Tears sprang to my eyes.
I bit my lip. “Where is he?”
“You shouldn’t have done that. You just crossed the line one too many times.”
“Where is he, Kurt?”
“He’s resting comfortably, Jason, ole buddy. Tied up and locked inside a big old trunk I had lying around, until I make further arrangements. Well, maybe not so comfortably. Not a lot of air in there. Fact, he’s probably gone through most of the air by now-you know how panic makes you breathe harder, right?”
“In your house.”
“No. Somewhere else. Call it an undisclosed location.”
“I’ve got something you want,” I said abruptly.
“Oh yeah?”
“A piece of evidence. A damaged steering shaft from a Porsche Carrera.”
He laughed. “And now you want to play Let’s Make a Deal, that it? Do you want what’s inside my box, or what’s behind the curtain?”
“Let Graham go, and I’ll give you the part.”
“You’ll give me the shaft, Jason?” Kurt said, laughing again.
“An even trade,” I said. “My friend for a guarantee you won’t be going to prison for life. Sounds like a pretty good deal to me.”
He hesitated for a second, considering. I knew his mind was spinning like a compact disk. He was naturally suspicious, far more than I’d ever be. Everything, anything might be a ruse, a trick. And I needed to sell him on the fact that I really wanted to make a deal. That it wasn’t a snare.
I needed to sell him on the fact that I was trying to sell him. This was a mirror reflecting a mirror.
“Sure,” he finally said. “I got no problem with that.”
I thrust back. “Sure, you’ve got no problem with that. I hand it over, you hand over Graham, and then you head over to Hilliard Street and kill my wife and then me.”
“Now, why in the world would I do that, Jason? After you’ve given me such a nice gift?”
If Kurt knew Kate had left the house, he’d have mentioned it. I wondered whether he had any idea she was gone.
“See, here’s the thing, Kurt. I don’t take anything for granted anymore. This piece I’ve got-this steering shaft-that’s kind of like my power. My weapon. Like I’m one of those primitive Amazonian warriors, and this is my club, you know? Without my club, I feel powerless. I don’t like that feeling.”
He paused again. Now he was really baffled. I was going back and forth, whipping between suspicion and what seemed like gullibility. He didn’t know which was the real me.
“You saying my word’s not good enough for you?”
I laughed. “It was, once. Not anymore. This steering shaft, it’s a key piece of physical evidence. Without it, the police have no probable cause for arrest. No evidence, no arrest warrant. You’re good to go. But what about me?”
“Well, think about it,” he said. “Without your club, you’re powerless. Means you’re no longer a threat.”
I smiled. That was just what I wanted him to say, precisely the conclusion I wanted him to reach. But I wanted it to be his idea. Like Freddy Naseem; like Gordy. Let the other guy take credit, and he owns it.
“But I know things,” I said. “Facts about you. In my head. How do you know I’m not going to go to the cops again?”
“How do you know I’m not going to head over to Hilliard Street? Pay the wifey and little baby a visit? So we’ve got ourselves a little situation here. It’s called mutual assured destruction. Military doctrine throughout the entire Cold War.”
I smiled again. Exactly.
“You have a point,” I said. “All right. So?”
“So we meet.”
“Where? It has to be someplace neutral. Someplace safe. Not public. Not your house. Not my house.”
I knew what he’d say. The old sharp-angle close. The Mark Simkins College of Advanced Closing. Maneuver the customer into making a demand you can meet.
“Work,” he said. “The Entronics building.”
Where he felt comfortable. Where he controlled the situation.
“One hour,” I said. “With Graham.”
“Two. And you’re not exactly in a position to negotiate. You give me the scrap of metal, and I’ll tell you where he is. So that’s the deal. You don’t like the terms, find another vendor.”
“All right.”
“Think it over. Take your time. I’ve got all the time in the world. Oh-that’s right. Your friend doesn’t. He has three or four hours’ worth of air. If he calms down and breathes normal. Which is hard to do when you’re tied up and locked in a box in an undisclosed location, huh?”
60
I called Kenyon back.
“I’ve just made a deal with Kurt Semko,” I said, and I explained.
“Are you out of your goddamned mind?” he said.
“You have a better idea?”
“Hell, yeah. I’ll send a unit over to this auto body shop. Once they find the explosives, we’ll easily have enough to arrest Semko.”
“Between getting the unit together and equipped, out there and back, then preparing the arrest warrant, how long are we talking?”
“Six hours, I’d say, if we get a judge out of bed.”
“No,” I said. “Unsat. My friend won’t make it. So I’m meeting Kurt whether you like it or not, and I want you to wire me up. Put a concealed recording device on me. I’ll get him to talk.”
“Stop right there,” Kenyon said. “Number one, our Special Services staff don’t work at midnight. There’s no one around to do a professional hookup until tomorrow.”
“You telling me you don’t have a tape recorder and a concealable mike?”
“Well, sure. But we’re talking quick-and-dirty.”
“That’ll do.”
“Number two, if you think you’re going to get Semko to hand you one of those confessions out of the movies-the old ‘Now that I’m about to kill you, let me tell you all about my evil plans so I can cackle wickedly’-well, you got to start watching better movies.”
“Of course not. He won’t ‘confess’ a thing. But all we need is an exchange. A back-and-forth. Enough to indicate he did it. And if anyone can provoke him to talk, I can.”
More static. A long silence. “I don’t know about this. I’d be putting you in serious danger. It’s extremely irregular.”
“Serious danger? You want to talk serious danger? A friend of mine is slowly suffocating in a trunk somewhere. I’m going to meet with Kurt. If I have to use my own crappy tape recorder and tape a microphone to my chest, I’ll do it.”
“No,” Kenyon interrupted. “I’ll see what I can scrape together.”
“Good.”
“But are you certain you can get him to talk?”
“I’m a salesman,” I said. “This is what I do.”
61
I stopped at a Starbucks and did some quick Internet research just as they were closing. Then I met Kenyon about a half-hour later at an all-night Dunkin’ Donuts near the Entronics building. It was shortly after eleven. There were a couple of drunk young guys in Red Sox caps and low-hanging shorts with their boxer shorts showing. A tense-looking couple having a quiet fight at a table. A bum who’d surrounded his table with shopping bags full of junk. Nothing like a Dunks late at night.
Kenyon was wearing a navy sweatshirt and chinos and looked tired. We both got large coffees, and then he took me out back to a new-looking white van. He opened the rear doors and we climbed inside. He put on the dome light.
“This is the best I can do on short notice,” he said, handing me a coil of wire.
“Kurt knows how to search for concealed microphones and transmitters,” I said.
“Sure he does,” Kenyon said. “So don’t get too close.”
“I’ll do my best.”
“Then we should be squared away.” He looked at my T-shirt. “You got something long-sleeved?”
“Not with me.”
He removed his sweatshirt. “Wear this. Just get it back to me sometime, okay?”