The Samaritan Read online

  “Hello?” she said unsurely.

  Finally, the darkness shifted a little and a head appeared at the window. A man, she thought, although she couldn’t be sure. A deep but quiet voice spoke out, almost lost beneath the sound of the rain.

  “You need some help?”

  The guy wore a dark blue or green baseball cap with no logo, the brim pulled down so that three-quarters of his face was in blackness, with only a clean-shaven chin visible.

  Kelly swallowed and felt a chill that had nothing to do with her soaked clothing. She wasn’t sure if it was the voice or the instinctive primal sense of unease that came from not being able to see his face properly, but all of a sudden she felt a strange urge to tell the driver that it was okay; she’d wait for the next car.

  But that wasn’t an option. On a night like this, she’d be stupid . . . no, crazy—to pass up the offer.

  “Yeah.” She nodded. “Yeah, I really do need help.”

  2

  FORT LAUDERDALE

  Saturday night, downtown Fort Lauderdale. It felt like I was a long way from the beach. Although the sun had gone down hours before, the bar felt noticeably cool in comparison to the outside. Too cool for my liking. Like stepping into a walk-in refrigerator. I paused by the door to survey the room, scanning for the important information.

  It had a low ceiling and walls that had been painted black a decade or two ago. A relatively large floor space, sparsely attended for a Saturday night. Maybe a couple dozen customers. On the far side, the bar ran almost the length of the room, tapering off in a curve before it reached a corridor signposted for the restrooms and the fire exit. Circular tables adorned with candlesticks inserted into empty liquor bottles. I descended two steps from the entrance and started to cross the floor, scanning faces as though looking for a friend. Most of the clientele were arranged into couples and small groups, except for a lone blonde at one of the corner tables who’d looked up and then away again as I’d entered the bar. I didn’t linger any longer on her face than on any of the others. Aside from her, the crowd was made up of an unremarkable mix of professional barflies and lost tourists.

  The only alarm bell chimed when my eyes alighted on the dark-haired man sitting down by the jukebox. His eyes met mine, sized me up as I walked past, then moved away in disinterest. He had a broken nose and big hands. A fighter, though not necessarily a good one. He wore a leather jacket. All in all, a good match for the two very similar-looking gentlemen I’d seen loitering across the street outside. Interesting, though nothing to do with me. I filed it away for future reference and took a seat at the bar on the corner, adjacent to the fire exit hallway.

  The position gave me the best view of the room. I let my eyes sweep over the faces once again and nodded as the bartender made his approach. I resisted the impulse to order a cold beer, opting instead for a soda water with a twist of lime. Nonalcoholic, but it looks enough like a real drink to avoid unwanted attention.

  I sipped the soda water and tried to ignore the Europop blasting from the speakers five feet from my left ear: the single downside of my strategic position. I moved my head from left to right again, refreshing my picture of the room. The guy at the jukebox hadn’t moved. My eyes moved to the northwest corner of the bar, where the blonde was sitting. Only she wasn’t sitting now. She was up and walking diagonally across the floor to where I was perched.

  As she got closer, I confirmed that her curly shoulder-length hair was convincingly—and therefore expensively—dyed. She wore blue jeans and a black blouse that showed some midriff and leather boots with three-inch heels. There was a small leather bag hanging from her right shoulder by a strap.

  I averted my eyes and looked toward the door, as though expecting someone to join me any minute. The blonde stopped when she got to the bar and put her forearms down on it. She was at the stool next to mine, even though that meant she’d had to walk five paces out of her way to get there. Which meant she’d deliberately wanted to end up beside me. Which meant a change of plan.

  She stared straight ahead as she ordered a shot of Stoli, but then turned to me and smiled.

  “Hey.”

  I smiled in acknowledgment and tried to read her expression. Did she know why I was there? I supposed it wasn’t outside the bounds of possibility that she’d realize someone would be looking for her, that she’d be on the lookout for a certain type. But that’s the thing: I work hard at not being any particular type.

  “I like this song,” she said after a minute, then looked me up and down with a coy smile. “What’s your name?”

  I decided I had nothing to worry about. She didn’t know who I was. She was just a party girl in a bar, acting interested in the lonesome stranger who just walked in. Emphasis on acting.

  “My name’s Blake.”

  “Cool.” She nodded, as though a name meant anything at all. “I’m Emma. Are you here with somebody?”

  She was overselling it like a life insurance cold caller ten minutes from the end of a bad shift. Nobody who looked like she did would have to try to pick up a guy in a bar. Nobody who looked like that would even have to approach the guy. So what was the play? I set my mind to work on the quandary; the mental exercise wasn’t unwelcome. I decided to see where this was going.

  “You tell me.”

  She smiled and put a hand on my left arm, just below the shoulder. I felt her squeeze a little through my shirt, as though testing it, and then I understood what she wanted me for.

  She dropped her hand as the bartender returned, tossing a napkin on the bar and placing her shot glass on top of it. He glanced at my still half-full glass and I shook my head.

  “And what do you do, Blake?”

  I considered my answer and decided there was no reason to lie. “I’m sort of a consultant.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “What kind of consultant?”

  “The usual kind,” I said. “People pay me to solve problems they can’t solve by themselves.”

  She laughed as though I’d cracked the joke of the century and slammed the shot in one. “You solve problems. Outstanding.”

  “I aim to please.”

  “And what would you say is the most important skill that goes into being a consultant?”

  “Why? Do you want to become one?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Then I guess I would have to say improvisation.”

  “Good.” She leaned in close and whispered, the vodka fumes strong on her breath, “Do you want to get out of here?”

  I glanced at the door, then back to her. “Right now?”

  She nodded, and her tone changed to conspiratorial. “Listen. There are a couple of guys outside waiting for me . . .”

  “Guys you’d prefer to avoid?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Two guys.”

  “That’s what I said, isn’t it?”

  “Just making sure.”

  She laughed uneasily, as though I’d gotten the wrong idea. “I mean, there won’t be any trouble or anything like that, not if you walk me to my car.”

  I saw the sudden fear in her eyes, the flash of concern that she’d put me off. That meant there was going to be trouble, all right. Probably a lot more trouble than she realized.

  I sat back on my stool and took a drink of the soda, as though carefully considering the proposition. The bartender was dealing with customers at the other end of the bar. That was good.

  “Where’s your car?” I asked.

  “Right outside. It’s a red coupe.”

  That was true. I’d seen the little red Audi A5 coupe parked by the sidewalk twenty yards from the front door.

  I leaned in close again, keeping my voice low. That was mostly for her benefit; nobody could hear me over the music even if I’d been yelling at the top of my voice.

  “Okay, you’re going to pretend that I’ve insulted you. You’re going to get up and act like you’re headed to the ladies’ room. There’s a fire exit along the corridor behind me. Use it and
wait for me.”

  She looked taken aback for a moment, probably because she wasn’t expecting her compliant muscle to start calling the shots. She got over it quickly, signaling acceptance with a brief, crooked smile that was the first genuine thing she’d offered since she’d started talking to me.

  She pushed off her stool violently and stood up, rolling her eyes in disdain as she walked away. I was happy she hadn’t overdone it by slapping me or maybe yelling. She was much better at acting pissed off than she was at feigning romantic interest.

  I watched her go and waited for a few seconds. As I’d expected, the guy in the leather jacket got up from his seat and made a beeline for the corridor. He could read as well as I could. He knew there was a back exit. That’s why he was in the bar while his friends waited out front. He glanced at me as he passed. I pretended not to notice.

  I got up and followed behind him as he quickened his pace. The restroom doors were on the left-hand side, and the corridor vanished around a corner to the right, another sign for the fire exit pointing the way.

  “Excuse me,” I said.

  He started to turn around, and I put all of my weight into a short, rapid punch to the bridge of his nose. He screamed in pain and lunged forward, and I grabbed his head and smashed it down on my knee. He crashed down on the beer-stained carpet, unconscious. I glanced behind me to confirm the yell of pain had been masked by the music and crouched on one knee, patting him down. I found his gun in the inside pocket of his jacket. It was a Heckler & Koch HK45. Close to military spec—definitely trouble. I relieved him of it and tucked it into the back of my belt.

  I moved quickly down the remainder of the corridor and found the blonde standing by the open fire exit. Her real name wasn’t Emma, of course. Her real name was Caroline Elizabeth Church. She was twenty-four years old. Her Massachusetts driver’s license listed her as five eleven, brown hair, brown eyes. Two out of three matched up with the person in front of me.

  “My car’s around the front,” she said, oblivious to the altercation in the corridor.

  “Forget it,” I said.

  I took her upper arm and pulled her through the fire exit and into a narrow, dingy alley. Dumpsters lined the wall, trash overflowing from some and strewn across the pitted concrete. The alley terminated in a dead end twenty feet to my right. Fifty feet to my left it opened onto the road that led off the main street out front. The buildings on either side were one- and two-story affairs: the blank rear walls of bars and diners and anonymous office buildings. If we were fast, we could come out on the street, circle the block, and get into my rented Honda without the two guys staking out the bar noticing. Assuming they hadn’t moved from their earlier position, of course.

  I started fast-walking toward the street, trusting that Caroline would follow. She didn’t disappoint.

  She trotted on her heels until she was abreast of me. “What the hell do you mean forget it?”

  The mouth of the alley was still clear. I scanned the low rooftops on both sides. “The two guys out front—who are they?”

  “Slow down!”

  I stopped and faced her. “Who are they?”

  She looked away. “Nobody. Just an ex-boyfriend. He turned kind of creepy. Won’t leave me alone.”

  “Just an ex?” I asked, turning to walk again.

  Caroline caught up again, surprisingly quick despite her heels. “Yeah. Why?” Curiosity in her voice. She knew I knew she was withholding information and was more interested in how I knew than in keeping her secrets.

  “Because standard creepy exes park outside your house and post nasty messages on your Facebook page. If they’re really brave, they might even try to get physical. They don’t generally bring armed flunkies with them. Not unless they happen to have a couple lying around already.”

  “Who’s an armed flunky?”

  I took the gun out and held it in front of her in my palm. Her eyes widened. “I just took this from the third guy in the bar. The one you didn’t know about. It’s an HK45 Compact Tactical pistol. Costs about twelve hundred bucks. It’s not an entry-level model. Who’s the boyfriend?”

  “Oh shit. He said he was gonna kill me, but . . .”

  We reached the mouth of the alley. I motioned for Caroline to keep back and kept the pistol low, finger on the trigger. I glanced around the corner and found myself looking down the barrel of another gun.

  Which meant another change of plan.

  3

  Caroline’s ex-boyfriend was the taller one of the two men I’d seen outside earlier. He looked in his mid-to-late forties, but in good shape, with jet-black hair and angular, handsome features. The combination of designer leather jacket, expensive hardware, and the dead, disinterested look in his gray eyes told me everything I needed to know.

  He waved us back into the alley, off the street, and told me to drop the gun. I did as I was told. I watched his eyes and saw there was more going on than was first apparent: calculation, deliberation. That was good. It meant I wasn’t dealing with an outright psycho. I slowly raised my hands, taking a second to glance down the street and confirm that he was on his own. I guessed the other one was still covering the front.

  “What’s this, Lizzie?” he asked, shooting a glance at the girl with the ever-expanding list of aliases. “New man already?” He spoke with the barest trace of an accent. If I’d had to guess, I’d say Serbian. Factor in his age and willingness to point guns at people, and it seemed like a reasonable bet he was a Kosovo veteran. The voice reinforced my impression of a calm, deliberate man. It also told me that he hadn’t chased Caroline down purely on account of her feminine wiles.

  “He’s nobody, Zoran,” she said. “Let him go.”

  He didn’t look at her, kept staring at me, and I was pleased to see a hint of consternation on his face. We both had a problem: I was the one with a gun pointed in my face, but he was the one who had to decide what to do about it. An irrational man would shoot me and leave me to bleed on the sidewalk. If my estimation of this man was right, he wouldn’t want to invite the potential consequences of that action, not without good reason at least.

  Zoran hadn’t taken his eyes from me the whole time. That was smart, because he hadn’t given me the split second I’d need to take the gun from him. It also meant he hadn’t been able to look down, to examine the gun I’d been carrying and perhaps identify it as the one belonging to his man in the bar. That left open the possibility that he might underestimate me.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Caroline tensing, as though weighing whether she could make a run for it. I hoped she wouldn’t. It would likely be a bad decision for both of us, and particularly for me. No one said anything for a moment. I heard the low rumble of a northbound train on the Tri-Rail line a few blocks over.

  “What do you want?” I asked the man with dark hair, fixing my eyes on his so he would know that this was not a rhetorical question. We were just two guys calmly discussing how best to resolve a mutual problem.

  Zoran nodded at Caroline Church, still not taking his eyes off me. “I woke up two days ago and she was gone. So was fifteen grand cash from my apartment.”

  “Okay,” I said. Then, without turning to Caroline, I addressed her. “Give him your car keys.”

  “What?”

  “I don’t give a shit about the car, friend,” Zoran said softly. “I just want my money.”

  From the tone of his voice, I guessed he was lying and it wasn’t really about the money. Or at least, not primarily. It was about the principle—a man in his position could not be seen to be ripped off in this way.

  I nodded in Caroline’s direction. “She spent last night in a hotel on North Andrews Avenue, checked out this morning. If she still has your money, it’s in the red Audi coupe around the front.”

  Caroline started to say, “How the hell do you—” then shut up.

  And then she ran.

  Zoran made a split-second calculation. The choice was staying with me or chasing Caro
line. If he stayed with me, his money and his opportunity for redress would disappear once again. If he chased Caroline, he’d be leaving me with the gun I’d dropped. He made the smart move, the most ruthless move. But not quite fast enough.

  As he pulled the trigger, I was already diving for the pistol.

  A .45-caliber slug carved itself into the wall behind where my head had been a moment before. As I hit the ground, I swept the heel of my shoe hard into the back of Zoran’s knee as I simultaneously picked up the gun I’d dropped. His knee buckled, and he fell as my fingers closed around the weapon. He fumbled his grip a little, recovered quickly, and started to bring his gun back toward my face. I smashed his wrist with my left fist as the gun discharged, the loud bang echoing and reverberating from the walls of the alley. Before he could take another shot, I had the muzzle of the H&K pressed into his forehead, equidistant between his eyes. His eyes brightened for a moment in surprise and then narrowed.

  “Don’t be an idiot,” I said.

  Mere seconds had elapsed since the sound of the gunshot, but I was keenly conscious of two sounds that marked the passage of time: Caroline Church’s footsteps fading into the night and the sound of voices from the opposite direction. Now I was the one with the dilemma. Only that wasn’t quite true. Zoran was the one who was going to dictate what happened: whether he lived or died.

  His grip relaxed and the gun dropped from his right hand, smacking on the pitted concrete. A rational man. I gave him an apologetic shrug and slammed the butt of the pistol into his right temple. Nonfatal, but enough to give me time to make a graceful exit. He’d thank me in the morning, once the concussion wore off.

  I picked up Zoran’s gun as he dropped to the sidewalk; then I glanced out at the street. Caroline had vanished. If she was smart, she’d forget about the car and the fifteen grand and vanish into the night. But then, her actions so far hadn’t exactly been characterized by an overabundance of good sense.