“I don’t have it,” the manager squealed.
“Who does?” Annalise hissed. “Who took it? Was it Able Katz? Charles Hammer?”
“What? No!”
“It was Emmett Dubois,” I said. The manager looked at me, his fear suddenly doubled. “The message was from a Polish guy who stayed here, right? And just before he was killed, Chief Dubois came by here and collected the note. Right? Or was it just after he was killed?”
“I can’t tell you anything,” the man said. “You don’t understand.”
“I understand,” I assured him. “You’re afraid for your life, right? How much are you paying Dubois every month?”
“I can’t,” he said. “I can’t talk about it.”
“Give me the figure. That’s all I want. How much?”
He looked at Annalise. He was afraid of us, sure, but he
“A hundred dollars,” he said.
“That’s fine. Now, did Emmett collect that message from you before Mr. Lem was killed, or after?”
“You said the figure was all you wanted. You said-“
“It was all that I wanted. She”-I nodded toward Annalise-“wants something more.”
He sighed. “Before,” he said.
“That’s what I thought,” I told him. “Don’t worry, no one needs to know that we heard it from you.”
Annalise folded her arms across her chest. “What did the message say?”
“I didn’t read it,” the manager said, his voice nearly pleading. “I just put it in an envelope like the foreigner asked and set it aside for you. I didn’t even know it was important until Emmett came by asking about it. I swear.”
“That’s fine,” I said. “That’s fine. Annalise, will we be moving to new digs?”
“No, we won’t,” she said.
I set the meat on the edge of the manager’s desk. Red juices dripped through the torn butcher paper onto a stack of papers. “Well then,” I said to the little guy, “It looks like you’re stuck with us for a while. Let’s go into the back.”
He needed a little convincing, but eventually I led him through the door into his back office. As I suspected, he had a hidden camera at the front desk. I collected the VHS tape, wondering if the Dubois brothers were on one of these cassettes, too. A hidden stash of bribe videos would be good insurance, if he had the wit to play his cards right.
But we were here for the fire and the dead kids. We were here for Charlie Three. Dubois wasn’t any of my business.
“Listen,” I said as I tucked the videotape under my arm. “That message was important. More important than you realize, and you put a lot of people in danger by turning it over to Chief Dubois.”
“What are you, then? FBI?”
“Of course not. And don’t ask that question again. We’re going to be staying here for a few more days, then we’ll be moving on. Keep your head down and you’ll be fine. Understand?”
We walked back out into the front office. He looked at his ruined desk and groaned. “What am I going to tell my wife?”
“Tell her that two disreputable-looking people came in here and lost their tempers,” I said. “Try to stay as close to the truth as possible. You’re not much of a liar.”
Annalise and I went outside. She checked the van. Everything that the Dubois brothers had thrown into the parking lot had been carelessly thrown back inside.
We went into my room. I retrieved my ghost knife from the cut in the floor and pocketed it. It felt good.
I dropped the beef onto the table and unwrapped it. I cut a long strip of meat and then cut that into tiny slivers. Annalise started to pick them up with her fingers and gulp them down.
“How did you know Dubois had the message?” Annalise asked. “And what difference does it make when he got it?”
“When the chief asked me about Karoly Lem, I figured he had something to do with you, even though I’d never heard of him before. He stayed at this motel, right?”
Annalise nodded while she chewed.
I kept the meat coming. “Not good. With all of us staying at the same place, it’s too easy for someone like Dubois to connect us. Anyway, Lem is dead, and Dubois has to investigate, or at least make it look like he’s investigating it.”
“Do you think he killed Karoly?” she asked, her mouth full.
“I can’t really tell, but I’d bet he did. What was Karoly here to do?”
She didn’t answer me right away. She slid another piece of raw beef into her mouth and chewed.
I sighed. “I can guess, but it would be better if you just told me. Was he another one of your wooden men?”
