John Miller - Side by Side

The strangers walked straight into his den like they’d been invited, and the small one sat on the arm of the couch, while the larger one sat in the middle of it. Click’s closest handgun, a loaded Smith amp; Wesson.357, was under the couch cushion beside the larger guy’s right thigh.

Smaller weasel-looking guy took a cigarette out of a fancy red pasteboard box and lit it with what appeared to be a Dunhill lighter. “An excessive semen supply is the curse of youth. I know that as well as anyone.” He made a fist and imitated the deed in the air, leering. Larger guy smiled. “You don’t mind if I smoke, Click,” he said. It wasn’t a question.

“You don’t got a search warrant, get out.”

The small man laughed. “We’re not police officers. Of course, you don’t know who we are. How rude of me.”

Click shrugged. “Why would I know you?”

“Maybe your father mentioned me. I am with a company that does some business with your father’s boss, Mr. Laughlin.”

Click chortled. “You don’t know jack. Mr. Laughlin isn’t my father’s boss. He’s his lawyer.”

“Max here is an associate of Hunter Bryce. You know who he is?”

“Yeah, I know who he is. He’s a loser on trial for murdering a Fed. That doesn’t tell me who you are.”

“Has Peanut ever mentioned a Russian he isn’t very fond of?”

“My father hates all foreigners. He hates Russians worse than all the others put together.”

“My name is Serge Sarnov. My associate is Max Randall.” The Russian wasn’t smiling anymore.

“Cool. Now, get the hell out of my house. You know who my daddy is, then you know you don’t want to piss him off.”

“I am not concerned with angering your father,” Sarnov said.

“You ought to be,” Click said. “You sure ought to be.”

Click noticed the Randall guy wasn’t a talker. He was watching the girl on the screen. He had fought back a smile on the tonsil zinger.

Sarnov waved his hand in the air, lit cigarette and all. “Your father is a crude man,” the Russian said. “No worldview. No grasp of current events and how things outside his realm might affect him. If he feels wronged by someone, he has to retaliate physically. He is doomed.”

“He does pretty fine.”

“As long as he is in his environment, so does a red-ass baboon. Does that offend you? You are not like the other people in your family. Not at all.” Sarnov shook his trigger finger at Click like a teacher gently admonishing a student. “You are brilliant, my young friend. I have to wonder if you were adopted. I mean, I have seen your family. I know why you live all alone. You have all of the class they lack. According to Mr. Laughlin, you are a genius about to come into your own. You are the future of the Smoots.”

Click had to smile to hear that Mr. Ross Laughlin talked about him. He felt himself blushing. “So what? Peanut doesn’t allow outside people to mess with his folks, especially not his kids.”

“I didn’t come to mess with you, Click. On the contrary, I came to discuss exploring some mutually profitable opportunities that could make you an extremely rich young man.”

“Like what?”

“Like using your burgeoning skills to make a lot of money. My organization has international reach and influence. And we have intelligence channels you wouldn’t believe.”

Click said, “I can do just fine with my own people, thank you.”

“I know things you wouldn’t think I’d know.”

“About what?”

“You. You can make a little money using your credit card scams, your little computer schemes. I think if we work together, you will end up with far more than you imagine is possible. Think way above your father’s level. Mr. Laughlin is a good boss for your father, but even he is well below where you can go.”

Click wondered if Ross Laughlin was his father’s boss-the mystery moneyman who protected them. If so, this was news. According to Peanut, Ross Laughlin was an extremely powerful lawyer with major government connections. “You know about Mr. Laughlin, then you know we’ve got all the connections we’ll ever need.”

“A lesson in structure, Click. Your father works for Ross Laughlin and Ross Laughlin works as a partner in a domestic syndicate. We are a hundred times stronger in this country than Laughlin’s aging syndicate. If you are as successful as you surely imagine you will be, which you can be, how much will they let you keep?

“You know I’m telling you the truth. You know your father. You put millions of dollars on the table, and Mr. Laughlin and your father will take. .” Serge crushed out the cigarette. “. . ninety-five points, maybe more, because they will see you only as a worker and they are greedy and suspicious. They never even trusted you with the fact that Mr. Laughlin is your daddy’s and therefore your boss. And if this Judge Fondren extortion-by-kidnap scheme doesn’t work as planned, your father is going to have to accept the blame, and he might not live much longer than the woman and her child do. Even if the Fondren thing comes off, your father’s days are numbered. Your only chance at long-term security lies with me, my firm. We will let you be a real partner, and for what we offer we will take but a small percentage. I can get you the things you need to make your plans work, like access codes to accounts to loot with numbers so large you wouldn’t believe it.”

“Like what kinds of accounts and numbers wouldn’t I believe?”

“Antiquated systems controlling accounts with a combined hundred and fifty billion dollars floating around in them gathering cobwebs, with nobody keeping a very close eye on them. A man with the right ability could nibble on them for years before anybody noticed. And there are more like that all over the world.”

“You’re crazy as hell.”

“Is that a no?”

“Damned straight it is. You’re a dead man.”

“Okay.” Sarnov stood and aimed a silenced pistol at Click’s head. “Sorry we couldn’t do business.”

“You said you didn’t come to hurt me!”

“This won’t hurt at all,” Sarnov said. “At least no one has ever complained to me later that it did.”

Lucy Dockery swam up out of the void slowly, regaining consciousness to find herself back in the gritty bed in the darkened room. She was naked, and in a lot of pain, certainly made worse because she couldn’t see and had to imagine how serious the damage to her was. Her face was bruised, hair and blood was matted into stiff wafers, and she could feel lines where the skin was laid open. Her lips were split and swollen, her teeth sore but she didn’t think any were broken. Her nose was swollen to twice its size and filled with dried blood. She didn’t think any of her bones were broken, because she could move her arms and legs, fingers and toes, but the joints in her hands ached.

Her nightgown was gone, ripped from her body as she fought Buck from a hopeless position on the floor at his feet.

He hadn’t raped her. He’d stripped her, beaten her senseless, had her flat on the kitchen island with her legs apart, and he’d stopped only because Dixie and a pair of giants came in and pulled him away. Pants bunched around his ankles, he roared as the twins dragged him out the door. Dixie had called Scaly-hands “Buck.”

Lucy remembered the beating, Buck’s hideous grunts of pleasure, the terrified wails of Elijah behind a door only a few feet away. She hadn’t cried out because she couldn’t bear to have Elijah hear her screaming. It seemed so insane, so hopeless, and she didn’t have the slightest idea why these creatures were doing this to them.

Lucy knew that if she didn’t escape, she and probably Eli were going to die, and if that oaf with palms like tree bark had anything to say about it, the trip to death wouldn’t be fast or pretty.