Authors: Edward Lazellari
Mal stood up. “It would be safer if you came to the Waldorf. It’s unknown to Dorn. My workmen will finish repairs here and keep the rats out. Hopefully, Callum will have the prince by nightfall and we can discuss the next stage together.”
Lelani left to retrieve Bree. Mal excused himself to use the facilities.
“Confident,” Cat said to Scott.
Scott smiled and rolled his eyes. “He runs a twelve-billion-dollar corporation. Anything the Pentagon wants to make bulletproof, they send to him. He’s brilliant.”
“And are you okay with all these revelations?” Cat was hoping for an answer that would make her feel less guilty about her doubts regarding Cal.
Scott thought about what he would divulge before finally confessing, “I trust Mal with my life … but I have the strangest feeling he’s keeping something from me.”
So it wasn’t just her. Cat wanted to meet the other guardians more than ever now—to fill her in on what she didn’t know. Cat had some major decisions to make, the easiest of which was the adoption of a thirteen-year-old boy into her family. She knew nothing about the kid. What if he was troubled? How would his presence affect Bree and the new baby? The only bright side was at least Cal was human.
“You’re handling your partner’s dwarv lineage very well,” she said.
“Honey, please … I grew up gay in the backwoods of Virginia with the name Wilcock. This is nothing. I’d love that man if he sprouted goat legs.” He took a sip and suddenly his eyes opened wide. “Oh!” he exclaimed. “Centaurs! Greek independence bacchanal in the West Village, 2004—the boys dressed as one. She’s a horse!”
Cat cringed.
“Did I say something wrong?” Scott asked.
Mal emerged from the bathroom. “Scott, whatever you do, don’t compare centaurs to horses. They’re sensitive. It would take days to work out.”
“We just dodged that bullet,” Cat said.
Cat packed her large suitcase with a few days’ worth of items for herself, Cal, and Bree. How long would they be away? At least until Dorn and all his henchmen were gone. And then what?
Cat sat on the bed. A vein of sadness opened within her as she prepared to abandon her home—wondering if she would ever feel safe here again. It was more than that … leaving now was a temporary reprieve from the possibility of going to another universe and leaving home for good. It was a lot to ask of someone. After all the work they put into their dream home, it bothered her deeply. The building wasn’t a castle, but it was theirs. They picked it up for a song when it was in shambles, and created a place worth living in.
Cat thought about Malcolm Robbe, a natural leader, and wondered if Cal could leave the
going back to Aandor
part to him and just stay in this reality to finish the life they’d started together. Cat knew her husband too well, though. If she didn’t go to Aandor, he would anyway, with every intention of coming back for her. But she would be a much older woman by then—assuming Cal survived.
Mal was alone when Cat emerged from the bedroom. “You didn’t need to wait,” she said.
“Not leaving you alone … you’ve been lucky up ’til now, but luck eventually runs out.”
“I have a request,” Cat said. “Let’s not tell my husband about the attack here today. Cal’s been under a lot of pressure. I want him focused on his trip, not worried about my safety.”
“Cal no longer has reason to worry, Catherine. You’re under my protection now.”
Mal had a take-charge personality, similar to her husband, except Cal wasn’t as pushy. Maybe it was a height thing like Napoleon or Mussolini. She wondered how much of that he had when he served under Cal in Aandor, and how much came about as the executive of his own multibillion-dollar corporation.
What happens when he and Cal have a difference of opinion? How many leaders can a company have?
“Mal—with Tristan dead, does that make you second in command of the group?”
Malcolm paused. He thought about it, put on a strained smile, and said, “Something like that.”
Whatever Mal had edited during that hesitation raised Cat’s hackles. Still, it was a matter to be taken up later. Extra bodies for the cause meant a more liberal distribution of the burden. That had to be a step in the right direction.
CHAPTER 18
CHESS IN THE PARK
Sawmill Creek Park off Dorsey Road consisted of four baseball fields that were empty at this time of year. Dretch asked to meet there, but wasn’t specific as to where in the park. He only said the open area. Cal pulled the Explorer into the parking lot and he and Seth surveyed their surroundings. A young man played Frisbee with his golden retriever in one of the outfields, in the far distance. He looked too carefree to be part of this conflict. Seth tugged Cal’s sleeve and pointed to a man in a trench coat, sitting serenely with a steaming cup of coffee, thirty yards away at a picnic table under a tree.
Cal’s disposable cell rang to the tune of Liza Minnelli’s “New York, New York”—Cat’s tone. He tensed, imagining his wife was in danger and would require him to return immediately.
“Hey,” he said.
“Surprise,”
she answered in a cheery tone. Cal didn’t realize he’d been clenching his jaw until he released.
“Guess what?”
“I’m about to meet Dretch,” he said, throwing a wet blanket on her exuberance.
“Are you in danger?”
“I don’t think so. We’re in a park. Not too many places to hide.”
“Well, I have some good news … Say hello to an old friend…”
“Good afternoon, Captain MacDonnell.”
Cal’s heart lifted at the sound of Malcolm Robbe’s velvety tenor.
“Malcolm!”
Catherine reclaimed the phone and brought her husband up to date. She was in Malcolm’s limousine heading to his suite at the Waldorf Astoria in Midtown. Malcolm’s business partner drove Lelani in the rented van. Robbe had apparently become filthy, stinking rich while in this reality. Cal wasn’t a jealous person by nature, nor was he motivated by money—so why did he feel a tinge of regret at the discovery of Malcolm’s success on this side of the pond? Cal didn’t want to spook Colby and promised to call back soon with details.
When he ended the call, Seth said, “Liza?”
“Huh?”
“‘New York, New York’—you picked Liza over Frank for your ring tone?”
“Catherine’s in New York—she’s a woman, Liza’s a woman.”
Seth stared at him frozen with disbelief. “That’s some pretty fucked-up linear thinking, man.”
“They play Liza at Yankee Stadium,” Cal argued.
“When they lose!” Seth pointed out.
Cal mentally kicked himself for wasting time with Seth’s nonsense. Was he hesitating—nervous about meeting Dretch. This was it … the first substantial contact with the enemy.
“Stay here until I figure out what’s going on,” Cal said.
“What should I do?”
“Whittle. At least you’ll be holding a big stick and a knife if things go south.”
Cal reached into his jacket and released the safeties on his Glock 9 mm. The clip was loaded with Speer Gold Dots, and there was one in the chamber. He took a deep breath and marched toward the dick.
Dretch was fifty-two, but looked older. He divorced eight years back and had a twelve-year-old quadriplegic son. He’d been a beat cop at the 79th Precinct in Brooklyn before earning a Medal of Valor and a promotion to homicide detective in Manhattan. Five citations for exceptional duty later, he took early retirement to go private. The gumshoe was under indictment in New York for extortion, tax evasion, illegal wiretapping, and failure to report abuse of minors by very wealthy clients. Dretch had fallen far because of greed; now he’d graduated to kidnapping and murder. He was looking for the lost prince so that Dorn could kill that innocent boy. Cal wasn’t sure what the next step was as he approached the picnic table. Dretch couldn’t possibly think Cal would help him in any way.
Dretch’s bare hands were folded on the table next to the coffee. A cell phone with the battery removed lay next to them—a sign that the detective didn’t want anyone to know his location. Cal took a whiff of something not entirely fresh—almost foul—and on top of it, the smell of aftershave as though to conceal it. Colby looked like he hadn’t shaved in a few days, but there was no one else around from whom the smell could have come. Maybe the guy couldn’t find time to shower.
“Hello,” Dretch said politely. They could have been friends meeting for a beer.
Cal nodded, but made no sound.
“I’ve been looking forward this,” the old dick added.
“I find that hard to believe,” Cal said. He surveyed the park for signs of an ambush. The table was at a good vantage to spy the area around them.
“We’re quite alone,” Colby confirmed. “Please sit.” He offered the bench opposite him. The table beckoned for a chessboard, though their game had far more serious ramifications.
“Where’s the prince?” Cal asked.
“Someplace safe. Neither you nor Dorn will find him.” It came out:
Neetha you noahr Doan will find ’im.
Dretch was a Brooklyn boy to the core.
Cal raised an eyebrow. “Dorn hired you to kill him,” he said.
“He hired me to find him … I’m not a killer.”
Cal let loose a sardonic snort.
“What’s with the attitude?” Colby asked.
“A trail of corpses all over upstate New York everywhere you’ve been.”
“I didn’t kill anyone,” Dretch insisted.
“Sweeny. Nathan Dumont. Erin Ramos.” Cal threw his partner’s name on the list, though Dretch wasn’t even in the Bronx when she was killed.
Dretch was genuinely put off by the news. “Sweeny and Dumont were alive when I left them. I never even heard of this Ramos.”
“How can I believe someone who helped a Hollywood producer secretly diddle young boys for years and swept the evidence under the rug, strong armed the parents, then blackmailed his client?”
Colby shifted in his seat, then leaned forward looking genuinely disturbed. “I’ve got a lot to answer for,” he admitted. “But what I did, I had good reasons for. My boy has special needs that insurance don’t cover. But I swear, with God as my witness, as far as Sweeny and Dumont, the last thing I wanted was to bring the law down on top of me. They were both alive when I last saw them. I wanted
you
on my tail.”
Colby held his cup with both hands without taking a sip. “Dorn’s been sanitizing the trail,” he realized. “How did you find me?”
Cal ignored the question. Gloria Hauer had suffered enough without killers coming after her family. “Why would you want me to find your trail?” Cal asked. “There’s no payday if the prince survives.”
Dretch took a sip of coffee and looked off toward the man playing with his dog. “Looks like a fucking Cialis commercial,” he said pointing at the scene.
“Answer the question.”
“I agreed to the job before I knew what I was signing on to,” Colby confessed. “I thought it was a rich mob father trying to find his son in witness protection. The money they were offering … it was obscenely generous. All my lifelong instincts that warn me when something’s too good to be true got trounced by the answer to all my prayers. My kid … he needs … but…” Colby paused, gazing again into the distance, looking to all the world like a man that wanted to switch places with that boy and his dog.
“They took my heart,” Dretch said in one raspy breath. He waited for it to sink in.
“Sucks for you,” Cal said evenly.
“I’m pretty sure they’re lying about putting it back.”
“When you sleep with dogs…” Cal struggled to remain civil, but he really didn’t like the guy; and besides, there was little he could threaten a walking corpse with anyway. “What do you want from me, Dretch? How do I get my prince back?”
“You got a magic guy?” the dick asked.
“Of course,” Cal exaggerated, like this was par for the course. As far as Colby knew, Cal had a platoon of wizards at his disposal. Dretch didn’t need to know it consisted of a student and an idiot.
“Here’s how I see things,” Dretch continued. “Either I can’t be fixed, in which case, nuts to all you fuckers; or I can be made normal again and I want to hear your best offer.”
Dretch looked vulnerable, desperate. The dick had one foot out the door toward abandoning his master. Dretch broadcasted too much—he was probably better at negotiating when the stakes weren’t so personal. Something didn’t jibe here … why would it be
nuts to all you fuckers
if no one was able to fix him? There was still the payday … he could hand over the prince and get his money and at least his heart back? Cal suspected more than just self-preservation prompted Dretch’s shift in loyalties.
Cal played a hunch.
“I’m not sure he’s worth the effort or the risk,” Cal said. “The prince is a delinquent: assault and battery, destruction of property—patricide. His having been raised away from his guardians has tainted him. I’m having a hard time imagining him running an empire.”
“You believe everything you read?” Dretch said.
“He must be a handful. Aren’t you worried he’ll lift your wallet and cut your throat while you sleep? I know you wouldn’t die, but he doesn’t know that and it could get pretty annoying walking around with your head in your arms.”
“About as annoying as it is for you to walk around with your head up your ass,” Dretch said. “I trust that kid more than half the priests in Brooklyn.”
“That a fact?”
Dretch was about to respond when the realization that Cal had outmaneuvered him filtered into his expression. MacDonnell smiled and wondered if he should have gone down the homicide track instead of ESU.
Dretch wore the grin of the defeated. “Danny’s smarter and tougher than either of us,” he said. “Staked out that kid for twenty-four hours after I came down here, trying to figure out my options.” Dretch talked at length about the profile he scraped together. The gumshoe had seen his share of deadbeat drunken dads and mentally short mothers in his line of work over the years, but Clyde and Rita were real pieces of work. “No one gave him any breaks,” the detective said. “But he stands up for what he believes. The kid has heart.
“Daniel stood up for his friends and never cared about the odds … yet most of the adults in his life, especially the ones that were supposed to be looking out for him, were MIA. That sheriff tried to help, but it was too little too late. Total system failure. I didn’t expect Danny to kill his old man, though. The crazy sot made it hard for him not to.”