The Jealous Kind (Holland Family Saga #2) - James Lee Burke Page 0,138

doing here?” Grady said.

“The hired help screwed up,” I said. “How’s it going, Vick? Your face looks a little swollen. I heard you got an infection. I think it adds to your mystique.”

“Why’d you bring this asshole here, Vick?” Grady said.

“I didn’t have anything to do with him coming here. Don’t be saying I did, either.”

“Vick didn’t have the guts to come up to the Heights, so he sent his greaseballs and hid out at your house,” I said. “You guys have been working together all this time, haven’t you.”

I stepped inside. Grady closed the door behind me and looked at Vick as though he didn’t know what to do next. Vick was wearing half-topped boots, and tailored brown slacks that looked like Marine Corps tropicals, and a pink kerchief tied around his neck. “Where’s Bledsoe?”

“I don’t know,” I replied.

“He’s always with you,” Vick said.

“Not tonight. You guys have the convertible and the money and the gold stashed, don’t you?”

“You’re pretty dumb, coming here like this,” Vick said.

“What are you going to do that you haven’t already done?” I said. “I’m not afraid of you or your people anymore, Vick. Same goes for you, Grady. You guys are bums, and the guys who work for you are stupid and inept.”

“You think you can talk shit to me?” Vick said. “Nobody talks shit to me. That’s what you think, you can walk in here and talk shit? Answer me. I’m talking to you.”

“That’s exactly what your father said to me. Why do you imitate the person who disfigured your mouth? Isn’t that humiliating?”

“Ease up,” Grady said.

“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