Louis knew it was some Muslim brothers over there did the job. Being Abu Aziz for a moment instead of Louis Lewis, he said, “I believe was the Shi’ites. You don’t mess with those people.” He asked Ganz where he was going to hide his hostages and the man said he hadn’t worked that part out yet. This was before deciding his house was as good a place as any; the house itself was hidden away and hardly anyone he knew ever came by.

“This kind of setup,” Chip said, “only dealing with the hostages, you don’t have to warn anyone not to call the cops. Once the guy’s missing they’ll look for him; but remember, we’re not asking for ransom money, so there’s nothing to tie us to the hostage.”

“So how do we score?”

“First,” Chip said, “we take time to prepare the guy, get him in the right frame of mind. For weeks he sits in a room and never hears a human voice. He knows somebody’s bringing him food, taking him to the can, but nobody in all that time says one fucking word to him. See, then when I do speak to the guy he can’t believe it. Jesus, someone’s actually talking to him. But all I say that first time, I ask him, ‘What’s it worth to you to get out of here?’”

Louis liked that part. “Yeah?”

“Couple of days go by, I approach him again. ‘Have you decided?’ You bet he has. How much do we want? Name it. Then it’s like negotiating, coming up with a figure we both agree on, something we know the guy can manage. We have to, you know, be realistic.”

“He pays, we let him go?”

“I guess. The guy’s never seen us. Take him out in the Glades and leave him.”

“What if he don’t want to pay?”

“He doesn’t have a choice,” Chip said. “First we agree on the amount. Then he has five days… I tell him, ‘You have five days to come up with a way of paying us that we like.’ I tell him, ‘And it better be the best idea you ever had in your fucking life, I mean foolproof, because if we don’t like it, if we’re not absolutely sure it’ll work, you’re dead.’ So it’s strictly up to him. In other words we don’t have to work anything out, the guy does it. And he’s the kind of guy who knows how to move money around, a guy with hidden resources, like that savings and loan guy. Goes bankrupt, can’t pay his depositors, but he’s sitting on an estimated thirty mil. Right now he’s out on bond. Another guy on the list, everybody knows he launders drug money, gets it cleaned and pressed, puts it in a land development deal and the feds haven’t been able to touch him. There’re all kinds of guys like that around, I mean right in South Florida.”

“The hostage,” Louis said, “can’t think of a good idea, he gets shot in the head, huh?”

“If that’s how you want to handle it. There’re other ways might even be worse.”

“Like what?”

“You didn’t hear about the guy,” Chip said, “wakes up in the middle of the night, his wife’s got his dick in her hand?”

“What’s wrong with that?”

“She’s standing across the room with it. Cut his dick off with a butcher knife while he’s sleeping.”

Louis made a face. “Man, that’s the worst thing I ever heard of.”

Chip said, “See?”

It was in the news when they first started talking about taking hostages. Chip said he was kidding about threatening the guy that way. He said no, if the guy refused to cooperate, or came up with an idea of paying them they didn’t like, Louis could take care of the guy any way he wanted.

Letting him do the heavy work.

Louis unlocked Harry’s chain and brought him into the bathroom, Harry turning his head to say, “I only have to take a leak.” So Louis put him in position. When he was going, looking down at the toilet blindfolded, Harry said, “Speak to me, will you? Tell me what time it is. Christ, what day it is. You don’t want to do that, fine, but say something.”

Louis felt like whispering in the man’s ear and see him jump, but couldn’t think of anything good. He took Harry back to his cot and locked his chain again to the ring bolt in the floor, Bobby and Chip standing in the hall now looking in. Bobby motioned and Louis came out. As soon as he closed the door Chip started in.

“This guy, this fucking bill collector, tells me he wants to change the plan I spent more than a year working out. He gets a bug up his ass ‘cause he’s tired of sitting around.”

“We already decide,” Bobby said.

Louis took Chip by the arm saying, “We gonna talk, let’s step over here,” and brought the man away from the door. Saying to him now, “We wouldn’t be here it wasn’t for you.” Louis keeping his voice quiet, soothing. “We not changing nothing, we just want to get it moving.”

Chip was turning his head from Louis to Bobby. “Go along with your prison buddy, is that it? The cons taking over?”

“Hey, come on,” Louis said, “it’s cool.”

“He’s stoned,” Bobby said.

“Yeah, feeling good, huh?” Louis said, getting close, in the man’s face now. “You like that ganja.” Louis’s gaze moved to Bobby. “Gets some of his herb at his mama’s nursing home, from one of them Rasta fellas work there.” Now he was looking at Chip again, the man staring back at him with big eyes. “Listen to me now. We all going along with it. Me and Bobby Deo and my man Mr. Ganz. Understand? Harry, I can tell, is strung out ready for us, so we gonna do it, get to the money part.”

Chip shrugged and had to move his feet to keep his balance. He said, “This is the way you want it?” Being cool now since he didn’t have a choice. “Fine. I’ll go in and put the bug in his ear. ‘Harry, what’s it worth to you to get out of here?’”

“Go home to his loved ones,” Louis said, placing his hands on Chip’s shoulders. “Except one thing worries me. You made bets with Harry on the phone, didn’t you? Many times, called him about every week.”

“I’d speak to one of his sheet writers.”

“Yeah, but you talk to him, too.”

“Once in a while.”

“See, you go in and talk to him now, he could recognize your voice. Man like Harry, being careful, he knows voices. Same as with Bobby. Bobby’s spoken to him, the reason he come here. So he could know it was Bobby to speak to him.”

“You’re gonna do what you want,” Chip said.

“Listen to me. What I’m saying is I’m the one should talk to the man,” Louis said. “One, he don’t know me; but two, I know Freeport, Grand Bahama. Man, I’m from where his money’s at. Soon as he told Dawn I began to think, Do I know somebody works at his bank? I told you that. You my man, Mr. Ganz. What I want you to tell me is go in there and say your words, set the man up just like you was saying it.”

Harry raised his head, the way he always did.

“Is somebody there?”

Louis closed the door before turning the light on. He walked over to the cot and sat down. Harry, feeling it, turned his blindfolded head toward him.

“Will you say something? Please?”

“I’ll make you a deal,” Louis said.

“Jesus, anything.”

“We do some business. Just me and you. We don’t tell nobody else, not a soul. You understand what I’m saying? Just me and you.”