Fatal Error

by F. Paul Wilson

  Munir had been so glad to see him, so grateful to him for coming back, that Jack practically had to peel him off.

  He helped him to the kitchen where he noticed a heavy meat cleaver lying on the table. Several deep gouges, fresh ones, marred the tabletop. Jack finally got him calmed down.

  “Where is it?”

  “There.” He pointed to the upper section of the refrigerator. “I thought if maybe I kept it cold . . .”

  Munir slumped forward on the table, facedown, resting his forehead on his crossed arms. Jack opened the freezer compartment and pulled out the plastic bag.

  A finger. A kid’s. The left pinkie. Rock hard from the freezer. Cleanly chopped off. Probably with the cleaver he’d seen yesterday in the photo of a more delicate portion of Robby’s anatomy.

  The son of a bitch.

  And then the photograph of the boy’s mother. And the inscription.

  Jack felt a surge of blackness from the abyss within him. He willed it back. He couldn’t get involved in this, couldn’t let it get personal. He turned to look back at the kitchen table and found Munir staring at him.

  “Do you see?” Munir said, wiping the tears from his cheeks. “Do you see what he has done to my boy?”

  Jack quickly stuffed the finger back into the freezer.

  “Look, I’m really sorry about this but nothing’s changed. You still need more help than one guy can offer. You need the cops.”

  Munir shook his head violently. “No! You haven’t heard his latest demand! The police cannot help me with this! Only you can! Please, come listen.”

  Jack followed him down a hall to the office again where he waited while Munir’s trembling fingers fumbled with the answerphone controls. Finally he got it playing. Jack barely recognized Munir’s voice as he spewed his grief and rage at the caller. Then the other voice laughed.

  VOICE:

  Well, well. I guess you got my little present.

  MUNIR:

  You vile, filthy, perverted—

  VOICE:

  Hey-hey, Mooo-neeer. Let’s not get too personal here. This ain’t between you’n me. This here’s a matter of international diplomacy.

  MUNIR:

  How . . . [a choking sound] how could you?

  VOICE:

  Easy, Mooo-neeer. I just think about how your people blew my sister to bits and it becomes real easy. Might be a real good idea for you to keep that in mind from here on in.

  MUNIR:

  Let them go and take me. I’ll be your prisoner. You can . . . you can cut me to pieces if you wish. But let them go, I beg you!

  VOICE:

  [laughs] Cut you to pieces! Mooo-neeer, you must be psychic or something. That’s what I’ve been thinking too! Ain’t that amazing?

  MUNIR:

  You mean you’ll let them go?

  VOICE:

  Someday—when you’re all the way through the wringer. But let’s not change the subject here. You in pieces—now that’s a thought. Only I’m not going to do it. You are.

  MUNIR:

  What do you mean?

  VOICE:

  Just what I said, Mooo-neeer. I want a piece of you. One of your fingers. I’ll leave it to you to decide which one. But I want you to chop it off and have it ready to send to me by tomorrow morning.

  MUNIR:

  Surely you can’t be serious!

  VOICE:

  Oh, I’m serious, all right. Deadly serious. You can count on that.

  MUNIR:

  But how? I can’t!

  VOICE:

  You’d better find a way, Mooo-neeer. Or the next package you get will be a bit bigger. It’ll be a whole hand. [laughs] Well, maybe not a whole hand. One of the fingers will already be missing.

  MUNIR:

  No! Please! There must be—

  VOICE:

  I’ll call in the mornin’ t’tell you how to deliver it. And don’t even think about goin’ to the cops. You do and the next package you get’ll be a lot bigger. Like a head. Chop-chop, Mooo-neeer.

  He switched off the machine and turned to Jack.

  “You see now why I need your help?”

  “No. I’m telling you again the police and the feds can do a better job of tracking this guy.”

  “But will the police help me cut off my finger?”

  “Forget it!” Jack said, swallowing hard. “No way.”

  “But I can’t do it myself. I’ve tried but I can’t make my hand hold still. I want to but I just can’t do it myself.” Munir looked him in the eyes. “Please. You’re my only hope. You must.”

  “Don’t pull that on me.” Jack wanted out of here. Now. “Get this: Just because you need me doesn’t mean you own me. Just because I can doesn’t mean I must. And in this case I honestly doubt that I can. So keep all of your fingers and dial nine-one-one to get some help.”

  “No!” Anger overcame the fear and anguish in Munir’s face. “I will not risk their lives!”

  He strode back to the kitchen and picked up the cleaver. Jack was suddenly on guard. The guy was nearing the end of his rope. No telling what he’d do.

  “I wasn’t man enough to do it before,” he said, hefting the cleaver. “But I can see I’ll be getting no help from you or anyone else. So I’ll have to take care of this all by myself!”

  Jack stood back and watched as Munir slammed his left palm down on the tabletop, splayed the fingers, and angled the hand around so the thumb was pointing somewhere past his left flank.

  Jack didn’t move to stop him. Munir was doing what he thought he had to do.

  He raised the cleaver above his head. It hovered there a moment, wavering like a cliff diver with second thoughts, then with a whimper of fear and dismay, Munir drove the cleaver into his hand.

  Or rather into the tabletop where his hand had been.

  Weeping, he collapsed into the chair then, and his sobs of anguish and self-loathing were terrible to hear.

  “All right, goddammit,” Jack said. He knew this was going to be nothing but trouble, but he’d seen and heard all he could stand. He kicked the nearest wall. “I’ll do it.”

  12

  Dawn had carried her lunch salad up to the top floor of the penthouse. She sat in one of the poolside chairs and gazed through the green-tinted glass walls at Central Park below. Not nearly as pretty now as in the summer when the trees were in full leaf. The bare branches and winter-brown grass were totally ugly. Shadows from the buildings along Central Park West were stretching her way, edging onto the frozen surface of Jackie O Lake. On the far side of the park, the setting sun peeked between the towers of the El Dorado building.

  She sighed.

  So damn lonely. She could have eaten downstairs with Gilda bustling about, but being around Gilda was worse than being alone. She’d had a thing against Dawn ever since Henry got the sack, or whatever happened to him. A lot of that was Dawn’s fault, yeah, but Henry had gone along with it.

  Anyway, she was sure Gilda would have totally poisoned her food long before now if not for her boss. “The Master,” as she called him, kept Dawn locked away here for her protection. Supposedly. If anything hap—

  She cried out and doubled over, sending her plate flying as a sharp pain ripped through her lower belly.

  The plate shattered and the flying pieces hadn’t settled before the pain was gone.

  Dawn straightened and took a breath.

  What was that? The start of labor?

  Tensing, she waited for the next shot but it didn’t come. After ten minutes of nothing happening, she rose and headed for her room, leaving the broken plate and scattered lettuce behind. Let Gilda clean it up. If it had been anyone else, Dawn would have picked up the pieces as best she could, but not for Gilda.

  She stepped carefully, not wanting that pain to hit again while she was on her feet. But she reached her room without even a tiny pang. She lay down on her bed and waited.

  13

  “Ready?”

  Munir’s left hand was lashed t
o the tabletop. Jack had loaded him with every painkiller in the medicine cabinet—Tylenol, Advil, Bufferin, Anacin 3, Nuprin. Some of them were duplicates. Jack didn’t care. He wanted Munir’s pain center deadened as much as possible. He wished the guy drank. He’d have much preferred doing this to someone who was dead drunk. Or doped up. Jack could have scored a bunch of Dilaudids for him. But Munir had said no to both. No booze. No dope.

  Tight-ass.

  Jack had never cut off a finger. He wanted to do this right. The first time. No misses. Half an inch too far to the right and Munir would lose only a piece of his pinkie; half an inch too far to the left and he’d be missing the ring finger as well. So Jack had made himself a guide. He’d found a plastic cutting board, a quarter-inch thick, and notched one of its edges. Now he was holding the board upright with the notch clamped over the base of Munir’s pinkie; the rest of his hand was safe behind the board. All Jack had to do was chop down as hard as he could along the vertical surface.

  That was all.

  Easy.

  Right.

  “I am ready,” Munir said.

  He was dripping sweat. His dark eyes looked up at Jack, then he nodded, stuffed a dishrag in his mouth, and turned his head away.

  Swell, Jack thought. Glad you’re ready. How about me?

  Now or never.

  He steadied the cutting board, raised the cleaver. He couldn’t do this.

  Got to.

  He took a deep breath, tightened his grip—

  —and drove the cleaver into the wall.

  Munir jumped, turned, pulled the dishrag from his mouth.

  “What? Why—?”

  “This isn’t going to work.” Jack let the plastic cutting board drop and began to pace the kitchen. “Got to be another way. He’s got us on the run. We’re playing this whole thing by his rules.”

  “There aren’t any others.”

  “Yeah, there are.”

  Jack continued pacing. One thing he’d learned over the years was not to let the other guy deal all the cards. Let him think he had control of the deck while you changed the order.

  Munir wriggled his fingers. “Please. I cannot risk angering this madman.”

  Jack swung to face him. An idea was taking shape.

  “You want me in on this?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “Then we do it my way. All of it. First thing we do is untie you.” He began working at the knots that bound Munir’s arm to the table. “Then we make some phone calls.”

  14

  Munir understood none of this. He sat in a daze, sipping milk to ease a stomach that quaked from fear and burned from too many pills. Jack was on the phone, but his words made no sense.

  “Yeah, Ron. It’s me. Jack . . . Right. That Jack. Look, I need a piece of your wares . . . small piece. Easy thing . . . Right. I’ll get that to you in an hour or two. Thing is, I need it by morning. Can you deliver? . . . Great. Be by later. By the way—how much? . . . Make that two and you got a deal . . . All right. See you.”

  Then he hung up, took the glass from Munir’s hands. Munir found himself taken by the upper arm and pulled toward the door.

  “Can you get us into your office?”

  Munir nodded. “I’ll need my ID card and keys, but yes, security will let me in.”

  “Great. There a back way out of here?”

  Munir led him down the elevator to the parking garage and out the rear door. Night was falling. They caught a cruising gypsy cab and rode downtown to a hardware store on Bleecker Street. Jack told the cabbie to wait, then grabbed Munir’s arm.

  “Let’s go.”

  “I can stay with the cab.”

  “No way. This won’t work without you.”

  Munir followed him inside to where a painfully thin man with sallow skin and no hair whatsoever, not even eyebrows, stood behind the counter.

  “Hey, Jack,” he said.

  “How’s it going, Teddy? How’re you feeling?”

  “Like warmed-over shit. This chemo sucks the big one.”

  Munir noticed a pack of cigarettes in the breast pocket of Teddy’s shirt and made a tentative diagnosis. And yet he was still smoking? He didn’t understand some people.

  He followed Jack to the paint department at the rear of the store. They stopped at the display of color cards. Jack pulled a group from the brown section and turned to him.

  “Give me your hand.”

  Baffled, Munir watched as Jack placed one of the color cards against the back of his hand, then tossed it away. And again. One after another until—

  “Here we go. Perfect match.”

  “We’re buying paint?”

  “No. We’re buying flesh—specifically, flesh with Golden Mocha number one-sixty-nine skin. Let’s go.”

  And then they were moving again. Jack slapped a ten-dollar bill on the counter as he passed.

  “What’s that for?” Teddy said.

  “Your trouble. Hang in there, Teddy.”

  “Like I got a choice.”

  And then they were back in the cab. Jack directed the driver to the East Side now, up First Avenue to Thirty-first Street—Bellevue Hospital. He ran inside with the color card, then came out and jumped back into the cab empty-handed.

  “Okay. Next stop is your office.”

  “My office? Why?”

  “Because we’ve got hours to kill and we might as well use them to look up everyone you fired in the past year.”

  Munir thought this was futile but he had given himself into Jack’s hands. He had to trust him. And as exhausted as he was, sleep was out of the question.

  He gave the driver the address of the Saud Petrol offices.

  15

  Kris Szeto knocked on the door of apartment 7C and waited. He’d already checked A and B, so now it was C’s turn. Best to search in an orderly fashion. Much less apt to miss something.

  The photo of the woman had come attached to an email from the Grand Paladin of the Dormentalist temple on Lexington Avenue. A Dormentalist woman had spotted someone who looked like Louise Myers—Drexler had begun referring to her as Louise Connell, but she would always be Louise Myers to Kris.

  Because he hated Louise Myers.

  To the Dormentalist’s credit, she had followed the woman to her apartment, even knew her floor, and somehow had managed to take a picture of her.

  It all sounded perfect, but the resultant photo was blurry and the lighting poor. The woman in the photo did resemble Louise Myers, but Kris saw enough differences to make him wonder. Last year they had tracked her to Wyoming through her debit card.

  Since he was the only one left alive who had seen Louise Myers in the flesh, it had fallen to him to follow her there. But the trail had dried up. Now she was back in the city. Couldn’t stay away, apparently. Not that he blamed her. He blamed her for many things, but he’d been to Wyoming and wouldn’t want to stay there either.

  And since he was the only one left alive who could recognize her, he was here to make certain this was the woman they sought.

  The only one left alive . . .

  He ground his teeth at the good men he had sent after her who had never come back . . . at least not alive. Shot to death, one and all. Drexler said it couldn’t have been her, but Kris wasn’t so sure.

  When Kris had seen her she’d been comatose in a hospital bed. Was that why he was still alive? Because she’d been unconscious.

  A woman’s voice spoke through the door.

  “Can I help you?”

  “Yes, please. I live on fifth floor and I am looking for my dog.”

  “Sorry. I haven’t seen any dogs.”

  Wasn’t she going to open the damn door?

  “Please?”

  He took one of the fliers he had brought along and held it up to the peephole. He’d found a picture of something called a shih chon—a sickeningly cute cross between a shih tzu and a bichon—and had printed a close-up of its face on the flier. He figured it would be irresistible.


  “I haven’t seen a single dog on this floor.”

  Still the door remained closed.

  “I did not think you would. He got off leash outside. Would you please keep watch for him?”

  Locks clicked and the door opened a few inches. Kris noticed a chain pulled tight across the opening. A woman’s face appeared.

  Despite his training and experience, he couldn’t help a short, sharp intake of breath.

  Louise Myers.

  Thinner, longer hair, but her. No question. His first instinct was to kick down the door and strangle her.

  “Are you all right?” she said.

  “Yes. I mean, no. My wife and I are very attached to our Binky.”

  She smiled and seemed to relax. “Binky?”

  He forced a smile. “Yes. A long story. But if you see him about, that is name he will answer to. Grab him if you can—he is friendly—but if you cannot, just follow him and call that number. We are offering five-thousand-dollar reward.”

  He passed the flier through the opening and she took it.

  So easy to grab her wrist and yank it through. Then he’d—

  “I’ll keep my eyes open.”

  “Thank you. Thank you so much.”

  The door closed and he walked away.

  Mission accomplished.

  Drexler wanted only her address, nothing else. Not even observation. Simply a location.

  But Kris wanted so much more.

  16

  Ohio, Kewan thought as he trudged through the dark up a rise behind a guy he’d met only a few hours ago. The fuck am I doing in Ohio?

  He’d been ushered into a car right after this morning’s meeting and driven out to the middle of nowhere. He’d been met by this white guy named Clinton Bridger who’d be putting him up and showing him the ropes. Exactly what ropes, no one was saying.