Surface Tension (29 page)

We pulled up finally in front of a large ranch-style house, all ambling stucco, dark-tinted windows, and overgrown, unimaginative landscaping. Dense areca palms shielded the house from both the street and the neighbors. Cesar got out, opened the backseat door, and stood there glaring at me, waiting for me to crawl out. I hadn’t even stood up straight when he grabbed my upper arm again and nearly yanked me off my feet.

“Hey!” I started to complain, but suddenly my face stung and my head flew to the side from the force of the open-handed slap.

“Shut up,” he said. And I did.

Cesar pulled me to the front door, opened it, and pushed me inside. From the entryway, I could see through the living room, decorated apparently by the designers from Motel 6, and out the sliding glass doors to the pool. The rain had stopped and the last rays of the sun angled in under the dark clouds bathing the scene in an orange sunlight. A white powerboat was tied to the dock outside,
Hard Bottom
written in script across the bow. A smaller runabout was tied up behind it. It looked like the Sea Ray.

Two men stood on the wood deck by the Jacuzzi talking. One was the tall body builder Big Guy. He had two bags of diving gear in his arms. The other was a rail-thin man with a long blond ponytail. I could tell from the way they were gesturing that an argument was under way.

Big Guy saw me through the glass door and nodded in our direction. The ponytailed man glanced at me briefly, then walked off to the far side of the pool.

Big Guy opened the sliding glass door and stepped soundlessly onto the thick carpet. He was wearing swim trunks, and blue veins stood up like a relief map on his forearms as he slid the door closed with his one free hand. He walked over to the hallway and whistled once. A huge black-and-white pit bull bounded into the room. The dog turned his massive head briefly to inspect me, and a deep low growl vibrated across the room. Then he returned his gaze to the big man.

“Zeke, look who’s here,” said Cesar, tilting his head in my direction.

Zeke. I’d heard the name. Then I remembered he was Crystal’s cousin, the one Jeannie had told me about, the freighter captain Crystal had been bringing drugs to when he got busted.

“Heel,” Zeke said to the dog, then walked over to join us. “Hey, Cesar. This the girl? Funny, she doesn’t look so tough.” I recognized his high-pitched, almost effeminate voice from that night on the beach. The dog stayed at his side but reached his muzzle out and licked Cesar’s hand.

“Ugh, get your fuckin’ dog away from me, Moss. Christ, that dog slobbers all over everything.”

“Chewy, sit.” The dog obeyed like a well-trained soldier. Zeke walked over to a milk crate full of dive tanks and dumped his bags of masks and fins. “Hey, Cesar, take this crap out to your car.” He kicked the dive gear toward Cesar. “The boss isn’t here yet. He wants the boat all cleaned up, and you know how he gets.” The new, shining gear was encrusted with salt. The jerks hadn’t even bothered to rinse it off when they got back from their dive yesterday. “He said he didn’t want us trying to talk to her”—he jutted his chin in my direction—“till he gets here.”

Cesar pointed to the couch. “Sit,” he said to me. I complied. “Hey, Zeke, this bitch obeys as good as Chewy.” He laughed and went out through the front door carrying all the fins and tanks in one load.

Zeke got a beer from the fridge, sat on a high stool at the bar and ignored me.

“So who’s workin’ tonight?” Zeke asked as Cesar came back in the door.

“He brought this new chick. Boss is really gonna like her.”

“They doin’ a threesome thing again with Lex and the ponytail?” Zeke nodded his head in the direction of the third man on the patio.

Cesar helped himself to a beer, and the two men were laughing. “Yeah,” Cesar said. “I mean, you should see the tits on this chick.” He cupped his hands in the air.

“Yeah?”

“Oh, yeah.” Cesar’s deep voice made it sound like the word crawled up out of his belly. He curled his upper lip into his snarl-like smile and reached into the kitchen, grabbing an open bag of chips. He stuffed a handful in his mouth. “
Muy guapa
. ” Small flecks of bright orange spittle flew out of his mouth. “And young, whoo, not more than fifteen goddamn years old.”

Zeke grabbed the bag from the other man and reached in. He chewed with his mouth open and licked the salt from his lips.

“We’re talking
fresh
pussy—natural blonde, too.”

I clenched my fists and literally bit my tongue, hoping the pain in my mouth would be something to concentrate on so I wouldn’t hear what they were saying and do something really stupid. I had to be smart to find a way out of this, and I intended to take Sunny with me.

Other than the living room, there was a hall to the right of the front door that led into what looked like a dining room. The kitchen was opposite that, and a passthrough bar made part of the kitchen visible from where I sat. I slid over on the couch to try to see what was down the other hall, to the left of the front door. The dog, Chewy, made a rumbling noise low in his throat when I moved.

“You better not try nothin’. Chewy’ll kill ya’ if I tell him to,” Zeke said. “Chewy, ready?” The dog rose to his feet, the fur around his neck bristling. The big man laughed, and his suntanned pectoral muscles bounced. “Down, boy.” The dog lay back down. “Good boy.” The glass door slid open again, and the skinny ponytailed man walked in on a gust of warm, humid air. He, too, wore swim trunks that rode so low on his imperceptible hips that I wondered how they stayed up. After a quick glance at the two beer drinkers, the corners of his mouth turned down and he ignored them.

Cesar spoke to the ponytailed guy. “Eddie, you seen her yet? The new girl?”

“Shut up, asshole.”

“You fuck . . .” Cesar started up off his barstool, but Zeke’s straight arm prevented him from going after the skinnier man. “I’m so fuckin’ tired of his attitude. Think I need to teach him to show a little respect.”

“Respect for what?” Eddie sneered. “Some muscle-bound goon dumb as a rock?”

“Hey,” Zeke said. “I promised the boss I’d keep him from killing you, but you gotta stop saying shit like that, Eddie, or I’m gonna let him go. I swear. For a smart guy you sure do act stupid sometimes.”

Eddie sniffed, hitched at his swim trunks, and turned into the hall. He disappeared into the first bedroom.

Cesar looked at me. “What are you looking at, bitch?”

“Come on, man,” Zeke said. “We’re not supposed to talk to her. Wait till the boss gets here.”

Cesar swung around on his stool to face me. “Bet you’re wondering why you’re here.”

“Yeah, I wonder what is worth kidnapping me for.” I tried my hardest to sound tough, sure of myself.

“Well, Crystal thinks you know where that asshole Garrett is, and Garrett knows where something of Crystal’s is, see, so Crystal’s gonna get you to tell him where the asshole’s hiding out.”

“Neal is dead.”

Cesar opened his eyes wide and made an O with his mouth. Then he dropped the feigned look of surprise and stared at me with a challenge in his eyes. Softly, in that voice that sounded like a deep belch, he said, “Bullshit.”

From outside we heard car doors slamming, but the noise didn’t distract Cesar from his little stare-down game. He pointed at me and mouthed the words, “You’re mine.” I looked away.

Zeke jumped up and hurried to the front door. Before he could reach the knob, the door swung open and Benjamin Crystal strode into the room, shouting, “The man can’t drive. Find me a lawyer who can drive next time.” Hamilton Burns, looking red-faced and shaken, entered the room behind Crystal. When he saw me, the color left his face. Crystal didn’t look at Zeke. He was so much shorter, he would have had to bend his neck back to look Zeke in the eye. Then there was his skin. In the photos, it had looked pockmarked from childhood acne, but in person, it was much worse, so scarred and bumpy and discolored as to look grotesque.

Before anyone could answer Crystal’s eyes met mine. “Good. You’re here. We’ve got to talk.” He called back over his shoulder to Zeke, “Fix me a drink,
conjo
.”

He settled into the armchair opposite the couch. Zeke brought him what looked like a rum and Coke with lime. His guayabera did not look as crisp and clean as it had on the TV at noon. His carefully pomaded hair now looked tousled, and his big eyes protruded red-streaked from his head. Crystal drank down half the glass, then smacked his lips. “So, you’re going to tell me where that asshole is, right?”

I was taken aback by the man’s appearance. His skin was so disfigured, I felt awkward looking at him, almost as though I were staring at a burn victim.

He looked at me expectantly, waiting. “So?”

“So what? As far as I know Neal is dead.”

He threw the glass at the bar and it shattered, spraying glass fragments and splatters of brown sticky liquid across the white tile. “What do you think I look like? An idiot?”

I decided he really didn’t want me to answer that question.

Crystal reached into his breast pocket for a pack of cigarettes, and Zeke stepped forward with a lighter from the bar. Crystal began speaking softly. “Your boyfriend—”

“He’s not my boyfriend.” My voice sounded loud after Crystal’s hushed tones.

“You’re a fucking idiot,” he said.

Zeke brought him another drink, and he nearly drained the glass in one long gulp. “God, I missed that,” he said, then slurped at the last of the drink’s ice cubes. Brown liquid dribbled down his chin. “So, Miss Sullivan, you’ve become a pain in the ass—and stupid as well, to turn down thirty thousand dollars on that salvage business.”

“Thirty? The most Burns offered me was fifteen.” Crystal opened his mouth, then closed it, then opened it again as it dawned on him. “Fucking Burns. Where is he?”

Zeke trotted to the foyer then looked out the front door. “He’s gone.”

“Nobody steals from me. Cesar, deal with him.”

“My pleasure, boss.” Cesar picked up the cell phone from the bar and headed into the dining room to make a call.

“So maybe you aren’t as stupid as I thought. That’s a pity. Well, it’s never really been about the salvage money, anyway. I figured you’d get to the point where you’d be willing to trade—Neal’s whereabouts to get your life back.” He took long deep drags on his cigarette and squinted his eyes at me, looking me up and down. “Neal never stopped talking about you. Even Patty said so. So where the fuck is he?”

“I really don’t know. But what would you want with Neal—assuming he were alive?”

“Oh, he’s alive, all right. He called me in jail.”

The room suddenly felt off kilter like one of those haunted houses where everything is on a slant and water appears to flow uphill. “You talked to him?”

“No, but he left a message. It could only have been him. He told me he’d be the first to ring the bell.”

“Ring what bell?”

He smiled, a distant look in his eyes. “I have to admire him in a way. I’d do the same thing myself in his place.”

“What did he do?” I couldn’t follow what he was talking about.

Crystal took a deep drag on his cigarette, crushed the butt out in the ashtray on the table in front of him, then waved his hand in the air as though dismissing my question.

“I have you now, and he’ll come for you.” He slid forward on his seat and looked me up and down. “Yes. That will be his downfall. He’s a fucking romantic.” He rocked his head back and laughed.

Neal had robbed me and given me no hints as to his whereabouts. I didn’t want to tell Crystal, but I felt certain I was useless to him as bait. Neal Garrett was not the man I thought he was.

He glanced at the watch on his wrist. “Zeke! Are they ready?”

The big man hurried into the bedroom where Eddie had disappeared earlier. His head appeared back out the door. “Just about ready, Mr. Crystal.”

“Good. Put her away. We’ll use her later.”

Cesar came into the living room and motioned for me to stand. I was trying to be cooperative, biding my time, looking for my opportunity. It hadn’t come yet. But I knew I’d better figure it out before they decided to “use” me later.

Cesar grabbed my upper arm, and we started down the hall. Crystal called out, “Cesar, if Garrett doesn’t show up, you’ll take care of it for me?”

“Sure thing, boss.” He tightened his grip on my arm and pulled me closer to him. He spoke right into my ear. “I’ll make her sweat.” He stopped at the first bedroom door. It stood ajar. I could feel a soft heat flowing out the door.

Inside the room was a massive array of electronic equipment. Zeke was sitting in a swivel chair and watching a video on one of three monitors above a computer keyboard. The ponytailed guy, Eddie, sat at another computer working his fingers swiftly across the keyboard, intent on a large screen filled with images on a graphics grid. It looked like a Web page with buttons down the left side of the screen. He typed in text, then moved the text box to another location on the page.

Cesar pushed me through the door. “Mr. Crystal wants her to sit for a while,” he said, gesturing with his head toward the end of the hall.

Cesar walked around me and sat on a couch. There was nothing between me and the door. If I could just get outside the house, I’d be able to outrun these musclebound weight-lifter freaks. I inched closer to the door.

“Come on in and catch the show. Recognize anybody?” Cesar asked, leering and pointing to the monitor.

On the screen was a video showing a young girl standing, naked but for the leather thongs that bound her wrists, suspending her arms high over her head, and the gag that covered her mouth. Her terrified eyes were looking back over her shoulder at the man behind her the same ponytailed man who was sitting right there. Her auburn curls fell forward to cover her eyes when he pushed her.

It was as though suddenly all the fight and grit and nerve had just been sucked out of me. I looked away and bit my tongue.

“We all enjoyed that one,” Cesar said.

My mind was a blur of images. Ely in my lifeguard tower at work, laughing in the back of B.J.’s truck.

“Eddie was just warming her up. We all got a chance at her. Zeke was just gonna get his kicks and get her to talk to him, tell us what you two knew about Garrett. But she didn’t scream or nothing, so I took over. Ain’t fun unless they got some fight in ’em. Bitch just kept staring at me.”