Will tried not to think about Sara.
“You hear what I’m sayin’?”
Will nodded.
“I mean it, Bud. I love her. She’s the only damn reason I get up some mornings.” He wiped under his eyes with the back of his hand. “She’s all I got.”
Will didn’t have many male friends, but he gathered sitting around talking about love while listening to Madonna was not high on the list of manly pursuits. “You’re gonna grow a vagina if you keep talking like that.”
Tony barked a laugh. “Hell, Bud, that’s just what she does to me. Ain’t you never been in love?”
Will was so in love that he couldn’t see straight.
“What was it like at MacDill?”
Will took his time answering—not because he had to recall the details, but because Bill Black wasn’t the type to volunteer information. “Why do you want to know?”
“I dunno, man. Just curious. I knew a couple pilots from there. Sold ’em amp to keep ’em awake on long flights.”
So, that’s what Tony Dell was doing in Sarasota.
Tony pressed, “What was it like?”
“Hot.”
“That’s Florida all right.”
Will stared out the window. They were on the highway now. Several cars were out, stragglers with a long commute. “What’s the story with your nephew?”
“Benji.” Tony put a nasty spin on the name that Will didn’t like. He probably thought the kid was in his way. “His mama’s a whore. Cops caught her smoking crack in front of him.”
“That’s too bad.”
“He’s a little shit. Keeps mouthing off at school. Cayla had to leave work to pick him up. He was suspended for two days.”
Will couldn’t imagine Benji mouthing off to a kitten. “He’s a skinny kid.”
“Yeah, well, that’s what happens when you’re too busy hittin’ the pipe to stop and feed ’em.” Tony turned the radio back on. He scrolled through the song selections and settled on Cyndi Lauper.
“Seriously?” Will asked.
“I like strong women.” Tony hit the blinker as he slowed for a turn.
“Where are we going?” Will asked. Home Depot was by the hospital. They were heading in the wrong direction.
Tony held up the beer can. “Thought we’d get a real drink.”
“I’m not thirsty.”
“You’re not driving.” Tony took the turn. His voice had changed. The tough demeanor was back. “You serve overseas?”
“Why?”
“Just wondering.” Tony drank some more beer. “You been in Macon, what, two weeks?”
“Almost.”
“You lived in Atlanta before that?” Will didn’t answer.
“How’d you get the job at the hospital?”
Will tried to turn the situation back on itself. “You’re asking questions like a cop.”
“Shit.” Tony laughed. “You think I’m a cop?”
“Are you?”
He looked at Will over his beer can. “Are you?”
“Hell no, I’m not a cop.” Contrary to urban legend, law enforcement officers were free to lie with impunity. “Otherwise, I would’ve busted your ass ten days ago when I saw you taking pills off that cart.”
Tony laughed at the memory. “Near about shit my pants when I saw you looking.”
Will doubted that. Tony had clearly been testing him.
The window rolled down again. Tony tossed the can out. “Cayla used to sell ’em for me on Craigslist.”
“That’s dangerous for a woman.”
“I always did the drops.” Tony opened another beer. “College kids, mostly. We ain’t sellin’ the cheap stuff.”
Will didn’t press for details, but he was looking at Tony Dell in a new light. Faith would need to make some calls to Hilton Head and Sarasota. Tony struck Will as exactly the type of criminal who would flip on his own mother if it saved him jail time.
“Anyway,” Tony said. “We ain’t doin’ that Craigslist shit anymore. Big Whitey kicked my game up a notch. I got more cash than I know what to do with.”
“Craigslist is safer.”
“Nickel and dime, bro.”
“Big bills, big problems.”
“The bills get big enough, you can buy your way outta the problems.” Tony turned the wheel hard into a packed parking lot.
Will recognized the building. They were at Tipsie’s. The neon sign on the roof showed a woman sliding up and down a pole. “You sure you wanna be back here?”
“It’s cool.” Tony parked the truck. “I was by here before I went to Cayla’s.”
Will felt the hair on the back of his neck go up. “Why’d you do that?”
“Same as you checking out that cop in the ICU, seein’ did somebody recognize me.”
Will didn’t believe him. “And?”
“And … we’re cool.” The affable Tony was suddenly back. He pulled the keys out of the ignition, shouldered open the door. “Come on, Bud. I’m still thirsty.”
Will got out of the truck, though every atom of his being told him something bad was about to happen. He didn’t really have a choice. Jared Long was in the hospital. Lena Adams had almost been killed. There was a drug dealer out there who seemed to enjoy hurting people. If Will didn’t do his job right, a lot more people would wind up at the hospital. Or in the ground.
“Come on, Bud.” Tony walked like a bantam rooster. He was obviously hiding something. And he was very pleased with himself about it.
Will slowed his pace, trying to figure out what he was walking into. Not for the first time, he found himself wondering if Tony Dell was, in fact, Big Whitey.
Faith had brought up the possibility almost from the start. She was generally good at seeing around corners, but Will had disagreed with her. He’d met Tony Dell. He’d spent time with the man. He didn’t come across as a master strategist.
Maybe that was the point.
Everything about Tony screamed petty criminal. He worked a shitty job. He drove a shitty car. He lived in an apartment that was three doors down from a strip mall. As for his police record, he’d been arrested twice under the open bottle law, both misdemeanors. There was one charge for possession that had rolled off after a successful stint in rehab. Another charge for dealing had disappeared from the court docket on a technicality. Loitering. Jaywalking. He was a nuisance criminal, not a heavy hitter.
If Tony Dell was really Big Whitey, then the man was a genius.
Will’s iPhone was in the front pocket of his jeans. He wondered if the tracking chip would work through the club’s metal roof. Sara had GPS in her car. The system cut out the minute she drove into an underground parking lot. Will guessed it was all the steel and concrete messing with the signal. Probably the same thing would happen to his phone inside Tipsie’s.
They were ten yards from the door, but the music pounded so hard that Will felt it traveling up from the asphalt. His eardrums turned the noise into one long rumble.
Tony glanced back at Will before pushing open the door. He wasn’t smiling, which should’ve been Will’s first warning. The second warning was more obvious. The minute the door closed behind Will’s back, a hand gripped his shoulder.
Will turned around. He was used to being the tallest guy in the room, but the man behind him was approximately the size of a refrigerator. Not a standard one, either—more like a Sub-Zero with the motor on the top.
There was no use asking questions.
The Refrigerator nodded toward the back. Will got the message. The man’s hand stayed clamped to Will’s shoulder, acting as a rudder as he pushed Will through the crowded bar.
Tony led the way. He didn’t appear to be surprised by this latest development. He certainly wasn’t worried. There was a nasty grin on his face, which Will saw every time the man glanced over
his shoulder to make sure Will was following. The strobe lights and mirror ball picked out the cuts and bruises on his face, making them look like badly applied makeup. Tony must’ve been hurting, but his expression was one of pure glee.
There was no denying that he’d set this up beautifully. Tony had wormed his way into Cayla’s house. He’d tricked Will into leaving with him. It was Tony’s idea to fix the sink. It was Tony’s idea to strap Will’s bike into the truck. He’d obviously anticipated the problem. There just happened to be a winch in the back of the truck along with a couple of four-by-four posts to use as a ramp. When this was all done, he would probably use them to roll the bike into the river.
Will took the deepest breath he could manage. The sour smells of alcohol and sweat filled his lungs. He reached his hand into his pocket. His thumb found the power button on the phone. He pressed it three times to engage the recording device. Either Amanda would listen to Will talking to some bad guys or she would listen to some bad guys murdering Will.
The Refrigerator jerked Will to the side, avoiding a crowd of boisterous drunks. The route to the back of the club was circuitous. The stage snaked through the room. Every pole had a woman doing something obscene to it. The men crowded in, pushing against the stage until a bouncer shoved them back, then pushing forward again on the off chance that it’d work the third or fourth or hundredth time.
Tony stood at a closed door with a sign on it. The shit-eating grin was still on his face. He waited for Will and the Refrigerator to catch up. The grin got wider as Tony pushed open the door. The room was dark. The hand on Will’s shoulder shoved him forward. Will saw that the room wasn’t a room, but a long hallway. What little light they had came from the open door. The last thing Will saw was the Refrigerator closing it.
Tony’s mouth went to Will’s ear. “Move.” He pushed Will down the hallway.
Will considered his options. He could easily take Tony Dell. He’d pushed him around like a rag doll before. But that had been the old Tony, not the Possibly Big Whitey Tony. Sometimes, the physical size of a man didn’t matter nearly as much as the size of the fight in the man.
And Tony had help.
He had a lot of help.
Will pressed his hand to the cement-block wall as he walked down the hallway. He became painfully aware of his full bladder. Sweat dripped down his back. He imagined his Glock, the way the grip felt in his hand, the fact that the safety was a hair trigger built into the main trigger that only engaged when your finger pulled back. Not that any of this mattered. The gun was locked in a safe in his closet back in Atlanta.
There must’ve been soundproofing in the back of the club, because the music wasn’t so unbearable anymore. Will felt something in front of him. He panicked, then realized he was touching a curtain. Will pushed the material apart. There was more light in this part of the hall, courtesy of a green Exit sign over the door. Will would’ve run full out toward it if not for the second Refrigerator blocking the way. He made the first Refrigerator look more like a mini-fridge. His arms bulged at the sleeves. His shoulders were almost as wide as the doorway. He had a Bluetooth device stuck in his ear. As Will approached, he tapped the earpiece and mumbled something incoherent.
Refrigerator Two pulled back a curtain on the wall. There was another door with a sign. Will could recognize words he’d seen a million times before. This one said OFFICE. The second Refrigerator opened the door. His hand was so big that the knob completely disappeared.
Will shaded his eyes against the sudden bright light. The back room of the club was remarkably similar to the type he was used to seeing in mob movies: Black ceiling, dark red walls. Liquor posters with naked women. A white shag rug. A large metal and
glass desk. A black leather couch with three fat rednecks sprawled across it.
They were eating pizza from a box on the glass coffee table in front of them. The odor of cheese and sausage turned Will’s stomach. He tasted bile, felt some black-eyed peas roil up into his mouth.
The rednecks examined Will and Tony with idle curiosity. In a mobster movie, they would’ve been well-dressed Italians. Macon’s version was considerably more down-market. They wore T-shirts that stretched across their bellies. Their jeans were low on their hips, but only because they didn’t want to go up six sizes to accommodate their expanded waistlines.
Refrigerator Two closed the door. Will saw that he’d missed something across the room from the couch.
There was a man tied to a chair. Rope cut into the bare flesh of his arms and chest. His head hung down. The scalp was ripped at the crown. The head wound wasn’t the only source of blood. His hands and feet had been sliced open. There were dozens of X’s cut into his chest and abdomen. The wounds weren’t deep enough to kill, but deep enough to cause excruciating pain.
The man had been tortured.
“Damn,” Tony said, not with shock but with admiration. “Didn’t know y’all had company.”
“Shut up,” one of the rednecks said. He used a folding knife to clean underneath his fingernails. “You do what I tell you to do?”
“Don’t I always?” Tony answered.
“Watch your tone with me, boy.”
“Yessir,” Tony demurred.
So much for Tony being Big Whitey. Will gathered the redneck was in charge. He had the air of a man burdened with responsibility. His two henchmen ate their pizza like they were waiting for their turn at the bowling alley. One of them had a bottle of beer to wash it down. The other had a Diet Coke.
The redneck kept cleaning his nails. No one seemed interested in rushing him.
Will just stood there. This wasn’t the first time tonight that he’d wondered whether or not Tony Dell was leading him to his death, but it was the first time he actually saw how it might happen. The man in the chair was still alive. Blood didn’t run like that if the heart had stopped beating. His breaths were shallow. His muscles twitched involuntarily—first the arm, then the calf. A low humming noise came from his throat. He was probably praying for his death. They had cut him. They had beaten him. And then they had taken a dinner break because they were in no rush to end his suffering.
Tony wasn’t as patient. Or maybe he was just stupid. He took a Baggie of pills out of his pocket and tossed them onto the desk. “Where’s the big man? You said we were gonna talk.”
“Shut up,” the redneck repeated. He finished cleaning his nails. The knife blade was about four inches—not long, but sharp, with a wicked curved tip. He slowly folded the blade back into the handle, his eyes on Will the entire time. “You gotta problem?”
Will shook his head.