Face Value by William E. Wallace

Author:William E. Wallace
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Down & Out Books

ELEVEN

EDDIE WANTED TO CATCH ANNIE while she was in the sack so he took his time at Callahan’s, snapping pictures of Fitz’s bloody corpse on the sofa with his phone, sending them to his private email account and rummaging through drawers and closets to make sure the Australian hadn’t lied and squirreled some of the bonds away in his house. It was close to midnight when he used a Slim Jim to force the lock on Annie’s apartment building and creep up the inside stair well.

The unit she lived in had been built less than thirty years ago but it was cheap and shoddy despite its newness. The door to her flat didn’t even have a deadbolt or peephole. Pax rapped on it quietly and waited for the metallic sound of the latch.

“Fitz? Is that you, honey?” Annie said as she turned the knob.

Eddie slammed into the door with his shoulder, knocking Annie backwards as it crashed into her face. He was in the room before she could recover, closing the door and latching it as he moved.

She glared at him from the floor, a trickle of bright red blood beginning to slide from under her bangs and work its way into her right eyebrow.

“You told me you had a headache when you called me at the bar tonight,” he said matter-of-factly. “You were lying then, but I bet you have one now, don’t you?”

She wiped away the wet trail before it dripped into her eyes and looked at her fingers, blinking with surprise. “What’d you do that for?” she said angrily, wiping the red from her fingertips on her beige night gown. “I would have let you in if you’d just knocked.”

Eddie sneered. “Yeah, I’m sure you would have shown me the same courtesy you did Oscar Johnson,” he said. “Where are the rest of the bonds?”

His question obviously startled her. She looked more than a little frightened.

“What are you talking about?” she asked.

Pax pulled Callahan’s revolver out of his waistband and pointed it at her.

“Can the bullshit, sister,” he said. “I just left Fitz on the sofa at his house. He won’t be feeling well enough to meet you at the bank tomorrow. He came down with a bad case of lead poisoning.”

He thumbed back the Wesson’s hammer. “If you don’t want to end up the same way, I’d advise you to talk fast. Where are the bearer bonds?”

She bit her lower lip, then jerked a thumb at a valise leaning against her couch. “There’s 98 of them in there,” she said. “Fitz and I converted two of them to cash. Nearly all of that’s in there, too. Fitz has the rest of the bonds. He’s supposed to fetch them from wherever he’s hiding them tomorrow morning and bring them to the bank.”

Pax waved the revolver at her. “That’s all of them he gave to you?” he asked.

She sighed. “He gave me a million worth,” she said. “I have most of the cash from the two I cashed in there, too.

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