“You stallin’ me, Bobby? You got the Feds there? You tryin’ to get a fix on my phone?”
“You said I couldn’t trace your phone even if I wanted to.”
“That’s right. And guess what? I got a new phone, new car, new freeway.”
“You’re very clever.”
“Cleverer than you know, Bobby. Ain’t gonna fuck with me this time.”
This time, my inner voice repeated.
Harry was standing next to me. He whispered in my ear. “This asshole sure talks a lot.”
“He’s overconfident,” I said.
Harry shook his head. “Just the opposite.”
“You got the money?” the kidnapper asked.
“Not yet,” Bobby said into the speaker.
“Not yet?”
“It’ll take some time.”
“Fuckin’ McKenzie came through, though, didn’t he? Didn’t he?”
“Yes.”
The kidnapper seemed relieved. “Knew he would,” he said. “Knew he would cough it up, McKenzie, fuck. Bet you didn’t have to ask ’im twice, neither. Man do anything for a friend. Is he there? Bet he’s there. Let me talk to him.”
“You’re talking to me.”
“I talk to who I want. I’m makin’ the rules here. You want me to prove it, Bobby? Huh? You want me to do somethin’ to prove it?”
“No.”
Honsa caught Bobby’s eye and gestured with his head toward me. Bobby nodded and gave me the receiver.
“Who’s calling, please?” I asked.
A laugh.
“Who’s callin’, please. Fuck, McKenzie, you are such a comedian.”
“A joke a minute,” I said.
“Yeah, you’re a joke, all right.”
“Okay, now you’re just being mean.”
“You wanna see mean? I’ll show you mean on that little girl.”
I didn’t respond.
“You still there, McKenzie?”
“I’m here.”
“Not so funny, now, are ya?”
“No.”
“Ain’t havin’ no fun at all, are ya? You were a big one for havin’ fun, too. Used to say it all the time. ‘Let’s have some fun, guys.’ ”
Bobby’s eyes grew wide and an expression of complete astonishment transfixed his face. He knows, my inner voice told me. He knows!
“Times have changed,” I said.
“Yes, they have. You got the money ready?”
Honsa held up a piece of notepaper on which he had written a single word: Time.
“It’ll take a while,” I said. “I have to wait until the markets open in the morning before I can liquidate my investments and transfer the proceeds into a money market account…”
“Liquidate some investments, transfer proceeds—you changed, man.”
“Have I?”
“I remember when… Ahh, never mind.”
“Maybe later,” I said.
“Maybe never. I ain’t your friend no more, McKenzie. You or Bobby.”
“I was thinking that myself,” I said aloud, even as my inner voice asked, Is he daring us to guess who he is?
“I want the money in cash,” the kidnapper said. “Old bills. Nonsequential serial numbers. Twenty-five thousand twenties, ten thousand fifties. Got it?”
“It’s going to take—”
“I don’t care how long it takes. Only you gotta know, the longer it takes, the longer we keep the girl. Got it?”
“We” again.
“Got it.”
He hung up.
I looked at the tech agent. He was holding both hands over the headphones covering his ears.
“We couldn’t get a fix this time,” he said. He squinted, opened his eyes, and removed the headphones. “He could have been using a Trac-Fone or some other prepaid cell phone that’s not traceable.”
“No, no, no.” Bobby had the Central High School yearbook open and was furiously turning pages until he found the one he wanted in the seniors’ gallery. “Yes.”
He stabbed a photo hard with his finger.
I looked over his shoulder. First photo from the right, third from the top.
“You got him?” asked Honsa. “You know who he is?”
“Scottie Thomforde,” Bobby said. “First we get Victoria back…”
“Later, we’ll kill him,” I said. “Later, we’ll kill them all.”
3
Agent Honsa pretended he didn’t hear the threat. Instead, he propped his forearms on the back of a chair and leaned toward us, studying first me and then Bobby with cool professionalism. I guessed that he had heard threats like mine before and was deciding how seriously to take it.
“Who is Thomforde?” he said. “What is your relationship?”
“Scottie Thomforde is from the neighborhood,” Bobby said. “He grew up six, seven blocks from here. Near Aldine. His mother still lives there.”
“Aldine is a city park,” I said. “Sometimes we had ball games up there. Scottie played with us.”
“That’s how I connected the dots,” Bobby said. “When he said, ‘Let’s have some fun, guys.’ We used to say that just before we went out onto the field. ‘Let’s have some fun out there.’ ”
“I used to say it,” I said.
“What happened to him?” Honsa asked.
“He quit,” I said.
