He smiled nervously. “You heard that, huh?”
“From a good source. So, you want to tell me what caught your eye? Or should I call my old boss at the U.S. attorney’s office and tell him to get a search warrant for your rig?”
The trucker swirled the ice cubes around in his glass, sipped the last few drops of bourbon. “Tough guy, are you?”
“Just a man with a mission.”
He checked the door, as if it were some big secret, then glanced back and said, “Your friend Theo left with some chick.”
“Who?”
“A brunette. Black clothes, nice body. Could have been Latina. She was hanging around his car out back in the parking lot, then she got in. He came out about twenty minutes later, and they drove off together. That’s all I saw.”
“Did they seem friendly together, were they arguing, or what?”
“I didn’t see them together. His Jetta has dark tinted windows, so I couldn’t see inside. Like I say, I saw her get in, then a little later he gets in. I don’t know if she was smoking a joint in there or what. She waited for him, then they left. That’s it.”
“Anything else you remember?”
“Yeah. The bumper sticker. It said, i brake for porn stars. It just kind of stuck in my brain.”
Definitely Theo’s car, thought Jack. “That’s all I need to know. Thanks.”
Jack climbed off the barstool and headed out the door to the parking lot, leaving the loud music and stale odors behind him. The moon was almost full, bright enough to cast his shadow across the parking lot. He leaned against his car, thinking, but he didn’t have to think long. Brunette, good-looking, nice body. It was just as he’d suspected, and the trucker’s story was all the ammunition he needed.
He pulled his phone from his pocket, then stopped, not sure whom to call first. If he notified the cops, Katrina would probably hire herself a lawyer and never talk. He gave it another moment’s thought, then went with his gut and dialed the cell-phone number Katrina had given him outside the mobile blood unit.
“What did you do to Theo Knight?” he said when she answered.
There was silence. Jack said, “Don’t hang up, Katrina. I’m onto you. Theo’s missing, and you left Sparky’s with him last night.”
“Says who?”
“I have a witness who saw you waiting in the car.”
She didn’t answer. Jack said, “I’m giving you one chance to tell me what happened to Theo. If you don’t, I’m going to the police.”
She paused, a long, tense silence that bespoke her angst.
Jack said, “What’s it going to be?”
“Don’t go to the police.”
“Why shouldn’t I?”
“Because if you do, there’s a good chance Theo could end up dead.”
“Is that a threat?”
“No.”
“Is he alive?”
“Yes.”
“Do you know that for a fact?”
“Yes.”
“Let me be clear about this. Are you saying you kidnapped him?”
“No. I mean, not really. It’s not like I’m asking for a ransom or anything. It’s more like he’s in hiding, for his own safety.”
“Say what?”
“All I can tell you is that I’ll do everything I can to keep him safe. But if you butt in, there’s a good chance he’ll end up dead. And it won’t be my fault.”
“What’s going on?”
“I can’t explain now. Just give me twenty-four hours to sort some things out.”
“Are you out of your mind?”
“You just have to trust me on this. I’m a confidential informant, I’m not a criminal, remember?”
“I’m not trusting you anymore. I’m going to the police.”
“Fine. Go. But after keeping your friend alive on death row for all those years, it seems pretty stupid of you to sign his death warrant now. And that’s exactly what you’d be doing if you run to the cops.”
Jack gripped the phone, thinking. “I don’t like this. After that meeting at the blood unit, I thought we had a working relationship. But I haven’t heard a thing from you about that Georgia case, or anything else, for that matter.”
There was silence, but finally she answered. “You were right about Georgia.”
His heart sank a bit. “They’re killing viatical settlors?”
“I checked the computers. That woman in Georgia was one of our clients.”
“So if they got Jessie, too, that means Viatical Solutions, Inc., murdered two clients in less than a month.”
“It’s not for sure. And it’s not just Viatical Solutions, Inc., either. We created dozens of viatical corporations, most of them just shells that we activate whenever we need one. When I first started this job, I thought all these companies were just a lot of needless paperwork, but now it makes sense. Every client does business with a different company. The one in Georgia was called Financial Health, Inc.”
“Smart,” said Jack. “It would look pretty suspicious if any single company showed too good a rate of return.”
“I am so close to blowing the lid off this.”
“You have to come forward.”
“I need more time.”
“You can’t have it. What if they go out and murder another client next week?”
“I’m not talking a week. Twenty-four hours is all I need. Then Theo will be back safe, and this whole operation will be blown wide open. I promise.”
He weighed it in his mind, but he and Theo both needed someone on the inside. Busting her chops over a few hours would only push her out of their camp. “All right. I’ll give you twenty-four hours. But I want proof that Theo’s alive, before noon.”
“Like what?”
The image of Theo’s saxophone suddenly flashed in his brain, giving Jack the perfect proof-of-life question. “Ask him for the title of his favorite Donald Byrd album.”
“Okay. You’ll have it by noon.”
“One last thing.”
“What?”
“Theo Knight is my friend. If you’re playing me for a fool and something happens to him, I’m coming after you. You understand me?”
“More than you know,” she said.
Jack switched off the phone and buried it in his pocket.
61
•
At 5:30 A.M. the runners were gathering at Cartagena traffic circle. This was a regular Saturday morning ritual in Coral Gables, the predawn gathering of bodies clad in Nike shorts and spandex, ready to head out on a ten- or fifteen-mile run before the rest of the world rose for breakfast. Himself an occasional runner, Jack admired them in a way, but mostly he regarded them as the South Florida version of those crazy Scandinavians who cut holes in the Arctic ice and jumped in for a refreshing dip in mid-January.
Rosa wasn’t answering her cell phone, but Jack found her exactly where he’d expected, her leg propped up on the fence as she stretched out her hamstrings.
“What are you doing here, Swyteck?”
“I have to talk to you.”
“I have to run. Literally.”
Her friends seemed annoyed by the intrusion, each of them checking their ultraprecise wristwatches/heart-monitors/speedometers.
Jack whispered in her ear, “Theo’s been kidnapped.”
She shot him a look, as if to say, Are you shittin’ me?
“I’m totally serious,” he said.
Rosa told her friends to go on without her, then followed Jack to an isolated spot beneath a banyan tree where they could talk in private. In minutes he brought her completely up to speed, ending with his conversation with Katrina.
“Why didn’t you call me last night?”
“I wasn’t sure I should call anyone, since I agreed not to call the police.”
“So why are you telling me now?”
“Because I haven’t been able to sleep. Things are happening so fast, I need another brain to process it all. I don’t want to be wrong.”
“You were right about one thing. Theo didn’t run.”
“I knew Theo was no murderer.”