Cruel Justice

49

ON HIS WAY TO the back of the house, Royce spotted two little statues embedded in the garden. He’d never noticed them before.

He crouched down and took a closer look. They were dwarfs, cute little guys with picks and shovels, like in that movie he saw when he was a kid. Which ones were they? Dopey? Sneezy? Sleazy?

He laughed. If these guys were perched outside this place, he was betting on Sleazy.

Royce’s friend was waiting for him when he arrived.

“Where have you been? I told you I wanted you back before dark. Have you been to the police?”

“Relax, already. I’m your friend, remember? Didn’t I get you out of those cuffs?”

Yes, his friend thought. And I probably should’ve wrapped them around your worthless throat right then and there. “What did you learn?” he asked, eyes narrowed. Without the fake glasses, the natural coal gray of his eyes shone through with even greater penetration.

“You’re safe,” Royce said calmly. “At least for now.”

“And the boy?”

“Well, that’s another matter. He’s under police protection. He’s got a bodyguard assigned to him day and night. You’re not going to be able to get anywhere near him.”

The other man paced slowly around the sofa. “For how long?”

Royce glanced up from the magazine. “I don’t get ya.”

“How long will he be under police protection? They can’t baby-sit the little bastard forever.”

“Huh. That I don’t know.”

“How much did he talk?”

“From what I gathered, he said pretty much everything he knew. Fortunately, that was practically zippo. Like I said, you’re safe.”

“They can’t identify me?”

“If they could, do you think I’d be at your place having this conversation?”

“What will the police do now?”

Royce’s expression became a bit more somber. “Well, my buddy on the force isn’t privy to all the top-level discussions. But my general impression is that they’ve got a lot of manpower searching for this apartment.”

“Damn!” The man pounded his fist down on the glass tabletop. The glass bowed and shuddered but, to Royce’s relief, did not quite break. Control, he told himself. Control. “You will check in with your police contact every day, understand?”

“Sure.”

“I want to know everything. Absolutely everything. At the least sign of danger, I want to be informed immediately.”

“Sure, sure, sure. But I don’t see what you’re getting so upset about. So what if they do find your apartment? They can’t prove it was you.”

“You idiot!” Again the fist went down on the glass. “They have the boy.”

“So?”

“The boy can identify me. That’s what they’re counting on. He may not be able to find me, but once they do, they can use the boy to lock me away for a good long time. Maybe forever.”

“Huh. I guess I hadn’t thought about it like that.”

The man approached Royce, laying his hand gently on Royce’s head. “And you don’t want that to happen, do you, Royce?”

“Of course not.”

“You know, if the police arrest me, they’re going to ask how I became so attached to little Abie. I might have to tell them about you.”

“Hey, now wait a minute. I didn’t tell you what to do.”

“They won’t see it that way. They’ll see you as an accomplice. A pimp.”

Royce frowned. “Fine. What do you want me to do?”

The man’s hand suddenly closed into a fist, tightly clenching a handful of Royce’s hair. “Find me a way to get to the boy.”

“Oww! You’re hurting me!”

Royce’s friend smiled, effecting a frightening change in his demeanor. Temper, temper, he scolded himself. He released Royce’s hair and walked back around the sofa to the table. “I’ve never let one of my little friends escape before. Not for long, anyway. I don’t like it.”

“But I thought they were your little buddies. They wouldn’t hurt you. …”

“Not intentionally, no. But Abie is so sweet, so eager to please. He might talk to them without realizing that he was betraying me.” His forearms trembled. “I don’t like being … vulnerable.”

“I don’t think you have much to worry about—”

“I don’t want to worry at all!” His fist came down like a hammer. This time it happened. The glass tabletop shattered under the impact, splintering the glass, cutting his hand.

Please don’t do it again, Daddy. Please! It hurts, Daddy. It hurts!

The man clenched his eyes shut and slowly withdrew his blood-streaked hand.

“Don’t make me punish you, too, Royce,” the man continued, in an eerie, flat voice. “Get me that boy.”

“I—I’ll do my best.”

He grabbed Royce by the throat. “Don’t give me stupid platitudes. Do it!”

“All right, all right.” Royce broke away, rubbing his sore throat. “Why do I always have to do the hard work?”

“The hard work?” The other man began to chuckle. “But, Royce, all you have to do is find him.” His coal-gray eyes became small and black. “I’m the one who has to kill him.”