The Pardon

Chapter 49

On the other side of Key West, near the tourist landmark designated “The Southernmost Point in the Continental United States,” beneath the rotting pine floorboards of an abandoned white frame house, Cindy Paige blinked her eyes open. She wasn’t sure if she was awake. Although her eyes were open, her world was total blackness. She tried to touch her eyes to make sure she wasn’t blind, but her hands wouldn’t move. They were bound. She struggled to get loose, but her feet were bound too. She screamed, but it didn’t sound like her. She screamed again. It was muffled, as if a hand were covering her mouth. Was someone there? Was someone with her? Suddenly it came back to her-the last two things she could remember: a sack being thrown over her head and then a jab in her arm.

She heard a pounding above her. Her heart raced. More pounding, and then a blinding light was in her eyes. A wave of fresh air hit her face, making her painfully aware of how stifling hot her hell really was. Her blurry vision focused, and then her eyes widened with fear. The image had returned-the man in the cap and wraparound sunglasses who’d attacked her in the car.

“Quiet, angel,” Esteban said softly. He was seated on the floor and speaking down into the hole. “No one is going to hurt you.”

She’d never been so frightened in her life. Her teeth clenched the gag in her mouth. Her chest heaved with quick, panicky breaths. Please, she cried out with her eyes, don’t hurt me!

“If you’ll promise not to scream,” he said, “I’ll take off your gag. If you’ll promise not to run, I’ll take you out of your hole. Do you promise?”

She nodded eagerly.

Esteban’s mouth curled into a sinister smirk. “I don’t believe you.”

Cindy whimpered pathetically.

“Don’t blame me,” he said. “Your boyfriend is to blame. Swyteck forced me to do this. I didn’t want it to be this way. So many times I could have hurt you, had I wanted to. But I never did. And I won’t hurt you. . so long as Jack Swyteck does what I tell him to do. You do believe me, don’t you?”

Cindy’s eyes were still wide with horror. But she nodded.

“Good,” he replied. “Now, I can’t let you out of your little hiding place. But I’ll make a deal with you.” He displayed a syringe. “This is secobarbital sodium. It’s what made you sleep so deeply. I must have gotten the dosage right. But now I’ve got a problem. You see, I don’t know how much of it is still in your system. Which means that I don’t know how much to give you. If I give you too much, you’re not gonna wake up. So promise me you’ll lie real quiet, and we can skip the injection. Deal?”

Cindy nodded once.

“Smart girl.” He stood up and put one of the loose floorboards back in place. At the sound of Cindy’s muffled cry, he stopped and wagged his finger at her. “Not another peep,” he reminded her, like a loving parent telling a four-year-old she can’t sleep with Mommy and Daddy tonight.

Cindy swallowed hard. Somehow she managed to stop crying.

“Good girl. Now, don’t you worry, I’ve already found better accommodations for us. You’ll be out of there before long.”

She quivered as she lay in the hole, hoping for a miracle as he reached for the other floorboard. Her world went dark as he laid it in place.

“Night, angel,” she heard him say through the wooden barrier.

Esteban got up off his knees and pulled off his cap and sunglasses. The humidity in the boarded-up house was nearly as sweltering above the floor as it was below. He was in a living room of bare wooden floors and water-stained walls. A few trespassing transients had left behind their aluminum cans, cardboard blankets, and cigarette butts. Esteban had brought only what he absolutely needed: a couple of lounge chairs, a fully stocked ice chest, his ham radio, and three battery-operated fans that pushed stale air around the room. He didn’t dare open the boarded-up windows, for fear of being detected. But the chances of that were slim. The old house was so overgrown with tropical foliage that he’d practically needed a machete to reach the front door. And so far as he could tell from the police band on his radio, no one was searching for him.

“What’s this angel crap?” Rebecca groused from across the room, startling him. She’d been standing in the doorway, listening.

He gave her a quick once-over. She was wearing very short blue-jean cutoffs, a loose tank top, no shoes, no bra, and no makeup. She had the deep suntan of a woman who worked nights, yet her skin didn’t look all that healthy.

“Something a whore like you wouldn’t know anything about,” he snarled.

“Right,” she said indignantly, then walked across the room to the ice chest and grabbed a Coke. “If she’s such an angel, then why you got her under the floorboards? Huh?”

His expression went cold. “She’s alive, isn’t she? And you know why she’s alive?”

“Because she’s no good to you dead.”

“No,” he spat, “because I’ve been watching her for months. Because I know she’s not a slut like her girlfriend-or like you and all the other cock-suckers who dance on tables.”

Rebecca leaned against the wall, shifting her weight nervously. She was afraid but tried not to show it. “Listen, I don’t know what your problem is. If anyone should be complaining, it’s me. I said I’d make the phone call, and I did. I called the bitch. You paid me the six thousand dollars, and that’s fine. But you didn’t tell me I was going to have to come all the way to Key West with you to collect the rest of my stinking twenty-five grand. You didn’t tell me we were going to have Sleeping Beauty in the back of the van. And you sure as hell didn’t tell me we’d have to hole up in this dump, or in this other place you’re bringing us to. So maybe I deserve a little more. Or maybe I walk out right now.”

He glared at her. “You’d do anything for money. Wouldn’t you, Rebecca.”

“Oh,” she said, “and you’re not doing this for the money.”

“I’m doing this for Raul! Because Raul was fucking innocent!”

Beneath the floorboards, Cindy shuddered with fear. She could overhear everything, and the tone in the man’s voice made her wish she was still unconscious.

Inwardly, Rebecca also trembled at his tone. “Just cool your jets,” she said, feeling a lump rising in her throat. “I just want my fair share, all right?”

Esteban stepped toward her slowly, looking as though he were deliberating. He reached into his pocket. “You’ll get your share,” he assured. “But you gotta earn it. Here,” he said as he crumpled up a twenty and threw it at her. He stopped a foot away from her and stared into her eyes. “Here’s twenty bucks, bitch. Do it.”

Rebecca stepped back in fear, her back to the wall. “Do yourself.”

He slapped her across the face. “Do me.”

She tried to slide away, but he grabbed her by the wrist and squeezed hard. “Do it.”

She was about to scream, but was silenced by the look in his eyes. She had been in bad situations before. Men who pulled knives on her. Men who urinated on her. She was street-wise enough to sense whether a scream would make him stop or make him snap. This time, she didn’t dare scream.

Rebecca lowered herself onto her knees, her hands shaking as she unzipped his pants. His head rolled back and he moaned with pleasure. She worked fast and furiously to finish the job as quickly as she could. “Quickies” were her trade, with hundreds or maybe even thousands of them under her belt. But she didn’t swallow for any of her customers, for fear of the deadly virus. She heard Esteban groan, signaling that he was near. She prepared to pull away, but this time the routine was different. She felt his hand clasp the back of her neck, pressing her head down further, forcing her to take in much more than she could. His groaning grew louder. She gagged. He was in so deep she was unable to breathe. She tried to back off, but he forced even harder. She needed out. So she bit him.

Esteban smacked her across the head, knocking her to the floor. “Watch the flicking teeth!”

Rebecca gasped for air, looking up in fear. “I couldn’t breathe!”

He grabbed her by the hair, jerking her head back. “That’s the least of your problems,” he said, his eyes two vacuous pools.

Beneath the floor, Cindy began to shake uncontrollably. She closed her eyes tightly to shut off the tears, but no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t shut her ears.

“I got plans for you, Rebecca,” Cindy heard him say-and the laugh that followed chilled her to the bone.