High Country Nocturne - [56]
“Ain’t he pretty?”
I said nothing. He looked hideous. If he wasn’t Russian mafia, he had paid thousands to a local ink-slinger to get the same effect.
Cartwright reached toward the man’s right ear and pulled off the duct tape in a slow sawing sound. The results showed the downside of wearing designed stubble. Scores of little hair follicles violated by the tape started bleeding.
The man flinched but made no sound.
Cartwright leaned close. “We had a deal. I get your diamonds and you pay me a hundred fifty grand. Now the diamonds are gone and the Mexican tried to kill me. You fucked me, Bogdan, and you’re gonna make it right.”
The head tilted up. “How do you know my name?”
This brought an open-handed slap across the man’s jaw.
Cartwright demanded, “Where are my stones?”
I suppressed a shiver.
“You’re a dead man, red savage.” His voice was a baritone with only hints of a Slavic accent. “When my people…”
Another slap, harder. The Russian fell sideways and Cartwright sat him back up. My black eye began throbbing in sympathy pain.
“Your people are dead.” Cartwright said the words matter of factly. “You won the lottery, Bogdan. You’re alive because you get to give me answers.”
The Russian coughed up some phlegm and was about ready to spit when Cartwright snapped his fist against the bottom of the man’s jaw. The move was so quick it caught the tip of his tongue between his teeth.
This time silence was not possible. Bogdan screamed.
“Don’t you bleed on my stuff, you commie bastard.” Cartwright used both hands to tip the man’s head up. “Swallow it all, blood and spit. How’d that work out for you, genius?”
Three minutes.
Five minutes.
I watched the time pass on a wall clock that needed to be straightened. Housekeeping was not the strong point of Ed’s RV. The heat increased and the air was stagnant.
The man swallowed, his Adam’s apple moving like a rickety elevator.
Cartwright reached back into a cabinet and brought out a flimsy dirty brown something. He pushed it against the Russian’s face until he gagged.
“You know what that is, smart guy? That’s the scalp I took of a Russian adviser behind the lines in North Vietnam. Sliced it off with my Ka-Bar while he was still alive. Then I gave him an Indian lobotomy. Might have been your daddy or uncle.”
I caught a whiff of rotting meat and suppressed a dry heave of my own.
Cartwright tossed the scalp aside and leaned in, “Why did you send the Mexican to rip me off?”
“Don’t know what you’re talking about.” The Russian’s answer was slurred by the damage to his tongue.
“Yes, you do. We had a deal that I would pick up the shipment from the jeweler at Sky Harbor on Friday morning. When I got there, the Mexican had been hired as a second courier. Nobody told me. Why’d you do that?”
Bogdan shook his head.
“Here’s my theory,” Cartwright said. “You brought him in to take the rough for less money, cut me out of my commission. Too bad he was a crappy shot.”
“Fuck you.”
Crack. Ed’s open hand knocked the Russian nearly off the bench. He pushed him back into place and cinched up the seatbelt.
Another long silence, before Cartwright spoke again. “The only way out is for you to tell me the truth, Bogdan. You knew the diamonds were coming in. You knew they were hidden in the suitcase.”
The tattoos on Bogdan’s chest rippled and his face reddened but he said nothing.
“Enough of this.” Cartwright reached into a cabinet behind him and held up a black cylinder with holes in the sides and heavy multi-sided top and bottom. It was about the size of a travel container of shaving cream. But the shaving cream didn’t have two safety rings on the top.
My un-muscled-up abdomen tightened and I looked longingly at the door.
Cartwright ran the device across the Russian’s face.
“You know what this is, Mister Badass Russkie Criminal? An M-84 stun grenade. A flash bang. It’s a non-lethal weapon. Unless…”
He slipped on evidence gloves, deftly passing the grenade from one hand to another. My eyes were fixed on the pins, making sure they were still there.
“What are you doing, you goddamned faggot!?” It was Bogdan’s voice and he was not happy.
Cartwright had unbuckled the Russian’s pants and dug a hand down in his crotch.
“I wanted to see what you had down there, little guy. Here’s the deal, this is a non-lethal weapon unless I set it off between your legs.” His voice was barely above a whisper. “Now open your mouth.”
“Fuck mmmfff…”
Cartwright pulled the secondary safety pin and slipped it in Bogdan’s mouth as he started to curse.
Next Cartwright rattled off a long sentence in Russian-the only word I could make out was “Apache”-and Bogdan’s shoulders stiffened. He frantically struggled against the shackles, getting nowhere.
“Yeah,” Cartwright said in English, “You cocksuckers didn’t know the red savage could speak Russian.” He looked at me. “I told him he’s about to get some high-tech Apache justice. When I let go of the safety, we’ll have enough time to leave and then Bogdan’s manhood is going to be turned into pudding.”
This was not the Reid interrogation technique. A very long half-minute passed in silence. Bogdan’s face shone with a layer of sweat.
In this "prequel" to the popular David Mapstone mysteries, author Jon Talton takes us back to 1999, when everything dot-com was making money, the Y2K bug was the greatest danger facing the world, and the good times seemed as if they would never end.It was a time before David and Lindsey were together, before Mike Peralta was sherriff, and before David had rid himself of the sexy and mysterious Gretchen.In Phoenix, it's the sweet season and Christmas and the new millennium are only weeks away. But history professor David Mapstone, just hired by the Sheriff's Office, still finds trouble, chasing a robber into an abandoned warehouse and discovering a gruesome crime from six decades ago.Mapstone begins an investigation into a Depression-era kidnapping that transfixed Arizona and the nation: the disappearance of a cattle baron's grandsons, their bodies never found.
Cincinnati homicide Detective Will Borders now walks with a cane and lives alone with constant discomfort. He's lucky to be alive. He's lucky to have a job, as public information officer for the department. But when a star cop is brutally murdered, he's assigned to find her killer. The crime bears a chilling similarity to killings on the peaceful college campus nearby, where his friend Cheryl Beth Wilson is teaching nursing. The two young victims were her students. Most homicides are routine, the suspects readily apparent.
The private-detective business starts out badly for former Phoenix Deputy David Mapstone, who has teamed up with his old friend and boss, Sheriff Mike Peralta. Their first client is gunned down just after hiring them. The case: A suspicious death investigation involving a young Arizona woman who fell from a condo tower in San Diego. The police call Grace Hunter's death a suicide, but the client doesn't buy it. He's her brother. Or is he? After his murder, police find multiple driver's licenses and his real identity is a mystery.
Cheryl Beth Wilson is an elite nurse at Cincinnati Memorial Hospital who finds a doctor brutally murdered in a secluded office. Wilson had been having an affair with the doctoras husband, a surgeon, and this makes her a aperson of interesta to the police, if not at outright suspect. But someone other than the cops is watching Cheryl Beth.The killing comes as former homicide detective Will Borders is just hours out of surgery. But as his stretcher is wheeled past the crime scene, he knows this is no random act of violence.
A handsome young New York professor comes to Phoenix to research his new book. But when he's brutally murdered, police connect him to one of the world's most deadly drug cartels. This shouldn't be a case for historian-turned-deputy David Mapstone – except the victim has been dating David's sister-in-law Robin and now she's a target, too. David's wife Lindsey is in Washington with an elite anti-cyber terror unit and she makes one demand of him: protect Robin.This won't be an easy job with the city police suspicious of Robin and trying to pressure her.
Софья Ноготкофф была счастлива – ей предложили престижную должность куратора выставки великокняжеских драгоценностей в маленькой южноамериканской стране. С подготовкой торжественного мероприятия девушка справилась прекрасно, но все в одночасье рухнуло: музей ограбили. Теперь карьере Софьи конец! Могла ли она подумать, что потеряет не только должность, но и свободу, ведь обвинили в преступлении... куратора выставки! Скорым и неправым судом Софью приговорили к пожизненному заключению. Только в тюрьме девушка догадалась – она стала жертвой изощренной интриги, а настоящие преступники остались на свободе, наслаждаются жизнью и большими деньгами.
Осенью 2006 года вышла книга Сергея Ермакова "Час расплаты изменить нельзя". В оригинале роман назывался "Подмена", что по мнению автора более соответствовало содержанию.Скромная уборщица роддома тетя Маша только на первый взгляд проста. На самом деле она оказалась очень расчетливой и коварной особой. Взяла да и подменила своего новорожденного малыша на отпрыска из богатой семьи. Пусть, решила она, родное чадо растет счастливо и ни в чем не нуждается.Да только прогадала она. Ее пасынок стал преуспевающим бизнесменом, а настоящий, несмотря на богатых "родителей", угодил за решетку.
У Артура Конан Дойла порой трудно определить, где заканчивается детектив и начинается фантастика. Грань между историческим повествованием и, так сказать, "альтернативной историей" весьма условна. Внимание писателя к каждому из "затерянных миров" в высшей степени органично. Ранее не переводившиеся рассказы А.Конан Дойла, посвященные странному и невероятному, будто бы созданы хорошо знакомой нам рукой доктора Ватсона, вдруг решившего описать не очередное приключение Великого Сыщика, а путешествие в таинственный мир.
Расследование гибели владельца медиахолдинга Владимира Стаховского, которое его жена Кристина поручила журналистке Светлане Ухтоминой, добавило много черных красок старательно созданному образу честного бизнесмена и примерного семьянина. Оказалось, у Стаховского имеются любовница и незаконнорожденный сын, которым досталась немалая доля наследства, а в юности он был замешан в преступлении. Сына, которого Стаховский никогда не видел, ищет детективное агентство, а любовница погибает, не успев рассказать Светлане нечто важное.
Викторией владела одна мысль – отомстить писателю Дейлу Уайту. Этот лощеный американец украл сюжет бестселлера «Улыбка Джоконды» у ее отца! Девушка прилетела в Рим и даже пробралась в дом Уайта, но в последний момент растерялась и чуть не попалась полиции. Хорошо, что рядом вовремя оказался профессор Каррингтон, старый друг ее отца. Профессор с сыном тоже находятся в Риме не случайно, они пытаются раскрыть одну из главных тайн Ватикана – образцы Туринской плащаницы, главной христианской святыни, предоставленные для радиоуглеродного анализа, были поддельными! Но ради чего церковь пошла на такой чудовищный подлог?..
«Никлас Монсаррат родился в Ливерпуле в 1910 г. Окончил Тринити колледж Кембриджского университета. Его первая значительная книга «Это — школьный класс» вышла в 1939 г. Во время второй мировой войны служил в военно-морском флоте Великобритании. Морская служба послужила источником сюжетов многих из его последующих книг. В 1956 г. он возглавил информационный центр Великобритании в Йоханнесбурге, а потом в Оттаве. Наибольшей популярностью пользовалась его книга «Жестокое море», вышедшая в 1951 г., по которой был снят одноименный фильм.