The Double (18 page)

Lucas glanced up at the pipes in the ceiling. He’d seen no chairs out in the main space, and Lumley wasn’t tall enough to reach the pipes. If he had a chair, he could have Lumley stand on it, bind Lumley’s hands behind his back, bind his hands to the pipes, and wait for him to fall forward. This would cause much pain and dislocation. The venerable Palestinian Crucifixion. But Lucas had no chair.

“Okay,” said Lucas. “Go stand in the doorway, Charles. Raise your hands and grab the molding up top.”

Lumley went to the doorway and did as he was told. “Like this?” he said, hopefully. It didn’t seem like anything, yet.

“Just like that,” said Lucas.

Lucas and Dupree had a seat on the edge of the tub as Lumley held his position.

“We shoulda brought a deck of cards,” said Dupree.

“We’ve got our phones,” said Lucas. “We could play Words with Friends.”

“I don’t want to play that game with you. You make words up, man.”

“No, I don’t.”

“Last time, you played
dhole.
What is that?”

“It’s a word,” said Lucas.

Lumley began to feel some ache after fifteen minutes. It was hard to hold his arms up as the blood rushed to his lower body and he lost his strength. At the half-hour mark he experienced cramping and dizziness. He was sweating profusely. He made childish choking sounds.

“You recognize this place?” said Lucas. Lumley nodded weakly. “Billy Hunter, or whatever his name is, and a guy named Serge, and a third guy with a beard, they were renting this spot for a while. I imagine you came here when you were doing your dirt with Billy. Let’s keep this simple: again, where are Billy and his partners now? Where do they stay, Charles?”

Lumley sharply shook his head. He briefly took his hands off the molding and began to lower them.

“Don’t do that,” said Lucas. “My friend will hit you with the stun gun again. This time he’ll put it right on your testicles.”

“God,” said Lumley.

“Ain’t no God in this room,” said Dupree, though to him that was a lie. In his mind, the Lord was everywhere. Today, this disturbed him.

“Tell me where Billy Hunter stays right now,” said Lucas. “Tell me where Grace Kinkaid’s painting is.”

Lumley shook his head.

“Hang there,” said Lucas.

Twenty minutes later, Lumley fell like laundry to the tiled floor. Lying there in the fetal position, he shook and sobbed.

“Where’s Billy Hunter?” said Lucas, after Lumley had composed himself.

“He’ll kill me,” said Lumley.

“Does that mean you’re not going to tell us?” said Lucas.

“I
can’t.
”

Tough guy, thought Lucas. He was surprised.

Lucas looked at Dupree and jerked his head toward the hot and cold taps. Both of them stood. Dupree opened the spigots and began to fill the tub.

“What are you doing?” said Lumley. “Are you two soldiers or something?”

They didn’t answer.

“Are you going to waterboard me?”

Dupree chuckled. “We don’t even know how to do that, Charles.”

Lucas got two more pairs of restraints from his bag, turned Lumley over, and bound his hands and feet behind his back as the tub filled. He tore a long strip of duct tape off the roll. When he was done, the tub was sufficiently full.

“Is that water hot?” said Lumley. “Is it hot?”

Neither Lucas nor Dupree replied.

“One more chance,” said Lucas.

Lumley winced and shook his head.

“All right,” said Lucas. “This could have been easy. You made a choice.”

“No,” said Lumley.
“No.”

Lucas wrapped the duct tape around Lumley’s mouth. Then he grabbed his biceps and hoisted him up to his knees. He scooted Lumley to the edge of the tub so that he was bent forward and looking into the water. Dupree, behind them, gripped Lumley’s ankles. Lumley was wide-eyed and shaking.

“Blink if you’re ready to talk,” said Lucas.

Lumley did not blink, and with his hand firmly on the back of Lumley’s head Lucas pushed his face down into the water. He held him there. At first, Lumley didn’t move. Then he began to struggle.

“The tape wasn’t a good idea,” said Dupree. “He’s gonna take water up in his nose.”

Bubbles came to the surface of the water.

“Maybe you’re right,” said Lucas.

Lucas waited. He pulled Lumley’s head up. His chest was heaving and he was trying to take in breath through his nose, but there was water in there, and he coughed, his breath out-denting the tape. Lucas ripped the tape away and let Lumley get his breath.

“Billy Hunter,” said Lucas. “Where is he? Where’s the painting?”

Lumley said nothing. Lucas pushed his head back down into the water and held it fast. Lumley writhed beneath his grip, his legs kicked out, and Dupree grasped his twisting ankles.

“Dude’s stronger than he looks,” said Dupree.

Lucas watched the water and studied the bubbles with a curious distance. Time passed. Lumley jerked violently and a great deal of bubbles burst on the surface. Lumley went lank and urinated on the floor.

“Luke,” said Dupree.

Lucas’s eyes regained their focus. He pulled Lumley from the water and put him facedown on the checkerboard tiles. Water spilled from his mouth. He began to heave, then cough, and then he began to breathe. Lucas and Dupree looked at each other. In Dupree’s eyes Lucas saw relief.

Lumley, his face resting on its side, stared straight ahead.

“You ready now?” said Lucas.

“Cut off these fucking handcuffs,” said Lumley, “and give me my clothes.”

“I can do that,” said Dupree.

Lumley sat against a white wall in the main space of the property. He had put on his dress shirt and slacks and hand-combed his hair in a forward direction. His hair was still wet and there were wet spots under his shirt. His cell phone lay on the floor beside him. He limply held a bottle of blue sports drink that Lucas had packed in his nylon bag.

Winston Dupree sat nearby in a similar position. Lucas was standing.

“Repeat the location,” said Lucas.

Lumley again gave him the location of the house in Croom, Maryland, and Lucas typed it into his iPhone.

“The painting is there?”

“Yes,” said Lumley, his voice mechanical. “That one and others.”

“Do they have weapons?”

“I’ve seen Serge handling a pistol. I don’t know guns, so I can’t be specific.”

“What’s Serge’s last name?”

“Bacalov.”

“Spell it.” Lumley did so and Lucas said, “And Billy’s?”

“Billy King.”

“You have a phone number for King, right?”

Lumley read it off the contacts list of his own cell and Lucas made note.

“What about the young guy with the beard?” said Lucas.

“Louis. That’s all I know.”

“How’d you get mixed up in all of this?”

Lumley drank deeply from the plastic bottle and placed it on the wood floor by his side. He closed his eyes.

“Charles?” said Lucas. “I asked you a question.”

“The recession,” said Lumley. “I was underwater on my mortgage and I’d missed a couple of payments. I drive a Five Series BMW with a seven-year loan. I like expensive clothes. And my business has gone south. Billy walked into my store one day and caught me at the right time.”

“Walked in and said what?”

“He was looking for an assessment on two paintings. He told me they were his. Later, after he’d gotten me caught up in all this, I found that they belonged to a woman he was sleeping with. An older divorcée who lived in the Wyoming.”

“So this woman had money and the paintings were valuable. When you sold them, you got a piece of the action.”

“Yes.”

“Billy stole them how?”

“He had an apartment key made off of her spare. Same way he did with Grace. When he had used this woman up he simply walked in one day and took the paintings off her wall.”

“You said you got caught up.”

“Billy gets a look in his eye.”

“You couldn’t say no?”

“Look, I didn’t like what I was doing.”

“But you liked the money.”

“It got me out of a jam. That’s all it was to me. A solution.”

“And you met Grace at her condo party and you saw that she was, what?”

“Vulnerable.” Lumley looked away. “I knew Billy could take advantage of that. He’s got a power over a certain kind of woman.”

“Has Grace’s painting been sold?”

“Not yet.”

“So it’s at the house in Croom?”

“Last time I was there, yes. I had to verify its authenticity.” Lumley looked coolly at Lucas. “Can I go?”

“Not until we get a few things straight. First: if you tell Billy or his friends about this, I’ll find you.”

“I have no doubt you would.”

“You’re done in Washington. Close up your shop and leave town. I’ll give you a couple weeks, and then I’m going to check up on you. If you’re not gone, I’ll turn all this information over to the police.”

“Are you going to tell the police that you kidnapped and tortured me, too?”

“You can go,” said Lucas.

“Aren’t you going to drive me back to my shop?”

“You have your wallet. Walk down to Florida Avenue and get a cab.”

Lumley stood, picked up his jacket and tie, rolled the tie into a ball, and stuffed it in a pocket. He didn’t look at Lucas or Dupree. Straightening his posture, with the last bit of dignity he could muster, he walked out.

“You took everything that man had,” said Dupree. “He ain’t never gonna look at the world the same way. Those fancy clothes of his, that German automobile…They don’t mean dick to him anymore. You robbed him of his manhood.”

“He shouldn’t have done what he did.” Lucas reached out his hand and helped Dupree stand. “Let’s clean this place up. I told Woldu I’d leave it as I found it.”

“You do know that Charles peed on the floor in there.”

“Can you get that?”

“
Screw
you, man.”

Lucas locked the alley door. He and Dupree walked to the Buick.

“You still with me?” said Lucas.

“What’s next?”

“A little recon. Then we go into that house.”

“We’re gonna need more than handcuffs and an electricity gun.”

“That’s not a problem.”

“And I’ll have to renegotiate my contract.”

“So you’re in?”

“Yeah,” said Dupree. “I’m in.”

In the car, driving uptown toward Manor Park, Dupree said, “
Dhole
is not a word.”

“Yes, it is.”

“What’s it mean?”

“It’s a wild dog native to Southeast Asia.”

“You knew that?” said Dupree.

“I played the letters first, at random,” said Lucas. “The game accepted the word. Then I looked up its meaning.”

“You don’t mind doin a little dirt, do you? Long as you come out on top.”

Lucas nodded. “I like to win.”

EIGHTEEN

I
n the morning, Lucas met Winston Dupree at his apartment on 4th and drove out to Rockville, Maryland. There, in a neighborhood of modest GI-Bill homes off Veirs Mill Road, they found the Waldron residence, a tidy rambler with a small, trimmed yard and an American flag hung above the front door. Bobby Waldron lived here with his parents, in the basement of the house in which he’d been raised.

They were greeted by Rosemary Waldron, a boisterous redhead, retired from a career-long slog in the cafeterias of the Montgomery County school system. Her husband, Bobby’s father, was a master plumber and self-employed. When Bobby was a boy, his father had painted the words
Waldron and Son Plumbing
on the sides of his truck, but Bobby had expressed no desire to learn the trade. Instead, he enlisted in the army straight out of Richard Montgomery High.

Rosemary Waldron let Lucas and Dupree in and offered them a couple of Miller High Lifes. They declined. She knew Lucas but not Dupree and, assuming he was a veteran, asked about his deployment and war experience. After Dupree detailed his military background to her in front of a fireplace mantel holding photographs of Bobby in football and army uniforms, he and Lucas excused themselves and met Bobby at the foot of the basement stairs. He was wearing jeans and a Champion jersey with cut-off sleeves, revealing his thick arms and tiger-stripe tats.

Waldron had drunk beer with Dupree at the American Legion bar in Silver Spring many times, but they had not hit it off. Waldron had a short-man complex, for one, and there was the matter of Dupree’s size. Also, Waldron liked to play that Marine Corps versus army game, a dick-size contest that no one could ever win. Lucas made it a point never to dip his toe, or anything else, in those contaminated waters.

“Come with me,” said Waldron.

They followed him to his dark, windowless room, which smelled of Marlboros and Axe body spray. A dime would bounce off Waldron’s bed if tossed onto it; against the wall, many pairs of sneakers were perfectly aligned. It was more barracks than bedroom.

Waldron closed the door, locked it, then went to his closet and retrieved a couple of duffel-sized ripstop bags. He dropped the bags on his bed and unzipped them.

“Short notice,” said Waldron. He looked up at Dupree and shrugged elaborately. “If you’d given me some time, I could’ve got you one of those SAWs.”

“For real?” said Dupree, putting a little edge into his voice. He doubted Waldron could have come up with an M249, a machine gun capable of firing hundreds of rounds per minute. But then again, they were in America.

“Yeah, for real,” said Waldron.

“What do you have for us, Bobby?” said Lucas, hoping to cut the tension and move things along.

“Shotguns, to start,” said Waldron. “Mossberg Five Hundreds.” Waldron pulled a pump-action twelve-gauge from one of the bags. “I know you guys used Benellis…”

“We used anything we could get,” said Lucas.

“The Mossberg will do,” said Dupree.

“Military spec,” said Waldron.

“Pistols,” said Lucas.

“I got you a choice of revolvers, Luke. I know you like the no-jam insurance.”

“Talk to me.”

“S and W Combat Magnums. If you’re looking for a hand cannon, I’ve got a three-fifty-seven.”

“Too much.”