All the Rage

19

Jack had loved shooting Dragovic—took just about all he had to keep from pulling the trigger again—but relished the mix of terror and bafflement scooting across his face right now almost as much.

"You?" Dragovic said; then his eyes narrowed. "Yes, it is you! That mustache is fake. I have seen you!"

Jack found only a cell phone in Dragovic's suit coat. He dropped the phone on the table and tossed the coat back.

"No, you haven't."

"Yes. You were at my front gate!"

Damn security cameras, Jack thought.

"I knew it!" Dragovic shouted, purpling with rage as he pointed to Mo

Where'd he get that idea? Jack wondered, but decided not to straighten him out. This might work right into his plans.

"Just sit there and be quiet while I talk to these bozos," he said, dismissing Dragovic—which had to hurt him worse than another bullet. He turned to Mo

Mo

"Nadia?" Mo

"She's not. She's missing." He turned to the other two. "How about you guys? Any idea where I can find Nadia Radzminsky?"

"How should we know?" said the heavier, sweaty one.

"Radzminsky?" said the nervous ferret type. His eyes darted Mo

"How do you know Nadia?" Mo

Jack ignored him, concentrating on the other two. "How about Gleason—Douglas Gleason? He's another of your people who's MIA. Know anything about him?"

Bull's-eye, Jack thought when he saw the ferret's shocked expression. Here was a guy he'd like to play poker with.

Keeping a peripheral watch on Dragovic, Jack pointed his pistol at the ferret's head.

"Nice haircut, but I think the part would look better on the other side, don't you?"

The ferret clapped his hands against his scalp and ducked, crying, "Tell him, Luc! Tell him about Prather!"

Mo

'Tell him!" the ferret screamed.

"Shut up, Brad!" Mo

"Ozymandias Prather?" Jack said, and watched the three partners' faces go slack with shock.

"You know him?" Mo

"I'm asking the questions."

"No-no," Mo

"Yeah. Saw it a few hours ago." Where was this going?

"Then please tell this man," Mo

"You kidding? It looks great—ready to bust out of its cage."

Mo

He stepped closer to Mo

"You!"

The doctor cringed. "What?"

"What did Oz and his boys do to Gleason?"

"Nothing."

Jack jammed the muzzle of the silencer against Mo

"He made him disappear!"

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"I don't know!" Mo

You bastard! Jack thought, aching to pull the trigger. You rotten lousy bastard. He'd bet all he owned that Oz's foolproof dispose-all had yellow eyes and a scarred lower lip.

"And Nadia? What about her?"

Mo

"Only one second left on your clock," Jack said, then held his breath, pretty damn sure he wasn't going to like this answer.

Mo

"Aw, jeez."

It now seemed a possibility that the suddenly healthy rakosh hadn't lunched on Bondy as Jack had first thought. Oz must have fed it Gleason… and Nadia was probably next on the menu.

He backed away, trying not to give in to the increasingly insistent urge to redecorate the room with this son of a bitch's brains. That was too good for him. Too good for all of them.

"All right," he said. "I want all pockets emptied onto the table. Everyone. Now. Do it!"

The three executives got to it with gusto. Jack could see relief on their faces: Emptying pockets meant robbery. They understood that, and it sure as hell beat getting shot.

Dragovic didn't move. He simply sat there pressing a hand to his thigh and glaring at Mo

"Hurry!" Jack shouted, and meant it. Gleason was probably gone, but maybe he still had time to save Nadia. "I want all pockets turned inside out."

He didn't care about the wallets that landed on the table. The cell phones were what he wanted. Three more of them joined Dragovic's.

"You," he said, pointing to Mr. Sweaty. "Rip out every phone in the room and dump them here on the table." As Sweaty hopped to it, Jack pointed the ferret—the one Mo

When all the phones had been collected, including the conference speaker-microphone in the center of the table, Jack wrapped them in someone's suit coat and tossed them out into the hall.

"Now," he said, tugging the Ziploc of Berzerk from his pocket and sliding it across the table to Brad. "Put a handful of that in each of the glasses."

The look on Brad's face left no doubt about his familiarity with the powder.

"W-why?"

"Just do it."

Brad's hand was shaking like a wino with the DTs, but he managed to get the job done.

"Now fill each glass halfway with water and pass them around."

A minute later, each of the four men had a glass of blue-tinged fluid before him.

"Bottoms up, gentlemen," Jack said.

Mr. Sweaty got sweatier. "No," he said shaking his head and staring at the glass like he'd been poured a shot of battery acid. "It'll kill us."

"Yeah, well, you gotta go sometime. Drink up; then I'm gone."

Dragovic snorted derisively, raised his glass as if he were toasting the room, and chugged the Berzerk. Then he hurled the glass across the table at Mo

"I can't!" Brad wailed.

Jack put a bullet into the mahogany tabletop directly in front of Brad. The three executives all but jumped out of their seats; Dragovic was cool, though. Barely blinked. Under different circumstances, Jack could have almost liked him.

"I don't have time for this, so I'll tell you that we can do this two ways: you can swallow it, or I can shoot you in the gut and pour it in."

Mr. Sweaty drank his. He looked sick when he set his empty back on the mahogany. Brad choked halfway through his, and for a second or two Jack was afraid he was going to blow it all over the table, but he kept it down.

Mo

"Firsthand. I got the dose you or Dragovic set up for Nadia."

"I have never heard of this Nadia," Dragovic said. "Who is she? Should I know her?"

"Then it was you," Jack said, staring hard into Mo