Dead Cold Mysteries Box Set #1: Books 1-4 (A Dead Cold Box Set), Blake Banner [classic children's novels txt] 📗

I could tell he was counting out the seconds as he refilled his glass. On six, he said, “Can I offer you a drink? I hate to drink alone.”

I stood. He held up a hand.

“Detective, you are not the only man with a busy schedule. I have no desire to waste your time, let alone my own. If I have asked you here, it is because I think we can both benefit. Please, have a drink and allow me to explain.”

I sat. “Spare me the lessons on how to eat my caviar, and get to the point.”

He turned to Ape Man. “Ronaldo, get the detective a drink.” He turned to me. “I am guessing you are a whiskey man, Detective Stone.”

“Bushmills, no ice.”

Ronaldo disappeared and dos Santos spooned caviar onto a cracker and stuffed it in his mouth.

“Who has the…” He hesitated for a second. “Who has the box, Detective?”

“I have.”

“Have you looked inside?”

“How is that any of your business?”

He looked at me with a face that could have skinned a rabbit. “Because I am paying a substantial sum of money for it. Have you looked inside the box?”

I lied and said, “No. Emma advised me not to.”

He raised an eyebrow and nodded. After a moment, he said, “You realize that Emma is quite mad.”

“And what, are you quite sane?”

He sighed. “You are a difficult man to talk to, Stone. We are not making progress.”

“I get antsy when people bullshit me. Why don’t you get to the point, dos Santos?”

Ronaldo came in with a silver tray and a crystal tumbler of whiskey on it. I took a sip. I was beginning to feel I needed it.

“The point I am trying to make, Stone, is that she may have misled you as to the real value of the contents of the box.”

I laughed. “Oh, really? So this elaborate circus you have going on here—the Krug, the caviar, Baxter, and the two years you have been hunting for Tamara Gunthersen—that is all over something that is really of very little value at all.”

He gave a breathless little chortle. “By no means, Detective. I mean that she may have misled you into believing it is less valuable than it really is.”

I frowned.

“She is quite mad. And I, and the people I represent, would be willing to be very generous friends, Detective Stone, if you would cooperate with us. Let me explain what I have in mind.”

He held out his glass, as though proposing a toast. I was keen to hear, and record, what he had to say. So I knocked his glass with mine, and we both drank. I couldn’t work out at first why he was smiling. He turned to Ronaldo, who was now also smiling, and in a voice that sounded like it was all the way across the room, he said, “Get the car ready, Ronaldo. I think Detective Stone is just about ready.”

I tried to swear, but my brain had stopped talking to my mouth and all that came out was a slur. I tried to stand, but that didn’t work either, because the table rose up and hit me in the face. And then there was nothing.

Twenty-Two

The first thing I was aware of was a sharp pain in my shoulders that was making it hard to breathe. Then I realized the pain was in my wrists and arms, and also in my ankles and my legs. I felt sick too.

I opened my eyes and slowly focused. It didn’t make much difference because the room was dark. A horizontal crack of light slowly resolved itself into a window with the blind drawn down. Another, farther away and at an odd angle, became a door. And as I slowly adjusted to the feelings in my body, I realized I was sitting, not lying, and I was tightly bound to a chair with duct tape. Usually, being bound to a chair is not a good sign.

I tried to clear my head and hollered at the door a few times. After the third shout, it opened and the Thing came in and looked at me.

“You awake?”

“No, I’m deeply asleep and you are part of my dream. That’s why you are in here.” He tried to work it out, but it’s hard when you only have one eyebrow. “Just tell Geronimo to get his fat ass in here and untie me!”

He gave a nod and went away, down some stairs that were just out of sight. Slowly, my brain functions were coming back. I listened hard to see if I could get some clue as to where I was. The silence was almost total, but there was something like white noise just in my peripheral hearing.

Surf. I was at the beach house, then.

I heard two sets of feet climbing heavily up stairs. There was also the heavy breathing of a man carrying too much weight. Geronimo entered the room and flipped a switch. I winced in the sudden glare but took in a writing desk and a chair, a gray carpet, and a bare white wall. Geronimo was leaning on the desk catching his breath. Ronaldo, proto-man, was standing in front of me looking like evolution gone wrong. Geronimo heaved a breath and gave a small laugh.

“I am not as young as I was. There was a time I would have sprinted up those stairs. And I try to observe a healthy diet, but age, Stone. It comes to us all, and it does not forgive.”

Here we were, a couple of pals having a chat. He pulled out the chair and lowered himself onto it.

“Now, Stone, where is the box?”

“Go fuck yourself.”

“Very well. Ronaldo, I think six should do.”

It was like getting hit by a wall. I weigh two hundred and twenty