The Collectors

You don’t tell me, well?” Bagger abruptly slid the pistol out of Tony’s mouth, its muzzle covered in his blood and bits of teeth. “Oh, you thought I was just going to shoot you?” Bagger laughed. “No, no, that’s not how this works. That’s way too fast.” He gave the gun to another man and held out his hand. Mike slapped a serrated knife into his palm.

“We do this stuff slow, and we have lots of practice.” Bagger held out his other hand, and another of his men slipped a plastic glove on it.

Bagger continued, “You didn’t used to have to do this glove stuff except because of fingerprints. But now what with all the diseases and crap everywhere, you can’t take chances. I mean like the bonita bitch, how do you know she wasn’t bonking every muchacho in town before you started banging her ripe ass? I hope you were at least wearing a rubber.”

Bagger reached his gloved hand down, grabbed Tony’s crotch and pulled hard.

Tony screamed in agony, but the other men held him down. Bagger studied Tony’s private parts and said, “Frankly, I don’t understand what bonita saw in you.” He raised the knife up. “Okay, the bitch’s name, where my money is and everything else. Then you get to live. Otherwise, I start with your balls, and then it gets really painful after that. What’s it gonna be, Tony? You got five seconds. And once I start cutting, I don’t stop for nothing.”

Tony made a sound.

“What was that? I didn’t quite get it.”

“A-Ann—”

“Speak the hell up, you little asshole, my hearing’s not that great.”

“Annabelle!” he screamed.

“Annabelle? Annabelle who?” Bagger yelled so hard, spit flew out of his mouth.

“Annabelle . . . Conroy. Paddy Conroy’s daughter.”

Bagger slowly lowered the knife and let go of Tony’s privates. He handed the blade to one of his men and stripped off the glove. Jerry Bagger stood and walked over to the window and looked out. His gaze didn’t even linger for a second on the dead Carmela, who’d landed flush on an ornate stone lion positioned next to the back door. Instead, he stared out at the ocean.

Annabelle Conroy? He’d never even known Paddy had a kid. Yet now it started to make sense. Paddy Conroy’s little girl had been in his casino, in his office, played him like a fool and screwed him out of far more than her old man ever had.

Okay, Annabelle, I did your mama, now it’s your turn.

He cracked his knuckles, turned back around and looked at bloody-mouthed Tony lying there on the bed weeping, a hand over his privates.

“What else?” he said. “Everything. And you get to keep breathing.”

And Tony told him, finishing up with Annabelle’s instructions on keeping a low profile and not spending his money all in one place.

Bagger said, “Well, you should’ve listened to the woman.” He snapped his fingers. “Okay, guys, get to it. We don’t have all day.”

One of the men opened a black case he’d brought with him. Inside were four baseball bats. He handed three to the other men and kept one for himself.

As they raised the bats overhead, Tony shrieked. “But you said if I told you, you’d let me live. You said so.”

Bagger shrugged. “That’s right. And after the boys finish with you, you’ll still be alive. Barely. Jerry Bagger is a man of his word.”

As he walked out, he heard the first blow land, breaking Tony’s right knee. Bagger started whistling, closed the door to muffle the screams and went downstairs for a cup of coffee.

CHAPTER 61

THE NEXT MORNING THE LIbrary was in an uproar. Norman Janklow’s murder, so soon after DeHaven’s death, had sent shock waves the length and breadth of the Jefferson Building. When Caleb arrived for work, the police and FBI were already interrogating everyone. Caleb did his best to answer the questions with short answers. It didn’t help that the same two homicide detectives who’d given him back the keys to DeHaven’s house were also there. He sensed that they were keeping a very close eye on him. Had someone spotted him at Jewell’s house? Had they found his prints there? And Reuben had been released in time to commit the murder. Did they suspect him as well? There was no way to tell.

Next his thoughts turned to the Beadle that Annabelle had taken. He had brought it with him today. It had been relatively easy, though Caleb was still a nervous wreck. The guards didn’t check bags going in, only coming out, and only visitors had their bags run through the X-ray machine. Still, the presence of the police only added to his tension. He breathed a sigh of relief after he’d safely run the gauntlet of authority and put the book away in his desk.

When a conservator showed up with some repaired books to be returned to the vault, Caleb volunteered to do it. This would give him the perfect opportunity to reshelve the Beadle. He put the dime novel in the stack with the others and went into the vault. He put away the repaired tomes and then headed to the section where the Beadles were kept. However, when he started to slide the book onto the shelf, he noticed that the tape Annabelle had used to secure it to her thigh had torn a corner of the cover when she pulled it off.

“Great, you’d have thought she could have been a little more careful, considering she stole the damn book in the first place,” he muttered to himself. He’d have to take the Beadle to conservation. He left the vault, filled out the necessary paperwork and had the conservation request inputted on the computer system. Then he walked through the tunnels to the Madison Building, barely glancing at the room where the gas cylinder that had killed Jonathan DeHaven once lurked. Reaching the conservation department, he presented the book to Rachel Jeffries, a woman who did very thorough work and performed it promptly.

After chatting briefly with her about the latest awful news, Caleb returned to the reading room and sat at his desk. He looked around the space, so beautiful, so perfect for contemplation, so very empty right now after the