Eric Lustbader - Last Snow

She was sitting beside another woman of approximately the same age, with dark hair and eyes, dressed in a flashy dress of hunter-green, which was so short most of her thighs were pearled by the light. When the blonde spoke again, Jack racked his brain as to where he’d heard that voice before.

The blonde tossed her head. “So I said, ‘I’ll see you in hell.’ ”

And Jack knew hers was the female voice from the room below him.

“Then I threw the lamp in his face and the bulb burned his cheek.”

The brunette laughed. “Fucker got off easy.”

“You bet,” the blonde with the carnelian eyes said. “If I see him again I swear I’ll kick his balls into the other side of Red Square.”

“Well, honey, here’s your chance,” her companion snickered.

The blonde turned toward the entrance and so did Jack. He saw a large, bearlike man with dark hair, oiled like an American gangster from the thirties. There was a ruddy burn on his cheek, no doubt from the lightbulb. He wore one of those gaudy silk suits that only Russians think are fashionable, a chunky gold watch, and an even chunkier gold pinkie ring. He held himself like Tony Soprano coming in heavy to a Mafia sit-down. Even Jack, who didn’t know him from a hole in the wall, wanted to kick his balls into the other side of Red Square.

The blonde swiveled around to face her lover, or ex-lover, who, as he came toward them, was leering at her. Jack could see, if no one else in the bar could, that there was going to be serious trouble. He wished he’d left with Alli, because he had no desire to get involved in a fight that was none of his business. On the other hand, as the Soprano wannabe moved, Jack glimpsed the butt of a 9mm pistol in a chamois shoulder holster in his left armpit. He edged to the end of the banquette and turned halfway outward, giving him a clear field to get to his feet quickly if the need arose.

The man sauntered up to where the blonde and her girlfriend sat. The blonde was swinging her left leg as if in time to unheard music. Jack could see her smiling, but the smile seemed wicked, deadly even. The man, cocksure and armed to the teeth, appeared oblivious to the bloodlust in her heart, or possibly he felt invulnerable meeting with her in this public space. After all, what would she dare do to him that he—or his 9mm—couldn’t handle?

He was about to say something to her when, with an upswing, she buried the toe of her high-heeled shoe in his groin. He grimaced, making a face not that different from his leer, and bent over almost double. Because he was on the man’s left side, Jack could see what the blonde couldn’t: Her lover reached for the 9mm.

Jack was out of the banquette. He took two long strides to the bar and brought the edge of one hand down on the man’s hairy wrist. The gun clattered to the floor, the waiter jumped back, and the bartender signaled for security.

The blonde’s lover lunged clumsily past Jack, the fingers of his right hand grabbing the woman’s throat, throttling her. She gave a soft gurgle, like an infant at the breast. Jack punched the man in the throat, and that was the end of him or, more accurately, the fight in him. By that time, two of the hotel’s security team had arrived. One of them dragged the ex-lover away while the other picked up the 9mm with his bare hand. He seemed unconcerned with leaving his fingerprints. Obviously, they did things differently in Moscow, Jack thought, wondering fleetingly what the Russian crime scene unit was called. This thought took his mind off the murderous look the blonde’s ex-lover shot him as he was dragged away.

“Are you all right?” Jack said to the blonde, whose hands tentatively fingered her throat.

“Yes, thank you.”

He nodded, about to move away, when she added: “My name is Annika, and this is Jelena. We were about to go clubbing. Why don’t you join us?”

“It’s been a long day and I was just on my way up to my room.”

“Please. I’d like to repay your kindness.” She gestured at the empty stool beside her. “The least I can offer is a drink.”

Jack really wanted to get back to his room and prepare for the assignment he’d been given, but it would be rude to refuse. “One drink.”

She nodded. “One drink only. Then, if you like, I myself will escort you to the elevators. I’m staying here, too.”

“Yeah, I couldn’t help hearing the shouting match earlier this evening.”

She made a face. “Jelena said that everyone in the hotel must’ve heard Ivan and me.”

He sat on the indicated stool and nodded after the departing figures. “I guess we’ll need to give statements to the police.”

At this, both women laughed. “I see you haven’t been in Moscow long,” Jelena said. “The police are too busy shaking down businesses and taking American dollars from people like Annika’s boyfriend—”

“Ex-boyfriend,” Annika interjected. “ Very ex.”

“Whatever.” Jelena shrugged. She spoke English with no foreign intonation at all, unlike Annika, whose English was freighted with a heavy Russian accent.

“I see you have no trouble talking to strangers.”

“If I did, I’d be out of a job,” Jelena said. “I handle the hotel’s overseas bookings.”

Annika signaled the bartender. “What will you have . . .”

“Jack,” he said. “Jack McClure.”

Annika nodded. “What’s your poison, Jack McClure?”

“Single malt,” Jack said to the bartender. “Oban, please.”

“Right away, sir.” The bartender went to retrieve the bottle of scotch.

“I hope you have a strong constitution, Mr. McClure.”

“Shut up, Jelena.” Annika shot her friend a daggered look before turning back to Jack. “Ignore her. She’s developed a lurid imagination from reading too many American thrillers.”

“I have no idea what the two of you are talking about.”

The bartender set his drink in front of him, then backed away as if they were all radiating plutonium.

“You might as well tell him, Annika.”

“That seems like a good idea,” he said, taking a sip of his Oban.

Annika sighed. “My ex—his name is Ivan Gurov—is a minor—and I stress minor —member of a Russian grupperovka .” Her eyes locked on his. “You know this word?”

Jack did. “He’s part of the Moscow mafia.”

“He’s a fucking criminal,” Jelena said with more emotion than she’d shown up until now.

“As you can see, Jack, Jelena didn’t approve of my involvement with Ivan.”

“He’s a bloodsucker,” Jelena said, clearly warming to the topic. “He’s trash washed up in the gutter, who’d as soon slit your throat as look twice at you. He gets more pleasure out of blood than vodka, that’s for sure.”

“My friend needs to learn to have an opinion,” Annika said with a good-natured laugh.

“And you need to watch out behind you,” Jelena said soberly. “You, too, Mr. McClure. I saw the look Ivan gave you.”

“I take it that means he won’t be thrown in jail.”

“His friends would see he got out in a heartbeat,” Annika said, “which is why the police won’t bother pursuing the matter.”

“More likely they don’t want to wind up in an alley with a bullet in the back of the head,” Jelena said. “They have a serious aversion to being taken out with the garbage.”

Jack took another sip of his scotch. “Count me in on that group.”

“Don’t worry,” Annika said. “Jelena tends to overstate the case when it comes to Ivan. He’s pretty far down the grupperovka food chain.”

Jelena made a derisive sound. “That doesn’t stop him from killing people.”

“You don’t know that for a fact.”

“I hear things, Annika, same as you.” She shook her head. “You’re so naïve sometimes.”