Assumed Identity

11

The persistent ringing of the doorbell made Pedro Mendez angry.

For a lot of reasons. Worry about his daughter, confusion about Jeff Walker, and apprehension about the microphone in the bathroom’s light-switch socket had made him so restless that it seemed he would never get to sleep. What was Jeff Walker going to tell him when they met at the garage tomorrow morning? Tense, Pedro had squirmed beneath the covers until at last, impossibly, mercifully, he’d somehow managed to doze, and now somebody was pushing that damned doorbell.

“Anita, stay in bed,” he ordered as he fumbled to his feet, put on a bathrobe and slippers, grabbed a baseball bat from the closet, and stormed downstairs. Through the front door’s window, he saw the shadow of a man on the murky porch. By God, if this was someone else looking for his daughter, Pedro intended to make very sure that the man explained what was going on.

But when Pedro turned on the porch light, his determination wavered when he saw that the man was Jeff Walker, who gestured impatiently for Pedro to unlock and open the door.

Pedro obeyed to a certain extent, making sure that when he inched the door open, he didn’t release the security chain. “What do you-?”

“Hurry. I have to show you something.” Jeff Walker pointed urgently toward the street.

Staring past him toward the darkness, Pedro noticed a small van at the curb. “What are you doing here at-?”

“Please,” Jeff Walker said. “It’s about Juana. It’s important.”

Pedro hesitated-but only for a moment. There was something about Jeff Walker that insisted on being trusted. Compelled, Pedro stifled his misgivings and opened the door.

Jeff Walker was already off the porch, moving quickly toward the van.

Pedro ran to catch up to him. “What do you want to show me? Whose van is-?”

For the third time, Pedro was interrupted, this time because Jeff Walker opened the back of the van and turned on a flashlight.

Two men-naked, their hands tied behind them by their shirt sleeves, their ankles tied by their pant legs, their mouths stuffed with their underwear-lay on the floor of the van. They were lashed together by their belts. When the light revealed them, they squirmed.

“I know it’s hard to be sure under these conditions,” Jeff Walker said, “but are these two of the men who came to your house and asked about Juana?”

Pedro took the flashlight and stepped closer, aiming the beam from one face to the other. “Yes. How did-?”

“They’ve been watching your house,” Jeff Walker said.

Pedro aimed the flashlight beam toward shelves of electronic equipment along the right side of the van. A television monitor showed a green-tinted magnified image of the area in front of his house. Several tape recorders were linked to audio receivers. So it wasn’t only one microphone that had been planted in the house, Pedro thought in dismay. The whole house must be. . His knees felt weak. The pavement seemed to tilt.

Jeff Walker removed the gag from one of the men. “Who else was working with you? Where do I find him?”

The man had trouble speaking, his mouth dry from the absorbent cloth that had been taken from his mouth.

Pedro flinched as Jeff Walker shoved a pistol against the man’s testicles and asked, “Who was the third man who came to Pedro’s house?”

But as unnerved as Pedro felt, he leaned closer, desperate to learn everything he could.

“Somebody. . somebody working for us part-time. We only used him one day. He went back to. .” The man seemed to realize he was saying too much and shut up.

“Back to where?” Jeff Walker asked. When he didn’t get an answer, he sighed. “I don’t believe you are taking me seriously.” He shoved the underwear back into the man’s mouth, took a pair of pliers from an open tool case, and yanked out a clump of pubic hair.

The man screamed silently, tears welling from his eyes.

Pedro was shocked. At the same time, he was so afraid for Juana that a part of him wanted impatiently to grab the prisoner’s head and bang it against the van’s floor, anything to get answers.

Jeff Walker pivoted toward the second man, removed the underwear that gagged him, and sounded very reasonable when he said, “Now I’m sure you wouldn’t want that to happen to you. After I plucked every inch of your hair, I’d use some of Pedro’s matches to singe the stubble. By the time I was through, your groin would look like the neck on a well-done turkey. But I’ve never liked the neck. I always. .” He made a cutting motion as if he had a knife.

The first man continued to thrash in pain.

“Where did your part-time employee go back to?” Jeff Walker asked. “Your accent isn’t Texan. Where’s home base for you?”

Jeff Walker brought the pliers toward the man’s groin.

“Philadelphia,” the man blurted.

“You’re watching this house to find Juana Mendez. Why?”

Yes, Pedro thought. Why?

The man didn’t answer.

“Pedro, go get your matches.”

Pedro’s angry resolve surprised him. He turned toward the house.

“Wait,” the man blurted. “I don’t know. That’s the truth. I really don’t. We were told to watch for her, to learn where she was.”

“And if you saw her? If you found out where she was?” Jeff Walker demanded.

Pedro listened intensely.

The man gave no response.

“You’re disappointing me,” Jeff Walker said. “You need a reminder.” He leaned toward the first man and used the pliers to yank out more pubic hair.

Pedro suddenly began to appreciate Jeff Walker’s tactic, realizing that the pain Jeff Walker inflicted on these men wasn’t physical but psychological.

The first man thrashed, his tear-streaked face contorted by another silent scream. Since the two men were lashed together, every time the first man jerked, the second man was jolted.

“Care to try again?” Jeff Walker asked the second man, whose eyes bulged with fear. “What were you supposed to do if you saw Juana or found out where she was?”

“Phone the people who hired us.”

“Who are they?”

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t know why they want her. You don’t know who they are. It seems to me there’s an awful lot you don’t know. And it’s making me angry.” Jeff Walker pinched his pliers into the skin of the second man’s groin.

“No,” the second man pleaded.

“Who hired you?”

“They used an intermediary. I never had a name.”

“But you know how to get in touch with them.”

“On the phone.”

“What’s the number?”

“It’s programmed into. .” The second man pointed his chin toward a cellular telephone on the floor of the van. “All I had to do was press the recall button, number eight, and send.”

“Do they know I came to the house?”

“Yes.”

“What’s your check-in code.”

“Yellow Rose.”

Jeff Walker picked up the phone. “I hope for your sake that you’re telling the truth.” He pressed the three buttons as instructed, placed the phone against his ear, and waited for someone to answer.

It took less than half a ring. Pedro was close enough to the phone to hear a seductive male voice say, “Brotherly Love Escort Service.”

What Pedro heard next astonished him. Jeff Walker mimicked the second man’s voice.