Page 188 of One Minute Out

Cage looks at me, at the gun, at the massive bottle of Grey Goose swinging from my left hand. He says, “You’re after the wrong guy.”

I raise an eyebrow. “This ought to be good.”

“I help the process, obviously, but I don’t do it myself. Jaco was the brains. I just do the financing. Stuff like that.”

“So what you are saying is, you are the money guy for a massive consortium of sex traffickers. That’s your defense?”

“You promised you wouldn’t kill me.”

I laugh a little, but say nothing.

He continues. “Last year we grossed ten point three billion. Sounds like a lot, but this is a one-hundred-fifty-billion-dollar-a-year industry. I’m just a small player. But I know names, Gentry. I know names and locations. I can get you steered towards the big fish. You want that, right? This wasn’t just about Maja. This was about you ending this whole thing. Wasn’t it?”

I say nothing, just glance out a second-story window. I see Roxana run past Rodney and then Kareem appears, limping, and he wraps an arm around her and begins escorting her up the driveway. Within seconds he’s leaning on her, and she is the one helping him along.

Both surviving members of the Manila team are hurt now, but the aches and pains that come from doing this kind of shit at their age are going to only get worse.

Cage keeps talking. “I can help you. I feel terrible about what we’ve done. I always have. Always wanted out of it. It’s just... shit just got out of hand. Believe me, Gentry, I’m so sorry.”

I sigh a little, and I force my left hand up to my face so I can bite the lid off the vodka bottle. I take a swig of the alcohol; it’s ice-cold, and it’s good going down. I say, “One thing I’ve noticed in this line of work. Nobody is sorry when they are doing what they do. But everyone seems so fucking sorry when I show up to make them pay for it. What do you suppose that’s about, Kenny?”

He knows there’s nothing he can say that will stop me from doing whatever it is I want to do. But he tries, anyway. “Listen. I have an arrangement with the government. I help them. Intel on terrorists, mostly. I’ve saved a lot of lives. Just right now I’m working on something, something that’s going to be huge.”

I sigh a little. “And that’s my dilemma, Ken. If I kill you, then I am going to make some enemies that I can’t afford to make. I’ll be hunted down and assassinated by the American government.”

A slight look of surprise flickers on his face. “Then... then you’ll let me go?” he asks.

I nod. “I will. Not because I want to, but because I have to.”

I’m egging him on now, hoping to get more bravado out of him.

He nods up and down vehemently. “So you know. You understand. I do a hell of a lot of good for this country. I’m a patriot.”

I feel my jaw clench, and then I say, “Like I said, I can’t kill you, because then they would kill me.” I give him a little wink. “But I bet they’d only get really mad at me if I fucked you up for life.” With a smile I say, “And I’m used to them being mad at me.”

Cage’s bravado is slow to drift away, but it drains from his face finally and he stammers. “Wha... what?”

I aim quickly and fire. I’m not fucking around. And I shoot Cage in the testicles, so that he’s not fucking around, either.

He screams bloody murder, even more than I’d expected, and then he drops and flails on the floor in shock and agony.

I walk over to him and pour Grey Goose over the hands covering his bloody crotch. Then I drop the bottle on the floor next to him. Vodka pours from it.

“Put that on your junk.”

It takes Cage another five seconds before he takes the bottle, and then he rolls over onto his stomach, writhing around on the cold glass like he’s humping it.

“Kill me! Just kill me!” he screams.

I kneel next to him and speak in a slow and measured tone. “The people you assist in the government. They are the ones who saved your miserable life today. You need to go back to work for them with the exact same intensity and effort as before... or you know what will happen.”

“Kill me now, you sick son of a bitch!”

“I’ll never kill you. I’ll just return and take away more of what you hold dear. This time it’s your manhood. Next time...” I see a framed portrait of Cage with his family in the bedroom. It’s lying on the floor, the glass broken. I set it up next to where he’s writhing.

“Next time... who knows what I’ll take from you.”

I’m bluffing. His wife is probably in on it, but I’m not a detective, so I don’t know, and I would never harm anyone’s kids.

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