…
I would have dismissed it as a scene out of a bad movie-a woman duct-taped to a chair in a semi-dark room in a warehouse. Only the warehouse belonged to my brother and me, and it wasn’t a movie. There were times when there weren’t very many options and this was one of those times.
When Esme stirred, she tried shaking herself fully awake. She tried moving her arms and legs to no avail and then looked down at the strange clothes she was wearing.
“You shit yourself when you got zapped,” I said, straddling a chair directly across from her. “It happens sometimes.”
“I’m gonna fuck you up for this.”
I clucked my tongue at her. “Sorry, Esme, but your fucking people up days are over.”
“You think so?”
“What’s the matter? Not so much fun when you’re not in control, is it?”
“Fuck you!”
“I’m not the one who’s fucked here.”
“What are you going to do, kill me, old man?”
“It’s a distinct possibility.”
I stood up and reached under my jacket for my. 38. I opened the cylinder and emptied the cartridges onto the floor. I picked a lone bullet up and made a show of putting it back in the cylinder. I walked over to her and spun the cylinder very close to her right ear. Then walked behind her, spun it again and snapped the cylinder shut. “Click, click, click, click… I love that sound. This is a trick I learned to play as a cop, Esme. Now let me teach it to you. You see, it’s stupid beating a confession out of someone. Too messy, too much potential fallout. In any case, we don’t really need you to confess, do we? No we don’t. Keeping that cell phone on you, that was really sloppy, and picking the money up yourself was just plain stupid. And sorry, but we’ve got your computer here, all your little sex toys and outfits, and all your video equipment too. I’m sorry. I’m getting off the point. Where was I? Oh, right. The trick.
“Yeah, like I said, it’s dumb hitting a suspect. And you know, I was always in uniform, so I never got to learn how to ask clever questions in that manipulative way detectives ask them. Some of those guys were amazing. They could get real hard-case motherfuckers to confess to terrible things, but sometimes it took hours, days sometimes. No, see, out on the street, we had our own way of interrogating suspects and we also got hard cases to confess to all kinds of shit, but it never took more than two minutes. That’s where the trick comes in. It worked every time too, ’cause no matter how different people are from each other, tough or weak, brave or cowardly, sane or psychopath, they all have one thing in common: they don’t want to die. And, Esme, I bet you think you’re different. I bet you always think that, huh? That you’re gonna be the exception to the rule. Well, you keep thinking that, okay?
“So here’s how it would work if you were a hard case. I would take this gun here with the one bullet in it and I’d jam it against the back of your fucking head or press it to your temple.” I lightly brushed her hair with the muzzle of the. 38. “Then I’d start asking you for where the video footage is stored, for all your access codes, and the master codes for your accounts. I’d ask you for a list of names, addresses, and phone numbers of the people you’ve been blackmailing. And the minute you stopped answering or started lying to me, I would pull the hammer back and squeeze the trigger and I would keep doing it until I got the answers I was looking for. See how it works? But here’s the trick,” I said, walking around in front of her and showing her the bullet in my left hand. “The trick is that I palmed the one bullet you thought was in the cylinder the second I moved out of your line of sight. The gun’s empty.” With that, I pressed the muzzle up to my temple, pulled the hammer back, and squeezed the trigger. I did it over and over and over again. “See?”
The look of utter horror on her face was astonishing. The cop who taught me this trick many years ago told me it would work just this way.
“It scares ’em more if you put the empty gun against your own head or put it in your own mouth and keep squeezing. That really scares the shit out of them. They’re already scared to begin with, but seeing that makes ’em think you’re just crazy enough to really kill them if you have to. And that’s the whole point.”
It went off perfectly, but I wasn’t feeling particularly proud of myself. Nor was I quite done, not yet.
I leaned over her and put my lips very close to her ear and whispered, “Someone is going to come talk to you now. He’s a real cop, a detective, but if you don’t cooperate with him and give him all the things we talked about, including your bank account and pin number, I’m gonna come back in here and we’re gonna play that game again. Except this time, I won’t palm the bullet. I’m dying, Esme. I have gastric cancer and, unlike you, I’ve got nothing to lose.”
“You are full of shit,” she said, trying unsuccessfully to keep her voice steady.
I stepped back from her far enough so she could see my face. “Take a good look, Esme. Look in my eyes and tell me I’m full of shit. Tell me!”
She was silent.
I turned to go.
“What is this to you?” she called after me. “Why should you care what I do?”
I kept walking.
When Fuqua came out of the room, he handed me the cartridges I’d left scattered on the floor in front of Esme. I hadn’t done it out of carelessness.
“Here is the information,” he said, giving me a sheet of paper. “How long will you continue to hold her?”
“A few more hours. I have a computer guy who used to work for me. He’ll check this stuff out and wipe the videos.”
“Now, I believe you have something for me, non?”
I didn’t say a word as I handed him the fuel to feed the furnace of his ambition: a nine-by-twelve envelope and the digital voice recorder. I had that sick feeling in my belly again.
FORTY-FIVE
Empty.
Empty, that’s how I felt.
It was over.
Done with.
And who was better for it? Carmella? Maya? Pam? Natasha? Yes, Natasha. Maybe Natasha and the fourteen other women Esme had blackmailed. Pam and I checked their names against phone numbers, emails, addresses, and videos. Fourteen was the number, not counting Maya Watson, of course. It was hard to watch all the videos, even in fast forward, although there was a horrible, mind-numbing sameness to them. I didn’t hold out any hope that these women who had been drugged and raped and blackmailed would find an ounce of comfort in the fact that they weren’t lone victims. They were alone in every way that mattered, far removed from solace, though not quite as far removed as Maya. At least part of the nightmare was over for the survivors, but how much solace would there be in that? I felt like the doctor outside the triple amputee’s door preparing a speech about looking on the bright side. None of these women, I thought, was apt to see any silver lining.
Empty because I had seen the son that was taken from me nine years ago, but whose loss I was fully feeling only now.
Empty because Pam had gone back to Vermont to wash away the stink of this mess. I thought she’d have to scrub long and hard in very hot water from now until I came up for the wedding to even make a dent.
Empty because I’d failed at the whole point of this. I had even less of an idea about who had killed Alta Conseco than I had before I got involved. This was it, the last good chance, and I’d blown it.
Empty because I’d made deals and compromises that weren’t mine to make.
Empty because the clock was ticking.
Empty because that famous luck of mine had run out.
…
I went to the house on Ashford Street. I didn’t know if Carmella had stuck around or if she’d run back up to Toronto, covering her eyes and her ears so that she could ignore the unpleasant truths. If she wasn’t there, I’d call her. If she didn’t answer the phone, I’d fly up to Toronto. She had gotten me into this and she was going to hear me out.