“Start at the beginning,” Jack said. “Any hint that this was coming?”
“Nothing. Everything has been going normally.”
“How about someone from the old country.”
“I have no ‘old country.’ I’ve spent more of my life in America than in Saudi Arabia. My father was on long term assignment here with Saud Petroleum. I grew up in New York. I was in college here when he was transferred back. I spent two months in the land of my birth and realized that my homeland was here. I made my Hajj, then returned to New York. I finished school and became a citizen.”
“Still could be someone from over there behind it. I mean, your wife doesn’t look like she’s from that part of the world.”
“Barbara was born and raised in Westchester.”
“Couldn’t marrying someone like that drive one of these fundamentalists–”
“No. Absolutely not.” Munir’s face hardened. Absolute conviction steeled his voice. “An Arab would never do what this man has done to me.”
“Don’t be so sure.”
“He made me… he made me eat…” The rest of the sentence seemed to be lodged in Munir’s throat. “…pork. And made me drink alcohol with it. Pork!”
Jack almost laughed. Munir was most assuredly a Moslem. But still, what was the big deal? Jack could think of things a whole lot worse he could have been forced to do.
“What’d you have to do – eat a ham on rye?”
“No. Ribs. He told me to go to a certain restaurant on Forty seventh Street last Friday at noon and buy what he called ‘a rack of baby back ribs.’ Then he wanted me to stand outside on the sidewalk to eat them and wash them down with a bottle of beer.”
“Did you?”
Munir bowed his head. “Yes.”
Jack was tempted to ask if he liked the taste but stifled the question. Some folks took this stuff very seriously. He’d never been able to fathom how otherwise intelligent people allowed their dietary habits to be controlled by something written in book hundreds or thousands of years ago by someone who didn’t have indoor plumbing. But then he didn’t understand a lot of things about a lot of people. He freely admitted that. And what they ate or didn’t eat, for whatever reasons, was the least of those mysteries.
“So you ate pork and drank a beer to save your wife and child. Nobody’s going to call out the death squads for that. Or are they?”
“He made me choose between Allah and my family,” Munir said. “Forgive me, but I chose my family.”
“I doubt if Allah or any sane person would forgive you if you hadn’t.”
“But don’t you see? He made me do it at noon on Friday.”
“So?”
“That is when I should have been in my mosque, praying. It is one of the five duties. No follower of Islam would make a fellow believer do that. He is not an Arab, I tell you. You need only listen to the tape to know that.”
“Okay. We’ll get to the tape in a minute. Munir had told Jack that he’d been using his answering machine to record the nut’s calls since yesterday. “Okay. So he’s not an Arab. What about enemies? Got any?”
“No. We lead a quiet life. I run the auditing department at Saud Petrol. I have no enemies. Not many friends to speak of. We keep very much to ourselves.”
If that was true – and Jack had learned the hard way over the years never to take what the customer said at face value – then Munir was indeed the victim of a psycho. And Jack hated dealing with psychos. They didn’t follow the rules. They tended to have their own queer logic. Anything could happen. Anything.
“All right. Let’s start at the beginning. When did you first realize something was wrong?”
“When I came home from work Thursday night and found our apartment empty. I checked the answering machine and heard a distorted voice telling me that he had my wife and son and that they’d be fine if I did as I was told and didn’t go to the police. And if I had any thought of going to the police in spite of what he’d said, I should look on the dresser in our bedroom. The photographs were there.” Munir rubbed a hand across his eyes. “I sat up all night waiting for the phone to ring. He finally called me Friday morning.”
“And told you that you had to eat pork.”
Munir nodded. “He would tell me nothing about Barbara and Robby except that they were alive and well and were hoping I wouldn’t ‘screw up.’ I did as I was told, then hurried home and tried to vomit it up. He called and said I’d ‘done good.’ He said he’d call me again to tell me the next trick he was going to make me do. He said he was going to ‘put me through the wringer but good.’ “
“What was the next trick?”
“I was to steal a woman’s pocketbook in broad daylight, knock her down, and run with it. And I was not to get caught. He said the photos I had were ‘Before.’ If I was caught, he would send me ‘After.’“
“So you became a purse snatcher for a day. A successful one, I gather.”
Munir lowered his head. “I’m so ashamed… that poor woman.” His features hardened. “And then he sent the other photo.”
“Yeah? Let’s see it.”
Munir suddenly seemed flustered. “It’s – it’s at home.”
He was lying. Why?
“Bull. Let me see it.”
“No. I’d rather you didn’t–”
“I need to know everything if I’m going to help you.” Jack thrust out his hand. “Give.”
With obvious reluctance, Munir reached into his coat and passed across another still. Jack immediately understood his reluctance.
He saw the same blond woman from the first photo, only this time she was nude, tied spread eagle on a mattress, her dark pubic triangle toward the camera, her eyes bright with tears of humiliation; an equally naked dark haired boy crouched in terror next to her.
And I thought she was a natural blonde was written across the bottom.
Jack’s jaw began to ache from clenching it closed. He handed back the photo.
“And what about yesterday?”
“I had to urinate in the street before the Imperial Theater at a quarter to three in the afternoon.”
“Swell,” Jack said, shaking his head. “Sunday matinee time.”
“Correct. But I would do it all again if it would free Barbara and Robby.”
“You might have to do worse. In fact, I’m sure you’re going to have to do worse. I think this guy’s looking for your limit. He wants to see how far he can push you, wants to see how far you’ll go.”
“But where will it end?”
“Maybe with you killing somebody.”
“Him? Gladly! I–”
“No. Somebody else. A stranger. Or worse – somebody you know.”
Munir blanched. “No. Surely you can’t be…” His voice trailed off.
“Why not? He’s got you by the balls. That sort of power can make a well man sick and a sick man sicker.” He watched Munir’s face, the dismay tugging at his features as he stared at the tabletop. “What’ll you do?”
A pause while Munir returned from somewhere far away. “What?”
“When the time comes. When he says you’ve got to choose between the lives of your wife and son, and the life of someone else. What’ll you do?”
Munir didn’t flinch. “Do the killing, of course.”
“And the next innocent victim? And the one after that, and the one after that? When do you say enough, no more, finis?”
Munir flinched. “I… I don’t know.”
Tough question. Jack wondered how he’d answer if Gia and Vicky were captives. How many innocent people would die before he stopped? What was the magic number? Jack hoped he never had to find out. The Son of Sam might end up looking like a piker.
“Let’s hear that tape.”
Munir pulled a cassette out of side pocket and slid it across. Jack slipped it into the Walkman. Maybe listening to this creep would help him get a read on him.