Star of the East by Kathryn Guare

Author:Kathryn Guare
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Kathryn Guare

Chapter Twenty-Five

With his head down and a watch cap pulled low on his forehead, Mounir’s facial features were obscured, but the ship’s name stitched into the breast pocket of his anorak was a lucky break.

Reversing direction, Conor stopped Jimmy’s forward motion with a chest bump. “Back, back, back,” he hissed, then lazily started removing his coat, spreading it wide to block the stairwell while his two charges stumbled back on their own tracks.

Turning at the top of the stairs, he faked some friendly horseplay, clapping a hand on Jimmy’s shoulder, steering him toward the front of the building. Conor smiled while pitching a question next to his ear.

“Please God that door ahead of us is unlocked?”

He got no answer from Jimmy, but felt a tap on his own shoulder. He turned to see Gordo, who looked more alert now, offering a packet of Viceroys and nodding meaningfully at the door.

“Cheers.” Conor took a cigarette and handed the packet forward. “Let’s go out for a smoke.”

“Fire escape on the left.”

These first words from Gordo, delivered with a gravel-bottomed rumble, were music to Conor’s ears, but once on the deserted porch he swore, tossing the unlit cigarette over the railing. While everything else was swept clean on the platform, against all proper regulations the fire escape was invisible under at least two feet of hard-packed snow.

“Hey. Hey, hold on,” Jimmy protested, but Conor was already pushing him forward again. At the top of the stairs he swung an arm around Jimmy’s chest, gave a kick to the side of his ankle to knock his feet out, and sank back to take the man’s slight weight.

“Knees up,” he ordered. “Like you’re doing a cannonball.”

The two of them slid over the edge and shot down the stairs on their backsides. Conor gave thanks for the versatility of a waxed field coat. Landing hard on the plowed driveway, he scrambled up and hauled Jimmy to his feet. Encumbered by size and a pure wool peacoat, Gordo followed more slowly, reaching bottom after Conor had already dragged Jimmy into the deep shadows of a portico in front of the deserted inn next door.

“You did have a plan, I assume,” he remarked when they were all together again. He looked at each of them, offering either an invitation to speak while he slapped the snow from his jeans.

“Yeah, I had a great one, so I hope you know what you’re doing,” Jimmy snapped. “I had it under control.”

“By getting Gordo here to give Mounir a good fright? Box the head off him? And then what?”

“Maybe we had a more permanent solution,” Gordo said, gazing into the distance. Conor gave him a flat stare, thinking he had vastly underestimated what this hulking lumberjack was bringing to the table.

“You’re telling me you were intending to murder the captain of the Hollumborg?” His tone was deadly enough to break the man’s impassive self-assurance.

“I didn’t say that.”

“You didn’t have to.”

“Well, the guy’s—”

“Keep your voice down,” Conor snapped at Jimmy.

“The guy’s a freakin’ criminal,” Jimmy whispered.

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