“Me cago en tu puta madre. Or are you already standing in line for that?”
“What did you say?”
“‘I defecate in your mother’s womb.’ That was Negrito’s favorite expression. See, I told you, Negrito is on the loose.”
“See my friend there, carrying that bucket out? Know what’s in the bucket?”
“The waste your mother usually makes you carry out?”
“Take another guess.”
A thick-bodied man, stripped to the waist, with a buzz haircut, was walking up the cellar stairs, a bucket swinging from his left hand. The muscles in his back looked like oiled rope. In the yellow glow of the bare bulb that hung above the steps, Krill could see stringlike tendrils of blood on the man’s skin.
“The item in that bucket was donated by one of our other guests,” Frank said. “Those two guys you whacked and mutilated at Josef’s place were friends of mine. Keep shooting off your mouth, greaseball. I’ll make sure you’re a donor, too.”
AT NINE A.M. of the same day, an independent taxi operator parked his vehicle in front of Hackberry’s office and came inside with a package under his arm. The package was wrapped in twine and thick brown paper. “Got a delivery for you from the airport, Sheriff,” he said.
“Who’s it from?” Hackberry asked, looking up from his desk.
“I don’t know. There’s nothing written on it except your name. I got a call telling me to pick it up at the ticket counter and to keep the fifty dollars in the envelope tucked under the twine.”
“Where’s the envelope?”
“In the trash. I didn’t think it was important. What, you reckon it’s a bomb or something?”
“Leave it there.”
“It’s cold. Maybe it’s some food.”
After the taxi driver had gone, Hackberry went into the outer office. “Pam, tell Felix to go to the airport and see what he can find out about a package that was left for me at the ticket counter. Then come into my office, please.”
He pulled on a pair of latex gloves and removed a pocketknife from his desk drawer and opened the long blade on it. He placed the flat of his hand on the wrapping paper. He could feel the coldness in the box through his glove.
“Put on a vest and a face shield, Hack,” Pam said.
“Step back,” he replied, and cut the twine. He inserted his fingers under the paper and peeled it away in sections from the top of a corrugated cardboard box.
“Hack, call the FBI,” Pam said.
He pulled back a strip of tape holding the flaps on the box’s top in place and folded the flaps back against the sides. He looked down at a carefully packed layer of Ziploc bags containing dry ice. One of the bags had broken open, and the ice had slid down deeper into the box and was vaporizing against a round, compacted lump of matter wrapped inside a sheet of clear plastic. There were whorls of color pressed against the plastic that made him think of an uncured ham that had been freezer-burned in a meat locker.
“What is it?” Pam said, staring at the blankness of his expression.
He stepped back from the box, his hands at his sides. He shook his head. She stepped closer and looked down into the box. “Oh, boy,” she said.
“Yeah,” he said.
“It was flown here?”
He nodded and cleared his throat. “Get the key to Barnum’s cell,” he said.
They went up the stairs together, Hackberry holding the box, Pam walking in front of him. She turned the key in the cell door and pulled it open. Noie Barnum was lying on his bunk, reading a magazine. He put the magazine on the floor but didn’t get up.
“Come in and close the door behind you,” Hackberry said to Pam.
“Something going on?” Barnum said.
“Yeah, sit up,” Hackberry said. “See this?”