Loose And Easy Page 21

  “That’s him, the Ironheart Angel.”

  Ironheart.

  The guy had a tattoo. Actually, he had a few tattoos, but the heart-shaped one was prominent on the upper left side of his chest, a heart with wings, angel wings, like those sweeping in large graceful arcs from the guy’s shoulder blades, but the wings on the tattoo were perfect, every feather in place, and the wings meant to keep him airborne were not-feathers were broken, some of them singed, some of them smoking, some of them on fire.

  He was flaming out.

  Burning in.

  The angel’s head was tilted back, exposing his throat, an incredibly vulnerable position that the painting made clear was nothing less than the beginning of the final end. Strength ebbing, his will proving not to be enough, not against the battle wounds marking his body, a long slice from beneath his right breast down the length of his thigh, the edges ragged, blood streaming, and the lesser wounds, numerous smaller cuts, all deep, the scrapes, and contusions, and burns.

  The angel’s left knee was bent, raised higher than the other, as if by some miracle of God, he would rally one more time and find the strength to push off and ascend. But Dax wasn’t putting his money on it. This angel, Ironheart, had seen his last for this go-around. Simple fact.

  Standing there, looking at the painting, Dax saw the violence of the attack that had destroyed him, and after another moment, he saw the whole attack, strike by parry, strike by failure to parry. It was there in the wounds. Ironheart was left-handed, a wicked-looking, modified drop-point blade with a skeletonized handle still in his grip, and he’d been taken down by a left-handed knife fighter.

  John Ramos was left-handed.

  He was also born and bred to the Locos and was safe with God-C/S, con safos. The gang tattoo ran down the inside of his right arm. Obviously, Nikki McKinney thought her street-fighting warrior angels actually came straight off the street, this one from Twenty-second, XX22ST. He was buck-ass naked in the painting, totally ripped, and the reason for that was made more than clear by the leading edge of another tattoo Dax could see gracing his left shoulder-the numbers and letters “75 RAN” on a scroll.

  Suddenly, the whole night made more sense. There was a good reason John Ramos had been so effective at protecting Easy. He was a U.S. Army Ranger, 75th Ranger Regiment, and the iron in his iron heart? The letters “Fe,” the chemical symbol for iron, were richly inscribed inside the winged-heart tattoo.

  Ironheart-a good name for anybody from the 75th, though he couldn’t say he’d ever met an angelic Ranger. Dax grinned. Hoo-yah.

  He’d also never seen a knife-fighting angel. He looked around the gallery at the other paintings. They seemed to come in two basic flavors, dark angels and light angels, or as Jane had said, “Ascending Angels,” and, he surmised, “Descending Angels.”

  Ironheart was definitely on the descent in the supersize painting, and of them all, John Ramos was the only one carrying a knife, using a knife. The drop-point blade in his hand was bloody.

  “He’s a Ranger,” he said, and Jane nodded.

  “Just back from Afghanistan, two weeks ago, his third combat tour,” she said. “We were really hoping to see him tonight. Our guests really love meeting Nikki’s models, especially the women.”

  Her smile said it all, not that Dax had needed the extra info. He was looking right at the guy.

  A combat-hardened Ranger up against a seventynine-year-old nutcase was no contest. Dovey Smollett wasn’t going to give this guy a run for his money either. Neither would Bleak.

  Easy would, though. She would be running him hard for his money, and Dax figured the guy was loving it. Any Ranger who’d only been back for two weeks would still have women at the top of his… wait a minute.

  His gaze shot back to the Ironheart Angel painting. Sure, the guy was like “enlarged.” The painting was twelve feet high, but still… yeah, but still.

  He shifted his attention back to Jane.

  “This Ramos guy, how well do you know him exactly?” He wasn’t a jerk about the question. He was just curious, and possibly a little concerned. Easy wasn’t his sister, but he felt that way about her. He’d known her since she’d been in diapers. Hell, he remembered the day Aunt Beth had brought the little pink bundle home from the hospital, and he cared. A lot.

  “We go to each other’s birthday parties,” she said, and Dax figured that was pretty well, and a pretty good way of putting it.

  “And he’s a-”

  “Great guy,” she filled in his blank. “You don’t need to worry about your sister. I guarantee it. She couldn’t be in safer hands.”

  Dax hoped the hell so.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  Phone in hand, Franklin stood in his office, looking down at Beth Alden in the room below. She was crumbling from the inside out. He’d seen it before, where the fear just ate the guts out of a person. That’s what was happening down in his betting room. Fear was eating Beth Alden’s guts out. Burt really should be ashamed.

  He shifted his attention back to his phone and hit a number.

  “Where the hell are you, Dovey?” he said, when the guy answered. He was just about finished screwing around with Dovey Smollett. “And why in the hell did I just get a call from goddamn Stu Abrams saying one of my boys just showed up at the goddamn Jack O’Nines in goddamn handcuffs? Why is that, Dovey?”

  There was a long, appropriate pause on the other side of the phone connection before Dovey came up with an answer.

  “I don’t know, Mr. Bleak, sir.”

  Fucking brilliant.

  “It was Harrell, Dovey. Kevin Harrell. Your good buddy, right?”

  Another long pause ensued.

  “Yes, sir.”

  Like Franklin had said-fucking brilliant.

  “One of my boys showing up at Abrams’s club in handcuffs with a broken nose, that makes me look bad, Dovey. Real bad. And you’re the guy who brought this douche on board. You’re the guy responsible for this, Dovey. So what are you going to do about it?”

  “I-I don’t know, sir.”

  That’s what Franklin had thought, that Dovey Smollett didn’t know crapola about Shinola-and he was stuck with the guy, at least until the deal went down. He had guys running all over tonight, and Harrell was already a wash. Franklin wouldn’t bet a rat’s ass on Kevin Harrell getting out of the Jack O’Nines in one piece. The guy’s timing was amazing. Amazingly bad. To show up at the club, mouthing off about working for Franklin Bleak, after Mitch and Leroy had just been there and worked Stu over a bit.

  Bad news.

  Real bad news.

  And the guy had already been cuffed. Christ. Talk about just asking for it. Stu probably had him hanging upside down in the back room and was selling hits at twenty bucks a pop.

  Shit. Harrell would be lucky to get out at all, let alone in one piece.

  So Franklin was running shorthanded. He couldn’t afford to let Dovey go, not on the manpower end of things, and not for the mess of letting a guy go, not when things were really starting to go his way-except for the damn money. He needed that damn eighty-two thousand dollars.

  “And where are you, Dovey? Mitch and Leroy picked up that goddamn Cyclone at the Genesee entrance ramp onto the damn highway, but they didn’t see you anywhere. So where the hell are you?”

  The pause this time was interminable, until Dovey finally broke the silence.

  “I don’t know, sir.”

  That’s exactly what Franklin had thought. It made him doubt his own judgment, that he’d handpicked Dovey Smollett to pick up Esme Alden. The girl couldn’t be that goddamn elusive.

  The girl wasn’t that damn elusive.

  Mitch and Leroy had her in their sights, streaking like a bat out of hell down the interstate, trying to keep up with a goddamn Cyclone that Mitch swore had a zero to a hundred of under twelve seconds, well under-“Geezus, Frank. We almost lost her. The damn car hit the interstate and it was Star Wars, boss, a fucking jump into hyperspace.”


  Franklin didn’t want to hear about any jumps into hyperspace. He had a damn load of cocaine headed his way, and he needed that goddamn girl, and he needed her goddamn father. So where in the hell was Eliot? He should have had the Alden jerk here an hour ago, easy.

  Eliot, dammit, Eliot could get out of hand, and if he’d accidentally “disabled” old Burt, then it was going to be damn hard for the man to get around and get the damn money. His next call, Franklin knew, had to be to Eliot. But he’d had kind of a busy night on the phone.

  Good and busy. He grinned. Damn good and busy.

  Katherine Gray had called him personally, and the sweet, husky sound of her voice had made all the trouble he was going to more than worthwhile. Graham Percy was aces, absolute aces. Percy was delivering on his promise, and Franklin needed Burt Alden to do the same. There was a lot on the line.

  Katherine wanted to meet him. Percy had told her all about him, and she was intrigued. That’s the word she’d used, “intrigued.”

  Hell, he understood it. He was a damned intriguing guy.

  “Are you on a road, Dovey? Can you tell me that?” He turned away from the betting room and walked across the office.

  “Yes, sir. We’re on a road…a dirt road… in the woods, but it’s damn dark up here, and-”

  “And nothing, Smollett. Get your ass the hell out of there, and call me when you hit the goddamn suburbs. I want you over at the Commerce City Garage, where that Cyclone is usually parked, in case this Ramos guy shows up there.”

  The likelihood of Dovey getting lost in Commerce City was nil and none. If this Ramos guy headed home like a pigeon, Dovey could back up Mitch and Leroy, if he could get himself out of the woods. Franklin had his doubts.

  “Yes, sir,” Dovey said. “ Bremerton thinks he knows how to get out of here.”

  The Chicago guy? Well, that was a good one, the damn guy from Chicago knowing how to get the hell out of Genesee. He was obviously a guy who paid attention. Dovey could learn a few things from a guy who knew how to pay attention.

  “Then let him drive, Smollett, and get your ass back to Denver.”

  Franklin ended the call and had his finger on the speed dial to Eliot, when his enforcer entered the warehouse on the main floor.

  With Burt Alden in tow-literally, dammit.

  Franklin was kind of an expert in the broken bones department, and he knew at a glance that Eliot had broken Burt’s arm. It was dangling at the man’s side, looking useless.

  God, that had to hurt.

  Franklin had never had a broken bone, and he’d never had one for a good reason: He was smart.

  Too smart to let some mope get ahold of him and break his goddamn arm.

  He pushed open the window and hollered down into the warehouse, “Bring him up here.”

  Eliot nodded and headed toward the stairs, hauling the guy with him. He had a grip on the older man’s good arm and was practically lifting Burt off his feet. Eliot was a big guy, six four, two hundred and eighty pounds of pure stupid mean. Dovey had it all over Eliot in the brains department, which wasn’t saying much, but Eliot knew how to execute an order. He never failed. Give Eliot an order and count on results; that’s what Franklin did, what he’d been doing for fifteen years, ever since Eliot’s last heavyweight fight had put him in a coma for a week and a half. The guy hadn’t come out of it quite right, and he’d been Franklin ’s boy ever since.

  He wasn’t much in the looks department, but for what Franklin used him for, his looks worked, scaring money out of people more often than not, before Eliot ever got a chance to use his fists on them. His years in the ring had left him with a disfigured left ear, a general puffiness in his face, and one drooping eyelid, not to mention a few scars.

  Franklin went back to sitting at his desk and waited. When Eliot brought Burt into the office, he could see right off the bat that his man had gone too far, too early in the game. Sweat was rolling off the older man, and his skin was pale, his glasses askew, his thin sand-colored hair sticking up all over. Burt Alden wasn’t a big man. He had a narrow build and a narrow face, and he looked more than half sick with pain. Of course, anyone would look sick dressed in brown corduroy pants and a ratty green striped shirt.

  Style wasn’t that hard to come buy. Franklin had it by the boatload-quality slacks, black in color, dark blue silk shirt, a quality shirt, and a sharp vest, also in black, to match the slacks. Add a gold pocket watch, and bodda-bing bodda-bang, instant style.

  Style was easy, except for guys like Burt Alden, who just never got it.

  “Look at you, Burt. You look like hell.” Franklin didn’t understand it, why anyone would let themselves get in such a state. “Where the hell is my money?”

  “Th-the money’s good, Bleak,” Burt said, wincing.

  “I know it’s good, but where is it?” He was mad enough to do some real damage if Burt didn’t pony up. Katherine Gray wanted to meet him, but Graham Percy would pull the plug if Bleak didn’t get his hands on the cocaine, and the Chicago boys weren’t going to be giving it away. They were going to want the cash sitting in their hands, all the cash.

  “My girl’s got it. She’s bringing it.” Burt sucked in a breath. “She had a deal tonight.”

  That was news.

  “Up in Genesee?”

  “Yeah,” Burt said, his face growing even paler, if that was possible. “H-how’d you know about Genesee? You, you d-don’t have my girl, do you?”

  “No, Burt,” Franklin reassured the man. “I don’t have your girl.”

  Now your wife, asshole, that’s a different story, and she’s sweating almost as badly as you.

  But Beth Alden’s life was looking up. She didn’t know it yet, but her husband had just delivered some very good news. Little Esme Alden had made it to Genesee and back, and if she’d gone there to get the money, well, then Burt’s life was looking up, too.

  “She got the whole eighty-two thousand? Is that what you’re telling me, Burt?”

  The older man nodded, one, slow, short nod- and even that hurt. Franklin could tell.

  He looked at his watch-coming up on midnight-and looked back at Burt Alden. Five hours was a lot when a guy’s arm was broken, but Franklin figured the guy would hold on. He’d seen guys hold on for an ungodly amount of time, guys who’d been hurt a lot worse than old Burt. Franklin knew, though, that old Burt could be hurt a lot worse than just a broken arm. Something about the way the guy was hanging there from Eliot’s grip made Franklin think there had been some internal damage.

  Eliot usually did some internal damage.

  But if old Burt didn’t hold on, well, it wasn’t really Franklin ’s loss, not as long as he had the eighty-two thousand, which just kept bringing him back to the same place he’d started out tonight. He needed the girl.

  He’d known it. So help him God, he’d known it. That was why he’d sent goddamn Dovey over to LoDo in the first place, to pick her up.

  “Where were you supposed to meet her to get the money, Burt?” It would be easy enough for Eliot to make the meeting. Hell, maybe Franklin would go himself. Esme Alden was a looker. She was no Katherine Gray, not nearly as much pizzazz, but she had her share, and from all accounts, she was real smart. Valedictorian, Dovey had said, and yet she’d ended up dating one of Baby Duce’s boys, so how smart was she, really?

  Franklin was sure proud of his little girl. Lindsey was no valedictorian. She was an athlete, varsity, which was even better in Franklin ’s book. His little Lindsey was real popular, too. Dovey had said Esme Alden hadn’t had a date in high school. Lindsey had lots of dates, and she sure as hell would never end up with some damn gangbanger from the Locos.

  Pure class, that was his little girl.

  “I…I wasn’t meeting her,” Burt said, every word sounding like it cost him. “She’s coming here, to do…do the deal.”

  Now Burt had shocked him. Franklin wouldn’t have sent his mother-in-law, a coldhearted, double-crossing bitch Franklin hated down to his socks, to deal
with a guy like him, and Burt had planned on sending his daughter to the warehouse in his stead?

  Unfuckingbelievable. Nobody in their right mind was that careless.

  “So you’re telling me, that if I just stay put here tonight, your daughter is going to walk through my door at five A.M. with eighty-two thousand dollars?”

  “Yes.” Burt nodded. “Yes. She’ll be here. I promise.”

  What a lying sack of crap. Franklin didn’t believe him.

  “And you’d let her do that, Burt? Show up here on her own with that kind of money?”

  “Sh-she won’t be alone. Her cousin is coming with her.”

  “Her cousin?” Franklin couldn’t believe it. What a joke. Hell, if he gave Burt enough time, the old guy would probably have his whole damn family in on this. Maybe Franklin could sell them all wholesale as a single unit or something.

  Burt was struggling, his breath coming hard, his body starting to shake.

  Franklin gave Eliot a look, a hard look, and Eliot shrugged.

  Internal damage, Franklin thought, and hell, wasn’t that just the way it went sometimes. But the night was definitely looking up. With Esme Alden having already made her run to Genesee, all Franklin needed was for Mitch and Leroy to get her and bring her to the warehouse. This whole deal could be tied up well before five A.M.

  He pulled out his phone and was scrolling down for Mitch’s number, when Burt collapsed flat-out on Franklin ’s New Zealand wool rug.

  “Get him out of here,” he said to Eliot, without looking up from his phone. “Take him down to the betting room and let his wife look at him for a while.” And that ought to be a happy reunion.

  Franklin shook his head. People led such screwed-up lives.

  “And Eliot?”

  “Yes, Mr. Bleak?”

  “Take the woman’s gag off. I bet she’s gonna have a few things to say to her husband.”

  “Yes, Mr. Bleak.”

  Burt was such a loser.

  “Mitch,” he said when his second in command answered. “You still got that Cyclone in sight?”

  “Yes, boss.”