Munir grabbed the taller man by the elbow and spun him around.
“Where are they?” he screeched. His face was flushed; tiny bubbles of saliva collected at the corners of his mouth. “Tell me, you swine!”
Swine? Maybe that was a heavy duty insult from a Moslem but it was pabulum around here.
The tall guy jerked back, trying to shake Munir off. His open mouth revealed gapped rows of rotting teeth.
“Hey, man–!”
“Tell me or I’ll kill you!” Munir shouted, grabbing the man’s upper arms and shaking his lanky frame.
“Lemme go, man,” he said as his head snapped back and forth like a guy in a car that had just been rear ended. Munir was going to give him whiplash in a few seconds. “Don’t know whatcher talking about!”
“You do! You went right to the package. You’ve seen the finger – now tell me where they are!”
“Hey, look, man, I don’t know nothin’ ‘bout whatcher sayin’. Dude stopped me down the street and told me to go check out the bag on top the mailbox. Gave me five to do it. Told me to hold up whatever was inside it.”
“Who?” Munir said, releasing the guy and turning to look back down Eighth. “Where is he?”
“Gone now.”
Munir grabbed the guy again, this time by the front of his fatigue jacket.
“What did he look like?”
“I dunno. Just a guy. Whatta you want from me anyway, man? I didn’t do nothin’. And I don’t want nothin’ to do with no dead fingers. Now getcher hands offa me!”
Jack had heard enough.
“Let him go,” he told Munir, still pretending to talk into the phone.
Munir gave him a baffled look. “No. He can tell us–”
“He can’t tell us anything we need to know. Let him go and get back to your apartment. You’ve done enough damage already.”
Munir blanched and loosened his grip. The guy stumbled back a couple of steps, then turned and ran down Lafayette. Munir looked around and saw that every rheumy eye in the area was on him. He stared down at his hands – the free right and the bandaged left – as if they were traitors.
“You don’t think–?”
“Get home. He’ll be calling you. And so will I.”
Jack watched Munir move away toward the Bowery like a sleepwalker. He hung up the phone and leaned against the booth.
What a mess. The nut had pulled a fast one. Got some wino to make the pick up. But how could a guy that kinked be satisfied with seeing Munir’s finger from afar? He seemed the type to want to hold it in his grubby little hand.
But maybe he didn’t care. Because maybe it didn’t matter.
Jack pulled out the slip of paper on which he’d written Richard Hollander’s address. Time to pay Saud Petrol’s ex employee a little visit.
14
Munir paced his apartment, going from room to room, cursing himself. Such a fool! Such an idiot! But he couldn’t help it. He’d lost control. When he’d seen that man walk up to the paper bag and reach inside it, all rationality had fled. The only thing left in his mind had been the sight of Robby’s little finger tumbling out of that envelope last night.
After that, everything was a blur.
The phone began to ring.
Oh, no! he thought. It’s him. Please, Allah, let him be satisfied. Grant him mercifulness.
He lifted the receiver and heard the voice.
“Quite a show you put on there, Mooo neeer.”
“Please. I was upset. You’ve seen my severed finger. Now will you let my family go?”
“Now just hold on there a minute, Mooo neeer. I saw a finger go flying through the air, but I don’t know for sure if it was your finger.”
Munir froze with the receiver jammed against his ear.
“Wh what do you mean?”
“I mean, how do I know that was a real finger? How do I know it wasn’t one of those fake rubber things you buy in the five and dime?”
“It was real! I swear it! You saw how your man reacted!”
“He was just a wino, Mooo neeer. Scared of his own shadow. What’s he know?”
“Oh, please! You must believe me!”
“Well, I would, Mooo neeer. Really, I would. Except for the way you grabbed him afterward. Now it’s bad enough you went after him, but I’m willing to overlook that. I’m far more generous about forgiving mistakes than you are, Mooo neeer. But what bothers me is the way you grabbed him. You used both your hands the same.”
Munir felt his blood congealing, sludging though his arteries and veins.
“What do you mean?”
“Well, I got trouble seeing a man who just chopped off one of his fingers doing that, Mooo neeer. I mean, you grabbed him like you had two good hands. And that bothers me, Mooo neeer. Sorely bothers me.”
“Please. I swear–”
“Swearing ain’t good enough, I’m afraid. Seeing is believing. And I believe I saw a man with two good hands out there this morning.”
“No. Really…”
“So I’m gonna have to send you another package, Mooo neeer.”
“Oh, no! Don’t–”
“Yep. A little memento from your wife.”
“Please, no.”
He told Munir what that memento would be, then he clicked off.
“No!”
Munir jammed his knuckles into his mouth and screamed into his fist.
“NOOOOO!”
15
Jack stood outside Richard Hollander’s door.
No sweat getting into the building. The address in the personnel file had led Jack to a rundown walk up in the West Eighties. He’d checked the mailboxes in the dingy vestibule and found R. Hollander still listed for 3B. A few quick strokes with the notched flexible plastic ruler Jack kept handy, and he was in.
He knocked – not quite pounding, but with enough urgency to bring even the most cautious resident to the peephole.
Three tries, no answer. Jack put his picks to work on the deadbolt. A Quickset. He was rusty. Took him almost a minute, and a minute was a long time when you were standing in an open hallway fiddling with someone’s lock – the closest a fully clothed man could come to feeling naked in public.
Finally the bolt snapped back. He drew his 9mm backup and entered in a crouch.
Quiet. Didn’t take long to check out the one bedroom apartment. Empty. He turned on the lights and did a thorough search.
Neat. The bed was made, the furniture dusted, clothes folded in the bureau drawers, no dirty dishes in the sink. Hollander either had a maid or he was a neatnik. People who could afford maids didn’t live in this building; that made him a neatnik. Not what Jack had expected from a guy who got fired because he couldn’t get the job done.
He checked the bookshelves. A few novels and short story collections – literary stuff, mostly – salted in among the business texts. And in the far right corner, three books on Islam with titles like Understanding Islam and An Introduction To Islam.
Not an indictment by itself. Hollander might have bought them for reference when he’d been hired by Saudi Petrol.
And he might have bought them after he was fired.
Jack was willing to bet on the latter. He had a gut feeling about this guy.
On the desk was a picture of a thin, pale, blond man with an older woman. Hollander and his mother maybe?