“If you call now, sir, someone will answer and make an assessment based on the available facts.”

“Thank you.” He almost saluted. He walked back to the café with the tables on the sidewalk. “Telefono?”

Inside, a man on a stool was playing a syncopated tune on an acoustic guitar. The woman behind the little counter pointed to a unit mounted on the back wall. Merrill was ready with his coins and the piece of paper bearing the name and number of the man on the Bocagrande peninsula O’Malley said might be willing to help.

The blindfold came off almost as quickly as it had gone on, apparently only to keep her from knowing the last lefts and rights into the subterranean garage under the apartment that was, they said, only their first destination. That is, if Amy was to believe anything these Polish shit kickers were telling her. They said they were stopping here only to check in with Chino, and from here they would be heading to another, more permanent location outside of the city. A more secure location, the bad tooth had repeated for her benefit.

Whatever. At least he had lost interest in her breast. And in a woman who had behaved as if she were submitting to a police search when she was touched. She could not conceal her hatred for him. If he had a shred of honesty in him, he knew from their brief moments of eye contact just how much she wanted to be rid of him – - even kill him, if that’s what getting rid of him took.

The elevator car had no buttons or controls, no floor or direction indicators, no visible camera or obvious speaker. The bad tooth grabbed her chin and twisted her head up toward the corner of the car. “Smile for the birdie, little girl,” he crowed. If his grip on her jaw was any indicator, he knew exactly how she felt about him. The car lurched upward. Amy counted to herself. They had started two levels below ground? She was going to give herself some point of reference. No one was going to accuse her of having rolled over to let herself become a victim.

The elevator stopped when she reached seventeen and the doors opened onto a wide corridor. She stepped out onto a carpet so thick her ankle would have turned if she had been wearing high heels. It was beige, like the walls. No windows. Nothing hanging on the walls, either, outlines in the paint showing where pictures had been hung. The one who had tried to protect her opened and unlabeled door and the other two ushered her inside. No windows here, either. The room was a lounge, almost a waiting room, with off-white sofas arrayed around a coffee table.

“Sit down,” the bad tooth growled.