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“What’re you talkin’ about?”
“We’re talking about the bogus tour guide you hired to kill us in Mustang.”
“I did no such—”
Sam interrupted: “Difference without a distinction. You ordered your children or your wife to get it done.”
“You think so, huh? Well, go ahead and prove it.”
“I think we can do better than that,” Sam replied. Beside him, Remi mouthed, What? Sam shrugged and mouthed back, I’m playing it by ear.
King said, “Fargo, I been threatened by tougher and richer men than you. I hose their blood off my boots just ’bout everyday. How ’bout you just give me what I want and we’ll part company friends.”
“It’s too late for that—the friends part, that it. As for the prize you’re after—the prize your father spent most of his adult life hunting for—we’ve got it. It’s sitting right in front of us.”
“Bull.”
“Mind your manners, and we might send you a picture. First, though, why don’t you explain your interest in it?”
“How ’bout you tell me what you think you found.”
“A wooden chest, shaped like a cube, in the possession of a soldier who’d been dead for half a millennium or so.”
King didn’t respond immediately, but they could hear him breathing on the line. Finally, in a hushed tone, he said, “You really have it.”
“We do. And unless you start telling us the truth, we’re going to open it and see what’s inside for ourselves.”
“No, hold it right there. Don’t go doin’ that.”
“Tell us what’s inside.”
“Could be one of a couple things: a big coin-shaped thing or a bunch a bones. Either way, they won’t mean much to you.”
“Then why do they mean so much to you?”
“None of your business.”
From across the table, Selma, standing behind her laptop, held up an index finger. Sam said, “Mr. King, can you hold for just a moment?”
Without waiting for a response, Pete reached over to the speakerphone and tapped the Mute button.
Selma said, “Forgot to tell you: I’ve been doing a little more digging into King’s teen years. I came across a blog written by a former reporter at the New York Times. The woman claims that during an interview with King three years ago, she asked him a question he didn’t like. After staring daggers at her, he terminated the interview. Two days later she was fired. She hasn’t been able to find a legitimate job in journalism since then. King blackballed her.”
Remi asked, “What did she ask him?”
“She asked why in King’s high school yearbook everyone referred to him by the nickname Adolf.”
“That’s it?” said Sam. “That’s all?”
“That’s it.”
Wendy said, “We already know Lewis King was a Nazi in name only, and Charlie had nothing to do with any of it, so why would—”
“Kids being kids,” Remi replied. “Think about it: Lewis King was largely absent from Charlie’s life from an early age. On top of that, everywhere Charlie we
nt he probably got teased mercilessly about his Nazi roots. It doesn’t sound like much from our perspective, but for a kid, for a teenager . . . Sam, this could be King’s hot button. Back then, he was a petulant child with no power. Now he’s a petulant billionaire with more power than many heads of state.”
Sam considered this. He nodded at Pete, who unmuted the phone. “Apologies, Charlie. Where were we? Oh, that’s right: the box. You said it could contain a coin or some bones, correct?”