Paulo was about to object, then seemed to think better of it. Perhaps he saw an opportunity to regain Jack’s trust by not making him leave, but he didn’t go so far as to put Darden on speaker. It turned out to be a short conversation, with Paulo doing a lot of listening and very little talking. He hung up after just a couple of minutes.
“Did something turn up at the Bahamian bank?” said Jack.
“Quite the opposite, actually. Darden just gave me a little update on Mr. Riley, the manager who let you into the bank this morning.”
“What about him?”
“He’s gone missing.”
It took Jack a moment to process that one. “‘Missing’ as in he ran away? Or ‘missing’ as in foul play?”
“Don’t know yet. But according to the Bahamian police, every computer record relating to Falcon’s safe deposit box has been destroyed. Every handwritten record, including the access log book, is gone also.”
“Sounds like you need to find Mr. Riley.”
“Yeah,” said Paulo. “I’d say that sounds about right.”
chapter 42
T heo kept waiting for the buzz.
Had the food from the wagon been laced with any kind of sleeping agent, some noticeable effect should have kicked in by now. Theo felt nothing. It was like the time Jack had decided to walk on the wild side and bake pot brownies, only to discover that he’d paid his Colombian yardman a hundred bucks for a bag of oregano. Actually, it was Theo who had made the discovery. Jack thought he was stoned. Poor Jack.
How will that guy ever survive without me?
“I want out of here,” said the weatherman. He spoke softly, to no one in particular. It wasn’t even clear that he’d intended to utter his thoughts aloud.
“What did you say?” said Falcon, challenging him.
“I didn’t say anything. It was him,” the weatherman said, pointing with a nod toward Theo.
In another setting, with hands untied, Theo would have snapped the little twerp in half. For his own sake and that of the girls, he kept his cool. “I want a beer,” said Theo. “That’s all I said.”
“Ain’t got no beer.”
“Try room ser vice.”
“Try shutting your damn mouth.”
“Can you at least give the men a turn in the bathroom?” said the weatherman.
Falcon nodded. “Go ahead.”
“Aren’t you going to untie us?” said Theo.
“No. Hop on over there and let Natalia the jinitera hold it for you.”
They did exactly that, and when they finished, a tense silence gripped the room, like the calm before the storm. Falcon had finally removed his coat, but he showed no sign of complying with Jack’s demand that he turn it over to the police for examination. It was bundled up in the corner next to the little generator. Theo had been eyeing the contraption for several minutes. The thing looked to be about a hundred years old, except that portable generators probably didn’t exist that long ago. Maybe twenty-five or thirty was more like it. The black metal box was scratched and dirty, with a nasty dent in one corner, as if it had been dropped off a building. One of the knobs or dials was missing, and all that remained was a screw protruding from a round hole in the box. There were two meters-amps and volts, Theo presumed-and the glass casing over one of them was shattered into a spiderweb of cracks. At one time, this might have been a working generator, and perhaps it had even been overworked. Theo had to wonder if it was still operational.
He wondered, too, about the metal beads in the bag.
Twelve hours. That was Theo’s best guess as to the duration of this standoff so far. He wondered how long the cops would let it go before sending in SWAT and breaking down the door. A day? Two? He seemed to recall that the FBI’s infamous siege of the Branch Davidian compound in Waco had dragged on for nearly two months. Things were always more complicated when dealing with a crazy man. Falcon was beginning to make David Koresh seem sane.
“I want out of here,” said the weatherman. It was a whimper, just above a whisper. His face was pinched, and his eyes were closed tightly, as if he were trying to wish away the misery. The guy was on the verge of losing it.
“Quiet!” said Falcon. “Or you’re next on the grill.”
The grill? Theo wondered. What did he think they were now, hot dogs and hamburgers?
“It’s too hot in here!” shouted Natalia. She and her injured friend were still inside the bathroom with the door closed. “Please, open the door.”
Falcon didn’t move.
Theo felt for the girls. It was boiling hot in the main room. Opening the front door had brought a three-minute blast of fresh air, but that was gone already, and they were again breathing the same air over and over. A triangle of sweat pasted Theo’s shirt to his back, and after his quick bathroom break, he could only imagine what it must be like for those two girls trapped inside the tiny bathroom with a toilet that didn’t flush. Theo said, “You need to open the bathroom door.”
Falcon was staring at the paper bag, silent.
“Hey, genius. They could suffocate in there.”
Falcon’s gaze remained locked on the paper bag, as if he were in a trance.
Natalia shouted, “She’s getting worse. Open the door!”
Falcon didn’t flinch. Theo was about to shout and tell him to snap out of it when, finally, Falcon rose and started toward the bag.
Falcon said, “You just won’t listen, will you?”
Theo wondered if Falcon was talking to him, but he didn’t think so. Falcon seemed to be drifting into another one of those delusional episodes of his.
“You hear me, Swyteck?” said Falcon. “I told you to ask Paulo what I want. Why don’t you listen to me?”
He waited a few moments, and finally he answered his own question, speaking as if he were Jack. “I’m listening, Falcon. I just don’t want to play any more guessing games.”
Another sudden change of expression, and Falcon was himself again. “You’ll play whatever game I want you to play. Tell me, Swyteck. It’s not a secret. What do I want? What do I really want?”
He mulled it over, now playing Jack. “To speak to Alicia Mendoza?”
“Nah, that’s old news. This bullshit has gone on way too long. You can’t solve things that easy. Not this late in the game.”
Another role change. “Then just tell me what you want.”
He was suddenly Falcon again, leaning closer to the bag, as if to stress the importance of his point. “Okay, here’s what I want: I want to hear Alicia beg to talk to me.”
Falcon chuckled in reply, the way Jack might. “That’s not going to happen, pal.”
“Oh, yes, it will, Swyteck. Before long, she’ll want to talk to me so bad it hurts. She’ll want it so bad that she won’t ever forget who Falcon is. And when we’re done, she’ll thank me. She really will. She’ll thank me.”
It was strange to watch a man carry on a conversation so convincingly, as if Jack were in the room, but it suddenly occurred to Theo that Falcon wasn’t delusional. This time, he was crazy like a fox. Falcon had figured it out before Theo. There was a microphone in the bag, and from the look in Falcon’s eye, Theo could tell that he was about to tear the bag apart and destroy it. Before that happened, Theo wanted to convey one last bit of information to Jack. “Hey, Falcon.”
He looked in Theo’s general direction, but he was still too busy keeping up both ends of his conversation with Jack to focus on Theo.
Theo said, “The girl in the bathtub really needs a doctor.”
Falcon didn’t answer.
“Did you hear me?” said Theo, speaking in a voice that was loud enough to be picked up by the listening device. “I said, the girl in the bathroom is hurt and really needs a doctor.”
Falcon picked up the paper bag and dumped the food, drinks, and metal beads onto the floor. He took the beads and laid them in the corner beside his generator. Then, slowly, he tore the grocery bag at the corners and laid the brown paper flat on the floor like a doormat. He began walking on it, ever so carefully, like a man fearful of stepping on a landmine.