Blood Men

chapter forty

“I have the money,” I say, my grip tight on the phone.

“Where’s my man?”

“He had an accident.”

“So you think now you can buy your daughter back by dealing directly with me?”

“Yes.”

“It’s too late,” he says. “Your daughter is about to have an accident too.”

He hangs up. Nat is standing with his arm around Diana. They’re both looking lost, like they don’t recognize me, don’t recognize the house. Schroder is changing his shirt. “What happened?” he asks.

I don’t answer him. I stare at the phone as the rage inside me builds. I don’t even know what I just heard.

“Eddie? What the hell did he say?” Nat asks.

“He. . he said it was, was too late,” I say.

Diana gasps and Nat tightens his grip on her. Without even being aware I’m about to do it, I kick the dead guy on the floor, over and over.

“Edward, calm down, just calm down a moment,” Schroder says, putting his arms out in a consoling gesture, one arm threaded through a sleeve, the other one bare. “These men are professionals. They know what they’re doing. They know if they kill her there’s no money in it for them. Give them a minute. They’ll call back.”

“And if you’re wrong?”

“Give it a minute,” he says.

“A minute, maybe two,” Nat says. “They’ll call back. They always call back,” he says, but Nat has no point of reference other than what he’s seen on TV; he’s trying to convince himself as much as the rest of us.

I kick the dead guy once more. His head rolls left and right, the pencil wedged in so tight it doesn’t even wobble.

“I’m going to be sick,” Diana says and rushes off to the bathroom. Nat stays in the living room for about five seconds before following her.

A minute goes by. Then another.

“You were wrong,” I say.

“Give it time.”

“I’m going to kill these people,” I say, and that’s true too. Schroder doesn’t respond. He’s probably thinking it’s time to try and get some handcuffs on me. But he’s also thinking that these guys tried to kill him, and he knows he owes me one.

“Look, Edward, you have to stop kidding yourself here. This isn’t something you can deal with.”

“I’m doing okay so far.”

“Yeah? Tell that to your in-laws. Tell that to the dead officer outside. After everything you’ve said about being nothing like your father, you’ve got blood on your hands now.”

We’re blood men-that’s what Dad said.

“I didn’t do a damn thing,” I say, but he’s right. I got my wife killed by speaking out. The police officer outside is dead because of me. All this blood on my hands, some of it innocent, and I know I’m still not done.

The cell phone rings. My in-laws appear as if they’d been waiting around the corner. I answer it.

“I killed a cop for you,” I say, before the caller has a chance to say a word. “I’ve killed two of your men already. This can all end. I’ll bring you the money and you give me back my daughter.”

There’s a pause on the line. “She’s still alive. For now,” the man says. “An even trade. One hour. Come alone. If we see anybody else we’ll kill her.”

“Where?”

“I’ll call you at the time. Don’t want you having a chance to set something up.”

He hangs up and I explain it to Schroder, who is about as happy as Nat and Diana-who look like the world has fallen apart around them.

“You can’t do this alone, Edward. We need backup,” Schroder says.

“They’ll kill her if you make that call. I’m playing this safe, and that means paying for her. You owe me.”

“He’s right,” Nat says to Schroder. “Give them the money and we get Sam back. It’s like Eddie said, it’s that simple.”

“Except it’s not that simple,” I say, “because there is no money.”

“What?”

“This money they’re asking about, I don’t have it. If I was there, if I had the money, I’d be using it to get my daughter back. Can the police department raise the cash?” I ask Schroder.

“The department wouldn’t go for it,” he says.

“Even if it meant saving Sam’s life?”

“It doesn’t work that way. If it did, people would be getting kidnapped all the time. We’d be throwing cash at every criminal in the city.”

“What about the damn bank?” Nat asks. “This is all happening because of what happened there. Surely they’d give us the money. They have to! They owe us-they bloody well owe us!”

“I’ll make a couple of calls and see what I can do.”

“If Eddie doesn’t have the money, then who does?” Nat asks.

“Maybe there wasn’t any money,” Schroder says, and I think of the bricks of cash lying on Kingsly’s bed.

“There has to be,” I say. “It’s too much effort for them to go to if there wasn’t.”

“So who took it?” Schroder asks.

“What about the probation officer? You said he found the body, right?” I say.

“Yeah, he found the body, but you’re making a dangerous assumption here. He’s not a suspect in the killing. He has no motive to kill his client.”

“That’s my point. He wasn’t a suspect, but he could have taken the money.”

“No, the killer would have taken the money.”

“Maybe Kingsly was killed for an entirely different reason. Maybe the killer didn’t see the money.”

“Something you want to share, Edward?”

“We can spend the next hour here making guesses,” I say, “but at the moment the probation officer is the only thing we have.” I reach down and pick up the dead man’s shotgun. “Let’s take a drive.”