He wanted to scream that he ached for the day when he could meet him face to face and flay him alive, but said nothing. Barbara and Robby could only be hurt by angering this madman.
“‘Thank you’?” The voice on the phone sounded baffled. “Whatta you mean, ‘thank you’? Didn’t you see the rest?”
Munir went cold all over. He tried to speak but words would not come. It felt as if something were stuck in his throat. Finally, he managed a few words.
“Rest? What rest?”
“I think you’d better take another look in that envelope, Mooo neeer. Take a real good look before you think about thankin’ me. I’ll call you back later.”
“No–!”
The line went dead.
Panic exploded within Munir as he hung up and rushed backed to the foyer.
Didn’t you see the rest?
What rest? Please, Allah, what did he mean? What was he saying?
He snatched up the stiff envelope. Yes, something still in it. A bulge at the bottom, wedged into the corner. He smacked the open end of the envelope against the floor.
Once. Twice.
Something tumbled out. Something in a small zip loc bag.
Short. Cylindrical. A pale, dusky pink. Bloody red at the ragged end.
Munir jammed the back of his wrist against his mouth. To hold back the screams. To hold back the vomit.
And the inscription on Barbara’s photograph came back to him.
She watched.
The phone began to ring.
7
“Take it easy, guy,” Jack said to the sobbing man slumped before him. “It’s going to be all right.”
Jack didn’t believe that, and he doubted Munir did either, but he didn’t know what else to say. Hard enough to deal with a sobbing woman. What do you say to a blubbering man?
He’d been on his way home from Gia’s over on Sutton Square when he stopped off at the St. Moritz to make one last call to his voice mail. He never used his apartment phone for that and did his best to randomize the times and locations of his calls. When he was on Central Park South he rarely passed up a chance to call in from the lobby of the Plaza or one of its high priced neighbors.
He heard Munir’s grief choked voice: “Please… I have no one else to call. He’s hurt Robby! He’s hurt my boy! Please help me, I beg you!”
Jack couldn’t say what was behind the impulse. He didn’t want to, but a moment later he found himself calling Munir back, coaxing an address out of the near hysterical man, and coming over here. He’d pulled on a pair of thin leather gloves before entering the Turtle Bay high rise where Munir’s apartment was located. He was sure this mess was going to end up in the hands of officialdom and he wished to leave behind nothing that belonged to him, especially his fingerprints.
Munir had been so glad to see him, so grateful to him for coming that Jack practically had to peel the man off of him.
He helped him to the kitchen and found a heavy meat cleaver lying on the table there. Several deep gouges, fresh ones, marred the tabletop. Jack finally got him calmed down.
“Where is it?”
“There.” He pointed to the upper section of the refrigerator. “I thought if maybe I kept it cold…”
Munir slumped forward on the table, face down, his forehead resting on the arms crossed before him. Jack opened the freezer compartment and pulled out the plastic bag.
It was a finger. A kid’s. The left pinkie. Cleanly chopped off. Probably with the cleaver in the photo of a more delicate portion of the kid’s anatomy he’d seen earlier this evening.
The son of a bitch.
And then the photograph of the boy’s mother. And the inscription.
Jack felt a surge of blackness from the abyss within him. He willed it back. He couldn’t get involved in this, couldn’t let it get personal. He turned to look back at the kitchen table and found Munir staring at him.
“Do you see?” Munir said, wiping the tears from his cheeks. “Do you see what he has done to my boy?”
Jack quickly stuffed the finger back into the freezer.
“Look, I’m really sorry about this but nothing’s changed. You still need more help than one guy can offer. You need the cops.”
Munir shook his head violently. “No! You haven’t heard his latest demand! The police can not help me with this! Only you can! Please, come listen.”
Jack followed him down a hall. He passed a room with an inflatable fighter jet hanging from the ceiling and a New York Giants banner tacked to the wall. In another room at the end of the hall he waited while Munir’s trembling fingers fumbled with the rewind controls. Finally he got it playing. Jack barely recognized Munir’s voice as he spewed his grief and rage at the caller. Then the other voice laughed.
VOICE: Well, well. I guess you got my little present.
MUNIR: You vile, filthy, perverted –
VOICE: Hey hey, Mooo neeer. Let’s not get too personal here. This ain’t between you’n me. This here’s a matter of international diplomacy.
MUNIR: How… (a choking sound) how could you?
VOICE: Easy, Mooo neeer. I just think about how your people blew my brother to bits and it becomes real easy. Might be a real good idea for you to keep that in mind from here on in.
MUNIR: Let them go and take me. I’ll be your prisoner. You can… you can cut me to pieces if you wish. But let them go, I beg you!
VOICE: (laughs) Cut you to pieces! Mooo neeer, you must be psychic or something. That’s what I’ve been thinking too! Ain’t that amazing?
MUNIR: You mean you’ll let them go?
VOICE: Someday – when you’re all the way through the wringer. But let’s not change the subject here. You in pieces – now that’s a thought. Only I’m not going to do it. You are.
MUNIR: What do you mean?
VOICE: Just what I said, Mooo neeer. I want a piece of you. One of your fingers. I’ll leave it to you to decide which one. But I want you to chop it off and have it ready to send to me by tomorrow morning.
MUNIR: Surely you can’t be serious!
VOICE: Oh, I’m serious, all right. Deadly serious. You can count on that.
MUNIR: But how? I can’t!
VOICE: You’d better find a way, Mooo neeer. Or the next package you get will be a bit bigger. It’ll be a whole hand. (laughs) Well, maybe not a whole hand. One of the fingers will already be missing.
MUNIR: No! Please! There must be –
VOICE: I’ll call in the mornin’ t’tell you how to deliver it. And don’t even think about goin’ to the cops. You do and the next package you get’ll be a lot bigger. Like a head. Chop chop, Mooo neeer.
He switched off the machine and turned to Jack.
“You see now why I need your help?”
“No. I’m telling you the police can do a better job of tracking this guy down.”
“But will the police help me cut off my finger?”
“Forget it!” Jack said, swallowing hard. “No way.”
“But I can’t do it myself. I’ve tried but I can’t make my hand hold still. I want to but I just can’t do it myself.” Munir looked him in the eyes. “Please. You’re my only hope. You must.”
“Don’t pull that on me.” Jack wanted out of here. Now. “Get this: Just because you need me doesn’t mean you own me. Just because I can doesn’t mean I must. And in this case I honestly doubt than I can. So keep all of your fingers and dial 9-1-1 to get some help.”