Lee Child - Killing Floor

I tried to think exactly what I could say to her. She waited for an answer. The coffee machine burbled away in the big silent kitchen.

“Yes, Charlie,” I said. “I’m afraid he was. But he didn’t want to be involved, OK? Some kind of blackmail was going on.”

She took it well. She must have figured it out for herself, anyway. Must have run every possible speculation through her head. This explanation was the one which fit. That was why she didn’t look surprised or outraged. She just nodded. Then she relaxed. She looked like it had done her good to hear someone else say it. Now it was out in the open. It was acknowledged. It could be dealt with.

“I’m afraid that makes sense,” she said.

She got up to pour the coffee. Kept talking as she went.

“That’s the only way I can explain his behavior,” she said. “Is he in danger?”

“Charlie, I’m afraid I have no idea where he is,” I said.

She handed me a mug of coffee. Sat down again on the kitchen counter.

“Is he in danger?” she asked again.

I couldn’t answer. Couldn’t get any words out. She moved off the counter and came to sit opposite me again at the table in the window. She cradled her cup in front of her. She was a fine-looking woman. Blond and pretty. Perfect teeth, good bones, slim, athletic. A lot of spirit. I had seen her as a plantation type. What they call a belle. I had said to myself that a hundred and fifty years ago she would have been a slave owner. I began to change that opinion. I felt a crackle of toughness coming from her. She enjoyed being rich and idle, sure. Beauty parlors and lunch with the girls in Atlanta. The Bentley and the gold cards. The big kitchen which cost more than I ever made in a year. But if it came to it, here was a woman who might get down in the dirt and fight. Maybe a hundred and fifty years ago she would have been on a wagon train heading west. She had enough spirit. She looked hard at me across the table.

“I panicked this morning,” she said. “That’s not really like me at all. I must have given you a very bad impression, I’m afraid. After you left, I calmed down and thought things out. I came to the same conclusion you’ve just described. Hub’s blundered into something and he’s got all tangled up in it. So what am I going to do about it? Well, I’m going to stop panicking and start thinking. I’ve been a mess since Friday and I’m ashamed of it. That’s not the real me at all. So I did something, and I hope you’ll forgive me for it?”

“Go on,” I said.

“I called Dwight Stevenson,” she said. “He had mentioned he had seen a fax from the Pentagon about your service as a military policeman. I asked him to find it and read it to me. I thought it was an excellent record.”

She smiled at me. Hitched her chair in closer.

“So what I want to do is to hire you,” she said. “I want to hire you in a private capacity to solve my husband’s problem. Would you consider doing that for me?”

“No,” I said. “I can’t do that, Charlie.”

“Can’t or won’t?” she said.

“There would be a sort of a conflict of interest,” I said. “It might mean I couldn’t do a proper job for you.”

“A conflict?” she said. “In what way?”

I paused for a long moment. Tried to figure out how to explain it.

“Your husband felt bad, OK?” I said. “He got hold of some kind of an investigator, a government guy, and they were trying to fix the situation. But the government guy got killed. And I’m afraid my interest is in the government guy, more than your husband.”

She followed what I was saying and nodded.

“But why?” she asked. “You don’t work for the government.”

“The government guy was my brother,” I told her. “Just a crazy coincidence, I know, but I’m stuck with it.”

She went quiet. She saw where the conflict could lie.

“I’m very sorry,” she said. “You’re not saying Hub betrayed your brother?”

“No,” I said. “That’s the very last thing he would have done. He was depending on him to get him out from under. Something went wrong, is all.”

“May I ask you a question?” she said. “Why do you refer to my husband in the past tense?”

I looked straight at her.

“Because he’s dead,” I said. “I’m very sorry.”

Charlie hung in there. She went pale and clenched her hands until her knuckles shone waxy white. But she didn’t fall apart.

“I don’t think he’s dead,” she whispered. “I would know. I would be able to feel it. I think he’s just hiding out somewhere. I want you to find him. I’ll pay you whatever you want.”

I just slowly shook my head at her.

“Please,” she said.

“I won’t do it, Charlie,” I said. “I won’t take your money for that. I would be exploiting you. I can’t take your money because I know he’s already dead. I’m very sorry, but there it is.”

There was a long silence in the kitchen. I sat there at the table, nursing the coffee she’d made for me.

“Would you do it if I didn’t pay you?” she said. “Maybe you could just look around for him while you find out about your brother?”

I thought about it. Couldn’t see how I could say no to that.

“OK,” I said. “I’ll do that, Charlie. But like I say, don’t expect miracles. I think we’re looking at something very bad here.”

“I think he’s alive,” she said. “I would know if he wasn’t.”

I started worrying about what would happen when his body was found. She was going to come face to face with reality the same way a runaway truck comes face to face with the side of a building.

“You’ll need expense money,” Charlie said.

I wasn’t sure about taking it, but she passed me a thick envelope.

“Will that do?” she asked.

I looked in the envelope. There was a thick wad of hundred dollar bills in there. I nodded. That would do.

“And please keep the car,” she said. “Use it as long as you need it.”

I nodded again. Thought about what else I needed to say and forced myself to use the present tense.

“Where does he work?” I asked her.

“Sunrise International,” she said. “It’s a bank.”

She reeled off an Atlanta address.

“OK, Charlie,” I said. “Now let me ask you something else. It’s very important. Did your husband ever use the word ‘Pluribus’?”

She thought about it and shrugged.

“Pluribus?” she said. “Isn’t that something to do with politics? Like on the podium when the president gives a speech? I never heard Hub talking about it. He graduated in banking studies.”

“You never heard him use that word?” I asked her again. “Not on the phone, not in his sleep or anything?”

“Never,” she said.

“What about next Sunday?” I asked her. “Did he mention next Sunday? Anything about what’s going to happen?”

“Next Sunday?” she repeated. “I don’t think he mentioned it. Why? What’s going to happen next Sunday?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “That’s what I’m trying to find out.”

She pondered it again for a long moment, but just shook her head and shrugged, palms upward, like it meant nothing to her.

“I’m sorry,” she said.

“Don’t worry about it,” I said. “Now you’ve got to do something.”

“What do I have to do?” she said.

“You’ve got to get out of here,” I said.

Her knuckles were still white, but she was staying in control.

“I’ve got to run and hide?” she said. “But where to?”

“An FBI agent is coming here to pick you up,” I said.

She stared at me in panic.

“FBI?” she said. She went paler still. “This is really serious, isn’t it?”

“It’s deadly serious,” I said. “You need to get ready to leave right now.”