the patient database, and it tells us that Imre Daroczy is due to be discharged from the hospital at midday. We can make our move this evening, when they are back at Daroczy’s apartment, if you like.”
“If I like?” Novak repeated. “If…I…like? What do you mean, if I like?” Novak turned his poisonous green gaze upon his second in command, purplish lips drawing back from long, yellowed teeth like some fanged beast. “You think this is a matter of liking, András? You think this is a fucking whim?”
András schooled his face to utter impassivity. “No, boss. Not at all,” he soothed. “Of course, we will act as soon as possible, but the Országos is too public a place to abduct them. We must be patient. We must wait until they—”
“Patient? Don’t talk to me about patience! He told me she was dead!” Daddy Novak spat the words out. “Georg told me that treacherous snake Tamara Steele choked to death on her own blood the day Kurt was killed. He lied to me! Why did he lie, András? Why?”
The gazes of the other men standing around the table shifted, darted, uncertain where to land. The boss had been dangerously unpredictable since his son’s untimely death a few years ago. People died without warning when he used that tone of voice.
The intercom buzzed, and András leaned over and punched it, intensely grateful for the diversion. “Yes?” he barked.
“It is Jakab Lajtos,” the sentry said. “Georg Luksch sent him.”
“I told Georg to come himself! Not to send one of his useless butt-lickers!” Novak snarled.
The sentry hesitated, nervously. “Should I, ah, tell him to go?”
“No. No. Send him in, send him in,” Novak muttered. “I want to talk to him.”
Luckless dog, András thought. It was Jakab’s shit luck to happen upon the boss in one of his moods. There would be a mess to clean up today. Not that he was complaining. Better Jakab than András. Oh, much, much better.
The door opened, and Jakab paused at the threshhold, sensing mortal danger. His polite smile faltered as his gaze darted from Novak’s wild grimace to the stony caution on the faces of the rest of the men. “Ah…Luksch sent me to see what you needed,” he said warily. “He could not come himself. He is in Odessa, attending to some problems at a munitions plant. There was a problem with the delivery of a load of—”
“Do you see this thing, Jakab? This filthy thing?” Novak stabbed a skeletal finger toward the huge teak table that dominated the room. A golden torque, displayed in a black velvet box, lay upon it.
The sentry shoved Jakab from behind. He stumbled forward into the room. “Ah…ah, I, ah—”
“This thing is an insult to my son’s memory!” Novak’s pointing finger shook with the violence of his emotions. “That woman’s existence on this earth is an insult to his memory! And you knew about her, did you not, Jakab? Did you not?”
“No! I know nothing about this!” Jakab protested desperately. “Nothing! I am just a messenger! I was sent to find out what you wanted—”
“I want her blood,” Novak hissed. “I want her entrails, spread out upon the ground. That is what I want.”
Jakab swallowed repeatedly. He was gray-faced, shaking. Novak reached out, and stroked a finger along the ropes of gold that twined and twisted, snakelike, in an ancient Celtic design. The finials of the crescent were adorned with cabochon rubies. The piece pulsed and glowed in the light from the library lamp, as if it were somehow alive.
Novak pushed one of the rubies on the finial. It came loose, and a tiny blade slid out. “Do you see this? It’s a miniature of the dagger that opened my son’s throat. It is an exact reproduction of the torque Kurt gave McCloud’s woman. My Kurt’s foul murder is immortalized in a cheap bauble for a brainless whore!”
Jakab jumped as Novak drove the small blade into the table. It stuck, vibrating. He cleared his throat with a dry, nervous cough.
Novak picked up the card in the black velvet box. No logo, no address, just bold letters.
DEADLY BEAUTY
Wearable Weaponry by Tamara
And below, a cell number. Inactive, of course. Nothing so simple as that.
“A direct message,” the boss muttered. “A slap in my face.”
In fact, the message was hardly direct. By pure chance had András noticed the torque on the mistress of a business associate at a party in Paris some weeks before. It had caught his eye, since he knew the odd manner of Kurt’s death. The woman had demonstrated her torque’s special properties when András got her alone, and helpfully shared the name of the broker who had sold it to her lover, but she’d been unwilling to part with the piece when András offered to buy it. Happily, no one noticed that the jewelry was not on her broken body when she was found shortly thereafter, having flung herself from the penthouse terrace.
Drugs, of course. A useless life, a meaningless death. So sad.
The broker had been most forthcoming, with András’s knife digging into his carotid artery. He’d provided the business card and a physical description of the torque’s designer. A stunningly beautiful, mysterious young woman who could only be Kurt’s lying, murderous ex-mistress.
Whom Georg Luksch had sworn was dead. How very strange.
“Help me understand this situation, Jakab.” Novak’s voice was deceptively gentle. “I spent a fortune to have Georg freed from prison. I spent another fortune to have his face and body put back together. I groomed him to be my successor, to take Kurt’s place at my side. I made him rich, powerful. Now I discover, by pure chance, that this filthy whore is alive and flourishing? And that Georg has contracted a PSS agent to locate her? Without informing me?”
“He…how did…but how do you—”
“How do I know this?” Novak’s smile peeled back from long, yellowing teeth. “I have my ways, Jakab. I know everything, sooner or later. I know that it is my old protégé, Vajda, who is charged with the task of looking for her. A good choice. A whore to catch a whore.” He wrenched the dagger loose. It left an ugly divot in the gleaming table. “I have been used,” he announced. “Lied to. Where is she, Jakab? Where is Steele?”
András braced himself. Lied to, Novak’s pet hate. The words “lied to” always ended in a bloodbath.
Jakab reached out an entreating hand. “Boss. I don’t know! I swear! They don’t tell me these things! And I am sure that Georg did not mean to mislead you. Perhaps this is a misunderstanding. The situation is complex. The woman is—”
Thunk. There was a choked gasp from Jakab. The dagger had pinned his hand to the table. The man’s jaw sagged. Blood pooled under his palm.
“Complex, did you say?” Novak’s voice had gotten even gentler. “I think it is quite simple, Jakab. Nothing like a knife through the hand to simplify things.”
Jakab had begun to shake violently. “But…but I cannot…I don’t—”
“Where?” Novak put his hand on the jeweled finial. “Where is she? Or shall I twist it?”
Jakab
