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The man was wearing blue tiger-striped silk boxer shorts and a T-shirt that said i’m a hacker, but i didn’t screw up democracy. He trembled like a frightened Chihuahua.
Alice said, “Are you Oscar?”
He nodded nervously. His long curls swayed in the air. Sweat beaded on his gaunt face.
“Where’s Jennifer?”
He paused for a moment and said, “I don’t know any Jennifer.”
Janos whacked him on the side of the head with his gun. He stood over the fallen computer nerd and looked down at him. “The next time I use the gun, it won’t be to hit you.”
Alice kept a very calm tone. “Tell us where Jennifer is right now and you can go about your business. I promise we’re not going to hurt her.”
Oscar rubbed the side of his head, then looked at the blood on his fingers. “I haven’t seen her in a couple of days. We’re just roommates. She lives her life and I live mine.”
Janos said, “It’s going to be a lot tougher to live your life if we don’t find out where Jennifer Chang is right now.” He carefully placed the barrel of the gun on Oscar’s forehead. He let that sink in for a moment.
Oscar’s eyes looked up at the gun and Janos standing behind it.
Alice truly didn’t know what Janos was going to do. From a professional cost-benefit analysis, it didn’t matter. If Oscar wouldn’t tell them where Jennifer was, his death meant little to her.
Oscar still didn’t say a word.
Janos pulled the hammer of the pistol back.
Oscar swallowed hard and his whole body started to shake.
CHAPTER 30
ALICE WATCHED SILENTLY as Janos kept the gun to the computer geek’s head. Frankly, she’d seen her partner do something similar so many times it barely rated her interest. Once, while collecting a debt for a Marseille loan shark, she had watched Janos torture a man until he revealed the target’s location. If she could sit through fingers being severed, watching this thin man beg for his life wasn’t a big deal.
Janos very calmly said, “Tell us where we can find Jennifer. Then we’ll be out of your hair. She won’t even be upset you told us. We have a job offer for her.”
Oscar continued to tremble. But Alice saw something else. He was making a calculation. He was justifying telling them where the girl was.
Alice gestured to catch Janos’s attention. She motioned for him to wait.
He just stood there with the pistol in his hand.
After more than thirty seconds, Oscar blubbered, “Okay, okay. I’ll talk to you. Just please, please take the gun away.”
Janos looked at Alice. She nodded and he lowered the gun. They both had to help the terrified man off the floor. They hefted him from under his arms, and she was surprised a skinny computer nerd could feel so heavy.
They tossed him into his rolling chair in front of a gigantic computer monitor. The screen was broken up into eight squares. Each square corresponded to a camera. She recognized the one at the front door and a second one in the hallway.
One of them showed a shower. She caught a glimpse of someone walking past the camera.
Alice said to Oscar, “Where are all your cameras located?”
He gave her a sly smile. The kind only computer-literate people give to people with less experience.
She cut her eyes to Janos. He immediately placed the barrel of the gun to Oscar’s temple. That straightened out his attitude.
He spoke quickly. “They cover all sorts of places. Security here in the building. I have one in the warehouse and at the front door just so I know what’s going on. The one in the shower is for my boyfriend, Hector.”
Alice said, “Why does Hector get special attention?”
“I make sure he showers alone. And I like to watch him shower.”
