He didn’t speak or move. My stomach heaved. I was glad I’d only put half a plate of tofu into it. That lessened the chance of total humiliation. I heard glass shatter to my right. I jerked around involuntarily and felt the pistol jam into my neck.
One of the Hulk’s pals had broken the glass in the passenger side of the Impala and was calmly unlocking the door. He, too, had a gun. When he had it stuck in my side‘, the Hulk climbed into the backseat. Stupidly enough, the only thing I could think was how pissed Luke was going to be when he saw the broken window on a car he wanted to sell.
“Drive,” the Hulk growled.
“Your slightest wish is my command. Where to, Oh king?” Despite my dry mouth and heaving stomach, my voice came out without a quaver. All those years of practicing breath control to my mother’s critical standard paid off in a crisis.
“Down to the corner and make a left,” the Hulk said.
I turned left onto Albany. “Back to Eddie Mohr’s?”
“We don’t want to hear it from you.” A piece of metal attached itself to the back of my head. “Right at the corner.”
“To Diamond Head, then.”
“I said we didn’t want to hear it from you. Left on Archer.”
We were heading to the plant. Rain was starting to come in through the broken glass, spattering the man to my right, but also the dashboard. Another thing that would peeve Luke.
If they were just getting me to the plant so that they could kill me in private I didn’t think I had a prayer. I wished I’d seen Lotty before I came down here. I wished she hadn’t spent the last week in fear because of me. And I wished my own last minutes weren’t to be spent in terror.
I still had my gun. But I couldn’t figure out how to get to it without one of my escorts shooting first. When we pulled up on the tarmac in front of the plant, the Hulk slid out of the backseat and opened the driver’s door. His pal ordered me to kill the engine. I did, but left the key in the ignition. The Hulk yanked on my left arm, wrenching me from the car, while his pal kept me covered. From around the side I could hear the throb of truck engines.
I whirled inside the Hulk’s arm, so that his body shielded me from his partner, and kicked hard on his shin. The damned Tigers were too soft.
The Hulk grunted, but kept his hold. “Don’t make it harder on yourself than it already is, girlie.”
He frog-marched me into the building, his partner covering us. We went down the long hall past the assembly room where the women had been so sympathetic about my uncle. Past the T-intersection that led to the loading bays. On around to the small stretch of corridor that housed the offices. The Hulk pounded on Chamfers’s door. A voice told us to come in.
Milt Chamfers was sitting on a chair in front of his desk. Jason Felitti was facing him. Behind the desk sat the big brother, Peter.
“Thanks, Simon,” Chamfers said. “You can wait for us outside.”
Simon. Why could I never remember his name?
“She had a gun when she was here before,” the Hulk said.
“Ah… a gun. Have you searched her?” That was Peter Felitti.
It didn’t take Simon long to find the Smith & Wesson. His hand lingered longer than was necessary on my left breast. I stared past him stonily, hoping there would be a chance to respond more appropriately in the future.
“Good afternoon, Ms. Warshawski. You did go back to your maiden name, didn’t you, after your divorce?” Peter Felitti asked when Simon had closed the door behind him.
“No.” I massaged my shoulder where the Hulk had yanked it from the socket.
“No, what?” Chamfers demanded.
“I didn’t go back to my own name: I never gave it up. Thank God, of all the imbecile things I did when I was young and in love, I never allowed myself to be called
Mrs. Yarborough. Speaking of which, where is the distinguished counselor?“
Jason and Peter exchanged angry looks.
“I wanted to bring him,” Jason began, but Peter cut him off.
“I tell you, the less he knows, the better.”
“You mean if it gets to court,” Jason said. “But you keep telling me we can keep things from going that far.”
“So how much of your shenanigans is Dick privy to, anyway?” That was probably the least essential thing to worry about right now, but it seemed important to know Dick hadn’t been involved in the attempts on my life.
“We thought you might listen to him,” Peter said. “The way you clung to his arm that night at the concert I thought you were still carrying a torch for him. He said you’d never pay attention to him in a million years. It’s too bad he was right.”
“Carrying a torch?” I echoed. “No one says that anymore. What was I supposed to listen to, anyway?”
“To keep your goddammed snooper’s nose out of Diamond Head.” Peter slammed the desktop. Its hollow metal top buckled at the blow; he rubbed the side of his hand. “We were managing perfectly well until—”
“Until I came along and found out about the bond parking and defrauding old ladies and stealing raw materials from Paragon. Not to mention fooling around with the pension fund.”
“That was perfectly legal,” Jason said. “Dick told me so.”