Louis said, “Blindfolded?”
“Yeah, they put a cloth over his head and taped it on, the same way we did. They’d say, ‘Death to America’ and give him a slap.”
“So they spoke to him.”
“They’d say things like, ‘No move, no speaking,’ but he didn’t know them, so he wouldn’t recognize any of their voices.”
“Didn’t you tell me this man read the Bible, he played chess?”
“He made the chess pieces out of tinfoil some of the food was wrapped in.”
“How could he do that, you say he was blindfolded all the time?”
“I meant when the guards came in the room. If they caught the guy trying to peek out under his blindfold, they’d beat him up.”
“So the hostage could take the blindfold off if the Shia wasn’t around.”
“Sometimes; it worked different ways,” Chip said. “Harry has to be kept blindfolded because he knows us.”
Louis said, “I’m gonna look around the house, see if I can find something the man can slip over his head when we in there and slip off when he needs to clean hisself up.”
“What do you mean, something he can slip on and off?”
“Like take a mask and tape up the eyeholes.”
“This Bobby’s idea?”
“Be cool,” Louis said and turned to leave.
“Wait. Where is he?”
“Bobby? Getting dressed. We going to see if Mr. Ben King’s ready for us.”
“Are you serious? You’re gonna pick him up in broad daylight?”
“I told you about it. We’ll see how it looks.” He turned again toward the door.
“Louis.”
He stopped and looked back.
“Last night you said you knew someone at the bank in Freeport, where Harry has his account.”
“I said I’m from there, so I might know somebody.”
“You said you’d mentioned it to me before.”
“Didn’t I?”
“Louis, why do I get the feeling you and Bobby are into something you don’t want me to know about?”
The man was maintaining on reefer, Louis could tell, so he’d seem to be relaxed.
Louis said, “I tell you things and you forget is all.”
“You’re changing the whole setup, to the way you and Bobby want it.”
“What you mean, like the blindfold? Man, we new at this hostage business. Have to see what works here and what don’t.”
“Louis, what’s going on?”
The weed making him think he was cool and knew things.
“Ain’t nothing going on you don’t know about,” Louis said, turning again to the door. “I’ll see you.”
Chip’s voice raised as he said, “You put a blindfold on Harry he can slip on and off… Louis? You know sooner or later…”
Louis was already out the door.
He went upstairs to the bedroom Bobby was using that used to be Chip’s mama’s room, dark in here with the dark furniture and the heavy rose-colored drapes almost closed. Sunlight came through the narrow opening, across the rose bedspread and the rose carpeting to where Bobby stood at the dresser looking at himself in the mirror. He had on his black silk pants and lizard shoes, no shirt, and was gazing at himself with his arms raised, muscles popped, twisting his ponytail into a knot.
Louis said, “You getting ready?”
“We have time,” Bobby said to himself in the mirror. “What’s going on?”
“The man thinks we’re planning shit against him.”
Bobby said, “Who knows, huh?”
He watched Louis, in the mirror, open the door to the closet and begin pawing through the woman’s clothes.
“You looking for something to wear?”
“I won’t know what I’m looking for,” Louis said, “till I find it.”
The phone rang.
On the table next to the sofa where Chip was sitting on his spine staring at the television screen: the front drive on, the hidden driveway. He had made up his mind to go out, give Louis the watch and get away for a while. He thought of Palm Beach and the Au Bar, where he used to hang out, back in the days when his credit cards were good.
The phone rang.
They were spending the money Harry had on him for food. Guy with all his dough, a hundred and seventy-six bucks in his wallet. But now the credit cards… Why hadn’t he thought of them before? They weren’t doing Harry any good. The credit cards could come in handy.
The phone rang.
He pushed a button on the remote and was looking at the patio now, the pool and the sweep of weeds that used to be a lawn extending to palm trees and sky, clear blue. A path through the bushes beneath the trees led to the beach. At one time he thought of the ocean here as part of his property.
The phone rang.
He had to get out for a while. Not go to a bar-take his clothes off and walk down to the beach and look at the ocean, smoke another joint to clear his mind, see everything enlarged…
He didn’t answer the phone because he wasn’t supposed to be here, but then, without thinking, as it was ringing again, he picked it up.
Dawn’s voice said, “Chip?”
“Hey, I was about to call you.”
“I’ll bet.”
“Really, I have your money.”
“I’ll believe it when I see it.”
“Don’t get pouty on me. Meet you in Delray?”
“Why don’t I stop by?”
“Honey, you don’t want to come here, not just yet. If you get my drift.” He liked that. And liked the silence on the line, Dawn pulling in, reconsidering, seeing she’d better not be so fucking aggressive. He said, “I’m gonna be out and around. Why don’t we meet at Chuck and Harold’s for lunch? Twelve-thirty?”
She said, “Chip? You’d better be there.”
Threatening, with nothing to back it up.
He told himself to be nice and said, “I’ll be counting the minutes,” and hung up. He wouldn’t show and tomorrow he’d put her off again, think of an excuse. Busy for the next few days doing something, he’d tell her, she would definitely not want to know about. He said out loud, “Okay? You told me you didn’t want to know anything, and if I tell you then you’re involved in whatever it is, right? Hey, you’re already involved. So quit your bitching.”
Send Bobby to see her…
Saturday go to a Huggers Gathering and try to scrounge up the fifteen hundred. Find a runaway whose daddy misses her.
He should’ve asked Dawn about the guy, the dude in the hat, what he was like, what they talked about.
He pushed a button and was looking at the front drive again, Christ, thinking about the guy and there he was, in his suit, the hat, coming through the trees toward the house.
Ganz hurried out of the study to the front hall, started up the stairs and yelled as loud as he could, “He’s back! The guy’s back!”
Raylan saw them as soon as he came around the side of the house past the garage: Bobby the gardener and a black guy sitting at the table on the patio, their shirts off, getting some sun and reading the newspaper. Both of them holding open sections of the paper, reading away.
It took Raylan all of a moment to realize they knew he’d come back and were putting on this show for him.
There were sections of the paper and a white shirt on the glass-top table; but not lying flat, Raylan noticed, something under there. Maybe their gardening shears, or the machete the guy had the other day.
“I see you got yourself some help,” Raylan said to Bobby Deo. “What you need for this job is a crew.”
Both of them had looked up and were watching him now, coming across the patio.
“I noticed your car in the garage, figured you were around somewhere. You taking a break?”
The one he knew was Bobby Deo had on his good pants again and his reptile wing tips, shiny clean. The other guy was wearing cream-colored pants and sandals.
Bobby Deo said, “Yeah, we resting.”
“I don’t blame you,” Raylan said, taking time to squint at the sky and reset his hat on his eyes. Looking out at the scraggly date palms and sea grape lining the property he said, “What I don’t understand is why you’re doing this instead of your collection work.”