“No.”
“What a couple of liars,” said Jack Adair.
Theodore Contraire, who sometimes called himself Teddy Jones or Smith, came into the private dining room in Cousin Mary’s dressed for the Fourth of July as a Vietnam veteran. He wore camouflage fatigues, jump boots, a fatigue hat and, cradled in his right arm, an unaltered and therefore illegal M-16 that was aimed at Parvis Mansur.
“You’re Parvis, right?”
“I’m Parvis.”
“Where’s Adair and Vines?”
“Where, I might ask, is the money?”
“What money?” said Theodore Contraire.
Chapter 42
Mansur, his hands now clasped behind his neck, walked into Merriman Dorr’s small office, followed by Contraire and the M-16. Contraire looked around, taking in the two wingback chairs, the safe and the child’s desk. “Cute,” he said. “What’s in the safe?”
“Nothing.”
“Open it up and let’s see.”
Parvis moved to the safe and pulled the heavy door open.
“Hands behind your neck,” Contraire reminded Mansur, backing up to get a better view of the safe, whose interior space was approximately three feet high, two feet wide and three feet deep.
“Big bastard,” Contraire said.
“Yes.”
“All cleaned out, too. Not even a shelf left. Hold a million bucks with no trouble at all, even if it was in twenties and fifties.”
“Twenties and fifties will be perfectly acceptable.”
“I guess I didn’t make myself clear,” Contraire said. “There’s not gonna be any money. But there is gonna be something worth a whole lot more’n a million to somebody.”
“What?”
Contraire used the M-16 to indicate the child’s desk. “Sit down over at that kiddie’s desk. Once you’re there you can take your hands down and fold ’em together on top of the desk like you did in grade school.”
“I never went to grade school, as you call it,” Mansur said. “I was privately tutored.”
“Sit down any way and I’ll sit in one of these chairs over here and we’ll wait for the phone to ring.”
“Merriman has an unlisted number in here,” Mansur said.
“There’s no such thing as an unlisted number.”
The telephone rang two minutes later at exactly 3:05 P.M. Aiming the M-16 at Mansur with his right hand, Contraire picked up the ringing phone with his left and said, “It’s me.”
He listened, smiling his gray-toothed smile at Mansur, who, still seated at the child’s desk, his hands folded on its top, smiled politely back.
“Hold on,” Contraire said into the phone. To Mansur he said, “I bet you can turn this into a conference call-you and me in here, whoever’s just called, and Vines and Adair in the poker room. You can do that, can’t you, Parvie?”
Mansur nodded.
Cradling the phone’s receiver between his ear and left shoulder, Contraire used his now freed left hand to pick up the rest of the telephone and place it in front of Mansur, who tapped out four numbers on the Touch-Tone buttons.
Nodding and smiling at Mansur, Contraire said into the receiver: “Hear it ringing? Now let’s see which one answers.”
Vines picked up the phone on its fourth chirp and said, “Yes.”
“Who’s this?” a man’s voice said.
“Kelly Vines.”
“Well, look, Kelly, I’m gonna put Parvie on for a second so he can tell you what the score is. Okay?”
“Yes.”
There was a wait of a second or two until Mansur came on and said, “There’s no money.”
“No money?” Vines said, lifting the phone an inch or so from his ear so Jack Adair could also listen.
“No. He’s here and there’s an M-16 pointed at me. I might add that the safety’s off. He has someone on the telephone whom he wishes you to speak with. That’s all I know.”
There was another pause before Contraire came back on and said, “You get all that, Kelly?”
“Yes.”
“Okay, let’s see if you recognize the next voice you hear.”
The next voice Vines and Adair heard said, “Hello, Mr. Vines. How are you today?”
“I’m fine, Dannie. And you?”
“I’ve had such a nice outing. We took a short drive and I had an ice cream sundae and now we’re having a little rest before I go back.”
“Someone’s with you then?” Vines said.
“Betty’s with me.”
“Betty who?”
Vines could hear his wife’s voice through the hand she must have placed over the phone. “I’m sorry, but I don’t remember your last name.”
There was an indistinct, muffled reply, a pause and Danielle Vines was again speaking to her husband. “Betty Thompson.”
“May I speak to Miss Thompson?” Vines said.
Contraire cut in. “Sorry, Kelly.”
“Who was that, Mr. Vines?” Danielle asked.
“A friend.”
“Is Mr. Adair with you? Betty said I could also talk with Mr. Adair, who I think is quite nice.”
Vines handed the phone to Adair, who closed his eyes, massaged them with the thumb and middle finger on his left hand, and said to his daughter, “Hello, Dannie. This is Jack Adair.”
“How are you today, Mr. Adair?”
“I’m fine, Dannie. Where’re you calling from?”
“I’m in-”
There was the sound of a phone being hung up. But Contraire was still on the line. “That’s enough chitchat, Jack. You wanta talk to me or do you wanta put Vines back on?”
“I’ll talk to you,” Adair said, holding the receiver away from his ear so Vines could listen.
“Well, it’s like this, Jack. I need to get some answers from you guys face-to-face and, if I don’t get ’em, well, I’m afraid Dannie’s not gonna make it back to the nut farm. So what I want you to do is tell Parvis to give me the key to the poker room.”
“What happens to him after he gives you the key?”
“Nothing happens to him. Why would anything happen to him? Well, sure, I might lock him in the dining room there, but it’s got a nice little bar where he can sit and drink himself shitfaced until it’s all over.”
“Put Parvis on,” Adair said.
“Mansur here.”
“Can he hear me?”
“No.”
