Part 28 (1/2)
”We know we can't trust you.” She picked her words carefully. ”We also know that you offered a deal this morning that you have since welched on. I didn't agree with the deal at the time but ”
”I haven't welched on any deal. What the f.u.c.k are you talking about?”
”Francis told me about your phone call, Mr Rigby. We know how much you want. We're simply not prepared to pay it.” She made a throwaway gesture with her hand that could have meant anything and nothing at all. ”The fact remains that you cannot be trusted. So, this time, we do things my way.”
”It must have been Galway made that call. He's f.u.c.king with you.”
She wasn't listening. She dropped her cigarette, stubbed it out with a delicate size three.
”Where is it?”
”Where's what?”
”The camera, Mr Rigby. The camera.”
”I don't have it.”
”Who has it?”
”No one has it.”
”You won't give us the camera?”
”I don't have it.”
She stood up, moved across to Katie, untied her hands. Katie rubbed at her wrists, trying to get the circulation back into her fingers. The Ice Queen helped her, taking Katie's left wrist, rubbing the back of the hand.
”Nice hands,” she said, thoughtful. ”I used to have hands like that. Soft and smooth.” She picked out a finger, the second smallest on Katie's left hand. ”There should be a ring on that finger,” she said. Then she snapped it.
The piercing scream went through me for a shortcut. I started forward but a blow from behind brought me to my senses, eventually, face down in the dust. The pro dragged me to my feet again, quicker this time, getting better with practice. He touched the gun against the back of my thigh.
”Next time, I'll blow your f.u.c.king knee out.”
The bone in Katie's finger was sticking out at a ninety-degree angle to the second joint. She was sobbing hard, moaning some word I couldn't understand, pawing at Helen Conway's arm. The Ice Queen stroked the back of Katie's hand, making it impossible for her to pull it away without causing herself unimaginable pain.
”I'm not accustomed to torture, Mr Rigby,” she said. I could hardly hear her over the drone of Katie's sobbing. ”But I do know this is not torture. Every time I break a bone, the agony subsides to a level that can be tolerated. Even now, Katie's body has forgotten the intensity of the pain, because our bodies have no physical recollection process. All that is left is the fear that it will happen again, and fear can be conquered.”
”I've told you ”
”Ideally, torture should involve the gradual increase of pain, to the point that the victim will do anything to be released. This isn't ideal, but...”
She checked her watch.
”We've been here five minutes already. For each minute we are here from now, I will break another finger. Every time I hear a wrong answer, I will break another finger. Now where is it?”
”I don't ”
Crack.
”Jesus Christ!”
Crack. Tony Sheridan studied the floor.
”I don't f.u.c.king have ”
Crack.
Katie's howls were coming in waves, from somewhere deep inside, somewhere where her survival instincts still held sway.
”You stupid b.i.t.c.h!” I was raving, waving my arms like a loon. The pro's gun bored into the back of my thigh. ”I don't f.u.c.king have it here!”
She finally got the message. By then Katie's hand was a swollen, shapeless lump. The fingers stuck out at odd angles. Her sobs were the dry heaves of an agony I couldn't begin to imagine. Helen Conway said: ”Where is it?”
”It's in the car! Jesus Christ...”
She stared, cool.
”I do believe,” she said, ”that we have over-estimated Mr Rigby.” Tony Sheridan looked up for the first time, his glum expression giving way to grim satisfaction, a look that made me sick to my stomach. Machiavelli wasn't a patch on Tony Sheridan. ”And where is the car?”
”Outside. It's outside.”
”It's outside,” she repeated. ”The camera is in the car, which is outside, and you didn't bring it with you? My G.o.d, we have been guilty of over-estimating you. You're not very bright at all, Mr Rigby, are you? Are you sure Eddie is your brother?”
She nodded at the pro. He marched me out the door, down the stairs across the foyer. When we got to the front door he said: ”Where's the car?”
”Across the street.”
He grunted.
”You got that much right, anyway.”
Then he turned me around to face him. He held up the gun, in case I'd forgotten about it, then he slipped his hand into his pocket. The barrel bulged against the fabric. He looked like Bogie spoofing on Edward G. Robinson. I didn't laugh.
”Don't try anything stupid.”
”No worries. I'm all out of stupid.”
”Says you.”
We crossed the deserted street to the car, crunching snow. I slid in behind the steering wheel, leaned across the handbrake, pulling down the door of the glove compartment. Cursing myself as I pawed through the envelopes, sweet wrappers and empty water bottles. Plan A couldn't have fallen apart quicker if I'd poured battery acid on it, and I was under no illusions that Helen Conway was letting us walk away from the projection room. We weren't walking away, we weren't crawling away and we weren't going be carried out on stretchers. The only way we were leaving the projection room was in body bags.
The Ice Queen had overestimated me, and I'd returned the favour by underestimating her and Tony Sheridan. Even after the machine gun on the bridge, I still thought they'd have played by the rules. They were playing by one rule, though, and that rule was, there were no rules. I should have listened to Dutchie. Even knowing that Dutchie had sold me out especially knowing that Dutchie had sold me out I should have listened to him, heard what he was trying to say. 'What's Plan B?' Dutchie wanted to know.
”Come on, for f.u.c.ks sakes,” the pro growled. He bent down to see what the delay was and my hand closed on the worn b.u.t.t of a stubby Plan B.
I didn't stop to think. The last thirty-six hours I'd tried to plan, working it out step by step. Getting Denise and Ben to safety, confronting Big Frank, leading Brady a merry dance while he chased me the length and breadth of the country. And all that planning had walked me into a death trap, because the only issue in doubt if I handed over the camera was who would put the bullet in the back of my head.
I started to back out of the car. The pro took a step back to let me out and he should have taken two, because by then I was in his face, inside his reach, the .38 grinding into his throat, my arm around his neck, pulling him onto the barrel.