Midnight Rambler

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

Sally made a couple of phone calls and located Brian Cox. He was staying at a hotel on International Drive. I called the hotel, and an operator put me through to his room. Cox answered and sounded dead-asleep. After some gentle persuasion he agreed to help.

Twenty minutes later, Cox pulled into the security area and got out of his rental car. He was unshaven, skinny to the point of being unhealthy, and clad in rumpled black clothes. His spiked hair was mashed to one side of his head. We shook hands.

“Thanks for coming so fast,” I said.

“I'm a comic,” he said. “What else have I got to do?”

I took him into the basement of the security building and introduced him to Sally, who'd remained outside the room Cecil Cooper was being kept in. Sally eyed Cox skeptically, then looked at me.

“Exactly what do you want to do?” she asked.

“I want Brian to listen to Cecil while you interrogate him,” I said. “Hopefully, Brian will be able to mimic Cecil's voice, and we can trick Bonnie into confessing.”

“How good are you?” Sally asked him.

Brian's face turned semiserious, and he launched into a series of famous voices, jumping from a mean Humphrey Bogart to a boisterous John Wayne to a wimpy-voiced Mike Tyson without pausing to catch his breath.

“I'm impressed,” Sally said. “Okay, let's give it a try.”

Sally went into the room where Cecil was being kept, along with a guard who was watching him. She left the door ajar and began to question Cecil. Before she could finish her first sentence, Cecil exploded.

“I want to speak to my fucking attorney, and I want to speak to him right now,” Cecil shouted. “You fucking people don't scare me. You think because you're rich you can push everyday folks around. Well, I ain't being pushed!”

Brian stood by the door, listening hard.

“Piece of cake,” he said.

A few minutes later I entered the interrogation room where Bonnie Sizemore was sitting, and left the door open. I looked at Bonnie while sadly shaking my head.

“What do you want?” Bonnie asked.

“You had your chance, and you blew it,” I said.

“What's that supposed to mean?”

“I told you to come clean, didn't I? Now you and your boys are screwed.”

“Screwed how? What are you talking about?”

“Cecil sold you down the river.”

The blood drained from her tanned face, leaving the skin a sickly caramel color. “Cecil wouldn't do that. You're lying, mister.”

“I just heard him,” I said. “Put a pair of mouse ears on him, and he'd look like a giant rat. Come here and listen if you don't believe me.”

Bonnie joined me at the door. I glanced down the hallway at Sally, who stood inside the doorway to a vacant room where Brian was hiding. Cecil was gone, having been taken upstairs. I gave Sally the high sign.

“Listen,” I told Bonnie.

“It was Bonnie's idea to grab the kid inside the park,” Brian said in Cecil's rough voice. “I told her it was a big mistake, but she always wanted a little girl. She can be mighty demanding when she wants stuff. Fucking-A, sometimes I can't control her. So I just went along, you know what I'm saying? She grabbed the kid and cut her hair and spray-painted her sneakers blue. It was all her idea. I was just along for the ride.”

“That's a fucking lie!” Bonnie screamed.

I shut the door and pointed at the chair. “Sit down.”

“Cecil's lying. He talked me into it. You've got to believe me, mister.”

“Are those boys your sons?” I asked.

Bonnie backed into the wall. Her hands had balled into fists and she was breathing hard, her conscience crashing down upon her like a suffocating wall of sand. I took out my pack of gum and put a stick into her hand. She unwrapped the stick and shoved it into her mouth. Her mouth worked the gum hard, and she calmed down. I repeated my question.

“Yeah, they're my kids,” she said softly.

“They didn't know what was going on, did they?”

“No, sir.”

“How about you?”

“Cecil told me it was a custody thing. He said the little girl's mother wanted her back and was paying Cecil five thousand dollars to snatch her inside the Magic Kingdom theme park. Cecil said the mother got screwed in a divorce, and that we'd be doing her a big favor.”

“When did Cecil tell you this?”

“This morning. He called me from a motel in Kissimmee, asked me to drive over with my boys. I said sure.”

“Did Cecil pay you, Bonnie?”

Shamed by the question, Bonnie looked up at the ceiling. “He was going to give me five hundred dollars. I ain't worked in a while and needed the money to buy clothes for my boys. I thought I was doing the mother a favor. I been divorced. I know what it's like to fight for your kids.”

Bonnie started to cry. The tears were left to run their course, her hands pressed against the wall for support. I stepped back and cracked the door. Sally stood in the hallway with Brian. I gave her a thumbs-up. Sally and Brian exchanged jubilant high-fives, and I shut the door.

“Mister, will you answer a question for me?” Bonnie asked.

I already knew what the question was, and simply nodded.

“Am I going away? You know. To prison.”

The answer was yes. Her attorney might convince a judge that Bonnie was lied to and manipulated by Cecil, and if the attorney was any good, he'd get the most serious charges against her dropped. But in the end, Bonnie would do hard time.

But I wasn't going to tell Bonnie that. I was not her friend, and was every bit as cunning and deceptive as she was. It was the only way justice could be served.

“It all depends on how cooperative you are,” I said.

“I'll do whatever you want,” she said.