She shook her head but did not look up. “When it was going to be Tyler,” she said, “he started to come with them. And he would, you know … do things to her.” She licked her lips but still did not look up. “Not just, you know … Not sex. I mean, not normal sex. He, um. He really, really hurt her. Like that was how he got off, and …” She shuddered, and at last she looked up. “I think that’s why they put stuff in my food, some kind of tranquilizer?” she said. “So it keeps me, you know, kind of calm and quiet? Because otherwise …” She looked away again. “Maybe he won’t come,” she said.
“But at least two guys will come?” I said.
She nodded. “Yeah.”
“Are they armed?” I said, and she looked up at me, blank. “You know, knives, guns, bazookas? Are they carrying any weapons?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “I mean, I would.”
I thought that I would, too, and although it might have been uncharitable, I also thought that I would have noticed what weapons my captors were carrying. Of course, I didn’t think of myself as a banquet, and that would almost certainly affect my powers of observation.
So there would be two of them, probably armed, which probably meant guns, since this was Miami. And it might mean Bobby Acosta, too, who would have some kind of weapon, since he was a wealthy fugitive. And I was in a small room with no place to hide, and I was burdened with Samantha, who would probably yell, “Watch out!” at them if I tried to surprise them. On the plus side, my heart was pure and I had a bent tire iron.
It wasn’t much, but I have learned that if you examine the situation carefully, you can almost always find a way to improve your odds. I stood up and looked around the room, thinking that someone might have left an assault rifle lying on a shelf; I even made myself touch the jars and look behind them, but no such luck. “Hey,” Samantha said. “If you’re thinking, like, you know—I mean, I don’t want to be rescued or anything.”
“I think that’s wonderful,” I said. “But I do.” I looked at her, sitting there hunched up in her blanket. “I don’t want to be eaten. I have a life, and a family. I have a new baby,” I said, “and I want to see her again. I want to watch her grow up, and read her fairy stories.”
She flinched a little bit and looked uncertain. “What’s her name?” she said.
“Lily Anne.”
Samantha looked off to the side again, and I could see her trying to swim through the doubt, so I pushed a little. “Samantha,” I said. “Whatever it is you want, you don’t have the right to force it on me.” I felt remarkably hypocritical preaching to her, but after all, there was an awful lot at stake, and in any case I had been practicing hypocrisy all my adult life.
“But—I want this,” she said. “I mean, my whole life …”
“Do you want it enough to kill me?” I said. “Because that’s what you’re doing.”
She looked at me and then looked away again quickly. “No,” she said. “But …”
“Yes, but,” I said. “But if I don’t get past the guys who feed you, I am going to be dead, and you know that.”
“I can’t just give this up,” she said.
“You don’t have to,” I told her, and she looked at me attentively. “All you have to do is let me escape, and you can stay here.”
She chewed on her lower lip for a few seconds. “I don’t know,” she said. “I mean, how can I trust you not to, you know. Call the cops and come storming back here to get me?”
“By the time I could get back here with the cops,” I said, “they will have moved you someplace else.”
“Yeah,” she said, nodding slowly. “But how do I know you won’t, like, drag me out of here and, you know. Save me from myself?”
I went down on one knee in front of her. It was melodramatic, I know, but she was a teenager, and I thought she would probably buy it. “Samantha,” I said. “All you have to do is just let me try. Do no
thing, and I won’t try to get you out of here against your will. You have my solemn word of honor.” There was no crash of thunder, not even the sound of distant laughter, and in spite of my recent epidemic of unpleasant emotions, I felt no shame. And I believe I did it very convincingly. In fact, I think it was the performance of a lifetime—I didn’t mean a word of it, of course, but under the circumstances I would gladly have promised her a ride on my flying saucer if it would get me out of here.
And Samantha began to look more than half-convinced. “So—I don’t know. I mean, what. I just sit here and like don’t say anything? That’s all?”
“That’s all,” I said. I took her hand and looked deep into her eyes. “Please, Samantha,” I said. “For Lily Anne.” Totally shameless, I know, but to my surprise, I found I actually meant it—and even worse, I felt moisture collecting in the corners of my eyes. Perhaps it was just a Method actor moment, but it interfered with my vision and was extremely disconcerting.
And, apparently, extremely effective. “All right,” she said, and she actually squeezed my hand. “I won’t say anything.”
I squeezed back. “Thank you,” I said. “Lily Anne thanks you.” Again, maybe a bit over-the-top, but there were so few guidelines for this situation. I stood and picked up my tire iron. It wasn’t much, but it was better than nothing. I went to the door and tried to wedge myself in beside the frame, where I would be invisible if they looked through the small window first. I chose the side closest to the handle; the door opened outward, and it would be much easier for them to see into the other corner. I had to hope that they would not notice anything and, after glancing in and seeing Samantha in her place on the cot, they would simply walk in unsuspecting. Then with any luck at all it would be one-two, snicker-snak, and Dexter would go galumphing back.
I had been scrunched into my place for about five minutes when I heard voices coming faintly through the thick door. I took a deep breath, let it out slowly, and tried to make myself even smaller in my corner. I looked at Samantha, and she licked her lips, but nodded at me. I nodded back, and then I heard someone pulling on the door’s handle and the big door swung open.
“Sooo-wee, piggy,” somebody said, with a very mean-sounding chuckle. “Oink, oink.”
A man stepped through carrying a red nylon insulated bag. I brought the tire iron down on his head, hard, and he pitched forward without another sound. Like greased lightning, I stepped around his body and into the doorway, holding my tire iron up, ready for anything—