Metro Girl (Alex Barnaby 1)

“They’re not on my list of favorite people.” He tossed me the keys when we got to the car. “You drive, and I’ll run.”

As usual, there weren’t any parking places by Joe’s. I double-parked and watched Hooker jog off. Eye candy, I thought. Hooker always looked relaxed…as if motion was effortless, and all the body parts were working perfectly in sync. He had a nice gait when he ran and when he walked. I was betting his stroke was good, too. Holy cow! Did I just think that? Okay, truth is I’ve been having a lot of erotic thoughts lately. I’m sexually deprived. My love life is a barren wasteland. And I’m locked in an adventure with a sexy guy. Yes, he’s sort of a womanizer, but he’s a nice womanizer. I think his heart might be in the right place. And the rest of him seems to line up pretty good too. Damn. There I go again.

I wasn’t paying a lot of attention to what was going on around me. I was watching Hooker through the big windows in the take-out section. He was standing in line with his hands in his pockets and his shorts were pulled tight across his butt.

So by the time I saw Puke Face, it was already too late. He had the door to the rental open. He reached across, released my seat belt, and yanked me out of the car like I was a ground squirrel and he was a grizzly.

I was tumbled into the back of a Town Car, Puke Face got in next to me, and before I could scream or kick or even haul myself off the floor, the Town Car was in motion.

No one said anything. No music from the radio. A driver. And a man on either side of me. Everyone stared straight ahead. Although, the truth is I could see only one of Pukey’s eyes, the fake one. I wasn’t sure where his other eye was going. We crossed the bridge into Miami and took Route 1 south. When we got to Coral Gables the driver turned off Route 1 and took a road that ran along Biscayne Bay. It was a service road, leading to a small marina. There were no other cars on the road. We stopped before we got to the marina entrance, and I realized there were lights shining in the rearview mirror. A car had come up behind us.

Pukey opened his door and yanked me out. Headlights blinked off on both cars, and I could see that the second car was a black stretch limo. Six seater.

I thought I was going to die. My chest felt constricted, and I had a sick feeling in my stomach. Beyond that there wasn’t much. No tears, no diarrhea, no fainting. Maybe girls who grow up in a garage in Baltimore aren’t real fragile. You learn early on that parts are recycled. Even scrap metal has some worth. Maybe that was my religion. Junkyard reincarnation. The soul as a rebuilt carburetor.

I was walked back to the stretch, Pukey opened the back door, and I was shoved in. There were two bench seats facing each other. Luis Salzar sat on one. A man Salzar’s age sat next to him. There was enough ambient light that I could see the men clearly. Both were dressed in expensive summer-weight suits, white shirts, and conservative ties. Their trousers were pressed. Their shoes were polished.

“We meet again,” Salzar said. “Please sit down.” And he gestured to the seat across from him, where Maria was sitting. But then maybe sitting is the wrong word. Maria was so rigid she seemed to be levitating, hovering a fraction of an inch above the cushy black leather.

“You’ve caused me some inconvenience,” Salzar said to me. “Perhaps I can rectify that now.”

Some inconvenience. I supposed he was talking about his boat going down in a blaze of nonglory. Plus there was the canister.

“I believe you’ve already met Miss Raffles.”

I looked over at Maria. Her hair was unwashed, pulled back from her face, and held at the nape of her neck with a rubber band. Her face was pale. Her eyes were rimmed in dark circles, slightly sunken. Her expression was pure unadulterated rage. Her hands were cuffed behind her back, probably to keep her from ripping Salzar’s eyes out of his head. She barely acknowledged me. She was concentrating every scrap of hatred she could muster on Salzar.

“Pig,” she said to Salzar.

“She’s unhappy with me,” Salzar said. “She’s just received some unpleasant news about her grandfather and her father.”

“You killed my grandfather,” she said. “And you had my father imprisoned.”

Salzar showed a brief, slightly loopy smile. “True. But it wasn’t much of a loss. Your grandfather’s passing was a nonevent. Unfortunately, my gold and my SovarK2 were lost with your worthless grandfather. And your dim-witted father preferred beatings to divulging the location of the wreck.”

Maria spit at Salzar, but it fell short.

“Allow me to finish my introductions,” Salzar said, returning his attention to me. “This is Marcos Torres, my very good friend and the next President of the Council of State and Ministers of Cuba. You have something that belongs to me…and to Marcos. Would you like to tell me where our property is located?”

I didn’t say anything.

“I was hoping Miss Raffles would encourage you to cooperate.”

Neither Miss Raffles nor I responded.

“Very well,” Salzar said. “It’s only a matter of time. And it’s always much more rewarding when you have to beat information out of a woman. Plus, I have some men who would enjoy you.

” He turned his attention to Maria. “What do you think of my men?”

Maria continued to give him the death look.

“You killed Maria’s grandfather?” I asked Salzar.

“I was his partner many years ago in Cuba. I changed my name when I came to this country. I erased my past. Now I am going to reclaim it. In Cuba, I was a government officer, attached to the Council of Ministers. It was a good position, but not especially well paying, so sometimes when the occasion presented itself, I would supplement my income with an entrepreneurial enterprise. Maria’s grandfather and I had a very profitable, but short-lived entrepreneurial enterprise.”

“Smuggling?”

Another of the crazy half smiles. “Yes, but it was women we were smuggling. The Russian sailors wanted women, and we would supply them. We would run them out in the fishing boat. Maria’s grandfather and I were common pimps.” He gave a bark of laughter at that.