Winter Miracle Page 52

  The man looks around nervously. He raises his voice, Noel’s shouting something back at him. I hear my name.

  Shoot.

  The stranger grabs her arm. I hear my name again. He’s asking about me.

  Noel tries to shrug him off, but he’s pushing her towards the alleyway next to the shop.

  I’m paralyzed, but I know I can’t stand here and let this, whatever it is, go down. Not on my watch.

  I take the pepper spray we keep under the counter and head out front, the bell on the door chiming as I exit.

  Holding Noel, Beefcake turns and sees me. His eyes dart between Noel and I. He lets go of her, realizing his mistake. Under the streetlight, he’s surprisingly handsome, with tightly cropped hair and a set jaw, his tee pulled in the all the right directions by his arms and chest. That tattoo design runs down the left, ink twisting like vines, but it’s his eyes that draw me in the most. They’re amber, almost incandescent. They’re the eyes of a predator, of danger.

  I hold up the pepper spray. My voice quivers when I speak. “Who are you?”

  He puts his hands up, slowly stepping towards me.

  “Stop,” I warn him, but he continues forward.

  “Dawn Hayes?” he says, voice gravelly.

  I notice a small scar above his eye. “Maybe. Stay ba—”

  But he’s already on me, the pepper spray twisted from my grip.

  CHAPTER THREE

  MAX

  Out here in the open, she’s striking. That glossy photo showed nothing of the depth of her eyes, or her delicate skin. She’s beautiful, no doubt, but I’m not here to judge America’s Next Top Model.

  I toss the pepper spray down the alley.

  “I’ll scream,” says her friend, the one I mistook for her.

  “Go for it,” I suggest. “I don’t see anyone around.”

  The friend looks down the street, nervous, eyes wide as she turns back towards me.

  ‘Dawn’ has her hands out in front of her, ready to pounce. She can try. I kind of hope she does. I’d love nothing more than to touch her, see if her skin is as soft as it looks, but no, not like this.

  “What do you want?” she says, a definite quiver in her voice.

  “Let’s keep it simple,” I start. “Your boyfriend owes my employer a considerable amount of money, a debt that has now, unfortunately, fallen upon your shoulders. I’m here to collect.”

  “Ex-boyfriend,” she corrects. “And do I look like I have money?”

  The dress she’s wearing could fetch a couple of hundred at least. “Yeah, it kind of does.”

  “Hey!”

  I spin around to the friend. She’s got her cell raised to her ear.

  “I’m calling the cops,” she says.

  I go to snatch her phone, but she pulls back. “Yes, nine-one-one?”

  Her eyes flick past me.

  I hear footsteps.

  Fuck.

  Dawn’s halfway down the street thanks to the distraction, but I’m not about to let a mark get away. I never do.

  I forget the friend and take off after Dawn, my heavy boots pounding against the pavement, my heart beating hard from the chase. It’s only in moments like these where I know I’m alive, not simply existing.

  She rounds the corner, but she’s wearing heels. She may as well be wearing a bell around her neck.

  “Help!” she calls, but there’s no residential zoning nearby. We’re alone.

  When I make the corner, she’s gone, but I can hear her, the steady clop, clop of her progress.

  My head tracks left to another alley. Worst. Idea. Ever.

  I move slowly now, checking for company, but the streets are still empty.

  I enter the alleyway, my eyes sweeping left and right. It’s a dead end. She’s waiting there, hands slapping uselessly against the wall.

  She turns around, fingers pressing back against the brick. I get a flashback to my last job—Mr. Garcia and his missing teeth. It could be the title of a kids’ book. I don’t want this to go down the same way.

  I stop a good six feet away from her, allow her no room to get past me.

  She reaches into her handbag.

  “Don’t,” I warn.

  “I can’t help you,” she says, the fear ripe in her voice.

  I know the procedure here. I’m supposed to rough her up. It’s amazing how much violence shakes information out of people—men, at least. Some take more persuasion than others. The last thing I want to do is head down that road here, damage something so beautiful, so innocent. That’s not who I am. That’s not what I stand for.

  Used to, adds my head. You’re halfway to hell already. Why stop now?

  “I don’t want to hurt you, Dawn,” I continue, using her name.

  “So don’t,” she pleads. “Let me go and we can pretend this never happened. I won’t say anything.”

  I expected her to be bawling, but she’s holding it together. Good girl.

  I hear sirens in the distance.

  “The police are coming,” she says.

  I exhale, bringing my hands together. “Look, this is business, pure and simple. I can shut you up, knock you out so we can talk somewhere else, but that’s going to hurt.”

  I start to approach her, trying to talk myself into this.

  She starts to beg. “Please.”

  I can’t stand the fucking begging.

  I close my right hand into a fist. Some of the others prefer to use the butt of a gun, a bat, keep their hands clean, but I like the pain. It stops me going too far.

  One punch, I tell myself. A quick jab and she’ll be in dreamland. She’ll wake up with a headache, a broken cheekbone, sure, but at least she’ll be alive. Maybe that’s enough to satisfy Saul—a warning. But I know that’s not going to be enough. One way or another, he’ll want his money.

  She brings her hands up, shielding herself, panting, “Please, please,” over and over, sobbing now she knows there’s no escape.

  “I’m sorry,” I tell her, closing the distance and falling into my boxing stance, tightening for the blow.

  Do it. Just fucking do it.

  But I can’t. My fist stays back, hanging there. I can’t fucking move it.

  I go loose and breathe out, run my hands through my hair. “Saul’s not going to like this.”

  Dawn watches me through gated fingers.

  I take out my cell and hit speed-dial. “I need him.”

  Saul answers five seconds later.

  “I’ve got her,” I tell him. “But I can’t fuck her up. I won’t.”

  I expect a tirade, but the silence that follows is even more unsettling. “Bring her to me,” he says, calm as a summer sea.

  It’s not perfect, but it’s a start. “Okay.”

  The line goes dead. I stare at the screen.

  “Was that your boss?” she asks, hands by her side again.

  I nod. “He wants to talk. That’s all.”

  This seems to placate her.

  The sirens grow louder.

  I take her by the arm gently. She flinches when I do, but she doesn’t fight. I catch her fragrance—fruity and floral, mixed with her natural perspiration. My cock grows hard again. “Come on. Let’s go. I’m not going to hurt you.”

  We start to walk.

  “What’s he going to do to me,” she says. “Your boss?”

  “I don’t know,” I tell her, and that’s the scariest part of all.

  *

  The friend is nowhere to be seen when we arrive back at the car, which is just as well. I don’t like to drag others into this. She might have taken down my plates, but it doesn’t matter. I’ve got a pile of new ones sitting in the garage thanks to Saul’s boy at the DMV.

  I open the door and help Dawn inside, her fragrance turning my cock to concrete. She looks forlornly at the shop front, hoping there may still be some way out of this, but when we take off, the cops passing us on the way in, I see that hope fade, her body sinking into the seat.

  I l
ock the doors, keep my ears and eyes open. I’ve been given the slip before, not that they make it far. It’s hard to run with broken legs.

  As expected, she tries to start a conversation, humanize herself to me. “What’s your name?”

  I look across to her. It doesn’t matter one way or another. “Max.”

  “Have you been doing this long, Max?” She wipes her eyes as she says it, pulling her composure back.

  I can’t lift my own from the hint of cleavage her dress shows off, two supple mounds begging to be taken in hand. “Too long,” I reply.

  “Don’t you get sick of it? You know, having to…” she drifts off. It’s better like this, better to let her think I’m the boogeyman.

  “Most deserve what they get. It’s no great loss.”

  “And me? Do you think I deserve this?”

  I shrug. “It’s not my problem.”

  “And it’s not my fault I dated a jackass. I didn’t even know he was playing poker until a few months ago.”

  I think back to Pops. “They hide it well.”

  She looks out the window, the fire that had threatened to blaze subsiding. “You can say that again.” Neon signs out my window turn her eyes abstract. “Is he going to kill me?” she says.

  I laugh. “Kill you? This isn’t The Godfather. Saul’s a reasonable man. He’ll hear you out.”

  “Are you sure?”

  No. I’m definitely not fucking sure of that, but whatever it is Saul has planned to lure her ex back, I don’t want any part of it. “I am,” I lie.

  My hand rolls on the steering wheel, my knuckles healing from the last job, the skin tight. “You like working at the dress shop?”

  She nods. “I want to have my own one day.”

  “A dress store?”

  “A label, yes.”

  “You’re a designer or something?”

  “Something like that.”

  I hate this kind of forced fucking conversation. I look down. “Did you make that dress?”

  She runs the fabric at the hem through her fingers. It’s got daffodils printed all over it. “I did.”

  “You like daffodils?”

  “They’re my favorite. Silly, I know.”

  So she’s got a thing for yellow.

  “It’s beautiful—the dress, that is,” I say. You’re beautiful, I want to add.

  She keeps her eyes ahead. “Thank you.”

  We drive in silence, consumed in our own thoughts, until she asks, “What were you doing, before this?”

  My hand tightens on the wheel again. What’s the harm? “I was a boxer.”

  “I’ve never met a boxer before.”

  I look over at her dress again, her heels. “No, I don’t suppose you have. Probably for the best.”

  “Were you good?”

  I was. They called me the next Sullivan, a future World Heavyweight Champion, but I took it too far. I pissed off the wrong people and paid the price. “I could hold my own.”

  “Did you ever knock anyone out?”

  “Twenty KOs in my first year.”

  “That’s good?”

  “It’s fucking exceptional, but it doesn’t mean shit now. Nothing does.”

  She’s put off by my demeanor, my words, her eyes repeatedly drifting to my tats, but that’s okay. She should be scared of me.

  I motion to the yellow rubber wristband at odds with her dress. “What’s with that?”

  She looks down, holding up her wrist for inspection. “Oh, it’s one of those negative ion wristband thingys.”

  “You know those things don’t work, right?”

  “I do, but Mom gave it to me. We don’t see a lot of each other, so I like to wear it. It reminds me of her. Besides, it’s my favorite color.”

  I make a mental note of that. “Your Mom’s back in Kansas?”

  “How did you…?” she trails off.

  “The boss called you ‘Dorothy,’ you know, but I guess you get that a lot, huh?”

  She smiles. God, it’s fucking beautiful the way the corners of her mouth pull, her lips so delicate, so pink. I’m already picturing them around my cock.

  “First time, actually, but it’s fitting.”

  “Why’s that?”

  The smile is gone, just like that. “Because if I could click my heels together three times and disappear, I would.”

  Good work, asshole, I scold myself.

  I pull up to the front of the Red Velvet nightclub, Saul’s nighttime haunt. I’ve always thought it was kind of funny that given the name the place is decked in blue inside and out. “We’re here.”

  Thanks to that dress, Dawn slips right on in. Even Bobby on the door gives her a once-over as we pass by. He winks at me. “Go get her, tiger.”

  I ignore him and walk through, the beating music giving me an instant fucking headache.

  Hand at her back, I guide Dawn upstairs to Saul’s office. A goon I don’t recognize stops us before the door. I’m in the process of telling him who I am when his earpiece starts to jabber. He steps aside.

  Saul’s pacing when we enter ‘the box,’ so called because of the one-way glass on every side that looks down into the club. The door closes and the music is snipped away with it.

  Saul used to be military, black ops—the hard-ass the government would send into third-world shitholes to plug up drug supply, but he was cut off, left for dead. He’s been on a one-man mission to fuck them over since. I guess he saw the grass was indeed greener on the other side. He’s been the city’s numero uno mafia boss since. Even the cops are in his pocket.

  He motions to the two seats at front of his desk, this one the fuselage from a B-25 bomber. He’s wearing the same shit suit, the same shit grin. “Please.”

  I take a deep breath. Here we fucking go.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  DAWN

  The guy sitting behind the desk—part of an airplane, no less—seems to be the one in charge. He’s wearing the World’s Ugliest Suit, hair cropped military tight. The way he’s smiling suggests all is well, but I have a funny feeling in my stomach that’s far from the truth.

  Under my feet the floor vibrates with the constant oomph oomph oomph of the club’s music.

  The ‘boss’ addresses me. “Dorothy. Welcome.”

  I feel no need to correct him.

  He places his hand on his chest. “I’m Saul, Saul Barnes.”

  The name sounds familiar, but I can’t place it. I just want to get out of here.

  “Your… boyfriend,” he continues. “He did a little business with me, Dorothy. Did you know that?”

  “Ex-boyfriend,” I squeak, palms growing increasingly sweaty, the glass walls of the office closing in, the dulled music beating in time with my temples.

  “Whatever he is,” says Saul. “Rick owes me a substantial amount of money, money for a loan under your name, a loan you signed for.” He gestures to Max. “My associate here was to send him an appropriate message, perhaps see if you could help with reimbursement, but given his sudden constitution, we have to look elsewhere for a solution.”

  I can’t remember signing anything, but I wouldn’t put it past Rick to forge my signature. He’d do anything to feed his habit.

  “Solution?” I query.

  “A solution,” Saul repeats, “to my fifty-thousand-dollar problem”.

  Jesus. I knew Rick owed money, but clearly I didn’t know how much. He hasn’t just screwed himself. Now he’s got me caught up in this, this shady world of criminals and clichés.

  Saul stands and walks around the front of his desk. He stands before me, uncomfortably close, his legs spread, his hands in his trouser pockets. “I’m a busy man, Dawn—” using my real name now “—so I’m going to make this simple. You like simple, right?”

  I nod.

  “You come up with the fifty k or,” he pauses, for effect. “You start working for me.” He crouches, gripping the sides of my chair and leering down into my cleavage. “A pretty young thing like you should make
it up quick enough.”

  I look sideways through the glass wall, down into the throng of men. Women dance on stage. Clothing appears to be optional. I have no doubt what the kind of ‘work’ he’s referring to entails.

  “Saul.”

  We both turn to look at Max. He’s standing.

  Saul pushes off the chair, takes a step back. “Max?”

  “Let me help.”

  Saul laughs. “Oh, I’ve think you’ve done quite enough, Toto. Calling me up on the emergency number? What the fuck’s with that?”

  “I can get the money,” Max continues.

  It’s enough to pique Saul’s interest. “And how do you propose you’ll do that?”

  I don’t think Max has thought this through himself, but he answers all the same. “I’ll track down this Rick character with her help, shake him down.”

  Saul stands in front of Max, the two chest to chest, but Max doesn’t back down. “This could have been easy, Max. She’s flesh and blood, just like any other mark, but… I’m nothing if not reasonable, and it would be a shame to spoil something so sweet, so pure.” He licks his lips as he says it. “You want to take Miss Congeniality here and get back my cash? Be my guest, but you’ve got a week. Show up empty-handed after that and I’ll have Viktor lay you both out.”

  Saul looks past Max to the corner of the room. I turn in my chair and flinch. There’s a man standing in shadow there thin and spindly, cheeks sunken as he sucks on a cigarette, the tip glowing hot. He breathes out, watching me. I never heard him come in.

  Max glances to the man and back to Saul. “I won’t let you down.”

  Saul prods him in the chest, leaning into his face. “Do not fucking disappoint me, Max. I’d hate to see my best and brightest fall from grace.” He glances to me. “And little Dorothy there? Don’t even get me started on what the boys will do to her.”

  I tense up. I still can’t believe I’m here, that I’ve fallen into this mess because I couldn’t see Rick for the asshole he was.

  It’s okay, I think, Noel will have called the police. They’ll find you soon.

  In a city of eight million? Yeah, right.

  You’re cursed. It’s as simple as that.

  If only it were that easy, a quick trip down to the local witchdoctor for some herbs and garlic to clear everything up. No, this is far more complex. How does this Max guy, one man, hope to track down Rick if this Saul character and his goons can’t?