Donovans 01 - Amber Beach

supposed to rendezvous at the realty sign down the road, remember?
    “How’s your English?” Jake asked in that language.
    The man went stiff.
    “Good enough to understand me,” Jake said. “What are you looking for?”
    Silence.
    Jake grabbed a handful of hair and smacked the man’s head against the wall again. The gun barrel never moved from its painful niche beneath the Russian’s chin. His head was jammed back on his shoulders from the pressure.
    “Wrong answer,” Jake said calmly.
    “Money. Liquor.”
    Jake rattled the man’s teeth again. “I’m losing patience.”
    “Drugs!” the man gasped.
    This time the clock on the dresser rattled when the Russian kissed the wall.
    “They aren’t paying you enough to be a hero,” Jake said, “but so far it’s been a really bad day all around for me. If you want to play hardball, you just found your pitcher.”
    He repeated it in Russian to make sure there was no misunderstanding.
    Even then, it took five minutes for Jake to explain the ground rules. By then the prowler had decided he really didn’t want to play any more games.
    Jake dragged the Russian’s head out of the toilet and braced him against the lip of the cold porcelain bowl. Coughing, sputtering, dazed, the man gasped for air.
    “Start talking,” Jake said. “I’ve got better things to do than wash your face.”
    “The box!” the man said in Russian. “I give, not steal!”
    Jake buried his left hand in the man’s hair, jammed the gun barrel under his chin, and hauled him to his feet. The way he was being held, even if the Russian was still feeling playful, he would have a tough time laying a hand—or a foot—on Jake.
    “Where?” Jake asked.
    “Where?” The Russian blinked rapidly. “Where what?”
    The next time the man got his face out of the toilet, he had no trouble understanding what Jake wanted, no matter which language was used. The Russian led him promptly, if awkwardly, to the basket where Jake kept his dirty laundry. Beneath the shirts, shorts, socks, and a towel was the superbly made leather box Resnikov had offered only a few hours before.
    Jake didn’t touch the box. He just looked at it and thought about all the possibilities. No matter what kind of a spin he put on it, the day had just gone from bad to worse.
    “You need some more time to learn English,” Jake said to his captive. “When you ‘give’ somebody something like this, it’s called setting them up. But don’t worry. A few years in jail for breaking and entering should do wonders for your command of American idioms.”
    Predictably, the man didn’t think much of the idea. Jake didn’t care. He tied the Russian up with knots that got tighter the more he struggled. Then Jake picked up the phone and called Honor. She answered on the first ring.
    “Are you all right?” he asked immediately.
    “Fine, but I’m running out of Kleenex.”
    “Give her a roll of toilet paper.”
    “You’re all heart.”
    “Finally figured that out, did you? I need an hour, starting now. Then if I’m not back, call—”
    “Ellen Lazarus,” Honor finished curtly. Then, as though she hadn’t meant to, she added quietly, “Are you okay?”
    “Yeah. Just taking care of some odds and ends. See you in an hour.”
    Jake hung up and called the Chowder Keg. As he had hoped, Resnikov was having a leisurely lunch of clams and beer while he waited for his men to come back and report that the box was hidden in Jake’s cabin, awaiting discovery anytime Resnikov wanted to start whispering in the U.S. government’s ear.
    “Pete, it’s Jake.”
    “Mallory?” Resnikov’s voice was both surprised and pleased. “I did not expect you to change your mind so quickly. Or is it simply that you are no longer with the lovely Miss Donovan and thus are able to speak more freely?”
    “Listen up. This is important.”
    “Yes?”
    “I’m sending back your gift,” Jake said distinctly. “If I see it again—or any other amber that can be traced back to stolen Russian museum goods—I will personally burn it to dry my socks. Then I’ll come looking for you.”
    Jake hung up, stuffed the box beneath the prowler’s ropes, and dragged him out in the rain to a rendezvous with the realty sign just down the road.

19
    A FTER MARJU LEFT , Honor started making salmon salad in an effort to do something normal while she tried to reconcile what Marju had said with the brother she had always known. She had barely gotten the bones