The Trust (31 page)

“Oh, right. Are they involved?”

“Jake left the Agency years ago.”

I was in no mood to fool around. “Is JoJo okay?”

“I hope so.” Ricardo turned around and headed back to the cockpit.

Which was fine with me. I was sick of him and all the enigma crap. I was sick of planes, boats, and limos, the running around and chasing after JoJo. I had no idea where Ricardo was taking us, or how I would get Palmer’s wife back without my passport.

My eyelids felt like anchors. My head begin to pound. At the time, I blamed the cabin fumes and lack of sleep for the way I felt. Unable to concentrate. Coordination falling slack. It was all I could do to keep from dropping my jug of water. Something was wrong. Way wrong. And that’s the thing. Nobody’s ever slipped me nitrobenzodiazepine before.

You may know it as a “roofie.”

*   *   *

I blinked awake.

The Grumman’s salt-pitted windows turned sunlight into confetti throughout the cabin. My vision was blurry, my mind groggy. The world was taking its damn sweet time coming into focus. We had stopped. The propellers whirred much slower now. And the plane was rocking to the gentle surf underneath. Somewhere in the distance a lone seagull squawked, its caustic cry unmistakable over the white noise of engine hum. I tried to turn toward the sound.

But nothing happened.

My head ached. Not inside the brain. The pain came from outside. It came from skin against skull, from stinging and squeezing, from stretching that made my eyes water.

“Brief” does not coexist with agony. Every second is infinite. Every breath is a paroxysm of suffering and regret.

For a moment, I imagined there was a twenty-gallon aquarium around my head. That my tears were home to bloodfin and discus, maybe a pencilfish or two. That my brow would split any second, that my ears were being ripped off in slow motion.

“Comfortable?” I knew that turd of a voice. It was Ricardo’s.

I couldn’t respond. My lower jaw throbbed. It was cramping, muscle spasms that started at the base of my neck and lurched their way up through my cheeks. Something was on my face and in my mouth, something that didn’t belong anywhere near my teeth and gums.

My throat was dry. Parched. I wanted water, lots of water, anything to wash away the taste of sewer. Anything to get the crap out of my mouth. I tried to raise my hands. I just wanted to rip at my forehead, my ears, my neck, at whatever was holding me back. But my arms wouldn’t budge. Not one inch.

I rolled my eyes down in their sockets, trying to spot what was holding me back. But the angle of my head made it impossible to see over the swell of my cheek. I strained, my thoughts racing, my horror mounting. Ricardo lorded it over me, grinning, savoring his handiwork.

Who the fuck is this guy?

“Amazing what duct tape does.” He picked an incisor with the fingernail of his forefinger. “When I was a kid, we used it to build sets all the time.”

I understood everything. I understood nothing.

He had turned me into a mummy with an open mouth. There was duct tape on my forehead, over my ears, and inside my mouth. I could feel the binding under my armpits and around my back. It chafed against my shirt, scratched at my skin. It felt like Ricardo had plastic-wrapped my face and upper torso to the seat. I just wanted to tear the tape off.

But couldn’t.

“Now that I have your attention,” he said, “let’s set some ground rules. Blink twice to show me you understand.”

I tried to kick him in the gonads. My legs didn’t budge. Nothing.

“There, there,” he said. “Blink twice for me.”

Despite the circumstance, I glared my best fuck-you into his eyes. Bad decision.

“Maybe you need a little help cooperating.” Ricardo reached into his blue canvas bag, the one he had been carrying since the beginning of the trip. “See this stuff?”

He brandished an aerosol can of Great Stuff, infomercial style, so I could view the label and long straw at the end. I refused to blink.

“Foam insulation,” he explained. “You should see the way this shit expands. They tell me up to fifty times. Now would be a good time to blink twice.”

I scowled.

“Suit yourself.”

Ricardo touched the straw to the tip of my nose. I closed my eyes tight, trying to insulate them from the errant splatters of foam. He said nothing. The engines stopped. Silence oozed through the cabin, unctuous and foreboding. Then came the whoosh of aerosol. My nose felt sticky. And when I finally opened my eyes there was a small, misshapen ball of hard foam clinging to me. It was yellowish, disgusting to my skin.

“What we got here … is failure to communicate,” he said, quoting the warden from
Cool Hand Luke
. “Now would be a good time to blink twice,” he repeated.

Nothing from me.

Ricardo raised his eyebrows, surprised by my resistance. “Maybe it’s time you understand the product benefits.” He pushed the Great Stuff straw against my tonsils. “Take Father Mike. He asked my accountants one question too many. Spooked everybody. There was a draft coming from his mouth. You know what I’m saying?”

I gagged. My stomach was climbing my throat.

“Whoa, Bong. What do we got here?” Captain Jake had joined Ricardo. They were two cats, toying with their cornered prey.

“The thing about this insulation,” Ricardo continued, “it keeps everything outside. Heat. Cold. Oxygen. But every space is different. And I can’t figure out whether you’re a one-can man or a two.”

“Uncle,” I tried to scream. But the words caught in my throat, the air hissing from my lungs, me sounding like a stroke victim. I blinked twice. I blinked a thousand times. I was caving. I was broken. I could almost feel the backwash from my stomach climbing through my throat.

Please, please, please.

“Does this mean you want to…” Ricardo paused. He smirked. And then, his voice singsonging, he asked with exaggerated enunciation, “Cooperate?”

I blinked twice.

“Oh, come on. Spray that crap in there.” Jake turned to Bong. “I want to see what happens.”

“Think you have it tough?” asked Ricardo, ignoring the pilot.

He reached into the blue canvas bag and pulled out a camcorder this time. With exaggerated slowness, the digital screen in my face, he played a video of him beating JoJo.

The grisly images made my eyes water. I wanted to scream, “Enough.” But I couldn’t. Instead, JoJo’s and Bong’s voices pierced the Grumman’s noxious cabin air:

“Don’t hurt my dog.”

“No, Father Ricardo.”

“Happy shall he be. Happy shall he be.” The final clips showed Ricardo duct-taping her mouth open, just like mine.

“Now do you understand, O’Rourke?”

I blinked twice. I cringed, or at least I tried to cringe. My skin never moved. The tape tore at me, arrested my movement.

“You’re a tough one, O’Rourke.”

I blinked twice.

“Funny,” he said, his smile wan, humorless. “I don’t believe in reform. It’s so much easier to kill somebody and be done with it.”

“You go, boy.” Jake’s hair was brown and dirty, his face blood-pressure red, his voice whiny.

“I have your attention,” continued Ricardo, “right?”

I blinked twice.

“You understand what JoJo feels?”

I blinked twice.

“She’s a size two. Think JoJo can swallow a full can of Great Stuff?”

I tried to shake my head no, no, no and started to retch.

“Blink twice, Grover.”

I blinked twice.

“All it takes is one call to Sullivan’s Island.”

She’s still there?

“And JoJo gets a can down the gullet. Got it?”

I blinked twice.

“It’d probably traumatize the shit out of the Rafter’s maids.”

Ricardo smiled, arrogant and smug. I could almost smell his pride, the most serious of the seven deadly sins. And there with my mouth strapped open, me bolted to a tattered airplane seat, I knew hubris would take him down. For Ricardo had made his first mistake.

I know that hotel.

He must have seen recognition flare in my eyes. “That’s right. Rafter’s. Think you can do anything about it?”

I tried to shake my head no. It wouldn’t budge.

“See. This is why I don’t believe in reform, Grove.”

I blinked twice. I didn’t know what else to do.

“You got your knife, Jake?”

The pilot disappeared into the cockpit. When Jake returned, he was carrying what looked like a black handle. But he thumbed the edge and out popped a blade. It was six inches long and serrated, a cruel weapon.

“Here you go, Bong.”

Ricardo took the knife and asked the pilot, “You got a coin?”

Jake fished a quarter from his pocket, held it up for both of us to see.

“Here’s the problem, Grove. You don’t get it. The second I turn my back, you make trouble.”

I looked at the knife and tried to shake my head no.

“And you know what I think about reform,” he continued, tracing the knife around my throat, his touch light, but firm enough for me to feel the serrated edges. “It doesn’t fucking work. But I need you to get my two hundred million.”

I blinked twice.

“Sorry, Grove. I don’t buy it. Part of me says take your pinkie. Or better yet, a thumb. Give you the full JoJo experience, because that’s the only way you’ll take orders. And part of me says you walking into the bank with a bandaged hand is a mistake. Bleeding shit all over the cashier. See my dilemma?”

I was too afraid to blink.

“See my dilemma?” he repeated, holding the knife over my small finger, then my thumb.

Don’t do it.

I blinked twice.

“We’re both businessmen,” he continued. “We make decisions without complete information.”

I blinked twice.

He dragged the blade perpendicular to my thumb. It was not a cutting motion, just a sensation to assure me the weapon was sharp. “So I want you to call heads or tails. Got it?”

I did nothing.

“Got it?”

I blinked twice.

“Good. You want heads?”

I was frozen. I did nothing.

“Tails it is. Go ahead, Jake.”

“I think he craps his pants,” the pilot said, flipping a quarter.

End over end, the coin sailed though the air. As it tumbled down, Ricardo snatched the quarter lightning fast from the air. He opened his palm. His eyes widened. He leered at me, his smile sadistic.

CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

TURKS AND CAICOS

“Tails.”

Sweet fucking relief. The word tasted like honey. I blinked once. I blinked a thousand times. The horror lifted from my shoulders.

“Hallelujah,” applauded Jake, sniffing the air with exaggerated motion. “Our boy didn’t shit himself.”

Tears poured from my eyes and streamed down my cheeks like rivers cresting their banks. Only, there were no levees on my face. Just duct tape clawing my skin.

“Not so cocky, are we?” Ricardo was taunting me, asserting his dominance. I now understand that intimidation was all part of the plan. Mission accomplished on his part.

I blinked twice.

Capitulation comes with a certain kind of self-loathing. There is nothing more ignominious than total surrender. Show me a stockbroker willing to take orders, and I’ll show you somebody who needs to haul his complaisant ass off the trading floor.

I was bound and gagged. My pride didn’t matter. I was relieved, too wounded to care about dignity. “Uncle” was the only word in my two-blink vocabulary, and I was glad to know it.

“Here’s how it works.” With his forefinger and thumb, Ricardo ripped the hardened chunk of Great Stuff from my nose and tore the skin. “We’re in the Turks and Caicos. You will do exactly what I say, otherwise…” He paused.

I blinked twice and remembered the warning from my kickboxing coach in Narragansett. “Somebody’s gonna pop you outside of class, and you won’t know what to do.” He was right.

“Otherwise,” Ricardo growled, “JoJo dies. Got it?”

I blinked twice.

“This morning you’re instructing Claire to wire my two hundred million dollars. Got it?”

I blinked twice. But this time, there were hints of my innate temper. I could feel them stirring inside.

“Good.” To make a point, Ricardo tapped my nose with the flat of the knife blade. He cut the duct tape from my ears, mouth, and forehead. When he ripped it from my face, the sting seared my skin and probably turned it pig-belly pink.

The rush of oxygen through your nose into your lungs is a sweet and glorious sensation—especially when your mouth was strapped open the last forty-five minutes. When all you could taste was duct tape and fear. When some asshole was poking a straw down your throat.

The cramps eased from my jaw. My ears relaxed. They were no longer at risk of being torn off my head. The sweep of fresh air cleared my head.

He hesitated at my wrists. “You sure?”

“I swear it.”

The words croaked from my mouth like surrender. But my thoughts kept returning to the dingy martial arts studio in Rhode Island. “In a street fight, nobody’s gonna wait for you to wake up.”

“Funny.” Ricardo scraped the knife along the stubble of my morning beard. “I prefer when you call me ‘Father.’”

Fuck you.

“Father,” I muttered. The word turned my stomach.

“Good.” He sliced through the duct tape binding my hands.

Ricardo cut the constraints from my ankles and handed the blade back to Jake. The beatnik captain pointed to the surf. “Watch when you jump. The water’s about two feet deep.”

Outside the plane, Ricardo nudged me forward every so often. Nothing gentle. The flat of his hand felt like the business end of a cattle prod. We waded toward the sandy beach, private homes hiding behind the palms. The pilot stayed aboard the plane, and I said nothing until there was a quarter mile separating Ricardo and me from him.

“Is JoJo okay?” I asked the question in my most compliant voice.

“Feeling better, are we?”

“You’ll get your money. I promise.” I couldn’t get Palmer’s wife out of my head. I had lucked through my ordeal. She was still suffering through hers. And that video, her crazy-wide eyes, infuriated me.