Loose And Easy Read online

  And whether she’d seen them or not, he agreed with her; they had to be there, probably half a dozen of them, along with maids, cooks, gardeners, and housekeepers. Guys like Isaac Nachman didn’t live alone.

  He stood corrected.

  In the middle of the biggest foyer he’d ever seen, a foyer the size of a cathedral, open to the rafters, all open-beamed, three stories high with a giant staircase sweeping up one side, floor after floor, with huge landings and galleries overlooking the foyer, he stood corrected.

  The place was empty. He felt it in every bone in his body. Other than him, Easy Alex, God only knew how many dozens of stuffed animal heads from every continent, and the wizened little old man standing in front of them in slippers, socks, and a striped silk robe, and please dear God, something- anything-underneath it, the place was empty.

  They’d been passed through the gate by a guard at least as old as Nachman, maybe even older. Decrepitude seemed to be the order of the day at the hunting lodge, ancient decrepitude.

  And yet, Isaac Nachman’s eyes were alight.

  He’d had Esme open the case on a small table next to the sweeping expanse of stairs, and he’d been riveted to the painting since first sight.

  “My dear, my dear.” He almost hummed the words, his excitement was running so high. “My dear Miss Esme. This is a rare day for the Nachman family, a rare day.”

  “Yes, sir, Mr. Nachman,” Esme agreed. She was very relaxed, which was more than Johnny could say about himself. The place creeped him out. A Cape buffalo was eyeing him from across the room, its black glass eyes seeming to stare straight at him. Four stuffed cheetahs stalked across the wall opposite the staircase. A pride of lions silently roared and motionlessly stalked unseen prey in a room across the way-a whole pride, taxidermied for posterity and somebody’s overwhelming ego.

  The rich could be too rich.

  And without a doubt, they could be damned strange. He couldn’t believe Esme’s partner had expected her to come up here into the middle of freaking nowhere, to this huge, empty mansion full of dead animals, to cut a deal with this eccentric old geezer all by herself.

  He wouldn’t have wanted to do it alone, and he was carrying a.45.

  So was she, and he didn’t doubt that her partner knew it, and truth be told, she could probably take Isaac Nachman and the guard at the gate with one hand tied behind her back.

  But still.

  “She’s been missing from our home for a long, long time,” the old man crooned. “It’s time for her to join her sisters.”

  Okay, now he was officially creeped out.

  “I know she’s happy to be home, Mr. Nachman.”

  He slanted Esme a very askance glance. Geezus.

  “If only we had the Monet, Miss Esme,” Nachman mused. “I remember the Monet from when I was a child in Berlin.”

  “My father is working on the Monet, Mr. Nachman.”

  “Yes, yes. Burt will find it. Burt never fails. He and Bainbridge never fail.”

  Johnny kept his mouth shut. His lips were super-glued. He had nothing to add here.

  “No, sir, Mr. Nachman. My father never fails.”

  He looked at her again, his gaze narrowed. She was watching the old man, the way his hand hovered over the painting, a few centimeters from the surface, like he was channeling the woman in Woman in Blue-and she believed what she’d just said. Her dad never failed. Burt Alden, the guy whose motto was “We Snoop 4 U.”

  “He has a gift,” Isaac Nachman said.

  “Yes, sir. He does.”

  “I’ve never seen anything like it,” the old man continued. “We had hired so many people over the years. Had our own people on the hunt, and then, like a miracle, we found your father. He has outdone them all.”

  “A gift,” she agreed, and Johnny had to wonder, really, just how much of a Burt Alden celebration this was going to turn out to be, and he had to wonder who this “we” was that old Nachman was talking about. There was no “we” that he could see. The mansion was as quiet as a tomb, except for the creaking of the timbers, and the sound of the wind sloughing past the windows.

  The wind was new. There hadn’t been any wind when he and Esme had walked up to the massive front door.

  If thunder started to roll, and lightning to flash, if it started to rain, he was grabbing Esme and getting the hell out. He wasn’t going to do the whole “dark and stormy night” thing in this freaking weird place.

  “And yet…” Nachman said.

  And yet Burt Alden was a verifiable screwup. Geezus. Franklin Bleak was going to deep-six him in the river, if Burt didn’t pay off his gambling debt. Whatever gift he had for finding art that had been missing for more than half a century, it sure as hell didn’t extend to finding a horse in the fifth.

  “And yet…” Esme repeated.

  “One must be sure, Miss Esme,” Nachman said.

  “One must be sure,” Esme again repeated what the old man had said.

  Maxing out on the creeping out, Johnny thought, releasing a long breath. He glanced back over at the Cape buffalo. Yeah, that thing wanted to eat his lunch.

  “Shall we, my dear? Mr. Ramos, you may await us here.” Nachman started walking toward the room with the pride of stuffed lions loping over an artfully designed patch of sub-Saharan Africa.

  “Of course.” Esme picked up the painting and started after him.

  Johnny stopped her with a touch of his hand on her arm.

  “It’s okay,” she said. “Mr. Nachman and I are going to authenticate the painting.”

  “Yes… yes, my dear.” The old man had stopped and was looking over his shoulder at her, a very odd and discomfiting smile playing about his lips. “Authenticate to my satisfaction.”

  Bullshit.

  “We’ll all go together,” Johnny said.

  “There won’t be room.” Isaac Nachman shook his head. “There won’t be room, I tell you. Not in the closet.”

  Closet?

  “We’ll make room,” he said. Fifty goddamn thousand square feet of house and this guy was taking her into a goddamn closet?

  Esme gave him a look that clearly said she had it covered, but he didn’t care. The look he gave her back said he had it covered-his way or the highway.

  She rolled her eyes and turned back to Isaac Nachman. “Mr. Ramos has been with me for a number of months now, but is still relatively new to the art-recovery business, Mr. Nachman, and he would, no doubt, benefit from being present at the authentication.”

  No fucking doubt.

  “My…my dear, I must… well, you know.”

  “I will vouch for him, Mr. Nachman, personally, upon my utmost honor. His association with our family goes back many, many years, and his security credentials are impeccable, acknowledged and accepted by my father.”

  His security credentials were vouchsafed by a helluva lot more reliable and exacting sources than Burt Alden.

  “Well, my dear, if your father… well, then, I must, I suppose, accommodate, then… if Mr. Ramos must,” the man said, clearly flustered, which only reinforced Johnny’s position. If there were anything worse than being stuck in a closet with an old geezer wearing a silk bathrobe, it would be being stuck in a closet with a flustered old geezer wearing a silk bathrobe.

  What in the hell did the old guy think he was going to get away with? Grabbing her ass? Worse?

  Well, it wasn’t going to happen. Not on his shift. And for the record, in his book, Burt Alden was still a bum.

  With a decidedly pinched and vapid expression of duress on his face, Isaac Nachman led the way through the lion room, shuffling along in his slippers. Esme followed him, and Johnny followed Esme, bringing up the rear.

  The house was amazing, even with so many stuffed animals everywhere. It was all log walls and giant stone fireplaces, and expensive wood paneling with incredibly thick rugs carpeting the floors. But the place didn’t make sense, and it took him passing through a couple more rooms to figure out why.

  T
here was no art. None. Nada. Nothing. Not on the walls, not on the tables, not anything anywhere. No exquisite paintings, no vases, no intricately carved tribal masks, no sculpture, no wall hangings, no tapestries. Only stuffed animals, a bunch of which, on closer inspection, looked a little flea-bitten, like they’d been hunted down and killed a long, long time ago.

  Minute after minute passed, with the three of them still walking, heading toward the back of the house, room after room, until Johnny began to wonder how in the world people lived in a place this big. Fifty thousand square feet was unmanageable.

  After a couple more turns into beautiful wood-paneled hallways, they took a short flight of stairs down to a lower level with recessed lighting, always with Isaac Nachman in the lead and Esme carrying the painting, until they came to an elevator.

  Johnny didn’t mind the ride down even though it seemed to last a helluva long time for being part of a house. He had no problems with elevators. But when the door opened, he did have a problem.

  They weren’t in the house any longer. The elevator had opened onto a tunnel dug deep into the mountain, like a mining tunnel, with raw earth walls shored up with lumber. Lights hung from a rock ceiling, a string of lanterns snaking into the far darkness, but Johnny didn’t really give a damn. Lights or no lights, he had a problem, and fighting the urge to draw his pistol and slide up against one of the walls took everything he had.

  He clenched his left hand into a fist to hold himself in check, to make sure he didn’t do it.

  In front of him, Isaac Nachman shuffled out of the elevator and headed down the tunnel. Esme Alexandria Alden followed the old man, and he, Johnny Aurelio Ramos, stood stock-still in the elevator and started to sweat.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  This was just too perfect. Dax’s luck couldn’t possibly be running this good. Kevin Harrell standing across the street from Burt’s office, looking like the stakeout king of Dumbsville with his linebacker build and his highlighted blond hair. Of all the jerks Bleak could have put on the Faber Building, Kevin would have been Dax’s first choice. He had some unfinished business with the guy.

  He cruised around the block, looking for a parking spot and finding one half a block north of Wynkoop. For what he had in mind, it would be better if Kevin came up to the office, rather than the two of them having their little discussion on the street.

  Pulling up to the curb, he turned off Charo’s ignition and took the cuffs out of her jockey box. He dropped the restraints in his pocket, then checked his watch-ten-thirty, and all was well in lower downtown. People were still bar-hopping and piling out of the restaurants. There were a couple of cops around-more than a couple, actually. He could see a squad car in the alley coming off the back of the Oxford Hotel, and another one parked up on Wazee.

  He swung out onto the street, sliding the Folton Ridge folder inside his jacket, then turned and locked the ’Cuda. Kevin Harrell was still standing on Wynkoop, eyeballing the Faber Building, like he could get it to ignite if he just gave it his all.

  Fat chance. The guy didn’t have those kinds of chops.

  Knocking a Faro out of the pack he’d bought off Rick, Dax checked the street in both directions. Another cop car was parked on Wynkoop, which seemed excessive even on a busy Friday night, and which he hoped to hell didn’t have anything to do with Easy and Otto Von Lindberg.

  It shouldn’t. She’d finished with Otto two hours ago, should be finishing with Nachman right now, and then be on her way back into town. When he’d gotten to Denver, he’d called and left her a message to call as soon as she did the same. Phone reception could get sketchy up in the mountains, but once she made it back to the interstate, it should be all systems go.

  Walking down toward Wynkoop, he stuck the cigarette between his lips and reached for his lighter, and at the corner he took a moment to fire up the Faro. There were plenty of people on the sidewalk, but he was the only one staring straight at Kevin Harrell across the street, and it didn’t take the guy long to feel it.

  When he was sure he had Mr. Harrell’s attention, he took one more long drag off the cigarette, holding the guy’s gaze, hard and steady. Then he exhaled, taking his time.

  Yeah, pendejo, take a good look at your midnight cowboy over here.

  Dax wasn’t shy about his looks. He wouldn’t have given a dollar for them either, but he knew the value of a well-cut jacket over a hand-tailored dress shirt, a pair of 501s that fit like a glove, and a pair of custom-made cowboy boots.

  Finished exhaling, he dropped the Faro on the sidewalk, crushed it with his boot, and headed into the Faber Building.

  It was a come-on, sure enough. One he didn’t think Harrell would be able to resist. There was a reason the jerk had gotten rough with Easy that day back in high school, trying to prove how tough he was, trying to prove his manhood. It was because he had plenty to prove, and nothing he could prove, not in a month of Sundays. Big old brawny Kevin Harrell was gay.

  Dax didn’t hold personal sexual orientation against anybody, but he sure as hell held Kevin Harrell’s treatment of Easy against him. Besides the incident in the locker bay-and, yeah, suddenly, he remembered exactly who John Ramos was, which only reinforced the wisdom of having Esme stick with the guy-well, besides that incident, there had been some verbal harassment that had even included Esme’s mom, his aunt Beth.

  And now here was the idiot, leaving himself wide open on the off chance he was going to get lucky.

  Lucky, hell.

  Dax used his key on the building’s outside door, and used the doorstop just inside to keep the door open. He was going to make this as easy as possible for Harrell.

  Once inside the door, he stepped back in the shadows and waited.

  It didn’t take long.

  Harrell no sooner stepped inside the door than Dax spun him around hard and slammed him into the wall even harder. In the instant Harrell was stunned, Dax cuffed his hands behind his back, and in the next instant, he had a 1911 jammed up against the back of the guy’s neck, right on the old brain stem.

  “Come on, asshole. Get up the stairs.” Dax jerked the guy’s hands higher up behind his back. “I’d just as soon drop you as talk to you, so don’t fuck with me, Kevin.”

  “You… you broke my fucking nose,” the guy blubbered between gasps for air.

  Tough.

  Dax moved him even faster, getting them out of the stairwell as quickly as possible.

  Harrell stumbled, shaking his head, and Dax damn near lifted him off his feet, keeping him upright. “Move.”

  At the door to the B and B Investigations office, Dax forced Harrell to his knees.

  “Stay put.” He kept the automatic pistol pressed against the guy’s neck with his left hand, while he unlocked the door with his right.

  “You… you asshole. You broke my…my nose.”

  Yeah, yeah.

  “Get inside.”

  Harrell lumbered to his feet and stepped inside the office. Dax closed the door behind them.

  “Have a seat.” He shoved Harrell toward the client chair in front of Burt’s desk.

  The big guy dropped into it with a groan.

  “Who the hell are you?” Harrell asked, looking up from under a fringe of streaked blond bangs.

  Dax had a hard time with questions like that one. The urge to overdramatize was damn near irresistible. Really great lines came to mind, like “Your worst nightmare,” or “The last thing you’re ever going to see.”

  He refrained.

  “Esme Alden’s cousin.” That was his business with Kevin Harrell, the high school thing. “That makes me Burt Alden’s nephew.” And the FranklinBleak-wanting-to-beat-the-crap-out-of-and/or-killUncle-Burt problem. The two items were more than enough reason for Dax to get in Harrell’s face. Those two reasons, and that Bleak had sent this goon and Dovey Smollett to snatch Easy off the street. He’d break them all for thinking that was a good idea. He knew more than enough about Bleak to know sometimes the people he made a point of getting u
p close and personal with never made it out of the meeting alive.

  Like he said, he’d break them all before he let them get their hands on his bad girl-and it wasn’t because he was such a family-orientated guy. He had relatives, everyone did. But Easy? She’d struck a chord with him a long time ago. Skinny? Geezus, she’d been a skinny little kid. She’d also been smart, controlled, self-possessed, and self-contained-all that at eight, and he’d noticed. Out of all the ragtag bundles of energy and mischief that had made up the cadre known as “the younger kids” in his family, she’d stood out.

  And then three years ago, fresh diploma in hand, she’d come and asked him for a job. To date, he’d never had a regret for taking her on. Not even with that damn Bangkok thing hanging over his head.

  “Burt Alden owes my boss money, a lot of money,” Harrell said belligerently, as if the fact gave him the moral high ground.

  He was mistaken. Dax owned every last inch of the high ground, and he wasn’t giving any of it up.

  “You put your hands on my cousin once,” Dax said calmly, leaning back against the desk and sliding his pistol back into his shoulder holster. “Don’t do it again. Ever.”

  He reached over and hit “play” on the answering machine.

  “Do you understand?”

  Harrell’s hard brown gaze didn’t waver. “I understand you’re gonna be in deep shit with Bleak, if you don’t let me go right now, you asshole.”

  The first message was Aunt Beth, and Dax pressed the skip button. The next message was a good one, from Thomas in Chicago -but he wanted a callback. He didn’t leave the name.

  Geez, Dax thought. What was it with these old guys? Why couldn’t Thomas have just left the damn name?

  “What were you doing out on Wynkoop?” he asked, picking up a postcard lying on the desk. It had a picture of an angel on the front, and Johnny Ramos’s name and some loopy-looking girl handwriting on the back. He stuck it in his back pocket. “Waiting for Esme? Waiting for Burt?”