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“Then she’ll just have to tell us herself.” The big man turns back to me. “Who do you work for?”
“What? No one. I’m just a—”
“Which agency?”
Agency?Slowly it’s starting to sink in. They think I’m someone else. Or something other than what I am, a housewife.
“Where are you people hiding her?”
If I tell them the truth, that I have no idea, then I’m worthless to them. As long as they think I know something valuable, they’ll let me live. They may break my bones and yank out my fingernails but they won’t kill me. Which is good news, I suppose.
I don’t see the blow coming. He hits me so fast, so unexpectedly, that I have no chance to brace myself. His fist thuds into mycheek and I stagger sideways, lights exploding in my head. When I’m able to focus again, I see him looming over me, his lip curled in a sneer.
“Aren’t you too old for this business, lady?” he says.
“Aren’t you?” The words are out of my mouth before I can stop myself and I cringe as his hand comes up to deliver another blow. Then he stops, lowers his fist.
“Maybe we got off on the wrong foot,” he says. He grabs my hand and hauls me back to my feet. “You know, a little cooperation on your part will make things a lot easier. It may even be worth your while, in a monetary sense. I can’t imagine retirement on a government salary is anything to crow about.”
Gingerly I touch my cheek where he hit me. There’s no blood but I can feel the tissues already ballooning up. I’m going to have a hell of a shiner. If I live long enough.
“Tell me where you moved Nina,” he says.
We’re back to this mysterious Nina again. I can’t let him know that I have no idea who she is. I have to bluff my way through this.
“Nina doesn’t want to be found,” I say.
“Tell me something I don’t know.”
“She’s terrified, in fact.”
“She ought to be. I expect loyalty from my employees and talking to the feds is theheightof disloyalty.” He glances at the men standing beside him. “Theyunderstand.”
“But Nina didn’t.”
“She’ll never make it to that courtroom. No matter how many times you people move her, I’m gonna find her. But you know, it does get wearisome.” His voice softens, becomes friendly, almost intimate. “Devoting so many of my resources to tracking down the bitch. This time it took me four entire weeks to track her down. Forced me to call in a favor from Revere PD.”
Four weeks.It all becomes clear. Four weeks ago was when the Greens moved into the house across the street. The Greens, who kept their window blinds closed and their garage door shut. Who never said boo to me. I think of the nervous woman who called herself Carrie Green, but that’s not her real name.
It’s Nina, and clearly she knows enough to send this man to prison. If he doesn’t kill her first.
“Let’s make this nice and easy,” the man says, once again leaning in, his voice low and coaxing. “You help me, I help you.”
“And if I don’t?”
He glances at his men. “What do you think, boys? Bury her alive? Trash compactor?”
A bullet in the head is starting to sound good.
He turns back to me. “Let’s try this again. Tell me where you’ve got her and I’ll let you live. I might even keep you on retainer. I could use another set of eyes and ears on the inside. Who did you say you work for?”
“She didn’t say,” the van driver says. “But I could smell a cop. The way she spoke to me. The way she came at me, like she fucking owned the street.”
And that was my mistake, thinking that I’m a genuine action hero when really, I’m just a housewife in Revere. It’s too bad I was so convincing. Now I’m going to die because I have no idea where Nina/Carrie is.
But they don’t have to know that.
“Let me guess. FBI?” the big man asks me.
