Highway to Vengeance: A Thomas Highway Thriller (5 page)

“Do you have a basement?” I asked, fully
aware of the answer but trying to make him feel like he had some
control over the situation.

He hesitated a moment before answering.
“Yes. Well, sort of. It’s a wine cellar, not a basement.”

“Take me there,” I said.

He led me towards a door on the far side of
the room. I opened the door and we walked into the darkness.

CHAPTER SIX

“So what’s this all about?” Russo said.

We were seated across from each other in the
middle of his wine cellar, each on metal-folding chairs that I’d
found stored in the corner. His hands were still zip-tied behind
his back, but there was nothing else restraining him. The gun was
still in my fanny pack, not visible but easily within reach.

Russo was clearly more relaxed than before,
which was exactly what I wanted. But I didn’t want him too
confident, so I had to set some ground rules before we started this
interrogation in earnest.

“We’ll get to that in a minute,” I said.
“But first I want you to understand something. So far, I’ve shown
you respect because you’ve shown me respect. But this is no game,
Russo. If you start fucking with me, I will fuck with you. And you
won’t like it when I fuck with you. At all. Understand?”

His face paled slightly and he nodded.

“Good. Now tell me about Jason Leonard.”

“What do you want to know?”

“Why you had him killed.”

Russo’s throat made a clicking sound. He
opened his mouth but shut it before anything came out.

“Is it going to start already?” I said. “I
thought I made myself clear about what would happen if you tried to
fuck with me.”

He shook his head quickly. “No,” he said.
“No, it’s not that. It’s just . . . I didn’t know . . . I thought .
. .”

“Calm down,” I said. “Don’t try to talk,
just take deep breaths. Get yourself under control.”

Eventually he did.

“Now let’s try this again,” I said. “Why did
you have Jason Leonard killed.” Of course, by now, I knew that he
wasn’t behind the murders, but he didn’t know that.

“I didn’t,” Russo said. “I swear.”

I just stared at him, waited for him to keep
talking, to fill in the silence. Classic interrogation
technique.

“I’m serious,” he continued, “Why would I do
something like that?”

“Because Jason had been arrested, and he
didn’t want to do any time, so he was going to tell the DA all
about your little tunneling operation in exchange for freedom.”

Russo started to protest but I continued on,
not letting him get a word in edgewise.

“So you had him killed,” I said. “That much
I know. But what I still don’t understand is why you had to kill
her too.”

“Her? Who are you talking about?”

“Jason’s lawyer.” I had to fight to keep my
voice steady. I was only moderately successful. “A woman named
Josephine Highway.”

Russo shifted in his chair. “Look, I don’t
know what you’re talking about. I didn’t have anyone killed. Not
Jason and not any female lawyer.”

I stared at him. He stared back without
flinching.

“Have you ever been shot before?” I
asked.

Russo shook his head jerkily from side to
side.

“It hurts like a bitch,” I said. “Especially
if it’s someplace without much muscle. Like an elbow, for instance,
or a foot, or a kneecap.”

Russo opened his mouth but I held up my hand
and shook my head.

“Just hang for a second,” I said. “Let me
finish, and then you can tell me whatever you want. Okay?”

Russo swallowed heavily and nodded.

“Where was I? Oh yeah, getting shot. Now,
don’t get me wrong, it hurts like hell no matter where the bullet
catches you, but the kneecap, now that’s an exquisite pain. And I
know what you’re thinking: Pain? I can handle pain. But you can’t.
Not this kind of pain. If you want, we can do a little experiment,
see how long you can last before you pass out in agony. I’m
guessing 30 seconds, but who knows, maybe you could surprise me.
Should we give it a shot? No pun intended, of course.”

Russo’s face was pale and the sweat covering
it made him look like a wax figure, or a cadaver. He swallowed and
his throat made a clicking noise from the lack of saliva.
Eventually, he said, “no,” in a voice not much more than a
whisper.

“Really?” I said. “You sure about that?”

“Yes. I’m sure.”

“Well, then I guess you better tell me why
you had those two people killed. And the truth, this time. I’m not
sure I’ll be able to maintain my sunny disposition if you continue
to lie to me.”

“I didn’t have anyone killed,” Russo said.
“I swear I didn’t. Please don’t shoot me. I didn’t have anything to
do with it. I swear. I didn’t.”

He seemed again to be on the verge of tears.
It was pathetic, really, and I almost felt a little sorry for him.
But I shoved the sentiment aside and pressed on.

“But you did know it was going to happen,
right?”

“No.”

“Come on,” I said. “Are you telling me you
had no idea they were going to kill Jason? Even after you heard
that he’d got arrested?”

“I didn’t really think about it,” he said.
“I guess, deep down, I suspected something like this would happen
to him. But I didn’t want to think about it.”

“Because you knew the same thing could
happen to you,” I said.

He nodded.

“What about the lawyer?” I said.

“I didn’t even know he’d talked to one.”

“So you didn’t know that she was a target
also?”

“No idea,” Russo said. “None at all.”

“You sure about that?”

“Yes. I’m sure.”

“Look at me and tell me you didn’t know she
was a target,” I said.

Russo looked up, met my gaze head on. His
eyes were steady. “I didn’t know she was a target.”

I held his gaze for a couple more seconds
then nodded my head. “You know what? I think I believe you.”

He was visibly relieved.

“But I notice you didn’t deny being involved
in a tunneling operation.”

He narrowed his eyes, caught off-guard by
the question. Which was exactly the point. He seemed to realize
this too, as he dropped his head and mumbled, “I can’t.”

“You can’t what?”

“I can’t talk about it.”

“Why not?”

Still looking at his feet, Russo said,
“Because they were very specific in telling me what would happen to
me if I ever did.”

I took a deep breath, considered how to
proceed. Eventually I decided to continue with the soft path, at
least for now. I still didn’t want to hurt him unless it was
absolutely necessary. It usually just made it more difficult to
tell the truth from the lies.

“Look at me,” I said.

He lifted his head and I latched onto his
eyes with my own. Speaking slowly, enunciating every word as though
I was a patient father explaining something to his five-year-son, I
said:

“You need to stop worrying about these other
people. You need to be worried about me. Only me. About what I’m
going to do to you if you don’t start talking. Because while I’m
inclined to believe that you were not directly involved in the
deaths of those two people, if you can’t give me more specific
information on who is responsible, then I’m just going to have to
hold you accountable. And you know what that means, don’t you?”

Russo shook his head.

I pulled out the silencer-equipped H&K
and set it on my right thigh, the extended barrel pointing in his
direction.

Russo’s eyes widened. They were locked on
the H&K.

“Look at me,” I said. “Not the gun.”

He dragged his eyes upward until they met
mine.

“Now, if you talk to me, the people that
you’re in bed with
might
find out, and they
might
catch up with you, and they
might
do some terrible things to
you. I understand that. But let me make something very clear. If
you don’t give me some information that I can use, I’ll kill you.
Right here. Right now. And it won’t be quick.”

Russo’s bottom lip started to quiver. “How
do I know you won’t just kill me after I tell you?”

“You don’t,” I said. “Not for sure. But
you’re going to have to trust me. You don’t have any other
choice.”

He closed his eyes and nodded and said,
“Okay.”

“Okay what?”

“I’ll talk.”

“Good. Now let’s try this again. You own a
warehouse that is the back-end of a tunnel that crosses underneath
the Mexican border, right?”

“Yes.”

“And who operates it?”

“I don’t know,” Russo said.

I shook my head, expressing my
disappointment.

“I’m telling you the truth,” Russo said,
panic creeping into his voice. “I really don’t know who they
are.”

“Then how did you get into business with
them?”

“A few years ago, I was approached by a man
who said he represented a group that owned property in Mexico,
directly across the border from one of my warehouses. He said this
group was willing to pay me ten thousand dollars a month if they
could use one of my warehouses.”

“Did he tell you why?”

“No,” Russo said. “But he didn’t have to. It
was obvious what they were going to use it for.”

“And so you took their money, just like
that, no questions asked.”

“I needed it,” Russo said. “I had just
gotten divorced and I was in debt up to my nose. I was about to
lose my business, my house, my car, everything. I had no
choice.”

“Didn’t you ever bother to think about what
these guys were bringing into the country?”

“Sure, I thought about it, but I figured the
stuff was going to get over the border somehow anyway. It’s not
like me saying no would have stopped them from getting it into the
country.”

The SEAL in me flashed in disgust at Russo’s
complete and utter apathy. “So you don’t give a fuck if they bring
in drugs, slaves, weapons, or a fucking nuke or whatever, as long
as you get your goddamn money.”

Russo had enough sense not to answer.

I took a deep breath—in through the nose,
out through the mouth—to help me regain my composure. This was no
time to allow my personal feelings into play, especially if they
were unrelated to Josie’s death. I had a tenuous enough grasp on my
psyche as it was. No need to fray the leash further.

Eventually, I was able to get my emotions
under control enough to steer the conversation back in the proper
direction. But I was getting tired, so I decided to stop dancing
around and push hard towards the end.

“Tell me about this man that contacted you,”
I said.

“There’s not much to tell,” Russo said. “He
was a small man, maybe five-eight, one-fifty. Hispanic. A little
older than me with black hair and glasses. He was wearing an
expensive suit.”

“I don’t suppose he told you his name?”

Russo shook his head.

“Have you talked to him since that first
time?”

“Yes,” Russo said. “A couple times.”

“How did you get in touch with him?”

“I didn’t. He contacted me.”

“How?”

“By phone.”

“You’ve never called him?”

Russo shook his head.

“Do you have a number for him? Some way to
contact him in case of an emergency?”

A brief pause as Russo thought about lying
to me, but then he thought better of it and said, “Yes. But I’ve
never called it.”

“What’s the number?”

“2-45-666-4242.”

“You know it by heart?”

“He insisted I memorize it,” Russo said. “He
told me it was a direct line and he didn’t want it written down
anywhere.”

I paused for a moment to affix the numbers
in my head before moving on. “Did he give you any special
instructions if you were to call?”

“No.”

“Something specific to say when he answered,
or a fake name to identify yourself with?”

“No.”

“A phrase to prove that you weren’t being
coerced into calling him? Anything at all unusual?”

“No,” Russo said. “Nothing like that. He
just said to call if anything important came up that he should know
about.”

“But you never did.”

“Nothing ever came up,” Russo said.

“And what was the number again?”

Without hesitating for a moment, Russo said,
“2-45-666-4242.”

By now, I was fully convinced Russo was
telling the truth. He didn’t have the balls to do anything
different. He was a pawn, a weakling, an amateur, and obviously way
out of his league. I leaned back in my chair and considered my next
move.

Still considering, I grabbed the gun with my
right hand, stood up, and gave him a pat on the shoulder with my
left.

“You’ve done good Russo,” I said as I moved
around the back of his chair.

He turned his head to follow me. “Does that
mean we’re finished?”

“That depends,” I said, now standing
directly behind him. I still hadn’t decided on a course of
action.

“On what?”

“On you.”

Russo started to shift his body to get a
better look at me but I stuck the barrel of the H&K against the
back of his neck, right at the base of his skull. My finger was
still resting on the trigger guard. For now.

Russo stiffened. The stench of urine filled
the cellar. He started to turn his head.

“Keep facing forward,” I said.

“Okay,” he said, his voice on the verge of
cracking. “Okay. Just . . . just take . . . take it easy. Why . . .
why are you doing this? I answered all your questions. I did
everything you asked.”

“Tell me why I shouldn’t kill you,” I
said.

“Because I don’t deserve to die!”

“Neither did my wife,” I said. “But that
didn’t save her, now did it?”

There was a pause as this rattled around in
Russo’s mind. Then he got it. “She . . . she was Jason’s
lawyer?”

“That’s right.”