The Garden of Betrayal - Lee Vance [108]
“A little private equity sometimes. Most of the time I don’t even get to read the paperwork. I just sign where I’m told to sign.”
“Told by whom?” I asked, circling back to the only question I genuinely cared about.
He shook his head, looking scared again.
“Fine,” I said, trying another tack. “Just explain how it works.”
He nodded rapidly again.
“I get most of my instructions on the phone. And there’s a guy who comes around to collect signatures. Mr. Smith, he calls himself, like it’s a big joke.”
“Nice guy?”
He shook his head sharply.
“Not a nice guy?”
“It’s why we have to be careful. You don’t know these people.”
“Tell me.”
He dropped his eyes to the carpet nervously.
“Smith wanted me to sign some legal papers a couple of years ago. They were in French. I asked how I was supposed to sign if I couldn’t read them. ‘With a pen,’ he told me. I said no. I’d signed all kinds of stuff before, without ever reading any of it. But it was the way he was always treating me, like I was a complete nobody. It made me mad.”
“What did he do?”
Mohler glanced up and fixed me with a pathetic smile.
“He put a knife to my throat and made me hold my left hand in a desk drawer, and then he slammed the drawer shut.” Mohler held the hand up, so I could see it. Two of the knuckles were badly misshapen. “I don’t ask any more questions.”
I almost felt bad for him.
“How do you get in touch with Smith if you need to speak with him for some reason?”
He opened his mouth to answer, but a noise from the door interrupted. A key turning in the lock. The door opened, and a man entered. Mohler moaned in fear. The man was wearing a baseball cap pulled low and had a wide, shiny scar stretching from his mouth to his left ear.
38
The man with the scar stepped forward silently. Reggie and Joe Belko were immediately behind him, guns drawn.
“You heard?” I asked, reaching around to the small of my back and unclipping Claire’s phone from my waistband.
“Everything,” Reggie said, removing the Bluetooth earpiece he’d been wearing to monitor our conversation from the next room. He looked at Mohler. “How about it? Is this the guy who broke your hand in the drawer? Is this Mr. Smith?”
Mohler was staring at the man with the scar like a rabbit transfixed by a snake, seemingly unable to speak.
“These guys are with me,” I assured him. “Your friend likes to keep tabs on other people’s e-mail. We were expecting you to be followed. There’s nothing for you to worry about as long as you tell the truth.”
Mohler nodded jerkily, the color drained from his face.
“How about you, Mark?” Reggie asked. “You seen this guy before?”
“Twice that I know of,” I confirmed, the recollections popping in my memory. I pulled the gun from my pocket, the elation I’d felt at the success of our plan giving way to rage. “Once at the counter in the diner, when I met with Gallegos, and once in the lobby of the Four Seasons, just before Rashid was killed.” I pointed the gun at the man who called himself Smith and put my finger on the trigger. “So, how about it? Who do you work for?”
“Whoa,” Reggie said, holding up a hand. “Hang on there. First things first. This is way too small a room to risk any crossfire. Mark, you come around over here and stand between me and Joe.”
I edged wide around the man with the scar, eyes locked on his face. He looked bored, like a guy waiting for a bus. I wondered how much more interested he’d seem if I pistol-whipped him in the side of the head.
“Better,” Reggie said, when I’d positioned myself as he’d suggested. “Basic rule of any shoot-out is to have all your weapons pointed in the same direction.”
Mohler staggered sideways, as if convinced the shooting was imminent.
“Now,” Reggie continued, addressing himself to Mohler and Smith, “I want you guys on your knees, backs toward me and hands behind your heads.”
Both complied, Mohler starting to cry, Smith still wearing his mask of indifference.
“Good,” Reggie said. He holstered his gun under his shoulder and reached for my weapon. I opened my mouth to protest, but he shook his