Part Three
Until Death Us Do Part
Chapter 46
The alarm woke Mitch at eight-thirty, and the wind that had worried his dreams still churned the real world.
He sat on the edge of the bed for a minute, yawning, looking at the backs of his hands, at the palms. After what those hands had done the previous night, they ought to have looked different from the way they had always looked before, but he could discern no change.
Passing the mirrored closet doors, he saw that his clothes were not unusually wrinkled. He had awakened in the same position in which he had fallen asleep; and he must not have moved in four hours.
In the bathroom, searching drawers, he found several unopened toothbrushes. He unwrapped one and used it, then shaved with Anson's electric razor.
Carrying the pistol and the Taser, he went downstairs to the kitchen.
The chair was still braced under the laundry-room doorknob. No sound came from in there.
He cracked three eggs, spiced them with Tabasco sauce, scrambled them, sprinkled Parmesan on them, and ate them with two slices of buttered toast and a glass of orange juice.
By habit, he began to gather the dishes to wash them, but then realized the absurdity of being a thoughtful guest under these circumstances. He left the dirty dishes on the table.
When he opened the laundry and switched on the lights, he found Anson cuffed as before, soaked in sweat. The room wasn't
unusually warm.
"Have you thought about who I am?" Mitch asked.
Anson didn't appear angry anymore. He slumped in the chair and hung his burly head. He did not look physically smaller; but in some way he had been diminished.
When his brother didn't answer, Mitch repeated the question: "Have you thought about who I am?"
Anson raised his head. His eyes were bloodshot, but his lips were pale. Jewels of sweat glittered in his beard stubble.
"I'm in a bad way here," he complained in a voice that he had never used before, one with a whine and with the particular note of offense that suggested he felt victimized.
"One more time. Have you thought about who I am?"
"You're Mitch, but you're not the Mitch I know."
"That's a start."
"There's some part of you now…I don't know what you are.
"I'm a husband. I cultivate. Preserve."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"I don't expect you to understand."
"I've got to go to the bathroom."
"Go ahead."
"I'm bursting. I really have to piss."
"You won't offend me."
"You mean here?"
"It's messy but it's convenient."
"Don't do this to me, bro."
"Don't call me bro."
Anson said, "You're still my brother."
"Biologically."
"Man, this isn't right."
"No, it isn't."
The legs of the chair had scraped a lot more glaze off the floor tiles. Two tiles were cracked.
"Where do you keep the cash?" Mitch asked.
"I wouldn't take your dignity like this."
"You handed me over to killers."
"I didn't humiliate you first."
"You said you'd rape my wife and kill her."
"Are you stuck on that? I explained that."
He had struggled so fiercely to free the chair from the washer that the thick orange extension cord had dimpled the metal of the machine at one corner.
"Where do you keep the cash, Anson?"
"I've got, I don't know, a few hundred in my wallet."
"I'm not stupid. Don't handle me."
Anson's voice cracked. "This hurts like a sonofabitch."
"What hurts?"
"My arms. My shoulders are on fire. Let me change position. Cuff my hands in front of me. This is torture."
Almost pouting, Anson looked like a big little boy. A boy with a coldly calculating reptilian brain.
"Let's talk about the cash first," Mitch said. "You think there's cash, like a lot of cash? There's not."
"If I wire-transfer the money, I'll never see Holly again."
"You might. They don't want you crying to the cops."
"They won't risk her identifying them in court."
"Campbell could persuade them to drop this."
"By beating their mothers, raping their sisters?"
"You want Holly back or not?"
"I killed two of his men. He'd help me now?"
"Maybe. There'd be a respect thing now."
"It wouldn't be a two-way respect thing."
"Man, you've got to stay flexible about people."
"I'm going to tell the kidnappers it has to be a cash trade in person."
"Then it's not going to happen."
"You've got cash somewhere," Mitch insisted. "Money earns interest, dividends. I don't put it in a mattress."
"You read all those pirate stories."
"So?"
"You identified with the pirates, thought they were way cool." Grimacing as if in pain, Anson said, "Please, man, let me go to the bathroom. I'm in a real bad way."
"Now you are a pirate. Even got your own boat, gonna run your business from sea. Pirates don't put their money in banks.
They like to touch it, look at it. They bury it in lots of places so they can get to it easy when their fortunes change."
"Mitch, please, man, I'm having bladder spasms."
"The money you make consulting — yeah, it goes in the bank. But the money from jobs that are — how did you put it? — 'more directly criminal,' like whatever job you did with these guys and then cheated them on the split, that doesn't go in the bank. You don't pay taxes on it."
Anson said nothing.
"I'm not going to march you over to your office and watch while you use the computer to move funds around, arrange a wire transfer. You're bigger than me. You're desperate. I'm not giving you a chance to turn the tables. You're in that chair till this is done."
Accusatorily, Anson said, "I was always there for you."
"Not always."
"As kids, I mean. I was always there for you when we were kids."
"Actually," Mitch said, "we were there for each other."
"We were. That's right. Real brothers. We can get back to that," Anson assured him.
"Yeah? How do we get back to that?"
"I'm not saying it'll be easy. Maybe we start with some honesty. I screwed up, Mitch. It was horrible what I did to you. I was doing some drugs, man, and they messed with my head."
"You weren't doing any drugs. Don't blame it on that. Where's the cash?"
"Bro, I swear to you, the dirty money gets laundered. It ends up in the bank, too."
"I don't believe it."
"You can grind me, but it doesn't change what's true."
"Why don't you think about it some more?" Mitch advised.
"There's nothing to think about. What is is." Mitch switched off the light. "Hey, no," Anson said plaintively.
Stepping across the threshold, pulling the door shut behind him, Mitch closed his brother in the dark.
Chapter 47
Mitch started in the attic. A trapdoor in the walk-in closet off the master bedroom gave access. A ladder folded down off the trap.
Two bare lightbulbs inadequately illuminated the high space, revealing cobwebs in the angles of the rafters.
Eager breathing, hissing, and hungry panting arose at every vent in the eaves, as though the attic were a canary cage and the wind a voracious cat.
Such was the disquieting nature of a Santa Ana wind that even the spiders were agitated by it. They moved restlessly on their webs.
Nothing was stored in the attic. He almost retreated, but was held by suspicion, by a hunch.
This empty space was floored with plywood. Anson would probably not conceal a hoard of cash under a sheet of plywood held down by sixteen nails. He wouldn't be able to get at it fast in an emergency.