Crush (18 page)

Rush walked around to the passenger door and rooted around under the seat. He came back with a Beretta and a Glock and offered them to Guzman. Guzman took the Beretta. Given a choice, Rush knew, he'd always pick the heavier gun.

“So how does Ivankov fit in to all this?” Rush asked.

“Stanley Trask found out I knew Ivankov. He thought it would be cool to know a gangster. You know, psychopaths like to hang together.”

“Do they?”

Guzman shrugged. “I don't know. Actually, they didn't like each other. I think they were too much alike.
Except that Ivankov had a little bit more sympathy for people he whacked. Mostly the two of them just sat around measuring their dicks.”

“Literally?”

“One time, yeah. Stanley won. Man, was Tarzan pissed about that. In the end, though, they just talked shop.”

“And?”

“That's it.”

Rush was about to ask how two middle-aged men sitting around talking about work could lead to two murders, an attempted murder, a bombed house, and a kidnapping when he was interrupted by a cell phone ringing.

Instinctively, Rush and Guzman checked their phones. The ringing wasn't coming from them.

It was coming from inside the warehouse.

“Hit the lights,” Rush told Guzman, tossing him the keys. Guzman got into the car and switched on the headlights. The beams hit the elephant door enough to illuminate the shadows within and make them look, if anything, more ominous.

“Wait here,” Rush told Guzman as he walked toward the darkness and was engulfed by it.

Eyes adjusting to the blackness inside, Rush could make out only a few cars parked in the vast expanse of dusty emptiness. A Cadillac. A Bonneville. A couple of Volvos.

The phone kept ringing with an annoying chirpy
sound, like the factory default alert on a cheap cell phone. He couldn't find the damn phone anywhere.

“We're here!” Rush shouted, his voice echoing off the cement and bouncing back to him. “Damn it, we're here! Where are you?”

The phone kept ringing. He'd run the gauntlet from LAX to here and made it in time—but it was all for nothing because he couldn't find the goddamn phone.

Rush spun on his heels, calling out to Guzman, “Shut off the headlights.”

“What?”

“Shut them off!”

Guzman complied, and the garage plunged into darkness. Rush waited a moment. The phone rang again. And with it, a faint green light pulsed from underneath the Cadillac.

Rushing across the warehouse floor, Rush dove underneath the Caddie. The cell phone was there, secured with duct tape to the undercarriage. He ripped it free and answered it just as the last ring echoed through the warehouse. Then the words appeared on the screen: ONE MISSED CALL.

They were too late.

TWENTY-FOUR

T
arzan Ivankov hit the “end” button on his iPhone the second he heard Rush pick up on the other end. At least he assumed it was Rush. It might have been Guzman. It might have been some drunken homeless person who wandered into the warehouse and saw the phone blinking. It didn't matter. He'd wait for the person to call back. Then he'd get things started.

Ivankov was a bear of a man—covered with a thick mat of hair from his toes to just below his startling blue eyes. His head was totally bald, a fact that used to irk him no end. In America, body hair was not in fashion, while head hair was considered the young man's mark of virility. He could have waxed his body thoroughly and got himself a toupee. He'd considered it. Then he figured, fuck it.
Let me be a bear
, he thought.
Let me be a gorilla. Let me be Tarzan of the Apes.

He put the phone in his pocket and flicked on the cattle prod that he carried like a walking stick. It was one of his trademarks. Along with his bald head and
hairy body. It was all part of a carefully calculated attempt to give himself an image. A legend. A mystique.

He walked across the vast expanse of the top floor of the warehouse on Almadero Street. Nothing but exposed pipes and whitewashed windows, just a few pieces of furniture: a Barcalounger and flat-screen TV attached to the wall to make it homier. It was one of Ivankov's safe houses. He had dozens of them around town, and he kept them as austere as possible, to make them more threatening to his people. No reason to make them feel comfortable anytime, anywhere.

No reason to make Trask's daughter feel comfortable either. He stopped in front of a dog crate, a wire cage that came about up to his belt buckle, so that he had to bend down to look inside. Amelia Trask was in there, curled up like one of the pit bulls he used to raise for dog fights. She raised her head and met his gaze. But she wasn't scared, not the way she should have been. She looked angry instead.

He flicked the switch on the cattle prod and stuck it between the wires of the cage, right into her flank. She let out a howling scream of pain. That was a little better. But there was still too much anger behind the pain. He'd have to break her of that.

The cell phone rang again. He yanked it from his pocket. “What do you want? I'm kind of in the middle of something.”

“We're here, damn it!” The angry man on the other end of the line must be Rush.

Ivankov chuckled. “You're too late.”

“You want something? We're here.”

“Do you have it?”

A pause on the line, then Rush said, “Of course.”

“The last man who lied to me has to have his mom wipe his ass for him.”

“My mother's dead.”

“My condolences. Take the freight elevator to the top floor. I'll be there.”

“And Amelia Trask?”

“She'll be waiting for you.” Ivankov hung up and smiled at Amelia.

“How 'bout that,
sucka
? Your boyfriend's coming to rescue you.”

“Kiss my ass!” Amelia snapped.

“Show respect!” he howled back, and he stuck the cattle prod through the cage, zapping her again until she screamed. Kneeling down on the concrete floor, he peered in at her. She was afraid. That was better, he thought with a smile.

“I'm gonna wreck you,” he said.

The rumbling sound of the freight elevator climbing to the top floor started to drown him out. Ivankov stood up irritated, then called out an order. “Here they come! Get ready!”

The three henchmen waited: Semyon, Sergei, and Danzig. They raised their Gewehr 36-C assault rifles and took aim at the elevator door.

The elevator rose and ground to a stop behind the
wooden slats of the sliding door.

There was a pause.

Then the doors split apart and a Pontiac GTO crashed through them and sped out into the middle of the room.

TWENTY-FIVE

Five minutes earlier:

M
y mother's dead,” Rush said into the phone. “My condolences,” Ivankov replied. “Take the freight elevator up to the top floor. I'll be there.”

“And Amelia Trask?”

“She'll be waiting for you.”

And he hung up.

Rush looked across the garage and saw a huge freight elevator waiting for him with its sliding door open like an angry mouth.

He turned and looked out at the GTO, parked on the street.

The wooden slat doors of the old freight elevator splintered from the impact as the GTO crashed through
them and the car charged into the warehouse like a bull released from a pen.

Ivankov's men scrambled. Sergei dived out of the way as the car wheeled around the room. Danzig collected himself and let loose a barrage from his Gewehr that pelted the side of the Pontiac. Guzman rolled down the side window and fired his Beretta.

Semyon opened fire from the other side of the room as Danzig dove for cover. Bullets struck the outside of the car and smashed the windshield into spider webs. Rush was glad he'd installed the bulletproof glass, but those bullets really were screwing up the paint job. This car was going to be a total loss.

Guzman leaned out the window, still firing, just as Rush saw the big hairy man, who must have been Ivankov, pick up a Mossberg 590 riot shotgun. A mean piece of work, both the man and the gun. Rush threw the car in reverse and planted his foot on the accelerator, smashing into Danzig on the way, throwing him across the room.

Rush slammed on the brakes and put the car in drive, wheels skidding on the concrete floor, steering the GTO right for Ivankov.

Ivankov dived to one side and the car missed him. Scrambling to his feet, he ran toward where Amelia was still crouching in her little cage. He opened the door and dragged her out, betting that Rush wouldn't plow into them both.

Rush did a three-sixty and spun around till the car
was pointed straight at Ivankov again. He gunned the motor. He was playing chicken. But both Rush and Ivankov knew who had the upper hand.

An impact shattered the side window and Rush turned to see Semyon firing at him.

Guzman leaned out the window and took a shot at him. Semyon fired again, got lucky, and hit Guzman in the right forearm. The gun flew out of Guzman's hand and he fell back in the seat, crying out in pain.

The GTO took off, Rush at the wheel, barreling straight at Ivankov. At the last minute, Rush spun a 180 and tried to take out Semyon. Sergei was laying down steady fire with another Gewehr, and Semyon jumped into the elevator for safety.

Unfortunately, the elevator had returned to the ground floor. Semyon sounded surprised all the way down.

Rush spun the GTO around and spotted Ivankov again.

He had the shotgun pointed at Amelia's head. “Get out of the car!” he shouted.

Rush sat behind the wheel, staring at Ivankov. Ivankov stared right back at him. Neither blinked.

Rush looked over at Guzman, who was slumped in the passenger seat, clutching his bleeding arm. He sighed. They had no other options. Rush turned off the engine.

“Take the keys and drop them out the window,” Ivankov said.

Rush took the keys and dropped them out the window.

“Get out!” Ivankov said.

Rush opened the car door, stepped out, and slammed it shut behind him. Guzman got out of the car, too, although in his case it was more like a fall. He kicked the door shut and slid to the concrete floor.

Ivankov smiled, victorious. He swung the shotgun around and fired at Rush.

A rubber bullet hit Rush square in the chest, and he fell back from the impact.

Ivankov smiled and turned to his surviving henchmen.

“String him up!” he said.

TWENTY-SIX

D
onleavy hesitated before ringing Stanley Trask's doorbell. Their parting had been final, irrevocable, and, to be honest, rather insulting to Donleavy. She'd told herself, as she walked away, that if Trask ever called her again, she'd tell the bastard to fuck off and hang up on him.

But when she'd returned to the office and her secretary said there was a call from Stanley Trask, she took it. A girl had to make a living.

“Yes,” she said, with just enough edge to her voice to let Trask know she wasn't happy.

“Victoria.…”

“Yes, what is it?” Nobody called Donleavy by her first name.

“I…I may have been too hasty.” Trask's voice sounded odd. Was he actually afraid?

“What's the matter?”

“Just…can you get down here? Right away?”

“Yes, of course, but—”

The call cut off. She grabbed her keys and headed back to his house. On the way, she called Trask repeatedly on his cell phone, on his house phone, on his business line. She got no answer.

Still, when she reached his door, she hesitated.
Why?
Was it that Trask had made her eat shit and now was bringing her back for more? Or was it just that she didn't want to see his ugly fish face again?

She rang the doorbell. And waited. She rang again. And waited.

Her cop instincts kicked in. She drew her Smith and Wesson from her holster and tried the door.