Joseph Finder - Power Play

The other, probably fifteen years older, was scrawny and mangy-looking, with dirt-colored hair that stuck up everywhere on his head. His face was pitted with pockmarks and cross-hatched with scars that were particularly dense below his left eye, which was glass. Under his good, right eye, three teardrops were tattooed. That was prison code, I knew, meaning that he'd killed three fellow inmates while he was inside. His glass eye told me he'd also lost a fight or two.

Hugo Lummis saw the two scary-looking guys. He slowly removed the watch from his pocket and placed it on the table.

Russell briefed the two of them. The young guy he called Travis; the older jailbird was Verne. Then, taking a compact satellite phone from a black nylon sling, he went out the front door.

Verne, the one-eyed man, took turns with the hunters I now knew as Wayne and Buck cutting lengths of rope, frisking and tying people up, then moving them one by one over to the wall on either side of the immense stone fireplace.

"Palms together like you're praying," Verne ordered Cheryl. He wrapped a six-foot piece of rope several times around her wrists.

She winced. "That's way too tight."

But Verne kept going. He moved with quick, jerky motions, blinked a lot. He seemed to be on speed or something.

Even before Verne got to me, I could smell him. He gave off a nasty funk of alcohol and cigarettes and bad hygiene. I gave him a blank look, neither friendly nor confrontational.

He gave an alligator smile. His teeth were grayish brown, with tiny black flecks. Meth mouth, I realized. The guy was a tweaker, a methamphetamine addict. "Much rather be frisking that babe down the end," he said as he set to work patting me down. He didn't seem to be a professional, but he knew what he was doing.

I said nothing.

"Save the best for last," he said to Buck, and they both leered at Ali.

The steak knife I'd concealed in my shoe had become uncomfortable, even a little painful. I wondered whether there was a visible lump in the shoe leather, but I didn't dare look down and draw his attention to it.

On the one hand, I was relieved that I hadn't left the knife in my pocket, where Verne would have found it right away. But now I wished it were someplace I could get to more easily. As Verne's hands ran down my chest and back, I held my breath so I didn't heave from the smell. My eyes scanned the dining table. The closest steak knife was in front of Cheryl, just a few feet away, but as soon as I made a grab for it, Buck-standing behind me with his revolver at the ready-would kill me. He wouldn't hesitate.

And even if I managed to grab the knife and use it on him, it was still only a knife. A knife at a gunfight, as the old saying goes.

Verne felt each of my pockets and seemed satisfied that they were empty. I didn't have a choice but to let him tie me up.

Now his hands moved down my pant legs, down to my feet.

I held my breath.

All he had to do was to slip his fingers into the tops of my shoes, and he'd discover the knife handle.

And then, if Russell's threat was serious, Buck would shoot. I didn't feel like finding out if Russell meant it.

What had I been thinking?

Once my hands were tied, the knife wouldn't do me any good. It was useless to me. I'd risked my life for nothing.

Verne's hands grasped my ankles. I looked down. His fingernails were dirty.

I tensed. A few drops of sweat trickled down my neck, coursed down my back, under my shirt.

"See that guy over there?" I said.

"Huh?" He looked up at me. "Don't try anything."

"The silver-haired guy with the bloody face. He needs to be taken care of."

He sliced a long piece of rope into smaller sections, using a serious-looking tactical knife. "I look like a doctor to you?"

"You guys don't want to lose him. Then you'll be facing a manslaughter charge on top of everything else."

He shrugged.

"I know first aid," I said. "Let me take a look at him before you tie me up."

"Uh-uh."

"Your friend Buck has a gun pointed at me. I don't have a weapon, and I'm not stupid."

"Let him," Buck said. "I'll keep watch."

"Thank you," I said.

Bodine was sitting with his legs folded. His face was battered and swollen. He looked up at me, humiliated and angry, like a whipped dog. I sat down on the floor next to him. "How're you feeling?" I said.

He didn't look at me. "You don't want to know."

"Mind if I take a look?"

"Lost a couple of teeth," he said, pushing out his lower lip with his tongue. I gingerly felt his face, under his eyes. He winced. "Jesus, Landry, watch it."

"You might have a broken cheekbone," I said. "Maybe a fracture."

"Yeah? So what am I going to do about it now?" he said bitterly.

"Take some Tylenol. Or whatever pain meds we have."

"Not going to happen with these assholes," he said quietly.

"We can try. You think your nose might be broken?"

"Feels like it."

"If we can get some Kleenex or some toilet paper, you should stuff some up your nose. Just to stop the blood flow."

He didn't say anything.

"You got a headache?"

"Wicked."

"What about your vision?"

"What about it?"

"You seeing double?"

"How'd you know?"

"That means he might have fractured the-I forget what it's called, the bone around the eye. The orbit, I think. Anyway, your vision should go back to normal in a day or so. You're going to be okay, but we've got to get you medical attention."

Bodine gave me a fierce look. "Yeah? When?"

"Soon as we can. Soon as this is over."

"When's that going to be?"

He didn't expect an answer, but I was surprised he'd said it. It was a sign of how far he'd fallen, how demoralized he was. Hank Bodine was always in charge.

Buck yelled to me, "Time's up. This ain't a church social."

I said softly to Bodine, "Depends on how we play it."

Bodine nodded once.

I said, "There's blood and stuff all over your pants. Let me see if they'll get you another pair from your room. Least they can do."

Bodine had pissed himself during the attack. I could see the large wet area and smell the urine. I felt a pang of embarrassment for him, and I didn't want him to know that I knew.

He watched me as I got up.

"Hey," he said after a few seconds.

"Yeah?"

"Thanks."

The whole place smelled of cigarette smoke: Verne was chain-smoking at the other end of the room as he frisked Ali, taking his time of it. I had a feeling he was maybe paying a bit too much attention to areas on her body where she wasn't likely to hide a weapon. Her back was to me; I couldn't see her face, but I could imagine the look of grim resolve.

The middle of the room was a chaotic jumble of furniture: tables on their sides, chairs upended on top of sofas. Russell's men had shoved the furniture away from the wall on either side of the great stone fireplace to make room for the hostages.

We sat on the wideboard floor on either side of the fireplace, in two groups. On the other side-which might as well have been miles away-were the manager, the other lodge staff, and Danziger and Grogan. All the lights were on, giving the room a harsh, artificial cast.

Verne had wound the ropes around my wrists a little too tightly, before tying the ends expertly with a couple of overhand knots. "There we go," he'd said. "Try and get out of that. Harder you pull against it, tighter it gets. Give yourself gangrene, you're not careful."

Geoffrey Latimer, next to me, tried to shift his hands to get them more comfortable. "I wonder if I'm ever going to see my wife and daughter again," he said softly. He looked ashen. His face was flushed, and he was short of breath.

Cheryl said, "This damned rope is too tight. I'm already losing circulation in my hands." She looked weary, suddenly ten years older. There was what looked like a dirty handprint on her long, pleated skirt, as if one of Russell's men had pawed her. Without her big earrings and necklace, she looked somehow vulnerable, disarmed.