I drew a breath. “I’m sorry.”
“Me, too. Because I need to know who I can count on.”
My hand was shaking as I gripped the phone. I’d let him down, but I could make it up to him. I was far less sure about redeeming myself on national television, about ever seeing my money again-or about surviving a second attack in an elevator.
Stop it. Don’t freak.
“You can definitely count on me,” I said.
He paused-and the silence killed me.
The call ended, and I was back on Broad Street. A crowd had gathered around the FNN boxing ring, and the TV cameras were in position. Bell had already rolled up his shirtsleeves and tied on his boxing gloves. A seven-foot bear waited in the center of the ring.
“All righty,” Bell shouted as he climbed through the ropes. “Let’s see about those bare necessities!”
16
RUMSEY COOLIDGE HADN’T SEEN MICHAEL CANTELLA IN YEARS. THE man towering over Rumsey didn’t believe him.
“I swear,” said Rumsey, his bloodied face pressed to the floor. “I’m telling you the truth, mon.”
Rumsey had returned to Harbor Island in a rainstorm. A five-day sail in the northern Bahamas had left him exhausted and annoyed at the way customers just didn’t seem to tip their captain the way they used to-as if the weather was his fault. He’d climbed the front steps to his rented town house slowly, thinking only of a good night’s sleep before heading out on another charter in the morning. The sprawling tropical canopy in the front yard shielded him from the falling rain, and even though sunset was almost two hours away, the storm made it feel like night. The door was unlocked, just as he’d left it. Crime wasn’t exactly unheard of in the Bahamas, but something about island living seemed to encourage unlocked doors and open windows, as if to deny, or at least defy, the existence of evil in paradise. Rumsey entered his living room and tried the wall switch. The lights didn’t come on. No great surprise. Power outages were a way of life in his neighborhood, especially during thunderstorms. The hallway was dark, but he could have found the bedroom blindfolded. He dropped his duffel bag on the bed, and as he pulled off his shirt, a blur emerged from the closet. Before he could react, a huge hulk of a man hit him like a freight train and took him down.
The man was now sitting on Rumsey’s kidneys, the cold metal barrel of a pistol pressing against the back of Rumsey’s skull.
“I’ll ask you just one more time,” he said. “When was the last time you talked to Michael Cantella?”
Rumsey coughed nervously, and a little blood came up. At least one rib was broken, he was sure of it. His smashed-in nose was a mess after a face-first collision with the floor.
“The trip,” he said, grunting. Talk was difficult with the man’s considerable weight pressing down on his internal organs. “It was that trip with him and his girlfriend-wife-who disappeared. We ain’t never talked since then, mon.”
The gunman rose, and Rumsey could breathe again.
“Stay right there,” the man said.
Rumsey lay perfectly still, breathing in and out, tasting the salty blood that trickled from his nose into his mouth. He had yet to get a good look at the man in the darkness, but the tumble to the floor had told him something about the man’s size and strength. He listened carefully, following the intruder’s footfalls across the room. For a brief moment, Rumsey’s heart raced with excitement.
Is he leaving?
“You disappoint me,” the man said. He pulled the blinds shut, making the room even darker, then walked back over.
Any optimism vanished. Rumsey waited for him to say more, but there was only a long, uncomfortable silence. Several strands of speculation raced through his mind, none of which led to a happy ending. The inescapable conclusion was that his attacker was simply debating whether to shoot him here, in Rumsey’s own living room, or to take him somewhere else to do the job.
“Please,” said Rumsey. “What you want with me, mon?”
The man’s chuckle was laden with insincerity. “Good question.”
He took a few more steps, as if circling his prey. Out of the corner of his eye, Rumsey caught an up-close glimpse of the man’s steel-toed boots. That explained the pain in his ribs.
“I know you’re lying,” the man said.
“No, no! I tell the truth, mon.”
The man was silent.
Rumsey swallowed hard. He wanted to speak, but he was too afraid of saying the wrong thing. He heard a faint scratching sound, and then there was a flicker of light. The man had struck a match. Rumsey gritted his teeth as the man came toward him, and he instinctively closed his eyes as the flame neared his face.
“Open your eyes,” the man said.
Rumsey did as he was told, his cheek still pressed to the cold terra-cotta tile. Oddly, there was money on the floor, right in front of his nose. American money, which was no surprise. The man’s accent was definitely not Bahamian. It was a hundred-dollar bill.
The man dropped the match onto the bill.
“What are you doing?” Rumsey asked nervously.
The man was silent. The lit match scorched the bill, and it was quickly aflame. The small fire threw some heat onto Rumsey’s face, but not enough to hurt him. In a minute or two, the fire burned out, and the room returned to darkness.
“I need you to help me,” the man said.
He was suddenly moving quickly, and Rumsey got another dose of his attacker’s overpowering strength. He grabbed Rumsey’s wrists and, in what seemed like a split second, bound them together with plastic cuffs. He grabbed Rumsey’s ankles and bound them in the same way. Somewhere in the back of Rumsey’s mind a voice cried out, begging him to resist. But it happened too quickly. Rumsey was hog-tied.
The man stood upright, and Rumsey could almost feel him towering over his body. He imagined that the gun was pointed directly at the back of his head, and he wondered how many days it would take for the postman or a neighbor to notice the telltale odor and find him dead on the floor, shot execution style.
“Please, don’t-”
“Shut up. I need your help.”
“Okay, mon. You got it. Anything.”
The man paused, seeming to enjoy the way silence tormented his victim. Finally, he said, “Here’s the problem.”
There was another pause, and fear coursed again through Rumsey’s veins. He prayed that it was a problem he could actually solve.
“It’s a crime to burn money,” the man said.
“What?”
“You can’t just burn money. It’s a federal offense. They’ll throw me in jail.”
Rumsey could hear himself breathing. He had no idea how to respond, so he fumbled for anything.
“But-but that’s American money. You in the Bahamas now. No worries, mon.”
“Makes no difference. It’s a crime to burn money no matter where you do it.” The man leaned closer, now speaking in a low, threatening voice: “We need to cover up our crime.”
Before Rumsey could say anything, he felt a cold wetness on his shirt and trousers, and then another glob of gel all over his face. It stung his eyes terribly, and the odor told him it was gasoline-goopy gasoline.
“No, please don’t burn me, mon!”
His plea went unanswered, except for that dread scratch of sound again-the striking of the match, a sudden burst of light, the roar of the flames, the intense heat that consumed him.
What followed was the piercing sound of his own screams.
17
I DIDN’T GET HOME UNTIL SIX-THIRTY. SAXTON SILVERS STOCK ended the day down almost a hundred bucks a share, so if there was a financial assassin, as Bell had put it, he was halfway there. In between phone conversations with panicked clients, I spent most of the afternoon with our director of security trying to track down my money.