Elisha's Bones - Don Hoesel [48]
“Excuse me?”
“Apparently you’ve left a few more angry people in your wake. I’ve been paid the sum of fifty thousand to kill you and your associates.”
“You’ve got to be kidding. Who would want to have me killed?” Even as I ask the question, I have the answer, and it sends a chill through my body. I feel light-headed and the room fades for a second. When I steady myself, I look down at my injured side. Bandages have been wound around my stomach, and a large section of the fabric is soaked through, but there is no blood dripping onto the floor.
He shrugs.
I’m in a panic now because, although I’ve had guns pointed at me before, this is the first time I can see myself actually being shot.
“Has he already paid you?” I ask.
“Half. I’ll receive the other twenty-five thousand when I provide proof that you’re dead.”
He’s fishing. Otherwise he would have just killed me and collected his fee.
“What if I can beat the offer? Cover the twenty-five, plus get you that much more?”
“We’ve already been down that road, Dr. Hawthorne. You weren’t able to come up with the money, remember?”
“That was then,” I say. “But you’ll need to let me make a phone call.”
His eyes narrow and bore into me. I don’t know this man well, but I know his type. He has little compunction about killing, but he’s also smart enough to know when a murder can unduly complicate his other business activities. I’m a foreigner, which would bring the government here were they to find my body in a ditch somewhere. And Esperanza’s death would make the national news: University Professor Found Dead in San Cristóbal.
“That’s fifty-seven thousand, five hundred,” he says, lifting my cell phone from his desk. “Twenty-five to cover my losses, another twenty-five for the lives of you and your associate, and”—he smiles—“the seventy-five hundred you owe me.”
“Will you accept an account transfer?”
He nods.
“But first, I need to see Esperanza.”
Ernesto raises an eyebrow. “I don’t see as you are in any position to make demands.”
“If I’m buying her life, as well as my own, shouldn’t I make sure she’s all right?”
After brief consideration, Ernesto gestures to one of his men, who leaves the room. The other man adjusts his grip on his gun—a reminder. I’m made to wait a long time, and Ernesto watches me without saying a word, almost without blinking. It’s more than a little unnerving. The first time I met him, his stare reminded me of the dispassionate gaze of a crocodile. I’m about to make idle chitchat, just to break the awkward silence, when Esperanza walks into the room, her arm held at the elbow. Relief greater than I have ever known washes over me and, after her escort unties me, I struggle to my feet and gather her into an embrace. I guess I’m not used to these extreme emotions because, while she seems to share my joy at the reunion, she is the first to push away, and I find it difficult to let go.
“That’s beautiful,” Ernesto says.
“Jack, what’s going on?” Espy asks.
I mouth later and reach for my phone. I have a moment’s hesitation as my thumb hovers over the speed-dial option for Duckey. I reconsider.
Reese answers on the second ring.
“Hello, Jack.”
Before those two words finish their digital echo, my brow is furrowing, although it will take a little longer for me to figure out why.
“Gordon, I need a favor.”
There is a few seconds’ pause before he asks, “What sort of favor?”
And then it clicks; one of the things that has most impressed me about this man has been his accessibility. When we’ve talked, the atmosphere has been one of equals. Now I sense a patrician iciness, and I can’t keep a sick feeling from swelling my stomach. Despite that, and what it might portend, I press on. “Mr. Reese, I need you to transfer fifty-seven thousand, five hundred dollars to the bank account of a man who is holding me at gunpoint.”
I see Ernesto frown, but he does not move to end the call. Even he understands that the bold truth is sometimes the only way to go.
Reese doesn’t answer right away, although I can hear him breathing so I know the signal hasn’t