The Perils of Paulie (A Matchmaker in Wonderland) Page 22

  “You caught him! How did you— Oh, Tabby. Thank god. I saw a policeman and flagged him down. Luckily, he speaks enough English that he understood me.”

  “I watch American television,” the man said with a huge smile. “I like CSI Law and Order. Is very informative. Book ’em, Danno!”

  “Yeah, I think that’s another . . . Never mind,” I said, so relieved to see Dixon that I wanted to cry. Which was disconcerting as hell, because I’m not the crying-at-the-sight-of-a-person sort of woman. I was mulling over this strange situation when I realized what was going down in front of me.

  “Hey, what are you doing?” I said, moving quickly to the Flyer when the cop brought out a zip tie and spun Vitale around to face the car. “No, no, no, don’t arrest him!”

  “No?” The cop hesitated when Dixon asked, “For god’s sake, why not?”

  “He hasn’t done anything wrong other than take the Flyer.”

  Dixon breathed a bit heavily through his nose. “Repeat that last bit: he stole the Thomas Flyer. Our car. The one we need for the race.”

  “Yes, but he just took it because he’s trying to get to Moscow. He’s not a bad person, not really. He’s just super focused on a goal.” I pointed at Chou-Chou, sitting regally in the backseat. “And he has an old dog that he takes care of. Not many people would go to the trouble of wheeling their old dog around the world.”

  “He stole our car!” Dixon said, running a hand through his hair.

  “Because he wants to go to Moscow and we were leaving him here in Izhevsk.” I looked meaningfully at Dixon.

  “No,” he said firmly, and crossed his arms over his chest.

  “Oh, come on. It’s just a few hundred miles.”

  “It’s over seven hundred miles, and I refuse to chauffeur a man who stole my car.”

  “It’s partly my car, and I say he can ride in my half,” I snapped, getting annoyed. Why couldn’t Dixon see that this was the right thing to do?

  His jaw worked for a second, but he said nothing.

  The cop waved the zip tie around. “I arrest or not?”

  “Not,” I said, my eyes still on Dixon. He looked quietly furious. “We’re taking him to Moscow.”

  Dixon turned around and got into the car behind the steering wheel. I told Vitale, who was looking miserable, that we were going to drive him to Moscow, but that he needed to behave himself and stop stealing cars. After thanking the policeman, he hurried around to the passenger seat.

  To my surprise, rather than pull out and turn around, Dixon headed in the direction the car was pointed—away from Izhevsk. “What are you doing?” I asked him.

  “You wanted to drive to Moscow—that’s what we’re doing,” he answered grimly. “We’ll try to make Kazan by midmorning, then go on to Novgorod.”

  “But we’ve been driving all day.” I looked at my watch. “It’s almost ten. I thought you were tired?”

  “I am tired, but I’m not going to give our friend back there another chance to steal the car. Since you insist on bringing him along, we’ll drive all night, taking turns sleeping. You go first.”

  “What about Tabby and Sam? You can’t just drive off without telling them we’re not going to the hotel.”

  “At this point, I don’t particularly care about being filmed.”

  “Roger will have a fit if he hears about that,” I murmured.

  “I don’t care.” He relented after a moment, adding, “Sam and Tabby can catch up to us in Moscow. We’ll be too exhausted to go on without proper rest.”

  I hurriedly texted Tabby.

  August 5

  To: Tabby

  We’re going to Moscow.

  August 5

  From: Tabby

  The fuck you are! That’s at least two days’ driving!

  August 5

  To: Tabby

  Dixon doesn’t want to give Vitale another chance at taking the car. I think I may have broken him.

  August 5

  From: Tabby

  Vitale?

  August 5

  To: Tabby

  Dixon. He’s making odd little snorting noises and talking to himself under his breath. And there’s a muscle in his jaw that keeps twitching.

  August 5

  From: Tabby

  Sam says we’ll drive for another hour or two. Then we’ll have to sleep. I’ll text Roger your plans. He was going to come back to watch over filming with you for a day.

  August 5

  To: Tabby

  Come back? Dammit, if he’s with the Essex team, that means they are ahead of us!

  August 5

  From: Tabby

  Hell. Pretend you didn’t see that.

  —

  I eyed Dixon and considered whether or not I wanted to tell him that the Essex team was definitely ahead of us. As I watched, he growled something and flexed his fingers on the steering wheel. I was grateful I couldn’t see his eyes through the lenses of his red goggles, because I had a feeling they would be shooting laser beams in my general direction.

  We rolled into Kazan at about six in the morning. Neither one of us had slept much in the car, although Vitale appeared to snooze the entire trip. We stopped at a skanky-looking hotel, the kind where you don’t want to touch anything inside, and took turns taking a shower and changing our clothing.

  “Do you want to sleep?” Dixon asked, his face haggard and his eyes red-rimmed with exhaustion.

  I looked at the bed and shuddered. “In the car, yes. Not here.”

  “Fine. Our guest can sleep here, and we’ll take the car.”

  And that’s how it worked out. Vitale was a bit confused, but grateful to have a room to himself, while Dixon and I curled up in the car for two hours. We had more than five hundred miles to go to Moscow, and I feared we wouldn’t get there safely with only two hours’ rest, but I couldn’t complain since Dixon was doing as I’d asked.

  I just hoped it wouldn’t kill us.

  JOURNAL OF DIXON AINSLEY

  6 August

  11:47 p.m.

  Suburb of Moscow, Russia

  We made it.

  Barely.

  Going to sleep for a week. Paid garage attendant to watch car.

  Bonus: Roger caught up with us five hours out of Moscow, along with the second camera crew. Roger said we’d passed the Essex team while they slept in Novgorod. Ha. Take that, you bastards.

  Paulie fell asleep on bed without even taking off her clothes. Managed to get her shirt and corset off. She didn’t wake. Left the rest of her clothing. Too tired to take off so much as my tie. Screw the costume department. Sleeping in my clothes as well.

  JOURNAL OF DIXON AINSLEY

  7 August

  6:33 p.m.

  Moscow, Russia—still

  We realized something was wrong when, while we were both asleep on the bed, a crash sounded from the attached bathroom.

  Paulie sat bolt upright. “What was that?”

  “Hrn?” It took me a moment to surface from the deep sleep I’d been in. I tugged at my tie, which was partially strangling me. “What?”

  “That’s what I asked. I heard a noise.”

  “Dreaming,” I said, and groggily sat up to remove my jacket, waistcoat, and blasted strangling tie.

  That’s when I saw the movement from the corner of my eye.

  Two men emerged from the bathroom, both dressed head to toe in black, with black balaclavas over their faces obscuring their features.

  One man held a gun, which was pointed directly at Paulie.

  “Holy hellballs!” she said, staring with openmouthed amazement at the men. “Dad was right!”

  “About?”

  She pointed at the men. “He said I’d be kidnapped if I came to Russia, and I’ll be damned if those aren’t kidnappers. Hello. Are
you kidnappers?”

  “Yes,” one of the men said in heavily accented English. He gestured toward me with the gun. “You. Get on your knees.”

  I thought about my options, and decided I didn’t like any of them. “No,” I said, getting to my feet and moving over to stand in front of Paulie. “I don’t think I will.”

  “I shoot you,” the man warned.

  “I’d prefer you not,” I said politely, trying to gauge how fast Paulie could make it to the door if I distracted the two men. “I have a race to complete, and for the first time in days, we’re ahead. I’d like to build on that lead, not lie dying on a Moscow hotel floor.”

  “Yeah,” she said, getting to her feet, hastily snatching up the discarded blouse and slipping it on. “What he said.”

  The man with the gun hesitated, then took three steps forward. I shoved Paulie toward the door, yelling, “Run!” when a reddish black pain burst across my head, sending me tumbling down into a black pit of agony.

  “—xon? If you’ve permanently damaged his brain, I’m going to come down like a can of whoop ass on you!” was the first thing I heard when I managed to claw myself out of the pit. I blinked at the lights and realized that my head was cradled in Paulie’s lap. I turned my face into her belly and enjoyed, for a moment, the lightly floral scent of her, wondering how a woman who’d driven for more than twelve hours could still smell so good.

  “I say we take a finger from each,” came the low, almost guttural rumble of a man. “That way we have extra.”

  “What are they talking about?” I asked Paulie’s delightful belly.

  “You’re awake! Oh, thank god.” Her belly moved and soft lips commenced kissing my face. I turned my head to kiss her properly, but what felt like a massive lump on the back of my head brushed her thigh, causing red spiderwebs of pain to crisscross in front of my eyes. When my vision cleared, I found myself sitting upright, leaning against the edge of the bed. To my surprise, we were still in the hotel room.

  “What happened?”

  “Gun boy hit you on the head when you tried to get me to leave you. As if I’d ever do that.” She brushed a bit of hair carefully from my forehead. The touch of her fingers did a lot to ease the massive headache centered on the back of my head. “I appreciate the attempt to save me, but we’re in this together, Dixon.”

  I took her hand in mine. “In what? The race? Our faux marriage? Life?”

  “All of them,” she said, her eyes soft with an emotion I didn’t want to examine too much at that moment. I simply relished for a few seconds the corresponding warm glow of happiness that seemed to start in my belly and radiate outward, and instead turned painfully to look at the two men, now seated at a minuscule table next to the window.

  “Are they really kidnappers?”

  “Yes, unfortunately.” Paulie made a face. “If I understand their references to a friend who is in Dad’s employ, I gather whoever this dude is ratted me out to his buddies here in the motherland. The buddies work for one of Dad’s old rivals, and thus Rosencrantz and Guildenstern have popped up to hold us for ransom. Or so I assume all that finger talk is leading to.”

  “One finger,” the man with the gun said, gesturing with it toward us. “Two is wasteful.”

  “How is it wasteful?” the second man asked, shaking his head. “One we send to Rostakova, and the other we send to the Englisher’s family.”

  “Who is he? Does his family have any money? Do you know the answer to these questions? I do not, and I do not think it is smart to take a second finger without knowing the answers. Where will we keep the extra finger? I don’t want it. You know how I am about blood.”

  “I like my fingers,” I said, wiggling all ten of them and feeling a bit woozy in the head region. I leaned back against Paulie and allowed her to stroke my forehead, wondering idly what she’d think of living in England. “I like Paulie’s fingers more.”

  “You’re a bit wonky, aren’t you, love?” She pressed a gentle kiss to my cheek.

  I turned my head carefully to look at her. “You missed my mouth.”

  She smiled. “I’ll kiss it later, OK? Once you’re back to normal.”

  “With or without all my fingers?”

  “I’ll tell you a secret,” she said, and then whispered into my ear, “These men are speaking in English.”

  “I know,” I whispered back. “I speak English, too.”

  “Doesn’t that strike you as odd? For Russian mobsters, that is, in the middle of Russia?”

  I turned to consider the two men, who were now arguing over the proper method of storing severed fingers so as to ensure freshness. “That is odd.”

  “Quiet, you,” the man with the gruff voice said, and pulled out a large hunting knife, which he waved at us. “We discuss how to send the ransom note.”

  “In English,” I said, my eyes narrowing on them. “Rather convenient that, don’t you think?”

  The man looked confused.

  I glanced at Paulie. She was watching me with concern. “Help me up,” I told her, and got awkwardly (and painfully) to my feet.

  The two men watched us in apparent amazement.

  “Right,” I said, tugging down the waistcoat that rode up on my chest and making an effort to not wince at the waves of pain that rippled across my brain. “I think we’d better get a few things straight. One, there will be no cutting off of fingers, either from Paulie or from me. Two, you may tell Mr. Rostakova that we are not intimidated, nor will we allow him to jeopardize our position in the race. And three, you both need to go to acting school if you wish to present yourselves as actual thugs capable of cutting off ransomable fingers.”

  “Um.” Paulie tugged at my sleeve, and said quietly, “I think they really are thugs, Dixon, but you are dead right with the other assessments.”

  “And with that, we will ask you to leave,” I said, striding to the door and opening it. “Now that you’ve woken us up, we have things to do and miles to race. Good day.”

  “What’s this?” the gun toter asked, jumping up and shoving me away from the door.

  “Uh . . . Dixon . . .”

  “On your knees!” the other man said, his lip curling a little as he leaped to his feet.

  “Give it up,” I said, bored with their playacting. I made a mental note to have a word with Paulie about her father’s actions and a discussion about what was, and what wasn’t, appropriate in parental behavior. I attempted to retake the door, but the gunman suddenly lunged at me. Something in my head snapped, and I was back fifteen years to a martial arts class I’d taken my youngest brothers to and which I’d halfheartedly participated in. I kicked the gun from the man’s hand, whirling around to slam him in the back of the head, which sent him staggering forward into his knife-bearing friend. The gunman screamed and threw himself to the side in order to avoid being gutted.

  Paulie, with more gumption than I would have thought possible, snatched up a chair and brought it down over his head. He collapsed to the floor with a grunt of pain.

  The knife-wielding thug snarled something that I was fairly certain was obscene, and hesitated for a second between Paulie and me. When he turned fractionally toward her, I leaped forward, slamming my fist into his nose, while punching out blindly with the other hand. Luckily, it missed the knife and landed on his collarbone, a nasty cracking noise resulting. The man screamed and dropped to his knees, making a halfhearted slash toward me with the knife before dropping it to clutch his shoulder.

  “Let’s get out of here!” Paulie shouted, snatching up our phones from the nightstand and leaping over the downed man. She grabbed my arm and spun me around, half dragging me to the door.

  “We can’t leave. Not until we call the police and a medic unit,” I said, stopping her.

  The look she turned on me told me she thought I was nigh on mad. “Are you freaking insane?” she ask
ed, confirming my suspicion. “We have to get out of here right now. Thank god we were too tired after dropping off Vitale to bring in our luggage.”

  I’ll give her this: she had more strength than it appeared. She had me out the door and midway down the hall before I managed to stop her a second time. “Paulie, we can’t leave your father’s men lying on the floor. We must call the police to report the attack—even if it was a sham—and get them some medical aid.”

  “Gah!” she said, slapping her thighs in annoyance. “They aren’t my father’s men, don’t you see? Yeah, he must be behind this attempt to try to scare me so I’ll sit at home and do nothing with the rest of my life, but I can assure you they are just hired goons and have no further allegiance to him, and therefore to me. And now you’ve hurt them.”

  “That’s why I insist we get them medical aid. Honestly, Paulie, for a woman who made such a big fuss about helping a man who robbed us, you are being particularly unfeeling toward actually wounded men.”

  The sound of crashing furniture and breaking ceramics emerged from the room, followed by the knife man, bleeding from his nose and holding one shoulder higher than the other. He also held the knife, and snarled viciously when he saw us.

  “You’re adorable when you’re noble, but I’d really rather not be kidnapped for real. Come on!” She dashed off toward the exterior staircase.

  “Hell!” I swore, and ran after her.

  “It’s like we’re in a James Bond movie!” Paulie cried when I jammed a trash can under the door to the exterior stairs, hoping to slow down the knife thug. Paulie streaked down the stairs, her skirts held high in her hands and the back of her blouse flapping open.

  “I am not even close to being James Bond,” I replied, leaping down the stairs two and three at a time. Above us, an ugly grating noise, followed by the sound of something large and metal being thrown down the stairs, gave our feet wings.

  “Do you have the key?” I asked when Paulie reached the bottom of the stairs and dashed outside, skidding when she made a sharp ninety-degree turn to head for the entrance to the parking area.