“Just give me a second,” I said. Not taking my eyes off the pages, I asked him, “What about Katie’s folks? The Bennets? Do they know you have her? They must be worried sick about her. You should at least call them. Let me call them. Let me tell them that she’s okay.”

When Merker said nothing, I looked at him. He grinned. “Be kind of hard to reach them now,” he said.

A chill ran through me. “What are you saying?” I asked quietly.

“I’m just saying, they ain’t taking calls anymore.”

“They’re dead? Are you saying they’re dead?”

Merker’s grin disappeared and he leaned in to me, putting his mouth close to my ear. “The kid’ll be joining them, and you too, if you don’t find this fucking lawyer and get in to see her.”

I turned my eyes back to the phone book, and found my hand shaking as I turned the pages. I needed to pull myself together. I was unable to focus. I blinked a couple of times, gave my head a shake.

I could find no listing for Niles Wagland.

“I’m going to have to call information for Oakwood,” I said. “Her lawyer may be out there. It only makes sense she’d pick one in her own town.”

“Just don’t do anything funny,” he said.

I picked up the phone, dialed, got a number for a Wagland law office in Oakwood. Once I had the number, I punched it in, and a woman answered on the fourth ring.

“I need to speak to Mr. Wagland,” I said.

“I’m sorry, but Mr. Wagland is in a meeting. Who’s calling?”

“My name is Zack Walker. I’m a friend of Trixie Snelling. Make that Miranda Chicoine.”

“If you’d like to leave your number, I’m sure he’ll get back to you when-”

My voice went up a notch. “This is very important. I must speak to Mr. Wagland right now.”

“I’m sure it is, Mr. Walker, but I’m sure you can understand-”

“No! Right now, you have to understand that I must speak to Mr. Wagland immediately. This is a life-or-death matter concerning his client Ms. Chicoine.”

“I see.” She paused. “Just a moment please.”

I was put on hold. “That was good,” said Merker, who’d been holding his head close enough to the receiver to listen. “You were very good.” I did not acknowledge the compliment.

A click. Then a voice. “Niles Wagland.”

“Mr. Wagland, this is Zack Walker.”

“Yes, Mr. Walker. I’m in the middle of a meeting here, but my secretary indicated your call was very urgent.”

“I need to see Trixie. Miranda.”

“Ms. Chicoine is in custody, Mr. Walker. I would have thought that you’d know that. My understanding, from speaking with her, is that you were present when she was arrested. She’s already indicated to me that if anyone asks, you were trying to persuade her to turn herself in, so I don’t think you have any cause for concern.”

“That’s not what I’m calling about. I need to see her. I don’t even know which facility she’s being held in. But I need to get in and speak with her.”

“What about?”

“It’s very important, to her.”

“I’m her attorney, Mr. Walker. Anything that concerns Ms. Chicoine you can discuss with me.”

Merker shook his head.

“I’d like to, Mr. Wagland, but I have something I must tell Ms. Chicoine, in person. If she decides to share that information with you, I guess that would be up to her.”

“This is highly irregular. And I can’t just pick up the phone and arrange for you to visit someone in a correctional facility.”

“I figured that a call from you to the facility might carry more weight than one from me. Mr. Wagland, I wish I could be more specific, but if you can’t get me in to see Trixie-Miranda-then something very, very awful might happen.”

Wagland was quiet a moment. “What sort of thing?”

“I can’t say.” I paused. “So Miranda has spoken to you of me?”

“Yes.”

“Has she said anything to indicate that I’m less than trustworthy? That I’d have anything but her best interests at heart?”

“No.”

“You have to trust me on this.”

“Give me your number. I’ll see what I can do and will call you back.”

“Thank you.” I gave him the number and hung up.

As I turned to face Merker he grabbed the front of my shirt and shoved me up against the wall. He had his face in mine, and I could see a small booger half hanging out of one nostril. “You were supposed to get in and see her.”

“Jesus,” I said, trying to back away with no place to go. “He said he’s going to see what he can do and call back. Weren’t you listening? You think I can get in to see her just like that?”

“Fuck,” Merker said, turning away. “How long before he calls?”

“I don’t know. We’ll just have to sit tight and see.”

Mrs. Gorkin appeared at the kitchen door. “What is happening?”

Merker said, “We’re waiting for a call back.”

In the living room, I could hear Ludmilla and Leo chatting like old friends. “What kind of food do you like?” she asked.

“I like everything,” Leo said.

“I am a good cook.”

“Yeah, of crap,” said Gavrilla. Mrs. Gorkin went back to the living room and yelled at her girls to shut up.

“So let’s say I get in,” I said to Merker. “What do you want me to do?”

“You ask her where the money is. You tell her we got her kid. She doesn’t tell, we kill the kid. Do you need me to write it down?”

“No,” I said. “What if there is no money? What if whatever you say she took from you is all gone? What then?”

Merker considered that. “Then we got a problem.” He wandered over to the fridge, where a few family snapshots were held on with magnets. There was one there of me, in a tux, with Sarah, decked out in a black gown, taken at a newspaper awards dinner a few months ago. Neither of us had been up for anything, but a reporting team Sarah had overseen had been nominated for an investigative series on city hall contract rigging. Merker studied it.

“Who’s the broad?” he asked.

“My wife,” I said.

“Nice rack,” he said. I didn’t feel like acknowledging that, either.

I decided to change the subject. “What led you to me?”

Merker said, “I listen to the news. They had the story about Trixie getting caught up in Kelton, they mentioned your name, that you worked for the paper, that you tried to talk her into turning herself in, and I figured you’d be a good guy to talk to.” He paused and studied my face. “We’ve met before, haven’t we?”

“Only briefly,” I said. “I was there when you were trying to get the cops to buy your supply of stun guns.”

“Fuck, yeah. That really pissed me off, you know? That was you, right, who did the story for the paper? That fucked up everything. Once that ran, the deal went queer. People start asking questions, cops start taking heat about buying my merchandise.”

“Because it’s hot,” I said.

Merker grinned at me. “Where you hear that?”

“One of your old friends back in Canborough. Michael Cherry. That was his guess.”

“Fucking Mikey. You were talking to him?”

“Yeah. I talked to a lot of people, trying to track down Trixie.”

“What’d Mikey tell you?”

“About what?”

“About me.”

“You ran the Kickstart. Some bad things went down. You lost some people, got out of town.”

“He tell you about that?”

“A little.”

“He tell you who did it? Who killed my boys?”

“No. He doesn’t know. I think he thinks it might have been you. That you cut a deal with the other gang in town, they paid you off, you wasted your own guys.”

“He thinks that?”

“It’s a theory.”

“It’s pretty fucking wrong,” Merker said. “It was that bitch, that friend of yours, did it.”

I said nothing.

“You don’t even look surprised,” he said. “She tell you? She tell you what she did?”

“She told me what you did. That you killed the father of her child, that the bunch of you raped her.”

Merker shrugged. “She was a stripper.”

“I thought she did your books for you.”

“Okay, she used to be a stripper, but what’s your point? She’s just a bit sensitive, you know? I’d a been a lot smarter, let her keep stripping, instead of looking after the money. Talk about getting fucked in the ass over that one. She robbed me blind.”