Child of Fire (26 page)

“You know Emmett Dubois’s secret?” I asked. I wondered if she meant that he was a shape-shifter, or that he liked to have Tiffany dress him in a diaper and spank him.

“I told you he leaves me alone, didn’t I?”

“If you know his secret,” I said, “you know he should be stopped.”

“If by ‘stopped’ you mean ‘killed,’ I’m not sure I can. I have a basketful of questions about him still, and I’m not sure I could take him out clean.”

Tiffany turned her gaze on Phyllis as if she was about to volunteer for the job. Phyllis spoke to her as if she could read her mind. “Now, Tiff, I don’t want you or Bobby or anyone else going near Emmett Dubois. You’re good people, but you’re not tall enough to ride that ride.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Tiffany said. Bobby sat quietly, serenely confident that he could do what ever Phyllis asked of him.

I shifted in my seat. My stomach grumbled. “So you know how he manages to take out his enemies with a pack of dogs when he doesn’t actually have a pack of dogs.”

She eyed me keenly. “I do. It’s pretty obvious to anyone willing to believe. It’s that willingness that most people can’t manage.”

I smiled at her. “I’m willing. For good reason.”

“Then I suppose you noticed the plants surrounding the wall out front?”

“I saw them, but I’m no botanist. Wait a minute. Are they wolfsbane?” The old woman nodded. I almost
laughed again but I held it back. “Maybe we could help each other. We seem to have a common enemy.”

“That doesn’t make us friends. I want to know why you’re interested in Charles Hammer. Until we get that straight, you’re nothing.”

A man in kitchen whites entered with a tray. He set a plate with a turkey sandwich and an ice cream scoop of soggy cole slaw next to Phyllis. He set a second plate next to me. The sandwich was identical, but I had a tiny pile of supermarket potato chips. We each received a tall glass of iced tea.

Phyllis gestured at the food. “Tuck in, Nothing.”

We picked up our sandwiches. Mine was as dry as plasterboard and just as flavorful. It didn’t matter. I hadn’t eaten all day. The tea tasted like sour water, so I didn’t have more than a sip.

While I chewed, I thought about Phyllis. She was loyal to Hammer, and she had a lot of muscle and cash. One of her men probably had a brother-in-law who worked night security at Hammer Bay Toys, or a wife who worked in his office. She probably also had blackmail material on half the town. She was connected, and I had to figure a way to turn her to our side.

I finished half the sandwich and felt full, but I ate a chip just to keep busy. Phyllis was still working at her sandwich. She reminded me of a bear I’d seen on a nature show—it was tearing into a picnic, hunched over, holding a balled-up pizza in its claws and ducking its head to tear off bites.

I looked over at Tiffany just to have something more pleasant to look at. She stared at me with a creepy insect expression. I got the impression that she was imagining herself having great fun with me, but not in a way I’d especially enjoy.

“So,” Phyllis said, then swallowed a lump of dough
and meat. “Why did you meet with Able Katz at the toy offices?”

“I thought the whole town knew that by now.”

“I want to hear it from you.”

“My boss owns a factory in Africa that could handle some of the manufacturing work.”

“Outsourcing.”

“Sure. I hope you’re not
surprised
, Phyllis.” I tried to sound worldly, which I wasn’t. “That’s how the game is played.”

She slapped her hand down on the table. “This isn’t a game!”

“And it’s his company, not yours. Maybe he started it as a charity, but I don’t think he’s going to keep doing that forever. His margins are too thin—”

“His company is a success. It’s turning a profit, because of our work.”

I didn’t disagree, and I noticed that she had thrown herself in with the old ladies who were sewing Eagle Rider outfits. “And his ideas. Hard work he can get anywhere.”

“He turned you down, didn’t he?”

“Able Katz turned us down, on standing orders from Charles. He also agreed to meet with us again. The door’s not shut. They’re turning a profit now, but everything is boom and bust, just like you said. What happens when they hit a bust period? According to Able, they’re overdue. And if they don’t sign with us, it’ll be someone in Malaysia or the Philippines. In fact, there’s a prison in China—”

“Prisoners!” She slammed her hand down on the table, making the plates jump.

I ate another chip while she fumed. I had no idea if anything I’d said made sense. It was a jumble of news stories I’d heard mortared together with bullshit. It seemed to be having the desired effect, though.

I leaned closer to her. “That’s not the end of it.” I waited a moment for her mind to clear. When I had her full attention again, I continued. “You know what Emmett Dubois is.” I paused again, making sure that she kept up with me. “Well, near as I can figure, Charles Hammer is something worse.”

“What is this? What bullshit is this?”

I was losing her, but I had to risk it. “How do you think he’s been so successful? Even Able Katz doesn’t understand it. You remember when I said every business has a boom and bust? Katz knows that Hammer Bay Toys should have had a bust by now. Even a little one. But they haven’t.”

“Where is this going?”

“The guy is making his success happen
another way
, and the whole town is paying the price.”

Bobby was looking at me like I was old fish. I couldn’t read the look in Tiffany’s eyes at all. Phyllis was squinting suspiciously at me again. “What price is this supposed to be?”

I sat back in my chair. “Where are the kids? Where are the kids in your town? The school yards are empty. The parks, too.”

Bobby turned to Phyllis. “This dude is out of his mind.”

I watched Phyllis’s face. “Imagine what they’d say if you told them about the Dubois brothers.”

Phyllis kept staring at me. “Are you saying he’s made everyone sterile or something?”

“Worse. I’m saying the kids were here, but now they’re gone and no one can remember them. How many girls do you have who have kids? It seems like it should be a pretty common thing for working girls to have a couple of kids. How many do?”

“We look after our girls here,” she said. Her jaw was
thrust forward, stubbornly refusing to acknowledge what I was saying, but her eyes looked troubled.

“What about your boys? How many of them are married with kids?”

“There’s Ty, and Thomas, and, uh, Richard.”

“That’s it? Ty, Thomas, and Richard? Three guys out of how many? And how many of those men drive station wagons or minivans—cars no guy would own if he wasn’t a father? Your future is almost gone, and you don’t even realize it.”

Tiffany turned toward Phyllis. “I don’t like what he’s saying.” She stood and circled the table toward me. I tensed, putting both feet on the floor.

Bobby slipped his hand into his pocket. I stayed put.

Tiffany bent over me and patted my face. Her hands were soft but clumsy. She smelled like baby powder. “You must have been having a bad dream or something.” She tilted my face up and looked into my eyes. She had the stare of a praying mantis. After a few seconds, she saw what she wanted to see and went back to her chair.

“Do you see those men behind you?” Phyllis asked. I turned and looked at them. “Any one of them,” she continued, “would put a bullet in your head if I asked them to.” Behind me, Bobby coughed. “We could drop your body in the rain forest. No one would find you. No one’s found any of them.”

I turned back to her. “Killing people is easy,” I said. “It doesn’t impress me. What would impress me is if you could wake up and see what’s going on.”

“All that talking must have left you parched,” Tiffany said. “Why—”

“Tiff,” Phyllis said sharply. “The boys over there are getting bored. Why don’t you talk to them for a while?”

Tiffany looked a little stung as she retreated toward the door. I didn’t pay much attention.

“So,” Phyllis said, “How is it that you can blow into town and see what’s going on, but we can’t?”

I couldn’t tell her anything about Annalise or the spells she’d put on me. “Willingness to believe,” I said. It was the wrong moment to play coy with her, but I didn’t have a choice. Annalise was already unhappy that I’d showed the scrap of wood to Emmett Dubois. I didn’t want to repeat the mistake.

“What about your lady friend?”

“Never mind her.”

Phyllis turned to Bobby, “Speaking of which, they’re late.”

Bobby took out a cell phone and started to dial.

Oh no.

Phyllis looked at me. “We’ll ask her when she gets here.”

“You didn’t send men after her, did you? You didn’t give them guns or anything?”

“Don’t break a sweat, kid, I told them not to hurt her.”

I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. The salty chips had made me thirsty; I took a swallow of iced tea just to bide my time. So much for recruiting Henstrick. I felt a little dizzy.

“No answer,” Bobby said.

“Don’t bother,” I said. “They’re dead.”

Phyllis glared at me. “What do you mean, dead?”

“I mean, if you sent men to strong-arm my boss the way they’ve been trying to strong-arm me—with guns and knives and bad manners—they are dead.
Thirty
men couldn’t kidnap my boss. Get it? If you want to talk to her, visit her yourself or send someone to ask politely.”

My head started to feel light. The lights went dim. I suddenly felt very tired.

“Dammit,” I heard Phyllis say. Her voice sounded
far away. “Send someone after them. Find out what’s going on.”

Then, darkness. My last thought was that I was helpless now. They could do anything they wanted to me. I took that thought into oblivion.

I awoke suddenly. I was sitting up, leaning against a pile of pillows. My hands were bound.

I’d been handcuffed to the post of a bed. I rolled off the mattress. I didn’t want to think about who had been on it before.

Each of my wrists had a handcuff of its own. One end was locked on me; the other end was locked tightly around the thinnest spot in the post, which was about the width of my two thumbs. It looked like a hack setup, but after ten minutes of trying I still hadn’t managed to free myself. So much for hack.

The room was slightly more homey than a hospital room but slightly less homey than a Best Western. The wallpaper, curtains, and bedcovers were decorated with a dense, multicolored pattern that reminded me of a counter at a diner, like they were designed to hide stains.

A big LED clock on the bedside stand told me the time was 8:45. There were no windows anywhere, so I couldn’t tell if it was morning or evening. I was hungry again. Damn.

No one had left any saws or key rings nearby. I wanted my ghost knife. I closed my eyes and
reached
for it, searching for the slightest tickle that would tell me it was close. Nothing. If I survived this, I’d have to practice sensing the ghost knife from farther and farther away.

I wrapped my arms around the post, stood on the box
spring, and laid my shoulder into it, using my weight to try to break it off. No good. A better plan would have been to kick the top of the post, but that would have made noise. I didn’t want to let people know that I’d woken up.

I lay back on the bed, set my heels on the top of the post, and grabbed the chain of the cuffs. Then I pressed with my feet, holding myself in place with the cuffs. I had leverage, but the strain on my wrists prevented me from using my full strength.

I heard a key turn in the lock. I redoubled my efforts, gritting my teeth against the pain, but I didn’t hear the slightest sound of cracking wood.

The door opened. A voice said, “You were right. He’s up.”

“Hear hear,” a woman said. “Stop that right now.”

I let my feet drop to the ground and stood. A man and a woman approached me. They were in their late forties and looked as average as any supermarket shopper. He was balding and walked with a plump shuffle. She was heavily done up and carefully balanced on high heels.

She carried a tray with a platter of fish and chips on it. “Here you go, dear. You’ve been up here a couple hours, and I’m sure you’re hun—”

I kicked the platter out of her hands. Greasy fish and dark vinegar splashed onto the ceiling and wallpaper opposite us. “Go fuck yourself.”

The woman stepped back. “Well!”

The man became indignant. “You have some nerve,” he said, huffing out his cheeks.

“Try it!” I shouted at him, my voice rebounding off the walls of the room. They were taken aback by how quickly things had escalated. “Even with my hands cuffed I’ll stomp you.”

The woman laid a hand on the man’s shoulder. Her long, fake nails dug into his shoulder.

I shut my eyes, closing out as much of the rest of the world as I could. I
felt
for the ghost knife. Nothing. The supermarket shoppers weren’t carrying it. They turned and left.

I rolled back onto the bed and returned to working on the post. The encounter with the shoppers had fired my anger, and I strained even harder, but I couldn’t crack the damn wood. If they already knew I was awake, there was no reason to keep quiet. I lay on my back and started kicking the top of the post.

Kick kick kick
. I wasn’t being secretive or clever about it. I wasn’t in the mood for either. Tools would have been great, but I didn’t have any. If I could have tipped the bed on its side, I would have laid my weight against the frame and broken the post that way, but I couldn’t move my hands far enough to get decent leverage on the whole bed. So I kicked and kicked, letting my anger block some of the pain as the cuffs dug into my wrists.

Finally, I heard wood crack. I began to kick frantically then, until the wood splintered enough that the post bent at an angle.

I rolled to my feet and put my shoulder against it, breaking it off. I was free.

I lifted the broken hunk of wood. The empty ends of the handcuffs swung free.

The lock on the door clicked and the door opened. Bobby entered. He held a .38 in his hand. “You’ve been making a lot of noise up here.”