?I watched you through binoculars yesterday af
ternoon.?
?Revisiting our murderous handiwork, are we??
?I?m afraid your thinking is muddled once again, Sheriff. I didn?t murder anybody. They tried to set me up. They also threw down on me first. I wasn?t even armed. An associate was carrying my weapon for me.?
?An associate? That?s a great term. The guy with the raincoat on his arm??
?The security camera caught that??
?You left the camera intact deliberately, didn?t you??
?I didn?t give it a lot of thought.?
?Why?d you kidnap Mrs. Dolan??
?What makes you think I did??
?Because you left a witness.?
Hackberry heard Collins breathe in, as though sucking air across his teeth while he thought of a clever response.
?I don?t think I did,? he said.
?You thought wrong. You?ll get to meet him at your trial. I have to ask you something, bub.?
??Bub???
Hackberry leaned forward in his chair, one elbow on the desk blotter, rubbing one temple with his fingers. Both Maydeen and Pam were watching from his office door. ?I don?t know you well, but you seem like a man with a code. In your way, maybe you?re a man of honor. Why do you want to do so much injury to Mrs. Dolan? She has three children and a husband who need her. Set her free, partner. If you have an issue with me, that?s fine. Don?t punish the innocent.?
?Who are you to lecture me??
?A drunkard and a whoremonger with no moral authority at all, Mr. Collins. That?s the man you?re talking to. Let Esther Dolan go. She?s not a character out of the Bible. She?s flesh and blood and is probably afraid she?ll never see her husband or children again. You want that on your conscience??
?Esther knows she?s safe with me.?
?Where?s Hugo Cistranos??
?Oh, you?ll find him. Just watch the sky. It takes two or three days, but you?ll see them circling.?
?And you don?t think she?s afraid??
There was a long beat.
?Good try. I?ve always heard the inculcation of guilt is a papist trait.?
?I have an envelope filled with photos of the nine terrified women and girls you machine-gunned and buried. Did they scream when they died? Did they beg in a language you couldn?t understand? Did they dissolve into a bloody mist while you sprayed them with a Thompson? Am I describing the scene accurately? Correct me if I haven?t. Please tell me in your own words what it was like to shoot nine defenseless human beings who were so desperate for a new life they?d allow their stomachs to be filled with balloons of heroin??
He could hear Collins breathing hard. Then the line went dead.
Maydeen filled a cup with coffee in the other room and brought it to him on a saucer. Both she and Pam watched him without speaking.
?Y?all got something to do?? he said.
?We?re going to get him,? Pam said.
?I?ll believe it when it happens,? he said, picking up the fax sheets from his desk blotter again, his thumbs crimping the edges of the paper to the point of tearing them.