CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

 

 

When Micah saw Frank standing across the public parking garage in Vail Village, he had to resist the urge to wrap his arms around the old man. Not that Frank had ever seemed opposed to human contact, but Micah worried he might accidentally squeeze his boss to death.

Frank grinned and stuck out a hand. Micah hugged him anyway.

“Good to see you too, kid.”

Micah pulled back. “Frank, so much has happened this week. I don’t even know where to start.”

“How about we get some lunch and you tell me all about it.”

Micah agreed and they left the parking garage. The crisp cool of the air stung Micah’s face as they strolled toward the village shops. He’d only been to Vail a couple times since moving to Colorado, but it had quite the upscale feeling, compared to the other ski towns. So clean, so organized. Everything had a place.

“Want to give me the high points?” Frank said as they crossed the covered bridge next to Mountain Haus.

Micah didn’t know where to begin. Telling him about infiltrating the airplane hangar, the warehouse, meeting Layne, stealing those live human hearts, his conversations with Gavin Belmont, being attacked by Alec in the middle of his ruined apartment.

“I made a friend this week,” Micah said.

“Good,” Frank said. He pointed at the stone exterior of The Chophouse. “You up for a steak?”

“Of course, boss. I’m always up for a steak.”

Frank let Micah climb the restaurant steps first, and Micah held the door open for the old man. Micah peered inside, making sure Nathan and Zaluski weren’t lurking nearby. Micah’s black eye had faded after their skirmish at the hangar, but he was certain the European would recognize him right away.

Micah paused, leaned close to Frank. “Do you have a plan?”

“Not really,” Frank said, chewing on his lower lip. “Not a good one, anyway. We’ll have to work that out, but we still have a few hours until dark.”

Micah gave the hostess their names and they had a seat in the lobby to wait for a table.

“The girlfriend doing okay?” Frank said. “What was her name?”

“Daisy. She’s still alive, which is one for the plus column. Scared to death, but I asked her to hide out until this is all over.”

Frank eyed him for a second, and Micah felt like Frank could see right through him. He shouldn’t have slept with Daisy, obviously. But as far as he knew, there wasn’t some kind of skip tracer/bounty hunter code of conduct about these things. Daisy’s case wasn’t even one officially sanctioned by Mueller Bail Enforcement.

But the bigger issue was that Micah was a year sober and Daisy was only sixty-something days sober. That’s why Micah should have known better. Since Frank was his sponsor, Micah knew he’d have to tell the old man at some point. But maybe not today.

“Good,” Frank said. “One less thing to worry about.”

Micah leaned close to Frank and whispered in his ear. “Alec is dead. He broke into my apartment and attacked us, so we killed him last night.”

“We?”

“That friend I told you about. Layne.”

Frank shook his head. “You shouldn’t involve other people in this business, Micah. It’s not safe.”

“Layne is okay. I trust him.”

Frank stuck his thumb in his mouth and chewed on the nail. “Maybe you shouldn’t. Lot of sharks out there, kid.”

The hostess escorted them to a back table. Frank left first and Micah followed, now feeling his pulse speed up. Had trusting Layne been a terrible mistake?

Right now, that didn’t matter. The meeting tonight was the only important thing on the agenda. Either they were going to interrupt this get-together and sabotage Nathan’s criminal enterprise, or they were going to wind up dead. Didn’t seem to be much middle ground.

 

***

 

Mountain Haus, a Vail mainstay for decades, had two large conference rooms and two smaller meeting rooms. The smaller rooms were glorified walk-in closets with conference tables. And that didn’t matter. Nathan had been fine with reserving a meeting room, until he learned that the smaller rooms were in the condo complex’s basement. That would not do. He didn’t expect anything to go wrong tonight, but if it did, there was no sense in being trapped with no escape route.

So they’d reserved a large conference room, despite the fact they were going to be few in number. Nathan, Alec, and Zaluski were meeting with Everett Welker and two of his associates who were looking to get into the game.

At least, that’s what Everett and his cop buddies thought they were doing here. To negotiate fees for distribution and payoffs. But they didn’t know the surprise in store for them.

Nathan stared at the glossy oak conference table, running his hands along it, telling himself that he felt confident. Project it, then eventually, he would feel it. He needed to be calm to convince Everett and the others to follow him up the mountain to the real meeting spot.

Meanwhile, Zaluski paced the outside of the room like a bomb primed to explode. He removed a machete from a leather scabbard inside his coat. He swung it a few times in the air, like a batter warming up.

“Where is Alec?” Zaluski said. “Have you heard from him?”

“He hasn’t been returning my texts.”

“This is a problem. This is a big problem.”

“Maybe he went on a run.”

Zaluski sighed through clenched teeth and re-sheathed his machete. “You think he went to Mexico now? On this day we’ve been planning for months?”

“He’s done stuff like this before. I’m sure he’ll get back to me in the next couple hours.”

Zaluski took out a small glass device, about the size and shape of a tube of lipstick. He pressed it to his nose and jerked his head back.

“You need to lay off that shit,” Nathan said. “It’s not helping. If Welker and those guys show up here and you can’t stop gritting your teeth, they’ll think something’s wrong.”

Zaluski ignored him. “What if they already know? What if they got to Alec and pulled the information out of him?”

“Even if they knew, and even if they somehow detained Alec, he would never tell them anything. It’s pointless to worry. Maybe you should sit down so we can talk about the plan for this evening.”

Zaluski jerked a rolling chair across the carpet, sat for two or three beats, then jumped back up. Resumed his pacing.

Nathan sighed. But, at least as amped as Zaluski was, Nathan felt like a milkshake in a snowstorm comparatively. Maybe he could do all the talking and send Z ahead up the mountain early.

No, if Nathan was here alone, that might look suspicious. They had to walk into the restaurant together, so it didn’t look staged. They’d arranged to have a private meeting space at The 10th, a restaurant off the Gondola One route up the mountain.

Where the hell was Alec? Nathan didn’t think he had actually hopped on a plane for an unscheduled delivery to Mexico or Canada, but it could have been a girl. Alec had been known to wander into a bar and disappear with some piece of ass for a day or two. And it wouldn’t be too unusual for Alec to do it at a goddamn critical time like today.

As much as Alec liked order and structure, he wasn’t immune to pussy.

“I don’t like this,” Zaluski said.

“Worrying gets us nowhere. Can we just focus?”

Zaluski ripped another bump of coke. “No. I do not like this meeting space. We’re hidden too far back in the building. It’s too hard to escape. We have to run past all those people in the lobby. Anyone could see us.”

Nathan removed a 9mm from his coat pocket and dropped it on the table. Next to it, he placed a noise suppressor. “These walls are thick. No one is going to hear us, and when we’re done, we go straight out the back. You, me, Everett and his guys, and Alec. Together. You really worry too much. Besides, we’re only going to be here long enough to meet up and then we head for the gondola.”

“I still don’t like it. We should have them meet us up there. It’s better stocked, anyway. More secluded.”

“If they meet us at The 10th,” Nathan said, “we give up control of the scene. What if they get there early and decide they don’t like the space? What if they demand to meet somewhere else? This way, we all get on the gondola so we can all go in at the same time. Cops are suspicious by nature.”

“So?”

“This makes them feel like they have control. Looks like an even playing field. And then we can lead them into the south entrance, right where we want to go. Abandoning that plan would be an emergency-only situation.”

“Alec isn’t here, but he was supposed to be here hours ago. I think this qualifies as an emergency.”

Nathan gritted his teeth and hid his pistol and noise suppressor. Wasn’t sure if agreed with Zaluski or not.