him.

Which would foil Charlie’s nascent escape plan.

So instead of shrieking, Charlie dug his nails into the wooden frame of his chair, sucked back the blood, and said, “Oh, I get it, you mean the numbered bank account.”

“So pain helps jog your memory. Good.” Pitman positioned himself so he stood directly above Charlie. He took Charlie’s right ring finger in a tight grip, then raised it as high as he could in preparation for plunging it into the sharp edge of the desktop. “I’m going to break your fingers, one at a time, until you tell me which card it is.”

Charlie had no doubt the maneuver would break his finger. The question was whether it would break the finger off. “Okay, okay, okay! Uncle!”

Pitman let Charlie’s hand fall but kept the gun pointed at him. “Which?”

The bright red Sears card sat in the very center of the blotter. Trying to block it from his consciousness, Charlie inched a hand toward the JCPenney card. The nose of the Colt mirrored his motion.

“JCPenney?” Pitman asked.

“Yeah,” Charlie said in defeat.

He grabbed at his nose, as if to staunch the blood. In the process he elbowed the JCPenney card. It skidded off the desk and clicked to the floor. “Sorry,” he said.

As Pitman knelt to pick up the Penney’s card, Charlie snatched the Sears card, wound up, and fired it toward the bathroom. Its flight was clumsy-end over end, as opposed to the laser beam he’d envisioned. The motion caught Pitman’s eye. He looked up from his kneel as the card landed, with a splash, in the toilet bowl-or, as Charlie thought of it, the bull’s-eye.

“It was the Sears card, wasn’t it?” Pitman asked.

Charlie looked away and said nothing.

“I should have known from the way you avoided looking at it.” Pitman stood and pointed the Colt at him. “Get it out and lick it clean.”

Charlie rose. From the desk, Pitman matched his movements with the nose of the Colt. Fearing another pistol-whipping, Charlie steered clear of it.

When in range of the bathroom, he lunged, grabbed the handle of the flush chain hanging from the overhead cistern, and pulled as hard as he could. Water rushed into the bowl with astounding power. The Sears card would almost surely go down the drain.

Pitman dove headlong from the desk and toward the bowl. Charlie threw all his weight against the inside of the bathroom door. The face of the door met Pitman’s jaw squarely with a sound neighbors might have mistaken for a bowling ball that had fallen from the top shelf of a closet.

Pitman toppled backward. Still he managed to keep the muzzle of the Colt on line with Charlie’s face. Until he slipped on a greasy take-out container top. The base of his skull smacked into a sharp edge of the desktop. He collapsed to the floor.

47

Charlie knelt over Pitman and jostled him back into consciousness. Pitman’s eyes opened and he appeared to regain focus. Charlie flashed the Colt. “What happened to my father?”

“I don’t know. How long have I been unconscious?”

“Like, ten seconds.”

Pitman inched a hand toward his waistband.

“While you were out, I put that SIG Sauer P two-two-eight of yours in a safe place,” Charlie said. “Now, where’d they take him?”

“I don’t know.”

“You’re lying.”

“You memorized the number on the Sears card, didn’t you?”

“Is the number your price for information?”

“It could be.”

“Why would I trust you?”

“What choice do you have?”

Charlie eyed the Colt.

Pitman laughed. “If you fire that in here, either half the neighborhood will hear it and call the cops, or the cops will hear it themselves, and after I identify myself and explain the situation to them, you and I will go somewhere else and take our sweet time on your recollection of the account number.”

“All right. I’ll use this then.” Charlie uncradled the telephone on the desk.

“For what?”

“I’ll say you came here to apprehend my father’s retirement fund, rather than apprehend me-I’ll bet you didn’t even tell anyone you’d heard me with your bug.”

“Who can you call?”

“Anybody. Your colleagues will hear me whoever I call.”

“Then they’ll know you’re here.”

“Then they’ll know we’re here, you mean. And they’ll put you in jail for a long time. If you’re lucky.”

Pitman rolled his eyes.

Charlie dialed the number of a second-rate bookmaking service in Vegas, listened to the menu, then hit 0 to speak with a live operator. As usual, Muzak kicked in. The first-rate places were staffed with operators who answered straightaway. Charlie clung to the hope that he could sway Pitman without having to say another word-if the Cavalry were to learn Charlie’s location, his plan was dead. Him too, in all likelihood.

Pitman sat against the desk, blase as ever. Obviously the spook had let it get to this point because he saw the bluff.

Charlie decided: Better to cede the round and hang up before it was too late.

“Fine, fine,” grumbled Pitman. “Fine.” He rubbed his jaw.

With manufactured nonchalance, Charlie dropped the handset into its cradle.

“They took your father for a debrief,” Pitman said.

“Is that a euphemism?”

“No. They do intend to neutralize him, but they need information first. They’re worried that in the time since he figured out what was going on, he secretly spread out a security blanket. They’re jetting an ace interrogator up from the Caribbean.”

“What do you mean by a ‘security blanket’?”

“Like, a timed drop.”

“And what do you mean by a ‘timed drop’?”

“A dead drop that will be cleared after a set time period unless he’s around to put a stop to it. Then the contents go to, say, the Washington Post.”

While such a measure was practical, Charlie suspected that Drummond’s patriotism would have precluded it. “Where did they take him?” he asked.

“I heard Cuba,” Pitman said, rubbing his jaw again.

“Not the island?”

“No, it’s someplace around here. That’s all I can tell you.”

“How can I get more information?”

“Call four one one,” Pitman said. His hand shot from his jaw to Charlie’s stomach.

It caught Charlie off guard and felt like a blow from a heavyweight. Pitman sprang up, tackling him hard about the rib cage. Charlie tumbled backward. His right wrist smacked into the thick steel trunk of the gumball machine lamp, costing him his hold on the Colt. It fell onto the desktop and slid to within inches of Pitman.

Snaring it, Pitman said, “On second thought, you may want to call nine one one.” He curled a finger around the trigger and aimed the gun at Charlie.

The odds were that a professional like Pitman would reclaim the Colt. Charlie had bet on that beforehand.

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