A King's ransom

“I like dogs, too,” I said.

“No, screw the dog. Hate them Dobermans. What I mean is, it doesn’t really fit with the suicide.”

“What do you mean?”

“Here’s one scenario. Jaime slits his dog’s throat, then hangs himself. But here’s another scenario. Somebody kills Jaime, meets up with his dog on the way out.”

I didn’t like the way he was looking at me. The skinny guy was staring at me, no longer popping pistachios. “You’re a suspicious man, Detective.”

“That’s my job.”

“Are you saying this definitely wasn’t a suicide?”

“I’m very interested to hear what the medical examiner has to say.” He jotted a note in the file, then looked at me. “Are you planning on leaving Miami-Dade County anytime soon?”

“Why do you ask?”

“Because I don’t want you to leave town. And I’d hate to arrest you on suspicion of murder sooner than I have to, just to keep you here.”

My mouth fell open. “Hey, I didn’t kill this guy.”

“All I asked was if you plan on going anywhere.”

I paused. The last thing I needed was to have my trip to Colombia screwed up. “I’ll be here for a while.”

He seemed to look right through me, as if he sensed I was lying. “Can you wait here just one sec?”

“Sure.”

He got up and left, leaving his office door open. I watched him through the open blinds as he wound his way through the maze of workstations. Finally he disappeared down a hallway.

“Where’s he going?” I asked.

“He’ll be right back.”

Skinny was back to popping pistachios. I was nervous, starting to sweat. Was I a suspect? What was all this stuff about not leaving town? And where the heck did Gutierrez go?

A chill hit me as I suddenly remembered how police sometimes operated. They might not have sufficient probable cause to make an arrest on the main charge, so they keep you from fleeing the jurisdiction by arresting you on a lesser one. To that end, my shoving Jaime’s arm down the disposal would give them plenty of fodder. A case of self-defense could be easily converted to simple battery. Gutierrez was probably on the phone with an assistant state attorney right now.

“Could I have some water, please?”

“Sure.”

Skinny got up and went for it. Just as soon as he was out of sight, I made my move.

I popped from my chair, flew out the door, turned the corner, and broke for the exit. I was out the double doors in a flash, quickly crossing the parking lot to my Jeep. I jumped in, fired the engine, and was back on the road as fast as I could get there without squealing the tires.

Cruising down the expressway, I dialed Alex on my cell phone.

“Where are you?” she asked.

“Headed for the airport.”

“What? The flight’s not for another twelve hours.”

“I’m taking the one at midnight.”

“Why?”

“Don’t ask.”

“What’s going on?”

“Pack your bag and stop by my house. The key’s under the pot on the porch. My bag’s already packed and on the bed. Passport’s inside. I’ll meet you at the international terminal.”

“What’s the sudden hurry?”

“Just go, please, or we’ll miss our flight. I’ll tell you everything in the air.”

I hung up and punched the accelerator up to the speed limit, not a mile per hour more. As hurried as I was- and the way my luck was going-this was definitely no time to be stopped for speeding.

66

The door opened and the light switched on. After hours of total darkness, it was like staring into the sun. Matthew shielded his eyes as Cerdo came toward him.

It was a ritual that preceded each meal without much regularity. Based upon the hunger pangs and strain on his bladder, Matthew had guessed that visits came anywhere from four to ten hours apart. It seemed longer, naturally, when you were seated in a dark room chained to a bedpost. The boredom was enough to have driven a weaker man mad. He came to appreciate little things, like when Cerdo forgot to put the towel under the door. It was supposed to block the sounds and deprive the prisoner of even a crack of light from the hallway. Just that little sliver could make such a difference, some connection to reality. Without it, all he had was the occasional prance of footsteps above him, presumably from a higher floor. At times he could hear water rushing through pipes in the wall. Every now and then he’d hear muffled voices in the hallway. And once-only once-he’d heard a woman scream, the crack of a gunshot, and then silence.

He’d tried to convince himself that he’d dreamt it.

“Vamos. El bano,” said Cerdo as he unlocked the chains.

A bathroom break, and it was surely welcome. Matthew’s joints popped as he rose. He’d never thought of himself as particularly arthritic, but those weeks in the cold, damp mountains hadn’t done his knees any good.

As his eyes slowly adjusted, he noticed a second teenage guard standing in the doorway. With that baby face, it seemed almost absurd, the way he was aiming an AK-47 at Matthew’s chest.

“Manos arriba,” he said.

Matthew raised his arms. They didn’t seem to care if Matthew saw their faces, but they took pains to prevent him from seeing the configuration of the hallways and lay of the building outside his dark room. Each time he ventured to the bathroom, they reapplied the blindfold. This time, however, the kid had done a sloppy job. It was too high across the bridge of his nose, and although the right eye was covered, Matthew still had about half his line of sight from his left.

The gun barrel in his back prodded him forward. He stepped into the hall, then purposely bumped into the wall, so as to mislead his guards into thinking that he couldn’t see. Cerdo put him back on track, straight down the hallway that led to the bathroom.

Matthew made a mental note of everything they passed. Hallway was three feet wide. Doors on both sides, about thirty feet apart. They were numbered like apartments. At each end of the hall was a table and chair, guard posts.

Cerdo grabbed his shoulder, and Matthew stopped. A blindfolded prisoner passed before him, an old woman, someone he’d never seen before. A man with a pistol led her to room number eleven, opened it, put her inside, and locked her in.

Cerdo gave him another nudge, and Matthew continued down the hall. Some of the doors had slots for food trays, as in prison. He heard whispering as they passed room number fifteen, and Cerdo gave a shout.

“?Silencio!”

The whispering ended. Matthew shuddered. He’d walked this way before, blindfolded, never imagining this. It was exactly what Cerdo had described in the van, what Emilio had translated. This was a hostage hotel.

Cerdo opened the bathroom door and pushed him inside. “Dos minutos,” he said.

Two minutes to empty his bladder, before another “guest” would arrive.