24 Hours

by Greg Iles

When the lid rose high enough to reveal the neatly stacked hundred-dollar bills, Cheryl’s face lit up like Abby’s did when she saw a deer walk into the backyard on a cool fall morning. “This is too much,” she said in a flustered voice. “Isn’t it?”

  “That’s three hundred and fifty thousand dollars.”

  She picked up a stack of hundreds and ran her fingers over it, then fanned the edges like a kid playing with a deck of cards. A high-pitched noise that was almost sexual came from her throat. Will knew the effect of cash money on poor people. He had learned it the hard way.

  “Talking about money and holding it in your hand are two different things, aren’t they?” he said. “I told you I’d give you enough to start over. Now you’ve got it. That’s more lap dances than you could do in a lifetime. That’s freedom, Cheryl. Mexico, Bermuda, anyplace you want to be.”

  She turned to him, her eyes guarded. “Can I leave now? Right this minute?”

  “No. Joe is going to call any second to set up a meeting. I need you to tell him everything’s still all right.”

  “No way.” She shook her head like a two-year-old. “I’ve already done too much. Joey will—”

  “He won’t do anything! You’ll never even have to see him again.”

  “You’re lying. To bluff Joey, you’re going to need me up to the very last second. Then I’ll be with him. And he’ll know.”

  “He won’t know anything.”

  “You don’t know him.” Unalloyed fear shone from her eyes. “Joey’s got this thing about betrayal. Like the mafia. He’s totally paranoid about it.”

  “He’s going to kill my little girl, Cheryl. You don’t want to believe that, but deep down, you know. If he’s capable of killing you, he could kill Abby without batting an eye.”

  “Would you let me go if you knew where she was?”

  Will nearly slammed on the brakes. “Do you know where Huey’s going?”

  “Would you let me go if I did?”

  “That depends on whether I believe you.”

  She pursed her lips and looked down at the money in her lap. “I was supposed to bring you to the motel, like I said. Then Joey was supposed to pick us up. I think he was going to take us back to the cabin where Huey was keeping Abby. But if the FBI raided the cabin, and Joey knows that . . .”

  “He knows.”

  “Then he’s going to his backup plan.”

  “What’s his backup plan?”

  “For Huey, I don’t know. I’m still supposed to go the motel in Brookhaven. Only I don’t bring you. I’m supposed to stay off the cell phone, too. Joey will call me at the motel—on a landline—and tell me what to do. I might sit tight with the money until he tells me to go somewhere, or he might pick me up.”

  “Where would he tell you to go?”

  She looked at the money again and swallowed. “I don’t know for sure. But I’ve been thinking about it. One time we were driving from Jackson to New Orleans, and Joey got all hot and wanted to do it. I told him I didn’t want to in the car, and he said we didn’t have to. About ten minutes later, he pulled off the interstate and went down this two-lane blacktop a ways and stopped at an old house. He climbed in a window and unlocked the door for me. His daddy’s people owned it, I think. The house was mostly empty, but there was a bed and a stove. I think if things went to hell up Jackson way, that’s where he’d go.”

  This was what she had held back during the torture session. “Could you find that house again?”

  She shook her head. “Not by myself. It was too dark and too long ago. It’s up by McComb somewhere, but that’s all I know.”

  “You’ve got to try! Huey and Abby might be there right now.”

  “I have tried! Look, you’ve got the name of the motel and the general area of the house. Just give that to the FBI and let me go. They’ll find your little girl.”

  “Not in time, they won’t.”

  “Okay, listen. Joey calls in a minute and tells me to go to the backup plan. I’ll say, ‘Fine, see ya soon.’ The motel’s a hundred and fifty miles north of here. The house must be a hundred and twenty. That gives you guys plenty of time to set something up. I don’t know what you’re doing anyway. If you want to save your kid, why are you running from the FBI?”

  Will sighed. “The FBI wants to bust Joe, okay? And you. And Huey. I don’t care anything about that. I just want Abby back alive. And my wife. The FBI already spooked Joe twice. If he sees them anywhere close again, he might tell Huey to kill Abby. If he hasn’t already.”

  Cheryl pulled at her hair. “But you can’t do anything by yourself. Joey’s closer to both places than we are. A lot closer.”

  “Not necessarily.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Will pointed through the windshield. A Continental Airlines 727 was settling over Interstate 10 as it landed at the nearby airport.

  Cheryl’s mouth fell open. “Jesus . . . your plane. But there’s nowhere to land up there. Not at the house.”

  “Let me worry about that.” Will had once lost an engine over the Mississippi Delta and set down on a deserted stretch of Highway 61. To save Abby, he would land the Baron on a driveway if he had to. “One hour of acting, Cheryl. One hour, and you’re free forever.”

  She covered her face with her hands. “You’re making it too complicated! I told you, I don’t know where the house is!”

  “You know more than you think. You might—”

  The ringing cell phone silenced him. There was no more time for persuasion. He pulled onto the shoulder and shoved the Nokia toward her hand.

  She refused to take it.

  “Answer it,” he said.

  She shut her eyes and shook her head.

  “Answer it!”

  Abby was walking through tall trees toward a gravel road when she saw Huey toss the flat tire into the trunk of the white car. He slammed the lid and looked up at her, then grinned and waved like a little boy waving at a train. Abby raised her hand to wave back. She felt like she was raising it through water.

  She had seen amazing things in the last few minutes. When it was time to leave the cabin, Huey had picked up Belle and her ice chest and led her out to the green pickup truck. But instead of getting in, he opened the lid over the motor and lifted out a big black thing he said was a battery. It didn’t look like any battery Abby had ever seen, but he carried it over to the white car sitting on the concrete blocks and set it on the ground. Then he opened the lid over the white car’s motor and put the battery inside. While he was doing that, Abby had to run into the trees and tee-tee. Ever since she woke up, she’d had to go a lot, and that meant her sugar was going up fast.

  After Huey got the battery into the white car, he went around to the driver ’s door and tried to start the motor. It didn’t work at first, but he worked under the lid for a minute, and the car started, rattling and puffing smoke. He looked at Abby and laughed, then went back inside the cabin. She followed. In the kitchen, he took his cell phone from his pocket, turned it on, and set it on the counter. Then he lifted Abby like she was still a baby and carried her out to the porch steps.

  The white car was still running, but it couldn’t go anywhere because it was sitting a foot off the ground. Huey walked to the back of the car, put his huge hands under the bumper, and started pulling on it. His face turned red, then purple. The porch steps shook under Abby’s behind when the back of the car tipped off the blocks and the tires hit the ground. Huey laughed like crazy. He helped Abby into the front seat, then put his hands on the steering wheel and drove right off the blocks in front.

  The car lurched forward and stopped. Huey drove backward and forward, grinding the motor and jerking the wheel left and right until the car broke loose and started across the grass. Soon they were riding under big trees whose trunks were hardly far enough apart for the car to fit between them. Huey kept saying how “NaNa’s car” was going to save them, how smart Joey was, and how pretty soon they were going to hit a road.

  P
retty soon they did. Two mossy ruts through the dirt. Then the ruts hit a gravel road, which got Huey laughing again until they had the flat. It didn’t boom the way flat tires did on TV. Something just started flopping and grinding on the right side of the car, and Huey pulled over. He told Abby it wouldn’t take long to change it, but it took long enough that she had to run into the trees to tee-tee again.

  That was when she realized she was in trouble. Her head hurt and she felt really tired. She wanted to wipe herself with a leaf, but she was afraid of poison ivy, so she pulled up her panties and started back toward the car, her eyes on Huey as he tossed the flat tire into the trunk. He was grinning and waving. She tried to wave back, but her arm didn’t seem to work.

  “What’s the matter?” Huey called.

  She fell facedown on the dirt.

  The next thing she saw was Huey’s face inches from hers, his eyes bugging behind his heavy black plastic glasses. He looked more scared than she was.

  “My sugar’s too high,” she said, looking around. Huey must have carried her to the white car, because she was sitting in the front seat. “I need my shot.”

  “The medicine in the ice chest?”

  She nodded.

  Huey got the small Igloo from the backseat and set it beside her. “Do you know how to do it?”

  “I’ve seen Mom and Dad do it lots of times. But I’ve never done it. You suck some medicine up into the shot and then stick the needle in my tummy and push the plunger.”

  Huey screwed his face up, as though the idea were unthinkable. “Does it hurt?”

  “A little. But I could die without it.”

  He shut his eyes and shook his head violently. “We better wait till we see your mama.”

  “How long is that?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Abby rubbed her face where it felt itchy. “Will you give me the shot?”

  Huey’s lips worked all around his front teeth. “I can’t. Can’t do that. I hate needles.”

  “But I have to have it.”

  “I can’t do it, Belle.”

  Abby bit her lip and tried not to be scared. “Can you open the ice chest for me?”

  Huey pressed the button on the side of the Igloo and opened it. Abby reached in and took out two bottles of insulin. She picked the bottles by the “N” and the “R” after “HUMULIN.”

  “One of these works quick,” she told Huey. “And one works later. So you mix them up.”

  She took a syringe from the ice chest and pulled off the cap, moving quickly so she wouldn’t have to think about it long. Huey’s face twisted at the sight of the needle, She drew a little clear fluid from each bottle into the syringe, making sure the medicine didn’t get above the “4.”

  It was time to pull up her jumper, but she didn’t want to do it. At least twice every day, she sat still while her mother stuck her in the stomach, but the idea of doing it with her own hands made her feel like she had to throw up.

  “What’s the matter?” Huey asked. “What next?”

  “Can you do one thing for me?”

  “What?”

  Abby pulled her jumper over her right thigh and pinched up some skin and fat. “Pinch up some skin on my leg for me, like this.”

  After some hesitation, Huey put out his hand and pinched up the skin. “Are you scared?” he asked.

  She was. But her daddy had told her that while it was okay to be scared, it was better not to let other people see you were. “I’m almost six years old,” she said in the strongest voice she could. “I can do it.”

  Huey’s eyes were wet. “You sure are brave.”

  Abby wondered how a giant who could pick up a car could think she was brave, but he did. And that gave her the courage to stick the needle in. She pressed down the plunger, and by the time she felt the pain the needle was out again.

  “You did it!” Huey cried.

  “I did!” She laughed and leaned back in the seat, then reached up and hugged Huey. “Let’s go see my mom.”

  He pulled back and looked at her, the awe in his face replaced by sadness.

  “What’s the matter?” Abby asked.

  “I’m never gonna see you again.” His bottom lip was shaking. “Your mama’s gonna take you away, and I’ll never see you.”

  “Sure you will.” She patted his arm.

  “No.” He shook his head. “It always happens. Any friend I ever make gets took away. Like my sister.”

  Abby felt his sadness seeping into her. She picked up Belle and pushed the doll at his hand, but he wouldn’t take it.

  “We’d better get going,” she said. “Mom’s waiting for me.”

  “In a minute,” Huey said. “In a minute.”

  “Take it!” Will shouted, shoving the Nokia at Cheryl. “Answer the damn phone!”

  She crossed herself, then took the phone and hit SEND.

  “Hello? . . . Yeah, I’ve got it...He’s right here... No, not that I saw. No cop cars...We’re on I-10. We turn on I-55 North, right? . . . Oh. Okay.” She cut her eyes at Will. “How come? . . . Oh God...Okay. Just a second.” She handed the phone to Will.

  “Joe?” Will said.

  “You just had to play hero, didn’t you?”

  “Joe, I’m doing exactly what you told me to do. All I want is—”

  “Don’t piss down my boot and tell me it’s raining. You called the FBI.”

  “They were waiting for me in the goddamn bank! But I didn’t call them. It’s your own fault!”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “A heart surgeon named James McDill called them. Does that name sound familiar?”

  This time Hickey didn’t reply.

  “McDill was worried you were going to do to some other family what you’d done to his last year. He called the FBI last night. That’s what started all this. The helicopters, the alerts for wire transfers, the whole thing.”

  “Shit. McDill? His wife was a pill, too.”

  “Joe, I’ve got the money. I’m ready to make the trade. The FBI agent in the bank tried to make me wear a wire, and I told him to stick it. I pulled Cheryl’s gun on him and got the hell out of there. He gave me a GPS tracking device and I trashed it. Ask Cheryl. I want you to get to Costa Rica, okay? All I want is my daughter back. That’s all I ever wanted.”

  There was a long silence as Hickey considered his options. “All right, listen up. Tell Cheryl to take you back to the Beau Rivage. Give her the money and the cell phone, then go back up to your suite. You sit there till the phone rings. It’ll be me. That phone’s going to ring a lot during the next few hours, and you won’t know when. You just keep your ass in that room and answer it. Watch a movie. Because if I call and you ain’t there, your kid is dead. I get a busy signal? She’s dead. Got it?”

  Will sat speechless, watching the cars whiz past. Once again Hickey had done the unexpected. Instead of setting up a ransom exchange, or simply telling Cheryl to dump him somewhere and go to the backup plan, he had figured a way to pin Will down while he made his escape.

  “I can’t accept that, Joe. When would I get Abby back? How would I know you’d keep up your end?”

  “You’ve just got to have faith, Doc. After I get the money, I’ll let your wife and kid go at a public place. Same place for both of them.”

  “That won’t work, Joe. Look . . . I know you don’t just want the money, okay? You want to hurt me, and you want to do it through my family. I’ve got three hundred and fifty thousand dollars here. It’s yours. But I’ve got to be there when we make the trade. When I see Karen and Abby drive away in a car, I’ll give you the money. You can do what you want then. You can kill me. Just let them live. That’s all I ask.”

  “Still trying to play hero, aren’t you? The big martyr. Well, forget it. It’s my way or the highway. Give Cheryl the money and tell her to drop you off at the Beau Rivage.”

  “I’m not giving up the money until I see Abby.”

  “You got no choice, son.”

&n
bsp; The phone went dead in Will’s hand. He sat there in shock, all the frustration of the past twenty-four hours boiling like lye in his gut.

  “What happened?” Cheryl asked. “What did he say?”

  Will hammered the steering wheel with his fists. Cheryl tried to grab his arms, but he pounded the wheel until the horn cover popped off and hit the window.

  “Stop!” Cheryl screamed. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

  He explained Hickey’s last demand.

  “I told you,” she said, sinking back in her seat. “Joey’s always three steps ahead. He doesn’t make mistakes.”

  “He trusts you to bring him the money. That’s a mistake.”

  “No,” she said with resignation. “He knows I might think about running. But when it comes right down to it, I haven’t got the nerve.”

  Will grabbed her arm and squeezed it hard enough to hurt. “Is that the best you can do? Are you that beaten down?”

  She jerked her arm away. “What about you, hot-shot? He’s got you beat five ways to Sunday.”

  Will leaned back in the seat, his head and hands throbbing. “I could get somebody to sit in the suite and answer my phone,” he said, thinking aloud. “Pretend they’re me. One of my friends from the convention.”

  “Joey wouldn’t buy that for two seconds. He knows things about you that you don’t even know. One trick question and it would be over.”

  “The hotel phones, then. I could go back and smash the junction boxes with the car. They’re usually on the ground outside. A car wreck . . . that’s out of my control.”

  “Like that’s a coincidence? Get real. You’re screwed.”

  Another plane roared overhead—an F-18 Hornet. As the thunder of its jet engine shook the car, an idea flashed into Will’s mind with the brilliance of a flare at midnight. Something so simple . . .

  “What is it?” Cheryl asked. “What?”

  He took out his wallet, removed a card from the bill compartment, and dialed a number on Cheryl’s cell phone.

  “Beau Rivage Casino Resort,” said the hotel operator.

  “Give me Mr. Geautreau, please. It’s an emergency.”

  “May I ask the nature of the emergency?”