Dying For LA by Ian Jones (top fiction books of all time .txt) 📕

she’s got this blonde woman with her. I seen her before, cute enough I guess but not a patch on Maddie. So, I bell Leonid and he comes down and they go off and talk about it and everybody seems happy again.’

‘How long ago was this?’

‘Er … it was a while ago. Like months ago.’

‘Then what happened?’

‘Nothing. I mean it’s all like it was. No sign of anyone, and Maddie ain’t around neither. She ain’t been here in a long time I swear. Then Leonid comes back, and he is pissed. Real pissed. Starts on at me, the fucking girls are no good, it’s all my fault, I fucked it all up, but I don’t know nothing about it. I ain’t seen no one since, right? And Pinsky is not a guy you fuck with, he is always ready to get someone hurt, or worse. So now I am pissed, and I got to go find Maddie and tell her she got to deal with Leonid, that he wants to see her and it’s fucking urgent is what it is. She just starts freaking, and she tells me to fuck off.’

‘OK. So what did you tell Leonid?’

‘Look, I had no choice. It’s what I’m saying, you don’t fuck with these guys. I gave him Maddie’s address.’

‘Smart. You arsehole.’

John looked at Reed who raised his eyebrows and shrugged. Scott had filled in a few details and more or less confirmed what they already knew.

‘You said guys come and go to Leonid’s suite, did you see any of them?’

‘Well, yeah. I kinda dealt with it for him, you know, meet them and take them up. Make sure they get looked after. Part of the deal.’

‘So who were they? Any soldiers? Police?’

‘A couple of times, yeah. Mostly just guys, lot of Russians.’

John dug out the photo of Major Hayter.

‘Ever see this guy here?’

Scott looked at it closely.

‘Yeah, but only once, he was on his own, weren’t wearing no uniform. But something went down, he didn’t stay long. Leonid was pissed about that too.’

‘Where can we find the Russian, this Pinsky? How do you contact him?’

‘I don’t. He comes here, but I don’t never hear from him when he ain’t around. We’re not like, buddies, I guess.’

‘Where is he now? We got to speak to him.’

‘He checked out this morning. I wasn’t working so didn’t see him but I heard he still seemed pissed.’

John stood up, and Reed stepped back, removing his foot. Scott gingerly sat upright on the floor, looking warily at Reed.

‘That it?’

‘Yeah, for now. We’ll be back here if you’ve given us one word of bullshit, you can count on it.’

John leaned down and straightened Scott’s crumpled blazer then spoke quietly.

‘You got one thing you have to remember Gee-gee. I know who you are. You’re a bully, we can both see that, and I don’t like bullies, and Tom here, well he really has a problem with them. So, if one word of our conversation gets mentioned anywhere we are straight back here, and if you’re not here, we will find you. We are very good at that. So, am I clear?’

Scott nodded, even more frightened now.

‘Yeah, crystal. I got it.’

Reed picked up some of the bank notes and tucked them into Scott’s torn shirt pocket.

‘We’ll be seeing you.’

Chapter Twenty-Five

After a strained meal of mostly cold pizza, with not a great deal of notable conversation, Greg and Rolf disappeared upstairs with the big bag, to sort out their sleeping arrangements. Rico and Sal sat on the sofa, while Voorhees, perched on the only chair that he dragged out of his office picked at the remaining scraps of food. Leo stood static in the centre of the room, a half-smile on his face, hands in his black leather jacket, which made Rico and Sal even more nervous and uncomfortable, so they made some poor excuses about helping the others and stood up, but Leo stopped them.

‘Is ok, I go. I think Yann needs to talk to you.’

He stalked across the room, and moved up the stairs.

The two men looked at Voorhees.

‘It’s not a big deal,’ he said evasively, wiping his mouth.

‘Ok,’ Rico wanted some plain speaking, ‘you said four men, but there’s only three.’

‘Yes, ok, ok, but it’s enough for what we got to do.’

Voorhees dusted himself down and looked at the TV. It was clear that he didn’t want to talk about it, which irritated both men, who wanted to know what was going on.

‘And what’s the deal with Leo?’ Sal asked. ‘You know each other, right?’

This had immediately seemed strange, and struck a chord with something Voorhees had always taken great pains to tell them, which was every team was independent. Nobody knew each other, there were never any names disclosed.

Voorhees pursed his lips and frowned, then rubbed his face with his fat hands.

‘Fine. I’ll tell you. But it won’t help any. We didn’t get four men. This is true, I only found out today, there has been some trouble with another team. They’re out of action. We actually got only two. Greg and Rolf.’

Sal frowned.

‘But Leo …’

‘Leo is not with us.’

‘So who the hell is he? He was at the gates with the other two?’ Rico asked, annoyed.

‘Leonid works for our client in this matter. I was told yesterday he would be with us but I didn’t think it would happen. My understanding was he was dealing with matters elsewhere. He has come here because they are not happy with our progress, or our mistakes.’

Rico slumped back on the sofa, while Sal looked behind at the stairs.

‘I don’t understand,’ he said eventually.

Voorhees wheeled himself closer, and after checking the staircase for himself spoke very quietly.

‘Right. Understand this. Leonid was originally doing the work. I believe he failed. This is why the client came to us. I met with him, and he made it clear he did not believe that we could do the job. It was a very difficult meeting. But the client said for us to proceed, Leonid