“None,” the man said. “Let me out of here, and you’ll never see me again.”

“That’s a possibility,” Ham said, “but not until I get some answers. Lie down on the floor.” He didn’t call Ginny out yet, because he wasn’t sure there weren’t others.

48

STONE WAS AT his desk, working his way through a pile of work he had dictated days before, when the phone rang.

Joan buzzed him. “Ham Barker on line one, and he wants to talk with both you and Holly.”

“Buzz Holly in the bedroom,” Stone said. He watched the lights on the phone blinking, then turning red again. He picked up the instrument. “Ham?”

“Yeah, Stone. Holly’s on the line, too.”

“What’s up?”

“Well, we were about to start packing for a little vacation when we had a couple of visitors.”

“Are you both all right?”

“Oh, yeah, we’re fine. One of our visitors is suffering from being dead, though, and the other one is taped to a kitchen chair. Don’t you just love duct tape?”

“Ham,” Holly said, “was this a good shooting?”

“Well, if you think having an Uzi pointed at you with intent is a good reason for a shooting, then it’s a good shooting.”

“Have you called the station?”

“Not yet. I wanted to have a little chat with the other one first.”

“Don’t wait too long,” Holly said.

“Oh, I’m about ready to call now. I just wanted to let you and Stone have the results of our chat first.”

“Okay, what are the results?”

“Well, the fellow was a little reluctant to talk at first, until we made him take off his pants and then taped him to the chair and then told him about how Daisy was trained to eat genitals, how they’re her favorite thing.”

Holly burst out laughing. “I’ve got to remember that one.”

“After that, and after Daisy stood in front of him and showed her teeth, he got real talkative.”

“And what did he have to say?” Stone asked.

“Trouble is, he doesn’t really know all that much. Turns out he works for some bad people in Miami, and he and his former buddy had traveled up here at the request of your Mr. Rodriguez. That didn’t come as much of a surprise.”

“No,” Holly said, “it wouldn’t.”

“What did come as a surprise was exactly what Trini wanted them to do to Ginny and Daisy and me when they got here.”

“Do I want to hear this, Ham?” Holly asked.

“Probably not. Suffice it to say that he wanted to cause us all some pain before we shuffled off this mortal coil.”

“Tell my cops about this in detail,” she said.

“Wilco. Now I thought you might have an interest in how this fellow got his instructions from Trini.”

“Oh, yes,” Holly said.

“It seems Trini called him on his cell phone.”