No Way Back (39 page)

There’s a knock on my car window. Agent Mitchell stands outside my door.

‘Yeah, all right,’ Gordon says, and sighs. He doesn’t sound very trusting. ‘Jimmy, why do I have a feeling this isn’t going to end well for you?’

‘Because it never does, Gordon.’

‘No,’ he agrees. ‘It never does.’

‘Call me at this number,’ I say. ‘My other cellphone was… Well, I had to get rid of it.’

He laughs. He thinks that my other cellphone was sold. Or exchanged. For yellow crystals in a plastic baggie.

‘Yeah, all right, Jimmy,’ he says. ‘Whatever.’ He hangs up.

‘Jesus, Mr Thane,’ the FBI man says, when I step out of the car. ‘You look like shit.’

‘Do I?’ I touch my face. ‘I guess what they say is true. Bingeing on crystal meth isn’t good for your complexion.’

‘I’m glad you still have that sense of humour,’ he says. ‘I thought you might have lost it.’

He offers his hand, and we shake. He continues, ‘Now then, tell me about your wife.’

‘They took her.’

‘Who did?’

I point to the house across the street, where the Russians set up their All-Jimmy-Thane-Twenty-Four-Hour-A-Day TV channel. The driveway is empty, the curtains drawn. There is no light in the
windows. ‘They’ve been spying on me. They put cameras in my house. They’ve been watching me and Libby ever since we moved to Florida.’

Mitchell tilts his head and stares at me. He looks wary. Is this a joke designed to make him look foolish? ‘Watching you?’ he repeats.

‘I’ll show you.’

I lead him to the front of my house. The door is unlocked. I push it open and we enter. The foyer is cool and dark.

‘Look,’ I say, directing him into the living room. ‘The grandfather clock, it’s really—’

But in the living room, the grandfather clock, which I last saw shattered and broken, is gone. There are no springs or shards of glass or warped metal on the floor. There’s just a small
indentation in the carpet, barely visible, the shape of the clock’s base.

‘It was right here,’ I say.

‘What was, Mr Thane?’

I do not answer. I run up the stairs into the bedroom. The ceiling fan is gone, too: no longer on the floor, where I left it. The plaster above the bed has been repaired – touched up,
painted, perfectly dry.

‘Mr Thane?’ Mitchell asks, from behind me. I turn to see him in the doorway, holding out a piece of paper. ‘Is this what you’re looking for?’

He hands it to me. It’s a single sheet, from the magnetic pad that Libby stuck on the refrigerator. It’s a picture of a cartoon bear, jumping into the air, trying to grab a beehive
dripping with honey, but not quite reaching it. Below the picture is printed: ‘If at first you don’t succeed, bear with it and try again.’

Below this inspirational message is a woman’s handwriting.

Mitchell explains, ‘It was on the kitchen counter. That her handwriting?’

‘Yes,’ I say. ‘But she didn’t write it. They took her. I saw them.’

‘Who took her?’

‘The Russians.’

‘Who’s Cole, Mr Thane?’

‘My son.’

‘You have a son?’

‘No,’ I say. Then: ‘You don’t believe me.’

No answer.

I say, ‘I’ll show you their house. Come with me. You’ll see for yourself.’ Even as I say it, though, I’m losing confidence. I know exactly what we will find in the
Russians’ house.

But I lead him downstairs, and through the foyer, and back into the blast-furnace heat. I walk through the front yard, and across the street, to the velociraptor’s house.

‘Where are we going, Mr Thane?’ Mitchell calls out behind me.

‘Trust me,’ I say, trying to sound confident.

I wait for the agent to join me on the Russians’ porch. He walks slowly, looking uncomfortable and wary.

I knock at the Russians’ door. There is no answer.

‘Let’s go inside,’ I say.

‘Now, listen, Mr Thane, I can’t just walk into someone’s house—’

I turn the doorknob. The door opens easily, gliding on its well-oiled hinges, revealing a dark empty foyer. There is no furniture in the room.

Mitchell peers through the open door. ‘Looks empty.’

I go inside. The room is warm. No air conditioning. Mitchell remains at the threshold, considering. Then he shrugs and follows. The foyer, and every room visible from it, is empty. No furniture.
No sign of habitation at all. No Russians. No Libby.

‘They lived here,’ I insist.

‘Who did, Mr Thane?’

‘Ghol Gedrosian’s men.’

He arches his eyebrows dramatically. ‘Ghol Gedrosian’s men? They all lived together? In this house? Sort of like a college fraternity?’ His voice is full of mirth. ‘Why
on earth would they do that?’

‘To watch me.’

‘To watch you?’

I walk to the living room, where just yesterday I saw banks of recording equipment and rows of flat-screen televisions on the wall.

‘See?’ I say. I point to the wall, triumphantly, where there are still unmistakable signs of screw holes in the plaster, at the exact level where the televisions were mounted.

‘See
what
?’

‘The holes. That’s where they put the TV monitors.’

‘Mr Thane, I think we ought to leave here. First of all, I don’t have a warrant, and second of all… ’ He shrugs. ‘Well, second of all, it’s goddamned
empty.’

He takes my shoulder and urges me from the house, shutting the door behind us. We’re back in the heat again. ‘Now, Mr Thane,’ he says. ‘I’m going to be honest with
you. Because I like you. I actually do. Which surprises the hell out of me. I’m not sure what’s going on, and I’m not sure why you called me here. But I will tell you something.
You do seem a bit…
peculiar
today.’

‘I’m telling the truth. Ghol Gedrosian’s men kidnapped my wife.’

‘I know,’ he says. ‘That’s what you’re telling me. But this note seems to imply something else.’ He holds up the note from Libby.

‘You think I’m lying?’

‘I don’t know what to think. I think you smell pretty bad, and your eyes look red as the devil’s. What would
you
think, given your history, if you were me?’

Before I can reply, the phone in Mitchell’s shirt pocket rings. He takes it out, glances at the incoming number, holds up a finger to me. ‘I have to take this,’ he says, and
answers the phone. ‘Yeah.’ A pause. ‘Yeah, he’s right here. Black Mercedes?’ Another pause as he listens to the other end of the conversation. ‘Yeah, all right.
What’s her name?’ He listens in silence, nodding. ‘All right. I think that’s a good idea. We’ll be right over.’

He hangs up. He looks at me thoughtfully.

‘Where’s your wife’s car, Mr Thane? That beautiful new Mercedes you bought for her?’

I’m about to answer, ‘I left it in the Fort Myers Greyhound terminus,’ but something about his face, and the tone of his voice, tells me not to.

‘I’m not sure,’ I say. ‘It wasn’t in the driveway when I got here.’

‘Well, they found it,’ he says. ‘It was over on Pine Island.’ He looks intently at me. ‘The problem is there were three people in it. Two dead Mexicans in the back
seat, and a hooker with her throat cut, in the trunk.’

‘The Mexicans are
Zetas
,’ Mitchell explains, driving his Chevy Impala onto the Crosstown Expressway and merging recklessly into traffic. ‘Now, the
Zetas started in California, but they’re everywhere today, Mr Thane, including Miami and Tampa. Even here in Fort Myers, it turns out.’

I’m in the passenger seat. Mitchell steers casually, just his right fist against the wheel, and he’s craning to look at me every few seconds, gauging my reaction to his gangland
sociology lecture. I nod politely, but between last night’s meth, my recent discovery of cameras in my house, and their subsequent disappearance, I’m ready to hurl my granola bar into
his lap.

I fasten my seat belt.

Mitchell continues, ‘These boys we found, they were just thugs, three weeks out of Raiford. No great loss to the State of Florida, if I may be so blunt.’

‘What happened to them?’

‘What happened?’ He gives me a sidelong glance. ‘I won’t lie to you, Mr Thane. You’re probably going to want to get your upholstery replaced. Whoever did it had a
field day with those hombres. I’m guessing they needed some information. Poor assholes didn’t stand a chance.’ He shakes his head. ‘Now, the girl – she’s more
interesting. Especially considering what you’ve been telling me. You want her life story, or just the highlights?’

‘Highlights.’

‘According to my colleague – that was my partner on the phone; he’s part of the Gedrosian Task Force I told you about – the girl is a hooker from Vegas. Well, not really
a hooker. I guess you’d say she was in the hospitality industry. Worked for Gedrosian, servicing high rollers. Ten or fifteen Gs for one night. Good Lord, Mr Thane, what the hell does a woman
do that’s worth fifteen thousand dollars a night? Don’t answer that.’ He holds up his palm. ‘Anyway, she goes by the name – well,
went
by the name…
Danielle Diamond. Ever hear of her?’

‘Why would I know a Las Vegas hooker?’

He gives me a mischievous look, as if to ask, Why
wouldn’t
you know a Las Vegas hooker? Out loud he merely suggests, ‘I thought, since you were a customer of Mr
Gedrosian’s, maybe you two had met.’

I don’t take the bait, and remain silent.

‘Anyway,’ he goes on, ‘I thought we would swing by, take a looksee. That way you can tell me if you recognize the girl. They didn’t torture her, if that’s a
concern. Afterwards, you and I can head over to my office and file a report.’

‘Report?’

‘Missing Persons, Mr Thane. For your wife. If you still want to go through with it, that is.’ His meaning is clear.
If you still want to insist you didn’t threaten her and
make her run away from you.

Twenty minutes later, we arrive at a pink limestone building, square and institutional, with a sign that says: ‘County Medical Examiner’. The building is set far back from the road,
behind a tall chain-link fence and a wide grass border, as if the place were designed to withstand an onslaught of people clamouring to visit the morgue. Or an onslaught of bodies clamouring to get
out.

We park in the gated lot, and I follow Mitchell into the building. I notice that, as we enter, he stops chattering, and he drops the aw-shucks good-ol’-boy banter. Maybe he feels the same
queasiness about morgues and dead people as I do.

At the front desk he flashes his ID to the rent-a-cop, and signs in. We’re waved through a buzzing electric door. On the other side, we nearly run headlong into a big bearded man, who
comes racing towards us from around a corner. Everything about the man is huge: his head, his ham hands, his barrel stomach that pops over his belt, his oversized white lab coat.

The big man stops suddenly, just inches from Agent Mitchell’s nose.

‘Whoa there, Ryan,’ Mitchell says calmly, holding very still and making a point not to flinch.

‘Damnit, Tom,’ Grizzly Adams in a Lab Coat says. ‘You have the worst timing. You caught me on my way to the candy machine. Walk with me, will you?’

From his heft, it appears that we had a good chance of catching him on his way to the candy machine, no matter what time we showed up. He leads us down the corridor. The air is chilled. The
walls are painted cinderblock. Mitchell says, ‘I suppose I should introduce you two. Ryan Pearce, this is Jim Thane.’

Ryan Pearce nods, not bothering to slow down. ‘Nice to meet you.’ He’s clearly got candy on the brain.

Mitchell adds, ‘It was Mr Thane’s Mercedes.’

Pearce stops. He turns to me with a look of deep concern. ‘Aw, shit,’ he says. ‘I’m truly sorry about that.’

‘Mr Thane hasn’t seen his car yet,’ Mitchell explains. ‘It was brand new, though. A gift for his wife.’

‘You’re shitting me,’ Pearce says. He makes a
tsk-tsk
sound, and begins walking again. ‘Ain’t that the damndest thing? Maybe you can return it.
There’s some kind of lemon law, isn’t there? Less than thirty days and you get your money back? Just claim you didn’t notice the bloodstains when you drove it off the
lot.’

At the end of the hall he stops at the candy machine. ‘Three Musketeers?’ Pearce says, looking at me first, then Mitchell. ‘My treat.’

In fact, a candy bar sounds good right now. I crave sugar. You always do, after a night on crank. But I shake my head.

Pearce shrugs. He sticks a dollar into the machine, presses the button, and a 3 Musketeers plops into the dispenser below.

He peels it open and pops it into his mouth. Two bites and it’s gone. ‘Damn, I love nougat,’ he says, through a mouth full of the stuff. ‘No idea what the hell it is, but
it’s so goddamned good.’

‘Hate to cut into your lunch, Ryan,’ Mitchell says, ‘but we’re a bit pressed for time. We gotta file a missing persons after this. You mind showing us the
girl?’

‘Oh, sure,’ Pearce says, agreeable now that he has had his chocolate. ‘You bet. Come with me.’

The big man leads us back down the hallway, the way we came, and we turn left at the main entrance, following a sign that says, ‘Cooler 1’. We pass two sets of automatic hydraulic
doors that glide open as we approach.

At the end of the long hall, Pearce pushes a heavy metal door; and we find ourselves in a walk-in cooler. The air is cold and burns the inside of my nose. In front of us are six rows of small
doors in the wall, twenty across. These hold bodies.

‘I’m hoping Mr Thane might recognize her,’ Mitchell says.

Pearce licks his chocolatey fingers, wipes them on his white smock. ‘All right, let me show you. Autopsy’s not ’til tomorrow. But I think the cause of death will be pretty
obvious. They were very thorough.’

He walks to the coolers. There’s a tag on one of them, scribbled in a messy hand, ‘Danielle Diamond’.

Pearce wraps his beefy fingers on the door handle, twists, and pulls out a platform that slides towards him on metal rollers. A body lies beneath a white sheet.