out. It broke and the pain lanced her jaw, blinded her thoughts like he’d poured in hot coals. She screamed. He put the shattered tooth in his pocket and asked again. She begged, told him she really didn’t know. Her tongue probed at where the tooth had been. He climbed back on her, worked the pliers back in and she fought to keep from vomiting. Crack. He broke another back tooth, lacerating her gums; she sobbed, spraying saliva and blood, and he thought she spat on him. Jose slammed the pliers into her jaw and mouth, tearing her lips, knocking out two side teeth. She screamed that she still didn’t know where it was. Then he hit her with his fist, four deep blows, and she blacked out.
She woke up to the awful, sour taste of blood, wretched pain in her jaw, and the jagged stumps of teeth along her gums.
Then Jose had come in, removed the handcuffs, let her use the bathroom in privacy. Her jaw and face looked like she’d gone nine rounds in a boxing ring. He let her wash her face with a bar of lavender soap he had unwrapped from delicate paper. The bar smelled wonderful and she nearly wept, thinking of Whit and him asking about the gardenia soap she used when he was little. Jose took her to Kiko’s table, blindfold off, which she could not consider a good sign, and pushed her down to eat. The clock said it was close to eleven; night held itself against the windows.
‘You know what I want?’ Kiko asked.
‘What?’ she said, watching him chew blueberry pancakes.
‘Happy wife. A cure for cancer. Marlins back in the World Series,’ Kiko said.
‘No, think big. Chicago,’ Jose said from the kitchen. He wasn’t eating, but he stood at the counter, drinking a glass of milk.
‘Your mouth hurting?’ Kiko asked.
‘Yes.’
‘Jose, get the lady a pain pill,’ Kiko said. Jose brought her a pill, a glass of water. She palmed it and Kiko said, ‘Really, it’s okay, we aren’t going to poison you.’ She swallowed the tablet, the water, hating herself for taking anything from him but God her mouth hurt bad.
‘I know a guy. He really digs older ladies. Really.’ Kiko mopped a bit of pancake through the maple syrup. ‘He’s got unresolved mother issues, Norman Bates-level nutzoid, and that’s a bitchin’ hard-on that don’t fade. Therapy can’t make a dint in this bad-ass. You don’t help me, I give you to him. Actually, I sell you to him.’ He chewed, sipped at coffee. ‘He’ll fuck you no less than a dozen times the first day. Everywhere. Then he’ll turn mean, get out the knife. We got these Albanian bosses trying to move south from New York, horn in. One of ’em had a wife. We grabbed her, sold her to my friend. Let him have her for three days. She lost the ability to speak. I put a bullet in her head. Seemed the kind thing to do.’
She said nothing, she didn’t want to shiver in front of him.
‘So, Eve. When you took the money, the Bellinis came after you. Where did you put it?’ Kiko said.
‘I didn’t take it,’ she said. ‘Over the years I’ve had plenty of opportunity to steal from the Bellinis. I didn’t do it.’
‘They seemed very sure you did.’
Eve took a careful breath. Play the hand right, she thought, and they’ll see going after Whit as a no-gain. They’ll leave him alone. She had not even had a chance to say good-bye. ‘The most logical choice is that Bucks took the money and framed me.’
‘Why would Bucks betray Paul?’ Kiko asked almost idly.
‘For five million reasons,’ she said.
‘But you see, Eve, I had an arrangement with Bucks,’ he said. ‘He was supposed to steal the money for me. The money’s gone but it sure ain’t in my pocket.’
She watched Jose inspecting a hand juicer. He made her nervous, futzing in the kitchen like an old woman. ‘So Bucks betrayed both you and Paul.’
Kiko shook his head. ‘He was highly motivated not to screw me over, Eve,’ he said. ‘In fact, he would be an idiot if he screwed me over. I know you don’t like him, but do you think he’s stupid?’
‘I suspect he’s a hell of a lot smarter than you, Mr Grace.’
Kiko laughed. ‘Who’s your partner? Bucks says his name is Whitman Mosley. That his real name?’
‘No,’ she said after a moment. ‘It’s a fake name. Two of his English professors in college.’ The answer sounded inspired. A slowness crept into her limbs, the pain pill starting to kick in, fast and sweet.
‘What’s his real name? Where is he?’
‘Since I didn’t take the money, neither did he. He was trying to help me prove Bucks took it. Leave him alone.’
Kiko leaned over and stabbed her with the syrup-sticky fork, deep in the meaty part of her arm. She screamed as the dull tines drove into her flesh.
‘Quit lying. He offered to trade the money for you. Made the appointment. So where’s the money?’ Now his voice was soft. She turned to Jose; he was drying the juicer with a dishtowel, looking bored.
‘Whit doesn’t have it.’ Blood dribbled down her arm. The fork hung from her flesh. He leaned over and shook the fork and agony bolted up her arm, searing every nerve, worming into her bones. She screamed again, nearly fell from the chair. Jose moved in behind her, pushed her into Kiko’s reach.
‘Where’s the money?’ Kiko asked again.
She said nothing.
‘I used the fork,’ he said. ‘I still have a knife.’ He held it up, smeared with butter and a loose rope of syrup. ‘You want to meet my personal Norman Bates? He’ll be on the first flight from Miami if I FedEx your picture and your panties to him.’
She closed her eyes. Oddly she thought of the small, close air of that Montana motel room, thirty years ago, the whiskey-and-hamburger smell of James Powell, his idle threat against her children, the way the gun snuggled into his mouth like it was meant to fit there, dark against the white of his teeth. The heady little rush of righteousness that soared into her heart when she pulled the trigger. And she thought: I deserve whatever I get.
She spat in his face. He slapped her and the blast of pain against her savaged mouth nearly made her pass out. ‘Let Bucks rob you blind,’ she gasped. ‘With that money he can hire enough muscle to send you back to Miami with your tail between your legs.’
Kiko thumped the end of the fork. She tried not to wet herself. ‘I got serious dirt on him, Eve. Proof he’s a murderer, and he’s scared to death of me sending it to the police. So you’re lying. Mosley’s got the cash and you’re shielding him.’
She gritted her teeth. ‘With that money, Bucks can put a big-ass contract on you, one you can’t escape from.’
Kiko tilted his head, studied her with a half-smile. ‘I heard you were smart once. Shame to lose the edge, ain’t it.’ He stood, pulled the fork from her arm. Skin and flesh gave way, blood bubbled from her skin. ‘Same question. This time I want an actual answer.’ He grabbed the back of her head, brought the fork close to her eye. One of the tines dug into her eye’s corner.
She had gone down the wrong road in blaming Bucks. Kiko wasn’t rattled. Dumb thinking done fast. She wished she could suck the words back in, turn back time five minutes. He would never leave Whit alone.
But then Kiko looking up past her shoulder, saying, ‘No need, man, going slow yields more…’ and then three pops in rapid succession, three red eyes opening on Kiko’s forehead, the hair and flesh shearing away from the skull, Kiko toppling backward against and then off his chair.
Jose stepped around her, a pistol in his hand, a silencer screwed on the barrel. He prodded Kiko with a foot.
‘ “Is the chair empty? Is the sword unsway’d? Is the king dead?” ’ he said. ‘I would say, Eve, the king is pretty fucking dead.’
Eve swallowed against a tide of bile in her mouth, waited for him to raise the gun to her.
‘Don’t I get a thank-you?’ Jose said.
‘Oh, my God,’ she said. ‘You killed him.’
‘It was a choice,’ Jose said. ‘You ever do that, Eve? Weigh your choices?’
He waited for an answer.
‘Yes,’ she managed to say.
