“Oh sure,” Ollie said.
Helen looked at the keyboard somewhat despairingly. “We have a few more minutes,” she said. “Do you think we can try it one more time?”
AT FIRST , he insisted he knew no one named Cassandra Jean Ridley. Knew no one named Frank, either. Ofany last name whatever. No Franks at all in his busy life as a Texas Ranger.
But this was sunny Mexico.
So they used a cattle prod on his testicles.
He all at once remembered the good-looking redhead and this man named Frank Whoever, but all he’d done was introduce the pair,“Verdad,” he said in Spanish, he scarcely knew them at all, really. Cassie—the guys in the bar used to call her Cassie—was an attractive redhead, and Frank was just someone he’d seen around, nice- enough fellow, he thought they might hit it off together, didn’t even know his last name,verdad, amigos.
“I’m a Texas Ranger,” he told them. “What I do mostly is border patrol, trying to keep the wetbacks out, you know …”
He actually used the word “wetbacks”in the presence of two Mexicans who were holding a cattle prod an inch away from his quivering balls …
“No offense meant,” he said immediately. “The point is …”
The point was he knew nothing about any money that was flown south of the border by Lieutenant Ridley or anyone else, knew nothing about any deals made between these two obviously fine gentlemen here and anyone in the entire universe, did not know anything about Frank Whatever-His-Last-Name-Was, whom he’d only met in a bar, did not know how much a key of cocaine was worth, did not even know what cocainewas, ask him any other question, he was very good at geography.
They gave him a longer jolt this time.
His balls shriveled right up into his throat.
Okay, he told them, the man’s name is Frank Holt, I knew him only as an independent contractor who was normally very reliable. I had no idea what kind of deal was going down in Mexico, I merely put together a man and a pilot. The man needed a delivery and pickup, and the pilot had to be willing to take risks—which, by the way, Lieutenant Ridley had taken plenty of during the Gulf War, from what he’d heard about her. He believed she’d been decorated for valor, in fact. An honorable woman who’d served her nation well in times of dire stress, he felt sure she would not have had any part of a scheme designed to bilk anyone out of fair payment in exchange for his goods, whatever those goods might have been, though he’d had no idea the lady would be picking up cocaine across the border. He told them he’d certainly hadn’t the faintestnotion that counterfeit money was being flown to Mexico in exchange for what was undoubtedly very high-grade coke indeed, the two gentlemen here seeming trustworthy and entirely professional. In short, he’d been a mere instrument of convenience, an enabler, a facilitator, so to speak, an all-around nice guy who’d tried to be helpful, was all. If the gentlemen here had got stung, Randolph L. Biggs hadn’t had anything to do with it. They would have to look elsewhere for satisfaction.
“So, gentlemen …”
Villada nodded to Ortiz.
Ten seconds later, Biggs was telling them that Frank Holt’s real name was Jerome Hoskins and that he worked for a company called Wadsworth and Dodds, back East in the big bad city.
CARELLA FINALLY REACHED Captain Mark William Ridley at a little past six that evening. He was cognizant of the fact that it was already midnight in Binsfeld, Germany, but when he’d tried earlier that day, he was informed that the captain had still not returned to base.
Now—at six-oh-six exactly on the face of the squadroom clock—Carella listened to the captain’s voice coming over the line from somewhere outside Frankfurt, explaining at great length that Spangdahlem’s commanding officer, the brigadier general in charge of the 52nd Fighter Wing, had decided to divide more or less evenly among the base’s five thousand U.S. active-duty military members and their seven thousand dependents, the holiday season’s twelve-day sequence that had begun on December 21, the start of Hanukkah, and would end on New Year’s Day.
“That is because our wing mission is to be constantly ready at all times to promote stability and thwart naked aggression,” he said.
“I see,” Carella said.
“In order to achieve U.S. and NATO objectives,” Ridley added, “yessir.”
Carella wished the man didn’t sound as if he’d been drinking.
“I drew December 21 to December 27,” Ridley said. “I just got back from Italy fifteen minutes ago. Did I understand you to say you are a detective, sir?”
“Yes, I am,” Carella said.
“Why are you calling me here in the Rhineland, may I ask, sir?”
Carella was calling to tell him his sister was dead.
He took a deep breath.
He guessed he’d performed this drill a hundred times before, perhaps a thousand times before, telling a wife or a mother or a father or a son or a brother or an aunt that someone near and dear was suddenly, inexplicably dead, and then listening to the silence or the tears or sometimes the hysterical laughter that greeted this unexpected, unwanted news from a total stranger, he guessed he had spoken these same damn more or less identical words a million times before it sometimes seemed.
Ridley was silent for several moments.
Then he said, “It comes in bunches, don’t it, sir?” He sounded suddenly quite sober. “First my wife leaves me …”
He fell silent again.
