She went to bed early, but it was very hard to get to sleep. On the other hand, she had no trouble at all waking up when Barney Beuler kicked the leg of the bed and snarled, "Rise and shine, Sleeping Fucking Beauty."
49
Like the valet in Sullivan's Travels, Mordon Leethe viewed the entire proceedings with a sense of gloomy foreboding. It was not his desire to be here, aiding and abetting the commission of any number of felonies not normally associated with the partners of corporate law firms, but on balance his situation was so impossible in every direction that it was probably best, all in all, that he be here, present and culpable in these acts of breaking and entering, kidnapping, coercion, and possibly even battery upon persons, because if he weren't physically in this place he'd still be a coconspirator, still just as guilty in the eyes of the law — and in his own eyes as well — and without even the hope that he might somehow influence events, blunt the worst excesses of Barney Beuler, this associate in crime to whom he found himself so inextricably lashed, or that he might help steer the fragile ship of his own good name through these felonious reefs toward the barely visible shore of early retirement, a beaching that was coming to seem more and more advisable with every passing moment. Or, as Henry James might have put it, he was in it now, up to his neck.
At six on Monday morning, they had let themselves into Peg Briscoe's apartment, Mordon and Barney and the three cigarette-company thugs, Creeping, silent, they had observed the woman asleep in her air-conditioned bedroom, with no second body shape mounded beside her and with no male clothing to be seen anywhere. Nevertheless, reclosing her bedroom door, they had swept the apartment just as they'd done last time, to be absolutely sure the invisible man was not here. Only then did all five invade the bedroom once more and Barney wake the Briscoe woman with his patented charm.
Her eyes popped open. She sat bolt upright, staring at the five men in her room. Under a sheet, she seemed to be wearing some sort of long T-shirt. Instead of aroused, Mordon felt embarrassed. Before Barney could do or say anything else crude, he stepped forward, saying, "Miss Briscoe, it's Freddie we want."
"Oh, Christ!" she cried, in apparently genuine exasperation. "It's you guys again. For a second there, you had me terrified. Hold on while I use the bathroom," she said, sliding out of bed. Yes, a long white T-shirt, not quite opaque enough. "Make some coffee, will you?" she said, and sloped out of the bedroom and into the bathroom, slamming the door behind her.
Now it was Barney who looked embarrassed. His fearsome authority had just been deflected as though it didn't exist. "Well, whaddaya thinka that?" he said.
"I think she's right," Mordon said, and told one of the thugs, "Why don't you make us all some coffee? You remember where the kitchen is, don't you?"
"Sure." The thug looked around. "Everybody want?"
Everybody wanted. He went away, and the toilet flushed. Then the shower ran.
Barney and Mordon and the other two thugs wandered out to the living room, which was hotter and stuffier than the bedroom. They left the bedroom door open. "This is ridiculous," Barney said. "What we gotta do is lean on this bitch, not make her coffee."
"Freddie Noon isn't here," Mordon pointed out. "Peg Briscoe will know where he is."
"Damn right she will."
"We want her cooperation," Mordon reminded him. "It seems to me we should at least begin on a calm and civilized plane."
"That's fine," Barney agreed. "You be Good Cop. I'll jump in a little later."
It was after seven before they were all gathered in the living room, with toast and coffee. The only air conditioner was in the bedroom, but with it turned on full and the door open, it did help in the living room a bit. It seemed to Mordon that the fruits of Freddie Noon's crimes should have been juicier than this, but Mordon wasn't here — none of them were here — to enquire into the economics of burglary. They were here to find the burglar.
Mordon said, "Miss Briscoe, where is he?"
"No idea," she said. She was dressed now in jeans and a polo shirt and tennis shoes, and didn't look intimidated at all by this hostile mob in her house.
Mordon said, "Miss Briscoe, would you look at Barney here?"
Obediently, she looked at Barney, though clearly she didn't want to. Barney looked back at her, and smiled. Her confidence could be seen to slip a little, like a hat on a drunken song-and-dance man. Turning away from Barney's smile, she busied herself with her coffee cup, which had been empty for a while.
Mordon said, "I received permission from Barney, Miss Briscoe, to ask you these questions first."
"Uh-huh," she said. She was studying the empty interior of her cup, as though looking for tea leaves to read.
"If you don't answer me," Mordon said, "Barney will ask you the questions himself, and you won't say to him, "No idea.' I'm doing my best to make it easier for you here."
"That's nice," she said. She put the cup down and crossed her legs and clasped her hands around the upper knee and looked at Mordon. He could see her willing her face to be blank.
He shook his head. "I'll ask you once more," he said, "and please consider your answer very caref—"
"No idea."
"Oh, Miss Briscoe, if you would only—"
"My turn," Barney said, getting to his feet. "You guys hold her," he said to the thugs, and took a black handle out of his pocket. He did something, and a long knife blade popped out of the handle.
The thugs stood, alert, but didn't immediately approach Peg Briscoe, who sat up straight, staring at the knife. Barney turned the knife this way and that in his hands, admiring it, and then he said, "All I need from you is a mailing address, that's all. A box number, whatever it could be. Just someplace I can send the finger."
Her eyes widened. "I don't know where he is."
"What a waste that's gonna be, then," Barney told her. "See, what's gonna happen is, every day I'm gonna cut off one of your fingers and mail it to our friend Freddie, with a note with a phone number where he could call me if he felt like it. Now, if I don't have an address to send the finger it's a real shame and a waste, cause you're still gonna lose the finger. Hold her steady, guys. Better put a hand over her mouth."
"I don't know where he is!"
As the thugs closed on Briscoe, Mordon also got to his feet, saying, "Barney, we don't have to—"
"Sit down, Counselor," Barney said, and looked at Mordon, and the look all by itself knocked Mordon back into his chair. "Hold her, now," Barney said, turning again toward Briscoe.
"Waitwaitwaitwaitwaitmmmpmmmpmmmpmmmp—"
"Oh, all right," Barney said, weary, the knife poised over her left hand. "Let go her mouth, let's see what she's trying to say."
"I know where he is!"
"Well, yeah, sure you do, I know that. Hold steady, now."
"I'll tell you where he is!"
"Where I send the finger, that's right. Otherwise, it's a shame, right?"
"No no no, I'll tell you where he is right now, you don't have to mail him any—"
"Peg, Peg, Peg," Barney said, "I don't want to make you betray your best friend, you know what I mean? Let him come to me, of his own free will, after he gets a couple fingers in the mail. Hold steady now, I don't wanna take more than one."
"You don't have to!"
Barney paused. He seemed genuinely perplexed. He said, "What do you mean, I don't have to?"
"I can tell you exactly where he is, exactly how to find him!"
Barney chuckled. "And we leave here and we go to this location, and he isn't there. And then we come back here and guess what? You didn't wait for us. Hold the hand steady, guys."