“Want some more?” the big man asked.
Smedley shook his head slightly, wary of worsening the pain in his skull.
“Okay,” the smaller man said, obviously the leader of the two. “Now that we got that out of the way, let’s get down to business.”
Smedley was surprised by the two men’s accents. He had expected them to sound like typical East Coast thugs, but their drawls were as Southern as his own. Maybe they were Texans. Could be freelancers.
The leader put his hands on his knees and leaned over Smedley. “Now, ladies and gentlemen, here comes the sixty-four-hundred-dollar question: Where is it?”
“Where is what?” Smedley replied, immediately regretting it. Better not to answer so quickly, until he got a feel for the situation.
The man shook his head and flashed a smile. “I just knew you were gonna say that. But see, we’re all prepared for that. My friend here….” He jerked a thumb in the direction of the nose tackle. “… he’s an expert in subtracting information from people.”
This was news to the big guy, judging from the fact that he looked around for whomever the smaller guy was referring to, then gave a Who me? gesture.
“So,” the leader said. “We can do this the easy way or the hard way. But either way, we’re gonna find out what you did with the corpse.”
Now Smedley was really confused. Had something happened that he was forgetting about? Maybe he had taken a worse blow to the head than he thought. Was he suffering from amnesia?
He didn’t know what else to say, so he said, “What corpse?”
The leader slowly shook his head back and forth. “So that’s how you want to play it, huh?”
But Smedley couldn’t reply. He felt himself losing consciousness once again.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
Inga gasped as she turned-and found herself staring into Tommy’s smiling face. She threw her arms around him in relief, then chastised him for giving her a scare: “Why didn’t you answer me when I called out your name?”
He gave her a peculiar look. “What are you talking about? I just got here.”
Inga smiled. “Very funny, but I’m not falling for it.”
“I swear, Inga.”
She shook her head. “Whatever. You’ve already freaked me out enough tonight. Now we’d better get inside before someone spots you.”
Tommy shrugged and followed her into the motel room. She closed the door, and neither of them was prepared for what happened next.
A dark figure wearing a ski mask and gloves emerged from the bathroom carrying a baseball bat. “We having a little party here?”
Tommy looked at Inga, who had grasped his arm in alarm.
With amazing quickness, the man stepped forward and slammed Tommy over the head with the bat. Without so much as a whimper, Tommy collapsed to the floor.
Inga screamed, but the sound was choked off as the man sprang on her and wrestled her to the bed. He placed a hand over her mouth, and she could see his dark-brown eyes gleaming inside the mask.
“You got a lot of balls, you know that?” the man grunted on top of her. “You and your friend there. How come you gotta cause so much trouble?”
Inga struggled to break free, but the man held both her wrists with one viselike hand. He squirmed until he had her legs apart. “I’m real good at taking care of bad little girls like you,” the man said.
Horror gripped Inga’s gut as he pressed his crotch against hers and she felt his hardness.
“What we gonna do now, Red?”
They were in the kitchen of the small mobile home on Emmett Slaton’s property, the official headquarters of Slaton Brush Removal, Incorporated. Red had a clear view of their chunky prisoner lying on the floor in the adjoining room. The guy was still sleeping like a coonhound after an all-night hunt.
Red took a sip of coffee. Setting up here had been a good idea. Almost as cozy as home. Except he had forgotten to bring a bottle of booze, maybe some Wild Turkey or something. Other than that, Red had prepared himself for a long night. Tough guys-like hit men and bodyguards-they don’t just talk when you tell ’em to. You gotta put the squeeze on ’em a little. At least, that’s the way they did it on The Sopranos. That was Red’s favorite show, ever since he had run a wire from his unsuspecting neighbor’s satellite dish. “He’ll talk,” he said. “Just give it time.”
Billy Don removed his cap and ran a hand through his matted hair. “I don’t know, he seems pretty out of it.”
“Aw, hell, he just got himself a small percussion when he whacked his head. He’ll come ’round. What choice does he got? We’ll just hold on to him till he spills the beans. Then we’ll turn him over to the cops. Be heroes, that’s what we’ll be. Get a big write-up in the newspaper and all. They might just give us a goddamn parade before it’s all over.”
Billy Don’s eyes lit up. Red knew Billy Don was a sucker for parades, because parades were the adult version of playtime-with beer-drinking to boot.
The prisoner-they had no name for him yet because he hadn’t been carrying an ID-stirred on the floor. Red and Billy Don walked back into the office and stood over the prone figure.
“Wake up, sleepyhead,” Red said. “Time to tell us all your little secrets.”
The man glared up at Red. “Where am I?”
“That’s not important,” Red said. “What’s important is that you start cooperating. Believe me, it’ll be better for you in the long run.”
The man groaned and his eyes fluttered. Red knew he had to keep talking to keep the man awake. “So, hey,” Red said, “we’ll start with something easy. Like your name.”
The man said something Red couldn’t understand. Sounded like gibberish. “Come again?”
“Smedley Poindexter. That’s my name.”
Red looked at Billy Don, and they both grinned.
“Like the elephant,” Billy Don said with confidence.
Red frowned, puzzled.
“You know. On the Cap’n Crunch cereal boxes-Smedley.”
Red dismissed Billy Don with a wave of his hand and turned back to the prisoner. “But seriously,” he said. “Your real name.”
“That is my real name, you asshole.”
Red fluttered his hands with sarcasm. “Ooh, gettin’ a little feisty, ain’t we? All right, then…Smedley. Tell us what you do for Sal Mameli. What would you say is your basic job description?”
After a pause, the man said, “I don’t work for Sal Mameli. I’m…I’m a United States deputy marshal.”
Red and Billy Don exchanged glances again and Red let out a snort. “Yeah, and I’m ol’…what’s’ername…Reno? The big, tough-looking broad?”
“She used to be my boss, kind of,” the man said. “Er, one of my bosses, anyway.” Red leaned over the man calling himself Smedley and could see that his eyes were clearer now. He was slowly regaining his senses.
Red decided to play along. “Tell me something, Smedley. Did Miss Reno ever cop a feel from you when you was working late one night? Anything like that? Because I always had the feelin’ she swung the other way, if you know what I mean.”
“I never met her directly. She was the attorney general, so she oversaw certain divisions of the U.S. Marshals Service. She worked out of D.C., I worked out of Austin. I never even saw her.”
Red wasn’t sure what to say to that. The guy sounded pretty read-up about how all that political crap worked. Billy Don pulled Red to the side and spoke quietly. “Uh, Red. You know, he sounds pretty damn convincing.”
“Yeah, so?”
Billy Don held his hands in front of him, palms out. “Well, don’t call me stupid or anything, and I know this sounds crazy…but what if he’s tellin’ the truth? Seems like we might could get in a little trouble for all this.”
Red rolled his eyes. “Jesus, Billy Don! Don’t be a dumb-ass. If he’s a gen-yoo-ine U.S. marshal, then where the hell’s his badge?”
They turned and looked at their prisoner for a response. “I… uh…think I left it somewhere. It must have fallen out of my pants.”