The Devil’s Punchbowl - Greg Iles

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and luxury falls away, leaving the sticky floor of reality. The air down here reeks of bad cafeteria food and other things she can’t quite recognize. Employee resentment…paranoia. Linda quails at the idea of going near the security control area, but she has no choice. The lockers and changing room are aft of the security suite.

      Because everyone is still on shift, she’s alone on the lower deck. If the security guys poke their heads out, she’ll tell them she’s puking nonstop and has to get to the emergency room.

      A long corridor runs past the door of the security suite, then the off-limits room they call the Devil’s Punchbowl. She makes the length of the passageway on a single held-in breath. Halfway home now. Through the hatch that leads to the changing rooms, past the clock where she punches in, around the corner…and there. The employee lockers.

      Linda licks her lips, takes a breath, then dials the combination on her locker. The lock clicks. In her mind she sees the yellow Dooney & Bourke purse she bought at Dillard’s in New Orleans, a birthday splurge. And inside the purse, her car keys.

      She opens the door and reaches into the locker, but her purse is gone. Withdrawing her hand, she leans back so that more light can get into the space. It’s a mistake, she thinks, feeling the way she does when she somehow loses the milk carton in the refrigerator.

      Lying where she left her purse is the black TracFone Tim bought her at Wal-Mart–the phone she last saw before shoving it under the front seat of her Corolla.

      ‘You fucking slag,’ growls a male voice filled with rage. Seamus Quinn. ‘Do you have any idea what you’re in for?’

      Linda closes her eyes and grips the cold metal edge of the locker door. Without it, she would have fainted to the deck.

      Quinn starts to speak again, but the air in the room changes suddenly, and his words become a mute exhalation. Linda hears rapid, shallow breathing that sets her nerves thrumming.

       ‘Close the locker, Linda,’ says Jonathan Sands. ‘We’re a bit pressed for time.’

      Tim is dead, says a voice inside her, the voice that has known it all along. Hot tears slide down her cheeks as she closes the locker door.

       ‘That’s it, darlin’,’ says Sands. ‘Now turn around.’

      Linda wipes her face on her sleeve and turns slowly. Quinn is leaning against the wall behind her, his shoulder wedged against a flyer that reads NEED HELP MANAGING YOUR 401(K)? Sands stands in the corridor that leads past the security suite, arms folded across his chest, dressed as perfectly as if he were attending a wedding or a funeral in fifteen minutes. His hyperobservant eyes glide over her face and clothing, missing nothing. Beside him sits the huge white dog that sometimes accompanies him on the boat. Sands told her the dog was bred in Pakistan, for fighting and for war. She has never heard the dog make a sound.

      Poor Tim, she thinks in a rush of despair that almost drops her to the floor.

       ‘Can’t trust a fucking cunt,’ Quinn mutters. ‘All the same.’

      Linda’s heart flutters like a panicked bird trying to beat its way up through her throat. Move, she tells herself. Run—

       ‘Don’t be a fool,’ Sands says. ‘There’s nowhere to go.’

      The wild urge to flight twists inside her.

       ‘Come to me,’ Sands says, beckoning her toward the hallway. ‘We need to ask you some questions about Timothy.’

      The last ember of hope dies in her soul.

      They know.

       14

      The second my father walks into my bathroom with his black bag, I put my finger to my lips and shove a piece of paper into his hands. On it are printed the words:

      I’m not sick. Annie is in danger. We all are. House may be bugged. Act like I’m having a panic attack. Follow my lead. We’re going to type messages on the computer on the counter. I’ll turn on the bath taps to cover the noise of the keyboard.

      Dad looks up after reading for only two seconds, but I shake my head and point at the paper, and he goes back to reading. My father is seventy-three years old, and he’s practiced medicine in Natchez for more than forty of those years. He’s the same height I am–an inch over six feet–but the arthritis that’s slowly curling his hands into claws has bowed his spine so that I am taller now. His hair and beard have gone white, his skin is cracked and spotted from psoriasis, and he has to take insulin shots every day, yet the primary impression he radiates is one of strength. Thirty years past triple-bypass surgery, he’s sicker than most of his patients, but they think of him as I do: an oak tree twisted by age and battered by storms, but still indomitable at the core. He licks his lips, looks up slowly from the paper, and says, ‘Is your heart still racing?’

      ‘I think it’s worse. And the nausea’s worse. I vomited twice after I called you.’

      ‘Wonderful.’ Dad glances toward the bathroom counter. Between the two sinks are the articles I assembled while I waited for him: my keys; a black Nike warm-up suit and running shoes; Annie’s MacBook computer, booted up with Microsoft Word on the screen; a Springfield XD nine-millimeter pistol, and a short-barreled .357 Magnum. ‘I brought you some Ativan,’ he says, ‘but I want to listen to your chest first.’

      ‘Do you mind if I get in the bathtub? I want to clean myself up.’

      ‘That’s fine. Just get your shirt off.’

      I nod and turn on the cold-water tap, then strip off my clothes and pull on the warm-up suit. Dad moves in front of the computer as I pull on the top and pecks out the words What the hell is going on?

      He steps aside for me to type my response, and we begin a sort of waltz in place, during which I explain our dilemma. He always typed much slower than I, but it’s worse now because of his hands; it hurts to watch him struggle to strike the keys.

      Tim Jessup was murdered tonight. It has to do with his work at one of the casinos. The man behind his death just threatened to kill Annie. The motive is too complex to explain like this. They threatened Mom’s life, and yours too. Even Jenny, and she’s on the other side of the Atlantic.

       Who are these people?

      People I misread very badly.

       They really killed Jack Jessup’s boy?

      I left his body under the bluff an hour ago. I think they tortured him.

       Christ. Do the police know?

      Yes, but I’m not sure I can trust them. One word in the wrong ear, and these people take or kill Annie. They have a lot to lose.

       What about FBI?

       First priority is getting Annie and Mom to safety. We’ve learned that the hard way, haven’t we?

      Dad nods slowly, and I know his memories mirror my own: I see the house that he and my mother lived in for thirty years going up in flames, and the maid who raised me and my sister in agony on a table in the emergency room.

      ‘Take a deep breath,’ Dad says in his medical voice, as though he’s listening to my heart with his stethoscope. ‘Again…okay…again.’

      There’s only one real option, I type. I’m going to call Daniel Kelly’s firm in Houston. Blackhawk. With any luck they’ll be able to send a team our way almost immediately. They’ll take Mom and Annie somewhere safe–to an actual safe house, just like the movies.

      Dad’s face

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