SK01 - Waist Deep (28 page)

I nodded.
“Yeah. And she’s only sixteen.”

I expected him to grow whiter, but he only swallowed and nodded.
As we sat in silence, the fear in his eyes slowly receded.

“You’re not with the Russians, are you?”

I shook my head.

“And you’re not a cop.”

“Nope.”

“Who are you with?”

I leaned forward again.
“What you probably want to be worrying about is not who I am, but what I plan to do.”

“Are you going to kill me?”

“No,” I told him and immediately regretted it.
“But I might put a huge hole through your foot.
Make you walk with a nice limp for the rest of your life.”

Jackson
swallowed again, but when he spoke, his voice was smoother.
“If you aren’t going to kill me, then what are you going to do?”

“I could still kill you,” I said, but we both knew it was a lie.

“No, you won’t,” he said, reminding me of a car salesman.
I imagined him using that tone on
Kris
, convincing her that she was a star and
one hundred percent
classy.
Or had that been LeMond?
“So we’re at a Mexican standoff.”

“Maybe,” I said.
“Except for two things.
I’m not Mexican and it’s only a standoff if you’ve got a gun, too.”

He shrugged again,
confidence seeping
back
into his demeanor.
“Call it what you want.
You have some information on me.
I have some against you—assault and burglary.
Pretty serious stuff.”

“Like child pornography?”

Jackson
’s lips drew up in a smile, then he winced and touched his cheek where I’d pistol-whipped him.
“That’s just society’s bullshit,” he said.
“And soon to change.”

“Spare me the Professor LeMond rap,” I said.

His face turned to a scowl and that made him wince again.
“It’s true.
Like it or not, it is the truth.
In ten years, maybe five, I won’t have to work out of my basement.
I’ll be able to rent a st
udio right out in the open. A
ny young woman who has achieved the age of reason can choose to come to work for me.
My DVDs will be for sale in
the
local video store
and from Netflix.”

“That’ll never happen.”

He shook his head.
“It’s already almost that way in Amsterdam.”

Goddamn Dutch, I thought.

“Five years,”
Jackson
said.
“Ten, max.”

51

I’d been through enough of
Jackson
’s house to know there was a large roll of duct tape in one of the kitchen drawers.
I used it to tape his hands and feet to the chair.
He glared at me carefully throughout the process.

“Don’t be stupid,” I said.

“I’m not planning on it.”

“I don’t want to shoot you, but I will if I have to.”

He shrugged, as if to say
maybe you will and maybe you won’t
, but he didn’t try any moves while I finished taping him to the chair.

“What time is the girl coming over tonight?” I asked, putting the tape back into the drawer.

“What girl?”

I smacked the back of his head with my palm.
He grunted.
“The one you had scheduled for a solo shoot tonight,” I reminded him.

“Oh.
Her.”

“Yeah, her.”

“Ten or so.
She’s kind of flighty.”

“What’s her name?”

“Candi.
With an
i
.”

Of course.

“I’ll be back before ten,” I said.
“If Kris is where you say she is, then we’ll settle this.
If she isn’t, you might want to re-think whether I’m up to killing you or not.”

For the first time since I told him I wasn’t going to kill him, fear crept back into
Roger
Jackson
’s eyes.
I found myself liking that.
I liked it quite a bit.
I smiled at him while I patted his pockets. I removed his wallet and tossed it on the table.

“You have a cell phone?” I asked.

He shook his head.

I grabbed a
steak knife from a
kitchen
drawer and slic
ed the telephone cord a foot from the wall.
Then I checked the tape at his hands and feet and left.

52

The Greyhouse Apartments weren’t ritzy, but they were nice.
The shrubbery was neatly trimmed for winter and the parking lot was clean.
The complex was situated at the foot of the Five Mile Hill, and up on top of the hill was the Five Mile Prairie, where most of the nicer homes in northern River City were being built.
In River City, old money was on the South Hill, but new money was flocking to the Prairie.

I parked and found number nineteen easily.
It was on the third floor, near the middle of the outdoor walkway.

I listened at the door, but only heard low music coming from inside.
Remembering a basic tactic from my days on the job, I stood to the side of the door
while I
gave it a solid knock.
A few seconds later, the
chain
rattled
and the door swung open.

Kris appeared in the doorway.
Her hair and face were made up but she wore a pair of jeans and a white shirt.
After
search
ing for her for the last few days, it was almost surreal to be staring her in the face.

Her eyes widened in surprise when she saw me.
“Who are you?”

“Let’s talk inside,” I said, taking her by the arm and moving through the doorway.

Kris jerked her arm from my grasp as soon as we were inside.
“Who do you think you are, asshole?
Get out of my apartment!”

I shook my head.
“It’s over, Kris.”

“What are you talking about?
How do you know my name?
”

“Your
dad
sent me.
I’m here to take you home.”

Her eyes widened again, though I couldn’t place the emotion that was in them.

“I’m not going home,” she said.

“Yes, you are.
Get your things.”

“Go fuck yourself.”

“Suit yourself,” I said with a shrug.
“You can come like
a lady, with all of your stuff. O
r I can throw you over m
y shoulder like a sack of grain. B
ut you are going back.”

She backed slowly away from me, shaking her head.
“No way.
I can’t go home.
Not now.
Too much has happened.
Maybe after I’m a star, but not now.”

“Your
mom
and
dad
don’t care about what’s happened or whether you’re a star
or not
,” I said.
“They love
you
.”

She shook her head.
“I’m not going back.”

“You’re
sixteen
,” I told her.
“You’re a minor.
One way or another, you are going back.
If you don’t want to go with me, I can call the police and they will come and transport you.”

Kris licked her lips, which were painted a glossy red.
She kept backing up slowly and was getting close to the bedroom.
“If you call the cops,
” she said,
“
I’ll say you raped me.”

I moved forward to close the distance between us.
“Listen, I don’t have to call the cops.
And if it’ll make things easier, I don’t have to tell your parents about all that’s happened.
Believe me, they’re going to be so happy to see you, they won’t care about anything else.”

“They don’t want me back,” she said.

“Sure they do.”

She shook her head.
“They don’t.
Roger
called them for me, to tell them I was all right.
They didn’t want me back.”

That was a lie and I knew it.
“If that’s true, t
hen why did your
dad
hire me to find you?”

There was a flash of something in her eyes, like maybe I’d gotten through to her just a little bit.
Then her glance flitted over my shoulder and
there was a voice from behind me.

“Because he’s an idiot,” Gary LeMond said.

53

I whirled around.
LeMond was standing in the doorway to the other bedroom.
He wore a pair of sweats,
a
battered
sweatshirt and a pair of black shoes that looked like slippers.
His face still bore a nice bruise from when I punched him in his hot tub.

Behind me, Kris slammed the
bedroom door. I heard the doorknob lock click into place
.

“Kick his ass, Gary!
Get him out of my apartment!” she shrieked.

LeMond regarded me calmly.
“Well, you found her,” he said, simply.
“I don’t know how, but you did.”

“Yes, I did.”

“What are you going to do now
, hero
?”

“Take her home.”

LeMond shook his head, clucking his tongue.
“No, I don’t think so.
She’s emancipated now.
She’s a woman.”

“She’s
sixteen
.”

“Age is irrelevant,” LeMond said in smooth tones.
“She is of the age of reason and can make her own choices.
And she chooses to stay and to become a star.”

It was my turn to shake my head.
“You’re finished, LeMond.”

“How do you figure that?”

“The promise I made to you at your house is kaput.”
I pointed my finger at him.
“You broke your word.
I’m taking Kris and I’m turning you in to the police.”

“Ah, but I never made a promise, did I?
I merely said I understood your terms.”

“You’re a liar and a pervert.”

LeMond smiled humorlessly.
“It doesn’t matter.
How do you think the police will feel about your trespassing on my property and assaulting me?”

“Probably give me a medal.”

“Will they give you a medal for trying to rape a
sixteen
year old?
Because that is the story Kris will tell them when they get here.
How you tried to get into her knickers and how I got here just in time to stop you.”

I didn’t bite.
“Tell them what you want when they get here.”

I
started toward the telephone in the kitchen.
LeMond moved to intercept me, gliding across the carpet in two shuffling strides.
His grace and speed surprised me, but they also told me something.
He had training of some kind.
I didn’t know what, but—

His foot shot out and connected with my bum knee, sending a bolt of pain up my leg.
I cried out in surprise and pain, lifting my leg up to keep weight off of it.
LeMond dropped
into a crouch
and spun, his opposite leg sweeping around and catching my heel.

I fell over backward, landing with a thud on the carpeted floor.

LeMond threw another kick, trying to punt me in the groin.
An image of Leon flashed in my mind as I rolled to my left.
LeMond’s kick grazed my buttocks.

I tried to get to my knees and stand up, but LeMond snapped another kick at me.
His foot crashed into my hip and I sprawled into the wall.

LeMond’s next kick came toward my mid-section, but I managed to get my arm in the way to block it.
He pivoted and sent the kick toward my head instead.
I tried to roll away from the kick, but it still struck a glancing blow, raking across my ear.

I looked up and saw LeMond’s knee right in front of me.
I reached out and grabbed on, jerking his leg toward me.
It was his turn to fall over backward.
His breath whooshed out of him when he landed.

I scrambled forward on all fours.
As soon as he started to sit up, I lashed out with my fists, hitting him twice square in the nose.
He grunted and shook his head.
Blood sprayed out in a fine mist and I felt some of the warm droplets land on my cheek.

LeMond reached for me and I reached for him.
We rolled over twice on the living room floor, jockeying for position.
I kept my forehead tucked in tight to his neck as we rolled.
He locked up my right leg with both of his legs, clamping them together like a vise.
I pushed off of my left knee and bit back a cry when pain, old and new, exploded there.

“Hurts?” LeMond growled.

I reversed directions and rolled us over again.
Once on top, I broke away and dropped an elbow into his gut.
He grunted, but flicked out his fingers, raking across my eyes.
I closed them as fast as I could, but felt a searing pain in my left eye just as my lids slammed shut.

I pulled in close to him again, feeling for his arms and hands.
He was trying to get some sort of chokehold on me, but I kept his hands at bay.
My eye burned, but when I opened them, I found I could still see out of my right eye.
The left was watery and blurred.

LeMond tried a sudden violent rocking motion, but I used my weight to keep him under me.
I slid my left hand up against his throat and pushed his face away.
His hand snaked downward and flailed for my groin.

I let go of his arm with my right and reached for my gun.
LeMond immediately wrapped that arm around my neck, searching for a chokehold.
I drew my .45, made sure my finger was
off the trigger
so that I didn’t shoot him until I meant to do so, and jammed the gun into his ribs.

He gave another grunt and I felt his entire mid-section tense with the exhale.

“That was my gun,” I said, my voice muffled against his chest.
“Let go.”

LeMond hesitated.
I pressed the barrel into his ribs a little harder until he let go.
His arms pulled away from me and flopped to the floor.
He unraveled his leg
hold and lay still.

I pulled away
, keeping the gun trained on him.
Once I was out of striking range, I rubbed my eye, clearing away the tears and a little bit of blood.
My vision was still blurry in that eye.

“Sit up,” I told him.
“Keep your legs out straight and put your hands on your knees, palms up.”

LeMond obeyed.

We sat there in Kris’s living room, breathing heavily and staring at each other for a long while.
I dabbed at my eye.
The bleeding was minor.

I watched LeMond and wondered what he had planned for me if he’d won the fight.
The logical part of my brain was telling me that he didn’t have a whole lot of options other than killing me.

“Kris,” I called.

There was no answer.

I waved the gun at LeMond.
He shook his head and mouthed
Fuck You
.

“Kris!” I called again.
“Come out here!”

No answer.

I
wonder
ed
if she had gone out the window, even though the apartment was on the third floor.
I struggled to my feet, keeping my eye on LeMond. I opened my mouth to call a third time, but at that moment, the doorknob lock jiggled.
Kris Sinderling walked
slowly
out of the room, holding a knife to her throat.

Gary LeMond smiled.