Queens Ransom (Sofie Metropolis) (15 page)

Twenty-Three

Oh, holy night, the skies are cloudy and threatening . . .

I drove like a madwoman to my parents’ house, parking around the block and nearly breaking my neck three times as I hopped fences and slid on ice trying to gain access to the back door. I pounded on it, looking through the window where Yiayia was tasting something from a pot at the stove. She appeared not to hear me.

Of course, not. She never heard me.

I pounded again.

Efi answered.

‘Thank God. I need my car,’ she said.

‘I heard. What’s the emergency?’ I dropped the keys in her hand and rounded her, gaining access to the house.

‘Sale at Sandra’s.’

I blinked at her. ‘Seriously? That’s the emergency?’

‘What? You prefer someone were dying?’

Someone was dying: me.

‘Where is it?’

‘It’s parked around the block.’

‘What? Why?’

I gave her a long look as I put my bags of gifts on the floor next to the pantry. Thankfully I’d had them all wrapped at the mall, so I didn’t have to worry about anyone seeing anything they shouldn’t.

‘I couldn’t find a spot out front.’

‘What’s the matter with the driveway?’

I ignored her as I grabbed the cordless phone from the kitchen table and dialed Waters’ number.

‘Where you been, woman? I’ve been trying to get a hold of you all day.’

‘I heard. What’s up?’

Efi stood in front of me. ‘Where, exactly, is it parked?’

I turned away, trying to listen to Waters.

Since he’d been made by Bubba, I switched him and Pete so he was now tailing Elizabeth Winston, and Pete Sara Canton.

I winced, recalling Rosie telling me earlier Pete had quit. I could only imagine what trouble he’d run into.

Waters was talking and I realized I wasn’t listening.

‘Anyway, that Winston lady, she left work early. Nearly missed her, ’cause she don’t strike me as the type to do anything that breaks routine. You know, in at nine, out at five, that kind of thing. Fine piece of ass, she is by the way. Not to say you aren’t—’

‘You plan on getting to the point sometime this year?’

‘Maybe. Hey, there’s not much more time left of this year anyway, is there?’

I knew whatever he had must be good or else he wouldn’t be so happy . . . or distracted.

‘Anyway, she usually takes the subway, just like us poor working stiffs . . .’

He didn’t take the subway and he wasn’t necessarily a working stiff. But I kept both thoughts to myself.

‘But instead she got this sweet-ass Mercedes coupé out of parking a block up from the Abramopoulos building. I had Rosie run the plates. Belongs to her.’

‘And?’

‘And I followed her.’

The mother of all tension headaches was beginning to build behind my eyes.

‘Where?’ I asked between clenched teeth.

Efi stepped into my line of vision again. ‘That’s what I’m waiting to hear. Where my car is parked.’

‘It’s around the corner!’ I snapped at her.

OK, I’d officially lost it. I never snapped at anyone. Much less my favorite younger sister. The fact that she was my only sister notwithstanding.

‘Damn, woman! Break a brother’s eardrum already,’ Waters said.

‘You, shut up and tell me where she went.’

‘Which is it?’

‘What?’

‘Do you want me to shut up or tell you where she went?’

‘Where?’

I felt a sharp snap against my backside. I looked to find Yiayia had just whacked me with a spoon. I stared at her. She whacked me again. I slid the spoon from her branch-like fingers and tossed it across the room.

Then stood there, mouth agape, shocked at what I’d done.

‘You’ll never guess,’ Waters said.

I rounded my sister who was as surprised as I was and walked into the other room, which is what I probably should have done in the first place.

Then again, maybe not.

As Waters told me Winston had gone to JFK Airport, switching on a light bulb in my head, and the kitchen door closed behind me and I saw what waited in the other room, I knew I was about to pay for every sin I’d ever committed.

All in one night.

OK, I was getting really tired of this snatch-and-grab bit. Probably I shouldn’t have taken Yiayia’s wooden spoon from her. Probably she could have showed them new things to do with it.

Of course, I was ignoring two facts: that this very well might be my last snatch and grab – literally; and neither my sister nor my grandmother likely had clue one I’d been snatched and grabbed. It had happened so fast, I didn’t get a chance to say goodbye to Waters or scream for help.

Not that I would have done either.

‘You know, you guys are officially off my Christmas list,’ I grumbled from where I sat in the back seat of the familiar black sedan, two thugs on either side of me, another two in the front seats.

‘You’re lucky you’re still alive to have a list,’ Bruno said from the front passenger’s seat.

‘Right. Kidnapping to murder. Good one.’

‘It’s not murder if they don’t find the body.’

I disguised my neck-to-toe shudder by pulling my coat tighter around me. At least this time I had a coat and was wearing shoes.

Not that it mattered. Dead was dead, no matter what you were wearing.

And I had a very bad feeling about this.

‘You know, the FBI pulled one of your numbers on me yesterday.’

That got Bruno’s attention.

I smiled at him.

‘You talked to the FBI?’

‘More like they talked to me.’

Even as I said the words, I realized I hadn’t done the one thing the agent had asked of me: I didn’t have my cell phone on me.

‘You’re working with them, anyway, so what’s it matter?’ I asked.

His turn to smile at me.

‘You know, Miss Metropolis, I might think I’ve underestimated you . . . if not for the fact that you’re sitting in the back of my car right now.’

‘Yeah, going to my parents’ house rates right up there with one of the worst ideas in the past decade. Right after accepting my ex’s marriage proposal.’

‘I’m curious. Why did you?’

‘What? Say yes to my ex?’

He remained smiling.

‘My sister needed her car. She had an . . . emergency.’

He laughed. Then laughed harder. The others joined in.

What I found stranger yet, I found myself laughing, too.

It was pretty dumb, my going back there. Even without knowing she’d needed it to get to a sale. Probably I should have just told Efi to take a taxi. Probably I should have ignored her altogether.

But when she’d asked for her car, it hadn’t even occurred to me not to take it back to her.

I really needed to work on my priorities.

Just think. I could be that minute sitting somewhere in Manhattan enjoying a nice, big frappé. Instead I was wrinkling my nose at the overwhelming stink of garlic from human pores in a too small car filled with four too big men.

Bruno hefted a briefcase over the seat and put it on my knees when I made no move to take it from him. He clicked it open.

‘There’s twenty million in bearer bonds in there—’

‘Why not cash? And why does it always have to be in a briefcase?’

He closed the case and clicked the catches. ‘Cash is traceable and it didn’t seem right to put it in a duffel bag.’

‘Twenty million? Thought it was two.’

I chalked one up in Rosie’s column.

Although she’d been wrong about the rest.

And just where in the hell was the FBI? If they were really working with Bruno, where were they? I should think they would be the ones orchestrating the drop. Why weren’t they?

Could it be that Abramopoulos had contacted them? But Bruno hadn’t? And the Bruno was acting as a free agent? Was that why I’d been pulled in by the FBI yesterday? To be kept in the loop in some way?

I felt the absence of my cell phone even more acutely now than I had five minutes ago.

‘Where’s the drop being made?’

‘You’ll see soon enough.’

‘Why not tell me? Not like I’m going anywhere. And we do have this time to fill.’

‘Flushing Meadows Corona Park.’

‘Big park.’

‘By the Unisphere.’

I looked out the windows at the snow that continued to fall. ‘Bad night for a ransom drop, wouldn’t you say?’

‘Good night for getting rid of people who bother you.’

It was only the second time I’d heard Bruno’s brother, Boris, speak. And his heavily accented voice sliced like a grater against my already frayed nerves.

I was pretty sure my rough swallow was audible in the suddenly silent car.

‘What about the girl?’ I asked.

‘Let us worry about that.’

‘And the kidnappers? Are you guys trying to catch them?’

I wondered if the park was crawling with Bruno’s people, including half the city-wide PIs he had working the case.

‘Let us worry about that.’

Fine. If that’s the way he wanted to play it, I’d keep my information to myself.

Ten minutes later we’d pulled to a stop on the far end of Flushing Meadows Corona Park.

‘OK, this is what you’re to do . . .’

Bruno spoke and I listened.

Then I was pushed out on to the sidewalk.

The sedan pulled away.

OK.

The snow was coming down harder now. Big, thick flakes that stung my eyes and clung to my hair. I tightly clutched the briefcase, knowing that if I lost it, it would mean my life.

What was I talking about? No one else was crazy enough to be out here in this weather after dark.

A pack of five teens speaking Spanish passed close by.

OK, I was wrong.

I clutched the briefcase even tighter and started walking.

Let’s see if I remembered correctly: I was supposed to walk to the other side of the large metal globe that had been erected in honor of the 1964 World’s Fair and featured in countless movies. Then I was to deposit the briefcase full of bearer bonds into a trash can there and then walk away.

Nothing more.

Nothing less.

Seemed simple enough.

Problem was, simple didn’t appear to be a part of my vocabulary. At least not the Webster’s version of it. I cringed whenever I heard it if only because I understood complicated – probably dangerously so – would end up hitting closer to the truth.

Off to my left I could make out the lights of the Terrace on the Park, a rental hall, which was funny because right now there was no real park. Only seemingly endless sheets of white.

My boots crunched against the snow-covered salt that had been spread to melt the ice on the walkway, but, after the teens moved on, even that sound emerged quiet.

Eerily so.

What I didn’t get was, how were the kidnappers going to get the money? And when would I get the girl?

I reached the twelve-story-high stainless steel Unisphere that looked like a snow globe that had just been turned over and righted again, flakes swirling in the empty middle.

I paused, looking up at it. As often as I’d driven by it, I’d never seen it this close. I was impressed. Especially with the freshly fallen snow coating it, falling around it and inside it.

I began to walk around it, keeping an eye out. All I had to do was drop the briefcase inside the garbage can and then walk back to the street where Bruno and his men would pick me up.

I spotted the can.

OK . . .

I looked around, for what exactly I was unsure. Another can, maybe?

I thought about kicking this one with my foot, to test whether or not it stood on top of one of those sewer outlets like I’d seen in a movie or three. But where would that get me?

I reluctantly moved toward it, lifted the lid to stare at what appeared to be nothing more than balled-up newspaper inside, then placed the briefcase inside. I refitted the lid then took a step back, looking around.

Hunh.

No one ran to tackle me.

No guns were drawn.

No one shouted for me to step away from the can.

All was as it had been a minute before. Except I was minus the weight of one heavy briefcase.

Somehow I’d expected the drop to be more interesting, momentous, somehow.

Instead, I felt like I’d just thrown out my trash.

I had an urge to scratch my head.

What did this mean for the kidnapped girl? Was little Jolie Abramopoulos being set free somewhere even as I dawdled?

Ignoring every last survival instinct I possessed, I lifted the lid and looked inside again. There sat the briefcase right where I’d left it.

Double hunh.

I put the lid back on then reluctantly started to make my way back toward the street, disappointed.

And that’s when I spotted the last thing I expected to see.

I stopped dead in my tracks ten feet from the street . . . and prayed the turn of phrase wouldn’t become literal.

Twenty-Four

There, within touching distance, stood Rudy.

At this point, I think we both pretty much resembled deer caught in the headlights.

What were the chances? There I was on a ransom drop and here he was as if hoof-hitching a ride home.

What was that red light?

Was that his nose?

I caught the ridiculous notion. Probably it was just a reflection of something, maybe a vehicle’s brake lights on the nearby road. Of course, it couldn’t be coming from his nose.

Could it?

I ignored that there were no vehicles on the nearby road.

‘Here, Rudy, Rudy, Rudy,’ I said softly, holding my hand out, palm up.

What, was he a dog? Still, I was hoping the soothing sound of my voice would draw him near. Or, at the very least, not scare him away.

He blew a steamy breath through his nose and shook his head, looking prepared to bolt.

I paused. ‘It’s OK. I’m not going to hurt you.’ I smiled, looking at his antlers. He really was a reindeer. I mean, of course he was. I’d known that. I just had never seen one with my own two eyes up this close and personal outside a photograph before.

Beautiful . . .

There was somehow something quite magical about seeing him on this snowy night, alone in the park.

And I was alone, wasn’t I?

I glanced around. The dark sedan holding Bruno and his thugs was nowhere to be seen. No one had made a move on the garbage can that I could see. And there was no sign of little Jolie being dropped off.

I focused on Rudy again.

‘Your mama misses you,’ I told him. ‘Uh huh. Yes, she does.’

With each word, I moved infinitesimally closer, until I was within touching distance.

And touch him, I did.

His coat was soft, probably because it was thicker to protect him against the winter cold. I slowly stroked the top of his head, then smoothed my hand down over his snout, surprised when he licked my hand. I wished I had something to give him.

Then, without warning, he threw his head back and stepped away.

‘What? What’s the matter, boy?’

I spotted something in the wall of snow some fifty or so feet behind him. I squinted. It looked like a man. I squinted harder. Yes, it was very definitely a man, a bearded one wearing a blue parka, a red hat and . . . was that a pickaxe he was carrying?

I shook my head and turned my attention back to Rudy, who, if he knew the figure was there, wasn’t overly concerned with him.

If that was the case, what was he concerned about?

I found out way too soon as I was grabbed from behind and carried to a familiar black SUV that had pulled up without my noticing, the sound of their approach likely buffeted by the falling snow. I watched helplessly as Rudy backed a few more steps away, then turned and ran farther into the park.

I was stuffed into the back of the SUV.

Damn! I was long beyond tired of this.

An hour later I was dumped in front of the agency, the FBI getting no more than I was willing to give them . . . which was nothing.

After all, they had nothing to barter with, mostly because I’d already figured out who set Dino up; partly because I knew they had nothing on me outside tampering with a federal case, something I hadn’t actually done, because, as near as I could tell, there was no federal case. Which made me all the more curious.

While I knew it probably wasn’t a good idea to piss off the FBI, if I’d been in a foul mood earlier, the one they inspired was doubly dark when they’d snatched me for what I hoped was the last time.

I went inside the agency, checked for messages, saw nothing that couldn’t wait, then went out to Lucille where I’d stashed my cell phone. I checked and found messages from just about everyone.

Yeah, well, they were all going to have to wait; I had one piece of business I was compelled to complete tonight.

I started Lucille’s engine, grateful she was one thing in my life that hadn’t let me down lately despite the frigid weather, and then dialed the woman connected to the one case I actually wasn’t supposed to be working on.

Snow was coming down even harder when I met Mrs Claus – I mean, Mrs Nicholas – at the same drop-off point I’d been at almost two hours earlier. She pulled up behind my Mustang in an old, battered Ford truck with crate-like sides built up in the back bed. Both of our vehicles looked like bondo specials just this side of the dump, which made me feel a certain kinswomanship with her. She got out wearing much the same thing as I’d seen her in before, glasses included, which she now pushed up her nose.

Was it just me, or did it seem that while I was getting coated with snow, not a flake landed on her?

‘I’m so glad you called, dear,’ she said, coming to stand before me holding a small paper sack.

I breathed in. Licorice. She smelled like cherry licorice.

‘Don’t thank me yet. I’m not sure if he’s still around or if he was scared away and is even now twenty miles inland.’

She stood for a moment, staring into the wall of white. I wondered what she was doing, but decided it best not to interrupt. I glanced at my cell phone and the time. I had tons yet to do; the sooner we got on with this, the better.

She turned her head to smile at me. ‘He’s here.’

How could she know that? ‘How do you know that?’

‘Trust me. I know.’ She began walking forward. ‘Come on.’

I didn’t question her further for fear that I’d hear something I didn’t want to. I merely followed her into the park, taking the same path I had when I made the ransom drop. I eyed the garbage bin, half hoping our trek would take us past there so I could take a peek inside. But Mrs Claus veered to the right, moving off the semi-cleared walkway on to the snow-covered grass.

I glanced down at my high-heeled suede boots and sighed before following. What was one more pair of ruined shoes? We were talking Rudolph here. And he was needed to lead Santa’s reindeer.

I laughed.

Mrs Claus looked at me with a closed-mouth smile. I almost believed she knew what I was thinking.

Almost.

About fifty feet in, she suddenly stopped.

‘What? What is it?’

‘Shhh,’ she quietly hushed me.

I pulled my leather coat tighter around myself and pulled up my gloves.

‘And stop fidgeting. You’re making him nervous.’

I was making who nervous?

I followed her line of sight, squinting against the flakes falling into my eyes. My hair was soaked and I was standing in snow up to my knees.

And still not a single flake seemed to land on her.

‘There.’

Where?

Then I made it out. The faint, red glow.

Mrs Claus gave out a whistle that didn’t raise the hair on the back of my neck so much as electrify every hair on my body.

The red glow got brighter.

OK, I must have been more stressed than I thought; now I
was
seeing things.

The glowing stopped. I couldn’t make out anything else in the white-out.

Mrs Claus reached into her bag and pulled out a shiny red apple.

The snow parted like a soft curtain and the reindeer I’d seen earlier stepped through it, raising and dipping his head as he walked, his breath puffing out before him.

Was my mouth open? I was pretty sure my mouth was open. And it was accumulating snowflakes.

Rudy went straight to Mrs Claus, tucking his nose against her chest before raising his head to lick her chin. She giggled like a little girl and smoothed her free hand over his coat.

‘We missed you, Rudolph,’ she said so quietly I almost didn’t hear her.

Who was ‘we’?

Probably her and the kids that visited her holiday display, I told myself.

‘Oh, did you want this?’ Mrs Claus laughed when Rudy nudged the hand holding the apple. She held it out and he bit into it, crunching away.

She glanced at me. ‘You look like you’ve seen a ghost.’

I shook my head in amazement. ‘Not so much a ghost . . .’ More like a piece of fiction come to life.

Which was ridiculous, of course.

But awesome nonetheless.

‘Go ahead. Pet him.’

I reached out a tentative hand, remembering the last time I dared touch him, recalling how he felt. My fingers met with his soft coat. So soft . . . so warm.

His eyes met mine and I smiled, feeling something burgeon inside of me.

‘The kids love petting him. He’s always the star attraction,’ Mrs Claus said.

‘I can see why,’ I whispered, wondering if he made them all feel this incredible sense of wonder. ‘Why do you think he ran away?’

Mrs Claus finished feeding him the apple then reached into the bag again where she took out sugar cubes. She allowed him to smell them, but didn’t feed them to him. Instead she put them back in the bag and gave him a final pat before fastening a lead on his harness and turning toward where we were parked.

‘Oh, I don’t think he so much ran away as got lost. He’s such a playful one, you know. Always getting into trouble . . .’

Go figure.

A calm, peaceful silence fell as we walked back to her truck. I noticed she didn’t have to pull on the lead once, and, even if she had, I wondered how this one little woman could hold power over this magnificent creature that was easily four times her size.

I helped her open the back of her truck and secure the ramp, and up Rudolph went on his own, seemingly as glad to be found as we were.

We closed the back and then stood facing each other.

Caramel. Scads of it. That’s what she smelled like now.

‘I will contact your wonderful Rosie tomorrow about payment,’ she said.

I shook my head. ‘No need. I never officially took the case so there is no official billing.’

‘I insist.’

‘No, I insist.’ I smiled. ‘Look at it as my gift to the kids.’

She hugged me, nearly surprising me out of my soggy boots. ‘Thank you, Sofie Metropolis. You helped when everyone else turned me away.’

My eyes stung, but whether it was because of the snow getting in them, or her generous display of affection, I wasn’t sure.

I walked her to the truck door and helped her inside.

‘Merry Christmas,’ she said, a smile as wide as Long Island splitting her sweet, pink-tinged face.

‘Merry Christmas to you.’

She slowly began pulling away.

Apple pie. I smiled and inhaled deeply. Definitely apple pie.

I stood waving as I watched her disappear into the snowy night..

If I spotted a bright-red glow coming from the back of the truck . . . well, I wasn’t saying.