Devil's Bargain rld-1

  Devil's Bargain

  ( Red Letter Days - 1 )

  Rachel Caine

  Jazz Callender — don't ever call her Jasmine is an ex-cop with a goal: opening her own private detective agency and proving her former partner is innocent of murder. Too bad no one will lend her the money. Until a sexy lawyer with the devil's own grin appears with an offer she can't refuse. $100,000. A savvy new partner. And an agreement to make any case arriving via red envelope a top priority. But if Jazz accepts, there's no turning back. Because once she opens that envelope, all hell's gonna break loose.

  Devil's Bargin

  Rachel CAINE

  For all my kick-ass girls.

  You know who you are.

  Everything you do matters.

  Chapter 1

  Sol’s Tavern was a place for serious drinkers.

  It had no elegant decor, no pretty people sipping layered liqueurs. Sol’s had a bar, some battered stools, a couple of slovenly waitresses, and a surly guy to pour drinks. There was a dartboard with Osama bin Laden’s face pasted on it behind the bar, and for a dollar a throw, you could try your luck; the proceeds went into a faded red-white-and-blue jar that promised—however doubtfully—to go to charity.

  But the best thing about Sol’s, to Jazz Callender, was that it wasn’t a cop bar, and she wasn’t likely to run into anyone she’d ever known.

  Jazz pulled up a bar stool and set about her business, which was to get so drunk she couldn’t remember where she’d been. She caught the bartender’s eye and nodded at the empty spot in front of her. Their conversation consisted of a one-word order from her, a grunt from him, and the exchange of cash. Sol’s wasn’t the kind of place where you ran a tab, either. Cash on the barrelhead, one drink at a time.

  I could get to like this place, she thought. And knew it was a little sad.

  As she leaned her elbows on the bar and picked up her Irish whiskey, Jazz scanned the bar’s patrons in the mirror. She didn’t actually care who was there, but old habits were hard to break, this one harder than most. The faces clicked into her memory, filed for later. A couple of unpleasant-looking truckers with bodybuilding hobbies; a fat guy with a mean face who looked as if he might be trouble after a few dozen drinks. He was drinking alone. There were two faded night-blooming women in low-cut blouses and dyed hair, years etched as if by acid at the corners of their eyes and mouths.

  Jazz was still young—thirty-four was young, wasn’t it? — but she still felt infinitely older than the rest of them. Seen too much, done too much…she wasn’t going to attract a lot of attention, even from the bottom-feeders in here. Especially not dressed in blue jeans, a shapeless gray sweatshirt with an NYU logo, and clunky cop shoes left over from better days. Her hair needed cutting, and it kept falling in her eyes. When she looked across at herself in the mirror she saw a wreck: pale, raccoon-eyed, wheat-blond hair straggling like a mop.

  Her eyes still looked green and sharp and haunted.

  Sharp…that needed to change. Quickly.

  She tossed back her first whiskey, clutched the edge of the bar tight against the burn, and made a silent again gesture at her glass. The bartender made a silent pay me first reply. She slid over a crumpled five, got a full shot glass of forgetfulness and slammed it back, too.

  The door opened.

  It was gray outside, turning into night, but even the glimmer of streetlights was blocked by the man coming in. Tall, not broad. Her first thought was, trouble, but then it turned ridiculous, because this guy wasn’t trouble, he was about to be in trouble. Over six feet and a little on the thin side, all sharp angles, which would have been okay if he hadn’t come dressed in some self-consciously tough leather getup that would have looked ridiculous on a Hell’s Angel. He didn’t have the face for it—lean and angular, yeah, but with large, gentle brown eyes that scanned the bar skittishly and looked alarmed by what they saw.

  His badass-biker leathers were so new they creaked.

  Jazz resisted the urge to snort a laugh and repeated her pantomime with the bartender. Behind her, she heard the squeak, squeak, squeak of the new guy’s leather as he walked up, and then he was climbing onto a bar stool next to her.

  “Love that new-car smell,” she told the bartender as he poured her a third shot. He gave her a cynical half smile and took her five bucks. The fool did smell like a new car—also some kind of expensive aftershave that reminded her of cinnamon and butter—very nice. So maybe he did have some sense after all, biker leathers notwithstanding. Idiot. She imagined what kind of welcome he’d have gotten if he’d walked into a bar like, say, O’Shaugnessey’s, over on Fourteenth, where the cops congregated. They’d have probably directed him—with velocity—to the gay leather bar down the block.

  Her comment hadn’t been any kind of invitation to talk, but the guy swiveled on his bar stool, held out a big, long-fingered hand, and said, “Hi.”

  She looked at the hand, which was well manicured, then glanced up into his face. His soulful brown eyes widened just a little at the direct contact. Now that he was closer, she could see that he looked tired, and older than she’d thought, probably close to her own age, with fine lived-in lines at the corners of his eyelids. He had a nice, mobile mouth that looked as if it wanted to smile and didn’t actually dare to try under the force of her stare.

  Normally, she might have thrown him a break. Not today. And not in that getup.

  She turned back to her drink. The whiskey was setting up a nice nuclear fire in her guts; pretty soon, she’d start to feel relaxed, and after throwing a few more peat logs on, she’d start feeling positively good. That was why she was here, after all. It was a private kind of ritual. One that didn’t involve making new friends.

  “I’m James Borden,” he said. “You’re Jasmine Callender, right?”

  The hand was still out, holding steady. It occurred to her a half second later that he shouldn’t know her name. Especially not Jasmine. Nobody called her Jasmine. She felt tension start to form in a steel-hard cable along her back and shoulders.

  “Says who?” she asked the mirror. No eye contact. He was staring at the side of her face, willing her to turn around.

  For a second, she thought he was going to answer the question, and then he reverted to a lame-ass pickup line. “Can I buy you a drink?”

  He shoots, he misses by a mile. “Got one.” She nudged her full glass with one long, blunt-nailed finger. “Blow, James Borden.”

  He leaned closer, into her personal space, and she smelled that aftershave again. The urge to move into that warm, inviting scent was almost irresistible.

  Almost.

  “Jasmine—” he began.

  She turned, stared him in the eyes, and said, “If you don’t want to get blood all over that nice new outfit, you’d better back your biker-boy wannabe ass off, and don’t call me Jasmine, jerk.”

  He leaned back, fast. His expression was one of shock for a second, then it shut down completely. His eyelids dropped to half-staff, giving him a belligerent look. Good. He matched the leathers better that way.

  She held his gaze and said, “If you have to call me anything, call me Jazz.”

  “Jazz.” He nodded. “Got it. Right. Like the—okay. I was sent to deliver something to you.”

  And the cable along her spine ratcheted tighter, tight enough to crack bone. God. She wasn’t carrying a gun, not even a pocketknife. Even her collapsible truncheon—a girl’s best friend—had been left on the hall table at home. Great. Of all the nights to tempt fate…

  He must have read it in her face, because he smiled. Smiled. And the smile matched the eyes, dark and gentle and completely not right for a guy pretending to be a Hell’s Angel reject.

  “Don’t worry, it’s noth
ing bad,” he assured her. “In fact, I think you’ll find it pretty good. Not a subpoena or anything.”

  He started to unzip a pocket on his leather jacket. The zipper was stiff. As he tugged at it, she asked, “How’d you find me?”

  He didn’t look up. His head stayed down, but she saw tension accumulating in his shoulders for a change. “Sorry…?”

  “How’d…you…find…me.” She kept her voice cold and flat. “You follow me from home? You watching my house?”

  “Nothing like that,” Borden said. “I was told where to find you.”

  She rejected that one out of hand. “I’ve never been here before, asshole. How could anybody tell you to come here to find me?”

  He conquered the pocket’s zipper and wrestled out a red envelope. “Here,” he said. “I’ll wait until you read it.”

  “Because?” She didn’t take the envelope.

  “Because you’re going to have questions once you do.”

  He gestured with the envelope again. Big, red, square, like a thousand Valentine cards she’d never gotten over the years, but it was long past Valentine’s Day and she was in a far-from-romantic mood.

  She let him hang there for a good thirty seconds, watching his outstretched hand slowly sag with rejection, and thought, Well, what the hell, at least I can throw it back in his face if I actually take it.

  She was reaching for it when Borden lowered the envelope and sat back, staring over her shoulder.

  She felt alarms going off in the back of her head and risked a look. A shadow loomed behind her.

  Two shadows, actually. Big ones.

  The weight-lifting trucker twins had taken an interest.

  “Ain’t that sweet?” one of them said in a high, girly voice. He was wearing Doc Martens boots, battered blue jeans and a faded T-shirt that read Kinnison’s Feed & Supply. A three-day growth of straggly beard. Watery eyes. “Faggot’s giving the lady a card.” He made wet kissy noises.

  His buddy was a grimy Xerox copy, except his T-shirt read Highway to Hell and was ripped at the sleeves to show off massive biceps. Tattoos, of course. You could never have too many of those. His mostly involved thorns, blood drops and naked women. The AC/DC fan ambled around Jazz and followed up his buddy’s comment with a shove to Borden’s shoulder. Borden rode the motion and slid off the bar stool. He wasn’t a small guy, and he had good bones, but he wasn’t a fighter, Jazz could see that at a glance.

  “Hey!” Jazz said sharply, standing up, as well. “Back off, guys. I don’t want any trouble.”

  “You don’t,” Borden said under his breath. “Right. What was I thinking?”

  “Yo, leather boy, shove your cute little Valentine card up your ass, you’re bothering the lady,” said the one whose T-shirt advertised Kinnison’s. He was the power of the two; Jazz knew that from a half-second glance. He had intelligence in those narrow light eyes, and a kind of lazy satisfaction. This was what he’d come here for, to find somebody to pound over a few drinks. She was just a convenient excuse. Lady. Yeah, right. She looked the part.

  Borden’s voice had gone dangerously soft, his eyes closed and dark again. “Is that right? Am I bothering you, Jazz?”

  “Woman like this don’t want no candy-ass butt boy,” Kinnison’s said over her shoulder to him. “Fine piece of ass like this, she needs some real companionship.” He was deliberately staying behind her, pressed close. His idea of courtship would be asking what kind of condom she’d like, flavored or ribbed. If he was even that considerate.

  “Funny,” Jazz said, and downed the last glass of whiskey she’d ever drink in Sol’s. “I started out a lady and now I’m just a fine piece of ass, and you haven’t even bought me a drink yet.”

  “Shut up, bitch, nobody’s talking to you,” AC/DC snarled, and put one hand the size of a canned ham on Borden’s chest and shoved. Borden, who must have been seduced by all that over-the-counter toughness he was wearing, shoved back.

  Mistake.

  “Stay out of it,” Jazz said, brisk and succinct, to Borden. She needn’t have bothered; Kinnison’s stepped around her and landed a fat punch to Borden’s jaw.

  Ouch. She heard the crack of bone on bone, and Borden staggered back, off balance.

  “Hey!” she snapped. “Give the bitch some attention, why don’t you?”

  Kinnison’s, pulling back for another punch, hesitated and turned back around to face her. Grinning with unholy glee, he said, “Yeah, okay, baby, let’s play.”

  He shot a sideways look at AC/DC, who went after Borden. No doubt in Jazz’s mind that he was thinking he’d backhand her and put her in her place, then get on with the serious beat-down of his only real opponent—the man.

  She smiled. “Yeah,” she said softly. “Let’s play.”

  She spun on the bar stool, clocked him with an elbow hard to his nose and felt the sharp crack of bone and cartilage. She didn’t stop to let the pain register; she straightened her arm and muscled into a spin as her feet hit the floor. Kinnison’s twisted away from her in a corkscrewing spiral, off balance, and as he came around roaring, she sidestepped his rush, grabbed a handful of greasy hair and slammed his forehead into the tough oak bar. Twice.

  When she let go, he slithered limply down to the floor. It had taken all of about two seconds, and he was bloody and utterly unconscious.

  Borden was just now gaining his balance, shaking off the punch and staring at her as if he’d never seen her before. Tactical error, because it gave AC/DC the opportunity to pound a fist straight into his gut, double him over and send him flying at the far wall, hard. AC/DC followed him, wading in with lethally steel-toed Doc Martens to the ribs.

  Jazz, blood already pounding red-hot, didn’t hesitate. She left Kinnison’s limp body and leaped over a fallen chair, landed flat-footed as a cat in front of AC/DC. He yelled something obscene in her face; she didn’t even note the words, just the reek of bad breath, bad teeth and alcohol.

  Watch him. Watch…

  He rushed her like a charging bear. She swept out of his way and left him to trip over the fallen chair, but he was fast, faster than she’d thought and not nearly as drunk as she’d hoped. He swerved. Before she could turn she was engulfed by his brutally strong arms, rippling with thorn tats and overendowed girls.

  Borden, down on the floor, coughed out a mouthful of blood and tried to get up.

  “Stay down,” she said. Weird, how calm her voice could sound at times like these. She might have been asking him to pass the salt. “I’ll be done in a second.”

  AC/DC’s breath pistoned her ear, and she felt the suggestive grind of his hips against her.

  “In your dreams, asshole,” she said, and simply let her knees go, dragging him over. When his center of gravity was higher than hers she flowed forward, then quickly reversed, whipping his own momentum against him into a shoulder roll. He grabbed a handful of her hair on the way over, and she ended up on his back. He flailed and bucked, trying to throw her off, but she had her arm around his neck and she applied pressure, cutting off blood flow until his body went slack.

  And then she kept on holding the pressure, fury mounting. Stop it, you’ll kill him, something told her, but it was a small voice, and she wasn’t really in the mood to listen anyway.

  She kept choking him until a baseball bat slammed splinters out of the wood floor right next to her.

  She looked up to see the bartender/owner—Sol himself? — his face purple with fury, pull back for a straight-for-the-bleachers swing at her head. She let go and held up her hands. He didn’t lower the bat as she got to her feet.

  “Cops are on the way,” he said, which was the longest speech she’d heard from him yet. “Take your boyfriend and get the hell out. Don’t come back.”

  Jazz fought off an adrenaline-hot wave of dizziness and went to where Borden sat crumpled against the wall. He was probing his bleeding mouth and looking dazed. She grabbed a leather-clad elbow and dragged him to his feet.

  “Let’s go,” she said, a
nd guided him toward the door. He yanked free after a couple of steps and staggered back for something.

  The red envelope, lying on the floor.

  He tucked it into his jacket and followed her out, stumbling over the two prone bodies.

  Outside, the night was cool and quiet, stars shining in a cloudless sky. A blurry bass beat thumped from a dance club down the street, and the sidewalk was thick with teenagers trying to look sullen while they waited their turn at the red velvet rope. Jazz turned left, heading uptown. Borden caught up with her in a couple of long-legged, stumbling steps. He was wiping blood from his face with a clean white handkerchief.

  “Are you okay?” he asked her.

  “Why wouldn’t I be?”

  “Your lip…”

  “It’s nothing,” Jazz said, and tasted blood. She dabbed at the cut on her lip and couldn’t remember when she’d picked it up. “How about you? No broken bones?”

  “Bruised ego. Among other things.”

  “You know, the tough-guy act? Really not all that convincing.” She stepped out to wave down a cab, but it sped up and passed her by. Maybe the problem was the ad for Armor All lurking next to her. He really did look like he’d been whomped pretty good. She muttered a curse and took the handkerchief away from his face to inspect him with merciless authority. “You’ll live. You’ll have a nice shiner, though. And you should see a dentist, he popped you in the mouth pretty good. What about the ribs?”

  He winced when she probed them, but they didn’t feel broken. Just bruised, probably. She pulled up his shirt to see bruises forming across smooth, trembling lines of muscle. His skin felt flushed and velvet soft.

  “Hey!” He smacked her hands away. “I’m all right.”

  “You were lucky,” she said, unapologetic. “If you’ve got a perforated lung, fine, go aspirate blood in peace. And don’t bother me anymore. Thanks for ruining my night. I was starting to like that bar.”

  She hailed another cab, but it passed her by. Probably a bad block. She decided to keep walking, put some more distance between herself and Sol’s. Any cop with half a brain would be able to pick Borden out of a crowd from a description, wearing that stupid Harley ensemble.