The Hidden Man

“I’ll make sure to come back when you’re on duty,” I said. “Interfering with an investigation. Witness tampering.” I removed a small notepad from my breast pocket and slipped the pen out. “What’s your last name, Lou? For the affidavit.”

He waited a beat, to show me his resolve, before he dialed the number again. He turned away from me, but I didn’t really need to hear what he was saying, anyway.

“Mr. Robeson’ll be down,” he told me.

“You’re the best, Lou.” I paced around the small foyer, decorated with a few pieces of decent furniture and some sports magazines on a round table. The elevators were behind a thick plate of glass and a secure door. One of the elevators chimed and a man walked out, a tall, thin African American with ivory-white hair, wearing a sweater, trousers, and a displeased expression.

He pushed open the secured door, enough for a conversation, but didn’t walk through.

“Mr. Robeson.” I approached the door.

“You’re representing the guy on trial,” he said, his voice matching his feeble frame.

“Yes, sir. I’ve tried to call-”

“I didn’t see nothin’, okay? Didn’t see nothin’.” The man’s eyes were ablaze with fury, with pure hatred.

I paused. I wanted him to calm down. “Mr. Robeson, you told the police-”

“You stay away,” he interrupted. “I said I didn’t see nothin’, now you stay away from us.”

I drew back. “I’ve never spoken to you.”

“You never did. You never did.” The man directed a bony finger in my direction. “I fought for this country,” he said. “I fought, y’hear? I didn’t put my life on the line so’s people could threaten good people who come forward and do the right thing.”

Don’t worry about the witnesses, Smith had cautioned me. His goons had reached this man and his wife.

“Someone threatened you,” I said.

Robeson’s eyes narrowed. “You oughta be ashamed. Ashamed. Now, I told you, my wife and me, we didn’t see nothin’. Don’t remember anything of the kind. You stay away.”

Robeson let the security door close with a click. He kept mumbling angrily as he walked back into the elevator.

I turned back to the doorman, who looked like he wanted to draw his weapon on me.

“These are nice people,” he said. “They don’t hurt anybody. They just wanna be left alone. So leave them alone.”

I didn’t have a response. There was no sense trying to convince the Robesons that I wasn’t the one who threatened them. There was nothing I could do but leave.

As I was walking to my car, my cell phone rang, the caller ID blocked. Smith, presumably.

“Kolarich, you’ve tested our patience. What did I tell you?”

I didn’t know what he meant, but I had an idea. I figured it wouldn’t take long before Lieutenant Jim Stewart and his boys at IAD would pick up DePrizio for questioning about the briefcase full of money I’d handed him.

It occurred to me that I might have made a big mistake. My plan had been to pinch DePrizio, make it look like he was extorting money from me, to help spring my brother from the criminal charges he faced. But that was before I’d managed to get Pete’s charges dropped. And that was before they’d abducted Pete. The landscape had changed. Now, I was pissing off the very people who were holding my brother.

“I said no police, Jason. That includes Internal Affairs.”

“I didn’t sic the police on you, Smith,” I said quickly. “Maybe on DePrizio, but not on you. Internal Affairs doesn’t know about you. They’ve got DePrizio on false arrest and extortion.”

“Go home,” Smith said. “And then we’ll talk.”

“Why am I going home?”

“Because you’ve got mail,” Smith said, before hanging up.

I broke about twenty different traffic laws on my way home, my imagination running wild. He was talking about Pete, I knew. He had something to show me.

I pulled up to my house just fifteen minutes after Smith’s call. I slowly approached the front door of my town house, then the gold mailbox next to the front door, as if there were a bomb inside. Instead there was a series of junk mail and a large, unstamped envelope. I held my breath, opened it up, and removed an object wrapped in thick bubble wrap.

I ripped the first few layers off, until it was clear that it was holding a severed finger.

55

I TAPED BACK UP the bubble wrap holding the finger and put it in my freezer, not sure if there was any point to it, realizing that the odds of my ever seeing Pete again were dwindling. I was playing high- stakes poker, but it was my brother, not I, who was suffering the consequences.

“I didn’t know they were going to kidnap you,” I said aloud. “Jesus, Pete, I didn’t know. I thought I was helping you.”

I paced around my kitchen, trying to burn off the anxiety, slamming my fist into a cabinet, cursing and shouting, sweat breaking out on my face. They were torturing my brother because of my stupid one-upmanship.

Accomplishing absolutely nothing at home, I went back to my car and drove to the office, hardly able to keep my hands on the wheel. When my cell phone buzzed, I turned to it with venom in my heart.

“Kolarich,” Smith said.

“Every finger he loses, Smith, I take two of yours.”

“Who the hell do you think you’re dealing with?” he hissed. “You think you can threaten us? You think we won’t hit you back ten times harder? Are you finally getting the picture here, son?”

“I’m sorry,” I said, silently cursing myself for the show of weakness but overcome with desperation. “I was just trying to protect him. Just please let him go. I learned my lesson. I’ll-I’ll make it right with DePrizio.”

I knew I was giving Smith what he wanted, capitulation. Every synapse firing in my brain told me it was the wrong move, that I needed to keep the upper hand, but I couldn’t fight back my fear. Please let him go. Please let him go.

“Make it right with DePrizio, period,” he countered. “Every day that you don’t, they’ll cut something else off your brother. Oh, and I’m supposed to tell you-your brother screams like a goddamned girl.”

I bit my tongue. He had me over a barrel, we both knew it, but I had something of my own. DePrizio was now a threat to Smith, a wild card. He could sing to Internal Affairs-give up Smith and his client to save his own ass. Smith couldn’t be sure. He needed DePrizio cleared.

There was no good answer here. If I gave in, they’d probably kill Pete eventually, anyway. If I held out for leverage, left DePrizio hanging out to dry, they’d torture Pete in ways I couldn’t even consider-but at least I’d still have a chance at getting him back.

That was it. No matter what it might mean for Pete in the interim, I had to get Pete away from them. I had to use whatever leverage I had remaining to get him free.

I took a deep breath and spit it out: “Not until you let Pete go.” I hung up the phone, almost crushing it in my white-knuckled grip.

I made it to my office, fortunate to avoid an accident in my current state. I hadn’t had a decent night’s sleep in almost three weeks. My brain was foggy, my limbs like noodles, my emotions scattered. I had no gas left in the tank, and my job was only just starting.

“I’ll find you,” I said to nobody, to the air.

“Now you’re talking to yourself?”

Shauna Tasker was standing at the threshold of my office doorway.

“God, Jason, you look like hell.”