Authors: Kay Keppler
When Tanner failed to reach anyone at the McNaughton ranch, failed to reach Hope on her cell phone, and failed to reach Faith, he called Baby. Desperate times called for desperate measures.
“Sure, I know where Hope is,” Baby said. “What’s the problem? She’s coming over here. We’re going shopping.”
Tanner held the phone out away from his ear and stared at it in astonishment. He’d been trying to talk to Hope for
four days
. Now he finds out she’s talking to
Baby?
All this time
Baby
knew where Hope was?
“I need a very
particular
kind of outfit,” Baby said now. “And I think she needs one, too. You know, Tanner, you’ve been really mean to Hope. She told me what happened at that card game. And now Big Julie is in really big trouble, and Hope is upset, and
I’m
upset, and it’s all your fault. Everybody is really, really mad at you.”
“I know,” Tanner said. “I’m trying to fix it, but honestly, Baby, I can’t fix anything with Big Julie. He’s in trouble, no lie. But maybe I can fix everything with Hope. I really need to see her. How about if I come over now?”
“No,” Baby said. “Then she’d be really mad at
me.
”
“Hope doesn’t need an outfit,” Tanner said. “She looks great no matter what she wears. Please?”
“Aw, that’s sweet,” Baby said. “Why couldn’t Big Julie ever say nothing like that to me? No.”
“Baby, I am a desperate man here. I can’t fix things with Hope if you don’t let me see her.
Please.
”
Baby sighed. “All right. But you better make it good, or she’ll be mad
and
I’ll be mad. Come over when we get back. Around three-thirty.”
“Thank you,” Tanner said, feeling a rush of relief. “I’ll be there. And—Baby. I’m sorry about Big Julie. Although I think you can find somebody better.”
“I think I’m going to have to,” Baby said, sounding a little bit sad.
“We must find him!” Johnny Red shouted to his colleagues. “We must make our move! It is now or never!”
“What do you want us to do?” Markov asked. He was eating a club sandwich that room service had delivered. Markov loved room service. You just called, and twenty minutes later, the food arrived, hot and delicious, at your door. Of course, Johnny Red had taught him to realize that the food was brought by a member of the oppressed working class who would never own a share in the means of production. But after Markov signed the slip and saw what the waiter earned with the mandatory tip, he wasn’t convinced that the waiter was truly oppressed. He wondered what the waiter’s base salary was. Perhaps, in fact, the waiter
could
afford to own a tiny portion of the means of production. Because look at their own line of work. It wasn’t all gravy. Johnny Red tended to be a capricious employer. Danger lurked in every operation. The competition was fierce. And considering how much Markov had to pay his lieutenants, and how nice it was in Vegas, maybe he could become a waiter himself and—
“We must try again!” Johnny Red said, pounding on the table, causing Markov to jump to attention and making his sandwich bounce on its plate. “We must storm the Winter Palace! We must overtake the guards!”
“You wand uth do gidnap Big Chulie again?” Igor asked, horrified. He had temporary caps on the six teeth he’d smashed when he’d crashed the getaway car into the getaway truck Alexei had stolen. His broken nose was swollen, making breathing difficult, and he couldn’t sleep from the pain of his bruised ribs and broken ankle. He still walked with crutches. He didn’t feel up to pushing Big Julie into a laundry cart and running through the casino with him again.
“That didn’t work out so good last time,” Yakov agreed. Although Yakov had bounced around some in the vegetable truck and had bruises to prove it, he hadn’t been seriously injured. Still, he didn’t relish repeating the experience.
“Comrades, have courage!” Johnny Red bellowed. And then, in a severe lapse of his Communist training added, “To the victors belong the spoils!”
“Well, we ain’t exactly victors here,” Markov said, working on his last bite of ham and turkey on toasted focaccia with a swirl of garlic aioli.
Johnny Red whirled on him.
“
Yet!
” Markov added quickly.
“We must act quickly and with precision!” Johnny Red said. “We must be as sharp as the Bolsheviks’ bayonets, and we must be as courageous as the Stalingrad defenders. My friends, we will win, or we will die trying!”
“
Die?
” Yakov repeated, hoping that Johnny Red was speaking in metaphors.
“Could dying be worthan thith?” Igor said, who felt pretty close to dying right now.
“You really should try these curly fries,” Markov said, generously pushing the plate into the center of the table for all to reach.
“Bah!” Johnny Red said, but he took one of the spiral french fries, dipped it in the sauce, and popped it in his mouth.
“Food for the petty bourgeois,” he said with contempt as he chewed. Then he looked up in surprise. “But it’s good. What’s that white stuff?”
“Garlic aioli,” Markov said. “Smooth yet tangy.”
Johnny Red took another curly fry and swabbed it in the garlic aioli as the others gathered around the table. Then he leaned forward conspiratorially, waving the curly fry.
“All right,” he said. “Here’s my plan.”
Tanner entered the Desert Dunes Resort and Casino at three o’clock and realized he was a half-hour too early to meet Baby and Hope. To kill some time, he opened his phone and checked his messages. One from Amber, telling him about the helicopter ride, which he returned, telling her what he was doing; one from Troy, which had to wait; and one from Jack. Nothing from Hope. He strolled through the resort, stopping briefly to stare at a black sequined dress in the window of an expensive shop. He briefly imagined Hope in it. No, Hope didn’t need sequins to sparkle, he decided.
At three-twenty he headed for the elevators that led to the suites. As he walked down the hallway, he saw a group of five men step into a waiting car. They looked like tough guys fallen on hard times—they were all big, but they all moved slowly because two of them limped and the third was on crutches. Tanner picked up his pace, trying to catch them, but even so, by the time he got to the elevator bank, the doors had closed and the elevator had ascended.
He watched the lit numbers above the doors increase as the elevator rose. Fourteen, fifteen, sixteen. Sixteen stayed hot. The men were getting off on the sixteenth floor. The floor of Baby’s and Big Julie’s suite.
What were five men, one on crutches, doing on Baby’s floor? Of course, there was another suite on the floor. They didn’t
have
to be going to see Baby and Hope. Still.
Tanner was curious. And a little uneasy.
He punched the call button and waited impatiently for a car to descend, watching the numbers over the elevator doors as the cars rose or descended toward the lobby. Behind him he barely noticed the dinging of the games, the whooping of the winners, the conversations of the tourists, and the piped-in music.
“Wingate!”
Tanner turned and saw FBI Special Agent Roy Frelly puffing slightly as he strode toward the elevators. “Where the hell do you think you’re going?”
Tanner sighed and glanced at the elevator display. The closest car had paused at five on its downward trajectory. Eight more months to deal with Las Vegas’s idea of federal law enforcement. It seemed like a lifetime.
“Agent Frelly, what a surprise,” Tanner said. “Are you following me?”
“Heck no,” Frelly said. “Why bother? We got your phone number. No. I got other fish to fry, and I saw Johnny Red come in here and go up these elevators.”
“Who?”
“Johnny Red. I showed you a picture the other day, remember? The Russian mob guy. He just went up to Big Julie’s suite. Him and his henchmen. Sixteen-oh-one. At least we assume that’s where he’s headed, since he wants to kill Big Julie and all. Not that he’ll find him there.” Frelly scowled briefly. “His lawyers sprung Big Julie today. We put him on a plane back to Jersey.”
Tanner felt the floor open up and swallow him. He didn’t know much about the Russian mob, but he knew they were ruthless. They wouldn’t let anyone get in their way.
And they were headed for Big Julie’s suite.
And in Big Julie’s suite, Hope would definitely be in their way.
“The Russian mob is upstairs in Big Julie’s suite?” he demanded. “Hope—my—my—fiancee’s up there! And Baby! They could get hurt!”
“Jesus, Wingate! You know that for sure? Why do you always hold out on me?” Frelly’s red face turned six shades darker. “We got SWAT in position! Now you’re telling me there’s civilians in Big Julie’s suite? A baby? Listen! You stay here, understand? Don’t do nothing stupid! Don’t go nowhere! I gotta let the SWAT team know! I gotta call backup!”
Frelly pulled out his phone and punched a number into it as he churned down the hallway. “Hold your positions!” Tanner heard him yell into the phone. “We got civilians in the suite, and the Russians are coming!”
Tanner watched as Frelly steamed into the security office. Russian mobsters had headed upstairs to take out Big Julie, the FBI was on it, and that could mean gunfire, with Hope and Baby in the middle of it. Minutes counted here. Anything could happen while Frelly was doing whatever he was doing. And a SWAT team—Tanner shuddered to think of a SWAT team managed by Frelly.
Behind him, the elevator dinged and the doors opened. Without a second thought, Tanner stepped inside the car and punched the button for sixteen.
Chapter 30
Hope had laid her new outfit out on Baby’s bed to look it over when the suite’s doorbell rang. The dress was elegant—deep blue in a gauzy fabric, with a cinched waist and tiny rhinestone buttons down the front. Hope had no idea where she could wear it, but Baby had said, if the dress was right, you would find the occasion.
She had put out the earrings and shoes to go with it when Baby called her from the dining room.
“Hope, honey? Can you come in here a minute?”
Baby’s voice sounded funny, but Hope didn’t think a thing of it until she entered the room and saw Baby sitting on one side of the big table with five burly men sitting at the other.
“What’s going on?” Hope asked.
“Have a seat,” the oldest man said to Hope.
“Is we going to have varenikis again?” one of the big ones said, looking eagerly at Baby.
“No!” Baby squeaked.
“
Have a seat
,” the oldest one said again.
That’s when Hope noticed that he was pointing a gun at her.
Hope looked at the business end of the weapon and, in a second, thought of all the time she’d wasted being furious and hurt at Tanner, of how much she loved her sister and mother. How she’d never see Amber grow up. How she’d never again feel the sun on her face or the cool softness of the water in Tanner’s swimming pool or the hot roughness of his hands on her skin. Or hear Tanner’s heart beating against hers as she slept next to him.
How she’d be killed in this suite in the Desert Dunes. By mobsters.
This is what comes of playing cards with Big Julie
, she thought
.
Not that she’d have a chance to do
that
again.
Hot dizziness swept over her and she had to grab the edge of the table for support. Panic and loss filled her throat as she stared at the ugly weapon that would end her life.
She and Baby would die here. Nobody would know. Nobody could stop it.
And then her little voice spoke to her. Her old impatient friend, the one who made her think hard and make tough choices.
Don’t die. Live.
Hope gasped, clutching the table until her fingers cramped.
Suck it up. Figure something out.
She sat down abruptly, even as dark pinpoints started to sprinkle behind her eyes.
If I get out of here, I’ll tell Tanner
—
What would she tell Tanner? What could she say that she hadn’t already revealed?
I’ll ask him—why did he do it? Why did he lie, cheat, and steal? Why did he let me down? Because I wanted to risk it. I wanted to take a risk with him.
She took a deep breath, shocked to realize what she’d just thought.
She’d wanted to take a risk with Tanner. A card player
. But then there was the game. That had changed everything. And now—now she wouldn’t be able to ask him why he’d hurt her, unless she could figure out a way to get out of this mess.
She took another deep breath, and the dizziness passed. The dark prickles behind her eyelids cleared up. She breathed again and looked at the five gunmen. Well—four big, pasty-looking gunmen and one really handsome, nervous-looking kid.
“That’s right,” Johnny Red said, waving his weapon at her. “Now, let’s get acquainted.”
Tanner stepped off the elevator at the sixteenth floor and instantly realized the flaw in his plan.