“Vosch and Jourdain must have contacted you after Nueve pulled me from the warehouse.”
Pushed into a corner, he went all stiff and formal on me. “That is an outrageous assumption on your part.”
“And you were scared out of your mind. I understand that. But I also know how these things work. They’ll lean on anyone who knew me—anybody close I might have confided in. So they leaned on you—they must have leaned on you. Was that the deal, Mr. Needlemier—did you offer them Samuel if they let you go?”
My answer was the soft hiss of the long-distance connection.
“When did you tell them my death was faked? At my funeral? Or did Vosch go with you so you wouldn’t try to give them the slip in Ohio?”
“Alfred, may I say, this is completely . . . Alfred, from the beginning I have always done all I could . . .”
“Stop lying to me!” I yelled into the phone.
“I have a wife!” he yelled back. “A family! I never had any business in this business! You don’t understand what it’s like to face losing everything, Alfred.”
Oh boy, I thought. Oh, boy.
“They said they’d kill them if I didn’t cooperate!” he went on.
“Did you set him up, Mr. Needlemier? Did you give them Samuel?”
“I would pay any price to protect my family. I am not ashamed of that. I will not apologize for that.”
“That’s it,” I said. “I knew it. It didn’t make sense. Even at half speed, Samuel could have taken Vosch. You lured him somewhere and they ambushed him.”
“I saved his life,” Mr. Needlemier said. “Say what you want, judge me if you wish, but I saved his life.”
“They’re going to kill him anyway.”
“Alfred, truly, I never meant to harm anyone. I was put in an untenable position. I can’t . . . there must be . . . please, Alfred, tell me what to do. Is there anything I can do to help you?”
I remembered this fifteen-year-old kid, scared out of his mind, chasing a tall, lion-haired man down a hallway, crying after him as he marched to his doom, There’s gotta be something I can do. Take me with you; I could help.
And I remembered the tall man’s answer.
“Yes,” I said. “Pray.”
01:06:38:29
I was sitting in Captain Jack’s drinking a Diet Coke and listening to an old Billy Joel song (“Saturday night and you’re still hangin’ around . . .”), when a voice came over the intercom instructing Alfred Kropp to meet his party at baggage claim. Baggage claim, I thought. Perfect. I dropped a five on the table and said goodbye to Captain Jack’s. I felt like a regular.
Two men wearing trench coats were standing by the conveyer belt, hands jammed into their pockets, hats pulled low over their faces. Between them stood a third man, tall and pale, with a hound-dog face and very bushy, very black eyebrows. His face showed no expression as I approached; if he was happy to see me, he wasn’t going to show it. I figured he wasn’t happy to see me. I was right.
“You shouldn’t have done this, Alfred,” Samuel said.
Vosch was standing on his right, the slit-eyed, flat-face brute I first met driving the Town Car on his left. I ignored Samuel and turned to Vosch.
“Where’s Jourdain?” I asked.
“At the end of the circle,” Vosch said.
“A circle doesn’t have an end,” I pointed out.
“Or a beginning,” Vosch said.
He smiled a humorless smile and gestured toward the terminal doors.
“Shall we? We have a private jet with all the amenities.”