Midnight in Ruby Bayou by Elizabeth Lowell Page B

searching wind.
    â€œMove on,” the Russian growled. “I need this place.”
    â€œFuck you, asshole,” the drunk replied. “I found it first.” He raised a shaking fist that was wrapped in rags because he would rather spend the money he got panhandling on booze than gloves.
    Ivanovitch stepped inside a staggering punch and seized the drunk by the throat. The stench of cheap wine nearly made him gag as he slid the long, narrow blade of a dagger between the drunk’s ribs. The point of the knife found the man’s heart. The Russian twisted the blade, maximizing the damage. The victim gasped, more in surprise than in pain. Blood spilled out of the pericardial sac, filling his chest. As he bled to death without spilling a drop, his legs collapsed. He would have fallen to the concrete but for the powerful hand that held him erect.
    â€œCome along, my friend,” Ivanovitch murmured quietly. “I told you I needed this place.”
    The drunk, now all but dead, didn’t weigh much. It took little effort to carry him around the corner of the old brick building into an alley filled with trash Dumpsters. To the rest of the world, the two men looked like old friends scuttling off to share a bottle of fortified wine.
    Thirty seconds later, Ivanovitch returned alone and took up his watch post in the grimy doorway. He was wrapped in a heavy coat that was cleaner but no less tattered than the blanket he had stolen from the homeless drunk. Like the corpse he had left in a trash bin, Ivanovitch appeared to doze, but he was far from asleep. Beneath the brim of the thrift-store hat, he watched the closed, barred, yet brightly lit window of Timeless Dreams.
    Faith Donovan was in her shop, working on a piece of jewelry. A guard was with her, the same competent man who had been there earlier. It would be too risky to try to grab the woman and slice the truth out of her. He had not risen within the deadly world of St. Petersburg’s mafiyas by yielding to the hot thrill of murder at every opportunity. If the occasion arose, excellent. If not, there were other ways to assure himself that the Heart of Midnight wasn’t locked in the woman’s shop. One of those ways involved another skill of his: burglary.
    Ivanovitch’s personal transition from poverty to wealth had occurred in the chaos of a society that was trying to change from a corrupt tyranny to a quasi capitalism. His rapid rise was due to a real skill for violence and early training as a locksmith. He understood locks and safes in the way that a doctor understands metabolism. It made him an excellent burglar. St. Petersburg’s elite spent millions on steel and concrete vaults and safes which Ivanovitch happily plundered, contributing to the social turmoil and violence that had created him.
    He didn’t really care about the ultimate outcome for Russian society—capitalism, socialism, communism, or chaos—because he was confident of his own niche. There were thieves and murderers in every culture.
    He was both.
    Cold wind gusted, eating through the secondhand socks and running shoes he wore. As a street urchin, he had lost three toes to frostbite. Their stubs, and the remaining whole toes, were exquisitely sensitive to chill. They ached in stabbing time with his heart. He ignored it. He had suffered much worse in St. Petersburg before Tarasov recognized his value. After that, he had risen swiftly from the icy gutters. The trail of blood he left behind only added to his reputation as Tarasov’s man.
    It was nearly midnight when the lights in Faith Donovan’s shop went out. As if by silent command, a car pulled around the corner and stopped in front of Timeless Dreams. The door of the shop opened. Faith’s husky voice and soft laughter drifted through the icy rain as she said something to her guard. An emotion that was both lust and something much darker shot through Ivanovitch. He watched the pale flash of her