Ghost Soldiers (19 page)

“Shut up.” Ricky's hand clenched on her shoulder. “Shut your fucking mouth. You know who this is?”

The stink of fear around him intensified. Maria's fangs tingled. The prey-fear smell made it harder to control the bloodlust. She clamped down on it with ruthless focus. Her gaze trailed down his cheek, to his throat, to the pulse she could see beating away there in time to his heart, his terrified heart… She ran her tongue over her right fang, careful not to show him.

“Get your hands off me.” Tanya jerked her shoulder out of his grip. Her hands dropped to her belly, resting on the sides of her stomach as she glared at Maria. “So who are you? You got kids?” She didn't wait for Maria to answer. “She ain't got kids. She's here and it's fucking midnight. That tells you something.”

Maria looked at Little Ricky, her smile frozen on her face. “We gonna do business, Little Ricky, or what?”

Ricky pushed past Tanya, moving carefully despite his size. Tanya stepped out of his way, and for the first time Maria glimpsed the worry haunting her face. It made her look older. Worn.

“Gimme a minute,” Little Ricky told Tanya as he started to pull the door closed. “Stay inside. I mean it.”

Tanya opened her mouth but didn't say anything. The door swung shut on her glare. Little Ricky leaned against the door and wiped both hands down his cheeks. The miasma of fear still billowed around him. Maria breathed it in, and it was hard, very hard, to keep her instincts in check. His rapid heartbeat—a drum that seemed to vibrate through her—made it even worse.

“Sorry about that.” Little Ricky glanced at her and away just as quickly. “She's pregnant.”

“I noticed. Yours?”

“Oh my fuckin' God, it'd better be.” He shoved his hands in his pockets. She tensed, but he didn't draw them back out, didn't even meet her eyes. “But I got one question before I see what I can do for you.”

“What's the question?”

Little Ricky hesitated again. She could smell him sweating through his Bob Marley shirt. “Did…did Karl ever say anything…?” He trailed off with a cough and stared at the wall scored with a hundred black marks, smears and stains.

She didn't answer right away. The longer she kept silent, the tighter his fear twisted inside him, betrayed by the metallic stink of terror flooding out of his pores. A bead of sweat curled down his temple and across his cheek to lose itself in one of his chins.

She smiled, lips shut, of course, doing her best to keep it from appearing predatory. Playing human was harder than she remembered. She tried on a small lie for size. “Karl told me a while back you knew the word on the street. That's it. That's all.”

“Nothing else?”

“Why? He wrong about you?”

“No. No, nope, not at all. I just thought…never mind, just surprised. If you're tight with Karl, I'm a hook you up if I can, don't worry. I know who you are.”

Maria froze. For an instant a cold flood of terror rushed through to her unbeating heart. It took a second before she realized he'd said
I know who you are
when her brain heard
I know
what
you are
. One word, all the difference in the world.

She turned and took a step down the hall, expecting him to follow. He didn't. Instead he cleared his throat and gave her a nervous smile. “You got the money?” He shrugged as if embarrassed. “Gotta pay the bills and shit.”

She tossed him the envelope holding a thousand in cash. He caught it, thumbed through the bills, and then peered at her through his hanging dreads. “I usually get more than this.”

She shrugged in turn. “The economy. Deal with it.”

Tanya must have been listening at the door, because he'd barely knocked before her arm shot out, snatched the envelope and slammed the door again.

They walked down the hall, Little Ricky a step in the lead, and Maria tailing a bit to keep him in view. She could smell the gun he'd brought with him. The gun didn't matter, especially if he'd loaded it with standard bullets, but if bringing it made him feel better, she wouldn't make an issue of it. After all, she'd brought her own piece, the Glock nine. Fuck the rules and the risk. She never wanted to be blindsided by a holy object again. She'd send bullets into the light and see how that worked.

The stairwell must have been at least five degrees warmer than the hallway and reeked of mildew and cat urine. They didn't talk until Ricky led her out into a little concrete courtyard in the middle of the complex. The gray apartment buildings rose up on three sides, looming overhead, dark shapes blotting out the clouds. The fourth side of the courtyard faced the street, blocked off by a rusting chain-link fence with scraps of garbage—Styrofoam cups, McDonald's bags, a shoe that looked as if it'd been lit on fire—strewn along its base. The only green came from a row of withered shrubs and two drooping potted trees, dying by degrees in a concrete garden.

“Nobody's gonna bother us here.” Little Ricky leaned against a concrete bench, watching her the way a nesting bird watched a snake. “What do you want to know?” He held up a hand. “I got nothing on the Lucattis. Last I heard Marco Lucatti had hopped into his Caddy and laid down rubber heading south. You might find him in Providence, but I don't know shit about it.”

No sense in wasting time. “Somebody brought over ghost soldiers. Who was it?”

“I have no fucking clue.” He wiped a palm across his face and then rubbed his hand on his jeans. “Zips, huh? Those guys are scary.”

“Let me back up. Somebody brought them over to take a poke at me. You don't know anything about the Zips, but maybe you heard something about a…let's say
dissatisfied
black sheep in my little family.”

He looked off across the street, where a squat convenience store hunched over an empty parking lot. “Nothing more than snippets coming down from the big dogs. Confused shit, you know. But I ain't made, and my guy who sometimes drops me a tip ain't talkin'.”

Her eyes narrowed. “Who's your inside guy?”

“Hey, Karl and me had an understanding,” Little Ricky said quickly. “He didn't ask those kinda things. He played the game.”

“I'm not gonna lie to you, Little Ricky. My friends and I hate rats. I mean we fucking
hate
rats. Squealers. Stool pigeons.” She shook her head. “I don't condone the savagery, but the boys get angry, cut out tongues, shoot out eyes, slice off dicks and shove them back in the rat's mouth as a warning. Just to make a fucking point.”

He drew away from her. The fear stink spilled out of him. Her fangs ached, and she felt sick to her stomach. Hearing Karl's name over and over again made her miss him more. She didn't want to be here, dropping ugly threats, but she had to find out the truth.

“Karl and me had an agreement—”

“Karl was an independent businessman. I'm a different kind of animal. Tell me what you hear when you listen to the chatter. I want the shit. I want the gossip. And I just paid for it, so hurry the fuck up.”

“Look. I didn't want to say anything. I was trying to show respect.”

She smirked. Little Ricky hurried on. “A lot of people are unhappy. A lot of people think things changed too fast. That a bitch in the big chair is fucking way out of line.”

“Names?”

He shook his head. “This stuff just filters down. That
omerta
shit, you don't hear much from the outside. Like I said, I ain't made. I ain't even an associate. I just hear things from time to time.”

“Fine. What do you hear?”

“Some guys call you Bloody Bitch.” He didn't look at her as he spoke, staring down at the water-stained concrete instead. “It ain't like British or anything. I think they mean bloody as in, you know,
bloody
.”

“Cute.” Maria “Bloody Bitch” Ricardi. Misogynistic and lacking even baseline cleverness, but she supposed it got the point across. “What else?”

“People are tired of all the killing. It's way out of hand. Nobody feels safe. Nobody can make any money. That's all I got.”

“The New York Families?”

“A little fucking high up there for me to know about.”

“What about a player called Cojocaru?” she asked. “New name in town. Maybe putting out feelers.”

“What's he? Yakuza?”

“Romanian.”

“Must be very new, cuz I got nothing on him.”

“This is turning out to be the worst thousand I ever spent.”

“Look, I could give you the money back, but I need it.” He glanced at her as if gauging how likely she was to demand it back. “I could give you a credit. Or dig around a bit. Call you if I learn something.”

Maria didn't debate for long. She didn't have the infrastructure in place yet to find this stuff out on her own if she couldn't trust her people. She had to get her fingers deeper into the nuts and bolts of her syndicate. In fact, it was long past time she got straightened out. She needed her capos and soldiers in line, all disgruntled shit fallen by the wayside, if she were to tangle with Cojocaru or the Thorn or whatever else came after her and Karl.

Besides, Little Ricky looked like he could use the money. Kid on the way, living in a dump like this… She wondered if he had a real job. Probably not.

“All right. Get me as many specifics as you can—who wants to off me, anything on Cojocaru or his players, and any murmurs about the Blackstone.” She reached into her pocket and pulled out her new cell phone. “You got a cell on you? I'll give you my number.” She pinned him with a hard stare. “Don't fucking give it out. And for God's sake, don't say anything over the phone. You never know who's listening.”

The stink of sweat and fear drifted to her again. He fumbled with his cell and almost dropped it. “What should I say when I call you? A code word or something?”

“I'll just tell you where I want to meet. My choice. Random place. Be ready to move fast.”

When both numbers were in memory—no names on the entries, of course—they put the phones away. Little Ricky kept glancing at the door. She watched him as he shifted and wiped his hands on his jeans, trying to hide his sweaty palms.

“You be careful, Little Ricky,” she said. “People who talk get whacked. Don't do anything stupid.”

“I'm a fucking pro.” He grinned, but it more closely resembled a seasick grimace.

“Yeah. You got a kid on the way. Remember that.”

“That's the scary part, you know. Wicked fucking scary. I wasn't even ready for it. I don't even like to think about it.”

She looked at him, but he didn't meet her eyes. After a moment she said, not unkindly, “All right. Chat time over. Now get the fuck out of here and go buy your kid some drool bibs or a crib or something.”

He smiled, this one genuine. He hurried to the door and never looked back. She stared up at the buildings rising all around the small courtyard, looking at the warm yellow light seeping through the slats in the blinds.

One more thing to do tonight. Something that couldn't be put off any longer. She'd have to head on out to Belmont and pay a visit to John Passerini for a little face to face. It was time for her to get straightened out, to be made and take the oath of
omerta
. It should've been done long before now—
would've
been done long before now if she'd been born a son instead of a daughter. No matter. Time moves on. Things change. She knew that better than anyone.

Tightening her grip. Always tightening her grip so someone couldn't pry her family out from underneath her fingers. Not the traitor. Not this Cojocaru asshole. Not the Blackstone wolves. Not the Thorn. Part of her wished Karl were here to see her made, though that would've been an unforgivable breach of the rules. Part of her wanted her father.

She knew she'd get neither.

Chapter Twenty: An Offer

The succubus shadowed him and Bailey to the train yards. They hurried along a set of tracks behind a line of rust-red, graffiti-marked freight cars, mostly shielded from the warehouses and freight docks, as the couples of linking freight cars clanged together in the distance. Bailey's dark energy had been erratic since sundown, spiking and falling so dramatically he'd had trouble shielding the bursts of power. He needed to find a train headed east to the port city of Constanta, but as darkness fell he'd sensed the succubus flying over the city, never straying too far from them, and that made Bailey's uncontrolled power spikes even more dangerous. Shielded or not, he suspected the succubus felt the power spikes and was homing in on them.

He moved fast, searching for an empty freight car to hide in, but a sudden flux of Bailey's energy drilled past his shields, spinning in a coalescing matrix near weed-choked tracks. He thought he glimpsed the shape of a wolf forming from shadows before the power choked off and the image vanished. Bailey stared at the spot, her eyes wide.

“Did I do that?” she whispered.

“Don't move.” He scanned the sky above until he found the succubus, near the western horizon and racing in their direction. The blaze of energy she burned to power her flight radiated in his mind like a dark star. He dropped into a half crouch in the deeper darkness near the freight car and pulled Bailey down beside him. Too late. Unintentional or not, Bailey had partially summoned a spirit wolf. If the succubus were sensitive enough to feel the energy slip past his shields, then they had problems. He settled his hand on the grip of the Makarov PM and drew shadows around them, trying to conceal their position without his use of dark energy drawing more attention.

“Did she feel that—whatever I did?” Bailey searched the sky.

“Maybe. Get ready.”

The succubus wheeled overhead in a sweeping turn, pulled her wings in and shot down at them like a meteor. Karl drew the Makarov pistol and pushed off the safety, tracking her down. At the last possible moment the succubus spread her black wings again, and they flared wide like sails filling with air, braking her descent so she landed nimbly upon the ground a dozen feet away. She stretched, arching herself like a cat, seeming to revel in her physical beauty. He felt the surge of her sex aura wash against him, his muscles tightening in his groin and chest, but he flexed his own dark energy and shattered through the lust spell she'd tried to wrap around him.