A Devil's Bargain Read online

  “Is he conscious?” Nice Suit said.

  “Was the last time I saw him.”

  “And he can walk?”

  “I guess we’ll find out in a second.”

  “I see. Mister Krane, I suppose what I’m hoping for is a bit more elaboration. How extensive are the injuries you’ve inflicted?”

  Krane stopped and turned.

  “Inflicted? That’s a colorful word.”

  “Is it? I could search for a better one if you like. But I think you understood me.”

  “I questioned him. He might be sore and bruised. But he isn’t injured, mister. I didn’t torture him.”

  Nice Suit frowned and looked chagrined, though Krane couldn’t tell if it was genuine or not.

  “If I offended you, it wasn’t my intent, Mister Krane. I was only hoping to get some approximation of his ability to travel.”

  Krane shrugged again and resumed walking, wondering now if maybe he was just hypersensitive. This wasn’t Iraq. And he wasn’t a soldier. Had he been building illusory fears?

  “I shot him with a rubber riot round in his right thigh,” he said. “That was three days ago, but the bruise is still there and I doubt he’ll be up for long jogs any time soon. He’s been bound since then so I’m sure he’s stiff as a board. But he can hobble if that’s what you mean.”

  They came to a stop at the front door of the one room cottage and Krane pulled the key out of his pocket.

  “Has he provided any information?” Nice Suit asked. “Do we know who he is?”

  “No. He wasn’t carrying any ID. All he does is goad and laugh. He’s something else.”

  “Even when you pressured him?”

  Krane fed the key into the lock and turned it.

  “Like I said. Nothing but smart mouth with this one. You guys are welcome to him as far as I’m concerned.”

  Inside, his captive was as he had left him; sitting in the corner of the room, his ankles and wrists bound with fishing line, dressed in the same brown, off-the-rack suit and tie he’d worn three nights ago. Krane tested the air as he stepped inside. It still stank like wet dog.

  “Time to go,” Krane said as the others crowded in behind him.

  “Is he awake?” For the first time, it was Acne Scars who spoke.

  They watched as Krane’s captive raised his chin off his chest and looked at the group of people standing over him. There was no sign of the mocking grin he’d so often worn like a shield whenever Krane pressed him for information.

  No, now there was something new on the man’s big, meaty face. There was recognition there, as he opened his eyes and scanned the three new faces in the room. It vanished just as quickly as it appeared, replaced with a blank, noncommittal stare.

  But it had been there. Krane had seen it. He’d seen it and he knew instantly what it meant.

  He didn’t move. The cottage felt suddenly smaller and the wet dog odor that hung in the air felt like an oppressive fog. He had already decided Acne Scars and Mannish Little Woman were armed. He hadn’t spotted the weapons themselves, but he had noted the way they moved and the fact that their jackets remained unbuttoned. Guns were either holstered under their armpits or in the waistbands at the smalls of the backs.

  In that claustrophobic state, with their unseen weapons foremost in his mind, Krane wondered if he had committed some grave sin. Was that it? Had he offended the Senator or his men in some way? Had he failed his duty to Reggie and, as a result, these three were now here to—

  “I got a knife for that.”

  Krane felt his breath stall in his chest and he almost reached around into his waistband to pull the pistol he’d selected from his safe earlier that day. Acne Scars took a step toward the captive and, simultaneously, produced a pocketknife from his pants pocket. Krane understood and remained still. Nice Suit gave him a reassuring wink as Acne Scars cut the fishing line from around the captive’s ankles.

  “There you go. Now, look, you’re going to walk with us. Your hands stay that way. If you try and run away or do anything stupid, then I’ll have to get mean on you. Right?”

  Their captive smiled faintly, nodded his head at Acne Scars and said, “Right.”

  “No fuckery?” Acne Scars warned.

  “No fuckery” was the answer.

  Acne Scars reached down with both hands and, taking the captive under the arms, hauled him up to his feet.

  “You’re steady?”

  “Yeah. I’m good.”

  Krane walked straight out of the cottage.

  “Hey, where are you going?”

  It was the little mannish woman, shooting him a disapproving frown as he shouldered past her. He ignored her and waited out on the lawn for them, free of the stifling fear that had pressed down on him in the cottage. Maybe they knew the captive. Maybe they didn’t. Maybe he was not privy to a great many things about Reggie and about these people. He didn’t want to make a mistake. At the lip of a culvert one night outside Ramadi, Krane had made a singular mistake. Wound up, his mind racing with certainties that would later be proven untrue, he’d executed four men and a boy. At the time, he had been convinced they were a threat to himself and his men. It had been a mistake. It had all been in his mind.

  That was the simple truth. He knew that. And he knew that his options in life now were this cozy setup here, going on the run, or returning for court marshal and life in a military prison cell. He didn’t want to miscalculate or give in to paranoia. He didn’t want to ruin this gig the way he’d ruined his last.

  Trust your gut, he reminded himself. Calm the fuck down, get your head together and trust your gut.

  When the others filed out of the cottage, it was Acne Scars first, then Nice Suit. Behind him, the thick, wide-shouldered captive, his hands still bound in front of him. Finally, Mannish Little Woman stepped out and stared at Krane with suspicion.

  “Something wrong?” she said.

  Yeah, he thought. Something’s wrong. With you. With all of this.

  “Nope,” he said. “So, you want to put him in your car while I go grab the hard drive?”

  “Where is it?” Nice Suit said.

  “Still up in a secured room.”

  “I thought I was clear that it should be ready for us when we arrived.”

  “It is ready. I just have to fetch it.”

  A series of looks were exchanged between the three of them. Nice Suit peered off in the direction of the SUV and looked like he was weighing options. Then he looked at the estate house looming behind Krane.

  “We’ll all go together,” he said finally. “Lead the way, Mister Krane.”

  Krane lead them across the back lawn and up the deck. At the slider door, he tapped a sequence into the keypad on the wall beside it. The clack of mechanical locks releasing their grip sounded and Krane pulled the slider open.

  “Bulletproof glass?” Acne Scars said, looking the slider door up and down.

  “I can’t talk about security issues.”

  “Sure. But it is, isn’t it? Otherwise the fancy locks wouldn’t amount to shit.”

  Acne Scars put on a big smile to show he knew he was right, so Krane just shrugged and walked into the house. When everyone else was inside, he shut the slider and entered the code that locked the door down again.

  “You guys can wait in the library while I bring it down,” he said.

  “We’ll all go together,” Acne Scars answered.

  “I can’t let anyone into those rooms. They’re considered secure. I’m the only one allowed access.”

  Nice Suit pursed his lips and said, “We’re all on the same team here, Mister Krane. I’m sure our mutual employer would advise you let us dictate how best to proceed.”

  Krane shrugged his shoulders again and said, “You’re free to
call him. If you want, I can call him. If he says to break security protocol, then we all go up. If not, you all wait in the library while I fetch the hard drive.”

  He reached into his pocket and made a show of bringing out his phone. Nice Suit cleared his throat.

  “I don’t think either of us needs to alarm your employer,” he said. “Very well. Show us to this library and fetch the hard drive.”

  Krane put the phone back in his pocket and noted the dissatisfaction in the eyes of Acne Scars and Mannish Little Woman. If he’d had to guess, they looked like they thought Nice Suit had spoken out of turn.

  Even so, there was no more protest as Krane lead them down a short hall and into the first floor library. Nice Suit looked over the walls of books and idly sent a wooden stand-mounted globe of the world spinning with his finger.

  “Can I get anyone a drink? Lemonade?” Krane said.

  Nice Suit paced over to the desk and chair at the back of the room. Behind them, a floor-to-ceiling mirror hung on the wall. Nice Suit straightened his tie and stared at Krane’s reflection in the glass.

  “Time is of the essence, Mister Krane,” he said.

  “Uh-huh,” he answered and left them there.

  Once he was down the hall and around a corner, Krane shifted into a higher gear. He bounded up the stairs and raced through a series of turns until he was in the security closet and seated in front of the computer monitor. The hard drive was not there. That had been a lie. The drive that contained the encrypted message was down in the foyer near the front doors, ready to go.

  But Krane was not ready for it to go.

  He saw his captive in his mind’s eye again, saw the moment of recognition in the man as he glimpsed the three new arrivals for the first time. And not a peep from him since. No sneering insults or vulgar barbs. Just silence. Silence and a new accommodating attitude to the commands that Acne Scars had given him.

  Had the bastard suddenly grown an entirely different personality? Was the man who would not answer a single one of his questions, even when bound and beaten on the cottage floor, now suddenly transformed into someone compliant and agreeable?

  No. Not a chance. More than the hidden sidearms on Nice Suit’s minders, even more than the way his captive had seemed to recognize the people come to collect him, it was the man’s sudden docility that convinced Krane that he was a player in a game he did not yet understand.

  The remedy for that, he knew, was to learn who he was playing against.

  Hurriedly, Krane began typing on the keyboard. The cameras that covered the entirety of the property were his to direct and monitor. With a few keystrokes, he triggered the hidden camera concealed behind the library’s floor-to-ceiling mirror.

  Nice Suit appeared on the monitor. He had taken a seat behind the big antique desk. As Krane watched, Acne Scars helped his captive ease down into a chair near the window. Mannish Little Woman remained near the door to the hallway, her arms folded and her face set in the same stern mask she’d worn since getting out of the SUV.

  Acne Scars’s mouth moved.

  Krane touched another button and the microphone inside the library came to life, piping in the sounds of the room.

  Like that, he waited, watched and listened.

  * * *

  “I’m telling you, that’s Reggie. You don’t forget a face like that.”

  Theresa was behind the bar again, running a damp hand towel over its mahogany surface. Darren got out of the booth with the photo of James Klodd in his hand and walked over until he was across from her.

  “This is Reggie,” he repeated, holding up the child killer’s face and pointing at it.

  “I don’t know how many times you have to ask that, Fletcher.”

  “Until I understand what it is you’re telling me.”

  Theresa tossed the towel down and put her hands on her hips.

  “You know, I got plenty to worry about,” she snapped. “You’re supposed to be my best friend, Fletcher. And all you done is put up some money that we both know you’ll never miss even if it goes up in smoke. You and Izzy talk like this is some game you two like to play and I’m just some...some game piece on the board!”

  Darren watched her face redden as she barked at him. Theresa was not an emotionally demonstrative person. He’d never seen her on the verge of shouting, much less at him.

  “Hey,” he started to protest, but she barreled right over him.

  “It’s all been about you! Soon as you saw your brother had something to do with all this, the only thing you can think about is how bad this is for you. So you stole evidence from my case! You sent Izzy to do the court work! And now here you are in my home and all you want to carry on about is some weird little dude who came in here twice.” She bunched her hands into fists at her sides and shouted, “I’m going to prison, Darren! And you don’t even care!”

  Darren set the photo down and walked around behind the bar. She crossed her arms over her bosom as he closed on her. He wrapped his arms around her and felt her stiffen.

  “Let go of me, Fletcher.”

  “You’re not going to prison.”

  “Damn it. We are not doing this.”

  “Theresa, there is no future where you’re going to prison. Hey, look at me.”

  “I ain’t looking at you. You’re trying to do that stupid thing you do with Izzy when she’s mad at you.”

  “What thing?”

  “Where your voice gets soft and you say nice things. Hell with that. I ain’t looking at you.”

  “I sent Izzy to court because she’s better than me these days. She’s a better lawyer.”

  “Yeah? When did that happen?”

  “I don’t know. A while ago. Even when we opened our practice together, I couldn’t get the enthusiasm back for it. I thought maybe I would, but it never happened. You don’t want me making motions and dealing with the process. Not when we have Izzy.”

  She was silent for a while so he just kept holding her and wondering how he had allowed himself to become so myopic, so focused on the mystery of Gil Sharps, that he’d ignored the needs of the woman who had been there for him without question or recrimination when he’d fallen to pieces himself.

  “Say it again.”

  “What?” he said.

  “Say I ain’t going to prison.”

  “You aren’t. I promise you I won’t let that happen.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Yep.”

  “Great. Then get the hell off of me, already.”

  Darren let her go. Theresa wiped her nose with her sleeve and grimaced.

  “You’re an asshole, you know,” she muttered, but he could see the storm had abated.

  “I know.”

  Theresa took the dish towel in her hand again and resumed wiping the surface of the bar.

  “I only seen him twice,” she said as she worked. “First time was a couple weeks ago. He came in and sat at the bar and ordered a pop. Never said a word and was only here for maybe five minutes. Didn’t even finish his pop. I only remember him because of how weird he looked. Not like in that picture. His hair and his eyebrows are dyed a weird blond, like lemon sherbet. No beard. And his eyebrows were plucked like you wouldn’t believe.”

  Darren sat back down across from her at the bar and looked at the photo of James Klodd.

  “He’s here,” he whispered. “He never left.”

  “What’s that?”

  “I always assumed he fled to another state or even another country. But he’s here, isn’t he?”

  Theresa finished wiping down the bar and leaned on it across from him.

  “I dunno about that. But, yeah, he came back a second time. Three nights ago. It was late and I was gonna close up. But in he comes and I remember him right away. Sits down. Loo
ks all over the place with a big smile on his face. Like a kid in a candy store, except he ain’t ordering anything. I ask him what can I get him. He says his name’s Reggie and he sure does like my bar. I ask how come, like what’s he like about it. He says, “It seems like a place my kind of people would hang out.” I say do you want a Coke like last time and that kind of spooks him. I think he was surprised I remembered him—which is nuts, since nobody’s going to forget that guy once they get a look at him. Anyway, that spooked him and he says no and he forgot something in his car and he’ll be right back. He hustled on out and that was it. Never saw him again. What do you think it means, him coming here and him being in that folder?”

  Darren heard the words escape his lips, even if he couldn’t truly feel their truth yet: “It means my brother is connected to James Klodd.”

  “How’s that possible?”

  He stood up, retrieved the file folder from the booth, and laid it out in front of her. There were several pages inside and he spread them out over the bar.

  “This is all case history,” he said. “From the Shoshanna Green kidnapping. Police reports, court records, news clippings. Klodd is calling himself Reggie now and he came here. To my bar.”

  “Um...”

  “To the bar I frequent,” he amended. “And then three nights later Gil Sharps tries to break in and winds up dead.”

  He ran that series of facts through his head, over and over, trying to fit them into an arrangement that didn’t raise even more questions. It didn’t work. He couldn’t fathom what it all meant, only knew that the answer was sure to be awful.

  “Anything interesting on that laptop?” Theresa said and nodded toward the suitcase.

  “It’s password protected. I’ll have to pay someone to get past that.”

  Theresa turned away while he brooded over all the things he did not know. When she turned back around she slid a drink in front of him.

  “I don’t want that.”

  “You sure?”

  Instead of answering, Darren reached into his pocket and brought out his phone. He thumbed through his contacts until his screen read, LUTHER.