said, and I followed him through to the bar’s outside space, a raised veranda where wooden seats and tables were arranged under giant white sun canopies.

We went to stand by the railing, commanding a sweeping view across the bay to the mountains beyond to one side, and the deep blue Mediterranean to the other.

“This place,” he told me now, “just take a look, son.”

When I looked, I saw flashy yachts and cruisers, exclusive apartment developments lined up along the waterfront, big villas high in the mountains. I saw money. I saw success. And I wanted some of that for myself.

“This whole place,” Fearless went on. “This whole coastline... it’s built on crooked money. We’ve got drugs coming in from Africa every night. Most of Europe’s coke and weed come in through Spain, either through this route from north Africa, or the Colombian
narcos
bringing it over in industrial quantities from South America through Galicia up in the north. And then when the drug prices started to fall a few years back the gangs switched to people trafficking – sex always sells, my boy. Then there’s the extortion, the counterfeiting and the good old-fashioned thieving and kidnapping. This is the most bent place on the planet, Lee. What you knew back in London’s kindergarten stuff compared to here.”

I didn’t need a paternal lecture from Fearless, a patronizing warning off. I needed some openings. I bit my tongue though. Respect.

“All that bent money,” he went on, “it’s what makes this place. The whole property boom here’s been funded by laundered money for decades. You want to know why the police turn a blind eye to it all? There’s lots of reasons. It’s partly because the villains are usually careful to only hurt each other. Sometimes I’m convinced that the cops are just waiting for the gangs to wipe each other out. The
policía
only care if the locals get caught up in it. Or if they’re not getting their cut on time, because everyone’s in on it. There’s always a few back-handers. You see him?”

He nodded towards a fiftyish guy with a luxurious sweep of silver hair, sitting with a girl about half his age at a table close to the one I’d been sharing with Fearless. Perhaps that was the reason we’d stepped outside – to get out of earshot.

“He’s not quite the local chief of police, but he’s the next level down. His boss comes in here, too. He comes because it’s the best fucking bar on the Costa, of course, but also he comes here because there’s respect: he knows who I am, and he’s cool with that. It’s part of the culture here: us grubby crooks, we’re part of the infrastructure. And that’s the main reason we’re fucking untouchable, Lee: every single one of them knows that without us and our dodgy money the entire economy would collapse. Without us this place would be back in the Third World, simple as that.”

“I know,” I said softly. “And that’s why I’m here. I want in.”

Fearless looked at me afresh, sizing me up.

“Let me tell you a story, son. This guy. Fresh to the Costa. Didn’t know how it worked. Didn’t know the people. Didn’t know the rules. He thought he knew it all, though. He didn’t understand that his rep from London where he’d come from didn’t mean a thing out here. Couldn’t be bothered with working his way up – thought he’d start at the top.

“So he got himself a gig protecting a big lump of drug money on its way from one of the East European gangs to a bunch of
narcos
for a big consignment of Charlie. There was a team of four of them, and he was the new boy, which was fine except there was a stand-off, a shoot-out with some cops who hadn’t read the part of the rulebook that said you don’t get involved in these things. Our friend managed to get away, but his three mates were killed, and the money seized. That left the
narcos
heading back to Galicia with their coke and no money, and a vicious Russkie gang down several million in seized notes.”

“What happened?” I could guess. The phrase ‘a trip to the mountains’ featured frequently in stories along the Costa.

“He was lucky,” said Fearless. “That’s what they kept telling him. He’ll be paying that debt back for the rest of his life, in all kinds of ways. He’s that gang’s bitch. And he’s got no balls – literally. And no matter how you try, you can never get him to talk about that week in the mountains.”

“So what are you telling me, Fearless?”

“Don’t take the piss,” he said. “Don’t rock the boat. And don’t do anything until you understand what you’re getting into. You’re the new boy here. You know nothing.”

“I’m a fast learner.”

“But are you fast enough?”

“I want it.”

Fearless looked away, his gaze roaming across the harbor. “I know,” he said, finally. “I know.” Then: “I can put in a word, son. There’s an organization I know. Far better than going it alone. A bit of security work, a chance to prove your worth and move up. Think of it as career development.”

I was shaking my head already. “No. Nothing organized.” Get tied to a gang and you’d never get out. I understood that much, at least. “Just a bit of freelancing. Chance to test the water, you know? I don’t care what it is. Door work... anything.”

Fearless shrugged. “Whatever,” he said. “I’ll put some feelers out. That’s all I can say, okay?”

“That’s all I want, man.” A pause, then I added, “Thanks.”

That embrace again, the one that made me feel like a small child back in London, the aftershave and sweat and beer, and then it was done and we were heading back inside.

A short time later I found myself back out in the street again.

And so was she.

Imelda. Trouble.

Midday, the late summer sun blazing down, the streets smelling of dust and sea and flowers and when I glanced across she was there.

Standing by a wall, one foot slightly forward as if she was posing for a glamour shoot. The way she stood emphasized that long slit in the red skirt, the shoes. She looked incongruous in broad daylight, dressed for the night, dressed for a world that was sultry and sensuous and maybe just a little bit seedy.

She looked fucking gorgeous and she was clearly waiting for me.

Lee Bailey took her quite by surprise.

Imelda Sanchez was aware of him as soon as he entered Fearless’s bar. He was one of those guys who had a presence. Not the cocky machismo of the local Spanish gangsters who still thought they owned the place. Not the brutish thuggery of a Bulgarian – Hristo had colored her view of any man of his nationality.

A natural thing.

An aura.

Imelda was a firm believer in first impressions. In that first glimpse, before the barriers fell into place and a person had started to project how they wanted the world to see them, you saw something unique. A distillation of a person. A glimpse of the soul, if you will.

Her first impression of Lee Bailey was natural power. That was obvious just from the shape of him, of course: his arms were as thick as her thighs, his waist and hips slim but his chest broad. He looked like a street fighter, an impression enhanced by the tattoos – tribal markings down his arms, and when he turned something on the back of his neck going up under the short crop of dark hair that covered his head.

But it was more than the superficial. He had an inner strength. Something she could see in those gray-blue eyes. He was sharp, inquisitive, his eyes jumping around the room, taking it all in, focusing on each person in turn, assessing everything. He was a man with depths, but also one who automatically assessed risks wherever he was.

She knew all about that.

She’d been around men like this since before puberty.

So... her first impressions of Lee Bailey in the few seconds between him appearing in the doorway and walking across to join Fearless Lloyd were of power and strength, a natural fighter who’d been around. A survivor.

And, more than any of that, she knew instinctively he was a man she was going to see again.

§

She’d only been at Fearless’s bar, Los Cojones, for a few minutes.

She’d come to talk to the owner because he was someone who knew everything and everyone here in Puerto Libre. He was a man who put things together and came up with solutions.

And more than anything she needed solutions right now.

But when it came to it...

“It’s Hristo,” she said, before breaking away to sip at her Zen mojito.

“Ain’t it always,” said Fearless, and straight away she realized she would get nowhere. She didn’t know what she wanted to ask him, what she thought he might be able to do.

And with that thought she knew she was lying to herself.

I want you to have him killed. You know the right people. You can do it. And your life would be a whole lot better without him around, too
.

Words that had sounded easy as she rehearsed them over and over in her head since last night’s fight. The more she’d practiced, the more she had thought it the only solution, the
logical
solution.

The world wouldn’t miss Hristo Markov, and the
poli
wouldn’t want to get involved at any more than a cursory level, if that. To them he would be just another foreign gangster tidied away.

And Imelda certainly wouldn’t miss him: the Hristo she thought she’d fallen for a year before had proved to be an illusion, a deceit. Not the one who’d held her by the throat last night in the Hermanos bar, while all his
pandillero
buddies sat around laughing and encouraging him.

The Hristo who had hissed in her face, “You listen good, Imelda. You listen good. There’s only one way you ever get to leave me, you hear?”

And his meaning had been perfectly clear.

She’d stepped back when he released her, laughed in that way she had developed to deflect the tensions. Said that of course she would never leave him, where had he got that idea from? She’s just a hot-head sometimes, didn’t he like that about her? And so face was superficially saved and they had both known exactly where they stood.

It was
reputatsiya
for Hristo. Reputation. Honor. Character. Imelda was part of his
reputatsiya
– a glamorous trophy. It was a long time since their relationship had been anything more than a superficial thing. He could fuck around all he liked, but it was always Imelda he wore on his arm. She was like his Ferrari, and his penthouse apartment here in the Puerto.

He didn’t want her any more, but he would never let her go. It was pride. Greed. It was
reputatsiya
.

And her life had gotten so damned miserable that, lying alone in her bed that night, it had seemed like a perfectly logical thing to come here to Los Cojones and ask Fearless Lloyd to set up a hit.

“So what is it, darling?” Fearless said, as she sat there sipping at her drink and failing to squeeze the words out. “I’m guessing it’s not a shag?”

He laughed at his own joke, and she warmed to him a little. She’d always had the sense he was one of the good guys, in a world where everything came in shades of evil.

She shook her head. “Oh, you know,” she said, and it was clear he didn’t. Uncertain, she twisted at the ring on her left thumb, the one Hristo had given her before she had come to realize what a mistake he was. “It’s nothing,” she said. “
Es
estúpido
.”

“Nah,” said Fearless. “Whenever someone says that it’s never stupid. They’re dodging the issue. They’re dismissing something that matters to them. It’s
people
that’re stupid, because they won’t say out loud what really matters.”

“You are a philosopher.”

“Nah. I’ve just been around, darling, that’s all. So what is it? What’s Hristo done?”

He nodded at her then, eyes directed below her face, and she raised a hand to her neck automatically. She’d covered the bruises with concealer, but he must have spotted something.

“You should get away from him, sweetheart. That bastard’s never going to be any good for you.”

But... she could never get away from Hristo. Not unless she was in a coffin. He’d made that clear enough last night.

She looked away.

She didn’t have the words. Didn’t even know what she wanted any more.

That was when she spotted him. The ripped guy standing in the doorway, looking around the interior of Los Cojones, assessing everything.

She’d kept her back to him as he approached. She knew he’d be looking, and she knew that flash of bare back and the long slit up the side of her skirt would always do all the work.

Sure enough, when she finally turned, his eyes were roaming greedily back up to meet hers.

Much later, looking back, she knew this moment was the point where everything had become inevitable, but at the time it was all still unknown, a moment loaded only with potential.

She met his look, held it, broke it. She was the one in control of that moment, and that was how she liked it.

For all that this stranger was a hard man, every one of them had a weakness, and that weakness could nearly always be Imelda Sanchez if that was what she wanted.

Despite that flash of soul in his eyes, she thought he was like all the rest. Hristo was her benchmark now, for better or for worse, and by that standard all men were bastards. But then this newcomer stepped back to let her pass. He didn’t have to do it, he just did.

There was something about that gesture. Or a hint of something, at least.

She met his look again, smiled, connected.

It was like that first impression, a moment of understanding.

A thrill.

She left, not hurrying to get outside. Not bothering to look back merely to confirm that his gaze had followed her and knowing all the time that it had.

§

She hadn’t always been like this.

Hadn’t always been scared of her own shadow, trapped into an empty shell of a life with a man she could never even respect, let alone love.