Lee Child - Killing Floor

“You confessed to something you didn’t do,” I said. “You asked for this.”

“No,” said Hubble. “I did what I said. I did it and I told the detective.”

“Bullshit, Hubble,” I said. “You weren’t even there. You were at a party. The guy who drove you home is a policeman, for God’s sake. You didn’t do it, you know that, everybody knows that. Don’t give me that shit.”

Hubble looked down at the floor. Thought for a moment.

“I can’t explain it,” he said. “I can’t say anything about it. I just need to know what happens next.”

I looked at him again.

“What happens next?” I said. “You stay here until Monday morning, and then you go back to Margrave. Then I guess they’ll let you go.”

“Will they?” he said. Like he was debating with himself.

“You weren’t even there,” I said again. “They know that. They might want to know why you confessed, when you didn’t do anything. And they’ll want to know why the guy had your phone number.”

“What if I can’t tell them?” he said.

“Can’t or won’t?” I asked him.

“I can’t tell them,” he said. “I can’t tell anybody anything.”

He looked away and shuddered. Very frightened.

“But I can’t stay in here,” he said. “I can’t stand it.”

Hubble was a financial guy. They give out their phone numbers like confetti. Talking to anybody they meet about hedge funds or tax havens. Anything to transfer some guy’s hard-earned dollars their way. But this phone number was printed on a scrap of torn computer paper. Not engraved on a business card. And hidden in a shoe, not stuffed in a wallet. And playing in the background like a rhythm section was the fear coming out of the guy.

“Why can’t you tell anybody?” I asked him.

“Because I can’t,” he said. Wouldn’t say anything more.

I was suddenly weary. Twenty-four hours ago I had jumped off a Greyhound at a cloverleaf and walked down a new road. Striding out happily through the warm morning rain. Avoiding people, avoiding involvement. No baggage, no hassle. Freedom. I didn’t want it interrupted by Hubble, or by Finlay, or by some tall guy who got himself shot in his shaved head. I didn’t want any part of it. I just wanted some peace and quiet and to go looking for Blind Blake. I wanted to find some eighty-year-old who might remember him from some bar. I should be talking to that old guy who swept up around the prison, not Hubble. Yuppie asshole.

He was thinking hard. I could see what Finlay had meant. I had never seen anybody think so visibly. His mouth was working soundlessly and he was fiddling with his fingers. Like he was checking off positives and negatives. Weighing things up. I watched him. I saw him make his decision. He turned and looked over at me.

“I need some advice,” he said. “I’ve got a problem.”

I laughed at him.

“Well, what a surprise,” I said. “I’d never have guessed. I thought you were here because you were bored with playing golf on the weekend.”

“I need help,” he said.

“You’ve had all the help you’re going to get,” I said. “Without me, you’d be bent forward over your bed right now, with a line of big horny guys forming at the door. And so far you haven’t exactly overwhelmed me with gratitude for that.”

He looked down for a moment. Nodded.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m very grateful. Believe me, I am. You saved my life. You took care of it. That’s why you’ve got to tell me what to do. I’m being threatened.”

I let the revelation hang in the air for a moment.

“I know that,” I said. “That’s pretty obvious.”

“Well, not just me,” he said. “My family as well.”

He was getting me involved. I looked at him. He started thinking again. His mouth was working. He was pulling on his fingers. Eyes flicking left and right. Like over here was a big pile of reasons, and over there was another big pile of reasons. Which pile was bigger?

“Have you got family?” he asked me.

“No,” I said. What else could I say? My parents were both dead. I had a brother whom I never saw. So I had no family. No idea whether I wanted one, either. Maybe, maybe not.

“I’ve been married ten years,” Hubble said. “Ten years last month. Had a big party. I’ve got two children. Boy, age nine, girl, age seven. Great wife, great kids. I love them like crazy.”

He meant it. I could see that. He lapsed into silence. Misting over as he thought about his family. Wondering how the hell he came to be in here without them. He wasn’t the first guy to sit in this cell wondering that. And he wouldn’t be the last.

“We’ve got a nice place,” he said. “Out on Beckman Drive. Bought there five years ago. A lot of money, but it was worth it. You know Beckman?”

“No,” I said again. He was afraid to get to the point. Pretty soon he’d be telling me about the wallpaper in the downstairs half bath. And how he planned to pay for his daughter’s orthodonture. I let him talk. Prison conversation.

“Anyway,” he said eventually. “It’s all falling apart now.”

He sat there in his chinos and his polo shirt. He had picked up his white sweater and wrapped it around his shoulders again. Without his glasses he looked older, more vacant. People who wear glasses, without them they always look defocused, vulnerable. Out in the open. A layer removed. He looked like a tired old man. One leg was thrust forward. I could see the patterned sole of his shoe.

What did he call a threat? Some kind of exposure or embarrassment? Something that might blow away the perfect life he’d described on Beckman Drive? Maybe it was his wife who was involved in something. Maybe he was covering for her. Maybe she’d been having an affair with the tall dead guy. Maybe lots of things. Maybe anything. Maybe his family was threatened by disgrace, bankruptcy, stigma, cancellation of country club membership. I went around in circles. I didn’t live in Hubble’s world. I didn’t share his frame of reference. I had seen him trembling and shaking with fear. But I had no idea how much it took to make a guy like that afraid. Or how little. When I first saw him at the station house yesterday he had looked upset and agitated. Since then he had been from time to time trembling, paralyzed, staring with fear. Sometimes resigned and apathetic. Clearly very afraid of something. I leaned on the cell wall and waited for him to tell me what.

“They’re threatening us,” he said again. “If I ever tell anybody what’s going on, they said they’ll break into our house. Round us all up. In my bedroom. They said they’ll nail me to the wall and cut my balls off. Then they’ll make my wife eat them. Then they’ll cut our throats. They said they’ll make our children watch and then they’ll do things to them after we’re dead that we’ll never know about.”

“SO WHAT SHOULD I DO?” HUBBLE ASKED ME. “WHAT would you do?”

He was staring over at me. Waiting for a reply. What would I do? If somebody threatened me like that, they would die. I’d rip them apart. Either as they spoke, or days or months or years later. I would hunt them down and rip them apart. But Hubble couldn’t do that. He had a family. Three hostages waiting to be taken. Three hostages already taken. Taken as soon as the threat was made.

“What should I do?” he asked me again.

I felt pressure. I had to say something. And my forehead hurt. It was bruising up after the massive impact with the Red Boy’s face. I stepped to the bars and glanced down the row of cells. Leaned against the end of the bunk. Thought for a moment. Came up with the only possible answer. But not the answer Hubble wanted to hear.