Hostage Zero

He shook his head. “I don’t know what you’re saying.” Fear rose in his throat.

The woman looked to the others for help, but there was none to be found. Her eyes brightened, and she held up her forefinger as an idea struck her. She hooked her arm around Evan’s shoulder and moved quickly across the room to a primitive set of shelves that was packed with all kinds of crap. Talking a mile a minute, she tore a small piece from a sheet of paper and then shaped into a rough oval. She held it up for him to see, nearly pantomiming Father Dom’s pose when he offered up the Host during Holy Communion.

Whatever she was trying to tell him, it was all about the slip of paper. Apparently it was a very important piece of paper.

“I don’t understand,” Evan said with a full-body shrug.

The woman shook her head emphatically and tapped his lips with her fingers. She wanted him to be quiet and listen.

That’d be great if only he knew what the hell he was listening to.

“Evan!” Oscar boomed.

The sound of the man’s voice made the woman double her pace. Still yammering about whatever, she gestured one more time with the piece of paper, put it in her mouth, then violently spit it out.

Evan reflexively jumped back, but the old woman grabbed his hand to keep his attention and spat again, three times for added effect.

“I’m supposed to spit?” he asked.

She nodded enthusiastically. “ Si, si. Speet.”

So he spat. No wad of goo; just, you know, spit.

“No, no, no, no.” She let him have it with another long string of Spanish. Or maybe Martian. He didn’t understand one any better than the other.

“Evan!” Oscar reappeared in the doorway. “Right now. Ahora. ”

All of the animation drained from the woman. She exhaled heavily, then gave Evan a quick hug. “ Vaya con Dios,” she said.

Evan knew what that one meant, though he wasn’t sure why. She’d said, Go with God. He smiled even though he inexplicably wanted to cry. “Thank you,” he said. “ Gracias. ”

The woman smiled, then turned him around and swatted him on the ass. “Bye-bye, blooshing boy.”

He turned to smile at them, but they seemed to not want eye contact.

“Come, kid,” Oscar said. “The boys are refreshed, and we’ve got a long walk.”

The little parade reformed outside, and Evan fell in line. He looked away as they passed the hut the girl had been dragged into. He might have been imagining it, but he’d have sworn that he could hear crying from inside.

CHAPTER THIRTY

Navarro seemed incapable of sitting. He walked to the rear of the house, to the kitchen, inviting Gail to join him. “Would you like some tea?” he asked.

“Yes, please,” she replied with a smile. She hated tea. It reminded her of childhood sickness, when her mother used hyper-sweetened tea to mask the flavor of whatever foul home remedy she might have concocted. Still, an affirmative answer seemed like the best way to keep Navarro talking.

He filled the copper teakettle from the spigot over the stove and settled it on a front burner. He turned the knob and bent at the waist to verify that the blue flame was exactly right; then he turned to face Gail.

“I was their attorney,” he said, getting right to it. “I dealt mostly with a man named Arthur Guinn, but I did meet Mr. Bell a time or two. They were surprisingly nice people. Very cordial, always dignified. Not at all what you’d expect from people in their line of work. If you didn’t know they were mobsters, you’d have thought they were Ivy League country clubbers.”

“So you knew they were mobsters when you went to work for them?” Gail pulled a chair away from the kitchen table and helped herself to it.

Navarro turned on the sink spigot and pushed the lever all the way to hot. “Of course I knew. The whole world knew. But when I started, I just did corporate work for their legitimate covers.” He filled the teapot with hot tap water and set it aside. “Preheating the pot is very important,” he said.

“Excuse me?”

“When making tea. Too many people make the mistake of pouring the heated water directly into a cold pot. Ruins the tea.”

“I’ve always just put a tea bag in a cup of hot water,” Gail said.

Navarro shivered. “Might as well drink from a mud puddle.” He withdrew two cups and saucers from a cupboard over the stove and started preheating those, as well. “Tea drinking and pipe smoking are both as much about the fuss-budgetry as they are about the final reward.”

Gail didn’t care. But she didn’t want to push too hard.