14

Conner's eyes opened. He tried to focus, blinked up at the Amazon blur standing over him. Becker. Beyond her was the cracked and stained ceiling. He said, "Had enough?"

"I didn't kill James," she said. "Just out of curiosity, what did you think you were going to do?"

Good question. "Take you to the police?"

"You really want the cops involved?"

He didn't say anything, rubbed his jaw.

"Let's put our cards on the table," suggested Becker.

She helped him up. They sat across from each other at Conner's kitchen table, and Becker explained how James had been alive and well when she'd been there.

"You were probably the last person to see him alive."

"Except for whoever murdered him," Becker said flatly.

"Sure. Right."

"I didn't kill him."

Conner threw up his hands. "Fine. I believe you." And he did. Now that he thought about it, he couldn't figure a reason for Becker to do it. Somebody else had whacked James. Somebody with a motive. It was all guesswork and gut instinct. On the other hand, his gut instincts had put him in the hole with Rocky Big. His gut instincts were shit.

"Why did you go see James if you hadn't found the sailboat?" she asked.

He thought about coming clean but lied instead. "To tell him I was dropping the case. Folger and the boat are long gone. Probably Mexico or Jamaica."

She looked at him hard, didn't speak for long seconds. She put her business card on the table between them, tapped it with an index finger. "I think you know more than you're letting on, Samson. Shit happens. Things got dicey or maybe more complicated than you thought, so now you want to wash your hands of the whole deal. Am I close?"

"It's not like that." Yes it is!

She shook her head. "I don't want any explanations. James meant nothing to me. Too bad he's dead, but I have my own concerns. So chill. I'm not going to rat you. I meant what I said. I can make it worth your while."

"Why are you looking for Folger?"

She thought for a second, then said, "He made off with something valuable. The rightful owners want it back."

"What is it?"

She said, "None of your business."

Conner scratched his chin, bit his lip. "How much are we talking?"

She shrugged. All casual now. "You give me something good, a name, an address, something to put me back on Folger's trail, I could go five hundred. Cash."

That wouldn't even get Rocky Big off my back. "I'll call you if I remember anything."

"I'd prefer you remember now."

"And I'd prefer two thousand."

She looked around Conner's dank kitchen, stood, wiped dust off the counter. "Take what you can get, Samson. The cell phone is always on."

She showed herself out.

Samson knew something. Becker was sure of it. It might even be something worth two thousand dollars, but the thought of some two-bit repo man putting the bite on her irritated Becker more than anything. In the old days, she'd gotten a little impatient with some of the rat-fink informants she used on a regular basis. A black eye here, a broken wrist there. There had been complaints, warnings. That special ops stuff didn't rub with routine fieldwork. She had refused her superiors' suggestion to think about anger management therapy. They had trained her to kick ass and now wanted a kinder, gentler intelligence community. She'd been caught in the shift, set adrift between administrations. Her file was a checkerboard of iffy judgment calls and reprimands.

All of this had been used against Becker at her final performance evaluation. She'd been given two choices. Resign from the NSA or staff the company's office in Blue Elk, Alaska.

"I didn't know we had an office in Blue Elk," Becker had said.

"We'll open one," the evaluation board had assured her.

So she'd gone into the private sector. Security consultant, investigations, easy money with no challenge.

Now she was looking for a baseball card. Enough was enough. With the potential payoff she could buy a villa in Spain and forget all this. But would that really satisfy her? She tried to picture herself living a life of leisure, reading a trashy romance novel by the pool, but she couldn't quite see it. Right now, anything was preferable to the drudgery of the insurance office.

She climbed into her black Oldsmobile and drove once around the block. She came back, parked under the low-hanging branches of an oak tree and watched Samson's apartment from a safe distance. He knows something. I get the vibe. The way he doesn't make eye contact. Let's see what's on Mr. Samson's plate today.

She lit a Virginia Slim and waited.

After Joellen Becker left his apartment, Conner watched his front door, waiting for her to walk back in.

She didn't.

"Fucking shit."

He should have taken the five hundred. What in hell made him think he could negotiate her up to two thousand? She'd been right. Conner should have taken what he could get.

He grabbed Becker's business card and ran for the phone. No time to be proud. Take what you can get. Damn right. He picked up the phone, and it fell apart. His tape job hadn't held up. He spent twenty minutes trying to put it back together again, but the telephone was finally, irrevocably, deceased.

He put the keys to the Plymouth in his pocket and headed for the front door. He'd drive to the convenience store and use the pay phone.

As soon as Conner was outside, big black hands fell on his shoulders.

15

Fat Otis put a huge arm around Conner's shoulders, crushing him in a half hug, lifting him off the sidewalk. Conner's feet momentarily dangled six inches off the ground.

"Conner, pal." Otis grinned. "Going someplace?"

Conner smiled weakly.

"Man, you know I don't want to do this shit. Why do you put yourself in this position?" Otis asked, his voice plaintive.

"Bad karma?" Conner said.

"You gonna bad karma yourself two broken legs if you keep it up."

Conner thought about squirming out of Otis's grip, making a run for it. But that wasn't really a very good idea. Conner was pretty sure he could count on Otis's friendship just a little while longer. Hopefully long enough to come up with Rocky's money. Besides, it was a bad idea to make Otis run after him. Fat Otis didn't enjoy running. Make him run and you got extra bones broken. No, best to play it cool. Conner was safe. For now.

Otis looked at Conner, read his mind. "Yeah, you off the hook for today. I talked Rocky into giving you some more time, but he wasn't happy about it. So you got to come talk to him. He wants to see you face-to-face."

"How about I just send him a postcard?" Conner said.

Otis shook his head. "Nope."

"A nice letter with a promissory note for the money."

"Get in." Otis tossed Conner into the passenger seat of the yellow Lincoln. "Buckle up."

Rocky Big haunted the dark, cavernous back rooms and hallways of a dirty downtown building on the cheap side of the arena where the Ice Pilots hockey team played. Pensacola was hardly infamous for its rough neighborhoods. The small city didn't have a Bedford-Stuyvesant or a South Bronx, but there were a few places somebody could buy crack or get knifed. Playerz Gentleman's Club fronted Rocky's building. Otis led Conner past some sleepy-eyed women dancing topless in the smoky red light, past the sluggish day crowd to a back door, which opened into a narrow hall that took them past an unused kitchen and ended finally at Rocky Big's Forbidden City, a secret hideout of criminal activity that wasn't really so secret if you were a Pensacola lowlife or a cop on the take.

Conner had heard of Rocky's Forbidden City, but this was the first time he'd seen it. It was like stepping through a door and suddenly you were in Willy Wonka's chocolate factory. But instead of candy, there was stolen merchandise. Instead of Oompa-Loompas, there were sweaty guys who looked too ugly to be longshoremen. Men loaded trucks to one side of him, unloaded other trucks on the other side, pushed carts or racks filled with Nintendo GameCubes or fur coats or cartons of cigarettes or a hundred other things. Anything stolen that went east or west across Interstate 10 came through the Forbidden City.

"I'll take you through Applianceville to Rocky's office," Otis said.

Applianceville was a long, wide hallway lined with washers, dryers, refrigerators, and microwave ovens. Most were brand-new and still in the original boxes.

At the other end of Applianceville, they entered a dark warehouse, stacks of CD players, digital video cameras, laptop computers piled high. The commotion of men loading trucks faded behind them.

They passed a reedy little man sitting on a forklift. He had a thin moustache, hair slicked back and oily. When he heard Conner and Otis approach, he reached for the compact machine gun in the seat next to him but left it when he recognized Otis. He went back to reading the newspaper and smoking a stubby cigar. The smell made Conner's stomach pinch.

They walked past the forklift guard, down another short hall to a door lit by a single bare lightbulb swinging from the ceiling. Otis knocked three times.

A voice on the other side, Southern, slightly high-pitched. "Come in, please."

They went in.

At first, Conner thought there must have been a mistake. The little man behind the desk could not have been the Rocky Big that Conner had heard so much about. Conner had always pictured a big, hairy guy with a scar down his face and a gold tooth. Somebody who could make you cry just by looking at you.

The man behind the desk was neither rocky nor big nor anything else Conner had expected. Rocky had buttery skin and thick pink lips and dark red hair combed back and wavy like some actor from a 1930s movie. He wore a starched white shirt and a plaid vest buttoned halfway. He stood to offer Conner his hand. Short, barely five and a half feet tall.

"Nice to meet you, Conner," Rocky said. "Can I call you Conner? I hope you'll call me Rocky. Otis has told me so much about you. Glad we could finally meet."

He shook Rocky's hand. Conner tried to smile but his face wouldn't do it.

"Please have a seat." Rocky motioned to a chair. "I'm sorry my desk is such a mess." He indicated an adding machine, ledgers, stacks of computer printouts. "There's simply an obscene amount of paperwork involved in an organization like this. You wouldn't believe it."

Rocky sat, smiled. They looked at one another. Otis hovered in the background.

"Well." Rocky cleared his throat. "It seems we have an unpleasant financial matter to discuss."

Conner squirmed. "Rocky, I-it's just that-maybe..." Conner couldn't figure any positive spin he could put on the fact he didn't have any money.

A knock at the door.

Rocky said, "Hold that thought, won't you, Conner?" He looked at Otis, raised an eyebrow.

Otis opened the door a crack, had a quick mumbled conversation with someone on the other side. Otis looked over his shoulder at Rocky. "Jeff is here."

"Oh, damn." Rocky suddenly looked stricken. "He's early. Damn damn damn. I really hate this sort of thing."

Otis looked concerned. "Let me handle it, Rocky. You shouldn't have to do this."

Rocky took a deep breath. "No, no. It's okay. I have to do this in person once in a while, or people will begin to wonder." He put a thick phone book in his chair, sat on top of it. He appeared marginally bigger. "Conner, I hope you don't mind. Just some business that needs my attention. Could you have a seat over there, please?"

Conner wasn't sure what was happening, but he was glad the focus had moved away from him. He took the chair on the other side of the office.

Rocky said, "Okay, Otis. Tell him to come in."

Otis mumbled at somebody through the door crack, and a few seconds later he opened it wide, ushered in a squat man with a scruffy beard. He wore a polo shirt, jeans, sneakers, a gold hoop in each ear. Brillo-pad hair.

"Have a seat, Jeff." Rocky's voice was suddenly lower and rough. A slight scowl on his face, which Conner couldn't quite decide was convincing or not.

"Sure, Rocky." Jeff's wide smile looked tight and strained. He sat.

"Jeff, I think we need to discuss the twenty-five thousand dollars you owe me."

Jeff's eyes slid sideways to Conner a moment, then back to Rocky. Conner noticed Otis had moved to stand behind Jeff's chair.

"Like I told your boys, Rocky," Jeff said. "It's just a little delay. My dumb-ass brother-in-law had to make a run to Mexico, right? And he had the dates wrong and now it's just a simple delay with the merchandise."

"I made you a loan," Rocky said. "The particulars are of no interest to me."

"Right, right. I know. I hear you." Jeff bobbed his head. Agreeable. "And I totally respect what you're saying. But I give you my one hundred percent promise that this deal I'm working on is a slam dunk. We needed you to finance us because we were up against a time thing, but as soon as my idiot brother-in-law comes back with the goods, we got a buyer waiting no problem and everybody gets paid." He snapped his fingers. "Just like that."

Rocky sighed. "Otis."

Otis grabbed Jeff's right arm, held it.

Jeff squirmed. "What is this? Hey!"

Otis took Jeff's hand, grabbed the pinky finger, twisted. Snap.

The noise made Conner flinch.

Jeff howled.

"Again." Rocky's voice was barely above a whisper. He looked straight into Jeff's face, didn't blink.

Otis grabbed the next finger.

Jeff tried to pull away. "Hey, now wait-I said wait just a-"

Snap.

Jeff screamed. He'd gone pale, a thin sheen of sweat across his forehead. "Rocky, please, I-"

Rocky nodded, and Otis broke another finger. Then another. A strangled, agonizing noise caught in Jeff's throat. He went from pale to red to green in two seconds flat. Conner decided to look at his shoes. He felt cold and sick.

"They're only fingers," Rocky said. "So you can still walk out of here. But next time we do the legs. Then after that, you don't walk out of here at all. Are we clear on this?"

Jeff's mouth hung open. He looked at his wrecked hand, nodded.

"Otis, give the man his hand back. Jeff, see you in three days. Bring money."

Otis helped Jeff stand. He wobbled on trembling legs, cradled his hand against his chest. Otis led him out of the office, shut the door behind them.

Rocky stood, shook his soft hands, shivered. "God, but I hate that. Oh, I think I'm going to be ill." He shoved the phone book off his seat and onto the floor. "I simply detest violence." He sat down again, breathing deeply.

Otis returned with a glass of water. He dropped in two tablets, and the water fizzed. He went to Rocky, put a gentle hand on the little man's shoulder. "Your stomach?" He handed Rocky the glass. "Drink it before it goes flat."

Rocky took the glass, drank it down, made a sour face, and put a hand on his chest. "When I heard the first finger break, I really thought I was going to lose it." He set the glass on his desk. Otis's hand was still on Rocky's shoulder. Rocky covered the big guy's hand with one of his own, offered Otis a grateful look. "You're too good to me."

"You need anything else, Rock?"

Rocky shook his head, smiled. "Let me have a word with your friend Conner, okay?"

"Sure."

Otis flicked a two-finger salute at Conner. "Later, Conner-man." He left.

Rocky gestured Conner back to the seat across from his desk. "I'm sorry you had to see that."

Me too, thought Conner.

"Conner, I've decided we're not going to take any more bets from you. I'm letting all my bookmakers know, so that's really all there is to it."

"What?"

Rocky looked slightly embarrassed. "Now, don't be hard on Otis. It was his idea. He thinks you're going to get yourself in trouble. Otis speaks highly of you, so I'd like to start considering you a friend of the family. It would be extremely awkward if you got in over your head, and we had to break every bone in your body. And I think you know now that having to do that would upset me just as much as it would upset you."

Conner doubted that, but kept silent.

"In fact, Otis says you might be a useful fellow to have around," Rocky said. "If you're having money troubles, perhaps some sort of employment in my organization..."

"That's okay, Rocky," Conner said. "I always get by somehow."

"Of course. You know best. All that's left is to settle up the two thousand you owe me."

Conner gulped. "I thought, well, since I'm pals with Otis, and since, you know, you're cutting me off from the bookies... I thought you were letting me off the hook."

Rocky sucked air through his teeth. "Mmmmmmm." He shook his head, looked genuinely pained. "I'm afraid business is business. I just can't do that. I hope you understand it's nothing personal. My goodness, no. I can't let anyone off the hook. It wouldn't look right."

A lead weight settled in Conner's stomach. His mouth was dry. Conner wondered if he'd been allowed to watch Otis bust Jeff's fingers in order to make a very specific point.

"I can see this comes at a bad time," Rocky said. "How about this? Take a few days, get your finances in order, then bring me my money. Let's say by the end of the week." He picked up a pencil, flipped open his Rolodex. "I'll even call you with a friendly reminder. What's your number?"

Conner briefly explained his current telephone woes.

Rocky tsked. "When it rains, it pours, doesn't it? Come with me."

Conner followed Rocky out of the office.

They passed the machine-gun man, and Rocky said, "Hello, Pete. Have you met Conner?"

Pete grunted.

Rocky and Conner climbed into a golf cart that was parked on the other side of the forklift. Rocky drove. They whizzed past crates of stolen tennis shoes, blenders, sporting goods, and three red BMWs parked in a row. Rocky took the sharp turns at high speed, and Conner held on tight.

They screeched to a halt in front of a row of plastic garbage cans and climbed out. Rocky went to the can with the sign PREPAID written in green Magic Marker. The can was full of cell phones, all shapes and sizes. Rocky plucked one from the top, examined it, then tossed it back. He found another, turned it on, and nodded.

"This one has a full charge," Rocky said. He scrolled down the cell phone's menu and found the number. He scribbled it into a little book, which disappeared into a vest pocket. He handed the phone to Conner.

"Thanks." Conner turned the phone over in his hands, wondered if he really wanted it. He stuck the phone in his pocket.

"Now we can stay in contact." Rocky rubbed his hands together. "Anything else you need?"

"I could use a tuxedo." Conner had meant it as a joke, but the smile died on his face. He joked when he was nervous, a bad habit that had earned him a few black eyes over the years.

"Come on," Rocky said.

They sat in the golf cart, and Rocky unfolded a map of the warehouse. "Tuxedos on the other side. You look like a perfect forty-two to me."

Conner hung on tight as the cart lurched forward, the warehouse becoming a dark blur of stolen goods. His life had taken a turn for the surreal. He was unable to decide if he was afraid of Rocky or if he'd just made a new pal.

"Shoes," Rocky said. "You'll need shoes too."