Ronald shrugged. “Who’s this?”

“I don’t know.” Edith opened the door.

“Afternoon, ma’am.” The mustached man politely took off his hat. His eyes drifted past her. “Mind if we speak to your husband? I can see he’s at home.”

Ronald stood up. He’d never seen them before. “What’s this about?”

“Banking business,” the man said, stepping around Ronald’s wife and into the house.

“Banking hours are closed-for lunch.” Ronald tried not to seem unfriendly. “I’ll be back down there at three.”

“No.” The mustached man lifted his glasses and smiled. “I’m afraid the bank is open, Mr. Torbor. Right here.”

The man shut the door. “Just look at these as extra hours.”

A shudder of fear rippled through Ronald’s body. Edith met his gaze as if to find out what was going on, then moved back around to the table, next to her son.

The mustached man nodded to Ronald. “Sit down.”

Ronald did, the man flipping a chair around and pulling it up to him, smiling strangely. “We’re really sorry to interrupt your lunch, Mr. Torbor. You can get back to it, though, once you tell us what we need.”

“What you need…?”

“That’s right, Mr. Torbor.” The man reached into his jacket and removed a folded sheet. “This is the number of a private account at your bank. It should be familiar. A sizable amount of money was wired into it several months back, from Tortola, the Barclays bank there.”

Ronald stared at the number. His eyes grew wide. The numbers were from his bank, First Caribbean. The taller man had pulled up a chair next to Ezra, winking and making mugging faces at the boy, which made him laugh. Ronald glanced fearfully toward Edith. What the hell are they doing here?

“This particular account is no longer active, Mr. Torbor,” the man with the mustache acknowledged. “The funds are no longer in your bank. But what we want to know, and what you’re going to help us find out, Mr. Torbor, if you hope to ever get back to your lunch and this happy little life of yours, is precisely where the funds were wired-once they left here. And also under what name.”

Perspiration was starting to soak through Ronald’s newly pressed white shirt. “You must know I can’t give out that kind of information. That’s all private. Covered by banking regulations-”

“Private.” The mustached man nodded, glancing toward his partner.

“Regulations.” The man in the beach shirt sighed. “Always a bitch. We sort of anticipated that.”

With a sudden motion, he reached over and jerked Ezra up out of his chair. Surprised, the child whimpered. The man put him on his lap. Edith tried to stop him, but he just elbowed her, knocking her to the floor.

“Ezra!” she cried out.

The small boy started crying. Ronald leaped up.

“Sit down!” The mustached man grabbed him by the arm. He also took something out of his jacket and placed it on the table. Something black and metallic. Ronald felt his heart seize as he saw what it was. “Sit down.”

Frantic, Ronald lowered himself back into the chair. He looked at Edith helplessly. “Whatever you want. Please, don’t hurt Ezra.”

“No reason to, Mr. Torbor.” The mustached man smiled. “But no point beating around the bush. What you’re going to do now is call in to your office, and I want you to have your secretary or whomever the fuck you talk to down there look up that account. Make up whatever excuse or justification you need. We know you don’t get those kinds of funds in your sleepy little bank very often. I want to know where it went, which country, what bank, and under what name. Do you understand?”

Ronald sat silent.

“Your father understands what I mean, doesn’t he, boy?” He tickled Ezra’s ear. “Because if he doesn’t”-his eyes now shifted darkly-“I promise that your lives will not be happy, and you will remember this little moment with regret and anguish for as long as you live. I’m clear on that, aren’t I, Mr. Torbor?”

“Do it, Ronald, please, do it,” Edith pleaded, pulling herself up off the floor.

“I can’t. I can’t,” he said, trembling. “There are procedures for this sort of thing. Even if I agreed, it’s governed by international banking regulations. Laws…”

“Back to those regulations again.” The mustached man shook his head and sighed loudly.

The taller man holding Ezra removed something from his jacket pocket.

Ronald’s eyes bulged wide.

It was a tin of lighter fluid.

Ronald dove out of the chair to stop him, but the mustached man hit him on the side of the head with the gun, sending him sprawling onto the floor.

“Oh, Jesus Lord, no!” Edith screamed, trying to wrench the man off her son. He elbowed her away.

Then, smiling, the man holding Ezra took the crying boy by the collar and began to douse him with fluid.

Ronald launched himself again, but the mustached man had cocked his gun and raised it to Ronald’s forehead. “I keep remembering asking you to sit down.”

Ezra was bawling now.

“Here’s your cell phone, Mr. Torbor,” pushing Ronald his phone from across the table. “Make the call and we just go away. Now.”

“I can’t.” Ronald held out trembling hands. “Jesus God in heaven, don’t. I…can’t.”

“I know he’s a bit off, Mr. Torbor.” The man shook his head. “But he’s just an innocent boy. Shame to hurt him in this way. For a bunch of silly regulations…Anyway, not a pretty thing at all for your wife to witness, is it?”

“Ronald!”

The man holding Ezra took out a plastic lighter. He flicked it, sparking up a steady flame. He brought it close to the child’s damp shirt.

“No!” Edith shrieked. “Ronald, please, don’t let them do this! For God’s sake, do whatever the hell they’re asking. Ronald, please…”

Ezra was screaming. The man holding him drew the flame closer. The man with the mustache pushed the phone in front of Ronald and looked steadily at him.

“Exactamente, Mr. Torbor. Fuck the regulations. It’s time to make that call.”

CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

Karen rushed to drop Alex off at the Arch Street Teen Center that Tuesday afternoon, for a youth fund-raiser for the Kids in Crisis shelter in town.

She was excited when Hauck had called. They agreed to meet in the bar at L’Escale, overlooking Greenwich Harbor, which was virtually next door. She was eager to tell him what she’d found.

Hauck was sitting at a table near the bar and waved when she came in.

“Hi.” She waved, folding her leather jacket over the back of her chair.

For a moment she moaned about how traffic was getting crazy in town this time of day. “Try to find a parking space on the avenue.” She rolled her eyes in mock frustration. “You have to be a cop!”

“Seems fair to me.” Hauck shrugged, suppressing a smile.

“I forgot who I was talking to!” Karen laughed. “Can’t you do anything about this?”

“I’m on leave, remember? When I’m back, I promise that’ll be the very first thing.”

“Good!” Karen nodded brightly, as if pleased. “Don’t let me down. I’m relying on you.”

The waitress came over, and it took Karen about a second to order a pinot grigio. Hauck was already nursing a beer. She’d put on some makeup and a nice beige sweater over tight-fitting pants. Something made her want to look good. When her wine came, Hauck tilted his glass at her.

“We ought to think of something,” she said.

“To simpler times,” he proposed.

“Amen.” Karen grinned. They touched glasses lightly.

It was a little awkward at first, and they just chatted. She told him about Alex’s involvement on the Kids in Crisis board, which Hauck was impressed with and called “a pretty admirable thing.”

Karen smiled. “Community-service requirement, Lieutenant. All the kids have to do it. It’s a college application rite of spring.”

She asked him where his daughter went to school and he said, “ Brooklyn,” the short version, leaving out Norah and Beth. “She’s growing up pretty fast,” he said. “Pretty soon I’ll be doing the community-service thing.”