The Jealous Kind (Holland Family Saga 2)

“The Vickster can take it. Right, Vick?”

“You need to towel off, Broussard,” Grady said. “We’ll work this out.”

“No, we won’t,” I said.

“Walk with me,” he said, cupping his hand on my bicep. “There’s a bathroom at the end of the hall. I’ll get you some dry clothes.”

I lifted Grady’s hand from my arm. That was when Vick picked up a gold-encased anniversary clock and smashed it against the side of my head. The floor slammed into my face.

I WOKE IN AN embryonic ball inside an elevator that had a collapsible gate for a door. My stomach was sick, the side of my head sticky with blood. I pushed myself against the wall of the elevator and looked at my watch. No more than ten minutes had passed since Vick had hit me. The elevator was stopped under the house in a broom-clean parking garage lit by low-wattage bulbs inside wire guards on the ceiling. The gate on the elevator was locked. There were several collectible automobiles parked in the garage; among them was Grady’s pink convertible, the one Saber had boosted from the motel. I could hear Vick and Grady talking through the ceiling. I got to my feet and almost fell down.

I tried the buttons on the elevator. Either the power had been cut or the elevator had been locked in place. I tried to jerk the gate loose from the jamb, then got down on the floor and tried to push it with my feet until it caved onto the concrete. I held on to a handrail and kicked until the elevator was shaking. A light went on in a stairwell on the far side of the convertible. Vick walked out of the stairwell, a hypodermic needle in one hand, a pair of handcuffs in the other. “Sorry to keep you waiting down here. I had to get some items from my car. I’d like to tell you there’s a hard way or an easy way, but that wouldn’t be true.”

“My heap’s out front,” I said. “My family knows where I am.”

“So you came here and you left,” he replied.

“Why the needle?”

“Maybe I got a kind heart. Been to any junkyards recently? The compacting process puts me in awe.”

“I’m not going to help you hurt me.”

“I’m going to drag you,” he said. “Not here. Out there.” He fed a stick of gum into his mouth and waited for my response. He began to smack his gum, smiling. “I did it once. At spring break in Fort Lauderdale. A guy thought he was going to get laid. He got laid, all right.”

“Are the money and gold still in the convertible?”

“What do you know about money and gold?” he asked.

“That money is owed to your father.”

“Turn around and poke your hands through the gate.”

“Why should I do that?”

He removed a .25-caliber semi-auto from his pants pocket. “So I don’t shoot you in both kneecaps and anywhere else that hurts.”

My vision was starting to go out of focus. I pressed my hand against the side of my head and then looked at my palm. It was matted with blood and hair. “What about the hit men?”

He closed his eyes as though processing the question. “Which hit men?”

“The ones you sent up to the Heights because you wouldn’t go yourself. What if they see the convertible? What if they tell your old man you’re about to steal a million dollars from him?”

“They don’t know me, asshole. You’re really dumb. That’s why people like me win and people like you lose.”

“Grady will screw you, Vick. After I’m out of the way, he’ll want Valerie back. That means he’ll have to get you out of the picture because he knows you for the lowlife you are. You have another problem, too. Grady thinks that money and gold are his. Why would he share them with you?”

For just an instant I saw the focus change in his eyes, like he was watching a bird fly into a distant tree. “I didn’t quite get that.”

“In your mind, you’re stealing from your father or the Mob. In Grady’s mind, you’re stealing from him. Would you give away fifty percent of your money to take back what’s already yours?”

There was a smirk on his lips, the kind stupid people wear when they convince themselves they long ago solved the great mysteries of the world and now float high above them. He dropped the handcuffs through the gate. “I’m going to enjoy this.”

The door chimes rang upstairs. I heard Grady pull open the front door. “I must be hallucinating,” he said.

“My heap broke down two blocks up the street,” Saber’s voice replied.

Chapter