Джеймс Паттерсон - Lost

She smiled slyly. “Now, that’s a good question. The youngest Gratny boy shot him.”

“How do you know that?”

“Because I heard him tell Bean Pole, who lives in the apartment next to me.”

I glanced up at the detective to see if he knew who Bean Pole was. He nodded, looked at Miss Hazel, and said, “Why didn’t you say that at the beginning of our interview?”

She said, “I don’t know you from the pope. But I know Thomas. He won’t tell anyone what I told you. And he wouldn’t have asked the question in front of you if he thought you’d tell anyone.”

Now the homicide detective owed me a big favor.

Chapter 20

THAT EVENING, LILA slipped out again with some friends, this time to go dancing in Fort Lauderdale. Looking after both my mom and the kids that day had sapped my last bit of strength.

Which was why I was sleeping so hard when Lila called in the middle of the night.

“Hey, are you okay?” I asked.

“I am great, big brother,” she slurred. “Come down to the beach and join me. That way you can give me a ride home when I’m done.”

“It sounds like you’re already done. How much have you had to drink?”

“Just a few vodka-and-cranberries and some champagne.”

I heard someone say something behind her and caught snatches of music. I figured she was in the ladies’ room or maybe outside one of the clubs.

Lila added, “Oh, and we had a few shots too.”

Ever since men started realizing my little sister was a beauty, I’d told her that if she had too much to drink she should call me and I’d come pick her up, no questions asked. I didn’t mind missing a little sleep if it meant my sister didn’t accept a ride from a stranger.

I said, “Where are you?”

“Beach Rockets, between Sunrise Boulevard and Las Olas.”

“Isn’t that the new place for spring-breakers? I thought it had a young crowd.”

“I’m only twenty-four! Just because I act like an old person around you and Mom doesn’t mean I’m not young. It’s a fun dance club and tonight was ladies’ night.”

“Okay, I’ll be there in twenty minutes.”

I slipped through the house quietly. There were kids sleeping on couches and air mattresses everywhere. At least, that’s how it felt. I checked to make sure my mom was asleep.

I was a little nervous about leaving, but I had no choice. I didn’t want to wake up six kids and drive them twenty minutes to wait outside a bar. Everyone had my phone number, and they all knew how to use the house phone. Kids in the U.S. might not know what a landline was, but these kids did.

When I pulled up to trendy Beach Rockets, I could feel the music pulsing through the walls even from my car. The bright colors and decorative rockets near the door covered up the fact that the place had been a dive bar six months ago. Of course Lila wasn’t waiting outside for me, and she wasn’t answering her phone. I could hear the beat of the bass through the thick concrete walls, so there was no way she could hear her phone inside the club.

It’d been a while since I’d had to pass a bouncer and a uniformed cop working the door to get into a dance club in Fort Lauderdale. Or anywhere else, for that matter.

The place wasn’t all that big, but I didn’t see Lila. I stood there for a few minutes, hoping she’d walk by. Then someone said, “Are you waiting for your sister?”

I was about to say yes, but then I turned and saw who had asked me the question: Rostoff’s man Billy. Billy the Blade. His blue goatee seemed to make his teeth glow in the low light of the club. And standing at the bar right behind him, wearing a goofy smile, was Tibor, the tall Russian I’d smacked. Even in the dark, I saw the flowering tattoo running up to his face.

Chapter 21

I STARED AT the two Russians casually drinking Budweisers at the end of the bar. My right hand involuntarily moved toward the department-issued Glock that was stuck in my waistband with my shirt hanging over it.

It was one of the few times I was at a complete loss for words. I wanted to just pull my pistol and put a bullet in the face of each of these lowlifes.

Billy, as friendly as ever, said, “Lila was here just a minute ago. I’m sure she’ll be right back.”

The other Russian, Tibor, winked at me.

I don’t know what he thought would happen. I don’t know who they were used to dealing with. But it didn’t matter. I brought my hand up to his crotch and used the strength I’d been working on since the coach had told me I needed a better grip on the football twenty years ago. I felt Tibor’s testicles mash in the palm of my hand.

He gasped and his eyes rolled back in his head as I maintained my hold and pushed him against the bar. No one saw what was going on except for his friend Billy.

I turned to Billy and calmly said, “My next move will be to rip his balls right off him. I doubt he wants that to happen. What do you think?”

Billy struggled to maintain his composure and said, “I think you just committed felony assault. I think you need to release him right now. We’re part owners of this club and there’s a Fort Lauderdale police officer working the front door.”

“Why don’t you go get him? I’ve got a few questions to ask him myself. And if I don’t see my sister in the next thirty seconds, your buddy here isn’t going to have any kids and you’re going to have a pistol stuck halfway down your throat. Is that what you want to happen in your nice little club here?”

Then I heard Lila from the other end of the bar. “Hey, Tommy, I see you met my friends.”

I turned to see my little sister wobbling toward me with a stunning young woman whose arm was draped around her shoulder.

I released Tibor’s balls. He stumbled back and plopped onto a barstool without a word.

I turned to Billy and said, “This is not cool.”

“What do you mean? Your sister making new friends? I thought it was very cool.”

Lila came up to me, unaware of any potential violence, and said, “This is Nadia, Billy, and”—she looked at the man I had nearly castrated—“and their friend.”

I took her by the arm and started to drag her out of the club.

Lila tried to yank her arm away from me and said, “Hey, what the hell are you doing? I thought you were okay with me calling you for a ride now and then.”

We burst out of the club into the warm night air of South Florida. No one paid any attention to us.

This wasn’t the time to explain things to her. As soon as we were both in my Explorer, I pulled out of the spot and rolled past the club.

Billy stood just outside the door and gave me a friendly smile and a wave.

Chapter 22

THE TALK WITH Lila went about like I’d expected it would. She said I was too suspicious; I told her she was too naive. In the end, she agreed not to go back to that club or any of the other ones Rostoff owned. She also promised she’d check in with Anthony Chilleo every couple of days while I was away.

Chill told me that he’d keep an eye on things. When a guy like Anthony Chilleo tells you he’ll take care of something, you can be confident it will be taken care of.

Two days later, the kids and I were all on a KLM flight from Miami International to Amsterdam. The two youngest girls were next to me, and the other four kids were across the aisle spread out over two rows in front of me. The man across from me asked if we were on some sort of school field trip. Some of the passengers looked relieved I wasn’t sitting beside them. No one wants to be stuck next to a big guy in economy for eleven hours.

The kids were not excited about going back to Amsterdam. Annika from Finland had told me she lived there with her mother, but her mother’s drug problem had gotten so bad that she could no longer function. Once Annika’s mother had gotten into the social services network of Holland, Annika had lost touch with her completely. Two months ago, she’d learned her mother had died, and she’d decided to start fresh in the United States. She met a woman who promised to get her to America and said Annika could work off the debt once she got there. She had no other choice at that point.