PAVEL DEMETRIOU put down his cell phone. Stared across the bedroom at the little girl who stood, hugging herself and shivering, by the bed. She was a delectable specimen, a perfect little plaything, but right now, the Dragon hardly noticed her. He was thinking about Andrei Volovoi. About Lloyd.
Volovoi had sounded different on the phone. He had not sounded confident, or composed. He sounded stressed, worried, urgent. He’d sounded like he was lying.
Lloyd had called. Lloyd had hung up the phone before Demetriou could answer. Demetriou had tried to call back. The phone had rung at first. Nobody had answered. Demetriou had tried again. This time, the line went straight to voicemail.
And Volovoi had sounded shaken. Maybe it was paranoia, the Dragon thought. Maybe it was the cocaine and the girl, making him crazy. Or maybe his instincts were right, and Volovoi was hiding something. Maybe the sale wasn’t going as smooth as Volovoi had claimed.
The girl was watching him. The Dragon smiled at her. Gestured to the cocaine. “Help yourself, little one,” he told her. “I’ll be with you shortly.”
Then he made another phone call. Tomas, this time, Volovoi’s thug. He’d driven the girls to Manhattan. He was in the warehouse with Volovoi. He wouldn’t dare lie to the Dragon.
Tomas answered on the second ring. “Hello?” he said. He sounded wary.
“What is going on?” the Dragon asked him. “Are you at the warehouse with Andrei Volovoi?”
“I am at the warehouse,” he said. “Volovoi just left. Did you try his cell phone?”
“Never mind,” the Dragon said. “Where did he go? Is the buyer with him?”
“He didn’t say where he was going,” Tomas said. “And the buyer . . .” He cleared his throat. “The buyer is, uh, dead. Volovoi shot him.”
The Dragon exhaled, long and slow. “Why did Volovoi shoot the buyer, Tomas?”
“There was an argument,” Tomas said. “I believe the sale fell apart. The buyer started to leave, and Volovoi shot him.”
The Dragon ended the call. Stood in the middle of the bedroom and tried to focus his thoughts. Volovoi had killed the buyer. He’d disappeared somewhere. Everything was going to shit. And the little tramp still hadn’t touched the cocaine.
The Dragon put down the phone and crossed the bedroom to his closet, dragged out a duffel bag and unzipped it. Inside was a pile of guns. He pulled out a machine pistol, a semiautomatic TEC-9.
“Nothing to worry about, little one,” he told the girl, relishing the way her eyes widened. “I won’t let a minor inconvenience get in the way of our fun.”