Queens Ransom (Sofie Metropolis) (18 page)

‘Anyway, I just thought you should know.’

I didn’t know what to say. ‘Thanks?’ More of a question than a comment.

He gave me one of his sexy, lopsided grins and I found myself wanting to kiss him. Just one more time.

‘Take care, kid.’

‘Yeah. You, too.’

I didn’t realize I’d put my arm on his truck until I had to remove it so he could roll up his window. Then I had to step back in order for him to pull away from the curb. He gave the horn a brief honk and away he went.

And there I stood in the middle of the street, watching him go, wondering if I should have said something more.

Jake had become such a fixture in my life, I had never stopped to consider how I would feel if he wasn’t. Then again, why should I have?

The long and the short of it was I didn’t feel good about it at all. It was almost as if someone had told me a close relative had suddenly died.

Speaking of relatives, Grandpa Kosmos was waiting for me.

A horn honked behind me and I realized I was blocking traffic.

‘I’m moving already!’ I said.

Then I crossed the street to Lucille and climbed inside, feeling oddly as if I’d woken up to find someone had changed a one-way street to move in the other direction . . . and left me considering what the fine was for breaking the law.

Twenty-Seven

If my wanting a good frappé had anything to do with my wanting to pick up Grandpa Kosmos at the café rather than his side apartment entrance, I wasn’t saying.

I took a long sip from my travel cup straw. Ah, yes. There were few things better than a nice, freshly made frappé.

Well, OK, maybe there were more than a few. But not many.

We were five minutes into our trip to Brooklyn and my grandfather had barely said two words. In fact, I wondered if he was truly in the car with me at all.

‘Fidget one more time and I’ll boot you out and make you catch a taxi,’ I told him.

He looked at me blankly where we sat at a red light. ‘
Ti
?’

I smiled at his Greek ‘what?’. ‘Nothing. Just trying to get your attention.’ The light changed and I moved forward along with the other Christmas Eve morning traffic. ‘Now that I have it, you mind telling me what the history is between you and the recently widowed Mrs Liotta?’

He fidgeted again. ‘She was the wife of my best friend.’

‘Uh huh. That, I know.’ I gave him a long look as I sipped my frappé. ‘What I want to know is what you’re not telling me.’

He made a sound of annoyance. ‘I think you’re letting this PI stuff go to your head. Seeing mysteries where there are none.’

‘Uh huh,’ I said again. ‘Give. How did you meet?’

‘Iris and I?’

There it was again, his use of her first name in that way that seemed almost too intimate. Maybe it was the way his face transformed. Suddenly he appeared twenty years younger.

‘Coney Island.’

He went silent.

‘And?’ I prompted.

‘And what?’

It wasn’t like Grandpa Kosmos to be so tight-lipped about anything. Usually he was chomping at the bit to tell a good story, usually with a beginning, a middle and an end . . . and including, of course, a moral to the story.

I liked to think it was what made Greeks – ancient or otherwise – such great storytellers.

He finally seemed to relax into the seat. ‘I was seventeen . . . She was sixteen . . .’ He drifted off briefly. ‘I was there with my friends, she was there with her family. Strict father. He didn’t like me on sight.’

I remembered the pictures of my grandfather I’d seen from those years. One, in particular, had been of him and a few pals at the Brooklyn park. He’d been a handsome, grinning young man who looked full of ‘piss and vinegar’ as my mother liked to say.

‘She wanted a hot dog and I bought her one . . .’

His smile told me he was keeping more details to himself than he was sharing.

‘And you snuck off together?’ I offered.

‘What?’ He looked at me as if just realizing I was there. ‘No, no. Not that first night. Never. That’s not how things worked back then.’

But they had snuck off.

I smiled.

‘And your best friend, Al?’

His expression clouded up.

‘He liked her, too.’

‘But she liked you.’

He nodded. ‘She liked me . . .’

His words drifted off along with his attention as he stared through the window, though I doubt he saw anything other than the memories floating through his mind.

‘What happened?’

‘What?’

‘Back then. What happened that Al ended up with her and you didn’t?’

He looked down at the folded hands in his lap, messing with one of his cuticles. ‘I was introduced to your grandmother . . .’

Of course.

We drove in silence for a while, he contemplating a girl he’d once known, I what life might have been like for him had he understood there were other choices.

Had he considered bucking family? Tradition? Going for the girl he’d met at Coney Island so long ago?

Successive images floated like ghosts of relationships past, unconnected but so tightly bound you couldn’t have cut them apart with pastry sheers.

My almost marriage to Thomas . . .

Dino . . .

Rosie and Seth . . .

I could only imagine those familial pressures and expectations had fifty years ago been triple what they were now. And while I’d never thought Grandpa Kosmos the cowardly kind . . . well, he was also very traditional.

And there was the whole friendship angle to consider.

What had he given up?

Or, rather, what had he fantasized he’d given up?

Could Iris have been the love of his life? Denied until now?

‘I don’t regret a moment of my life,’ he said.

I might have suspected he could read my thoughts, only he was deeply entrenched in his own, I didn’t think he registered where he was, much less what color shirt I had on.

I reached over and took his hand. ‘I know.’

We arrived quicker than I was ready for.

I really didn’t want to go in with him. Sometimes the way he spoke Iris’ name made me feel like I was somewhere I didn’t belong.

But I did have one more question: ‘And the medal?’

He was staring at the place I’d pointed out as hers. ‘I saw her one last time. Al and I were back stateside on leave. She was engaged to him . . . I was promised to your grandmother. It was then I gave her the medal.’

This surprised me, considering he’d already made the decision not to pursue her by then. ‘Why?’

He searched my face. ‘Because it had been her I’d been thinking about when I earned it.’

His words touched me in a way for which I was unprepared.

I leaned toward him and gave him a tight hug, holding him there for a long moment.

Sometimes it was easy to forget that family members were people, too. With stories and joys and pains all their own that had nothing to do with you.

I drew back and looked at him through the film of my tears. ‘Enjoy your visit,’ I said. ‘If it’s all the same to you, I don’t think I’m going to stick around.’

He nodded, as if the thought had occurred to him, as well. ‘I’ll catch a taxi home.’

I touched the side of his face. ‘I love you.’

‘
K’ego, s’agapo, koukla mou
. Thank you.’

‘No, thank you, Pappou.’

I spotted the curtains move in Iris’ apartment.

‘Now go on, get. You have that, um, medal to reclaim.’

His answering smile was so bright it could have melted the snow. ‘Yes. Yes, I do . . .’

I drove back to Astoria smiling with more than my lips. The day stretched before me filled with nothing but a little clean-up work and playing Santa. I stopped by my parents’ to pick up the gifts I’d left there, then went to my place for more. I hadn’t given Mrs Nebitz her Chanukah gift yet, either, so maybe I’d stop across the hall before going back to the office.

That’s funny, I thought, as I opened my apartment door: no Muffy.

I glanced at where I’d left the window open for him and shrugged, figuring he was seeing to business. He’d be in soon enough. Anyway, I didn’t have much time before Rosie left for the day, and I wanted to give her her bonus, as well as leave envelopes for the others getting one.

I crossed to my bedroom and reached in to switch on the light.

Only to realize there wasn’t going to be anything quick about this visit.

‘I knew you were going to be trouble from the instant I first laid eyes on you, bitch. Now hand me your fucking gun and get on the fucking floor.’

Twenty-Eight

Damn . . .

Bubba Canton stood in the corner of my bedroom aiming his favorite shotgun at me.

Pino’s words from a while ago echoed in my ears. Why hadn’t I heeded his warning? Oh, wait, I remember: because I was too busy gloating.

Double damn . . .

I held up my hands, wondering as I did why everyone always felt compelled to do that. Was it to say, ‘Look, see? I’m not holding’? Or, ‘Whoa, wait on a minute. Let’s not be so hasty’? Or, ‘See my hands? They’re yours to do with what you will’?

In my case, I decided I didn’t have anything better to do outside shooting him with my own gun, and somehow I got the impression he wouldn’t approve of that.

‘Bubba,’ I said simply.

‘Do as I fucking say now!’

Honestly, I was so busy getting over the shock of seeing him in my bedroom, I hadn’t really heard what he’d said.

I made out Muffy’s muffled bark and then furious scratching. I realized he must be locked in my closet. I glanced at Bubba, finding his right wrist dripping blood on to my expensive area rug and I noticed a tear in his left jeans leg.

He might have gotten one over on Muffy, but not without a fight.

I could only hope Muffy wasn’t bleeding . . .

‘Look, half the city is searching for you, Bubba. I figured you would have been halfway around the world by now.’

‘You did, did you?’ he adjusted his hands on the gun. ‘With what money, bitch?’

I blinked at him. ‘With the ransom money.’

‘There ain’t no motherfucking ransom money. That Abramopoulos bastard fucked me over; there was nothing in the garbage can.’

I didn’t understand. I’d seen the bearer bonds. Delivered the briefcase myself, as instructed. What happened between then and the point where he’d visited the bin?

And what would have been the consequences had Bubba and his accomplices not released the girl before finding that same bin empty?

I stared at the man holding me at gunpoint and decided that whole Jimmy Stewart reunion bit yesterday might never have happened.

Bubba gripped his weapon, looking more than prepared to use it.

Yeah, I’d say little Jolie would be history right about now . . .

Muffy scratched like crazy then howled. I don’t think I’d ever heard him howl before. The soulful sound made my stomach lining melt.

‘It’s OK boy,’ I told him, sincerely hoping that was the case, that he was just really determined to get out and not hurt.

Bubba looked toward the closet.

And I took full advantage of the momentary distraction and dove for cover into the living room, keeping low, moving fast.

The shotgun blast penetrated the wall, sending plaster spitting inches from my face.

I scrambled farther away and behind the far edge of the couch, freeing my Glock from my holster, and my cell phone from my pocket, as I went.

‘Get back here, you fucking bitch! I need to make you pay for all the trouble you caused!’

My throat choked off air. Why was I thinking there wasn’t enough money in the world to pay the kind of debt he was talking about?

I scooted a little farther along the floor, my ear against the wood trying to make myself the smallest target I could, my eye and gun trained on the bottom of my bedroom doorway: the former under it, the latter around it.

‘And your sister, Sara?’ I shouted, trying to right the cell phone so I could call Pino. I figured not only was he the right one to contact, but experience held he’d be the fastest to get there. Probably he was up the block, waiting for something to happen to me. At least sometimes it seemed that way. ‘Does she want to make me pay, too?’

‘Sara?’ His laugh was more of a bark. ‘That fucking idiot has no idea what it takes to make it in this world. If I’d have let her in on this, she probably would have gone straight to the fucking police. Or that fucking worthless ex of hers who cut her off without a dime.’

I briefly closed my eyes, thankful that Jolie’s mom had more sense than her gun-crazy uncle. At least when it came to matters of kidnapping.

I scrolled through my numbers . . .

Feet.

I refocused my attention on the door, taking aim for Bubba’s boots and firing.

I watched as leather and denim exploded outward.

The man who was wearing them groaned and collapsed to his knees.

Uh oh . . .

I hadn’t planned that my shooting him would bring him down to my level.

And he was getting blood on a second area rug.

OK, I’d bought this one at the Chelsea Flea Market, so I hadn’t spent that much on it. But seeing as it had literally been infested with fleas, and had taken me a good month to clean it, I had time invested.

It had also nearly gotten me arrested for murder. But that was another story I didn’t have time to think about right now.

Long story short, the rug meant more to me than the expensive one in my bedroom.

I gauged distance and the open spaces between me and the front door and me and the window.

Shit! He’d get me either way for sure, no matter how much pain he was in.

‘Motherfucking motherfucker!’ The shotgun cocked, nearly scaring my heart right out of my chest. ‘Where in the fuck are you?’

My cell phone rang as if on cue.

I was convinced my heart had landed on the rug somewhere near his blood stains.

I hurried to answer it.

‘Sofie?’

My cousin, Pete.

‘Whatever you do, don’t go into your place. I think that madman Canton is in there.’

‘Too late,’ I whispered as much to him as myself.

Another shotgun blast. I scrambled backward on my hands and knees, praying as I went, my cell phone sliding across the floor out of reach. The legs of my side table spat splinters at me, nearly catching me in the eye, the stinging of my cheeks telling me I’d eaten a few.

‘You’re not going to get away with this, you know,’ I shouted. ‘Everyone and his brother is on their way here now. You’re going to end up back in prison for the rest of your unnatural life.’

Another blast, this time farther away.

I figured either he was trying to bait me out of my hiding place, or pain was blurring his focus.

I really wasn’t all that interested in finding out which it was.

‘I ain’t going back to no motherfucking prison cell. Ever!’

‘Well, you should have thought about that before kidnapping Abramopoulos’ daughter.’

‘She’s my niece, goddam it! Rich motherfucker took her away from her own mother, wouldn’t even let my sister visit with her. The way I see it, that bastard’s the one who should be in prison.’

Call me crazy? But I didn’t have a problem with that logic.

Movement outside the apartment door. I glanced hopefully in that direction. Until I realized it could just as easily be Mrs Nebitz as Pino or Pete.

The barrier swung violently inward and there stood none other than Charles Chaney.

‘Put the gun down! Now!’ he shouted, bursting into the room, the apartment door slamming shut behind him. He looked like my aunt’s old, stained sofa with a perspiration problem and glasses. But he was holding a gun. A definite plus.

My hero.

Bubba aimed his shotgun at him.

‘Shit!’ Chaney swung back toward the door and took a blast straight to his overstuffed ass.

He made a sickening sound as he dropped to the floor.

I winced. That had to hurt. But at least I was reasonably sure he would survive his injuries.

What in the hell was he thinking? While a part of me wanted to applaud him for his almost heroic efforts, another wanted to bat him about the ears.

At least he could have left me a clear path to the door when he’d created the diversion.

Now he completely blocked it.

I heard Bubba moving around. I chanced a peek around the bottom of the couch to find him tying off his ankle wound with a chocolate-colored neck scarf my mother had knitted for me. My favorite. Also ruined with his blood.

The asinine direction of my thoughts helped distract me from the fact that fear was ballooning in me at the realization he was regaining his bearings.

Tick-tock.

I closed my eyes, trying to empty my mind so something useful could fill it. All I could hear was Chaney’s pitiful moans from the other side of the room, where I’m sure he was also bleeding on something I liked.

Another shotgun cock.

OK, maybe emptying my mind wasn’t an option.

Instead I put my feet under me, took a deep breath, and slowly rose to my full height, my Glock held out in front of me, my right arm locked, my left hand supporting the gun’s weight.

Bubba did the same thing on the other side of the couch. Only the shotgun was heavier and he didn’t have a chance to raise it before I squeezed off one round, then two, then three.

The first shot hit him in his gun shoulder, causing him to drop it. The second, the neck, causing his head to lean at an awkward angle. And the third hit him right in the forehead.

Bullseye.

‘Rule Number Three.’ I heard my uncle Spyros’ voice as clearly as if he were speaking right next to me. ‘If someone’s gunning for you? Don’t aim to injure: shoot to kill.’

I stood frozen to the spot, watching as Robert ‘Bubba’ Canton collapsed on to my brand new sofa, his eyes wide open. In a ridiculous part of my brain that still worked, I imagined even in death he was saying, ‘Yeah, bitch, I got blood on your couch. What the fuck are you going to do about it?’

The door swung inward again, windows shattered and, within a blink, my apartment was filled with SWAT members and FBI agents.

I didn’t realize I was still standing with my gun held out in front of me, although my target had long since been eliminated, until the agent responsible for two of my snatch and grabs came up and put his hand over mine.

‘Whoa. It’s over. Why don’t you give that to me now?’

I blinked at him, but couldn’t seem to bring myself to move otherwise.

‘First kill?’ he asked, waving to the others to stand down where they trained their firearms on me.

I nodded.

I was vaguely aware of another agent verifying Bubba’s death, and someone letting Muffy out of my bedroom closet; he ran to me, positioning himself next to my leg and growling and barking at anyone within nipping distance.

My sidekick.

I looked at him briefly to make sure he was OK, then stared at the FBI agent, just now realizing I didn’t know what to call him.

‘What’s your name?’ I asked stupidly.

He smiled. ‘James. My name is James.’

Not Agent Smith . . . or Jones . . . or Davis, just James.

I finally released my grip on my gun, allowing him to take it.

‘Just so you know, Jimmy, I’ll need that back.’

‘James is my surname.’

‘Of course it is.’

‘Michael is my first.’

I found myself smiling at him stupidly.

Then my legs gave out.

‘Whoa.’ He helped move me to a chair where I dissolved into little more than a liquid puddle of spent adrenalin.

My first kill . . .

A sledgehammer would fail to dislodge the words from my brain at that moment.

Or my question of whether or not there would be a second.

‘What are you doing?’ I heard a familiar female voice demand and imagined Mrs Nebitz taking aim at the officers with her cane, despite their superior firepower. ‘Why so many men to do the job of one? For shame! Look what you’ve done to the place! You’re tracking mud all over the apartment. And is somebody going to take care of this nice man lying in his own blood over here? He looks to be in a lot of pain.’

God love Mrs Nebitz.

She stepped over a moaning Chaney and headed in my direction.

‘Sofie? Sofie, are you OK, dear? These men haven’t hurt you?’

I nodded, then shook my head, trying to reassure her as she bent over to peer into my face.

‘Not to rush you, dear, but when you’re feeling up to it? I’m still having that problem with the plumbing.’

‘Thank God,’ my cousin Pete said as he entered the place, stepping straight over Chaney, as well. ‘I thought I was too late.’

The SWAT members and FBI didn’t seem to know what to do about those coming inside the open door.

‘Shit,’ Pete said, spotting where Bubba lay motionless on the sofa. Funny, Mrs Nebitz didn’t seem to give him a second glance. ‘Is he dead?’

Pino’s voice: ‘Hey, hey! Step away from the crime scene. Police area starts here.’ He indicated the door. ‘Anyone not authorized needs to be outside. Now.’

I was thinking that with SWAT and FBI here he probably also fell into that category. But I wasn’t saying anything. I just wanted someone to show me how to get off this crazy ride.

I was dizzy.

I was afraid I was about to be sick.

But mostly I was terrified there was no exit to be had.