Cold Springs(70)

He looked at one of Zedman's paintings, the glass turning gold in the sunset, and the reflection he saw wasn't his face. It was Talia—frightened, uncertain, always ready to scurry into the darkness like a cockroach. Samuel lifted his pistol, fired a round into the reflection.

When the ringing died down in his ears, he said quietly, “Get to the bathroom, John. You got one upstairs, right?”

John was still blinking from the gunshot. He had the look of a Black Level kid—that moment when the enforcer brings out the bag for the first time.

“What are you going to do?” he asked. “The disc—you said it was about Chadwick.”

Samuel had forgotten all about the DVD. Now he held it up, trying not to smile at his own private joke. “You want to see a movie, John? Get on upstairs—I'm sure you got a player in your bedroom, right?”

He twitched the barrel of the gun toward the stairs.

Unsteadily, Zedman rose, the Kleenex keeping the blood from dripping too much—a crooked trail across the living room, up the carpeted stairs, Samuel thinking all the way that this was not as neat as he'd planned. He wouldn't have time to clean this shit up.

Let him go, Katherine whispered. Get the numbers and just leave.

At the top of the stairs, Zedman hesitated.

Samuel said, “Don't.”

“Wha'?”

“Whatever you were just thinking. 'Less you want to be shot in the back.”

Zedman swayed, then turned left, into the master bedroom.

Wasn't Samuel's kind of room. High ceilings and no windows. Too many pictures on the wall, too many mirrors. A good television, though—DVD player, sure enough. Through the open bathroom door he could see a big square tub, maroon tiles.

“Mallory,” John said. “Tell me she's safe.”

Samuel went to the television, slipped the disc in the machine. When the movie came on, Zedman's face got sleepy with bewilderment. Then he began to understand, gradually. Samuel could see it in his eyes.

“Please,” John said.

“Tell you how they do it at Cold Springs,” Samuel said. “Cold Springs's all about compliance. You earn privileges by doing exactly what you're told. You understand what I'm saying, John?”

“The account numbers are in my computer. I can show you.”

“Oh yeah, but see—I'm too stupid to work this all by myself, right? I wouldn't have the first clue.”

John's eyes were moist with defeat, shame. He was ready for the gag, for solitary confinement—for whatever punishment the instructors threw at him. He said, eagerly, “It just takes a phone call. The account numbers, I can show you. The password on the computer—it's Ferryboat*, with an asterisk, last character. Capital F.”

“Get in the bathroom.”

Zedman hesitated, and Samuel advanced on him, forcing him back step by step until Zedman stood in front of the toilet.

“Well?” Samuel said. “Use it.”

Zedman looked at the pot, then back at Samuel. “What?”

“You heard me.”

“I—I can't.”

Samuel pressed the gun against Zedman's shoulder. “You already bleeding all over the place, John. I don't want any more to clean up later, you understand me?”

John took a piss—a good long one. Samuel was amused by the little shriveled thing he used, too. I mean, damn. All that self-importance, all that strutting—it made sense when the man dropped his drawers.

“You do that real well, like you've been practicing,” Samuel told him. “Now get in the tub.”

“You'll never get the money, if you kill me.”

“Why would that be, John? You ain't told me the whole truth about those codes? Is that cooperation?”

Zedman stared at the water swirling in the toilet.

“I heard you a woman-slapper, John. You want me to hit you again, remind you how it feels? Get in the tub, bitch.”

He pushed Zedman back, watched him stumble into the tub.

“Stay on your knees,” Samuel said. “I like that.”

Samuel pulled the shower curtain closed as much as possible, making mental notes about the tiles, how the blood splatters would go.

“Don't,” Zedman said.

Samuel turned on the shower, watched the way it splattered in John's half-dazed face, rinsing the blood into a pink swirl—like Talia's bathroom, Talia's blood, only Zedman was still alive, still listening.

“Your daughter's life, John. I haven't decided if you get to keep that privilege, yet. You think you've cooperated?”

John's lips were moving, making sounds, but nothing intelligible came out. For a minute, Samuel was afraid Zedman might've broken completely.

Then Zedman said, “Pérez. I told him . . . I thought . . . he's going after Chadwick—”

Samuel stared at him. And then he got it, and he started to laugh. He filled up the bathroom with laughter, had to sit on the pot, it was all so funny. He looked down and saw that poor Zedman wasn't sharing the joke.

“Yeah, I got you,” Samuel said. “And?”

“It wasn't Chadwick's fault. It was mine. Please stop him. Don't let Pérez . . .”

“Noble, John. What does it take for you to make an enemy and have it stick? Man f**ks your wife, steals your daughter—brings all this on you, and you want to save his life now, after you told your Mexican to kill him? Man. Money makes you crazy, John. I guess it does.”