“Knock yourself out. I promised to cooperate with the FBI and you can see what a good deal that turned out to be,” he said, smiling and waving at the cameras.
“Actually, we’re more interested in real estate,” I said.
“Real estate. Really?” He leaned back in his chair, keeping his distance. “I never did any real estate deals. Just stocks, bonds, and insurance.”
“And cocaine.”
“Yes, Detective Funkhouser. I am a bad man. I sold cocaine and I cheated on my wife. She caught me, cleaned me out in the divorce, and here I am. I never was certain whether she was angrier about the drugs or the adultery.”
“Ever sort that one out?”
He shook his head. “Not really. The money was good and I needed it. My wife could spend money in her sleep. She had no appreciation for the risks I took for her, for us. I was entitled to a few perks. You’d think she’d have cut me some slack.”
“Hard to figure some women,” I said. “So ungrateful.”
He leaned forward, studying me. “I know you’re pulling my chain. You think I’m just a self-centered shit who blames everyone else for my problems.”
“You should feel right at home in prison.”
“Okay, Detective. The only thing I’ve got left to sell is bullshit and you aren’t buying. So what do you want?”
“Your ex-wife has something to sell. Your car and your house and she’s letting them go for a lot less than they are worth. What do you know about that?”
Rice studied me some more, turning toward Grisnik, who stared back at him, his face a mask, not giving Rice a clue about how to answer my question.
“This is a federal penitentiary,” he said quietly. “I’m here because I violated federal law, not state law. My problems are federal, all the way around. My wife, my car, and my house are all in Johnson County. I’ve got nothing to do with anyone or anything in Kansas City, Kansas, or Wyandotte County.”
“Actually, Wyandotte County and Kansas City, Kansas, are the same thing. The county and the city were consolidated a few years ago,” I said. “And it doesn’t matter to me where you and your wife live. I still want to know why she’s taking a bath on your house and car.”
“Thanks for the civics lesson,” he said, his voice low but hard. “My wife got the car and the house in our divorce. What she does with them is none of my business or yours.”
“Your wife says she’s selling them on the cheap to piss you off. I’m wondering how that’s working out for you?”
Rice hung his head, shaking it, chuckling at the?oor, another mood swing. I couldn’t tell which ones were real and which ones were for show. He straightened in his chair, his drooping face a fresh shade of gray.
“You can’t help me with this.”
“I can’t help you if you don’t tell me about it. Once I know what’s going on, you’d be surprised what I can do.”
He stood and took a short tour of the visiting room, hands clamped under his arms, and came back to his chair, rubbing the edge of the hard plastic mold with his fingers.
“It’s like I told you,” he said, letting out a long breath. “She got the house and the car in the divorce. What she does with them is up to her.”
“You’re right about the car, but not the house. According to your divorce settlement, she has to notify you of the sale of the house, which has to be for a fair price, and you get half the money. She’s screwing your lights out and you’re rolling over like she still has you by the short hairs. What’s up with that?”
He bit his lower lip and pulled on the?ap of skin dangling from his chin as if he was trying to distract himself with self-in?icted pain.
“What do you think I’m going to do, Detective? Start jumping up and down, call her a miserable cunt, and say something that will make you happy? Then in a day or two, I’m on my way to the shower and two overgrown guys with serious steroid habits come up to me, throw their arms around me, and one of them says how’s it hanging, bro, while the other one sticks a sharpened spoon between my ribs. No thanks, Detective. I was stupid enough to land my sorry ass in this joint. That doesn’t mean I’m not smart enough to get out of here alive.”
“You don’t have to jump up and down. Just tell me what’s going on and I can help you, keep you safe.”
Rice laughed. It was high pitched, nervous, and afraid. “Trust me, Detective Funkhouser, you don’t mean shit in here. I’m done talking.” He marched to the door and banged on it. “Guard! Guard!”
The door opened. The guard swung it wide. Rice was almost gone when I took my last pass at him.
“Hey, Tom. The guy who’s buying your car and your house, you think he’s just fucking you or does he get to fuck your wife as part of the bargain?”
His neck and face shot full with blood as he ran at me. The guard grabbed his wrist, wrapped it around his back, kicked his legs out from under him, and put him on the?oor before he’d taken two steps. Two more guards materialized, one of them putting a knee in his back, the other poised over him with a Taser. Rice managed to lift his head.
“You son of a bitch!”
He spit at me as one of the guards stepped on his head, pressing his cheek hard against the?oor.
“You’re right about that,” Grisnik said.
Chapter Twenty-six
I was fine until we got back to Grisnik’s car. He didn’t say a word while I shook myself out. I didn’t understand how I could hold myself together during an interrogation and crumble five minutes later. Whatever the reason, I was grateful it had worked out that way, although it was a measure of the change in my life that I even had such a thing to be thankful for.
“When I was growing up, we had rugs all over our house, no wall-to-wall carpet. My mother always said that was for the rich folks who lived in Johnson County,” Grisnik said after I settled down. “She used to hang the rugs up outside and beat the hell out of them to get rid of the dirt. The way you shake, you remind me how she made those rugs?op every time she cleaned house.”
The prison was fading in the rearview mirror, the town passing by in a blur as we headed back to the highway. I wasn’t paying attention to either.
“You have a remarkably soothing bedside manner. I bet you’re a real hit at executions.”
“Hey, man,” Grisnik said, one hand raised in self-defense. “What do you want me to say? It is what it is.”
“Don’t say anything. I’m not putting on a show and I don’t need any reviews of my performance.”
He rubbed his jaw, trying to expunge the embarrassment from his red face. “You’re right. I didn’t mean anything by it. It’s just hard to watch and not feel something for you. I was just trying to keep it light.”
“Light is good. If it makes you feel any better, these shakes don’t hurt even if it looks like they do.”
Grisnik gave me a quick turn of his head, his natural color restored, one eyebrow raised like I couldn’t be serious. “If it doesn’t hurt, why do you make those faces and grunt like you been kicked in the balls?”
“I get all caught up inside, like I’m locked in a clinch and can’t let go. The facial expressions and the sound effects just happen. I can’t control any of it.”
He nodded his head, not doubting me this time. I was in a netherworld, unable to explain to myself or anyone else what was happening to me. If people were uncomfortable, I could understand that even if I couldn’t do anything about it. But the last thing I wanted was pity, and Grisnik hadn’t offered any. I was glad when he changed the subject.
“What’d you think of Rice’s performance?”
“The guy was all over the place,” I said. “Nervous, friendly, sad, tough, scared, pissed. He went through enough personality changes I thought he was auditioning for the lead in
