Shoot 'Em Up (20 page)

We sat at the smooth white quartz table drinking Peroni and eating Coalfire pepperoni pizza straight from the box like a couple of heathens. I'd changed into Lululemon sweats and Gold-Toe athletic socks. “Thanks for getting this,” I said around a hot mouthful of extra tomato-saucy heaven.

“Thanks for allowing me to dine at the table, princess.” Lee's arms bulged from the short-sleeved heather-gray T-shirt with UMD Hockey emblazoned across it and a pair of jeans faded to butter soft. He shook some more red pepper flakes onto his slice, eyes surveying the room. “I can see why you dragged this assignment out.”

“Gee, you're a sweetheart.”

His jaw slid sideways. “You wanna see how sweet I can be?”

I got up from the table and went into the kitchen, rummaged around, and returned with two cut-crystal lowball glasses, ice, and the bottle of Tovaritch! vodka from the freezer.

Lee kept eating while I poured out two healthy slugs.

I slid a glass in front of him and raised my own, Stannis's words rolling smoothly off my tongue, “Because one must burn a candle for the devil now and again.”

Lee threw his pizza crust in the box. He picked up his vodka with a scoff and drained it.

I poured him another. And another.

He still drank like a Marine. Steadily and with purpose.

Lee held out his glass.

I slid the bottle out of reach. “What gives?”

“Did you fuck him?”

“No,” I said, patiently. “Stannis is gay.”

“So?” He set down his glass, eyes scanning the room. “I wasn't asking about him. Yet.”

“What?”

“Did. You. Fuck. Sawyer?”

My mouth dropped open in a perfect O. “Walt?
Walt Sawyer?
”

He stared at me, alert and watchful, looking for any hint, any give. There weren't any.

Jerk.
“I never figured you for the kind of guy who liked to be slapped around.”

“How'd you hook Renko?”

I didn't exactly feel like sharing. “I reminded him of his sister.”

“Sure you did.”

“See this?” I wound a strand of copper-colored hair around my finger. “She was a redhead.”

“You fall for The Butcher? Is that why you claimed the blame for Coles's finger? Or was it just to get ahead in Special Unit?”

“Screw you, Sharpe.”

His brown eyes went flinty. “You offering?”

“Get up.” I walked past him and turned down the hall to Stannis's study. Anger churned in my gut. I grabbed the levers and threw back the doors, Lee tight on my heels.

I flipped on the dim recessed lights. The office was huge, and matched the house in masculine sophistication: Wood walls were stained a misty pewter; a thick charcoal rug anchored black leather seating in front of a sleek fireplace. One end of the room remained in shadows. I pointed to the far end of the room, at the raw steel desk in front of the wall of sleek cabinetry.

“Stannis use to have this big glass jar”—I patted the desk—“right here. He called it ‘his legacy.'”

Lee went behind the desk, sat down, and put his feet up. “What'd he have in it?”

“Torture trophies. Bones of the fingers he'd taken.”

“Nice.”

“Which way do you want it, Lee? That I cut Coles's finger off? Or that I'm too sweet to have done it?”

“The truth.”

I tipped my head at the chair. “Coles was restrained there. Cable-tied.”

Lee ran his hands along the sides of the leather arm pads of the chair, feeling for ridges left from the cable ties, frowning when he felt them. “So?”

The room narrowed, dimming at the edges. The malodorous stink of Coles's fear clogged my nose as my mind crashed through the chasm in time.

Stannis had gone still, but energy hummed off him like a leaking nuclear reactor. “I am
Mesar
. The Butcher. You have choice to make, Talbott,” he had said flatly. “Maisie will take finger or I will take your hand.”

The mayor sagged forward, his voice more a moan than a mumble. “Giveherit.”

“What?” Stannis asked politely.

“Give her the goddamn knife!” Coles's face went a dark mottled red. He put his left pinkie on the chopping block.

Stannis's bright blues filled with emotion as he turned to me. “Claim your place,
Vatra Anđeo
.”

I walked to the edge of the desk, as stiff and jerky as a bird. “I don't think I can do this.”

Stannis placed the battered handle of the hoary iron cleaver in my hand. It was heavy and vicious, with a strange two-sided blade.

I squeezed my eyes shut.

“Open your goddamn eyes!” Coles snapped.

I raised the cleaver up past my chin. Stannis reached out, lowered my wrists down to slightly beneath my shoulders, and nodded.

Oh God.
I took a deep breath.
One . . .

I swung the blade down as hard as I could.

It felt like chopping a piece of ballistics gel with a piece of glass in the middle.

Coles screamed and jerked up his arm, spittle and blood spraying as he cursed. Stannis grabbed his forearm and wrapped his hand in a white cotton towel.

Stannis grinned at me, the enormous, closemouthed smile of a proud parent. He nodded and reached out his hand to my face. “
Vatra Anđeo.
” He wiped his thumb across my cheek, then held his hand away to show me the blood he'd rubbed off.

My vision dimmed at the edges. I knew what he wanted me to say. So I did. “
Moj đavo.
”

And all the while, Coles kept swearing, the pristine white towel on his hand soaking bright red with blood.

“Hey! Hello?” Lee rapped on the desktop. “Maisie?”

I blinked and shook my head. “Sorry.”

Maybe it was Lee, or the time that had passed, or that after stubbing his cigar out on my neck Coles deserved any and everything he got, but somehow the intensity of the recollection felt . . . less. Smaller and more faded than it had since it happened.

I cleared my throat. “Coles put out a hit on me. Stannis took it personally. He told Coles I would take his finger or he'd take his hand.”

Lee gave that chin-lifting
I'm not buying, but go ahead with your pitch
nod. “Coles, I'm assuming, opted for the loss of a digit?”

I nodded.

“Where is it? The finger?”

“Gone.”

He nodded. “Convenient.”

“Last time I saw it, it was over here.” I strode to the darkened end of the room, to the granite plinth that the clear glass cube rested on. Lee followed tight behind. I felt along the side for the light switch and turned it on. The large glass aquarium atop the column lit up.

The floor of the cage was covered in cedar shavings and dead black beetles.

He knocked his knuckle against the glass. “What are those?”

“
Staphylinidae
. Corpse beetles.” I slid open the top of the cage and pointed at the right rear corner. “I put Coles's finger there. It was . . . still warm.”

Lee's brows knit together, mouth sinking at the corners. He believed me and he didn't like it.

“And the jar?” he asked.

“Maybe someday, sometime, if you're real nice, I'll show it to you.”

* * *

I was up long before my four-thirty alarm. I took the elevator down and knocked out a four-mile run on the treadmill in the empty gym. Showered and snappy in a DVF navy V-neck dress and Pliner heels.

I waited until six fifteen to wake him.

Door open, I peeked my head inside.

Lee slept on his side, head buried in the crook of his arm, breathing heavily. Shirtless, he was an impressive sight. A Marine Corps tattoo on his left shoulder blade, and high on his left bicep another ink of a senior explosive ordnance disposal badge. The duvet was a crumpled pile at the foot of the bed, the top sheet a twisted mass that barely covered his butt and wound around the calves of a man who obviously never skipped leg days at the gym.

He slept as he lived. Messily.

“Rise and shine, Captain Sunshine.” I shook his ankle and turned away, not taking the odds that he had anything on beneath the sheet. “We leave for an appointment in twenty minutes.”

He groaned.

Enough for me, I spun on my heel and walked to the door. “Gah!” A pillow hit me in the back of the head. For a split second I thought about turning around and giving him what for.

His voice dropped into a deep, sexy lilt. “C'mon back, Bae.”

“You got nineteen. And bring your shoulder and back holsters,” I said without turning around, and closed the door behind me.

Twenty-two minutes later, Lee was behind the wheel of his Mustang wearing his awful suit and bitching about the subpar breakfast of a Quest bar and water, as I had no intention of sharing my newfound stash of sugar-free Amps.

“How in the hell can there not be any coffee in those digs ?”

“I'm sure they'll give you some when we get there.”

“Where are we going, anyway?”

“Nicholas Joseph's.”

“Who's that?”

“Turn onto West Grand,” I said, “and park.”

He saw the navy blue awning with the white lettering. “Christ, Maisie. I got up for this?” We got out of the car and went to the door. “They don't even open until ten.”

At that moment, the door swung open. “Maisie McGrane? Steven Schoeneck,” said a young guy in a perfectly tailored suit. He ushered us into the store and nodded at Lee. “And you must be Mr. Sharpe. Can I get either of you anything to drink?”

“Coffee'd be great,” he said and cracked a couple of knuckles.

“Tea would be lovely, Steven,” I said, “please.”

The clerk disappeared, and Lee scanned the showroom, rocking back and forth on the balls of his feet. Oriental rugs dotted the hardwood floors. Suited mannequins and elegant display cases of fabric swatches and ties rounded out the showroom.

Lee cracked a couple more fingers. “What is this place, anyway?”

“The best custom tailor in Chicago.”

“Uh . . . yeah.” He moved his hand in a circle. “This is a lot.”

“Don't worry, Daicen said Steven's the best and I know exactly how you need to look.”

“I meant expensive.”

“Oh! No worries there. Special Unit's picking up the tab.”

The look on Lee's face was priceless. Half-relief, half-skeptical. “What?”

“The wardrobe isn't just for Grieco's benefit.”
Although maybe Sawyer can get Nyx to foot part of the bill.
“You have to walk the walk of Renko's men for Operation Summit.”

He nodded.

Steven came back, with coffee and an abbreviated tea service on a tray. “Has anything leapt out and grabbed you yet?”

Lee grunted.

Which Steven and I both took to mean “no.”

The clerk gestured toward a room in the back. “Mr. Sharpe, why don't we step into the changing room, and begin taking your measurements?”

With an apprehensive glower, Lee disappeared.

Steven popped his head out of the door within seconds. “Miss McGrane, perhaps you wouldn't mind joining us?”

Covering a giggle with a cough, I went into the dressing room.

The changing room was more like a study from
Masterpiece Theatre
. A desk and two chairs at one end. An English tufted sofa, three-way mirror at the other.

Lee stood on an elevated three-foot-by-three-foot box, an uncomfortable and impressive sight in boxer briefs and a wife-beater. A small notebook at his feet, Steven held the pencil in his mouth and wound the tape measure around Lee's bicep.

“Mr. Sharpe, do you prefer French cuffs to standard?”

Lee glowered at me. “I don't know. Do I?”

“French cuffs on the tuxedo only,” I said.

“Are you quite certain?” Steven asked. “We could do an eight and four split of the dozen.”

“Dozen what?” Lee asked.

“Shirts, of course,” I said. “No. Standard cuffs.”

And it went on from there.

Measured within an inch of his patience, Lee promptly abandoned ship when Steven went to fetch the fabric swatches. “You choose.” He yanked on his shirt and pants.

“Lee?”

“I gotta get some breakfast.” He jammed his feet in his shoes, grabbed his suit coat, and left. His tie remained behind, forgotten on the chair.

Steven and I spent a delightful hour paging through swatches, discussing fashion trends.

Four suits with extra pants, a dozen dress shirts and ties, sports coat, trousers, topcoat, and a complete tuxedo later, I left the shop eight grand lighter and with Steven's solemn promise that one of the suits and two shirts would be done possibly by Wednesday night, Thursday afternoon at the latest.

I went outside.

Sitting behind the wheel of the Mustang, Lee was reading
The Hockey News
.

I opened the door. A plastic Subway bag of crumpled wrappers was on my seat. I tossed the bag onto the backseat and got in.

“Where to?” He closed the magazine.

“Walt wants us at the
Sentinel
.”