The Devil's Punchbowl (18 page)

 

Linda grits her teeth and forces herself to breeze past the center aisle without looking at the exit.
Point of no return,
she thinks, spying the service door that leads belowdecks to the restricted area of the boat. Operations, Security, the physical plant of the barge.

 

She has to show her badge to the security officer at the top of the stairs. He gives it a bored look, then lets her walk down the steps. She can feel his eyes on her backside as she reaches the lower deck.

 

The smell changes in the lower holds. It’s like entering the service elevator in a hotel by mistake. The illusion of cleanliness and luxury falls away, leaving the sticky floor of reality. The air down here reeks
of bad cafeteria food and other things she can’t quite recognize. Employee resentment…paranoia. Linda quails at the idea of going near the security control area, but she has no choice. The lockers and changing room are aft of the security suite.

 

Because everyone is still on shift, she’s alone on the lower deck. If the security guys poke their heads out, she’ll tell them she’s puking nonstop and has to get to the emergency room.

 

A long corridor runs past the door of the security suite, then the off-limits room they call the Devil’s Punchbowl. She makes the length of the passageway on a single held-in breath. Halfway home now. Through the hatch that leads to the changing rooms, past the clock where she punches in, around the corner…and
there.
The employee lockers.

 

Linda licks her lips, takes a breath, then dials the combination on her locker. The lock clicks. In her mind she sees the yellow Dooney & Bourke purse she bought at Dillard’s in New Orleans, a birthday splurge. And inside the purse, her car keys.

 

She opens the door and reaches into the locker, but her purse is gone. Withdrawing her hand, she leans back so that more light can get into the space. It’s a mistake, she thinks, feeling the way she does when she somehow loses the milk carton in the refrigerator.

 

Lying where she left her purse is the black TracFone Tim bought her at Wal-Mart—the phone she last saw before shoving it under the front seat of her Corolla.

 

“You fucking slag,” growls a male voice filled with rage.
Seamus Quinn.
“Do you have any idea what you’re in for?”

 

Linda closes her eyes and grips the cold metal edge of the locker door. Without it, she would have fainted to the deck.

 

Quinn starts to speak again, but the air in the room changes suddenly, and his words become a mute exhalation. Linda hears rapid, shallow breathing that sets her nerves thrumming.

 

“Close the locker, Linda,” says Jonathan Sands. “We’re a bit pressed for time.”

 

Tim is dead,
says a voice inside her, the voice that has known it all along. Hot tears slide down her cheeks as she closes the locker door.

 

“That’s it, darlin’,” says Sands. “Now turn around.”

 

Linda wipes her face on her sleeve and turns slowly. Quinn is
leaning against the wall behind her, his shoulder wedged against a flyer that reads NEED HELP MANAGING YOUR 401(K)? Sands stands in the corridor that leads past the security suite, arms folded across his chest, dressed as perfectly as if he were attending a wedding or a funeral in fifteen minutes. His hyperobservant eyes glide over her face and clothing, missing nothing. Beside him sits the huge white dog that sometimes accompanies him on the boat. Sands told her the dog was bred in Pakistan, for fighting and for war. She has never heard the dog make a sound.

 

Poor Tim,
she thinks in a rush of despair that almost drops her to the floor.

 

“Can’t trust a fucking cunt,” Quinn mutters. “All the same.”

 

Linda’s heart flutters like a panicked bird trying to beat its way up through her throat.
Move,
she tells herself.
Run—

 

“Don’t be a fool,” Sands says. “There’s nowhere to go.”

 

The wild urge to flight twists inside her.

 

“Come to me,” Sands says, beckoning her toward the hallway. “We need to ask you some questions about Timothy.”

 

The last ember of hope dies in her soul.

 

They know.

 

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER
14

 

 

The second my father walks into my bathroom with his black bag, I put my finger to my lips and shove a piece of paper into his hands. On it are printed the words:

 

I’m not sick. Annie is in danger. We all are. House may be bugged. Act like I’m having a panic attack. Follow my lead. We’re going to type messages on the computer on the counter. I’ll turn on the bath taps to cover the noise of the keyboard.

 

Dad looks up after reading for only two seconds, but I shake my head and point at the paper, and he goes back to reading. My father is seventy-three years old, and he’s practiced medicine in Natchez for more than forty of those years. He’s the same height I am—an inch over six feet—but the arthritis that’s slowly curling his hands into claws has bowed his spine so that I am taller now. His hair and beard have gone white, his skin is cracked and spotted from psoriasis, and he has to take insulin shots every day, yet the primary impression he radiates is one of strength. Thirty years past triple-bypass surgery, he’s sicker than most of his patients, but they think of him as I do: an oak tree twisted by age and battered by storms, but still indomitable at the core. He licks his lips, looks up slowly from the paper, and says, “Is your heart still racing?”

 

“I think it’s worse. And the nausea’s worse. I vomited twice after I called you.”

 

“Wonderful.” Dad glances toward the bathroom counter. Between the two sinks are the articles I assembled while I waited for him: my keys; a black Nike warm-up suit and running shoes; Annie’s MacBook computer, booted up with Microsoft Word on the screen; a Springfield XD nine-millimeter pistol, and a short-barreled .357 Magnum. “I brought you some Ativan,” he says, “but I want to listen to your chest first.”

 

“Do you mind if I get in the bathtub? I want to clean myself up.”

 

“That’s fine. Just get your shirt off.”

 

I nod and turn on the cold-water tap, then strip off my clothes and pull on the warm-up suit. Dad moves in front of the computer as I pull on the top and pecks out the words
What the hell is going on?

 

He steps aside for me to type my response, and we begin a sort of waltz in place, during which I explain our dilemma. He always typed much slower than I, but it’s worse now because of his hands; it hurts to watch him struggle to strike the keys.

 

Tim Jessup was murdered tonight. It has to do with his work at one of the casinos. The man behind his death just threatened to kill Annie. The motive is too complex to explain like this. They threatened Mom’s life, and yours too. Even Jenny, and she’s on the other side of the Atlantic.

 

Who are these people?

 

People I misread very badly.

 

They really killed Jack Jessup’s boy?

 

I left his body under the bluff an hour ago. I think they tortured him.

 

Christ. Do the police know?

 

Yes, but I’m not sure I can trust them. One word in the wrong ear, and these people take or kill Annie. They have a lot to lose.

 

What about FBI?

 

First priority is getting Annie and Mom to safety. We’ve learned that the hard way, haven’t we?

 

Dad nods slowly, and I know his memories mirror my own: I see the house that he and my mother lived in for thirty years going up in flames, and the maid who raised me and my sister in agony on a table in the emergency room.

 

“Take a deep breath,” Dad says in his medical voice, as though
he’s listening to my heart with his stethoscope. “Again…okay…again.”

 

There’s only one real option,
I type.
I’m going to call Daniel Kelly’s firm in Houston. Blackhawk. With any luck they’ll be able to send a team our way almost immediately. They’ll take Mom and Annie somewhere safe—to an actual safe house, just like the movies.

 

Dad’s face goes through subtle changes of expression as he absorbs all this, but in a short while he nods and types again.

 

All right. What about Kelly himself?

 

He’s in Afghanistan.

 

Where do the girls go? Houston?

 

I’m not sure. But wherever it is, you should go with them.

 

His contemptuous expression tells me his answer to this, but he types:

 

Kelly’s people will take better care of them than I could, and I have three patients dying right now. One in hospice and two in the hospital. I’m not going anywhere. You haven’t called Kelly’s people yet?

 

I have to leave the house for that. Was waiting for you.

 

Where are you going?

 

Not far. I should be back within 15 minutes, but don’t panic unless I’m gone an hour.

 

He digests this, then types:

 

What if somebody tries to break in while you’re gone? Is that what the guns are for?

 

I pick up the big revolver and slip it into his arthritic hands.

 

Can you still fire a pistol?

 

He eyes his crooked fingers doubtfully.

 

If they bust in here, I guess we’ll see. It can’t be any harder than giving a goddamn prostate exam. You don’t have a shotgun, do you?

 

Sorry. Wish I did.

 

He shrugs philosophically.

 

If someone does come, shoot before you talk. I’ll come running, and I should get here fast enough to be of help.

 

Dad sucks his teeth for a few seconds, and I know he’s thinking of options. With a grunt he bends and types:
There are a couple of guys I could call to help out. Old patients. Ex-cops.

 

Not this time. The bad guys might believe I panicked and called
you for some Ativan, but if anybody else shows up, we’re asking for trouble. We have to do this the old-fashioned way.

 

Dad shakes his head and types:
Like Matt Dillon and Festus spending the night at the Dodge City jail, by God.

 

That’s about the size of it. I figure you’re more Doc Adams than Festus.

 

I’m older than Milburn Stone ever got on that show, I’m afraid.

 

I smile, then type:
I still trust you with Annie’s life.

 

Something hard and implacable comes into my father’s eyes as he reads the words, and I know that the first person who tries to break into my house will take a lethal bullet from a man who knows exactly where to aim.

 

I’m going now,
I type.
Hope for 10 minutes, but give me an hour.

 

“You’re heartbeat’s slowing a little,” Dad says. “How do you feel?”

 

“Better. I think I just want to sit here in the tub awhile.”

 

He nods understanding. “I’ll just go watch some TV in the den. If the nausea doesn’t ease up, give a yell, and I’ll give you a shot of Vistaril.”

 

“Thanks, Dad. Jesus, this really scared me.”

 

“Don’t thank me. You’re not out of the woods yet.”

 

I start to walk past him, but he grips my arm with startling force, pulls me back to the MacBook, and types:
What if you don’t come back?

 

He’s right to ask. If I leave this house, no matter how stealthy I try to be, I might be signing my death warrant.

 

If I don’t come back, I’m dead or taken. Call 911 and start screaming there’s a home invasion in progress. Then call every cop you ever treated and put a ring of steel around this house.
I start to leave, but then I add,
And raise Annie like you know I would. Like you raised me.

 

He stares at the screen for a long time, and I see his jaw muscles flexing. Then he shakes his head and types:
Go fetch the cavalry, Matthew. I’ll hold the fort.

 

 

I use the rear basement window to leave my house. The lower halves of those windows sit in a narrow concrete moat that sur
rounds the house, and I am thankful for it tonight. I see no one as I sneak out of my backyard, but as I prepare to slip across Washington Street two blocks from my house, a cigarette flares at the corner of my block, illuminating the pale moon of a beardless face. Knowing the watcher will be night-blind for a few moments, I dart across the road and into the foliage of a neighbor’s yard.

 

My destination is Caitlin’s guesthouse, a renovated servants’ quarters that can be opened with the same key that opens her front door. I move carefully between my neighbors’ homes, using my knowledge of pets and gardens to steer clear of problems. When I reach Caitlin’s backyard, I experience a moment of panic, thinking she returned while I was making my way here, but what I thought was her car is simply three garbage cans lined up for collection.

 

A rush of mildewed air hits me when I open the guesthouse door. Leaving the lights off, I move carefully across the dark den, toward the glowing red light in the kitchenette. With all hope suspended, I lift the cordless phone and press the ON button. A steady dial tone comes to me like a lifeline thrown into a black ocean.

 

Taking my cell phone from my pocket, I check its memory for the number of Kelly’s employer in Houston, then enter it into the cordless landline. The phone rings twice, then a cool female voice answers, “Blackhawk Risk Management.” She’s wide-awake at two thirty in the morning, and this gives me some confidence.

 

“This is Penn Cage calling. I was given this number by Daniel Kelly. He’s a personal friend.”

 

“Yes, thank you. Did Mr. Kelly give you a code word?”

 

I close my eyes in silent thanks to Kelly. “It’s been some time, but he once told me to say
Spartacus
if I had an emergency and couldn’t reach him.”