“Huh?”
“That’s all you get for free, Jack,” he said flatly.
“You expect me to pay you money?”
“Absolutely.”
“That’s extortion.”
“It’s just business.”
“Not when the business is kidnapping. Maybe I’ll call the state attorney and see what she thinks it is.”
“You’d be a fool to do that.”
“Watch me.” I started for the door.
“Hold it.”
I stopped.
He said, “Let’s be reasonable about this. The policy limit is three million dollars. You’ll probably deliver the ransom by pack mule through two or three intermediaries. Do you honestly think the kidnappers will even notice that you slipped a little something to me?”
“You’ve seen the policy, haven’t you? That’s how you know it’s three million.”
“I told you, I know all.”
“And you’re going to tell all, too.”
“Surely, for fifty thousand dollars, cash.”
“I don’t have to pay you fifty cents. I’ll subpoena you.”
“And I’ll forget everything I know.”
With that, something snapped inside me. I was tired of being extorted by kidnappers and scumbags like Jaime. I started toward him and said, “Maybe I’ll just beat it out of you.”
“Bad move,” he said as he grabbed a big kitchen knife from the counter.
I stopped cold, then took a step back. “Take it easy, pal. I wasn’t serious.”
“You looked serious.”
“There’s no need for a knife.”
“I don’t see any other way to keep you from walking out that door.”
“Just let me pass, all right?”
“Can’t let you go to no state attorney. I changed my name to stay out of prison.”
“No one’s talking about prison.”
“I seen what they did to my brother in his cell. Guys like us don’t do well in prison. Somebody’s boy.”
“You don’t have to explain. Just put the knife down.”
He was grimacing, almost whining, slowly unraveling before my eyes. “Damn you. Why did you have to go and threaten me like that?”
“Let’s forget it, okay?”
“A little money. That’s all I wanted. Just a small percentage, and you turn around and threaten to put me in jail.”
“Just put the knife down. I won’t say anything to anyone.”
He laughed mirthlessly. “You expect me to believe that?”
“I promise.”
“ ‘Promise,’ ” he said in a sissy voice, mocking me.
Slowly all traces of sarcasm drained from his expression. In his rage-filled eyes I could see that he felt abused, perhaps more by his former employer than by me. At that moment, however, I was the only target in front of him. In a weird way, he must have seen himself as the victim.
“Please, Jaime. Don’t do something stupid.”
“You’re the stupid one.”
He charged across the kitchen and came at me, leading with the knife. I dodged out of the way. He fell but sprang right back. I had my hands in front of my body defensively. A perverse smile came across his lips as he began to toy with me. We moved strategically in a circle, like two boxers looking for an opening. He kept lunging at me and pulling back, taunting.
Blood oozed from a cut over his right eye. He’d apparently injured himself in the initial fall. He wiped it away, then suddenly seemed to realize that the blood was his own.
“You son of a bitch!” he shouted as he lunged toward me, swinging wildly.
The knife cut through my shirtsleeve, and I felt the sharp metal against my skin. It was just a glancing blow, but it sparked my survival instincts. Somehow I found the strength and quickness to grab his arm. Locked together in a struggle for the knife, we whirled across the kitchen and slammed against the sink. I hammered his wrist against the basin, hard. Once, then again. The third time I heard bones pop. He cried out in pain as the knife fell to the floor. He gouged my eye with one hand, but his injured limb was hanging limply. Still pinned against the sink, I grabbed the good arm and twisted it behind his back in a half nelson, then wheeled him around and shoved the broken hand down the opening to the garbage disposal.
He screamed as his knuckles met the sharp, still blades. I shoved even harder, jamming his hand deeper into the disposal. Finally he was in up to his elbow. His arm was stuck and he couldn’t pull it out, not even after I let go. I kept his other arm locked behind his back as I reached for the switch.
“I’ll turn it on!”
“No, not my hand!”
“Then talk!”
“Let me go, I’m begging you, man. I’m your friend.”
The word “friend” made me think of the note. Maybe it hadn’t come from Beverly. “Are you saying you’re a friend?”
“I’m your only friend, man.”
I wasn’t sure what he was saying, but I wasn’t backing down. The cut on my arm was throbbing and bleeding. He’d sliced it deeper than I’d thought. “Tell me what you know, or I swear I’ll grind your fingers to the nub.”
He grimaced, shaking his head defiantly. “No, no, man! Not for free!”
“Don’t make me do this.”
“Please!”
“You got till the count of three. One. Two-”
“Okay, okay,” he said, his whole body shaking. “I’ll tell you anything you want to know.”
I took my hand off the switch and prepared to listen.
59
I had everything, but in effect I had nothing. That was the legal conclusion Jenna and I reached in her office that afternoon.
Jenna was seated behind her desk. I was in the silk wing chair facing her. She’d listened to my detailed recount of Jaime’s confession without much apparent amazement, as his story jibed with our own theory: It was an inside job.
“We have the same problem we’ve always had,” I said. “How do we prove it?”
“You think Jaime’s long gone?”
“Absolutely. He was happy to sell me information on the sly, but he wasn’t about to walk into a courtroom and testify against Quality Insurance Company under any circumstances. He’s terrified of them.”
“The way they strong-armed Judge Korvan into recusing herself from our case, I guess he has good reason to be afraid.”
“Even if I could somehow corral him, could you imagine the cross-examination?”
Jenna was right with me, breaking into role. “Mr. Ochoa, exactly how close did your hand come to being ground into a Quarter Pounder before you spit out the lies that Mr. Rey wanted to hear?”
Her saying it made me wince. “I wouldn’t have actually done it, you know.”
“Done what?”
“Flipped the switch.”
“I wouldn’t have blamed you. The creep handed your father over to kidnappers.”
I stared out the window, thinking. Jenna said, “Have you thought about making good on your threat to Jaime? Why not go to the state attorney?”
“I need three million dollars by Sunday. Can you think of anything that would make a company circle the wagons and pay me nothing faster than the threat of a criminal investigation?”
“I suppose you’re right.”
I rose and started pacing across the Oriental rug. “There has to be something we can do.”
“I don’t know what, short of finding another witness.”
I stopped. A wry smile came upon me as I looked at her and said, “Now that is a great idea.”
60
Matthew smelled rum. He was in the slow, disorienting transition between dreams and the dark reality of life behind a blindfold, and he thought surely that his mind was playing tricks as he woke. His last cocktail had been more than fifteen years ago, but he could have sworn that a strong Cuba Libre was right beneath his nose.
He raised his head from the floor and sniffed the air. Giving up the sauce hadn’t robbed him of his memory. The place definitely smelled of rum and Coke.
A screech pierced his darkness, the shrill sound of a chair sliding away from the table on a hard tile floor. He heard footsteps, and it finally registered that he was no longer in the van. He had no memory of being moved into a building, and he couldn’t possibly have slept through that. The throbbing pain behind his eyes made him guess drugs.