The name Nils Bjorn jumped into my mind, another phantom who'd been staying at the Wailea Princess at the same time as Kim McDaniels. Bjorn had never been questioned – because he had conveniently disappeared.
The police hadn't thought Bjorn had anything to do with Kim's abduction, and when I'd researched Bjorn, I was sure he was using a dead man's name.
Those facts alone told me that at the very least, Mr. Smooth on my chair was a con artist, a master of disguise. If that were true, if Marco, Rollins, and maybe Bjorn were all the same man, what did it mean?
I fought off the tsunami of black thoughts that were swamping my mind. I unscrewed the top of the soda bottle with a shaking hand, wondering if I'd kissed Amanda for the last time.
I thought about the messiness of my life, the overdue story Aronstein was waiting for, the will I'd never drawn up, my life insurance policy – had I paid the latest premium?
I was not only scared, I was furious, thinking, Shit, this can't be the last day of my life. I need time to put my damned affairs in order.
Could I make a break for my gun?
No, I didn't think so.
Marco-Rollins-Bjorn was two feet from his Smith and Wesson. And he was maddeningly relaxed about everything. His legs were crossed, ankle over knee, watching me like I was on TV.
I used that fearful moment to memorize the prick's bland, symmetrical face. In case somehow I got out of here. In case I had a chance to describe him to the cops.
“You can call me Henri,” he said now.
“Henri what?”
“Don't worry about it. It's not my real name.”
“So what now, Henri?”
He smiled, said, “How many times has someone said to you, 'You should write a book about my life'?”
“Probably at least once a week,” I said. “Everyone thinks they have a blockbuster life story.”
“ Uh-huh. And how many of those people are contract killers?”
Chapter 66
The telephone rang in my bedroom. It was probably Amanda. Henri shook his head, so I let my sweetheart's voice send her love to the answering machine.
“I've got a lot of things to tell you, Ben. Get comfortable. Tune in to the present only. We could be here for a while.”
“Mind if I get my tape recorder? It's in my bedroom.”
“Not now. Not until we work out our deal.”
I said, “Okay. Talk to me,” but I was thinking, Was he serious? A contract killer wanted a contract with me?
Henri's gun was a half second away from Henri's hand. All I could do was play along with him until I could make a move.
The worst of amateur autobiographies start with “I was born?,” so I leaned back in my seat, prepared myself for a saga.
And Henri didn't disappoint. He started his story from before he was born.
He gave me a little history: In 1937 there was a Frenchman, a Jewish man who owned a print shop in Paris. He was a specialist in old documents and inks.
Henri said that very early on, this man understood the real danger of the Third Reich and that he and others got out before the Nazis stormed Paris. This man, this printer, had fled to Beirut.
“So this young Jew married a Lebanese woman,” Henri told me. “ Beirut is a large city, the Paris of the Middle East, and he blended in fairly well. He opened another print shop, had four children, lived a good life.
“No one questioned him. But other refugees, friends of friends of friends, would find him. They needed papers, false identification, and this man helped them so that they could start new lives. His work is excellent.”
“Is excellent?”
“He's still living, but no longer in Beirut. He was working for the Mossad, and they've moved him for safekeeping. Ben, there's no way for you to find him. Stay in the present, stay with me, my friend.
“I'm telling you about this forger because he works for me. I keep food on his table. I keep his secrets. And he has given me Marco and Charlie and Henri and many others. I can become someone else when I walk out of this room.”
Hours whipped by.
I turned on more lights and came back to my seat, so absorbed by Henri's story that I'd forgotten to be afraid.
Henri told me about surviving a brutal imprisonment in Iraq and how he'd determined that he would no longer be constrained by laws or by morality.
“And so, what is my life like now, Ben? I indulge myself in every pleasure, many you can't imagine. And to do that, I need lots of money. That's where the Peepers come in. It's where you come in, too.”
Chapter 67
Henri's semiautomatic was keeping me in my seat, but I was so gripped by his story that I almost forgot about the gun. “Who are the Peepers?” I asked him.
“Not now,” he said. “I'll tell you next time. After you come back from New York.”
“What are you going to do, muscle me onto a plane? Good luck getting a gun on board.”
Henri pulled an envelope from his jacket pocket, slid it across the table. I picked it up, opened the flap, and took out the packet of pictures.
My mouth went dry. They were high-quality snapshots of Amanda, recent ones. She was Rollerblading only a block from her apartment, wearing the white tank top and pink shorts she'd had on when I met her for breakfast yesterday morning.
I was in one of the shots, too.
“Keep those, Ben. I think they're pretty nice. Point is, I can get to Amanda anytime, so don't even think about going to the police. That's just a way of committing suicide and getting Amanda killed, too. Understand?”
I felt a chill shoot from the back of my neck all the way down my spine. A death threat with a smile. The guy had just threatened to kill Amanda and made it sound like an invitation to have lunch.
“Wait a minute,” I said. I put the pictures down, shoved my hands out, as if pushing Henri and his gun and his damned life story far, far away. “I'm wrong for this. You need a biographer, someone who's done this kind of book before and would see it as a dream job.”
“Ben. It is a dream job, and you're my writer. So turn me down if you want, but I'll have to exercise the termination clause for my own protection. See what I mean?
“Or, you could look at the upside,” Henri said, affable now, selling me on the silver lining while pointing a 9-millimeter at my chest.
“We're going to be partners. This book is going to be big. What did you say a little while ago about blockbusters? Yeah, well that's what we're looking at with my story.”
“Even if I wanted to, I can't. Look, Henri, I'm just a writer. I don't have the power you think. Shit, man, you have no idea what you're asking.”
Henri smiled as he said, “I brought you something you can use as a sales tool. About ninety seconds of inspiration.”
He reached inside his jacket and pulled out a gizmo hanging from a cord around his neck. It was a flash drive, a small media card used to save and transfer data.
“If a picture's worth a thousand words, I'm guessing this is worth, I don't know, eighty thousand words and several million dollars. Think about it, Ben. You could become rich and famous? or? you could die. I like clear choices, don't you?”
Henri slapped his knees, stood, asked me to walk him to the door and then to put my face against the wall.
I did it – and when I woke up sometime later, I was lying on the cold cement floor. I had a painful lump at the back of my head and a blinding headache.
Son of a bitch pistol-whipped me before he took off.
Chapter 68
I pulled myself to my feet, bumped against walls all the way to the bedroom, yanked open the drawer to my night-stand. My heart was clanging in my chest like a fire alarm until my fingers curled around the butt of my gun. I stuck the Beretta into my waistband and went for the phone.