Stone Cold

anything go boom. Bagger told him what he wanted and the man said he could have it ready in two hours, delivered. Bagger offered to pay his asking price and added a five grand bonus on top of it.

“You must need it bad,” the colleague said.

It was true, Bagger really did need the boom bad. Ironically, such devices almost always killed people, lots of people. Yet in this case, it might just let one person live.

Me.

“Okay,” Annabelle said to Alex and her father. “We need to get me to that van.”

Paddy stood and shook his head. “Afraid not, Annie.”

“What?” she said quickly with a sharp glance at Alex. He seemed as puzzled as she was.

“You’re not going to be in that van. I am,” Paddy said.

“That’s not part of the plan. Jerry wants me, not you.”

“I’ll tell him you got the better of me. He’ll buy that. He damn well knows how smart you are.”

“Paddy, I’m not letting Jerry near you.”

“You’ve got your whole life ahead of you, Annie. If something goes wrong and I’m the one who buys it, so what?”

“Why didn’t you tell me this part before?”

“Because I knew you wouldn’t go along with it, that’s why. Now we’ve gone too far to turn back.”

“Alex, talk to him.”

“Well, what he’s saying makes sense, Annabelle.”

“You’ll put me in the van,” Paddy continued. “I’ll buy some time with Jerry telling him how you outsmarted me, but I can still get to you if he lets me have another chance.”

“Paddy, he’ll kill you as soon as he sees you.”

“I’ve known Jerry a lot longer than you have. I know how to play the fella, you just have to trust me on that one.”

“I’m not going to let you do-”

“I have to do this. For a lot of reasons.”

She looked from her father to Alex and back to Paddy. “What if something goes wrong?”

“Then it goes wrong,” replied Paddy. “Now let’s get this show on the road. I’m not getting any younger.” He pointed a finger at Alex. “But one thing. No cavalry until the bastard admits to killing Tammy.”

The call came at eleven o’clock with the address. At midnight Bagger’s men went into the parking garage and found the white van on the second level. In the back, neatly hidden in a roll of carpet, was a person.

“Shit!” Mike Manson said as he shone his light on the person’s head. “It’s some geezer.”

They unrolled the carpet and there was Paddy Conroy. He was apparently so weak from being bound up that they had to help him stand.

Manson shoved a gun in his sweating face. “What the hell is going on? Who the hell are you?”

“What’s going on is that my damn daughter screwed me.”

A smile eased across Manson’s face. “You’re Paddy Conroy?”

“No, I’m the king of Ireland, you dumb-shit.”

Manson shoved him across the van and Paddy hit the sidewall and slumped down. Manson got on the phone and relayed the news to Bagger.

The casino boss was delighted at getting ahold of his old nemesis, but he also didn’t like this abrupt change in the plan. No, he didn’t like it at all, because that meant Annabelle was out there somewhere.

“Bring him,” he instructed Mike.

Manson clicked off. “Now we go for a little ride. But first.”

The two men expertly searched Paddy for any surveillance devices.

A minute later the white van roared out of the garage, hit a hard left, sailed down an alleyway, turned right and slid to a stop behind three black SUVs parked there in a column.

Paddy was hustled by Mike Manson into the middle one. All three trucks fired up and sped out of the alley. One turned left, one right and the third went straight.

The vehicles reached main roads and Bagger’s plan quickly became evident. Everywhere there were motorcades of black SUVs carrying World Bank conference attendees to or from important events. Bagger’s three SUVs were readily absorbed into this crush of dignitaries and bureaucrats.

At ten-thirty that evening Bagger left his hotel with his men. They drove to a disused warehouse that Bagger’s men had located in a run-down industrial area in Virginia. There they waited until the black SUV with Paddy Conroy and Mike Manson pulled into the warehouse.

As soon as Bagger saw Paddy he walked over to him and belted him right in the mouth. Paddy fell back against the vehicle and then tried to get to Bagger, but Bagger’s men held him back.

“That was for the ten grand you stole from me. Been waiting a long time to pay you back on that one.”

Paddy spat blood out of his mouth. “Best ten grand I ever took.”

“Yeah, we’ll see how you feel about that in a few minutes. You got no idea how good I feel. You see, no Annabelle means my agreement not to go after your ass is null and void, as the prick lawyers say.”

He studied Paddy’s gray, gaunt features and his threadbare clothes.

“Looks like life’s been treating you real well. You sick, poor or both?”

“What’s it to you?”

“I’m insulted. I mean even you at the top of your game might not be good enough. You think it was smart coming after me wearing rags and looking like you’re knocking on the grave?”

Paddy looked around at the armed men surrounding him. “Right this minute, not particularly smart, no.”

Bagger sat down on a packing crate, his gaze never leaving Paddy’s face. “So Annabelle outsmarted you? How’d she manage that, Paddy?”

“Like I said before, I guess I taught her too good.”

“You sure about that?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Maybe father and daughter got together to screw me. How about that theory?”

“My daughter hates my guts.”

“So you say.”

“So I know. But if you believed otherwise, why do the deal at all?”

“You know why. But now here you are and no Annabelle. So where is she?”

“No clue, Jerry.”

Bagger stood slowly. “I think you can do better than that. So you and me are gonna have a little chat.”

“I’m not in the chatting mood.”

Bagger took a serrated knife out of his jacket pocket and slipped on a plastic glove. “Oh, I can be pretty damn persuasive.” He looked at his men and nodded. A minute later, Paddy’s pants and underwear were off and Bagger was sizing up the man’s privates for cutting.

“I used this technique on a little asshole named Tony Wallace in Portugal after I chatted with the people he’d hired to run his mansion with my money. And let me tell you something, he talked and talked right before we beat his brains out. In fact, that was the way I was able to track down Annabelle. And now you’re gonna do the same thing for me, old man. You know where Annabelle is and now you’re gonna tell me. And when you do I kill you fast, no pain. If you don’t talk? Well, you just don’t wanta go there, trust me. ”

Paddy struggled against his captors, but they were too strong. As the knife came closer and closer to a spot no man would want a sharp instrument to be, Paddy cried out, “For Chrissakes, don’t! Just put a bullet in my brain.”

“Tell me where Annabelle is, and I promise I’ll kill you fast. That’s the only deal you’re getting now. And if you really hate your daughter, you should have no problem telling me where she is, right?”

“If I did know do you think I’d be here, you idiot?”

Bagger slapped him across the face. “You show some respect.”