Compact with the Devil: A Novel (34 page)

He paused to light his cigar.

The bathroom was disgustingly bare. She ran over the usual ideas. Toilet lid? Too heavy to throw and it wouldn’t beat Brandt’s
gun. Shampoo to sting the eyes? There probably wasn’t enough left in the mini shampoo bottles, even if she had the time to stand them head down, so the dregs dripped to the top. That left toilet paper and a hair dryer. Not exactly her weapons of choice. The bathroom was a Jack and Jill style, connecting both to the hall and to the bedroom closet. She wondered if she could make it into the bedroom before Brandt shot her.

Brandt checked his watch and then stood with an easy grace. Nikki put down the brush and tensed, waiting for her moment. There was a soft knock and Brandt opened the door.

“Right on time,” said Brandt to a man with his hand raised, on the point of knocking. “Sadly, our quarry is decidedly not at home. Not to worry though, we do have a consolation prize.” He turned back to Nikki and smiled. “Cano, meet Nikki. She’s a nosy makeup artist with Carrie Mae. Nikki, meet Antonio Mergado Cano. He’s a—”

“A Basque separatist,” Nikki said, finishing for him.

“Anarchist,” said Cano, correcting her. “I no longer support the Basques. They are weak.”

“Why beat around the bush?” asked Brandt. “He’s a terrorist.” Cano frowned but said nothing. “He’s also, for a very nominal fee, willing to kill Kit.”

“Among others,” said Cano with a small smile.

Cano was short, no more than Nikki’s height, but with a squat, powerful build. His dark brown eyes burned out from under a tousled mane of black hair. A three-day stubble coated his chin and he wore a spotted white-on-black tie over a black shirt and suit. The effect was mod with a tinge of mob. He carried a long coat over one arm, and the way he draped it over the back of the armchair told Nikki that the coat held something of a higher caliber than pocket change. He radiated a malignant destructive
quality, and Nikki knew at once who had been responsible for the men in the Metro.

“Whatever,” said Brandt, returning to the couch, seemingly oblivious to Cano’s threat.

“Finally going to get your vengeance on Camille?” asked Nikki, and Cano smiled.

“The whole family, really. I hear that Declan’s brother is with him also.”

Brandt looked from one to the other, puzzled, but didn’t say anything.

“And of course, I am always happy to kill any of you Carrie Mae women. So meddling. But it seems I’m about to get my payback.”

“Trust me, having to look at that tie is payback enough,” drawled Nikki.

“Tough girl,” laughed Brandt.

“Even tough girls bleed,” said Cano in the same thoughtful, calm voice. It was starting to creep Nikki out. “Where is Christopher?”

“He’s at the venue. Angela was supposed to get him here, but apparently that didn’t go as planned.”

“Then I will go to the venue also,” said Cano.

There was another knock at the door. Cano opened it without taking his eyes off Nikki, and two men slunk into the room. One was tall and wiry, with an olive complexion gone pasty and a bird beak of a nose. His eyes were fixed on her in an overbright, cunning stare, like a mongoose staring down a cobra. The second one was shorter and had a soft, slick face, like he didn’t really have bones, just rounded edges. He wore his black hair greased back; it gave him a ferret-like appearance. Nikki recognized both of them from the Metro; they looked like they remembered her as well.

“We will meet at the opera house. You will get us in,” said Cano. It was a statement rather than a question.

“Yeah, OK,” said Brandt, looking slightly uncomfortable, “but wait till after the event’s started. Security lightens up after that. I’ll get you in then. Say in”—he checked his watch—“about two hours?”

Cano nodded.

“Count on it,” muttered Mongoose.

“Well,” said Brandt, stubbing out his cigar in the heavy marble ashtray on the coffee table. “This is where I get off.”

“Go away,” said Cano.

“Believe me, I am,” said Brandt smoothly, and left the room. Nikki stared at Cano and his weasels; they were both grinning the same nasty, leering smile.

“You’re going to kill him too, aren’t you?” she asked after Brandt closed the door.

“After we get the money,” hissed Ferret.

“After we kill everyone,” said Cano. “The world should not have forgotten about us.”

“What ‘us’?” said Nikki tauntingly. “There’s just you and a bunch of thugs. The Basques have publicly denounced you. The Irish have given up bombs. There is no movement anymore.”

“There will be when I’m done,” said Cano.

“
La chance mauvaise pas seul vient,”
murmured Nikki, walking toward the coffee table. It was a favorite proverb of her father’s that roughly meant that bad luck never came alone.

“Do not speak French!” yelled Cano. Nikki looked at Cano in surprise. And then slowly the realization dawned. Cano was Basque. The Basques had been crushed by the Spanish and French governments for decades and were fiercely proud of their language and heritage. Speaking French wasn’t going to earn her any points here.

“
La mala suerte no llega sola,”
said Nikki, switching to Spanish. She reached down for Brandt’s cigar and braced for impact. Spanish wasn’t going to go over any better.

Cano hit her. A backhanded strike, hard but not meant for anything more than punishing pain. Nikki took the hit and bounced up off the coffee table with the marble ashtray in one hand and the still smoldering cigar in the other. Striking out with the ashtray, Nikki caught Cano a glancing blow under the chin, sending him reeling backward. Ferret made a grab for her, and she jabbed into his outstretched palm with the still smoldering cigar. He yelped and pulled back.

Slower to react, Mongoose made a diving tackle but got nothing more than her towel. Cano stumbled forward, one hand outstretched, as she gained the bathroom; she slammed the pocket door on his arm and then cranked his arm backward against the joint. Cano howled and put a foot through the door. She let him yank his hand back, slammed the door closed, and locked it. Racing naked through the closet and into the bedroom, she knew that the flimsy door would hold him only slightly longer than tissue paper.

She grabbed a coat from the closet—something long and black—and she reached for her bag just as Ferret came charging through the open bedroom door. There was a rending of wood, and Nikki knew it would be only seconds before she had Cano breathing down her neck. She grabbed the strap of her bag and swung it into his face; he jumped back, throwing the bag away from him. Nikki reached for it as Mongoose yanked at her other arm. She swung around and missed the bag by a fingertip length. Using the momentum of Mongoose’s grab, she spun and elbowed him in the ear. He let go and stumbled into Cano, who came charging through the closet.

Nikki dashed for the door and sprinted across the parquet floor with Ferret right behind her. He made a grab for her wrist as she reached for the door. She twisted out of his grasp and scooped the vase of flowers off the decorative table with the other, smashing it into his face. Then she was out the door and sprinting down the hallway.

She slammed into the elevator and thumped the “close door” button repeatedly, watching as Cano came stomping down the hallway, pulling what looked like an antiaircraft gun from under his overcoat. The doors slid shut as Cano pulled the trigger on his shotgun. Nikki heard the explosion and scattered impact of the pellets on the four inches of steel that shielded the elevator.

She hit the button for the lobby but then realized that all they had to do was run down the stairs a few floors and stop the elevator. She punched the button for the next floor and got out, dodging a woman in an expensive fur. Dashing into the stairs, she heard a shout from above her. Risking a look upward, she saw Ferret leaning over the railing. Running faster now, she leaped down the last few stairs and jumped over the railing onto the next flight down. The sound of footsteps echoed in the hollow stairwell, and Nikki used the sound to cover her escape onto a random floor. She skidded to a stop on the plush carpeting, tightening the belt holding her coat together, and tried to get her bearings. She heard the stairwell door open and sprinted toward the elevators.

The elevator was already crowded, and she received a few dirty looks as she wedged herself in, but the looks weren’t half as nasty as the one Cano gave her as the elevator doors slid shut in his face again.

“Nasty-looking fellow,” said someone.

The elevator was playing a Muzak version of a song that Nikki recognized but couldn’t place.

“He’s probably with the band,” someone sniffed.

“The band?” asked the first fellow.

“That Kit Masters is staying here. The guy is probably with the band. You know those rock and roll types. Never bathe.”

“Is this the Clash?” asked a third voice from the back corner. Everyone paused to listen to the music.

“I say, that’s a bit sacrilegious,” said the man who had insulted Cano’s looks.

“It is,” said someone from the left. “It’s ‘The Guns of Brixton.’” He began humming in time to the music. The entire elevator was humming along thoughtfully now.

Nikki looked around and wondered how it was that she, standing barefoot and naked in a packed elevator, wearing nothing but a trench coat, had managed to be the normal one of the group.

“It really shouldn’t be allowed,” said the first man as the elevator doors opened onto the lobby. “It’s the Clash!”

“You don’t have to tell me,” said his friend. “I was at the Rock Against Racism concert in ’78.” Nikki followed the nostalgic duo toward the front door, but Cano was there ahead of her.

“Check outside,” he told his two rodents. Nikki was pleased to see that Ferret was bleeding slightly from cuts on his face. “One of you get around back. I don’t want her slipping past us.”

Cano turned to the interior and began to survey the lobby. Nikki ducked behind a group of giggling teenagers and followed them into the bathroom. Apparently when someone kicked down her front door she wasn’t going to come out with hands on her head or with a gun; she was going to be found hiding in the bathroom. This was not Carrie Mae behavior.

Rushing into the bathroom, Nikki pushed the teenagers out of the way and pulled herself up to look out the window for an escape. Mongoose could be seen hovering at the mouth of the alleyway. The window itself was locked and painted shut. She dropped down and found the girls staring with baffled expressions.

“Hi,” said Nikki.

“You’re not wearing any shoes,” replied one of the girls, her accent distinctly UK.

“Hell, I’m not wearing any clothes; shoes are the least of my worries.” She opened the bathroom stalls, one after the other, vainly hoping someone had left something useful behind. Her search exhausted, she turned back to the girls, who were all dressed too provocatively and toting satchels that looked crammed full of potentially useful items.

“I don’t suppose you could lend me a little something?” she asked with a winning smile.

The girls exchanged glances. There were three of them, but
they all looked to the one who had spoken first—the most Goth-looking one.

“Maybe,” the dark-haired girl replied, hiking up her low-cut corset top.

“Come on, girls, are you going to help me or not?” Nikki did a pull-up and peered out the bathroom window again. Ferret had joined Mongoose and they were effectively blocking any alley escape. She dropped back down and felt the icy cold tile under her feet. If the tile was cold, the cement was going to be freezing. She needed clothes and shoes, even if she had to take out every single one of these girls to do it. She looked back at the three girls.

They were huddled around the Goth vampire queen again. Naturally pale, the girl was actually making her massive amounts of coal-black eyeliner and candy-apple lipstick look cool, in a porn-star kind of way. The tubby one wasn’t having as much luck with her eyeliner, which was smearing, and the other one was chewing her black nail polish to pieces.

“Not so fast,” Vampirella said. “What can you do for us?”

She could take them. Tubby might be a bit hard to drop without permanent damage and the short one looked like a biter, but she could do it. Nikki wrinkled her nose at the thought. It seemed so … un–Carrie Mae–like.
Something is going to have to be done about this
, said a little voice in her head that sounded suspiciously like Mrs. Merrivel.

“Kind of naked here, girls,” Nikki snapped impatiently. “Not exactly carrying wads of cash.”

“I know, but Tanya says she saw you get off the tour bus with
him
.” Vampirella’s voice throbbed on “him.” “That means you can get us backstage.” Biter nodded an affirmation.

“Look, kid, if I don’t get to
him
, there won’t be a backstage to get to. Give me the clothes and your names and I’ll see what I
can do.” Biter and Tubby nodded their agreement, but Vampirella held up her hand, stopping them in mid-nod.

“Not good enough. We’re going to need some sort of assurance that you’ll come through.”

“Like what?” demanded Nikki.

“That is your problem,” answered Vampirella airily.

Nikki shoved her hands into her pockets, trying to think of something, and felt a ray of hope. Slowly, from her pocket she pulled a dog-tag chain and pass and watched their eyes widen as she did.

“Would a tour pass do it?” she asked. They were all nodding now. Vampirella reached out for the devil-head badge with trembling fingers. Nikki yanked it out of her reach. “Seems to me a tour pass is worth a lot. I’m going to need cash and shoes too.”

Vampirella chewed her bright red lips.

“How much?”

“One hundred bucks,” said Nikki. That ought to get her out to the airport and back. The girls exchanged glances.

“Fifty,” countered Vampirella.

“Fifty-five,” said Nikki, just to be mean, “and shoes.”

“Done,” said Vampirella, reaching for the pass.

“Clothes first,” snapped Nikki.

Vampirella turned sharply to her followers. “Cough it up, girls.”