Loose And Easy Read online

  “Fuck you.”

  “Burt’s a problem. I’ll grant you that, but we’re going to take care of it.” Uncle Burt’s dentist came on line next, and Dax hit the skip button. “On the other hand, if I ever hear of you waiting anywhere for Esme ever again, I’ll fuck you, and not the way you’re hoping, Kevin.”

  Some static ran on the answering machine, and Dax let it play, in case there was a message in it somewhere.

  “F-fuck you.”

  Spoken like a scholar.

  The next message was his to Easy. He skipped it, and then hit pay dirt.

  “Burt,” the same male voice as before came over the answering machine. “It’s Thomas. Why the hell haven’t you called me back? I’m not going to be here much longer, so you better get a pencil… Lindsey Larson… that’s it, Burt. Her friends call her Lucky.

  Lucky Larson kinda sounds like a hooker, doesn’t it? That’s funny, given what her old man does for a living. It sure is. Call me.”

  Dax watched Harrell while the message played, and the names Lindsey Larson and Lucky Larson didn’t register on the guy’s face at all. Dax wasn’t surprised. He’d have been more surprised if Franklin Bleak had bandied his daughter’s name about with his peons. The important thing was that the name registered with Dax, it registered with all the impact of half a dozen vanilla-vodka shooters.

  Bleak’s daughter had about as much class as her dad.

  Dax pulled the Folton Ridge file out of the inside pocket on his jacket and leaned over the desk to turn on the B & B Investigations paper shredder.

  Burt had a few more messages piled up on the machine, one from a betrayed spouse wondering if he’d gotten the photos from the Bluebird Motel, another from some guy named Joe wanting to borrow fifty bucks, one more from a guy named Brad who wanted to borrow a hundred.

  Walking around behind Harrell, Dax flipped through the file folder. When he reached the other side of the desk, he stopped and started shredding. One by one, he got rid of Nancy Haney, Jessica Durst, and Kim Stiple, the last two being the good girls. That left him with the photos and chat room chitchat of dear Lindsey, Bleak’s baby.

  “So what were you doing out there on Wynkoop, Kevin? What’s Bleak want here? His money, or something else?”

  He’d known it was “Lucky” Lindsey. She had her dad’s nose, and the same low forehead, and she wasn’t an inch over five feet-short, like her dad.

  “He wants his damn money.”

  “He’ll have it at five o’clock tomorrow morning. Do you want to go back to the warehouse and remind Bleak the deal is set?”

  “Alden’s said that before and not delivered. The bastard never delivers. Everybody knows that.”

  Dax looked up from the Lindsey file at the guy. Kevin Harrell was nervous, rightly so. Broken nose, handcuffed, bleeding, sweating, he was two hundred and thirty pounds of pure helpless. He was shaking in the chair, a low-level trembling. He also had a tattoo on the back of his neck.

  “How long have you been out of Canon City?” Dax asked. The tat was classic prison ink, one capital C interlocked with another, the two letters sitting on top of a pair of dice showing snake eyes.

  “Fuck you.”

  “Ah, come on, Kevin,” he said, modulating his voice to a slow drawl. “We might still have a party here. I just need some information.”

  The guy went still in his chair, and after a second, cast a glance back at Dax.

  Dax met his gaze without flinching.

  Weaknesses-he had a few, but unlike Kevin Harrell, he wasn’t telegraphing his in pink neon, and sex was just too simple. Nobody should get taken for sex.

  Okay, for the sake of honesty, Dax needed to retract his last knee-jerk opinion. He’d been taken for sex, more than once, but he’d never given up the bank for it. Consolata Rodriguez had definitely taken him for sex. He’d given that girl everything he’d had at seventeen. He’d even let her drive his car, let her use it to impress her girlfriends, right up until she’d hit a stop sign with it-head-on, no brakes, no blinker, no sense. His ardor had cooled a bit after that, and he’d gotten away thinking he’d learned something about women, not the least of which was that they couldn’t goddamn drive.

  Yep, he’d learned his lesson, right up until the next woman, Debbie Thanatos. She’d left his car alone, but she’d sure taken him for a ride. Adriana, Bridget, the car-wrecking Consolata, Debbie-he hadn’t covered the whole alphabet, but in retrospect, and he’d given his love life plenty of retrospective consideration, he’d probably gotten taken for sex more often than he wanted to admit.

  Still, Harrell must have been an easy mark in prison. He sure as hell was an easy mark here on Wynkoop in the Faber Building.

  “Two weeks,” the guy said. “I been out for two weeks.”

  “Check in with your parole officer lately?”

  “Yeah.” The guy nodded, then cast another furtive glance back at Dax. “I’ve been right on time.”

  Two weeks wasn’t long.

  “How long have you been working for Bleak?”

  “This is my first job. A friend of mine called me this afternoon and got me on, said I can do real good with this outfit. He told Bleak I knew this girl he wanted, that I would recognize her real easy, from high school, and be a good guy to have around.”

  Well, that was a helluva resume-“I knew this girl in high school.” And in other words, Kevin Harrell was a bust. He didn’t know crap about Bleak. It was possible he’d never even met the bookie.

  “Is your friend’s name Dovey Smollett?”

  “What’s it to you?” Kevin shot back, rallying in defense of a buddy.

  Okay, Dax would give him that, the whole honoramong-thieves thing that never really held up very well, not for very long, not under pressure, not with guys like Kevin, and not with guys like Dovey.

  There were guys who would give up their lives before they gave up a buddy. Dax knew a lot of them, but the tie that bound wasn’t friendship.

  “So what’s Bleak want with Esme?” Dax continued. “Insurance?”

  Kevin shook his head. “I don’t know. My friend says Bleak is done with Alden. He’s got some kind of important deal he’s working, and I don’t know, maybe he wants to impress somebody.”

  “Impress how?”

  “I don’t know.” Harrell shrugged. “But Bleak’s a big deal. He runs a lot of girls, and guys know to come to him if they want something special.” He shrugged again. “Esme always had a lot of class, and my buddy told him, told Bleak, that Alden’s daughter was really hot, like maybe she’d be worth something on the side. So maybe Bleak thinks he can get something for her.”

  Sure. Maybe Bleak was thinking something like that.

  Maybe Bleak was in more trouble than Dax had originally thought. Maybe Dovey was in way more trouble than that even.

  And maybe Uncle Burt had better skip the next family get-together, because it was going to be a long, long time before Dax would trust himself in the same room with Easy’s dad.

  “Whatever,” he said, coming back around the desk and leaning against it with his hip. He wanted to be eye to eye with old Kevin for a minute. “Right now, I’m more interested in you and me, Kevin. Are we square on Esme? You and me?” He didn’t want there to be any doubts in Harrell’s mind about appropriate distances and things like that. “You know she should never see your face again. If you see her, you go the other way. Okay? Are we square?”

  “Yeah.” The guy was nodding his head. “We’re square. But, like, what’s your name, dude?”

  Dude?

  Kevin Harrell was sitting there in handcuffs with blood running down his face onto his shirt, and he was calling Dax dude?

  Oh, yeah, Dax bet the guy had been a real hit in prison.

  “Well, dude, I’ve got a lot of names.” None of which he planned on telling Kevin Harrell, but what stopped him was the sound of people coming up the stairs-more than one person, maybe three, maybe four, which was more business than B and B

 
Investigations had attracted in months.

  He pushed off the desk and headed for the door.

  “Stay put,” he said to Harrell, drawing his Springfield 1911 and holding it in a low ready position. Keeping the gun cocked, locked, and loaded was his standard operating procedure. It never varied. Flipping off the safety was an automatic part of his draw.

  Through the unfrosted part of the glass on the door, he identified three people coming down the hall. Two men and a woman, with one of the men dressed in a police uniform.

  He smoothly reholstered his weapon, concealing it underneath his jacket, and glanced back at Harrell. That wasn’t going to look good to the cops, a guy handcuffed and bleeding.

  “Get in the bathroom,” he said, pointing to the open door at the far end of the office. “Get in there and stay quiet. It’s the cops.”

  He didn’t have to say cops twice to get the guy moving. Dax didn’t care how many times Kevin had called his parole officer, the guy didn’t want to be face-to-face with the police.

  “Uncuff me,” he pleaded on his way across the office, sounding appropriately desperate. The guy was in a tight spot for sure. “Come on.”

  Dax shook his head. He stayed cuffed. Dax did follow the guy over and close the bathroom door once he was inside. He didn’t turn on the bathroom light, though. Harrell could tough it out in the dark.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Loretta was glad she’d come. Tramping around the ratty old Faber Building looking for a “cute little blond hooker”-the parking valet’s description, not hers-was just her cup of tea when she was two hours into overtime she wasn’t ever going to see on a check.

  Weisman, the uniformed policeman carrying the signal receiver, stopped in front of the last door in the hall: B & B INVESTIGATIONS, ROBERT BAINBRIDGE, PROP.

  That was good news, and Loretta’s mood actually perked up a bit. Robert Bainbridge had always had a solid reputation in town. As a former detective with the police department, admittedly about fifty years ago, he’d been a real go-to guy for the department well up to when she’d been a rookie and just starting out.

  But fast on the heels of her good thoughts about Bainbridge came the memory of the most recent time she’d seen the name B & B Investigations and the current facts of the business’s situation. It had been on a long sheet of names attached to a vice case, next to the name of a man who didn’t have a solid reputation, Burt Alden.

  Her mood dipped.

  Oh, hell. She didn’t like it, this new turn. It could be indicative of a serious complication. Mr. Alden had gambling problems, which inevitably created other problems for him. She knew he was in to Franklin Bleak for more money than he could raise in a year, and she knew Bleak was calling in his debts faster than lemmings disappeared into the sea, which is apparently what had happened to a few of Bleak’s customers over the last couple of weeks-they’d disappeared.

  “Did you get the warrant, Connor?” she asked. “We’re not exactly on a mission of mercy here.”

  “We’re covered, Lieutenant.”

  “Good.”

  “Weisman, you’re sure this is the place?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  She turned to Connor then and gestured at the door. “Detective?”

  The door was opened on Connor’s first knock, and for a couple of seconds, all Loretta could do was stand there and think sonuvabitch.

  For one second, maybe two, that was the only thought she had-sonuvabitch.

  The next thought came straight out of her mouth.

  “Mr. Killian.” It wasn’t a question. She knew exactly who had opened the door. It sure as hell wasn’t whom she’d expected, not in her wildest dreams, but she knew who he was-in her line of work, it paid to know guys like him, Daniel Axel Killian, Dax Killian.

  She’d be damned.

  “Lieutenant Bradley.” He smiled, and Loretta had to fight the cheap-ass thrill that went through her. She not only knew who he was, she knew what he’d done, but really, she was too old to be getting cheap-ass thrills off big bad boys just because they were big and bad. “It’s good to see you.”

  She just bet, but she kept it to herself.

  “I heard you turned out okay,” she said, taking his hand when he held it out. “That the U.S. Army found a use for you.”

  “Yes, ma’am, they sure did.” His grin broadened, and so did that cheap-ass thrill running through her.

  Get a grip, Loretta, old girl, she told herself, ending the handshake.

  “I’ve got a warrant to search this office, Mr. Killian,” she said, gesturing at Weisman. “If you’ve got a cell phone, we’d sure like to see it.”

  “And I’d sure like to see your warrant.” A reasonable request, and one she was happy to grant. She’d have been disappointed if he hadn’t asked.

  “Detective?” she said, holding out her hand.

  For the record, Daniel Axel Killian had gray eyes and dark hair. For the record, he was five feet eleven inches and a hundred and ninety pounds of rock-solid Denver boy done good. For the record, his sideburns were a little long and the rest of his hair a little short, and for the record, he hadn’t shaved this morning. On him, the light shadow of stubble looked damned good-and that was for the record.

  Connor produced the document, putting it in her hand, all signed and sealed, and she handed it to Killian.

  He looked it over, then stepped aside, letting them in.

  “Would you mind showing me your cell phone, Mr. Killian?”

  He pulled it out of his pocket, handing it over to her, and in turn, she handed it to Weisman.

  “Do you live around here, Mr. Killian?” Surely, she would have known if Dax Killian had moved back into her neck of the woods. Surely, somebody would have told her, somebody like General Buck Grant. Buck wouldn’t have let that slip by her.

  “No, ma’am,” he said, walking over and turning on the lamp sitting on a desk next to the filing cabinets. “I’m visiting.”

  “From?” The added light was only somewhat helpful. It didn’t really help the place look any better.

  “ Seattle, ma’am.”

  Weisman stepped forward and handed the phone back. “This isn’t the one we’re looking for, Lieutenant.”

  The officer walked further into the office, turning the receiver from side to side.

  “GPS emergency signal?” Dax Killian asked, slipping his phone back in his pocket.

  “Yes, sir.” She looked around the office. “Has anyone else been up here in the office tonight?”

  “Not that I’ve seen.”

  “And why are you here?” Everything looked fine, for a dump, but she wouldn’t have expected better considering who was running the business now.

  “Burt Alden is my uncle. He offered to let me use the office.”

  “For?” Burt Alden and Dax Killian related? Talk about a swan getting in with the odd ducks. She wouldn’t have guessed it, not in a million years.

  “To work in while I’m in town.”

  “And you’re working on a Friday night?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  Good enough. She was working, too.

  Dax Killian-she hadn’t kept track of every kid she’d ever directed into the armed forces. She hadn’t actually kept track of him, but a few years ago, a story had drifted back to Denver, of this guy from Colorado, a shadow soldier. There’d only been the one story, and never another, and no name attached to the story she’d heard, but for some reason she’d thought of him. Even at his worst, as a teenager running wild on her streets, he’d had a way of keeping to himself, of running under the radar, and those kind of skills had fit the deed in the story.

  She’d long since discovered the truth, compliments of Buck Grant-and looking at Dax now, she was even more intrigued to know the story was his.

  And he was back in her city, in what she considered an unusual situation. She sure as hell didn’t think he’d cut “Nazi hero” into the old German, no more so than she thought Johnny Ramos had
done the deed, though Skeeter hadn’t been able to verify Ramos’s current whereabouts, not since he’d left the Blue Iguana, which was practically across the street from the Oxford.

  Regardless, she still didn’t think Johnny had cut up the old German-but somebody had, and Dax Killian was standing in the place where the clues had led.

  “I’m looking for a blonde,” she said, putting a little of the story on the line, to see if he bit. “A hooker who cut up one of her clients with a knife over at the Oxford Hotel earlier this evening.”

  Something flickered in Mr. Killian’s eyes, but Loretta couldn’t get a reading on it, which was unusual. Reading people was her job.

  “Kind of a cult thing, we think. Do you know what a kanji is, Mr. Killian?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Well, that’s what this woman cut into this German guy over at the Oxford, a kanji and a swastika. Sliced it right into the old guy’s skin, across his back. Not deep enough to kill him, maybe not even deep enough to leave a scar, but sure as hell deep enough to disturb me.”

  Something definitely went across Killian’s face that time, and she knew exactly what it had been- a flash of alarm.

  Interesting.

  “Would you know anything about something like that, Mr. Killian?”

  “No, ma’am.”

  Loretta didn’t mind when people lied to her. She usually learned more from their lies than she ever did from their plain, unvarnished truths.

  “I do have one lead. Detective Ford?” She held out her hand again, and Connor gave her the drawing of Johnny Ramos. “This man was seen going into the German guy’s room at the Oxford, at about the time the attack took place. Have you seen him around the neighborhood at all tonight?”

  She handed the drawing over, and watched Killian give it a quick once-over. In less than a couple of seconds, he was handing it back.

  “No, ma’am. I haven’t seen him.”

  “His name is Johnny Ramos. Have you heard of him?”

  “No, ma’am.”

  Dax Killian was a pretty good liar, but he was still a liar. He was probably pretty good at evading surveillance, too, but he’d just bought himself a night’s worth of it.