F Paul Wilson - Novel 04 (29 page)

But he hadn’t joined the
enemy, he was only using the enemy. He had a noble goal. A goal so noble and
lofty that he’d allow a child to die so that he could achieve it?

“I’ll make up for
it,” he said softly. “I swear on the lives of my children and
grandchildren that as soon as this is over, I will devote every waking moment
of the rest of my life to hunting down Carlos Salinas and his kin and putting
them away.” No doubt Salinas thought he had an ally high up in the
government. He was wrong. Very wrong.

Carlos slammed down the handset and
signaled to Llosa to turn off the tape recorder.

“Our contact has hung up. I
believe I upset him. Did we get a good recording?” Llosa pulled off his
headphones and gave a thumbs up.

“Excellent. Now get hold of
that pendejo, MacLaglen. Tell him I must speak to him immediately.” As
Llosa crossed the room to the secure phone, Carlos leaned back and closed his eyes.

Mierda! This was what he had
feared. MacLaglen had not frightened the doctor enough. The federales were now
involved. Which meant it was time for a quick cleanup. Get rid of the child and
MacLaglen’s two helpers—kill them, bury their bodies deep where no
one will ever find them. Carlos knew where a new parking lot was being paved in
Alexandria. A perfect spot for disposal.

He wished he could include
MacLaglen in the paved grave as originally planned, but the cabron had
outmaneuvered him.

He sighed. Ah well, not so bad.
MacLaglen was a professional. He was a good risk. And he’d pushed the
doctor far enough to get the chloramphenicol into Thomas Winston. That was what
mattered The President was entering the hospital. When that news reached home,
Emilio Rojas would be pleased.

Now Carlos had to hope the medicine
would do its work. Whatever happened, it was out of his hands. The
doctor’s confession only meant that the cleanup would begin earlier than
anticipated. This was no problem.

Llosa finished speaking into the
phone and turned to face him. He spoke in Spanish. “I paged him and left
a message on his voice mail. He should be getting back to us any minute.”

“You told him to call back
immediately?”

“Just as you directed.”

“Very good. Follow the usual
routine when he calls.” Llosa nodded and left.

And Carlos sat and wondered: Did
the doctor really believe that we would not find out about him? Did he realize
that he had ended his daughter’s life when he confessed? What a reckless,
foolish man.

Poppy sweated behind her Minnie
Mouse mask, doing some curls with her dumbbells in the front room while Katie
watched cartoons. When she heard a car door slam out front, she glanced out the
window. Her heart suddenly twisted in her chest, then took off like she’d
just snorted a gram of crank.

“Oh sweet Jesus! It’s
Mac!” She heard a kitchen chair fall over as Paulie bolted into the room.

“What? Where?” Panic
chased her to the center of the room.

“Outside! He’s coming
in!”

“Shit!”

He pointed to Katie. “Get her
out of here! I’ll clean this up! Move!”

Poppy grabbed Katie under the arms,
lifted her, and rushed her toward the guest room.

“What’s wrong?”
Katie said. “Why are you so scared?”

Poppy placed her on the bed and
shut the guest-room door. “It’s our boss. We can’t let him
know that we let you walk around without your blindfold.”

“Why not? I
only—” Poppy placed a finger over Katie’s lips and lowered
her voice to a whisper. “Shhh. Boss’s rules. You gotta be real quiet
while he’s here. Quiet like a mouse. Okay?” She stared at Poppy and
matched her whisper.

“Okay.”

“Great.” Poppy hid
those big blues behind the blindfold. Her shaky fingers fumbled the knot a
couple of times, but finally she got it good and snug around Katie’s head.

“Okay.” She pulled off
her Minnie Mouse mask. “Now lie back and let me tie up your arms.”

Katie’s lip pushed out and
she sobbed. “I don’t wanna be tied up.”

Oh, Jesus, Katie, Poppy thought,
biting her own lip. Don’t give me a hard time now. Not with Mac about to
come through the door.

“Shhh! Please, Katie, you
gotta be quiet. Remember how I said you had to be quiet like a mouse? Well, you
gotta be tied up too. Boss’s rules. And he don’t like his rules
broken.”

Katie sobbed again and her voice
got louder. “But it hurts!” And that was when she heard the front
door open, and heard Mac’s voice. She couldn’t catch the words, but
it was him.

Oh, Jesus, don’t let him come
in here yet. Just give me another half a minute.

“Okay, okay. I’ll tie
you real loose, okay? It won’t hurt, I promise you, but you gotta look
like you’re tied up, see? Boss’s rules, remember? You don’t
want to get me in trouble, do you?”

She shook her head.
“No…”

“Okay, then. Quick now. Lie
back and let me do what I gotta do, and I promise you, it won’t hurt.”

Katie sniffled a little, but
stretched herself out on the bed and put her hands out to be tied.

“You’re a good little
soldier,” Poppy whispered.

But now her bad case of fumble
fingers had got even worse. She could barely hold the cord, but somehow she got
it twisted into things that looked like knots.

“Okay. You’re tied. Do
they hurt?”

Katie shook her head.

“Great. Now I’ll
just—” Poppy glanced at Katie’s feet. Her heart had been
racing since she spotted Mac’s Jeep outside, but now it kicked up to
light speed. Katie’s left foot was in a little white sock, but the right
one was… bare!

“Jesus, where’s your
bandage?”

Katie wiggled her five exposed
toes. “I guess it fell off.”

No! This couldn’t be
happening! Not with Mac just a dozen feet away! Frantic, she checked the floor,
checked in the covers, but no bandage.

And Mac could be popping in here
any moment.

“Okay, look,” she said.
“I’ll just pull the covers over your bottom half. Don’t kick
them off. Even if it gets a little warm, keep your legs under the covers. Got that?”

Katie nodded.

“Good girl,” Poppy
said. She leaned over and kissed Katie’s forehead above the blindfold.
“Soon as the boss goes, we’ll play another game of Chutes and
Ladders. Okay?”

Katie smiled.“
‘Kay.”

Poppy adjusted the covers, backed
away for a last look. Everything seemed to be in place. All right. One last
look at Katie… and it was time to face Mac the Monster.

She stepped out into the front room
and closed the door behind her. She saw Paulie standing by the couch, and Mac
wandering around the room, casually twirling his key ring on his finger. He
wore jeans and an open Orioles baseball jacket. She could smell the tension.

Mac stopped wandering and smiled at
her, but only with his lips.

“Tending to our little
asset?”

Poppy nodded. “Just put
her…” Her mouth was so dry she had to clear her throat. “Just
put her down for a nap.”

“Good. I knew you’d
come in handy on this job. A nice little mother hen for the package.”
Poppy stole a few glances at the room. Looked like Paulie had done a good job
cleaning things up. The Chutes and Ladders board and pieces were gone, as was
his Mickey Mouse mask. He never picked up after himself. She never thought he
could. She’d have to remind him of this sometime.

Where had he stuffed all the stuff?
Under the couch?

“Your boyfriend was just
telling me that he hopes there’s no hard feelings about our little
contretemps yesterday.”

Contra-what? What was Mac talking
about? He had a funny look in his eyes. Was he looking to start a fight?

“We don’t want no hard
feelings with nobody,” Poppy said. “We just want this thing over
and done with.” She was going to say more but something white by the rear
leg of the coffee table caught her eye. It lay between her two dumbbells. She
didn’t want to lean closer so she had to focus out of the corner of her
eye. Something white with a little bit of red…

Oh, Jesus, the bandage!
Katie’s foot bandage! If Mac saw it he’d start asking questions,
maybe want to see Katie’s foot! Oh, Jesus, oh, Christ, oh. Mother of God,
she couldn’t let Mac spot it!

“I’m sure you
do,” Mac told her. He turned to Paulie. “But am I to take that as
an apology?” Poppy edged closer to the coffee table. If she could get
herself between Mac and the bandage…

Paulie shrugged. “If you
want. All I’m saying is you’re the boss, you’re calling the
shots, but we got our limits.” She watched Mac shrug out of his Orioles
jacket and toss it onto a chair. He tried to make it look casual, but as soon
as Poppy saw the dark-brown pistol handle jutting from the little leather
holster next to the beeper on his belt, she knew he wasn’t being casual.

What’s Mac up to? she
wondered. Trying to scare us? I’m already plenty scared.

She saw that Paulie had noticed it
too. Don’t mention it, Paulie, she told him, wishing he could read her
mind. Don’t give him the satisfaction.

She edge closer to the bandage.
More important now than ever to keep him from seeing it.

Mac said, “Let me get this
straight: You’re saying I’m the boss, but only up to a certain
point. After that, you’re the boss?”

“No, Mac,” Paulie said,
his voice easy. “It don’t mean that at all. It means you hired me,
you didn’t buy me.”

Mac stared at him, like he was
thinking about what Paulie had said. Poppy used the lull to make it the rest of
the way to the coffee table. The bandage was right near her foot. She wished
she could simply step on it and keep it under her sneaker, but it was on the other
side of the stretcher. All right, she’d just stay here and block it from
Mac.

But then Mac started wandering
around the room again. Cold dread seeped through Poppy. He was going to spot
it, she just knew it.

“I think you’ve got a
point there, Paulie,” Mac was saying. “And maybe it’s a good
one.” Jesus, he was moving her way. He couldn’t miss it.

Quickly Poppy put her right foot up
on the coffee table and began fooling with her sneaker lace, like it was loose
and she needed to retie it. Mac was about five feet away. With her heart
thumping, she undid the knot, made a loud, “Tsk,” then turned, sat
on the edge of the table, and bent over to retie the sneaker. While her hands
were down near the floor, she snatched the bandage and balled it up in her fist.

Got it!

“What’s that?”
Mac asked. He’d stopped twirling his key ring and was staring at her.

She glanced up at him, then at her
hand.

“Hmmm?” What could she
say? “Oh, just a tissue.” Mac looked like he was going to say
something else when his beeper went off. As he angled it up to read the
message. Poppy sniffed, made a quick swipe at her nose, then stuffed the gauze
in her pocket. And held her breath.

Mac pressed a button and released
the beeper.

“ ‘Immediately’
might take a little while,” he muttered, then began wandering again.

“Yeah, Paulie,” he
said, talking slow, like he didn’t really have a point, like he was just
killing time, “but a guy hires on to do a job, don’t you think he
should do that job?”

“Absolutely,” Paulie
said. “Take me and Poppy, for instance. We hired on to baby-sit. And
that’s cool. That’s the job and that’s what we do, and do it
good. But we didn’t hire on to slice and dice a kid. That wasn’t in
the job description, so to speak.” Poppy was barely listening. She just
sat there, feeling weak, breathing deep while her muscles relaxed and her
heartbeat wound down to a normal rate.

They were okay now. Long as Mac
didn’t go in there and check Katie’s feet, they were home free.

And then she heard a click and
looked up and thought her slowing heart was going to stop dead because there
was Katie standing in the doorway to the guest room with no cords and no
blindfold and no sock on her right foot.

Fighting through her panic. Poppy
snapped around and saw that Mac had his back turned. But Paulie was facing this
way and he looked like he’d just swallowed a couple of feet of razor
wire. Poppy coiled to make a sprint for the door, to tackle Katie and carry her
back into her room—

But then Katie spoke.

“I have to go to the
bathroom.” Mac whirled and time seemed to stop, like the projector of her
life’s movie got stuck and all action screeched to a halt. All the air
seemed to get sucked out of the room but that didn’t matter because no
one was breathing.

Her life became a photograph. But
only for a single, long, agonized instant. And then it all returned to horrific
life.

Mac’s eyes bulged and his
face turned a dark, furious red as he gaped at Katie.

“What the fuck?
She’s… she’s… I” He couldn’t seem to
believe what he was seeing. And then his eyes widened even further as he
pointed to her bare foot.

“Her toes! How come
she’s got all her fucking toes?”

“Hey, Mac,” Paulie
said. “It’s not like you think.” But Mac was pulling the
pistol from his belt. He thumbed back the hammer and aimed at Katie.

Poppy couldn’t move. She
seemed’to be stuck to the table, the floor. But she could scream.

“Mac, no! Jesus, NO!”
Whether Mac heard her or not, she couldn’t say.

Maybe he was afraid of the noise a
shot would make, and the attention it would attract. Whatever, he jammed the
gun back into his belt, thank God.

“Goddamn!” he shouted
and started looking around for something—what, Poppy couldn’t
guess. He kept saying it over and over. “Goddamn!”

“Easy, Mac,” Paulie was
saying.

“Goddamn!” Mac
couldn’t seem to find what he was looking for in the living room so he
stalked into the kitchen.

Finally Poppy could move. Paulie
was looking in her direction with a stricken expression, motioning her to get
Katie out of sight, but Poppy was already on her way.

She was just dragging Katie back
when Mac reappeared.

His face was back to normal color
but had lost all expression, and his eyes… his eyes were flat and cold,
like everything human had gone out of them. He gripped something long and slim
in his right hand. Sunlight flashed off its steely surface as he passed the window.

Oh, sweet Jesus, a knife—the
big, foot-long Ginsu knife she’d seen in the utensil drawer.

Poppy whimpered as she pulled Katie
close against her and cowered back into the room. Oh, no, he
couldn’t… he wasn’t going to try and cut her toe off now, was
he?

This couldn’t be happening.

“Paulie!” she cried.
“Paulie, he’s got a knife!” But Paulie was way ahead of her.
He stepped in front of the door and put his hands out.

“Stop right there, Mac.
Don’t do anything crazy now. It’s not like it looks.”

Mac slowed but didn’t stop.
“It’s not?” he said in a voice as cold as his eyes.

“We sent the persuader just
like you told us,” Paulie said, rattling out the words like a machine
gun. “A little kid’s toe. Only it just wasn’t this
kid’s toe. And it worked, didn’t it? I mean, you said yourself the
guy was ready to do anything after he opened that envelope. So there’s no
harm done. Everything worked out okay, right? So what’s the point in
cutting off her toe now? What’s that gonna get you?”

Finally Mac stopped. He stared at
Paulie with this look of complete disgust. “You fucking idiot. What the
fuck do I care about her toe now. She saw me! She’s seen us all!”

The words were spikes through
Poppy’s heart. He’s gonna kill her! He’s gonna kill my little
Katie!

“It’ll be okay,”
Paulie said.

“Damn right it will,”
Mac said, starting to move again.

“Just as soon as I’m
finished with her.” He tried to get past but Paulie blocked his way.

“Hey, Mac. You can’t be
serious. You’re not gonna off a little girl!”

“Out of the way, Paulie!
I’m not getting sent up because some little brat can point the finger at
me.”

Paulie shoved him back. “Time
out, Mac. You’re not thinking.” Mac went wild then. His lips drew
back from his teeth and he slashed with the knife.

Poppy screamed. “Paulie, look
out!” Paulie jumped back, holding his arm. His hand came away wet and
red.

“You son of a bitch! You cut
me!” Poppy knew that tone. Now Paulie was pissed. He made a move toward
Mac, dodged another slash, and then they were grappling, kicking, cursing,
grunting, snorting like animals as each tried to get control of the knife.