going for here, Angel?'
'Obstreperous.'
'There you go. Obstreperous. Where's the money?'
Trudy's voice was a rasp, but the words were clear. 'Eat shit.'
Soldier leaned over the table and slapped her. She fell back out of the chair and the table turned over and the edge of it hit her in the neck. The fall stretched her hand to the limit the nail would allow. She lay there and made little sobbing noises while the five thousand dollars fluttered all over like a shattered head of lettuce.
In that instant I wanted her to tell what she knew. Let them have the money and shoot us, get it over with, and in that same instant my survival instincts rose up in me and I knew I had maybe one card to play, and I had to play it now or fold and count the lot of us out.
'I know where the money is,' I said.
'What?' Soldier said. 'You, Happy Guy. What's that?'
'I know where the money is.'
'He's lying,' Paco said. 'He never left this house. He wouldn't know where she buried it. If he did, he wouldn't have let her go through this. He's stalling.'
Leonard was watching Paco like a dog watched a favorite bone. All right, Paco was Leonard's. I'd count on that.
That left Angel and Soldier.
'It just came to me where it is,' I said. 'I remember when she came in, what she had on her shoes.'
'Shoes?' Soldier said. 'We're talking shoes? I'm talking money, I don't know from shoes, Mr. Happy. Money, the moola, the green.'
'I know where the money is because of her shoes.'
'I see,' Soldier said. 'One of those clue things, huh?'
'Something like that,' I said. 'Give me a shovel, and I'll give you the money.'
'Hey, there we are,' Soldier said. 'Angel. He's going to give us the money. Hear that?'
Angel nodded.
'You're all right, Happy. I could get to like you.'
'I don't want to like you,' I said. 'I want to get this over with. I give you the money, and you let us go.'
'Have I ever said different?' Soldier said. 'This's the deal I been trying to shake all day. Give me the money, I let you go. That's what I been saying, right? That's right, isn't it Angel?'
'That's right,' Angel said.
'Let's go, Happy,' Soldier said, 'you and me.'
'All of us,' I said.
'All of us?' Soldier said. 'You're telling me, all of us? Everybody's a boss here. I mean, I'm supposed to be the boss, and I got no say.'
'I want Trudy doctored,' I said. 'I want her with us. I don't want to leave her with Angel. Angel likes what she does too much.'
'We'll leave her with Paco.'
'No.'
'Now you're trying to negotiate. You see where that gets you. A nail in the hand. Lying on the floor.'
'My way, in twenty, thirty minutes, you'll have the money,' I said. 'Your way could go on all day.'
'If you're tough as she is,' Soldier said.
'I don't think I am,' I said. 'But I might be tough enough to last for a while. Longer than twenty or thirty minutes.'
The sweat on Soldier's face looked like a thick coating of Vaseline. He wrinkled his brows and nodded.
'You got a point on the time thing, Happy Man. Not a good one, but a point. But hey, I'm sick of dicking around. I want to ... What is it when you want to speed things up, Angel?'
'Expedite.'
'Expedite. That'll do. So, deal.'
Soldier squatted behind the overturned table, took the hammer, and hit the point of the nail hard. Trudy let out a yelp and bent at the waist and almost sat up before falling back down. The head of the big nail poked out of the back of her hand, but it was still partially in the table.
Angel got hold of Trudy's wrist, jerked hard and the nail came out of the table and the head of it caught on the back of Trudy's hand. Angel grabbed the nail from the bottom and shoved it through most of the way, then caught the head of it between two fingers, yanked it free and tossed it on the floor. She let go of Trudy's wrist and put the overturned chair upright and sat Trudy in it. Trudy was as white as plaster.
'Get the monkey blood, tie a rag around her hand, whatever you want,' Soldier said. 'Let's get this over with.'
