And then he hesitated. He wasn’t quite sure what to do with the kid. Should he lock her in here while he went down to confront Billy, have Akim or Laurel guard her? No, that didn’t seem right. He should probably take her with him, to show that she was unharmed. He turned away from her, knowing he should have worked this out earlier. And then something hit him on the back of the head, something hard, loose, and dry: a fucking potted cactus, small enough for a child to hold in her hand, and in this case throw with great accuracy. He was outraged. If you couldn’t trust a twelve-year-old, who could you trust? As he turned back to glare at her, a second pot hit him, this time full in his left eye. He winced, blinked, rubbed away the dirt, drove a few cactus spikes into his cheek, and when he looked up, Carla was at the center of the conservatory, her hands on the top edge of the glass case with Iwo Jima inside.
She pushed against it with all her strength, and the supporting wooden legs slipped on the conservatory floor and the case keeled forward, and although Wrobleski moved to save it, the surprise, the pain in his hand, made him too slow, as the case carved a painfully precise course through the air, a simple 90-degree curve, and then hit the ground hard. The glass shattered, and the skillfully molded plaster surface split open to reveal the innards, a rough construction of chicken wire and clumsily glued balsa wood struts. Involuntarily, pathetically, Wrobleski snatched at the fallen relief map, even as slivers of glass bounced across the floor. He succeeded only in catching a single shard that sliced into his left hand, agonizingly close to the throbbing dog bite.
“You know I’ve killed people for less than that,” he said.
“Yeah?” said Carla. “But I’ll bet none of them were such cute little numbers, were they?”
The Cadillac’s horn sounded down in the courtyard. The man was impatient; well, he had reason to be. Wrobleski flung his arm around Carla’s middle, hard enough to knock the wind out of her, and to lift her off the ground like a bundle of laundry so he could take her with him.
“I blame the fucking parents,” he said as he strode out of the conservatory.
39. WROBLESKI DESCENDS
Billy Moore and Zak Webster sat in the Cadillac, in the courtyard, in the compound, waiting for Wrobleski to appear. The windows were up, and although Akim was visible through the windshield, he was keeping his distance, silent and sullen, looking as miserable as an emo teenager at a family Christmas.
“Is this too subtle?” Billy said to Zak. “Or is it not subtle enough?”
“It’s not subtle at all,” said Zak.
“Okay,” said Billy. “That’s the beauty of it, right?”
“Right,” said Zak.
This was the first time Zak had ever ridden in a Cadillac: he wondered what the odds were that it might be his last. And then Wrobleski appeared, shambling down a set of metal stairs from an upper level, moving awkwardly, gun in one hand, Carla Moore tucked under the other arm.
Billy and Zak eased themselves out of the car, walked slowly, measuredly, toward Wrobleski. Billy Moore was aware that he was trying to behave “normally,” though he had no idea what normal looked like when confronting a murderer who’s holding your daughter like a rag doll.
“You all right, Carla?” he called out.
“What do you think?” Carla snarled back.
“Of course she’s all right,” said Wrobleski. “She’s hurt me more than I’ve hurt her.”
Billy looked at the damage on Wrobleski’s face and said, “Well, good for her.”
Wrobleski checked angles, casing his own joint. The place was surprisingly, unusually empty. Where were those guys he paid to be there when he needed them? At least Akim, resentful or not, was a reliable presence.
“Who’s this scumbag you’ve brought with you?” Wrobleski demanded. “Your bodyguard? Your boyfriend?”
“This is my pal Zak,” said Billy. “He knows a thing or two about maps.”
“Well, good for him,” Wrobleski said. “What’s that he’s got in his hand?”
Zak thought it best to speak for himself. “It’s a cylindrical map case, leather, early twentieth-century…”
“I know what a fucking map case is,” said Wrobleski.
“And there’s a map inside,” said Zak helpfully, nervously.
And then something clicked.
“Wait a fucking minute,” said Wrobleski. “I know you, don’t I? Akim, you know this guy?”
Nothing from Akim.
“No, you don’t know me,” said Zak, trying to sound as though he believed it.
“Yeah, you’re the little fucker who climbed into my compound. You came back. You really are an imbecile. And this other imbecile brought you here. So what’s this all about?”
“I’m a map dealer as well as an urban explorer,” Zak said.
Wrobleski looked at him with mild, generic disgust.
“So? What has this got to do with you, Billy?” Wrobleski demanded. “What the fuck has this got to do with you and me?”
“I work for Ray,” Zak said.
“Ray fucking McKinley?” said Wrobleski, becoming aware that this might actually be leading somewhere, though not anywhere he wanted to go.
“He’s my boss. I work at Utopiates.”
“What, that crappy little shop he owns?”
“That’s my life you’re talking about,” said Zak.
“Zak has something we think you might like to see,” said Billy.
“What’s this ‘we’ all of a sudden?” Wrobleski said. “What the fuck are you two playing at?”
A vein danced in the flesh next to Wrobleski’s eye. Billy could tell he was getting to him, confusing him: he liked that.
“Zak,” Billy said, “show Mr. W. the goods.”
Zak offered the map case to Wrobleski.
“Don’t be a jerk. I’ve got a gun in one hand, a kid in the other. Hand it to Akim.”
Zak held the case upright, pulled out the scrolled map, buckled up the case again, and gently placed it on the ground at his feet. He handed the map to Akim, who raised it to the height of his shoulders and let it unravel in front of him like a narrow length of wallpaper. It didn’t look like much to hide behind.
“The Jack Torry rape map,” said Zak.
“All right,” said Wrobleski, not entirely unimpressed. “I’ve heard of it. Not bad. In another time and place we might be doing some business. But in the current circumstances … so fucking what?”
“We thought you might like to have it,” said Billy. “For the collection. We’re putting it on the table as part of the negotiation.”
“We’re not negotiating,” said Wrobleski. “All you have to do is head down to the basement, do the job I’ve asked you to do, and you’ll get your daughter back.”
“Everything’s negotiable,” said Billy. “Everything’s renegotiable.”
Akim continued to hold the map up, but he looked increasingly likely to screw it into a giant ball. Billy Moore took half a step forward, putting himself between Wrobleski and Zak, blocking the line of sight, so that Wrobleski couldn’t see when Zak gently side-footed the map case under Wrobleski’s SUV. If Akim saw it, he didn’t care.
“Dad,” Carla pleaded, “don’t negotiate with the bastard!”
“The kid has a point,” said Wrobleski. “You don’t honestly think I’m going to take the map, give you your daughter, and say no hard feelings?”
“No,” said Billy. “I don’t think that.”
“Then what do you think?”
“I think this. What if I do the killings like you ask, and let’s say you even give me Carla, though there’s no guarantee you will, well, that’s not going to be the end of it, is it? What’s to stop you turning me in for the murders?”
“Beats me,” said Wrobleski.
“I think you want a fall guy. You want those maps gone, those women gone, and then you want me gone. You can see why I don’t find that very appealing.”