Embers & Ash (15 page)

THE OUTFIT GUY POURED FROM CONCRETE
was still holding the AK-47 when he told me to wait downstairs. I was to drive Vlad wherever he told me to go, without question.

There was nothing more to say.

I was the rabbit.

The lobby was airless and damp with the rain falling steadily outside, ricocheting off the sidewalk. I crossed the tile floor, counting my steps—sixteen, wall-to-wall—until the elevator binged. Vlad the Inhaler stepped off, jangly and cocky, looked left and right, and then aimed a smile at me as if we were long-lost pals. His crimson eyes gleamed as he pinched at his nose, wriggled it like a hyperactive bunny, and said, “There she is! Miss Counselor-at-Large herself! Cute
and
tough!”

I said nothing, feeling my left hand curl into a fist, and resisting it.

He moved closer, trailing an acrid smell of sweat. “You're a fighter, eh?” he said slyly, fingering the gold chain. “Well, give up the notebook, or be ready to fight for your life.” He grinned, smoothed back his hair, and drove a hard-knuckled fist deep into my stomach, doubling me over.

I didn't make a sound, sucking in the agony and the instinct to fight back.

Vlad wiped a hand under his nose, saying, “Let's go have some
fun,
yes?!” He led us into the downpour, across the street, me trying to find my breath, him humming a frenetic tune. “You drive,” he said. “I want your hands where I can see them. I hear you like to throw punches.” With a yank of the door handle, he shoved me behind the wheel, walked around, and slid in on the other side, shaking his head like a soaked wolfhound. Whether it was nerves or a subconscious desire not to go anywhere with the guy, I dropped the keys. I bent for them, and as I sat up, he grabbed a handful of my hair and jerked my head back. “Drop them again, girl. I dare you,” he said, running his hand through my hair, caressing it gently, and then slamming my face into the steering wheel. The horn made a sharp bleating noise, like a lamb at slaughter. “Now drive,” he said, “south, down Michigan Avenue. South. We can see the sights, like young lovers.”

I sat back tasting blood and when the starlight explosion cleared from my brain, pulled slowly from the curb. Snaking rivulets streamed down the windshield. The thumping wipers barely kept the road visible. I turned onto Michigan Avenue and drove past the limestone water tower into a line of creeping traffic.

“You know Wicker Park?” he said, drumming fingers on his thigh.

“Yeah,” I said, glancing in the rearview mirror as a black town car moved toward us. In the other lane, a brown Buick edged into position, rolling slowly.

“Hoyne Avenue, near Division Street. There's a place, Czar Bar,” he said. “Your family is waiting. Maybe not well, but alive.”

A real location, and that word,
alive,
uttered so casually. My heart beat rapidly as traffic inched through the storm.

I eased to a stop at a red light.

The gray, Gothic Tribune Tower loomed on my left, its spire lost in mist, while the Wrigley Building squatted to my right like a huge, rain-soaked wedding cake.

A flick of my eyes in the rearview mirror showed the town car and Buick several car lengths behind. In my mind, I paced off what would happen next—I'd park on Hoyne Avenue and enter Czar Bar while the Outfit guys arrived outside. There would be a short interval before the onslaught began as they loaded guns, took positions. Those few minutes would be the only chance to save my family.

A brutish wind picked up, rocking the Lincoln.

The red light seemed to be eternal.

Just ahead I could see waves below the Michigan Avenue Bridge throwing themselves against its concrete foundations, leaping like wet, caged animals. Vlad stared out the window and read my mind, murmuring, “These are the long minutes, eh? Like before walking into a prison cell. Who's waiting for you in there? What will they do to you? Your stomach fills with moths and ears ring like church bells. You wait, you wonder.” He turned and grinned, tracing my jaw with a clammy finger. “But for now, it's just you and me, baby.”

“And me, asshole.”

We spun around to Doug sitting in the backseat, shoving away the old raincoat he'd been hiding under. Harry crouched next to him, teeth bared behind the muzzle; in a quick motion, Doug removed the muzzle from his face. The little dog growled from deep in his belly while Doug held the .45 toward Vlad's empty face. Astonished and alarmed, through gritted teeth, I said, “Doug, what the
hell
are you doing here?!”

“That weird warning in the text message—I was worried about you. I thought you might need me . . . us,” he said, as Harry growled again.

As unnerving as their presence was, even worse was the steel briefcase on Doug's lap. We'd agreed never to leave the notebook alone at the Bird Cage Club, and now the Russian mob's object of desire was right here in the car with us. I wanted to scream at Doug to flee but my tongue went numb.

Vlad was staring into the backseat and spoke first.

“Briefcase.” It sounded like
brif-kes,
and his tone was so languid it was as if guns were aimed at his head several times a day. “Could it be the one your father told us about? Under duress, of course. I waterboarded him myself. Funny what comes out when you're drowning on dry land.” He pretended to gag and spit, bugging his eyes, and then melted into a sly smile. “In that briefcase, there is a notebook.
The
notebook, yes?”

Doug said, “But I have a gun, so—” and that split second was all Vlad needed to launch himself into the backseat. The grappling was quick and ugly as he drove a fist into Doug's startled face while Harry howled and lunged.

“Harry! Heel.
Heel!
” I screamed, sure Vlad would do just as bad to the little dog, or worse. Harry froze on his haunches, teeth bared, hair bristling, eyes locked on the Russian. He trusted my voice and obeyed it, despite his instinct to attack.

“Doggy is smartest one in car,” Vlad said, jammed between Harry and Doug with the .45 pointed at me. He lifted the briefcase onto his lap and said, “Look behind us. Typical, eh? Raining like hell, streets a mess, and a garbage truck just happens to break down now. No one can get past, not town cars, not Buicks . . .”

I glanced back at the hulking vehicle. It was stopped sideways, hazard lights flashing, blocking every car behind it. Large, flower-filled concrete planters ran down the middle of Michigan Avenue making it impossible to get around the garbage truck. I looked from dazed Doug to whimpering Harry, and said, “Now what?”

“Your friend just made everything easier,” Vlad said, tapping out a cokey beat on the briefcase. “We proceed to Czar Bar, where you say good-bye to your family.”

“Because you're letting them go,” I said. “That's the deal. Them for me.”

“Oh, sure, you hug and kiss, say,
See you soon, Mommy!
and we wave bye-bye,” he said, picking at his teeth. “No. We kill them. Only reason it hasn't happened by now, we want you to watch.”

Something painful spread through me, a cancer of defeat, and I turned, placed both hands on the steering wheel, and stared through the windshield. “Your boss hates me that much,” I said.

“Drive carefully, baby, it's wet outside. We don't want the gun to go off and have something happen to this fool,” he said, blithely driving an elbow into Doug's gut. As he groaned painfully, Vlad said, “At least your brother put up a fight. It took a hell of a lot more than punch to stomach to—you know—get his mind right.”

I blinked once, coming awake, and met Vlad's eyes in the rearview mirror. “Lou,” I said, as the cold blue flame began to flicker and burn.

“Very strong kid, physically, mentally, at first,” he said. “I learn techniques in Russian prison, some with fists, others with ropes, that break any man, make
any
man loyal to his torturer. Your brother, no—he kept fighting.” Vlad leaned forward, his breath warm on my neck. “Until I bring out the knives.”

A zing of electricity crossed my shoulders, a reminder of aspirins untaken and of how easy it would be to kill someone I hated. “You brainwashed him.”

“Washed his brain, inked his skin, and now he's one of us,” Vlad said. “At least that's what he thinks. It amused my boss to see how his transformation hurt your parents, how he screamed at them, spit in their faces.”

“Lou wouldn't do that—”

“He did it, and more. But if necessary, my boss would kill him like stepping on a bug. Hey, green light,” he said, nudging me with the .45. “Anyway . . . just another dead kid on a Chicago street. Who would give a crap?”

“I would,” I hissed, jamming my foot on the gas, demanding all the power contained in the Lincoln's V-8 engine. The back end fishtailed as the tires chewed wet pavement, and we flew ahead like a missile. I had no real plan, only to shake the gun loose from Vlad's grip and allow the deadly voltage surging through my brain and body to take its course. We barreled onto the bridge, rain pounding the car, as I whipped the steering wheel back and forth, swerving wildly side to side.

“Slow down,
bitch
!” Vlad screamed, digging a hand into my neck and screaming again at the painful electrical current coursing through me, biting and burning his fingers. I craned my neck at him, seeing the blue glow of my eyes reflect from his suddenly pale face, and grinned like a Sicilian demon from hell. Somehow the Russian had managed to hold on to the .45. But a guardrail ran along the side of the bridge and I yanked the steering wheel, hitting the railing hard, metal on metal shrieking, throwing Vlad, Doug, and Harry against one another, and then I did it again.

There was no traction beneath the tires, not even a skid, only a frenzied slide.

The street was too wet, the car too heavy, the speed too intense.

The Lincoln did not bounce from the guardrail but seemed to stick to it, and then the earth began to turn as we went up and over the side of the bridge.

There was a short period of silence, a tiny sliver of floating peace like when astronauts bounce around a space capsule, and then—a deafening impact as two tons of Detroit steel collided with cold river water. We'd flipped in the air and come down with the wheels beneath us, water rising over the hood, and then the doors, rushing into the car and sinking us so quickly it was like being on a roller coaster going over the highest hill.

The convertible top ballooned outward and was torn off in a brown liquid rush. I removed my seat belt and pushed away from the car as a cloud of bubbling suction pulled the Lincoln to the river floor. I dug at the water, seeing quivering light above the river's surface, and broke through, spitting mud and sucking air. Curtains of rain swept over me. I splashed and quivered in the current, hair plastered to my face, and then began paddling anxiously in a circle—

Where's Doug?!
Where's Harry?!

—and spotted Vlad swimming toward me with one arm. He was so close I could see his wild brown eyes—he'd lost the crimson contacts—as he pushed against the water, grunted while he lifted the briefcase in an overhand motion, and hit me in the head.

It was a sledgehammer blow, snuffing out the world.

I sank beneath the waves inhaling water, comforted by the dark weightlessness, and then panicked, clawing my way back to the surface. With fiery pain rippling from my skull, and weary from fighting the river, it was all I could do to hold on to consciousness and watch Vlad prepare to hit me again, realizing that I wouldn't survive another blow, when something tore from the water—black homicidal eyes, flaring nostrils, sharp, snapping teeth—and Harry flung himself into Vlad's face. Canine snarls mixed with human screams, and I bobbed helplessly, peering through the downpour at the little dog's head wildly twisting from side to side. Vlad went under, pulling Harry with him, a cascade of silent bubbles rose up, and then both of them popped to the surface with Vlad screeching in Russian, and then in English, “Devil
dog
! You took my
nose
!”

“Harry!” I screamed. “Get away from him! Please, Harry!”

“Goddamn
demon
!” Vlad bellowed. They were thrashing and biting, and I pushed myself toward them as their heads bobbed and then sunk rapidly beneath the waves.

Beneath the waves!

Where's Doug?!

I turned, and turned again, filled with panicky adrenaline, searching the face of the river, spotted a slime of rising motor oil, and dove for it. I opened my eyes as I descended, unable to see farther than my hand, but there—the hulking shadow of the Lincoln was impossible to miss, looking as if it were parked on the river floor! I pulled toward it, feeling my way through to the backseat, touching Doug's hair that was like a waving mass of seaweed. Drawing closer, lungs burning, I saw his leg wedged beneath the front seat. I held his ankle in both hands and yanked with all my strength, doing math in my feverish brain—
How long had he been under, two minutes, four, was he already dead?
—until the leg came free and his body slowly rose toward me. I hooked the back of his shirt and tried to pull but he was too heavy, we were too deep.

The old raincoat was wedged in the backseat.

I grabbed it, looped it tightly around Doug's wrist, and burrowed madly through brown water toward the surface, counting each jerk of the raincoat, and at ten broke into the rain, literally eating the air. With one arm beneath Doug, the other pulling toward the weedy shore, I tried not to feel his motionless chest. We came aground on a muddy spit just feet from part of the bridge's foundation. His face was ashen, eyes open and staring at nothing, lines of greenish liquid snaking from his nostrils.

My head jerked up at a commotion on the other side of the river.

There were shrill calls for help as Vlad was hauled onto the dock of Wendella boat tours. He bent at the knees, face streaming blood and water, and then rose and scanned the river until he saw me kneeling next to Doug's limp form. Even from that distance, it was evident something was wrong with his face, as if a small, nasty explosion had occurred beneath his eyes. Two men tried to help but Vlad shoved them away, lifted the briefcase with one hand and a middle finger at me with the other, and pushed through the crowd. I watched him jerkily climb a flight of steps toward Michigan Avenue; if I scrambled up the embankment to the walkway above, it would be possible to catch him. I could use cold fury not only to get the notebook but also to try to save my family.