The Unwilling(108)

“Because I’m changing the terms of our arrangement. The numbers should reflect that.”

Papers trembled in the warden’s hand. “What changes?”

X smiled, but it was thin as a dime. “Gentlemen, a moment.”

The lawyers rose, and left. When they were alone, X put a hand on the warden’s shoulder in a manner so unexpected and intimate, it was absolutely terrifying. “I need something more from you,” he said. “Something I never expected to ask for or want.” X laid it out for the warden. What he wanted. When it should happen. He spoke slowly for the warden’s sake, and repeated it twice. “I’ll leave the how of it to you.”

The warden stared dumbly. “The how of it?”

“Shall we go through it again?”

“No. No.” The warden shook his head. Nausea. Cold sweat. “I’m not sure I can manage that.”

“I’m giving you forty million dollars.” X squeezed the shoulder until it hurt. “Of course you can.”

“But tomorrow … I mean … the timing.”

What he meant was, I can’t do it, I won’t, I’m not fucking insane.

X, though, had no patience for fools and their feelings. “We spoke recently of your youngest son, Trevor. We’ve never really talked about his older brother. Thomas, I believe.”

“Thomas, yes.” The warden nodded stupidly.

“He lives at home, I’m told.”

“He helps his mother.”

“He has a girlfriend? A job?”

“No. Neither.”

“Physically, though…” X sat, and laced his fingers. “How is young Thomas?”





41


Nothing changed until the phone rang. After that, we drove for a long time, open roads at first, and then traffic sounds, starts and stops that felt like the city. By the time we stopped for real, Chance had been too quiet for too long, and I was half-dead from the heat. The car rocked when the driver got out, and it was another bad moment, because it felt so final.

I didn’t die, though.

He left us in the trunk.

Ninety degrees on the outside, maybe one-forty in the darkness. Chance was as loose as a dead man.

Was he breathing or not?

I couldn’t tell; I didn’t know.

I thought maybe I was dying.



* * *



When the trunk opened, it was dusk, and I was still alive. I saw black trees and that purple sky, everything fuzzy at the edges. I couldn’t move, and he knew it. Maybe that’s why he’d left us in for so long. Or maybe he wanted us dead the easy way. It wouldn’t take much more. He stood there for a few seconds, and then was gone; and I drank down cool air, lustful, lost, and drowning. When sound came, it was a slaughterhouse sound, like a pig squealing. He hauled me out and dropped me down, folding Chance like a blanket beside me, dead or alive, I still couldn’t tell. His heat could be trunk heat, his movements involuntary as wheels squealed again, and he rolled us toward a house I’d never seen, then down a ramp to a room filled with tables, cages, and horrible things made of bright metal so they glittered in the light.

At the first cage, he rolled us inside, and then dragged us onto the floor. I hit hard, but couldn’t feel it. Chance’s head bounced. A knife appeared, but cut tape instead of skin. He didn’t look at my face or say a word, just closed the cage, and locked it with a hunk of brass the size of my fist. I thought he would leave us then, but he ran a hose and sprayed us down with cold water, the shock of it like a slap as it hit my face and mouth, and choked me. It was water, though, and when he was gone, I sucked it off the floor.

I couldn’t feel my arms or legs.

Chance never moved.



* * *



For French, the day was tough, but not impossible. He did have friends, and good friends would risk a lot. Late afternoon, he met one of those good friends in an alley two blocks from the station, a narcotics detective named James Monroe. After the old, white dude, he liked to say. A ten-year cop, he was dark-skinned and lean, with a hard face under gold-rimmed shades and eight inches of Afro.

“The APB went out ten minutes ago. Citywide. All departments.”

French nodded grimly. “I heard it on the radio.”

“It’s worse, though. Captain Martin ordered it statewide. SBI, FBI, highway patrol. I’m sorry, brother. I hate to be the messenger.”

French squinted into the bright light shining off the streets and buildings. Going statewide was an escalation. It meant Captain Martin considered his son a flight risk. The larger problem was that cops took statewide alerts seriously, and were much more likely to go in hot. “What about Burklow?”

“Still trailing Martinez and Smith. For a big guy, he can ghost along pretty good.”

“And the ladies are still with us?”

“Come on, man.” Monroe showed his teeth. “You know the ladies love you. More importantly, they love the kid.”

That was the cornerstone of French’s loose network: those who actually knew his son. The ladies included Captain Martin’s assistant, two dispatch supervisors, and a desk sergeant named Irene Devine who used to bounce Gibby on her knee. Not much happened in the station that one or more of them didn’t know about. The plan was simple: find Gibby before he got picked up, shot, or made things worse; keep Gabrielle in total ignorance for as long as possible. But the first part needed to happen fast, before the second part blew up in his face. He’d looked everywhere he knew to look, burned every possible bridge. “What aren’t you telling me? Come on, Monroe. I see it in your face.”