The Pardon js-1

by James Grippando

  “What’s this angel crap?” Rebecca groused from across the room, startling him. She’d been standing in the doorway, listening.

  He gave her a quick once-over. She was wearing very short blue-jean cutoffs, a loose tank top, no shoes, no bra, and no makeup. She had the deep suntan of a woman who worked nights, yet her skin didn’t look all that healthy.

  “Something a whore like you wouldn’t know anything about,” he snarled.

  “Right,” she said indignantly, then walked across the room to the ice chest and grabbed a Coke. “If she’s such an angel, then why you got her under the floorboards? Huh?”

  His expression went cold. “She’s alive, isn’t she? And you know why she’s alive?”

  “Because she’s no good to you dead.”

  “No,” he spat, “because I’ve been watching her for months. Because I know she’s not a slut like her girlfriend-or like you and all the other cock-suckers who dance on tables.”

  Rebecca leaned against the wall, shifting her weight nervously. She was afraid but tried not to show it. “Listen, I don’t know what your problem is. If anyone should be complaining, it’s me. I said I’d make the phone call, and I did. I called the bitch. You paid me the six thousand dollars, and that’s fine. But you didn’t tell me I was going to have to come all the way to Key West with you to collect the rest of my stinking twenty-five grand. You didn’t tell me we were going to have Sleeping Beauty in the back of the van. And you sure as hell didn’t tell me we’d have to hole up in this dump, or in this other place you’re bringing us to. So maybe I deserve a little more. Or maybe I walk out right now.”

  He glared at her. “You’d do anything for money. Wouldn’t you, Rebecca.”

  “Oh,” she said, “and you’re not doing this for the money.”

  “I’m doing this for Raul! Because Raul was fucking innocent!”

  Beneath the floorboards, Cindy shuddered with fear. She could overhear everything, and the tone in the man’s voice made her wish she was still unconscious.

  Inwardly, Rebecca also trembled at his tone. “Just cool your jets,” she said, feeling a lump rising in her throat. “I just want my fair share, all right?”

  Esteban stepped toward her slowly, looking as though he were deliberating. He reached into his pocket. “You’ll get your share,” he assured. “But you gotta earn it. Here,” he said as he crumpled up a twenty and threw it at her. He stopped a foot away from her and stared into her eyes. “Here’s twenty bucks, bitch. Do it.”

  Rebecca stepped back in fear, her back to the wall. “Do yourself.”

  He slapped her across the face. “Do me.”

  She tried to slide away, but he grabbed her by the wrist and squeezed hard. “Do it.”

  She was about to scream, but was silenced by the look in his eyes. She had been in bad situations before. Men who pulled knives on her. Men who urinated on her. She was street-wise enough to sense whether a scream would make him stop or make him snap. This time, she didn’t dare scream.

  Rebecca lowered herself onto her knees, her hands shaking as she unzipped his pants. His head rolled back and he moaned with pleasure. She worked fast and furiously to finish the job as quickly as she could. “Quickies” were her trade, with hundreds or maybe even thousands of them under her belt. But she didn’t swallow for any of her customers, for fear of the deadly virus. She heard Esteban groan, signaling that he was near. She prepared to pull away, but this time the routine was different. She felt his hand clasp the back of her neck, pressing her head down further, forcing her to take in much more than she could. His groaning grew louder. She gagged. He was in so deep she was unable to breathe. She tried to back off, but he forced even harder. She needed out. So she bit him.

  Esteban smacked her across the head, knocking her to the floor. “Watch the flicking teeth!”

  Rebecca gasped for air, looking up in fear. “I couldn’t breathe!”

  He grabbed her by the hair, jerking her head back. “That’s the least of your problems,” he said, his eyes two vacuous pools.

  Beneath the floor, Cindy began to shake uncontrollably. She closed her eyes tightly to shut off the tears, but no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t shut her ears.

  “I got plans for you, Rebecca,” Cindy heard him say-and the laugh that followed chilled her to the bone.

  Chapter 50

  Kimmell, Jack, and Harry spent the rest of that Saturday going over everything-main plans, backup plans, contingency backup plans. Each plan revolved around the same basic triangle. Jack and his father would be out in the field, following the kidnapper’s instructions. Kimmell would remain in the hotel suite, a kind of central command station operator who could be reached by phone or beeper in case of emergency.

  By 10:00 p.m. they’d about reached the point of information overload. They ordered room service and ate dinner in total silence, save for an occasional happy scream or blast of fireworks from the burgeoning Halloween crowd on nearby Duval Street. The increasing level of noise was a steady reminder that the midnight phone call was just two hours away.

  When he finished eating, Kimmell tossed his napkin to his plate and rose from the table. On average, he smoked two, maybe three cigarettes an entire year. Already tonight he’d exceeded his annual quota. He grabbed the ashtray and retreated to the adjoining room to take another look at the photographs and notes sent by the kidnapper, as if by absorbing all available information he could get into his mind.

  Jack and Harry sat across from each other at the dining table. The governor watched as Jack picked at his food.

  “I’m sorry, Jack,” he said sincerely.

  Jack wasn’t sure what he meant. “We both are. I just pray we get Cindy back. Then there’ll be nothing for anyone to be sorry about.”

  “I pray we get her back, too. No question-that’s the most important thing. But there’s something else I’m sorry about,” he said with a pained expression. “It has to do with pushing a kid too hard when he was already doing his best-and then pushing him away when his best wasn’t good enough. I mean, hell, Jack, sometimes I look back on it and think that if you’d been Michelangelo, I probably would have walked into the Sistine Chapel and said something like, ‘Okay, son, now what about the walls?’” He smiled briefly, then turned serious again. “I guess when your mother died I just wanted you to be perfect. That’s no excuse, though. I’m truly sorry for the pain I’ve caused you. I’ve been sorry for a long time. And it’s time I told you.”

  Jack struggled for the right words. “You know”-his voice quivered with emotion-“in the last two days, the only thing I’ve been able to think about besides the kidnapping is how to thank you for what you did at the trial.”

  “You can thank me by accepting my apology,” Harry said with a warm smile.

  Jack’s heart swelled. Of course he’d accept it; he felt like he should be the one to apologize. So he expressed it another way. “You’re gonna love Cindy when you get to know her.”

  The governor’s eyes were suddenly moist. “I know I will.”

  “Hey,” said Kimmell as he entered the room, “time to get dressed.”

  Jack and his father looked at each other with confidence. There was strength in unity. “Let’s do it,” said Jack. The governor gave a quick nod of agreement, and they marched off to the adjoining room, where Kimmell helped them get ready. Both wore dark clothing, in case they had to hide. Sneakers, in case they had to run. And both wore the Kevlar vests Kimmell had brought them, in case they couldn’t hide or run fast enough.

  “What’s that?” Jack asked as Kimmell wired a battery to his vest.

  “It’s a tracking device,” he answered. “The transmitter sends out a one-watt signal. It’s on intermittent-duty cycle, so it’ll be easy for me to recognize your signal-and the battery will last longer, too, just in case this takes longer than we think. Any time I need a location on you, I can do it in an instant from my audio-visual indicator here in the room.”

  Kimmell w
ent ahead and rigged the antenna and was tucking the pistol into Jack’s holster when the portable phone rang.

  It was exactly midnight.

  Jack took a deep breath, then reached for the phone. Kimmell stopped him.

  “Be cooperative,” Kimmell reminded him, “but insist on hearing Cindy’s voice.”

  He nodded, then switched on the receiver. “Hello,” he answered.

  “Ready to trick or treat, Swyteck?”

  Be cooperative, Jack reminded himself. “We’ve got the money. Tell us how you want to do the exchange.”

  “Ah, the exchange,” Esteban said wistfully. “You know, no kidnapper in the history of the world has ever really figured out the problem of the exchange. It’s that one moment where so many things can go wrong. And if just one little thing goes wrong, then everything goes wrong. Do you understand me, Swyteck?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good. Here’s the plan. I’m splitting you up. Your father will deliver the money to me in a public place. You’ll pick up the girl in a private place. Brilliant, isn’t it?”

  “What do you want us to do?”

  “Tell your father to take the money to Warehouse E off Mallory Square and wait outside by the pay phone. When I’m ready for the money, I’ll come by in costume. Believe me, he’ll recognize me.”

  “What about Cindy? How do I get her?”

  “When we hang up, take the portable phone with you and start walking south on Simonton Street away from your hotel. Just keep walking until I call you. I’ll direct you right to her. And so long as your father hands over the money, I’ll direct you to her in time.”

  “What do you mean in time?” Jack asked.

  “What do you think I mean?”

  “I need to speak to Cindy,” he said firmly. “I need to know that she’s all right.”

  The line went silent. Ten long seconds passed. Then twenty. Jack thought maybe he had hung up. But he hadn’t.

  “Ja-ack,” Cindy’s voice cracked.

  “Cindy!”

  “Please, Jack. Just do what he says.”

  “That’s all,” said Esteban. “If you want to hear more, you gotta play by my rules. No games, no cops, nobody gets hurt. Start walking, Swyteck.” The line went dead.

  Jack breathed a heavy sigh. “No fear,” he added, speaking only to himself.

  Chapter 51

  After some last-minute advice from Kimmell, Jack and his father told each other to be careful. Then they left the hotel and headed in separate directions. The governor went west toward Mallory Square, an assortment of big, wide piers that had once been a waterfront auction block for wine, silks, and other ship salvage hauled in by nineteenth-century wreckers. During Fantasy Fest, the square was more or less a breaker between the insanity on Duval Street and the peaceful Gulf of Mexico. Jack walked south on Simonton, a residential street that ran parallel to Duval. The neighborhood was a slice of wealthy old Key West, with white picket fences and one multistory Victorian house after another, many of them built for nineteenth-century sailors, sponge merchants, and treasure hunters, many of them now bed-and-breakfasts.

  He walked two blocks very quickly, then slowed down, realizing that he had no official destination. The Flintstones danced by on their way to the festival, singing their theme song. Others in costume streamed by on foot or on motor scooter, since cars were useless during Fantasy Fest.

  Jack’s portable phone rang, startling him. “Yes,” he answered.

  “Turn left at Caroline Street,” said Esteban, “and stay on the phone. Tell me when you hit each intersection.”

  Jack crossed Simonton and headed east on Caroline Street. The noise from Duval was beginning to fade, and he saw fewer pedestrians on their way to the party. It was darker, too, since there were fewer street lamps, and the thick, leafy canopy blocked out the moonlight. The sidewalk was cracked and buckled from overgrown tree roots. Palm trees and sprawling oaks rustled in the cool, steady breeze. Majestic old wooden houses with two-story porches and gingerbread detail seemed to creak as the wind blew. Jack just kept walking.

  “This is not about your girlfriend,” said the voice over the phone.

  Jack exhaled. The phone obviously was not just for directions. “I’m at Elizabeth Street.”

  “Keep going,” said Esteban, and then he immediately picked up his thought. “This is all about Raul Fernandez. You know that, don’t you?”

  Jack kept walking. He didn’t want to agitate, but after two years of wondering, he had to keep him talking. “Tell me about Raul.”

  “You know the most important thing already.” His tone was forceful but not argumentative. “It wasn’t Raul’s idea to kill that girl.”

  “Tell me about him, though.”

  There was silence on the line-one of those long, pivotal silences Jack had heard so many times when interviewing clients, after which the flow of information would either completely shut down or never shut off. He heard the man clear his throat. “Raul had been in prison in Cuba for nine years before we came over on the boat. And after nine years in jail, what do you think he wanted most when he got to Miami?”

  Jack hesitated. The story about the boat fit Kimmel’s theory that the kidnapper was Esteban. But he wasn’t sure whether this was meant to be a monologue or a dialogue. “You tell me.”

  “A whore, you dumb shit. And he was willing to pay for it. But there are so many whores out there who just won’t admit what they are. Just pick one, I told him. He did, but he still needed encouragement. So I went with him, to show him how easy it was.”

  “You and Fernandez did it together?”

  “Raul didn’t kill anyone. The knife was just to scare her. But the stupid bitch panicked and pulled off his mask. Even then, Raul still didn’t want to kill her. I was saving his ass by doing it. So how do you think it felt when he was the one arrested for murder? I did everything I could to keep him from getting the chair. I even confessed! But you didn’t do your part, Swyteck. The governor, the man who could stop it all, was your father, and you did nothing.”

  Jack resisted the temptation to educate the kidnapper, but he felt a certain vindication-not for himself, but for his father. Since the murder had begun as a rape or attempted rape by Raul Fernandez, Fernandez was as guilty as the man who had slit her throat. By law, anyone who committed a felony that brought about an unintended death was guilty of murder, even if the murder was committed by an accomplice. It was called “felony murder.” It was a capital crime. And most important, it meant that his father had not executed an innocent man after all.

  “So you and Raul were prison buddies. Is that it?”

  “Prison buddies,” he said with disdain. “What do you think-we were a couple of fags, or something? Raul was my brother, you son of bitch. You fucking killed my little brother.”

  Jack took a deep breath. It didn’t seem possible, but the stakes had suddenly risen. “I’m approaching William Street.”

  “Stop now. Face south. Do you see it?”

  “See what?”

  “The house on the corner.”

  Jack peered through the wrought-iron fence toward a stately old Queen Anne-style Victorian mansion that was nearly hidden from view by thick tropical foliage and royal poinciana trees. It was a three-story white frame house with a widow’s walk and a spacious sitting porch out front, due for a paint job but otherwise in good repair. Blue shutters framed the windows, purely for decoration. But the windows themselves and even the doors were covered with corrugated aluminum storm shutters-the kind that winter residents installed to protect their property during the June-to-November hurricane season.

  “I see it,” said Jack. “It’s storm-proofed.”

  “Yes,” replied the voice on the other end of the line. “But your girlfriend’s inside. And she’s not coming out. You have to go in and get her. And don’t even think about calling the police to go in and get her for you. It’s a big old house, and she’s very well hidden. Maybe she’s in the attic. Maybe she’s
under the floorboards. The only way you’ll find her alive is if you stay on the phone and listen to me. I’ll direct you right to her. But you have to move fast, Swyteck. I fed her arsenic exactly five minutes ago.”

  “You bastard! You said you wouldn’t hurt her!”

  “I didn’t hurt her,” he said sharply. “The only one who can hurt her is you. You’ll kill her, unless you do as I say. She can last twenty minutes without an antidote. The sooner you find her, the sooner you can call the paramedics. The back door is open. I took the storm shutters off. So go get her, Jacky Boy. And stay on that phone.”

  Jack felt anger, fear, and a flood of other emotions, but he realized he had no time to consider his options. He yanked open the squeaky iron gate, sprinted up the brick driveway, and leaped over a three-foot hedge on his way to the back door-the only way into the desolate Key West mansion.

  Chapter 52

  Harold Swyteck was pacing nervously outside the waterfront warehouse where he’d been instructed to deliver the ransom. He was alone, but the noise from the nearby festival made it sound like he was in the Orange Bowl on New Year’s night. He was as close as he could be to the madness on Duval Street and still be in relative seclusion. Occasionally someone in costume passed by, coming or going to the dimly lit parking lot behind the old warehouse to have sex, take a leak, or smoke a joint.