had hardened. It squeezed Joe's toes, heels, ankles. It squeezed everything so hard he could only assume some of the bones in his feet were broken. Maybe all of them.
He met Albert's eyes and flicked his own at his left inside pocket.
"Stand him up."
"No," Joe tried to say, "look in my pocket."
"Mmmm! Mmmm! Mmmm!" Albert mimicked, his eyes bulging. "Coughlin, show a little class. Don't beg."
They slashed the rope over Joe's chest. Gino Valocco walked over with a hacksaw and dropped to his knees and sawed away at the front chair legs, cutting them free of the chair bottom.
"Albert," he said through the tape, "look in this pocket. This pocket. This pocket. This one."
Every time he said "this," he jerked his head and his eyes toward the pocket.
Albert laughed and continued to mimic him and some of the other men joined in, Fausto Scarfone going so far as to imitate an ape. He made "hoo hoo hoo" sounds and scratched his armpits. Over and over, he jerked his head to the left.
The left chair leg came free of the seat, and Gino went to work on the right.
"Those are good cuffs," Albert said to Ilario Nobile. "Take 'em off. He ain't going anywhere."
Joe could see he'd hooked him. He wanted to see in Joe's pocket, but he had to find a way to do it without appearing to give in to his victim's wishes.
Ilario removed the cuffs and tossed them to Albert's feet because apparently Albert hadn't earned enough respect to have them handed to him.
The right chair leg broke free of the seat and they pulled the chair off Joe and he stood upright in the tub of cement.
Albert said, "You get to use your hand once. You either rip the tape off your mouth or you show me what you're trying to buy your pathetic fucking life with. You can't do both."
Joe didn't hesitate. He reached into his pocket. He removed the photograph and flung it at Albert's feet.
Albert picked it up off the deck as a dot appeared over his left shoulder, just beyond Egmont Key. Albert looked at the photo with a cocked eyebrow and that small, smug fucking smile of his, and he saw nothing special about it. His eyes flicked all the way to the left again and he began to move them slowly to the right and then his head went very still.
The dot became a dark triangle, moving fast over the glassy gray sea - a hell of a lot faster than the tug, fast as it was, could move.
Albert looked at Joe. It was a sharp and furious look. Joe saw clearly that he wasn't furious because Joe had stumbled upon his secret. He was furious because he'd been kept as deep in the dark as Joe.
All this time, he'd thought she was dead too.
Christ, Albert, he wanted to say, in this we're both her sons.
Even with six inches of electrical tape across his mouth, Joe knew Albert could see him smile.
The dark triangle was now, quite clearly, a boat. A classic runabout modified to accommodate extra passengers or bottles in the stern. Cut its speed by a third but that still made it faster than anything on the water. Several of the men on deck pointed and nudged one another.
Albert ripped the tape off Joe's mouth.
The sound of the boat reached them. A buzz, like a distant wasp swarm.
Albert held the photograph in Joe's face. "She's dead."
"Look dead to you, does she?"
"Where is she?" Albert's voice was ragged enough for several men to look over at him.
"In the fucking picture, Albert."
"Tell me where it was taken."
"Sure," Joe said, "and I'm sure nothing will happen to me then."
Albert slammed both his fists into Joe's ears and the sky pinwheeled overhead.
Gino Valocco shouted something in Italian. He pointed starboard.
A second boat had appeared, another modified runabout, with four men in it, coming out from behind a spoil bank about four hundred yards away.
"Where is she?"
The ringing in Joe's ears was like a cymbal symphony. He shook his head repeatedly.
"Love to tell you," he said, "but I'd love not to fucking drown more."
Albert pointed at first one boat, then the other. "They won't stop us. Are you a fucking idiot? Where is she?"
"Oh, let me think," Joe said.
"Where?"
"In the photograph."
"It's an old one. You just folded up an old - "
"Yeah, I thought that too at first. But look at that asshole in the tux. The tall one, all the way to the