Running Scared (22 page)

But he was damned if he would let a bitch—two bitches—make a fool out of him.

It was time to cut his uncle in on the action.

He cranked the car to life. The radio came on at the same instant. A hot new retro-rap group was shouting their syncopated bile over the airwaves.

Grinning and snarling along with the
fuck-them-kill-them-eat-them
music pounding out of the radio, Socks headed down the Strip.

Las Vegas

November 3

Afternoon

R
isa leaned against
the wall next to the employee elevator and tried to get enough oxygen into her lungs. As she did, she silently vowed to take advantage of the employee gym more often. She should be able to sprint a few hundred feet without feeling like steel bands were squeezing her lungs.

Then again, fear might have had something to do with it.

“You sure you’re all right?” asked one of the uniformed guards.

She nodded because she didn’t want to waste breath on words.

“The police are on their way,” another guard called out.

She nodded again. “I’m going up to my room. I need . . . a minute.”

“Sure,” the guard said. “Want me to walk you there?”

She shook her head.

Shane’s voice cut through the babble in the casino. “Where is she?”

“Over here.”

Risa shot the helpful guard a bleak look. She knew she was going to get the cutting edge of Shane’s tongue for putting everyone in the casino at risk. Even though she had tried to avoid doing just that, it had happened all the same.

Bloody hell.

She straightened up, drew a slow breath, and watched Shane come toward her like a thunderstorm looking for a place to break. Without a word he crowded her into the elevator and keyed in the override. The doors shut. The car stayed put.

“Sorry,” Risa said before Shane could start tearing a strip off her. “I tried not to involve the casino, but someone hit a jackpot and he—”

“Are you all right?” Shane cut in.

“Yes.”

“I’m not.”

“What—” she began.

With one hand Shane covered the ceiling camera lens. With the other he grabbed her and stopped her question with a kiss that made her forget that she needed to breathe.

She had wondered what kissing him would be like. Now she was finding out.

Hot.

Urgent.

Addictive.

With a husky sound she wrapped her arms around him and gave him back the kiss taste for taste, heat for heat, need for need. He was better than wine, sweeter, wilder. She wanted to be inside his skin, to wrap him around her, to taste all of him, to sink into him until she forgot who she was, where she was, knowing only him until the stars burned out and the universe went black.

“Risa,” Shane said raggedly. His free hand swept up and down her back in caresses that were more inciting than calming. “Hush, darling, you’re killing me.
I want you the same way.
”

Dazed, she realized that she had been whispering her thoughts aloud while she poured frantic kisses over every part of him she could reach. She leaned her forehead against his chin and fought to breathe without jerking. The slam of passion right on the heels of fear had sucked everything civilized out of her.

“Sorry,” she said.

“If you apologize about running through the casino again, you’re going to piss me off.”

She shook her head. “For jumping you.”

His laughter stirred the hair at her temple. “I jumped you first.”

She drew a ragged breath. “Oh, yeah. That’s right. I thought maybe I dreamed that part.”

“I’d refresh your memory, but the cops are probably arriving about now.”

“So?”

“The next time I kiss you, I’m not stopping until we’re naked and I’m so deep in you we don’t know who’s doing what to who until the stars burn out and the universe goes black.”

She knew she was blushing. “I shouldn’t have said that. I didn’t mean . . .” She stopped before she got in any deeper.

“You didn’t mean it?”

A full-body shiver was her only answer.

He put his hand under her stubborn chin and tilted her face up to his. Her lips were lush, flushed, wet, hungry. He nearly lost it just looking at her. “Did you mean it?”

The roughness of his voice was like being licked by a cat’s tongue. She wished she could feel it all over. “Yes. Did you?”

He crowded her against the wall until she could feel every inch of him. “What do you think?”

Thick with heat and need, he pressed against her, silently proving just how badly he wanted her. The purring, approving noise she made deep in her throat had him reaching for his zipper.

Then he remembered.

Shit.

“If I boost you up, can you smash the camera lens?” he asked.

She blinked, looked at his hand braced against the ceiling over the grille, then shook her head as though recovering from a bucket of water flung in her face. “Camera. Shit.”

“My thoughts exactly.”

He removed his hand from the grille, keyed in a floor, and watched Risa with heavy-lidded eyes. When the doors opened again, he pulled her almost gently into the hallway.

“This isn’t my floor,” she said.

“I know.”

Before she could ask another question, she was inside one of the casino apartments with a locked door behind her back and Shane molded to the length of her front.

“Now,” he said, “where were we?”

“We were jumping each other.”

“Show me.”

He watched her eyes while her hands slid down his chest to his thighs. When she kneaded the heavy, flexed muscles, breath backed up in his throat. She was so close . . . and not nearly close enough.

“I was going to take it slow and thorough,” he said roughly. “You’re changing my mind.”

“Your mind, huh?” Deliberately she unzipped his pants and found him hot and ready. She stroked the full length of his erection. “I was always told that men thought with their dick, but I didn’t believe it.”

“Believe it.” His deft, clever hands went from her collarbone to her breasts to her thighs, opening buttons, pushing up her skirt, lighting fires. “What do women think with?”

“You’re getting close.”

His hands moved.

“You’re there.” Her breath hitched, and she melted in a shivering rush. Her hips pushed helplessly against his teasing hand. Her eyes closed as a small climax ripped through her.

Before the heat shot to her fingertips, she was on the carpet and he was pushing sleekly into her until he filled her. Stretching around him was the hottest pleasure she had ever known. And then he started moving. Sensations coiled inside her like a spring, tighter and tighter, until everything let go and she was flying, shivering, crying, and saying his name with every broken breath.

The first clench of her release pulled him over the edge with her. He kept sliding into her because it felt too good to stop, each hot pulse better than the last until his whole body was hard, shaking with the violence of his release. He felt another climax hit her, and he gave himself to it, driving both of them higher, until the world went black and pulsing around them.

Finally he caught enough breath to say her name and roll onto his back, taking her with him. She tightened around him, telling him without words that she liked having him inside her even when she lay limp and spent on his chest. He flexed his hips and felt more shivers take her. Fresh arousal prowled through him on hot claws.

“Jesus, we’re going to kill each other,” he said hoarsely.

“Are you bragging or complaining?” she said against his neck.

“I’m taking rain checks. A whole fistful of them.”

“Okay. As long as I don’t have to move real soon.”

“Define real soon.”

“This century.” She sighed. “What the hell is tickling my thigh?”

“My pager is vibrating.”

“Well, that’s a relief. I thought maybe you had two dicks or something.”

Laughing, he reached into the pocket of the pants he was still—mostly—wearing and pulled out his casino remote. Susan Chatsworth’s number was in the window. Without shifting his position, he dug his communications unit out of the small of his back and keyed in Chatsworth.

“Tannahill,” he said.

“The police have arrived. Would you like the interview to take place in your office?”

His executive assistant’s carefully bland tone told Shane that whoever was on the elevator security camera must have put the word out real fast that Shane had probably jumped his curator in the elevator. And vice versa.

“My office,” he said.

“Yes, sir. Right away?”

He bit back a curse at the laughter that lurked just beneath the question, as in
Sure you don’t want time for a quickie?
But he felt much too good to be irritated.

“Send them up,” he said. “Anybody follow the guy who grabbed Risa?”

“Sorry, sir. He was waving a gun, and your orders—”

“Fine,” Shane cut in. “Was anybody hurt in the casino?”

“No. Most of the people are gathered around the slot machine he blew a hole in. Some are admiring the gouge in the baccarat table made by another bullet. A few folks headed straight for the bar. And here come the cops.”

“While we talk to the police, settle up with the gamblers whose games were interrupted. If you have any problems getting the people to accept who owes what, run the security tapes to make your point.”

“Yes, sir. Is Ms. Sheridan all right? Med techs are on their way, too.”

“I’ll check.” Shane caressed down the length of her back to her lush hips. “You okay, Risa?”

“Fine as frog’s hair,” she said, and blew against his chin.

Laughing, Shane took his thumb off the receiver and said, “She’s fine.”

Really fine.

And somebody had just tried to kill her.

Las Vegas

November 3

Afternoon

J
ohn Firenze stared at
his nephew and wished his sister had exercised better taste in men. The guy who had sired Cesar had been muscle, pure and simple. Mostly simple. Cesar was his father’s son in every way that mattered, except one: he was Firenze by blood. Family had to be protected from stupidity for as long as possible. When it no longer became possible . . . well, his dear sister was dead, and his sainted mother would never have to know what happened to her only grandson.

Socks shifted uneasily from one foot to the other and moved the weight of Tim’s backpack on his thick shoulders. He felt like a kid called into the principal’s office for pinching a girl’s tit. Firenze even looked like a principal. Dark suit and white shirt, dark striped tie, thinning hair combed straight back, hands that still showed the scars of a youth spent as a bare-knuckle brawler in the waning days of Las Vegas and the Mob. When he thought about it, Socks had a hard time believing that Kid Firenze had grown up to be a suit with a thin mouth.

But he had.

Firenze leaned back in his big leather executive chair and watched his nephew with unblinking black eyes. “Let’s see if I have this straight. You just killed two men—”

“I didn’t do Joey,” Socks cut in quickly. “Tim did. So I killed him.”

“Whatever. Two men are dead.”

Socks shrugged. “Yeah.”

“Where’s the gun you used?”

“Down a storm drain. Hated to do it. Cost a lot.”

Firenze grunted. “You wore gloves?”

“Shit, yes. I ain’t stupid.”

“Where are the gloves?”

“Flushed ’em in the men’s room.”

“Here?” Firenze asked sharply.

“Nah. An all-night gas station by the interstate. I told you, I ain’t stupid.”

That was a matter of opinion, but at least the boy was trainable. He hadn’t forgotten how to do a clean job of dirty work.

“Are the cops onto you?” Firenze asked.

“Far as I know, they don’t even have a body yet. I hocked my police-band radio, so I can’t be sure.”

One of the five phones on Firenze’s desk rang. He ignored it, just as he ignored the subtle beep of his computer every time a new e-mail arrived.

“Anybody see you?” Firenze asked.

“I went out the alley and then down to the burger joint where I parked. I always remember what you told me about not parking near a job.”

Thinking of Socks’s screaming purple car made Firenze wince. He could park it on the far side of the moon and someone still would notice. One of these days Delia’s dumb little boy was going to get into the kind of trouble even his well-connected uncle couldn’t get him out of.

This had all the earmarks of just that unhappy day.

“Did
you
see anybody?” Firenze asked.

Socks frowned. “A drunk pissing in the alley over from Joey’s pawnshop. Does that count?”

Firenze sincerely hoped it didn’t. “Okay. You got away clean.”

Eagerly Socks nodded.

“Then why did you come to me?” Firenze asked.

“Well, it’s kinda about Joey. He really hosed me.”

Firenze waited. Getting hosed by a pawnbroker wasn’t the type of news that would lift his heart rate.

“I mean,
really,
” Socks insisted. “Stuff I had was worth a million, at least, and he only—”

“A million?” Firenze cut in, leaning forward sharply. “What the hell were you doing robbing jewelry stores? How many times do I have to tell you that those high-end places aren’t—”

“No jewelry,” Socks interrupted, talking fast. “I remember what you taught me, Uncle John. And this shit didn’t come from no high-end place.”

Firenze settled back again. “What were the goods?”

“Gold.”

“You’re strong as a bull, I give you that, but even you couldn’t carry a million in gold.”

Socks didn’t quite follow what his uncle meant, so he stuck with what he did understand. “Tim’s bitch said the stuff was worth a million, and it was gold—little statues like toys and stuff—and she’s so fucking smart she oughta know, right?”

Firenze felt a headache coming on. A big one. Its name was Cesar. “Tim, the guy you whacked, right?”

Socks nodded.

“So where’s his bitch now?” Firenze asked.

“I was getting to that,” Socks said, his voice close to a whine.

“Get to it faster.”

“Okay. Right. She killed the old man, took the gold toys, gave ten to Tim and kept more for herself. We sold four to Joey and he hosed us big time. We went to get the gold back and he had already turned it to Shapiro and Tim shot him and I shot Tim and then I went to see the bitch to get the rest of the gold and she damn near yanked my dick off and ran, so I went to her room and she’s gone but another bitch comes in and says she knows where the gold is and so we go downstairs to the casino—”

“Casino!”

Socks just kept talking. “—so she goes to the women’s can to get the gold but the bitch double-crosses me and cuts out so I shot at her but she’s running like a fucking racehorse and I miss so I ran out and here I am.”

Firenze didn’t bother to ask how many people had seen Socks. It didn’t matter. The whole thing had been recorded digitally and was now in the belly of a casino computer. “Where?”

“Huh? Here, just like I said.”

“You did this in the Roman Circus?” Firenze asked, shooting upright with a furious snarl.

“Nah.
I’m
here. The bitch was at the Golden Fleece.”

The pounding in Firenze’s head settled into a steady, vicious stabbing.

“Remember what I told you about security cameras?” Firenze asked softly.

“Uh . . . yeah. I wore a ski mask.”
Most of the time.
But he wasn’t going to talk about that part of it. Even his tight-assed uncle wouldn’t expect him to wear a ski mask on the main floor of the Golden Fleece, would he? Socks yanked the mask out of his pants pocket. “See?”

Firenze gave the limp mask a look. “Anything else you want to tell me?”

“Like what?” Socks said.

“Like what you want me to do about any of this.”

Socks brightened. “I figured you could unload the rest of the gold for closer to what it’s worth, see? Then—”

“Wait.” Firenze held up his hand. “You said the bitch had the gold and she got away.”

“With most of it, yeah.” Socks rolled one thick shoulder and caught the backpack as it dropped. “But Tim had some more in his backpack.”

For the first time since Socks started talking, Firenze looked interested. “Bring it here.”

Socks hurried up to the big, ultrasleek black desk, which looked like something out of a
Star Trek
rerun. No papers littered the shiny surface. A single ebony pen lay across thick, creamy paper that was decorated with the Roman Circus logo: two roaring lions flanking a bare-breasted chorus girl.

“I ain’t had time to really look at this shit,” Socks said as he yanked impatiently at Velcro and buckles.

“Where are your gloves?” Firenze snapped.

“Huh?”

“Listen and listen good. You don’t want your fingerprints all over stuff that goes straight back to the guy you killed.”

“I made it look like Joey killed him.”

Firenze’s headache just got worse at the thought of his numb-nuts nephew trying to concoct his own alibi. “Wear gloves.”

“I tossed my last ones.”

“Buy more. Until then don’t touch the goods. Got that?”

“Yeah.”

Glumly Socks poked a hand around in the backpack. One at a time he fished out six lumps wrapped in socks or underwear and laid them out on the polished desk. Firenze watched like a vulture trying to decide if his next meal had finally given up and died. When Socks started to shake out one of the pieces, his uncle gestured him back with a slicing motion of his hand.

“I’ll do it. I don’t want you scratching up my desk.”

With a delicacy that was surprising in a man as thick-bodied as Firenze was, he eased the first gold piece out onto a creamy sheet of paper. Despite his care, the figurine thumped audibly when it hit. His eyes opened, then narrowed. He unwrapped the other five pieces one after another.

And then he just stared at them. Two figurines, a ring, some weird kind of pin, a choker-style necklace of braided chains, and what might have been a four-inch-wide armband that made his skin crawl to look at it. “What the hell are they?”

“I told you. Gold.”

“I can see that. What kind of gold?”

“Dunno. Joey said Shapiro paid him fifty thousand for four pieces like that. And we have, what, six? That should be worth, uh, more.”

Jesus, the boy can barely count.
Firenze dragged his mind away from his nephew’s shortcomings to the problem at hand. Shapiro was a hustler who chiseled and whined over every penny he paid out of his pawnshop.

“If he paid fifty,” Firenze said, “it’s gotta be worth five times that. Hell, maybe even ten.”

“That’s what I thought. But Joey ain’t gonna do nothing dead and I don’t trust Shapiro and the bitch probably has a buttload more gold and I can’t get it without help. So I come here to my favorite uncle. I can trust family, right?”

“Sure you can,” Firenze said absently. “Does the bitch have a name?”

“Cherelle Faulkner.”

That kicked up Firenze’s heart rate. He opened the folded piece of paper on his desk and looked at the information that had been passed up the line after a blind phone call came in from someone who didn’t want to do Tannahill any favors.

Risa Sheridan and Cherelle Faulkner know each other real well. Look into it and you’ll have Tannahill where it’s short and curly.

“Tell me about her.”

“Great tits, an ass that won’t stop, and—”

“I don’t give a shit about her body,” Firenze said, talking over his nephew. “Is she a hooker, a thief, a hype—what?

“She don’t hook no more. She and Tim run a channeling scam out of Sedona. Gets them into rich houses and then Tim and me clout them when no one’s home. She loves smoking crack and snorting blow, but she don’t do the needle thing.”

“Has she done time?”

“Dunno. Not in the last few years, for sure.”

“How did she get onto Risa Sheridan?”

“Who?”

“The bitch you tried to shoot in the casino,” Firenze retorted. Christ, he knew more about Risa from a blind phone call than Socks did from kidnapping her. “Didn’t you even know her name?”

Socks shrugged. “From what Tim said, the two bitches grew up together. Like, sisters or something.”

There was silence for a moment while Firenze sorted through what he had and didn’t have.

“Anyway, Tim’s bitch whacked the old man that owned the gold.”

His nephew’s casual afterthought made Firenze’s blood pressure rocket. Cherelle was a murderer, and she and Risa were like sisters—Risa, who knew all about old gold art.

Firenze chuckled. Right now, in his hands, was a lever against Tannahill’s in-house gold expert. Risa could tell Firenze what his nephew’s gold was really worth. Then she could sell it to her boss, who just might find himself an accessory after the fact to murder one.

Socks looked uneasily at his uncle. He hated it when Firenze laughed that way. Usually it meant someone was going to get the shit kicked out of him. Socks, for instance.

For a few gorgeous moments Firenze thought about what a coup it would be to bring Shane Tannahill down without the help of the other casino bosses. It would make him a big man around town, just the way his father and grandfather had been. Men of respect. But Firenze didn’t want to end up the way they had—one murdered, one serving life for murder. No, the smart thing to do would be to use the information to trade up the ladder of power. Not as much fun, but a whole lot safer.

Unlike his nephew, John Firenze was smart enough to know when he was in over his head.

Even so, Firenze’s hand hesitated as he reached for the phone. If he had more information, he would get a bigger piece of the pie. Not the whole pie. But a great big juicy chunk of it. At a minimum he needed more than his dumb nephew’s estimate of the gold’s worth.

Settling back in his chair, he played with ways to get hold of Risa Sheridan for a fast, very quiet appraisal. He could go to her openly, but that would bring in Tannahill.

Firenze shook his head. Not smart.

“Uh, Uncle John?”

“Shut up.”

After a few more frowning minutes, Firenze decided that the quickest, cleanest way to Risa was just to grab her. If she wouldn’t cooperate . . . well, there was always the desert. She wouldn’t be the first person to go out there and not come back.