Mrs. Million (15 page)

The other man, Rodney, was slightly larger in every physical dimension. He too wore a down vest, although with a different camouflage pattern. A blaze orange wool cap sat low on his forehead, the visor nearly touching the tip of his bulbous nose. He looked at his cards, grimaced, discarded. “I s’pose you want a goddamn seven.” He picked up a longneck, held it up to the light to make sure it wasn’t empty, and drank it down.

“Matter a fact, I believe I do, Rod Man.”

“Jesus Christ Almighty!” Rodney slammed a fist down on the spool. The bottles wavered but remained upright. Hugh laughed.

Phlox weighed her options. It did not appear that these men had Bobby in their possession, but it was still possible. But if they did have him, why would they be sitting around playing gin rummy? She decided to stand quietly for a time, see whether the subject came up on its own.

Her question was answered almost immediately when Rodney said, “I still can’t believe we let him get away.”

“Me neither,” said Hugh. “We’d have caught him if you weren’t such a damn jelly belly.”

“Me? You’re the porker here. You look in a mirror lately?”

“I got big bones.” Hugh discarded.

Rodney scowled at the discard. “Yeah, and I’m a damn rocket surgeon.” He drew a card, fitted it into his hand, discarded.

Hugh said, “I wonder who that was in that car.”

“Some asshole prob’ly didn’t even know who he picked up.”

“Then how come he took off that way?”

“On account of we were chasing him.”

Hugh shook his head. “You’re not just fat, you’re stupid, too.”

“Yeah? So?”

“I’m just trying to make a point here.”

“And what’s that?”

“How the hell should I know?”

Phlox couldn’t help herself. She burst out laughing.

T
HE WALLPAPER, THE CEILING
, and the bed were unfamiliar, but Hilde thought she recognized the maple dresser. Mary Beth had used it in her room until she’d moved out. Hilde couldn’t remember where it had gone from there. She sat up and explored her more recent memories. She remembered borrowing the Porsche but she could not remember how her ride had ended, or how she had gotten to this room, or how long—hours? days? weeks?—she had been here. Hilde swung her legs over the edge of the mattress and let her feet drop to the nubbly carpet; her feet were bare. Looking at the rest of her body she discovered that she was wearing an unfamiliar nightgown. She reached back with one hand, pulled the neck around and out so that she could view the label.
Eileen West.
Hilde smiled. She must be at Barbaraannette’s house. She leaned forward and transferred her weight to her feet, then straightened up. Her ankles, knees, and hips all registered their usual complaints. Interesting how, at her age, simply standing up became a sequence of conscious, considered acts. It was no wonder that she had become so forgetful with so much of her mental energy now devoted to such mundane matters.

Hilde found Barbaraannette in the other bedroom sprawled on top of the bedspread, fully dressed, one arm thrown over her eyes, her mouth hanging open, snoring quietly. She closed the door and went in search of the kitchen. Yes, this was most definitely Barbaraannette’s house. Was she living here now? Had she been kicked out of the hotel? Or was this just a visit? This forgetfulness was becoming a real problem. She hoped that no one had noticed. A cup of tea might help get the old gray matter pulsing. Hilde filled the teakettle and put it on the stove and sat down to wait for the whistle. While she was waiting, the telephone rang. Hilde picked it up quickly, not wanting the noise to awaken her daughter.

“Hello?”

“Good evening! Am I speaking with Mrs. Quinn?” The man had a very cultured voice.

“Yes?” said Hilde. She was not Mrs. Quinn, of course, but she was Mrs. Quinn’s mother, which was more or less the same thing.

“I am calling in regards to your husband.”

“Oh?” Hilde waited.

“I would like to deliver him to you, as per your request.”

“As per?” Hilde switched the phone to her other ear.

“Hello?”

“Yes, hello! Mrs. Quinn?”

“Yes?”

“I would like to discuss, er, the reward with you. The manner of payment?”

“Yes?” Hilde was certain that any second now the gears would mesh and she would understand what this man was talking about.

“We are wondering if it would be possible for you to pay us the amount in cash.”

“Is this a collection call?”

“Excuse me?”

“The check is in the mail.”

“Is this Mrs. Quinn?”

“Yes?”

“Is this the Mrs. Quinn who is married to Robert Quinn?”

Hilde hesitated. It was one thing to claim to be Mrs. Quinn, but another thing altogether to claim to be married to her own son-in-law. She said, “Hello?”

“Yes. Mrs. Quinn, do you want your husband returned to you?”

Hilde blinked. “Which one are we talking about?” she asked.

A younger, ruder voice interrupted. “Don’t fuck with us!”

“Excuse me?” Hilde said.

“Listen, lady, you want your husband you better quit fucking around here or your old man’s gonna be in some serious shit.”

Hilde said, “There’s no need to be rude.” Barbaraannette appeared in front of her, gesturing frantically. “Just a moment,” Hilde said to the man on the phone. She put a hand over the mouthpiece. “I think I’m having an obscene phone call,” she said.

“Get off the phone!” André hissed.

“She’s just jacking you around, Perfesser,” Jayjay said. He was on the cordless, standing in the kitchen doorway.

“You let me handle this—hello?”

“Hello?”

“With whom am I speaking, please?”

“This is Mrs. Quinn. Who are you?”

“Mrs. Quinn, I have located your husband.”

“Oh!” She said nothing for several heartbeats. “You aren’t the person who called earlier, are you?”

“No I am not. Mrs. Quinn, I’d like to arrange to deliver your husband to you and collect the reward you have offered.”

“I see.” Another long pause. “I’d like to talk to him, please.”

“Of course, of course.” André did not want to go back into that cellar. “It is not convenient at the moment, however.”

“Well, when it’s convenient you give me a call back. Or just bring him on by and we’ll see about the reward. By the way, what is your name?”

“That is of no importance. Perhaps I haven’t explained myself sufficiently, Mrs. Quinn. I will be happy to let you speak with your husband at the appropriate time, but I think we need to make some arrangements first. To be precise, I would like to be paid the reward money in cash. Would that be possible?”

“I hadn’t really thought about it.”

“That is precisely why I am calling you now—” André became aware that his shirt was soaked with sweat, and that his hand hurt from squeezing the phone, “—so that you have time to get the money. The cash.”

Mrs. Quinn cleared her throat. “How do I know you have Bobby? Is he okay?”

“He’s fine.”

“Yes, well, Mr. Voice-on-the-phone, this is all very suspicious. You bring my husband to me and I’ll see about your reward. Goodbye, Mr. Voice—”

Jayjay cut in. “You hang up and your old man’s dead, lady!”

For a moment no one spoke, then André said, keeping his voice carefully under control, “Mrs. Quinn, there’s no reason for this situation to become adversarial.”

“Then why are you threatening me?”

“I’m not. I—”

“This is bullshit,” Jayjay interrupted.

“Please—” André said, feeling the situation slipping out of his control.

“You get the fucking money or else, lady!”

“I don’t think I like your attitude,” she said.

“You think I give a shit?” Jayjay shrieked. “I got my ass blown up fighting Saddam! I’m a goddamn war veteran. You think I care what you like?”

André snatched the cordless away from Jayjay. “We will be in touch,” he said, then hung up both phones.

Jayjay said, “Hey!”

“I told you I would handle this,” André snapped. “Are you trying to ruin everything?”

“No! I—”

“We agreed that I would be the one to talk to the woman. Me. Now she knows there are two of us working together.”

“So?”

“It was a stupid thing to do, Jayjay.”

Jayjay tucked his chin; his face darkened. “Don’t call me stupid.”

André threw his hands in the air and turned his back.

Jayjay said. “You think I’m stupid? You’re stupid. You’re the fucking stupid one.”

André, hugging himself, looked down at the stovetop. He needed time to think, to calm down. Being surrounded by his pots and pans and the smell of lamb curry helped.

Jayjay grabbed him by the shoulders and spun André to face him.
“You’re
fucking stupid. She’s not gonna just pay us the reward, y’know, unless she has to—” He jabbed André in the sternum with two fingers, producing an audible thump,
“stupid.”

“What do you mean?” André covered his chest with his hands.

“She’s not gonna give us a fucking dime unless we show her we’re serious. We gotta send her one of his ears or something, like they do in Italy.”

André stared at the red-faced young man standing in his kitchen. This was the beautiful Jonathan James? It hardly seemed possible. Cutting off people’s ears? Was he planning to do him harm as well? Inconceivable, after all he had done for the boy. Change the subject, he thought. He turned back to the stove, groping for words. “When were you in Italy?” he said over his shoulder.

“I was never in fucking Italy,” Jayjay said. “Jesus Christ, talk about
stupid!”

André could feel the boy’s breath on the back of his neck. Slipping on a pair of oven mitts, he lifted the Dutch oven from the stovetop and turned around.

Jayjay backed away from the hot iron pot. He said, “Look, we gotta call her back, let her talk to the guy or she’s not gonna do nothing.”

André carried the curry to the dining room and set it on a trivet. “We’ll call her back after dinner.” It was important that he retain some semblance of control.

“We gotta call her back now or she might call the cops or something.”

Unable to stop himself, André said, “Why on earth would she do that? Simply because you threatened to kill her husband? How unreasonable of her!”

Jayjay’s normally full lips compressed into a thin white slash. He picked up the cordless and hit the redial button. André felt in himself a powerful urge to strike the boy, to pick up a utensil of some sort and swing it against the side of his head. He even went so far as to consider the specific items at hand—the top to the Dutch oven, the serving spoon, the ceramic candlesticks—but nothing seemed quite right.

Jayjay said into the phone, “You still want to talk to your old man? Hold on.” He gave André a triumphant look, mouthed the word “stupid,” and descended into the cellar.

André felt an unfamiliar expression come and go on his face. He made a clucking sound with his tongue, stripped off the oven mitts and followed Jayjay into the cellar.

T
HE COLD CONCRETE FLOOR
smelled of piss and dust and his throat was dry as ash. The furnace turned itself on again, producing a faint orange glow near its base. Bobby squirmed closer to the heat, dragging the heavy wooden chair, trying to be quiet about it, trying not to throw his breathing out of sync. With his mouth taped over and one nostril swollen shut the slightest effort left him desperate for oxygen. Air and water. He had never before had to worry about either of those things. All he’d ever worried about was money and sex and looking good but right now he would give up all those things, at least for a while, for a glass of water and a lungful of clean air.

He could hear voices from upstairs, the two crazies. What had he done to deserve this? Leave Barbaraannette? That one little thing he’d done six years ago? No. A lot of guys just like him made their move for one reason or another and none of them got hit over the head and taped to a chair. Then again, none of them had been married to Barbaraannette.

The voices got louder. He heard one of them coming down the steps saying, “I think he’s taking a little nap. I got to wake him up.” The door opened and the light went on. Bobby could see boots; it was the young one, the one who’d kicked him.

The kid said, “You move? I told you not to fuckin’ move.”

Bobby tensed, waiting for another kick, but the kid squatted down in front of him, holding a phone in one hand. With the other he began to pick at the duct tape. “Shit, man…” He put the phone down and started digging in with his nails, trying to tear the tape away.

Then Bobby heard another voice. “Good Lord, what have you done?”

The man was still taped to the chair. Worse yet, the man and the chair were tipped over, and one of the chair legs had broken off. Two hundred years old and now it lay sundered on the cellar floor. André’s hands met and clutched. He heard his voice, complaining in high-pitched and anxious tones. “Do you know what you’ve done?”

Jayjay had frozen in position, crouched over the chair, his hands on the man’s face, looking over his shoulder, his eyes small and glittering. He looked to André like an evil troll, an underground creature come to prey upon his antique furniture.

André shouted, “Get him off it! Get him off!”

Jayjay the troll-boy stood up. “Just calm down, Perfesser.”

“You told me he was off it, damn you!” André pushed Jayjay aside, knocked the bare light bulb swinging, fell to his knees and went at the duct tape with bare hands, ripping through it with desperate strength, muttering to himself. He managed to tear through a few loops, then encountered a twisted rope of tape that resisted his efforts. André grasped the tape and pulled with all his strength. The tape held, but one of his fingernails folded back, sending a shock of pain up his arm. André gasped and tears spurted from his eyes. “Damn you!” he wailed and punched the man in the side with his good hand.

“Take it easy, Perfesser. Let me give you a hand, okay?” André looked up, saw Jayjay the troll-boy smiling, showing his teeth.

“What’s so funny?” André demanded.

“Nothing!” The light bulb, still in motion, moved the boy’s eyes in and out of shadow. “Here, let me help.” The boy moved a hand and André saw the thin blade, still greasy with raw lamb, projecting from his fist.