Hard news - Jeffery Deaver [79]
This was Jimmy.
Boggs stood up fast, knocking over the beer, which chugged onto the floor.
The big man stopped then closed the front door slowly, calmly, as if he’d been invited in.
He stood with his arms hanging awkwardly at his side. Cautious, but confident, squinting, checking out the room and its inhabitants. Nothing he saw scared him.
Randy Boggs, his eyes wide with shock, faced the man. The way Boggs stood made him look like a soldier. No, more like a boxer—one foot forward, turned side-ways. Which was crazy because even without the gun, no way could he have taken this fat guy, who outweighed him by a hundred pounds and looked like a ball-kicker and eye-gouger. A dirty fighter.
“What do you want?” Rune whispered.
He ignored her and stepped right up to Boggs. Five seconds of complete silence passed as the men seemed locked in a staring contest.
No one moved.
It was Randy Boggs who grinned first, then said, “Jack Nestor, you son of a bitch! Wasn’t expecting you for a couple of days or so.”
The fat man laughed and let out a whoop. He slipped the gun into his belt and the two men embraced like long-lost cossack brothers suddenly reunited.
chapter 25
THE ONE QUESTION ON HER MIND: COULD COURTNEY swim?
Rune could—about as well as any Midwest girl who never saw a body of water with waves until she was ten.
Hell, she could just hold on to Courtney—picturing her now, screaming and waving her arms in panic—and kick to the far pier. How many yards was that? Maybe thirty or forty?
And, God, the Hudson was gross and yucky …
But that didn’t matter. If they didn’t get out now they’d be dead in three minutes.
She tore the door to the storeroom open and lunged, vaguely aware of a sudden rush of activity behind her in the living room. Footsteps, voices. She slammed the door and turned the skeleton key lock. “Court, wake up.”
The little girl didn’t stir.
Rune pressed her back against the thick wood and began to untie her boots, which were laced up tight through dozens of eyelets. She knew she’d drown if she didn’t get them off. She shouted, “Courtney.”
“Juice,” a weak voice said.
“Wake up!”
Maybe some of the toys would float. There was an anemic balloon tied onto the wall. Rune grabbed it and looped it around the girl’s wrist. “I’m sleepy,” Courtney said.
Rune had one boot off. She started on the second.
With a huge snap of cracking wood the door crashed inward, catching Rune on the shoulder. She flew into the far wall and lay still. Jack Nestor stepped into the room, narrowing his eyes against the darkness. He looked around and walked toward Rune.
When he got to her she sprang.
It wasn’t much of an assault. The only damage: Her shoulder caught him in the cheek and he jerked back, blinking in surprise, as a tooth cut into his tongue or the flesh of his mouth. “Little shit!” he muttered. She pounded him with her hands, knotted into small fists. But he was resilient as hard rubber. And strong too. He just picked her up, stuffed her under his arm and carried her out into the living room.
She screamed and twisted and kicked.
Nestor was laughing hard. “Whoa, this one’s a hellcat.” He dropped her into a wrought-iron butterfly chair. She kicked him in the thigh. Flinching, he said angrily, “Settle down.”
“You son of a bitch!” She leapt out of the chair, making for Boggs. Nestor roared, “Settle down!” He grabbed her like a receiver snagging a sixty-yard bomb and tossed her into the chair again. She bounced once, the breath knocked out of her. She wiped at her tears. “You bastard.” Looking into Randy Boggs’s evasive eyes.
Boggs said to Nestor, “You got yourself wheels?”
“Sure do. Some kind of Hertz shit. But it’ll do. Damn, you look good, for somebody who ain’t seen but prison sunlight for three years.”
Boggs said, “You look ugly as you ever did.”
Nestor laughed and the men did a little good-natured sparring. Boggs landed a left hook on Nestor’s chest and the fat man said, “You prick, you always were fast.