Tara Janzen - Loose And Easy

“A royal screwup.”

“Like it’s time to close up shop and figure out another plan.”

“No. We’re still a go here.”

“Your dad-”

“I know.”

She heard the Dax Killian version of an angry outburst, which sounded a lot like a softly muttered “for the love of God and Patsy Cline.” Burt Alden was the family curse. The fact had been highly documented over the thirty-year course of her parents’ marriage.

“What aren’t you telling me, Easy? Start at the top, and don’t forget the Cyclone.”

It was situation report time-sit-rep-or confession time, depending on a person’s point of view and level of guilt, and he wasn’t going to like this part any more than she did.

“I was recognized at the Oxford by a guy I went to high school with, John Ramos. He followed me to the office. We talked for a couple of minutes and walked out. When I saw the van was booted, I crossed Wynkoop to get a cab, and the next thing I know, he’s hauling me up Sixteenth, because Dovey Smollett, Kevin Harrell, and this other guy look like they’re out to snatch me off the street. So we do the O’Shaunessy’s-Cuppa Joe double dog dare, lose them, and end up here in one of Baby Duce’s alleys in Ramos’s Cyclone.”

It was quite a story, even in the retelling, a royal screwup, just like she’d said, but all Dax said to her was, “Kevin Harrell.”

“I know.” Kevin Harrell had been hovering near the top of Dax’s “Guy’s Who Don’t Want to Meet

Me in a Dark Alley” list for years.

“Is Dovey Smollett Greg Smollett’s little brother?”

“Yes.”

“And why in the world would a Smollett be after you? What-did you break his heart in junior high or something?”

She wished it were that simple. She really did.

“He works for Franklin Bleak.”

Dax took Patsy Cline’s name in vain again under his breath. Three times on the Patsy business, and Esme knew the shit would hit the fan.

“I want you out of there now. Go back to the office, and-no, on second thought, skip the office. They’ve got that covered. Go to Mama Guadalupe’s. I’ll meet you in the bar.”

“I’m not meeting you anywhere, until I see Nachman and get the cash. We stick to the plan, Dax. Nothing has happened here, except for a half-hour delay.” More like an hour, actually, by the time she made it to Isaac Nachman’s mountain mansion, but the Denver industrialist was her next call. She’d smooth everything over, make the delivery, get the money, and meet Dax back at the Faber Building as planned.

“A half an hour and Bleak pooching the deal, bad girl. You know what this means. Bleak is looking to put the squeeze on your dad. And who is John Ramos?” Dax said. “What’s his angle? How do you know he’s not working for Bleak, too? What was he doing? Staking out the office, and then he follows you over to-oh, wait a minute here…ah, hell, Easy, don’t tell me John Ramos is Dom Ramos’s little brother.”

Okay, Dax. Her lips were sealed.

“He’s Dom Ramos’s little brother, isn’t he?”

“Well, Dax, I’m sitting here staring at five Locos in an alley off north Delgany. I’m not at a warehouse in Commerce City staring at a few hundred cases of toilet paper and fiesta napkins.”

“What are you doing on Delgany?” Dax’s voice took on an added edge. “I thought Baby Duce worked out of the Aztec Club.”

“The Aztec burned down a few years ago. To the ground. You really need to keep up.”

While she watched, one of the Locos pushed off the fence and started for the car, and all she could think was- Oh , baby, don’t go there. Nothing good could come from backing her into a corner, absolutely nothing good.

She very discreetly slipped her open hand up against the snap on her jacket. From that position, she knew exactly how far she was from her pistol- less than a second away-but she wouldn’t draw unless she made the decision to shoot. An unarmed blonde in a beat-up old car had a zero threat quotient to a gang of five Locos, and that’s exactly what she wanted all of them to keep thinking-that she was no threat to them. Once a gun was brought into play, all the rules would change.

“I keep up enough,” Dax assured her. “You tell Duce you’re with me. That dude owes me from way back. He won’t have forgotten.”

“Sure. If it gets to that, I’ll drop your name.” She wasn’t going to ask what Baby Duce owed him for, but she didn’t doubt the debt was real, or that Baby Duce would remember both it and Daniel Axel, Dax, Killian. All the time she’d spent being good in school and keeping her ducks in a row, Dax had spent running wild and making a name for himself. Dax’s ducks wouldn’t have known a row if it had snapped up and bit them in the butt.

“Have you called Isaac Nachman?”

“He’s next on my list. Trust me, there won’t be any trouble. He wants the Meinhard. You know how he is about his paintings. Me being even an hour late isn’t going to change anything or put us out of the running.”

“Call me when you get to Mama Guadalupe’s.”

“Can do. It should be about eleven,” she said, keeping her eye on the young Loco. He smiled at her, showing off two rows of pearly whites with his incisors capped in gold-vampire-style. Geezus.

“If there’s any trouble, any at all, I want you-”

“Nachman knows the drill,” she interrupted. There wasn’t going to be any trouble, not with Isaac Nachman. “Dad’s done amazing work for him over the years. Geez, Dax, Dad’s the one who tracked down Nachman’s Renoir. In sixty years, no one else even got close to it, and with me on board now, the Meinhard is another clean transaction.”

Disasters and general failures aside, her dad did have a real flair for finding stolen art, especially if it had been stolen by the Nazis, which encompassed most of the Nachman family’s missing pieces.

Hitler’s ambassador to France had personally absconded with three hundred and forty-eight paintings and drawings out of the Nachman family vault. To date, one hundred and twenty-three had been recovered, over forty of those by her father, including, as of tonight, the Jakob Meinhard.

“So what’s your ETA?” she asked.

“Ten-thirty to eleven o’clock on the outside. I’m on the back roads in the boondocks south of Denver. The interstate is a traffic jam,” Dax said. “If you get to the bar first, don’t have a margarita. Just wait for me. When I get there, we’ll decide whether or not we need a new plan for dealing with Bleak. And answer your darn phone when I call.”

“Can do.” She started to hang up, but he stopped her.

“Easy, wait.”

“Yes.”

“So what’s the deal with Dom’s little brother? What’s his stake in this? What does he want?” Dax asked.

“I haven’t figured that part out yet. He said he came to the office to hire my dad, but I don’t think that’s it.”

“He tailed you from the Oxford without you knowing it?”

Talk about rubbing it in.

“Yes.”

“And he saw Smollett before you did?”

And that was even worse.

“Yes.”

“And he got you out of there.”

“Yes.”

“Take him to Nachman’s with you.”

No. Her plan was to dump him and catch a cab.

“Dax, I don’t-”

“Easy,” he interrupted. “You’ve got Bleak looking for you, and I’m not there to watch your back. Whatever this guy’s reasons for tailing you, I’d rather you kept him close. Maybe he’ll come in handy. So far he’s made pretty good moves.”

“Dax, I’m sitting in Baby Duce’s backyard with five Locos staring me down.” And one of them was moving in.

“You’re there with Domingo Ramos’s little brother, sweetheart, and that blood runs deep. Ain’t nothing going to happen to you on Locos turf, and this John guy knows it.”