The Taken

Chapter Ten

Anthony “The Cobra” Prima was twenty-four years old at the time of Grif’s death, but had already been a lieutenant in the Chicago outfit of the Las Vegas mob. Despite being on what was essentially opposite sides of the law, he and Grif had hit it off fifty years earlier, due in part to an incident where Grif had crossed sides to deal with a card shark who was also responsible for early-morning stairwell rapes in the city’s most glamorous properties. It was ironic that, of the two of them, Tony was the one to survive the era, but here he was-a spry, if bow-legged, seventy-four-year-old with an irreversible slouch and a bad case of psoriasis.

Prima’s digs were in a neighborhood aging similarly to Kit’s, with owners clearly obsessed with keeping bygone years alive. The most notable difference was that Tony’s wrought-iron fencing was double-enforced, guarded by two Dobermans, and the home iced over with bulletproof windows overlooking a green where Sinatra had once allegedly sunk a hole in one-though the cart girls had never said which of them it was.

His security system would pass muster at NASA, and he had phone jacks in every bedroom closet, each of which turned into panic rooms at the touch of a button. Yet as state-of-the-art as his defenses were, they collectively spoke to the one thing that clearly hadn’t changed in the last fifty years: Anthony Prima was as paranoid as ever.

Thus, it had to be disconcerting for the old coot to hear his bell ringing when the community’s guard hadn’t called, the gate opening when the voice box failed to signal, his perimeter breached when the alarm hadn’t tripped, and a knock on the door almost no one ever touched.

I am the prodigal son, Grif thought, marveling at the way bolts gave under his touch. Sure, he was undeniably in the celestial doghouse, but for some reason he had a long etheric leash.

Ringing Prima’s doorbell, listening to chimes that would do Liberace proud, he was just about to knock when a blast from above shattered the melody. Hunching, Grif dodged as the ground erupted beneath his feet. Concrete shrapnel trailed him as he fled, and he dove behind a planter as the unmistakable sound of bullets ricocheted to his left.

“Goddamn it, Tony!”

The potted bush in front of him lost its fringe.

Holding up his hand, he hoped the smooth magic he’d used to calm Kit wasn’t lost in the frantic wave. “Stop firing, Prima!”

The tommy gun stuttered. Then an equally hesitant voice emerged from the ceiling speaker.

“Hello?”

Prima’s voice came through the intercom system, staticky with suspicion and possibly something else. Fear? Excitement? Agita?

“Open up, Tony.”

Silence. “Step into the outer foyer so I can see you.”

Grif hesitated. The tiny rotunda could easily be jerry-rigged for explosives. If so, he might be back in the Everlast sooner than he thought. Straightening, he took a tentative step forward.

“Take off your hat.”

Grif removed his stingy brim, and held it in front of him, turning his head up at the camera to give Tony a good, long look.

“Grif?” The static accentuated the disbelief. “Griffin Shaw?”

“Hello, Tony.”

There was the scrape of multiple bolts being thrown, then the door gave way to a squinty blue eye and an errant tuft of wiry gray hair. “I heard you were dead,” Tony said, with his characteristic candor.

Grif’s stomach clenched. So someone knew he hadn’t just disappeared. “Well, I’m happy to report that as a great exaggeration. Can I come in?”

Tony scoffed. “You have been gone a long time. Nobody comes in, Grif.”

“C’mon,” Grif said, shoving his hands in his pockets. “Old time’s sake.”

“The only old times we had together involved beating the shit out of some asshole in a urine-soaked stairwell.”

“The good old days,” Grif said, undeterred.

Tony opened the door wider, but left it bolted. “Then you disappeared, never to be seen again.”

“You see me now,” Grif pointed out.

“Yeah. You look good, too.” Tony rubbed at his eyes. “Damned cataracts. It’s like you hardly changed at all.”

“Well, everyone’s pretty well-preserved where I went.”

“California, huh?” Tony huffed. “They didn’t offer nothing like that to me. Know what they said when I asked about witness protection? Said I might skate on extortion and embezzlement, but I was still going to take a hit for tax evasion. I got two years then house arrest. Can you believe that?”

Grif just raised his brows. “You gonna let me in, Tony?”

The sole blue eye narrowed. “How do I know you’re not here to kill me?”

Because there’s not a hint of plasma around you, Grif thought. “Why would I kill you?”

Face creasing further, Tony thought about it. “Look, Grif. I know we go back a ways, but some things don’t change. I don’t throw good money after bad. I don’t believe Joe Pesci just plays a made man on TV. And no one ever, ever comes into my home. Got it?”

Grif nodded. “Well, that’s too bad, Tony. It really is.”

Tony nodded back. It was.

Then Grif pulled his housewarming gift from behind his back. “Because I brought this.”

Tony glanced down and let loose a deluge of Italian curses that would topple the famous tower in Pisa. Chest heaving, he glared at Grif. “All right. But just this once.”

Grif handed him the bottle of vintage Sangiovese on the way in. “Don’t forget to put out the dogs.”

Once Tony got over the novelty of having someone in his home, once he stopped marveling over the way his Dobermans inexplicably turned into lapdogs around Grif-“But they don’t like no one!”-and once he opened the bottle of wine and took solitary communion with the first few sips, he actually warmed to Grif’s company.

Sitting in a living room wrapped in wall-to-wall shag, Grif looked around and decided the place couldn’t be called retro. That was how Kit had referred to hers, but that would imply effort at gathering together items for a space to reflect a bygone era, and from what Grif could tell, the wood paneling and dark stone fireplace and built-in bar had been here from the first. Watching Tony recline on a sofa already molded to his frame, Grif thought of the genie in Aladdin’s lamp, a man locked in luxury and a slave to the same.

Tony didn’t seem to notice or mind. “Remember that time we set up the unsanctioned fights in the back of Vinnie Covelli’s restaurant?”

“Vaguely,” Grif said, but he couldn’t fight the smile.

“Yeah, you remember,” Tony said, pale eyes sparkling. “You won the whole thing, bare-knuckled.”

They’d run that racket every weekend for months. It was how Grif had paid off Evie’s diamond. “That was the last time I saw you,” Grif said, smiling lightly.

Tony’s smile faded. “Yeah. Yeah, I guess it was.”

Grif leaned forward, casual-like, elbows on his knees. “So you heard I was dead, huh?”

A bony shoulder lifted and dropped, a slight movement that betrayed the gun beneath his sweater vest. “Just hearsay. Not solid, like with your Evie.” Tony winced when Grif stiffened. “I’m sorry about that, by the way. She was a real gem. Had a way about her. Coulda given that Virginia Hill a run for her money, that’s for sure.”

Grif swallowed hard. “Yeah, well. It was a long time ago.”

“Yet here you are,” Tony pointed out. “Snooping around. Stirring the pot all over again.”

He put up his hands at Grif’s hard look, then reached forward for the pack of sticks in the middle of the giant coffee table.

“Grandkid?” Grif asked, jerking his head at the world’s largest ceramic ashtray.

“Would I have anything this ugly in my house otherwise?” Tony lit up, tossed the pack over to Grif. “Listen, I’m not poking at old pains, or telling you to forgive and forget. I mean, look at me.” He waved around the room as if it was an extension of his body. “My kids call this place a glass fishbowl. Say I should start charging people to stand out on the green and gawk at me like I’m in an aquarium. My plaque would read, ‘Dago, in his natural habitat.’ ” He shook his head, his cigarette shaking between knuckles that’d outgrown their fingers. “They tell me the past is over. That it’s a new world. But I know what I know.”

“And what’s that, Tony?”

He pointed his fingers at Grif, smoke trailing behind. “It ain’t ever over. You can’t have no future if you don’t have no past, and the past ain’t never done with you.” He leaned back, nodding to himself. “At the end of your life, all you have is what you know.”

Grif was well past the end of his life, and he knew things Tony couldn’t even imagine. But he was right about fingering old pains. Grif wouldn’t be here if he’d been able to just let it go. Then again, he thought, looking around at the museum Tony called a home, neither would Tony.

They both dragged on their smokes, neither of them looking at the other, comfortable enough until Tony said, “You really do look good, Grif.”

Grif snorted. “Keep drinking, Tony.”

But, as he said, despite his failing eyesight and obsession with fine Italian wine, Tony knew what Tony knew. “So what do you want with me? You’re not here just to bring me gifts, or fill my ashtray.”

“I’m back to find out who did it.” Grif lifted a brow. “I could use a little help.”

Tony looked down. Shook his head. “Like you said, Grif. It was a long time ago.”

Grif felt his jaw tighten, stubborn as flint. “Doesn’t make it right.”

Tony laughed mirthlessly. “Lots of things weren’t ever made right. They won’t ever be right again, either. I mean, can you believe this country? You can bust your balls your entire life and have nothing to show at the end of it. Even this town has lost its entrepreneurial shine. And the government called me crooked.”

Tony looked at him, but Grif wasn’t interested in his self-pity. “There has to be someone.”

“There ain’t.” He flicked ash.

“What about the old family?”

Tony licked his lips warily. “What about them?”

“They owe me.”

Tony scoffed, voice gone gritty. “What, for saving their dear little Mary Margaret? Let me tell you what happened to that sweet, spoiled little schoolgirl. She took off that Catholic school uniform and it wasn’t long before everything else followed. Took it upon herself to sully the family name and pushed her papa into an early grave.”

“That’s disappointing.” Grif meant it. She’d been a cute kid.

“You always were a softie for the females, Grif.” Tony blew out a stream of death, and stubbed out his smoke. “First Evie. Then Mary Margaret.”

The frown came on slowly, but sank and hardened in his face. “What do you mean, ‘first Evie’?”

Tony stiffened, and leaned back, his face carefully blank. “I just mean she was a bit wild before you reined her in. Couldn’t do no wrong in your eyes. That’s all.”

No, Grif thought, studying Tony’s poker face, there was more. But whatever he knew, whatever he thought he knew, amounted to squat in the wake of Evie’s murder. He set his glass down and looked straight into that lying blue-eyed goombah gaze. “She never did anyone wrong, got it? And she ended up dead anyway.”

Tony held up his hands. “All right. Don’t bust a gut.”

But Grif’s blood was up, and suddenly he couldn’t catch his breath. Without warning, a jutting pain knifed his skull, an arrow behind his eyeballs, and it wasn’t just his renegade pulse, his unnatural breath, his unsanctioned life. It was more. It was his past busting in, reminding him he was dead. Walking, breathing, drinking, smoking-thinking and feeling-all without any mortal coil to reinforce his existence. There was a consciousness and a body, but it was flimsy, as if he lacked a spine. Very simply, there was nothing to hold it all up.

“Hey. You all right, Shaw?”

No. His mind was burning.

Tony’s voice, worried now, crackled. “I got a white-glove service. The doc comes right to your door. You want I should call them?”

Grif’s silence smoldered.

“I really think you need a doctor.”

Grif pressed the heel of his hand to his head, like he could snuff the heat that way. What he needed was to get off this mudflat. Get back to the Everlast where the cool plasmic balm could soothe his mental ache. Where he could forget about dying and concentrate on being dead.

You can’t have a future if you don’t have no past.

Grif waited until his body stopped constricting around him to open his eyes. Breathing deeply, he looked at Tony-whose skin looked loose and lived-in and comfortable-and said, “Look, I don’t have anyone else. I have no leads, I don’t know anyone here. I don’t even have a place to stay. To use your words, Tony, all I have is what I know. Right here,” and he punched his own chest so hard that even Tony jumped. Grif’s headache momentarily fell into second place in the race for pain, but like a stubborn heartbeat, it sped up again.

Tony said nothing for a long while. He just stared with his gray furrowed brow and for a moment Grif saw his pain, too. Fear lay inside him like a sleeping dragon. That was the real monster that guarded this house. “So what is it that you know, then?”

“Evie died because of me.” As soon as Grif said the words aloud, his skull tried to constrict around his brain. He pushed back and the pressure actually dulled. “What I don’t know is why.”

Tony turned his head and gazed out the window. The golf course stretched before him like a green lake, the sky spun out beyond that, but Tony only stared. The fish, Grif thought, staring back out from the fishbowl. “I have a guest room,” he finally said. “It’s kinda girly, but…”

Grif raised his brows.

Tony looked him straight in the eye, and gave him the death stare that had earned him his nickname. “I’m going to need some more of this Sangiovese.”

Grif leaned back with a sigh, picked up his own glass, and let the fine wine pave a cool path through his core. When his agitated heartbeat had settled and his vision was steady, he nodded, then said, “So, backing up. Who told you, all those years ago, that I was dead?”

The hair appointment put her at ease. By the time Kit was back on the curb, the strain behind her eyes from trying not to cry was gone, and the hunch in her shoulders had been massaged away by Fleur’s magic fingers. They’d also decided, impulsively, that a fresh look would go a long way to bolstering her energy, so instead of a mere trim, Fleur added a white stripe to the right side of Kit’s Bettie bangs, pin-curling it to the left so that it rose over her forehead like a cresting wave. It was a look Nic had adored, her favorite go-to do when out for a tiki convention or car show.

“There,” Fleur had said, pinning a matching white flower behind Kit’s ear-one she’d crafted herself. “Now you’re undercover.”

She was put back together at least, Kit thought, catching a movement from the corner of her eye as she slid her key into the car lock. She looked over just as Grif materialized from the alley, sudden and smooth, like some battle-scarred tomcat who’d seen it all. Relief rushed Kit. She hadn’t been sure if he would come back.

Stepping up onto the curb, she squared on him, and spent a moment studying his face. His hair was short and razored, but what peeked from beneath his fedora was rust-colored and matched the stubble along his chin. The wide build and bull’s neck spoke to an easy masculinity hidden beneath the heavy trench, and the gruff scowl put Kit in mind of scar tissue, as if a hard expression could keep any hard thing from touching him.

Was that right? Did nothing touch this man?

She was still wondering this when she saw something that had her doing so anyway. “What the hell happened?” The panic she felt earlier returned, its strength surprising her, but there was dried blood on one side of his wide neck and face. She looked down, and grabbed his hand. It was there, too.

“I got shot at by a tommy gun. Only hit cement, but the cement hit me.”

Gut still kicking, she shot him a look, and cupped the back of his neck. He pulled back, but she held tight, pushing his head to the side. “I’m not kidding, Grif. You’re bleeding.”

He put a tentative hand to his neck. His fingertips brushed up against hers, held for one charged moment, then slid away. “That is strange.”

He looked a little unsteady as he backed away, lifting his hat to run a hand over his head, and swaying slightly on his feet. It made Kit want to touch the untouchable again. Instead she wrapped her arms around her middle. “Sure you’re okay?”

“Fine,” he said, resettling his hat before jerking his chin at her. “Your hair looks… different.”

“Thank you.” She accepted it as a compliment, even with the accompanying nose wrinkle. “I feel better.”

Grif shoved his hands into his pockets. “You look like Tonga Lily, but without the English subtitles.”

Kit beamed. “I’m impressed. Not many people know their Mexican film history so well, even among us billies.”

There was that nose wrinkle again, followed by a frown that Kit had to fight not to reach out and try to stroke from his face. He wouldn’t like that, she thought, and it worried her slightly that in spite of knowing it, she still wished to do so. Clearing her throat, she pitched her voice higher. “I got a chance to talk to Fleur about Nic, too.”

“Guess that’s why you really needed to go there.” He gave that hard squint from beneath the brim of his hat again, but this time he nodded. Kit realized it was his way of apologizing and she nodded back, happy to accept it.

“Nic’s funeral isn’t until Wednesday, but the gang is getting together tonight to celebrate her life. We’re going to give her a proper rockabilly send off. She’d like that.”

Grif’s eyes met hers. “Want me to be there?”

“Of course,” she said, realizing she did. She still had reservations about his sudden appearance in her life-her house-but not as many as she had about going it alone. Besides, “My friends will love you.”

“Yes, I’m very lovable.”

Another apology. She laughed, and felt better. One corner of his mouth quirked up, too, and for one dizzying moment they stared. He broke first, and Kit cleared her throat. “Warning, though. My peeps are nosy. They’ll ask questions, prod. Relentlessly.”

“So they’re like you?”

“A lot like us both, I think.” She took a step forward, and this time she did reach out, touching his arm. “Look, I’m sorry about before-”

“No, I am-”

Kit shook her head, silencing him. “I was thinking about it. I took a minute to put myself in your… well, that woman’s, Evelyn’s, position-which, in the end, is the exact same as my Nic’s-and I decided that if I were her? I’d want to know who killed me.”

Grif fell very still. “You would?”

“Yes.” Kit nodded. “I’d want to know why. Why my death was fated to come early, why my life was cut short. Who killed me? What happened to those I left behind?” She lifted a shoulder. “Wouldn’t you?”

“Yeah, I do.”

“What?”

“I said, yes.” He cleared his throat, squinting off into the sky. “Though some say it doesn’t matter. Anything we need to know, we’ll discover in due time. The rest is not for us.”

“Oh, I know those types.”

Grif kept his gaze turned upward. “I doubt you know these types.”

“But I do,” Kit protested. “They came out of the woodwork after each of my parents died, especially my father. Said things like ‘let it go’ and ‘it won’t hurt so much with time’ and ‘you need to move on.’ ”

Grif’s expression darkened at that. Scar tissue, Kit thought. Only loss could put that look on someone’s face. Yet it wasn’t a look that’d ever fit Kit, despite her losses. Even now, even after what happened to Nic, she still had a need to believe that most people, that most of life, was good. That belief was a sort of strength, too.

“Forgive and forget,” she said, trying to lighten his mood. “That’s the Christian way, right?”

“Something like that,” he said, tone noncommittal. More danger, she thought. More complication.

More to discover.

“Well, if I were Nic,” she said, squaring her shoulders, “or your Evelyn, I’d want someone to get those answers. I’d hope that someone would stick around and remember me like that.”

Grif surprised her then by stepping forward and placing his own hand on her arm, and when she looked into his eyes, she was further surprised. They weren’t hard after all. On the contrary, the blue irises practically pulsed with pain. “You really should run, Ms. Craig.”

She blinked, taken aback by the earnest whisper. She didn’t doubt he’d seen things she hadn’t, but this was different. This was like he knew something she didn’t.

“I’ve been visited by death before, Mr. Shaw,” she said, and for some reason that made him flinch and swallow hard. “I told you before, I’m a newswoman, and not as a vocation. As a way of life. I can make a difference in the lives of total strangers. Why wouldn’t I do the same for myself? For Nic?”

“Because it’s dangerous.”

Kit shook her head. “I know myself, and I need to find out who did this if I’m ever to have true peace.”

“Enroll in a pottery class,” he said, dropping his arm. “Inner peace is one clay ashtray away.”

Her arm burned where he’d touched her, but she ignored it and lifted her chin. “The questions that remain after someone close to you dies don’t die with them. I don’t care what the armchair preachers say, there’s no real forgive-and-forget because you can’t ever forget. But you already know that, don’t you, Grif?” When he didn’t answer, Kit offered up a small smile. “She’s lucky to have you, you know. Your Evelyn.”

He blinked a handful of times, like he was having trouble bringing her into focus, then softly corrected, “Evie.”

“Oh. That’s pretty.” Kit smiled, though some baser emotion moved oddly in her belly. Someone should speak her name so gently, she thought, then cleared her throat. “Well, you might be happy to know that I did some work while I was in Fleur’s chair. Your Evie’s case went cold because there were no leads, except for one. Her husband.”

“What?”

Kit pulled out her smart phone, and scrolled until she found the notes she’d taken. “His name was Griffin, too. Your grandfather, I presume?”

Grif really did sway at that, putting a hand to his forehead, pressing like he was trying to still spinning thoughts. “Um…”

“He went missing after Evie died. Never seen again.” She looked down. “How old would that guy be now, anyway? Eighty-three?”

“Eighty-four,” Grif said quietly.

Abruptly, the phone rang again in Kit’s hand. She opened her mouth, prepared to curse at Paul’s insistent image again, but to her surprise, Marin’s avatar popped up on her screen. “Tell me,” she said, signaling to Grif to hold on.

“Got a hit.”

She smiled and gave Grif a thumbs-up. “So hit me.”

“Ran a search on our boy Schmidt, got a little more on his prior infractions. That’s already waiting in your inbox, but it’s mostly just specifics on what we already knew. Surprise, surprise, he was once named a suspect in a domestic violence charge, though his girlfriend dropped charges almost as soon as she’d filed them. Guess what she did after that.”

“Went poof?” Kit said.

The affirmation was in Marin’s tone. “I’m looking into it, but the main issue now is that the man seems to have a distinct lack of respect for women. Not a great attribute in someone who holds authority over a bunch of female minors the system doesn’t know how to help and barely wants to acknowledge.”

“Think he’s abusing that authority?”

“I’d bet the paper on it.”

Kit’s adrenaline kicked in again. With fear, yes. But there was also fury building inside of her. This man had killed Nic. She knew it. But he also abused his power over kids who were already hurting and lost and vulnerable. She knew that, too. And now he was after her.

And Kit was going to prove it all.

“So what do you have that I can follow?”

“Bridget Moore. She’s twenty-seven years old, but was only nineteen the first time Schmidt busted her. She’s been through the system four times since then, the last just eighteen months ago, again by Schmidt.”

“Bookended her career?”

“Probably scared her straight.”

He’d scare me, Kit thought, remembering the way he’d barreled her way. For comfort, she looked over at Grif. He glowered at her. Comforted, she smiled.

“Wanna take a guess as to where her last bust went down?”

“The Wayfarer Motel,” Kit said, already connecting the dots. Same place Nic had died. “I’m on her.”

“Contact info is in a separate file, also in your inbox.”

“Think Moore knows who’s pulling Schmidt’s strings?”

“If she does, she’s keeping her mouth shut, but she’s been on the streets a long time. Working girls talk to each other. It keeps them alive. Just don’t give away that you’re sniffing around Schmidt in advance. Instinct tells me that would have her rabbiting before you can look her in the eye.”

I’m surprised she hasn’t already, Kit thought, and she got an unbidden flash-the memory of his fist flying her way in the dark. The hard fingers pawing at her robe and skin before that. And Grif intercepting it all.

“Is Bogart still with you?” asked Marin, reading her mind.

“Yes.”

“Let me talk to him.”

Kit held out the phone to Grif, who eyed it warily, but eventually put it to his ear and grunted a few times before handing it back. “What’d she say?”

“Be careful.”

Kit lifted a brow. Marin had said more than that, but she could guess the rest. Shoving her hands into her pockets, she looked up at Grif. “I meant what I said before. Evie’s lucky to have someone like you fighting for her after all these years. All these girls out here…” She shook her head. “No one’s fighting for them.”

“You are.”

That almost brought a smile. “So are you.”

“I’m just working a case.”

“Don’t give me that, Griffin Shaw,” she said, jerking her head toward her car. “I’m on to you.”

He opened the passenger door. “Are you?”

“Yes. You’re cranky… but kinda sweet.”

He stopped dead and leveled her with a stare over the hood. “Like bitterroot.”

“You’re sweet,” Kit practically sang. She hopped in, and waited until he’d done the same to look over at him. “And I bet you already have a plan for trapping Schmidt.”

“Sure.” He ignored the seat belt.

“See.” She turned to him. “What is it?”

Grif smiled sweetly. “I’m going to use you as bait.”