Trying to control a situation like this, that was what made you crazy. Because you couldn't do it. They had all the cards.
But if you let go of the need to control it, you could at least quit dancing to their music, shuffling around like a trained bear in a Bulgarian circus.
He went into the kitchen and made himself a cup of thick sweet coffee, preparing it in the long-handled brass pot. While it cooled he got a bottle of vodka from the freezer and poured himself two ounces, drank it down in a single swallow, and felt the icy calm taking him over entirely. He carried his coffee into the other room, and he was just finishing it when the phone rang again.
It was the second man, the nice one. 'You upset my friend, Mr.
Khoury,' he said. 'He's difficult to deal with when he's upset.'
'I think it would be better if you made the calls from now on.'
'I don't see—'
'Because that way we can get this handled instead of getting all hung up in drama,' he said. 'He mentioned a million dollars. That's out of the question.'
'Don't you think she's worth it?'
'She's worth any amount,' he said, 'but—'
'What does she weigh, Mr. Khoury? One-ten, one-twenty, somewhere in that neighborhood?'
'I don't—'
'Something like fifty kilograms, we might say.'
Cute.
'Fifty keys at twenty a key, well, run the numbers for me, why don't you, Mr. Khoury? Comes to a mil, doesn't it?'
'What's the point?'
'The point is you'd pay a million for her if she was product, Mr.
Khoury. You'd pay that if she was powder. Isn't she worth as much in flesh and blood?'
'I can't pay what I don't have.'
'You have plenty.'
'I don't have a million.'
'What do you have?'
He'd had time to think of the answer. 'Four hundred.'
'Four hundred thousand.'
'Yes.'
'That's less than half.'
'It's four hundred thousand,' he said. 'It's less than some things and it's more than others. It's what I've got.'
'You could get the rest.'
'I don't see how. I could probably make some promises and call in some favors and raise a little that way, but not that much. And it would take at least a few days, probably more like a week.'
'You assume we're in a hurry?'
'I'm in a hurry,' he said. 'I want my wife back and I want you out of my life, and I'm in a big hurry as far as those two things are concerned.'
'Five hundred thousand.'
See? There were elements he could control after all. 'No,' he said.
'I'm not bargaining, not where my wife's life is concerned. I gave you the top figure right away. Four.'
A pause, then a sigh. 'Ah, well. Silly of me to think I could get the better of one of your kind in a business deal. You people have been playing this game for years, haven't you? You're as bad as the Jews.'
He didn't know how to answer that, so he left it alone.
'Four it is,' the man said. 'How long will it take you to get it ready?'
Fifteen minutes, he thought. 'A couple of hours,' he said.
'We can do it tonight.'
'All right.'
'Get it ready. Don't call anyone.'
'Who would I call?'
HALF an hour later he was sitting at the kitchen table looking at four hundred thousand dollars. He had
a safe in the basement, a big old Mosler that weighed over a ton, itself set in the wall and screened by pine
