He didn’t want to think about how much it might be worth to Lucy.
11
Claudia wriggled her head through the open porthole, attempted to snake her body through. She eased one shoulder out. She turned, trying to navigate her head and the other shoulder out, but the opening was too narrow and the ropes, tight already, chafed hard, gouged her legs. She was angry enough to cry hot tears, and she hated to cry.
The heavy blindfold slipped around her neck like a loose scarf. Shit. No getting that back over my eyes. That’s probably worth a whole foot of broken toes.
She pulled herself back in. A knot of rope caught on the porthole crank. Not good, not good. She caught her breath, eased herself free, and fell back against the bed. She tried to maneuver the blindfold back into place but she couldn’t; her hands couldn’t push it up far enough to cover her eyes and all her wriggling had loosened the knot too much.
She heard Stoney’s shocked drawl over the speaker-phone. ‘I’ll give you the money. Okay? But these other items you’re asking for, I don’t have, please.’
Gar said, ‘Number one,’ and Ben screamed.
‘That was finger number one,’ Gar said. ‘Broke it. A pinky. You keep arguing I’ll cut it off.’
‘I don’t have what you want!’ Stoney said.
‘Let’s accelerate. I vote to cut off the brother’s dick,’ Redhead said with a giggle. ‘Where did I put those scissors…?’
‘No, leave him alone!’ Stoney yelled.
‘We will,’ Danny said. Claudia could hear the distaste in his voice. ‘If you play along. First the five million.’
‘Oh, Christ, oh, Christ,’ Stoney moaned.
‘Got your pen ready, sunshine?’ Redhead said. ‘Put a half million in this account in Grand Cayman.’ He read off an account number. ‘That’s at the Great Commerce Bank of Grand Cayman. Move that first, will you?’
Stoney made a noise of unhappy agreement.
‘Don’t whine,’ Redhead said. ‘Then another half million in this bank in Anguilla. Here’s the account number…’
More accounts, more banks, the slow carving of Stoney’s fortune. Claudia gritted her teeth.
‘Now. The journal and the Devil’s Eye,’ Danny said. ‘You’re going to take them to Staples Mall in Corpus. Tomorrow at eight a.m., when the mall opens for the elderly mall walkers. Go to the carousel at the middle of the mall. Leave the journal and the emerald in a Sears bag, each wrapped in plain brown paper and covered with a couple of paperbacks. You’ll put the bag underneath the gray horse with the white mane, the red saddle and the bright blue ribbons. If the police are there, or I don’t like how anything looks, your brother and his girlfriend die and I report the murder you committed to the New Orleans police. We get to that point, I don’t care what happens to me. But you, you’re finished.’
There was a long silence. Stoney Vaughn finally said, ‘I don’t know how long this transfer will take. After it goes through the banks in Houston we may not have immediate confirmation, and I’m not at my office right now…’
‘We check with Grand Cayman here shortly, and you better hope that money’s streaming in,’ Redhead said.
‘We can’t control how long the transfer takes once it leaves my bank. You know that,’ Stoney said. ‘Let’s say I do what you want. How do I get my brother back?’
‘We’ll drop off Ben and Claudia in a safe place after we’ve got the journal and the emerald,’ Danny said. ‘We’ll call you, let you know where they’re at.’
‘That’s not good enough,’ Stoney said.
‘Our beef’s not with them. It’s with you. We’re not into killing innocent people. And don’t call the police or the coast guard or the navy or anybody. We see choppers coming, we see boats coming looking for us, they’re dead in two seconds.’ Danny didn’t seem to notice the contradiction in his words, which made Claudia cold all over.
‘You fucker,’ Stoney said.
‘Yes, but I’m the fucker in charge,’ Danny said.
‘Okay. Okay. Please, I want to talk to my brother.’
‘Here he is. You got five seconds.’
‘Stoney?’ Ben said. He didn’t sound scared or hurt to Claudia, more mad.
‘Yeah.’
‘Do what they say.’
‘How did they get you? I don’t understand.’
‘Boarded us. Please, Sto-’
‘Five seconds up, no more talk,’ Danny said. ‘Start the money transfers. We’ll be checking on you. I’m calling you back in fifteen minutes.’
‘That’s not enough-’ Stoney started and then his voice was gone. Cut off.
‘Progress,’ said Redhead. ‘But I’ll just keep these scissors handy, okay, Ben?’
Claudia heard footfalls on the steps outside the master stateroom.
Oh, God, the porthole’s still open. She hadn’t shut it.
The stateroom door flew open, hard, slammed against the wall.
Gar, with the stocking off his head. A heavy round face, brown eyes, dirty-blond hair askew from the stocking, full mouth. He noticed her blindfold was off.
‘Goddamn it.’ He yanked the chamois cloth back over her eyes with angry roughness. ‘That better not come off again, you understand? We’ll play this little piggy if it does.’ He grabbed at her foot, twanged her broken toe. A bolt of fire shot up her leg.
She kept her voice steady. ‘I’m sorry. It slipped off while I was trying to get comfortable.’
‘Comfort’s not in your immediate future.’ He leaned down close to her, licked her ear with a pizza-greasy tongue. ‘I’m not like Danny Boy, who plays nice with you. I don’t believe in being in the wrong place at the wrong time. I think fate brought us together so we could have us a little fun.’
He picked Claudia up, threw her over his shoulder, and carried her out the door.
Stoney Vaughn sat in dismal shock in his home office overlooking St Leo Bay, staring at the banks and account numbers Danny had given him.
He lit a cigarette, fired up his computer, and tried to order his thoughts.
Danny had his idiot brother and that girlfriend of his, somehow. On his boat. And that lunatic wanted the journal that had led Stoney and Alex to the treasure, and the Devil’s Eye. And five million in pain money.
Fuck that.
He abandoned thinking how did this happen, because he quickly decided that was pointless. He started thinking of how the cards might play out.
Bad hand number one: He transferred the money, turned over the goods, got his brother back. Wouldn’t work. No way he could surrender the Eye – even the fake one in the storage unit – without Alex going nuclear. No way they could let Danny walk free. That went for Ben and his girlfriend, too, especially because she was a cop and God only knew what Danny had told her. Alex wouldn’t stand for it.
And if he even tried to cut a separate deal with Danny, Alex would kill him.
Bad hand number two: He transferred the money but didn’t turn over the journal or the Eye. Fool Danny, make him think they’d give up the goods and let Alex eliminate Danny during or after the drop. But then he was out five million bucks, and he didn’t have that much sitting around. He had maybe a million, and then he had clients who were generous but didn’t know it. He sometimes borrowed money and moved it back in when he got new clients. Most of his clients – carefully selected – were elderly, rich from birth, and patient regarding small losses. This creative accounting had bought him the boat and helped with the house, but he couldn’t swing five million, not all at once, moved overseas. No way to cover that up.
Bad hand number three: He picked up the phone and called the police, and Danny turned him in for murder. Hell. A murder he didn’t do but Danny didn’t know different. Too much death – the guy in New Orleans, the old couple in Port Leo. He wasn’t a killer but he was an accessory. Prison. No more golf, no more deals, no more treasure hunts, no more luscious coastal social climbers in his bed. Or Alex would kill him to keep him quiet.
Ben’s dead no matter what I do, he thought. If Danny doesn’t kill him, Alex will.