The Devil Is a Gentleman (6 page)

“Lou Craig,” I said. He was a former prison guard who had helped us in the past. I trusted him enough to act as a bodyguard for Sofi when she was in the hospital. “He’s the only one I would trust with this.”

“Thanks a lot,” he said.

“Present company excluded, of course,” I said, smiling at him.

He snorted. “Whatever. Why you so gung-ho to protect her?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “She’s innocent. And she has a daughter to think about.”

“Project much?” he said. I ignored him.

“Hi Lou, it’s Niki,” I said into the phone. “I was wondering if you’d be interested in some work tonight.” I looked at Clancy jumping up onto Olivia playfully. “Might run into tomorrow, too.”

Gage arrived at my apartment just as I was finishing my third cup of coffee. “Ready?” he said, helping himself to a cup.

“I’ve been ready since six,” I said. “Where’ve you been?”

“Getting my casting books together,” he said, taking a sip. “You know, just in case.” He patted the satchel slung across his chest.

“Boy Scout, huh?” I said, smiling.

“Be prepared,” he said. “You look like hell.”

“Thanks,” I said. I had not slept well. I tried Eli’s number after Gage dropped me off, but reached the voicemail again. And there was the cryptic message from the office of Eliza Michaels on the answering machine.
It is extremely urgent that the commissioner speak with you,
the nervous-sounding administrative assistant said. After I met Eliza I realized why he always seemed terrified. She would be an intimidating boss. I felt relieved to be leaving after just a ten-minute meeting; I couldn’t imagine spending all day with the woman.

I tapped a finger on the newspaper spread out on the table. “See the papers?” I said.

“No,” Gage said, coming over and looking at the front page. He grimaced as he saw the headline:
Charred Remains Believed To Be Congressman.

“Guess I could’ve predicted that,” he said. “If Dorrance wants his seat in Congress, he’s gotta prove Bradley’s gone for good, right?”

“Why are you so sure Dorrance is involved?” I said.

Gage shrugged. “These rich guys are always up to no good. Especially politicians. Plus, he looks shifty.”

“There’s something else, too,” I said. I flipped the page to a black-and-white picture of a burning house. “Recognize that?”

Gage narrowed his eyes. “Bradley’s house?”

“Sure is,” I said. “I called Lou Craig, Olivia is fine. He’s going to stay with the family a few more days.”

“Good thing you insisted she leave last night. Saved her life. So you ready or what?” Gage said.

“You tell me,” I said, pulling up my pant leg to show the little derringer strapped there, then lifting my jacket to show off my shoulder-holster. “Pretty fancy, eh?” I said.

“You girls and your firearms,” he said. “I’ll get the car.”

Gage double-parked so I could run from the door to the car. “Thanks,” I said, closing the car door. My cell phone vibrated in my pocket and I looked at the number. I assumed it would be the commissioner’s office again, but the number was unknown. I answered it. “Hello?”

“It’s Naz,” said the voice on the other end. “Is very important.”

“Naz?” I said. “I was going to call you later. I need to talk to you.”

“You come, right now, yeah?”

“Now?” I said. “No, we’re going-”

“Nikita, this is not a discussion. You come to me where Sasha disappeared.”

“What? Why?”

“Just say you will come, Nikita,” he said. His voice was panicked, strained.

“Okay, I’ll come,” I said. “We’re on our way.”

“Just you,” he said.

“I’m with Bobby Gage,” I said.

“The big man?” he said. The line was silent for a moment. “Fine,” he said. “But tell him to wait outside. I need to talk to you alone.”

“What’s this about?” I said.

“I tell you when you get here. It concerns you, Sasha, me. Everyone.” The line went dead. I snapped the phone shut.

“What was that about?” said Gage. “It was Naz?”

“He wants me to meet him at the warehouse where Sasha disappeared,” I said. “He said it was urgent.”

“You don’t think he wants to, you know,” Gage drew a finger across his throat, “finish us off?”

“I think if he wanted to do that, we’d be dead already,” I said. “Besides, I want to ask him about Frank Bradley. He wants to talk to me alone. Do you mind?”

“Waiting in the car?” he said.

“I’m really sorry, Bobby,” I said. “He sounded different, though. I think I should talk to him.”

“How do you know he’s not going to kill you? You think that’s smart? All alone with a Russian mob guy? ”

“Ukrainian,” I said.

“Whatever,” he said. “He’s a coward and I don’t trust him.”

“Do you trust me?” I said.

“Of course. How can you ask that?”

“If you trust me,” I said, “then please, just let me do this one thing, okay? I’ll make it up to you, I promise.” I tapped the gun, hidden beneath my jacket in my holster. “I do know how to use this thing.”

Gage snorted. “You’d probably be better in a fight than I am. Fine,” he said. “Go alone if you have to. But I’ll be right around the corner. If I hear anything, I’ll come running.”

“To do what?”

He shrugged. “Dunno. But you can bet it’ll be goddamn fantastic.”

As we passed the empty space where the Deep Blue Sea used to be, I felt a pang of sadness. I was still mad at Sam for rushing me out and disappearing, then realized, to my surprise, that I
wanted
to see Sam. Not to get paid, or to ask him questions that no one else could answer, or even to yell at him about Eli or some other manipulation. I just wanted to see him and talk to him. I frowned. Best not to think about that too deeply right now.

We pulled up to the warehouse just as the sun was coming up. I looked at the abandoned building, which looked even worse in the light than it had a month ago, when my father had been sucked into the earth in an attempt to save my life. The ground was littered with corroded tin and rotted wood. Gage and I, both remembering, looked up toward the roof, which had been the exit for Abaddon when he fled the building. We had followed him through the city to the edge of what turned out to be a gateway to Hell. I shot Abaddon with cartridges full of rock salt. I still had dreams about the demon’s insides melting out through the gaping hole in his neck.

The warehouse was leaning slightly, towards the river. “Hopefully it’ll stay standing until after I come out,” I said. I looked at Gage. “Where will you be?” I said. I spotted the wandering ghosts out of the corner of my eye and looked out at them all, feeling slightly sick. They had helped me the last time I was here. I’d asked them to. One of them had even known my name. But spirits had short memories, especially lately. And if I’d learned anything the past few weeks it was that I didn’t want them to know who I was anymore. They could turn into a desperate mob in an instant, and I would rather fight any demon again than feel their cold hands trying to grab inside of me. I shivered.

“They still here?” said Gage.

“Of course,” I said. “Where are they going to go? No one crosses anymore.”

“We’ll get to the bottom of it,” he said, his voice uncharacteristically gentle. “He nodded to the warehouse. “You sure about this?”

I nodded.

“I’ll park over there, behind that tree.” He pointed down the block at a thick-trunked oak tree that had seen better days. It was bare, either from the long winter, or because it was dead. “My car won’t look out of place around here. Looks like part of the junk.” He smiled and I couldn’t help smiling back.

“Be careful,” he said.

The ghosts weren’t as thick as the ones on my street, and I managed to slip into the back door of the warehouse with only a few murmurings and formless gropings. I shook myself as I entered, trying to rid myself of the slimy feeling of their touch. I walked through the aisles of lashed-together forty-gallon drums to the loading dock. The place where Sasha had disappeared.

Naz was pacing back and forth across the floor when I entered. Everything was eerily the same as the last time I’d been here, except for the view of the sky through the gigantic hole in the roof. Naz stopped pacing when he saw me. He was disheveled and unshaven and alone. I looked around for henchmen or cronies, or whatever the strange men in expensive suits that went everywhere with Naz were called. No one.

“Don’t you have some lackeys around here somewhere?” I said. I walked toward him, but when I saw his pained expression and wild eyes my smile faded. “What is it?” I said. “What’s happened?”

He motioned us over to some overturned crates and we sat down. Naz looked hard at me. “You look well,” he said.

“Knock it off,” I said. “Tell me what’s going on.”

He nodded and ran a shaky hand through his hair. I could see the faded tattoos peeking out from his leather jacket, crawling up his neck through his button-up shirt. He stamped a foot on the cement. “You know I love you like family, Nikita. You know this.”

“I know you left me to die when Sasha showed up with Abaddon,” I said.

He waved a dismissive hand. “He would never hurt you,” he said. He raised an eyebrow. “But he had every reason in the world to tell that demon to rip my heart out, just like the others.”

“What are you talking about?” I said. “You were his closest friend. Why would he want to kill you? You took over his business when he got arrested.”

“Yes,” he said. “I took it over.” He shook his head. He spread his hands out on his knees and looked down at them, then turned them to look at his palms. “I have done things I am not proud of, Nikita. Terrible, terrible things. I have been greedy. And a coward. But I will not do this thing.”

“What thing?” I said. “What the hell are you talking about? Jesus, Naz, you’re scaring me. Just tell me what’s going on.”

He looked at me and smiled, but the warmth didn’t reach his pale eyes. They had always seemed cold to me: pale and cool, like ice. He looked away. “Your father and I, we worked for some people. Bad people. But they had so much money. More than they knew what to do with. Nothing is more dangerous than a man with too much money. He gets bored, yeah? Does things no sane man would do. And he laughs. These men, they laugh often. They give us money. And we do terrible things for them.”

I remembered the pictures from Bradley’s office. Pictures of laughing men and women, smiling with Naz. I was afraid that if I spoke it would break the spell, and Naz would stop telling me what he wanted to tell me. But I couldn’t help it, I had to know. “Who are they?” I said quietly.

Naz took out a pack of cigarettes from his pocket and lit one, looking at me. He blew out a cloud of smoke. “They call themselves The Blood,” he said. “I thought it was funny at first. I was young and stupid. I thought everything was funny. A bunch of rich old men calling themselves a scary name. Later, I did not think it so funny.”

“The Blood,” I said. “I’ve heard that name before.”

“Yes?” he said, surprised. “Then you are lucky you are still walking around, breathing. They do not like to be known. They make people disappear.”

“Like Frank Bradley,” I said.

“Yes, like him,” said Naz. “Bradley was different, though. It will be useful for him to be found, I think. Useful to Dorrance, anyway. There were other disappearances, though. I ordered many of these.”

“Did you burn down his house last night?” I said.

“No one was in it,” he said.

“What if there had been?” I said. “What if his wife and daughter had been there?”

“The women are smart,” he said. “They know when things are dangerous. I knew the wife would be far away.”

“So, what about Sasha?” I said. “What did he do?”

He laughed, but it turned into a cough, and then a near-sob. “Sasha thought he was working
with
them. Like an equal. He could not have been more wrong. When he was gone they were laughing at him. They didn’t hide it. But Sasha was getting stronger. Stronger than they ever imagined. The Blood, they get scared. Scared he would kill them all. Scared he would open up Hell and let them all fall in. They wanted me to make him disappear. But you cannot do that to a man like Alexei Slobodian. He does not disappear easy, yeah?” He ground out his burning butt with the heel of his boot. He closed his eyes, as if remembering. “I arranged the arrest,” he said softly. “The Blood gave him one last job. Job only he could do. Impossible job. Summon Abaddon, the unsummonable demon. And while he was vulnerable, I arranged the arrest. I had a man in the Police who worked for me. He made it all happen.”

“Mike Shippley,” I said. Shipp had been Eli’s partner and his friend. He also set Eli and me up. It had been Naz that told me he was dirty.

“Yes. All working smoothly until your friend got mixed into this.”

“Eli was Shipp’s partner,” I said. “He could have been killed.”

“Yes,” said Naz. “That is what Shipp said, too. He wanted out.”

“So he disappeared, too,” I said. “He didn’t run away, did he? You took care of him.”