He heard a car and half opened his eyes. In this new world of his, where nothing would ever seem unexpected again, he was not in the least bit surprised to see Detective Suarez and the skinny guy who’d been with him before striding purposefully across the blacktop towards him.
*
‘So,’ said Suarez, with the air of Detective Columbo summing things up, ‘they took you, they put a gun in your mouth, they told you they could shoot you, or you could steal the paperwork for them and make plenty of money – your choice.’
‘Yes,’ said Nicholas Nicholas, shakily.
‘What did you choose?’
Suarez, Tom and Nicholas all turned slowly to look at Toby Uncle, who blushed to the very roots of his wispy blond hair and mumbled, ‘Sorry.’
‘And then they dumped you back here.’
‘Yes. Just before you showed up.’
‘Goddamn planes!’ Tom muttered furiously. If he hadn’t thrown up in the airport lot, they’d have reached WAE in time to see Nicholas dumped – in time to catch the men who’d dumped him. He knew it and he knew Suarez knew it, although he’d been good enough not to say it.
Nicholas dabbed at the lump on his forehead. It wasn’t bleeding but he kept touching it, then looking at his fingers.
‘Do you know where they took you?’
‘I was face-down on the back seat the whole time. With a guy on my legs.’
‘The guy who put the gun in your mouth?’
‘Yes.’
‘Did they have local accents?’ said Suarez.
‘No. Just American.’
‘Can you describe them?’
‘I didn’t see the driver hardly at all. So I don’t know.’ Nicholas frowned in concentration. ‘The other guy. He was white. Umm. Black hair, I think. Taller than me. Strong build. I didn’t see much of him either, didn’t get a good look at his face.’
‘Even when he put the gun in your mouth?’
‘I had my eyes shut.’ Nicholas said it like they should have guessed that – like, if they’d been in his place, they would’ve guessed that.
Tom had never had a gun put in his mouth but he figured Nicholas was probably right.
Suarez sighed, and Nicholas seemed to feel bad that he hadn’t been more helpful.
‘He was kinda fidgety,’ he offered.
‘Fidgety?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Great,’ snorted Suarez. ‘Uncle, get an APB out on a fidgety white guy.’
‘Yes, sir,’ said Uncle, keen to make up for his earlier stupidity. He actually turned back towards his car to put out the call, before he apparently realized he’d just compounded his sin. ‘Fuck,’ he berated himself quietly.
Nicholas remembered. ‘He wore stupid red boots.’
Tom felt like he’d been knocked off a pier with a plank. He had a sense of free-falling through a vacuum and his breath left him with an audible rush that made the others turn towards him. When he finally found his voice, it was strangled. ‘Stupid red cowboy boots?’
‘Yeah,’ said Nicholas Nicholas, in surprise. ‘Stupid red cowboy boots.’
*
When Worlds Collide.
Tom had seen that movie on TV once after a long session at the Normandie. Now he couldn’t get the title out of his head as he tried to get a grip on the two worlds – cards and work – that he’d thought were entirely separate, but which he now discovered were somehow swirling tightly around each other, like twin stars connected by a pivotal point: the leg-shaking, red-boot-wearing Mr Stanley.
Mr Stanley, who’d beaten him up after folding three of a kind.
Mr Stanley, who’d thrown him into the trunk of his Thunderbird.
Mr Stanley, who’d slapped Ness so hard that he’d knocked the duct tape clear off her mouth.
All those things were about the world of cards.
So what the hell was Mr Stanley doing here in his world of work? Somehow involved with a paper trail that led all the way back to the Pride of Maine? And all the way forward to … what? To whom?
And if he was involved in the Pride of Maine, where did his involvement stop? Halo Jackson? Pam Mashamaete? Buttfuck, Oklahoma? Tom’s head spun.
And what about Ness?
