Panic surged through John. He didn’t know and didn’t want to know.

“I haven’t called anyone or told anyone!” He began babbling. “Not a soul! Just as you said! But I have to know, don’t you understand? Coming down here was a crazy thing to do, but that’s what not knowing if Katie’s alive or dead is doing to me! It’s making me crazy! You’ve got to believe that!” A long pause followed. John held his breath, waiting.

Finally Snake spoke.

“Well, we don’t want you going crazy, now, do we. We wouldn’t want that.” The hand released John’s neck. “You freeze there, Doc. You stay facing that wall and the only thing you look at is your watch. You wait here ten minutes before you so much as turn your head.”

“But Katie—” A sharp jab in his back cut him off.

“Not another fucking word, you hear?”

Miserable, John nodded. He felt so helpless. Christ, if only he had the guts to turn around and grab this guy and throttle Katie’s whereabouts out of him. But that might spell the end of Katie… if she wasn’t already— He heard footsteps moving away from him, heading back toward the escalator. He pushed back his jacket sleeve and looked at his watch: 4:11. He’d have to stand here until 4:21 while Snake and his accomplice got away.

And then he heard a voice shout two words from over by the escalator: “Maggie Simpson!” At first they didn’t register. Was that Snake or someone else looking for— Maggie Simpson! The little pacifier-sucking girl from Katie’s favorite TV show. Katie loved her! That could only mean… the only way they could have found out…

She’s alive! Katie’s alive! John clamped his hands over his eyes and wept with relief.

Snake listened to Vanduyne’s sobs, watched his shoulders quake as he leaned against the wall and bawled, then he stepped onto the escalator and rode it to street level.

Snake hadn’t wanted to tell him, had wanted to let him suffer for being such a jerk, but then he’d reconsidered. If not knowing about his kid was really making Vanduyne nuts, then it was good business to tell him. Otherwise, the guy was a loose cannon. Who knew what crazy thing he’d try next?

And this guy had a crazy streak a mile wide. Sure, he was back there crying like a baby now, but Snake had an uneasy feeling he’d be making a big mistake if he wrote off that guy as a wimp. He’d sensed something dangerous at the bus stop as Vanduyne had passed by on Paulie’s tail. Something in his eyes. Feral. Like some sort of predator. Hard to match that up with the sob sister downstairs, but the guy’s eyes hadn’t been lying.

Snake slammed his fist against the escalator’s rubber hand rail. That’s why you never snatch a kid. Adult to adult, it’s one thing… a snatch is the cost of doing a certain kind of business, a price they pay for not being careful. The packages lick their wounds and slink away, poorer but wiser.

But involve a kid and you’re on a whole other level. You tap into something primal. You wind up dealing from a different deck. Suddenly everybody’s taking it personally. And that’s when people became unpredictable… dangerous. Snake didn’t understand it but recognized it when he saw it. And he sure as hell had seen it in Vanduyne’s eyes.

So he’d told him about Maggie Simpson. To calm him down. Make him more predictable. He starts thinking his kid is dead, pretty soon he decides he’s got nothing to lose—a very bad situation all the way around.

Up on the sidewalk he checked his watch. He’d wasted too much time jerking around with Vanduyne. He’d left his car at the Mayflower, so he started jogging up Connecticut Avenue. He’d have to hustle if he was going to make the meeting with Salinas.

He thought about Vanduyne again. Before this was over, he was going to need a persuader.

31

As planned, Paulie stepped onto the Metro train and waited until the platform emptied; then he stepped off again. And watched. No one else got off. He watched the doors close and the train slide away into the dark gullet of the tunnel.

All right! Nobody following him.

He headed back up to street level. He’d been twitchy as a strung-out crackhead since he’d walked into that drugstore, half-expecting a gang of feds to jump him as soon as he asked for those pills.

He checked his pocket to make sure he had the drugstore bag. A lot of risk to get that little vial. But things had worked out okay. Better than okay. He’d hit Snake up for some cash to cover the jogging suit and the prescription, and a little extra to keep the home fires burning.

He checked his beeper in the other pocket. The readout said no calls. Which reconfirmed that he hadn’t been followed—Snake was to have beeped him if he’d spotted anyone on his tail. So everything was cool. He felt the tension ooze out of him.

He passed a guy leaning against a wall, looking for all the world like he was crying. Maybe he was sick. Or drunk.

Which gave Paulie an idea. Why not pick up a little bubbly as a gift for Poppy? She was all strung out babysitting the kid. She liked champagne and a bottle might get her to lighten up a little.

Yeah. Great idea. Buy her a goddamn magnum. Buy her two.

32

It took Snake a while, but he finally found a parking spot off M Street within half a block of Il Giardinello—he needed his car close by. He opened the glove compartment and started the tape recorder, then snapped his fingers in front of his chest. The mike in his shirt button picked up the sound and the needle on the receiver jumped. All right. All systems go—as long as he didn’t get too far away.

Snake walked around Georgetown a little before approaching the restaurant—just to be sure no one was tailing him. What’s the big attraction in owning a restaurant? he wondered as he approached the kitchen door. Actors, comedians, jocks, TV geeks—they all seemed to want one. Why? Looked like a royal pain in the ass. He checked his jacket buttons and his lapel pin, then knocked.

One of Salinas’s guards, a beefy guy named Llosa with dark skin and thick, Indian features, let him in. Snake handed him his .45 but the guy patted him down anyway. Satisfied that Snake wasn’t going to murder his boss, he led him to the back office.

“Miguel!” Salinas said, from his recliner. His beige silk suit was wrinkled where it bunched around his rolls of fat, and his gold-toothed smile was humorless. “You’re late!” Mr. Fatso Drug Lord didn’t like to be kept waiting?

Tough. Snake wasn’t about to incite Salinas, but he wasn’t going to kiss his ass either.

“Had to arrange to get some medicine for the kid,” Snake said pointedly. “You know, the kid no one knew was sick? Took me longer than I’d anticipated.”

“But it is all taken care of, no?”

“Yeah. All taken care of.”

“Excellent!” Now his smile was genuine. “Alien, pour our friend a drink.

Scotch, right?“

“Right. A little soda.”

“Give him the good stuff.” Salinas’s financial butt boy hopped to the task.

“We’ve got some beautiful sixty-year-old MacCallan single malt here,” Alien Gold said. “Cost Carlos thirteen big ones at auction.”

Thirteen grand for a bottle of Scotch? Now that was conspicuous consumption. Snake glanced around. Just like the rest of this dive. Look at the furniture, all dark and heavy and intricately carved, with real Tiffany lamps and Persian rugs; the walls were worse, hung with heavy burgundy drapes and all shades of garish Colombian art.

And in among the paintings, a signed photo of Tricky Dick. Very weird.

Gold handed Snake his Scotch, neat. “I held off on the club soda,” he said. “You don’t want bubbles getting in the way of the taste of this stuff.” Snake bit back a sharp retort. No profit in being ungracious, but he wondered about a guy with an MBA acting as gofer.