from his trunk, the dull thud of shoes and hands against metal.
He settled down onto the pier to sit, facing the water and dabbing at the cut near his eye. Midday haze obscured the distance, even the bridge dissolved from view. Nearby, the seagulls rose up slowly and then settled down again on the rotting pier. Tenderly, he inspected the places where Frank had bit his face, feeling puffed skin.
Get him to talk to you, he reminded himself. Scare him if you have to, use what force you have to, but get him talking. Keep him talking till he tells the truth.
He rose to his feet, returned to the car and removed his keys from his pant pocket. Frank had fallen quiet inside the trunk, as though gathering up his strength for the next round. In one movement, Abatangelo inserted the key, popped the trunk, and with his right hand stiff like a blade dug deep into Frank’s midriff beneath the sternum cartilage. He drove his left thumb beneath the trapezius, paralyzing Frank’s right shoulder and arm. Frank did not scream. His face turned white and the popping eyes displayed their veins.
“You know who I am, right?”
“No,” Frank whispered. Then: “Yeah. Don’t. I didn’t do anything. I can help.”
“Help what?”
“Find her.”
“Oh yeah? Find her how?”
“I know who’s got her.”
“You don’t have her?”
“Me? No, no.”
“The Mexicans.”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
“I’ll tell you. First- ”
Abatangelo dug his thumb deeper into Frank’s shoulder. “You love her?” Abatangelo whispered. “Come on, cocksucker, you don’t have to think about it. Do you care what happens to her?”
Frank said, “Yes.”
The word made Abatangelo want to spit.
“There’s an envelope in my pocket. Take it out.”
Frank’s left hand, shaking, managed to tug the packet of photographs out. Images of Shel, bruised, scratched and bloody, tumbled across his chest and face.
“Take a good, long look,” Abatangelo said.
Frank began to cry.
“Look at them,” Abatangelo shouted. “Or I’ll kill you right here.”
Frank tried to finger the print nearest his face but his hand shook too badly. He stammered, “I’ll help you, anything, don’t- ”
Abatangelo released his grip finally and stood back a little. When Frank continued sobbing, Abatangelo said quietly, “Stop it.” His eye fastened on one of the prints of Shel, the one showing the bruises down her back where Frank had beaten her with the stock of the shotgun. The next thing he knew he had his left hand around Frank’s throat as the right hand battered his face. He was shouting, “Shut… the fuck… up,” until Frank curled up into a ball, head shielded by his arms. His cries died down to a whimper.
Abatangelo stood back again. He inspected his hand, laced with blood. The fury drained from him and left behind a residue of dread.
You’ve changed, he thought. You used to be smarter.
Chapter 19
Shel had been alone in the whitewashed room for about an hour, listening to the rats scuttling inside the walls of the empty house. More faintly, from outside, she heard the squatter children shrieking as they played and tormented one another, or the nearby windmills groaning like a rusted metal choir. Now it was a new sound that rousted her, the approach of a car crushing gravel outside.
Cesar had promised to bring her fresh water, and some medicine for the pain. When she heard the hurricane doors swing open, however, she noticed that it was two sets of footsteps descending the wood plank stairs, not one.
As the door from the root cellar swung open, a plump, tidy, middle-aged Latino ducked through the opening. He smelled of cologne, his hair so flawlessly combed it suggested a mother’s touch. He wore a double-breasted Armani suit, a crisp white shirt and a staid silk tie and Giorgio Brutini loafers. He could not have seemed more out of place had he sprouted a tail.
One of the large ones followed, Humberto or Pepe, she still didn’t know who was which. He was garbed in the same gray suit as before. The tidy one carried a flashlight and a small black medical bag. Somehow he had managed to cross the muck of the root cellar without soiling himself. She pictured him hopping stone to stone. The large one closed the door behind.
The tidy one smiled, handed his flashlight to his companion, then turned back and bowed slightly at the waist. “Cesar informed me that you asked for some relief from your pain,” he said.
His English belonged to an educated man, his voice melodious and cultured. Shel looked at the small black bag in his hand. She recalled the needle and syringe lying inside the shroud of stiff clear plastic wrapped around Snuff Akers’s body.
“It’s all right,” she said. “I’m better.”
The man looked about the room, as though for a chair. Seeing none, he said something to the other man in Spanish. The only word Shel caught was, “Humberto.” That settles that, she thought; Pepe’s the other guy. Humberto left the room and the plump one turned back to her, wearing exactly the same smile as before.
“Cesar appears to have taken quite an interest in you,” he said.
That’s it, Shel realized. He won’t be coming back. I’m going to be killed here, now, by this fat little fella. Doctor Death.
“Romantic young man, Cesar,” the man continued. “They held a dinner a few weeks ago, at the hotel, for the staff. The maids, the kitchen, the security team, everyone. There’s an operator there, a girl from a village in the south. Cesar has an insufferable crush on her. He can’t even be near her without stammering.”
Humberto returned, carrying a campaign chair and a thermos. With a flick of his arm he unfolded the campaign chair. The tidy one, the doctor, pulled up his trouser legs and sat. Humberto handed him the thermos. As the doctor unscrewed the lid, he continued, “As I was saying, Cesar, he’s really quite lovestruck. It’s not uncommon, of course, for unattractive men to develop profound attachments. The night of the staff dinner was apparently the worst. As it’s been told to me, he planned to draw this operator away sometime during the evening, speak to her alone. Confide his heart. But his nerve failed. He just sat there during the meal, like a stump. Later on, however, in his dreams, poor Cesario could not be silenced.”
He turned to Humberto, mumbled something in Spanish, and the larger man cackled. Pressing his hands to his heart, he sang in a moaning voice,
“It’s an unfortunate trait, for someone on the security team, to talk in his sleep,” the doctor concluded.
Security team, Shel thought. The euphemism reminded her of watching newscasts from Vietnam as a girl. Damage assessments. Tactical repositionings. Advantageous weather. The doctor had the thermos lid removed. He poured a clear fluid into the cap and offered it to Shel.
“Water,” he said.
“I’m not thirsty,” she told him.
The doctor sighed, as if she’d hurt his feelings. “If it was anyone’s plan to kill you, you’d already be dead.”
It was the first crack in the courtly veneer. His eyes were hard. As though to bring his point home, he glanced about the room. Blood spatters smeared the floor and wall where Dayball’s interrogation had grown especially
