Over the Line (16 page)

Where the hell is Meyers?

He was doing this on purpose. Making Max wait. Making him sweat. Bastard knew exactly what he was doing. And Max couldn't do anything but take it.

He checked his watch. All of five minutes had passed since the last time he'd looked.

The tightness in his chest had intensified to an ache when a hard clap on his back damn near knocked him off the bar stool.

"Cogan," Herb Meyers said in a jovial, good-ole-boy greeting. "Sorry to keep you waiting, partner."

Max closed his eyes, gripped his glass with both hands. He drew a settling breath and lied between his teeth. "It's okay. I haven't been here that long myself."

Just long enough to know he had a message on his cell phone from Jason Wilson that he needed to return but couldn't deal with until he got past this meeting with Meyers.

Max forced himself to look at Meyers. Made himself smile at the droopy-eyed, bulldog-jowled man who used to be his bookie but was now a lieutenant in the organization. Meyers's barrel belly strained the buttons on a limp white shirt and folded over a pair of baggie brown Bermudas. He smelled of sour sweat and casinos.

Herb Meyers looked like a schlep. Red, ruddy face beneath a Friar Tuck pate, fat, freckled arms, and an embarrassment of grayish-red hair curling out of every visible orifice.

Yeah. He looked the part of a chump. A patsy. And he owned Max Cogan right down to his tighty whities.

"Me," Herb said conversationally, after motioning the bartender to bring him a draw, "I like sitting lakeside in my own backyard. Sweet breeze off Superior. Shaded under an umbrella. Give me Chicago and leave the Jersey shore to the gamblers. Too damned hot in July. And bars... bars just ain't my thing. Even hoity-toity ones like this."

"To each his own," Max said, and drained his glass. He rattled the ice and slid it across polished mahogany toward the bartender, who promptly refilled it.

"Speaking of own," Herb said, twisting sideways in his chair and looking directly at Max, "guess you could say you own the corner on bad luck lately, huh, partner?"

Max shook another smoke out of his pack. "I'm on a little downward streak, yeah."

Herb grunted. "You're on a mud slide, Maxie. Like one of them big ones out in California that wipes out everything in its path."

Max could feel Herb's beady eyes bore into the side of his face and knew what was coming next.

"I just need a little more time, Herb. Things will turn around. You know I'm good for the money."

Herb managed to look sad. "That's an old song, partner. And this is the second time in two weeks we've had this conversation. Me and my backers are growing a mite weary of hearing it."

A sharp pain stabbed Max right beneath his sternum. He breathed deep. Dug for the antacids again.

"But here's the deal, Maxie. You've been a good customer over the years. That's why they flew me out here to have this little face-to-face. To let you know we understand. That we're willing to work with you."

Work
with
him? So why did he feel like he was about to get worked over?

"You've got forty-eight hours, Max. That's a four and an eight. You come up with the two hundred K by then, okay, buddy?"

Jesus.

Max chased the antacid with a stiff hit from his gin. "You've got me by the balls here, Herb. I can't get you that much money that soon."

Herb sucked the foam off his draw, then wiped the mustache off his mouth with the back of his hand. He snagged a beefy handful of peanuts from a communal bowl. "How much can you come up with?"

"Thirty, maybe forty K." Max stared at his glass, waited for the fallout.

Herb chomped noisily on the nuts, then finally swallowed. "Not good, Maxie. Not good," he said, after downing another deep draw on his beer.

No. It was not good.

"That little girl... that client of yours. What's her name? Janey. Janey, right?"

Max could suddenly hear his heart beat in his ears. Feel every pump like a sledgehammer on his chest. "She's got nothing to do with this."

"Word is, she's big-ticket. Really raking in the coin," Herb continued as if he hadn't heard Max. "I'm thinking she might be a good place to look for that money you can't find."

"You leave her out of this," Max ground out as panic paired with the pain in his chest to make him dizzy.

"Let's get something straight here, Maxie." Herb's chum smile disappeared. A sneer that had earned him the nickname Herb the Hatchet morphed his face from bulldog sad to pit bull mean. "You ain't callin' the shots on account of you got nothing for collateral. Nothing but that girl."

Max felt his blood gel in his veins, smelled his own sweat. "Look. I screwed up. I know it. But you want retribution, you take it out on me."

He hadn't realized he'd raised his voice until the bartender shot him a questioning look. He turned to face Herb. "You take it out on me," he repeated in a low, strained voice.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, buddy." Herb offered up another one of his good-ole-boy smiles. "Have you heard me say anything about retribution? Course not. We just want our money, but we're getting into that blood-out-of-a-turnip area here, Maxie. Can't be done."

He clamped his beefy hand on Max's shoulder, squeezed until it hurt. "We ain't gonna hurt you. And that pretty little blonde?" He shook his head. "I understand she's like a daughter to you, right? Must be hard for her, what with her momma getting killed and all."

Max locked his gaze onto Herb's. And froze statue still. Jesus. They wouldn't have killed Alice Perkins. Would they?

"Be a damn shame if something was to happen to little Janey now, too, wouldn't it?" Herb went on, his eyes on Max as he hoisted his beer.

"So help me God, if you hurt her—"

"Hey. No cause to get excited. I was just making conversation."

"I don't have the money." Max pleaded with his eyes, not for himself but for Janey.

"She does," Herb said with a long, meaningful look. "She does."

"Forty-eight hours, Max," he repeated. Then he finished his beer and walked out of the bar.

Max breathed past the pain in his chest.

Jesus.

Jesus.
What the hell was he going to do?

He sat for another half an hour, downed another gin and smoked his last two cigarettes before he was calm enough to get up from the bar stool.

Outside, under the blinding July sun, he told himself he'd figure something out. Get a loan. Hit up a friend.

Who was he kidding? He didn't have any friends with that kind of cash. And the only way he'd get any money out of a bank was if he robbed it. His credit was for shit.

Janey. God. He couldn't ask her. Couldn't bear to have her know about his gambling problem.

His cell phone vibrated in his pocket, startling him.

He dug it out, fumbled with the flip cover when he saw Wilson's name on the digital readout.

"Yeah."

"I've been trying to reach you," the kid said.

"I've been busy, okay?" he snapped for no particular reason except that he felt guilty for being out of touch and his control was pushed to the limit.

"You might want to get back to the hotel, sir," Wilson said. "There's been an incident."

Janey.

The bastards. The bastards had already gone after Janey. He gripped the phone in both hands, a film of sweat suddenly covering his body. "Is Janey okay?"

"She's fine. A little shaken but fine."

Christ. Oh, thank you, Jesus Christ. She's okay.

The sweat on his body turned cold and clammy as Wilson filled him in.

Grimm. This wasn't about Meyers and his muscle but Grimm. Grimm had gotten into Janey's room. The bastard had gotten close to her!

But she was safe. She was fine. Max pulled himself together—then literally felt himself falling apart when Wilson told him the rest.

Alice Perkins had not been a random victim of a hit-and-run. Alice Perkins had been murdered.

Meyers's words came back to haunt him.

"Must be hard for her, what with her momma getting killed and all. ... Be a damn shame if something was to happen to little Janey now, too, wouldn't it?
..."

He couldn't believe it. But what else could he think? Had Meyers and his "bosses" ordered a hit on Janey's mother? Why else would Meyers have brought it up?

Because he wanted Max to know they meant business. Because they wanted Max to understand that they wouldn't have any qualms about hurting Janey if he didn't come up with the money.

Wilson was still talking when Max hung up.

He started walking. He had to think. He had to think of something fast.

Midmorning Monday, July 17th, TriBeCa, New York City

"Move it or lose it."

Jase stood away from the setup for the photo shoot, close to the catering table, where fruits and cheeses and everything from milk to freshly ground coffee waited for anyone who might want to nibble. He wasn't close enough to Janey to hear her whispered warning to Derek McCoy but could read her lips. Out of necessity, Jase had gotten better at that over the past months.

Just like during the past few days he'd gotten better at reading Derek McCoy and the rest of the entourage on the tour.

They'd made the quick flight from Atlantic City to the Big Apple this morning while the road crew had torn down the set after the concert last night and driven the semis with the set and sound equipment here. Another sold-out concert was on tap for tonight at Madison Square Garden, but at the moment, Janey was in the middle of a photo shoot for a new album cover.

Janey being Janey—not nearly the spotlight hound Jase had pegged her for—had insisted on including the band on the cover.

Jase suspected she was now having second thoughts— at least where McCoy was concerned. He glared at McCoy, who had positioned himself directly behind Janey—apparently for the sole purpose of taking liberties with his hands. Hands that were currently clutching her low on one bare hip and high on her bare rib cage, just below her left breast.

The guy was a frickin' weasel. And in the background, Chris Ramsey was filming it all for posterity, a pleased smirk on her face.

"I said move it," Janey warned McCoy again.

Jase shifted from one foot to the other, stalling an itch to add a little of his own suggestions to the mix. But in a very short time he'd learned not to underestimate Janey Perkins.

A weaker woman would have fallen apart yesterday. Janey had had some bad moments, yeah, but then she'd put them behind her. She'd let it go. And today, you'd never know she was being stalked by a sicko who might have murdered her mother.

Janey was tough and she was strong. And short of McCoy getting flat-out abusive, Jase was going to let her handle the creep in her own good time.

That didn't mean he liked seeing McCoy paw at her. Still, he watched, and he waited, his jaw clenched, his entire body coiled tight in anticipation of a reason to move in and flatten the asshole.